Videogame Discussion Thread

Had a spontaneous moment yesterday and went out to buy the Switch. To my surprise, the girl at my local store only laughed and asked if I didn't knew it was sold out. So I checked Amazon and the price jumped to 400 € (stock grey version without extras) and no delivery date. Is this a thing now??
So Nintendo is trying to create an exclusive community or something? The Nintendo Classic still isn't easily available.

So my spontaneity already vanished today, but I still have a few questions on my mind that I couldn't get answered.
- Can the JoyCon controllers mimic a Wiimote and Nunchuk? I actually liked those controls, especially for Metroid. But I haven't seen any game that makes use of it.
- Is BotW available as digital download? If yes, are load times or performance increased opposed to the cartridge?
- Can downloaded games be transferred to an external SD card and loaded from there? Any impact on performance?
- I read the Switch has a multi-touch display. Again, no games yet that make use of it. But how awesome would it be to see a Okami Remake on Switch in which you can actually draw!?
- Apart from Mario Kart 8, are there any re-releases to be expected? Not announced, but where it seems likely. Wii U had some great platformers.
- Any date on the Virtual Console yet? How big is the collection? Are there still some major titles missing? Does it have Super Mario RPG?

 

I'll try to answer these questions 1 by 1:

- Is BotW available as digital download? If yes, are load times or performance increased opposed to the cartridge?
Yes at €69,99 for EU (which is €10 - €15 more expensive than retail), no performance improvements were found (makes sense since cartridges don't have real loading times) Keep in mind that the game is about 14GB so buying it digitally kills half of the total storage available (32GB).

- Can downloaded games be transferred to an external SD card and loaded from there? Any impact on performance?
Yes: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/01/guide_the_best_nintendo_switch_micro_sd_cards however no real performance impact noticed by users that have done this in the fora.

- Apart from Mario Kart 8, are there any re-releases to be expected? Not announced, but where it seems likely. Wii U had some great platformers.
Likely titles to follow: Super Mario 3D World, perhaps Pikmin 3 (which was great) and Mario Maker.

- Any date on the Virtual Console yet? How big is the collection? Are there still some major titles missing? Does it have Super Mario RPG?
Date hasn't been set, here's the list of games released: http://www.nintendo.com/games/game-...-|-|-|nes&n64&gba&ds|-|-|-|-|-|featured|des|-. Super Mario RPG has been out for WiiU since 2015 in Europe and 2016 in the US.

 

Sort of interested but I know I'd probably play for the first week and head back to PC games anyway (love hate relationship with DotA 2, thanks Gabe) so trying to spare opening the wallet. Still, interesting that digital costs MORE.

 

Can confirm, this was the same for last generation and is the same for PS4 and Xbox One... And really nobody knows why, to date I've yet to hear a plausible explanation. You have no logistics, no printing, no distribution (side hosting which still is cheaper than sending your game to retailers around the globe)...

Don't get me wrong this can happen for PC as well, retailers usually price a brand new PC game at € 44,95 to 54,95 where as Steam/Uplay/Origin prices are always dead on € 59,95. Of course the slightly lower price of PC vs. consoles has always been licensing, when you want to bring out a game on console you pay a fee, whereas on PC there's technically (Valve still has a fair share of the cut) no licensing fee.

 

Thank you for your time! I'm sold!

Come Super Mario 3D Worlds and Virtual Console, there is enough to keep me busy for the rest of my life.

I guess tablet mode on my music chair is going to be the most attractive, plus the option to take the console with me on business trips for lonely hotel evenings. (RIP Tinder.)
If the home dock were optional I wouldn't even buy it at this point.

Thanks again, I'll try my luck this weekend to find a store that has stock.

 

Finished Pillars of Eternity + Both Expansions about a month back. Loved it. If you're a fan of the old style RPG's like Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, or Fallouts 1 & 2, then Pillars of Eternity is fantastic. For all you serious RPG and fantasy buffs, who love a good story, this game is everything you could want. Worth the full sticker price and more.

Lately I've been playing XCOM2... with mixed feelings. When it's awesome, it's awesome. Other times it's just frustrating. The difficulty curve is all over the place, and there are still a lot of bugs in the game one year from release. There's a fantastic turn-based game in here, but also doesn't feel quite finished. If you haven't played XCOM Enemy Unknown I would recommend you start with that one first, at the moment it's a more polished experience by far. And maybe in 6-12 months someone might actually have fixed all the bugs in XCOM2. If not Firaxis (the studio) then perhaps the modders.

 

Anyone playing Ark? damn this game is stressful, one min you can feel untouchable then next min you are raided LOL

Playing BOTW on the switch and enjoying it so far, for the amount of times you die, there;s still something relaxing about it.

 

So I gave in and bought the Switch yesterday. Obviously, my only game right now is Zelda. I'm not looking forward so much to new games but rather to the Virtual Console. I hope it will arrive soon. Can't wait to play through Super Mario World, Super Mario 64 and some old-school RPGs again.

The actual device itself is small! It looked much bigger in videos. The display even more so. The controllers add a lot of bulk, though. They feel nice in the hands but I needed to re-program my muscle memory for the tiny buttons. Took me over an hour before I did not die because of wrong button presses.

When docked, I had to manually set to 1080p and full RGB scale. It looked very desaturated by default. Visually, I hope Zelda is not a reference. I'd say it looks just as good as Red Dead Redemption on PS3, but not better. The hardware surely has more potential. Luckily I did not buy the Switch for graphics anyway. In the contrary. I love how Nintendo puts gameplay first and that makes them so charming to me. But let's not count chicken before they are hatched and wait and see if Nintendo can deliver another masterpiece for their system.
They do have to hurry up with some Wii U ports (Donkey Kong!?) and the Virtual Console!

 

Breath of the wild has a very low contrasty palette by design.

 

if you're in the mood for a well made casual puzzler I recommend The Silent Age. Nice little story and pretty polished. Price is only $10 and I think that's about right.



http://store.steampowered.com/app/352520/The_Silent_Age/

 

I thought the switch display was pretty darn bad looking. Probably has a low contrast ratio and a tad off color gamut from looking at a friend's switch. I'm talking worse than budget smartphones around $100 or so. Notably worse.

 

Still with my Vita obsession.
Have gotten a few extra games plus have some others pre-ordered.
One game I recently enjoyed a lot was Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed and I'm currently playing Fate/Extella Umbral Star (Dynasty Warriors type of game). Still have like 40 physical games I haven't even touched on yet.

Someday I will progress a bit more on my never-ending backlog.

Also finished Uncharted 4 (finally). Such a great cinematic experience. And yeah, of course, it's super repetitive and basically the same as previous games, but Naughty Dog knows how to dial in a great story.

 

Finally picked up a Switch. Very slick and feels good in the hands. Finally we have an HD screen in a Nintendo handheld. I only bought Zelda but I'm having a hard time giving up the 45 hours I put in on my Wii U version already.

 

Anyone playing the latest Resident Evil? I picked that up at my Library yesterday to play on my Ps4 Pro.

Man is it creepy! Really kept me on the edge of my seat last night. Super gorey as well ... I was pinned to a wall with a screw driver last night. Yipes!