#we get about one main line title per nintendo console

[poorlittlevampire]

live service games ruined everything and i’m not exaggerating

[gamesto245]

Which video gaming controller is pc

Gaming Grabs The High Score On Twitter

Twitter is where game publishers, the gaming media, well known game streamers and entertainers, esports leagues, teams, players and commentators interact with their most engaged fans and with a single an additional. So what is with the lack of inclusion in the gaming planet? In addition to the normally hostile world of desktop and console games (see the GamerGate controversy as just one particular instance), there is nevertheless somewhat of an business perception that women merely don't play video games. But, that's far from true - females are actually gaming far more than ever prior to, specifically on mobile.

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Luca is operating in the field of gaming for six years, initially as an indie one particular-man-team junior developer and, the latter five years, as gameplay programmer and software architect in a enterprise where he created video games for all main mobile platforms, Pc, Steam, PS4 and Xbox One, as nicely as minor gaming consoles, increasing as a qualified. Lately he founded Twin Wolves, an indie video games improvement studio, where he's the CTO.

Paul: In 2009, the concept for Green Man Gaming came about when we were thinking of exactly where the games market place was going to go and what was going to happen next. There was a robust small business model in trading in games in the business and there was the start of the move to a completely digital marketplace. The coupling of these two market mechanisms were supported by study from London Enterprise College displaying that a customer's propensity to buy is heightened when provided the choice to trade-in a solution or recoup some of its value. So the huge idea” was to combine digital and trade-in into the similar platform, properly being a retailer and a marketplace on 1 global digital platform.

Due to mobile game development outsourcing , the most up-to-date indie games developed by compact studios or person programmers get lots of interest and constructive feedback from each players and journalists. With the assist of application outsourcing companies, each particular person, with suitable understanding, can develop and market gaming apps with out any obstacles.

Don't you want you have been really sitting on a racecar seat each and every time you play Forza, Gran Turismo, or any other racing game? With the racing seat style of the Ficmax Swivel Gaming Chair , finding this practical experience is now a reality. The totally ergonomic Ficmax is made with a fully retractable footrest to support sooth tired lower limbs and enable facilitate the additional effective circulation of blood. It also comes with a lumbar massage help to support protect against or even handle low back pain which is very popular among persons who sit in an office chair for unusually lengthy period. Our handy guide to the best ergonomic workplace chairs functions additional great products like this.

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The Atlantic Gaming Desk is a piece of steel furniture that is especially built for today's contemporary gamer or even a property workplace owner. Its sturdy legs come totally integrated with cup holders and other attachments that are just ideal for organizing a range of your pc accessories and peripherals. The Atlantic Gaming Desk also attributes a one of a kind cable management method that organizes the unique wires and cables that your devices possess. There is a charging station, a monitor stand, game storage rack, game controller hooks, gaming speaker trays, and a complete lot much more. Its padded feet will not also scratch your floor.

Today's games are bigger, superior, and a lot more immersive than ever. You can discover incredible games across a wide variety of genres. Most significant game franchises are available on both PlayStation four and Xbox One, although the Nintendo Switch delivers a massive selection of games suited for little ones and families. For the most realistic visual experiences, upgrade to the PlayStation 4 Pro or Xbox One S to enjoy breathtaking 4K and HDR gaming. Exclusive titles are available for each console, which further underscores the need to plan ahead and choose up the right technique for your have to-own games. Discover the massive collections of previously played games at terrific deals and give your older consoles like the PlayStation 3 , Xbox 360 , and Nintendo Wii U continued life.

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Ask yourself why you happen to be considering starting a gaming blog or youtube channel? If it's mainly because you assume you have what it requires to be the next PewDiePie or DanTDM (or TheTechieGuy ), Extra resources then you happen to be not alone. However, your main reason really should be that you have an overwhelming appreciate for gaming. It doesn't hurt to have a good voice and something to contribute to the gaming network. (Of course, the perks ain't bad when they start off rolling in, either).

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[aion-rsa]

PlayStation Plus: Free Games for November 2020 Revealed

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PlayStation Plus is Sony’s membership club for those of us who use the PS4, PS3, and/or PS Vita consoles. Sony’s current pricing structure offers 1-month membership at $9.99, 3-month membership at $24.99, and 12-month membership at $59.99. You can also buy PS Plus memberships through places like Amazon.

And what do you get for your money? Well, one of the main draws of PS Plus is that it connects you with a handful of free games every month. Also, certain games only allow members of PS Plus to access online multiplayer modes. There are loads of other perks, as well, including discounts on games and early access to things like betas and demos.

In this article, we’re going to focus on the free games you can get with PlayStation Plus each month. Usually, four or five titles are added to the service per month, but make sure to snag them quickly as Microsoft removes them about a month after they’ve been added to PlayStation Plus. Luckily, you get to keep whatever you downloaded in time!

Here are the free PlayStation Plus games you can look forward to for the month of November, with descriptions courtesy of PlayStation:

Middle-earth: Shadow of War

Set between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Middle-earth: Shadow of War beckons you once more into JRR Tolkien’s iconic world of wizards, orcs and elves. Go behind enemy lines to forge your army, conquer Fortresses and dominate Mordor from within. Experience how the Nemesis System creates unique personal stories with every enemy and follower, and confront the full power of the Dark Lord Sauron and his Ringwraiths in this epic new story of Middle-earth.

Hollow Knight: Voidheart Edition

“In Team Cherry’s engrossing 2D explorative platformer, descend into a sprawling underground world of Hollownest to battle tainted creatures and befriend bizarre bugs. Unlock new skills and tailor your power sets to fit your playstyle to help you explore twisting caverns, ancient cities and deadly wastes. Uncover a kingdom’s ancient history, taking on epic bosses that’ll challenge your combat and platforming skills as you strive to solve the mysteries buried at its heart.”

Both PS4 games will be available from Tuesday, November 3 to Monday, November 30. 

If you have a PlayStation Now subscription, you can check out what’s on offer here. Xbox users have a myriad of game choices through Xbox Games with Gold and Xbox Game Pass. If you game on the Nintendo Switch, we have a list of everything available on Nintendo Switch Online, too! Google Stadia subscribers can also find a list of new games coming to the service this year right here.

Stay tuned for monthly updates to PlayStation Plus.

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[kyndaris]

The Hard-Hitting Questions

So, I found this posted on a blog I was following and thought I might break it all down and answer these questions as honestly as I could.

1: Do you try to stay away from walkthroughs?

It depends on the game. Usually, I do try to play through blind but in games where it is best to max stats/ relationships/ unlock codex entries, I will often use a walkthrough so that I won’t miss out on certain scenes or events. Otherwise, the only time I would use a walkthrough is if I were stuck.

2: Company you're always loyal to?

I would say that rather than a company, I am far more loyal to a franchise. Whether that is Kingdom Hearts or Assassin’s Creed. 

3: Best game you've ever played?

This is a difficult question as there are many things that make up an excellent game. For me, the best game that I’ve currently played is the Witcher 3. It has all the hallmarks that I adore: from being a role-playing game with active combat, as well as a thrilling story to tell. The runner-up would be the Uncharted franchise that drew me in even when I had yet to own a Playstation 3. The bombastic set pieces and the effective story seemed like a must play for me.

4: Worst game you've ever played?

I can’t quite say that I’ve played many ‘bad’ games. The one game that I could not invest in was Soul Sacrifice. Despite my best efforts, it simply was not the type of game that caught my eye.

5: A popular series/game you just can't get into no matter how much you try?

Oh, let me list the many popular game series in the world that I have yet to try. First and foremost would be the Monster Hunter franchise, followed by Metal Gear Solid, Dark Souls and Resident Evil. 

6: A game that's changed you the most?

I doubt that there was a game that changed me the most. There have been games that have made me pause and reflect on the nature of things such as Bioshock Infinite and Prey. Though the most influential game that hooked me on a type of gaming would have been the Shadowrun revivals. I never thought crpgs (computer role playing games) with their asymmetric gameplay would have drawn me in but the mixture of strategy and role-playing statistics slowly but surely drew me in.

7: A game you'll never forget?

The game that I will never forget is Kingdom Hearts. It was one of the first games that I played and it was the one that had me salivating with anticipation. The union of Disney with these strange JRPG tropes was a match made in heaven that I could not help but crave. Most likely due to the fact that I have always been a lover of Disney films.

8: Best soundtrack?

Is it cheating if I simply say Final Fantasy? As in the entire franchise? However, if I had to choose a singular soundtrack, it would have to go to Child of Light. I adored the soundtrack found therein.

9: A game you turn your volume off every time you play it?

After a while, I tune out the music from arpgs (action role-playing games) with its endless clicking and loot drops to lure you further down the track. Some examples would include Diablo 3 and Victor Vran.

10: A game you've completely given up on?

The best example that comes to mind is Soul Sacrifice. After a while, I simply could not click with how the game played. The endless grind for better loot and items based on an ephemeral scoring of performance was more than I could bear and in the end, I traded the game in.

That and Codename STEAM. Mostly due to the fact that there was no tangible reward in the game and the enemies you faced only became more difficult. 

11: Hardest game you've played?

I do not often play hard games but the two games that I have yet to complete are Jak 2 and Jak 3. 

12: Shortest time you've beaten a game in?

I would say roughly eight to ten hours. It was either the first Uncharted or The Order 1866. 

13: A game you were the most excited for when it wasn't released yet?

Back when I was younger and quite impressionable, the game I was most excited for was Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. I told everyone that I met how hyped I was for the game (only to later learn it was on the Gameboy Advance and I would not be able to play it until I managed to sneakily download an emulator), going into clear and crisp detail when I went to Disneyland near the end of 2004.

14: A game you think would be cool if it had voice acting?

This wouldn’t be a game per se but I thought it would be cool if Link had a proper voice instead of his usual grunts. Most games these days have voice acting so it’s hard to peg one down.

Perhaps Pokemon? We have yet to hear the voices of the characters running around.

15: Which two games do you think would make an awesome crossover?

I never much thought about it but it might be interesting to see a crossover between the Uncharted franchise and the rebooted version of Tomb Raider. Lara Croft and Nathan Drake heading on an adventure together, each trying to one-up each other when it came to their knowledge on ancient civilisations. That or perhaps even bringing in a little Assassin’s Creed. 

16: Character you've hated most? From what game?

There hasn’t been a character I’ve truly hated in a game. While the Luxord battle in Kingdom Hearts 2 gave me the most grief, I did like that buttery British accent and his stylistic leanings. 

Now if we were talking about novel protagonists, I have one clear answer: Quentin Coldwater from The Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman. If the book series were ever adapted to game form, be sure to find that on the top of my most hated character list.

17: What game do you never tell people you play?

I don’t think there’s a game that I have played that would warrant it being a secret. Gaming itself is almost a guilty pleasure when it comes to conversation and only comes up in conversation with people I know that are fellow gamers or who I know actually dip their toe into the hobby. Otherwise, I keep quiet about my interests.

In saying that, there was a Barbie adventure game on the original Playstation that one of my friends had. We played it together but it was nothing to write home about.

18: A game you wish your friends knew about?

Most of my friends know all about the games that I play since I now post impressions and reviews on my tumblr. But I do think Child of Light and the Danganronpa games are deserving of a shameless plug every now and then.

19: Which game do you think deserves a revival?

Croc: Legend of the Gobbos. 

20: What was the first video game you ever played?

I would have to say Pokemon. The first gaming ‘console’ I received was the Gameboy Colour along with Pokemon Blue. I simply had to ‘catch ‘em all.’

21: How old were you when you first played a video game?

Roughly five or six? I don’t quite remember.

22: If you could immerse yourself in any game for one day, which game would it be? What would you do?

That’s a difficult question. I never much thought about immersing myself in a game but rather living in the world of a game. It’s a debate I’ve often had with myself - whether it should be in a far-flung fantasy world or in one couched in reality. 

I would say it would have to be a game either in the Mass Effect universe or perhaps the more recent titles of Final Fantasy. I would like to see myself as a mercenary or a soldier but truth be told, I would be out exploring the new world I found myself in or in a menial position out of danger.

But if I could immerse myself in any game for a day, it would have to be an MMORPG where I could focus on the social aspects of it, as well as dive into enjoying the joys of freedom found therein.

23: Biggest disappointment you've had in gaming?

Most of the time I shy away from games that would prove to be disappointing. As a gamer, I like to be informed and so I try to read as many reviews as I can. The biggest disappointment I found came through in my first time playing through Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I had high expectations after ploughing through Skyrim. 

Another game that proved to be quite disappointing was Kingdom Hearts re: Coded. The worlds were almost an exact copy from the original title on Playstation 2 and even the plot felt recycled. 

24: Casual, Hardcore, or in the middle?

I like to think I sit somewhere in the middle. I’m not extremely hardcore but I do like some of my games to have a little challenge (even though I much prefer story to being pounded into dirt by enemies).

25: Be honest; have you ever used cheats (like ActionReplay or Gameshark)?

Back when I first discovered real-time strategy games such as Starcraft  and Warcraft, I also picked up a number of cheats to make my life easier. I was not very good at micromanaging when I was eight and the stories seemed to sparkle with an intoxicating allure.

26: Handheld or console?

Despite my numerous handheld devices, I would have to say I am a console player at heart. Most of the time, my Nintendo 3DS and Playstation Vita are played whilst plugged into the power supply. I like to go on gaming binges if there’s ample time.

27: Has there ever been a moment that has made you cry?

There have been a couple of moments. One in my immediate memory came from Tales of Berseria. I felt a strong connection to Velvet Crowe and the struggles she faced throughout the game touched a part of me I had never known.

The first moment when I had the urge to cry came in the ending moments of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. It was only ruined by the terrible line (but after much hewing and hawing over it, it actually made sense in context). Still, I would have rather it have been far more poignant and heartfelt than what it had been.

28: Which character's clothes do you wish you owned the most?

The first thought that came to mind was Roxas. But really, I like most of the clothes that can be found in the Kingdom Hearts series. 

29: Which is more important, gameplay or story?

Story is the most important aspect of a game (at least in my opinion). It’s the one thing that keeps me going as I usually find my interest flagging when story is not the main hook. Tetris is good for a couple of minutes but it is not something I would be able to play for eight hours on end.

30: A game that hasn't been localized in your country that you think should be localized?

Obviously the Dai Gyakuten Saiban series. I was severely disappointed to hear that we won’t be seeing a Western release and I sincerely adore all the games that involve table slamming, finger pointing and strange twists on actual legislation.

[thegeeklee]

Nintendo Switch Presentation - January 2017

It’s not the first time we’ve seen the Nintendo Switch, but the original reveal did not give us too much info. Now we finally get more information about the console thanks to the Nintendo Switch Event. Here’s the main details you’re probably chasing:

Release

The Nintendo Switch will launch on March 3rd, 2017 in Japan, US, Canada, some of Europe and other territories, which includes Australia. That’s only about 7 weeks away.

The price will be $299.99USD/$469.95AUD. While it is probably worth it from a technical point of view of what it can do, that price range def takes it out of the impulse buy price range. I bought a Wii U about a year or so ago with Super Mario Maker for $300AUD on special. I played Super Mario Maker a few times and then the Wii U gathered dust ever since. I really like the Switch’s portability, but I don’t travel enough to get the most out of this feature, so not being a huge Nintendo combined with my buyers remorse (other that continuing my console collection) with the Wii U, makes me think I won’t be grabbing one of these on launch. I probably won’t consider it until there’s a significant price drop. I mean you can get the much more powerful PS4 or Xbox One S for about $100 AUD cheaper, so it’s not very competitive on price.

There’s two Switch packages you can get. The only difference being the colours of the joy-con controllers. The Joy-Con controllers come in 3 colours currently, grey, neon red and neon blue. One Switch package comes with two grey controllers, while the other package comes with one blue and one red controller. I’d be definitely picking the grey controller package. I may be bias as grey is my favourite colour these days, however I just think it looks awkward, having one red and one blue controller connected to Switch.

Other than the 2 joy-con controllers, the other items you get in the box include the Switch tablet console itself and the dock for connecting to a TV. The Joy-Con Grip that holds your two joy-cons together for a more traditional controller experience. Two wrist straps that connect to the Joy-Con that make them easier to hold and stop them flying across the room. Plus of course a HDMI cable and AC adapter.

Specific accessory pricing includes:

Switch Pro Control (available in grey) - $69.99USD/$99.95AUD

Pack of 2 Joy-Con Controllers (available in grey, neon red, neon blue or neon red/blue combos) - $79.99USD/$119.95AUD

1 Joy-Con Controller (available in grey) - $49.99USD/$69.95AUD

Joy-Con charging grip - $29.99USD/$39.95AUD

Switch Dock set (including dock, ac adapter and HDMI cable) - $89.99USD/$129.95AUD

Joy-Con Wheel (set of 2) - $14.99USD/$24.95

If you combine the prices of all the components that you get in the box together equals $199.97USD/$289.85AUD, which means you’re paying about $100USD/$80AUD for the actual Switch console tablet. That probably sounds like a good deal when put like that. Either that or it shows that the accessories are quite expensive. I’d hate to be a parent with one of this in the house, having the buy multiple docks, fighting over who gets to use it, constantly dropping big dollars to replace easy to lose controllers etc.

Specs

There are 3 modes to the Switch. TV Mode whereby you put the Switch into the dock and play on the TV. Tabletop mode, where you utilise the Switches kickstand to have it stand up independently and use the Joy-Cons detached from the console. And of course handheld mode, where you have the Joy-Cons attached and can use it like a portable tablet gaming machine. In Handheld mode it will get 2.5hrs – 6.5hrs of battery life dependent on the game (Zelda will get about 3hrs battery life). This seems reasonable. Should mean people can play triple A titles on the train or bus to work or extended long gaming sessions playing simple indie or retro Nintendo titles without running out of battery. You can also play it while charged it via a USB-C cable.

Other specs include no region locking which makes sense for a console they are promoting to use on the plane. It has a multi touch display, 6.2” display that runs as I predicted at 720p. So smaller than an iPad mini but at the largest spectrum of a smart phone screen size. The same size screen as the Wii U tablet but higher resolution. When docked it will run in 1080p. There’s 32GB of internal storage which is pretty disappointing but can be expanded by a micro SD card. Up to 8 Switches can connect together for multiplayer.

The Switch will of course support digital download games, but also has “Game Cards” for physical games, not too dissimilar to the 3DS. The dock has 3x USB 2 ports plus of course a HDMI and AC adapter ports.

There’s been no mention of the actual performance of the machine. Some of the graphics was looking a bit rough in places, so don’t expect it to in any way compete with the Xbox One or PS4 in the graphics department.

Controllers

The main controllers as mentioned at the Joy-Cons. Think of them as smaller Wii remotes. They attach to the sides of the Switch in portable mode but can also be used separately. They have NFC and support Amiibos.  The left controller has a screenshot button that will later support video. It has an accelerometer, and IR motion camera sensors, which of course open up much more potential as to what you can do with them. It also has an advanced “HD” rumble feature built into the Joy-Cons that supposedly helps you feel things (the example they showed was ice being put into a glass).

Being so small you wouldn’t expect many controls but it amazingly includes on each controller a joy stick, plus or minus button, left or right button, d-pad or A/B/X/Y buttons, ZL or ZR button, release button, SL button and SR button. I think the fear at first was the Joy-Con might be quite limiting, but this has clearly been designed so you should be able to play just about any game with even only one Joy-Con controller.

The wrist straps when connected a Joy-Con help beef up it’s physical size including likely making the SL and SR buttons easier to use.

For when you want a more traditional controller setup you can plug the Joy-Cons into the grip and it will also charge the Joy-Cons. If you want even more advanced controls, then there is also the Switch Pro Controller, similar to what was available for the Wii U.

Online

For the first time, Nintendo’s online services will now cost you money to use (like Xbox and Playstation). There will be an initial free trial and then it’s time to pay up if you want to continue. This also could get costly for parents. Though there is one bonus. Each month you will get to play a NES or SNES classic game for free. With Playstation Plus and Xbox Gold you get multiple free games per month and you can play them as long as you are subscribed, and even when you resubscribe. That doesn’t look to be the case here, so price will be critical to not seem like poor value compared to the alternatives. Smartphones will also be able to connect to it’s online service for chat and arranging online games.

Games

This is great and all but it doesn’t matter if there isn’t a big selection of games to support it. This was the major problem with the Wii U. It wasn’t overly apparent during the presentation what the full launch line up was but Nintendo assures us  that there’s currently over 50 devs working on over 80 games for the Switch. Here’s some of those games:

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, after much speculation, is a Switch launch title.

1-2-Switch is a series of mini games that make use of the joy-cons. It is primarily a game that you don’t watch the screen while playing. It’s a launch title and could be the Switch’s equivalent to Wii Sports.

A boxing style game called Arms is also making much use of the joy-cons. Each player needs two joy-cons each, one for each hand. You play split screen in TV mode, or use two switches to battle, or online. Released in Spring (US) 2017.

Super Mario Odyssey is the first large sandbox Mario game since Sunshine. There’s parts based in like New York with regular size people, which is just bizarre. Mario’s hat being thrown is a major game mechanic. Out end of 2017.

Project Octopath Traveler from Square Enix looks like pixel art paper Mario/final fantasy style game. No release date as of yet.

Other upcoming titles include FIFA, Ultra Street Fighter 2, Skyrim, Splatoon 2, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Has Been Heroes, Just Dance 2017, Snipperclips, Super Bomberman R, Arcade Archives, Disgaea 5 Complete, Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, Farming Simulator, Fast RMX, Fire Emblem Warriors, Minecraft, Puyo Puyo Tetris, Rayman Legends, Rime, Skylanders Imaginators, Syberia 3, Steep, Sonic Mania, NBA 2K18, Lego City Undercover, I am Setsuna, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth and more.

So there you have it. Pre-orders are now open and going by how hard it’s been to get a NES Classic mini, it could be hard getting a Switch at launch. That shouldn’t be a problem for me, because at that price, I’m just not big enough a fan, or trust Nintendo’s game support to wanna jump in straight away. With the expensive price of the console and accessories, plus a lack of launch titles, it’s just not competitive at a time when Nintendo really needs to be. Perhaps by Christmas with a big price drop and a larger library it might be worth it. I also a bit disappointed with it as Nintendo weren’t touting the Switch as a successor to the Wii U, yet Wii U games aren’t backwards compatible with it.

The presentation overall had it’s highs and lows, and some seriously awkward moments, and somewhat underwhelming unless you’re a Nintendo fanatic. Still I commend Nintendo for a great design and it will be interesting to try it out sometime. Because I would like a portable hybrid console like this some day. It does feel like the future.

If you like what you’re are reading, then follow The Geeklee on Tumblr or like The Geeklee on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheGeeklee/ 

[t-oresama]

“Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America” by Jeff Ryan

Synopsis: In 1981, Nintendo of America was a one-year-old business already on the brink of failure. Its president, Mino Arakawa, was stuck with two thousand unsold arcade cabinets for a dud of a game (Radar Scope). So he hatched a plan. Back in Japan, a boyish, shaggy-haired staff artist named Shigeru Miyamoto designed a new game for the unsold cabinets featuring an angry gorilla and a small jumping man. Donkey Kong brought in $180 million in its first year alone and launched the career of a short, chubby plumber named Mario. Super Mario tells the story behind the Nintendo games millions of us grew up with, explaining how a Japanese trading card company rose to dominate the fiercely competitive video-game industry.

Published: 2011; republished in 2012 (Penguin Group) Genre: Non-fiction, biographical, pop-culture Rating: 4 out of 5 Reader Review: The day has finally come. I’m finally doing a review for this book. I have to write this to believe it for myself because this book took me about two years to finish. Yes, two years for a book less than 300 pages. As with many books nowadays, I found this one at the library, my place of work. I skimmed through the book and took a vested interest in it. But rather than check the book out, I asked for it for Christmas and received it in December 2015. So yes, just about two YEARS. The reason for the length in time? I usually don’t do non-fiction. It’s not for lack of trying, and I do have non-fiction books in my possession, but I’ve always loved fiction for its ability to go all-out, create worlds and characters and situations beyond our wildest dreams because it’s not real; anything is possible. With non-fiction, it’s all facts and automatically trapped within the confines of reality. There isn’t much mind-wandering to be done with that. None of this is to bash non-fiction or those who admire it just as much as I do fiction. And despite my views on non-fiction as a genre, I persevered and stuck with this book until its end because of its subject matter and main character: Mario.

Video game history in itself is unlike anything else because, compared to other types of entertainment such as TV, movies or sports, video games are the newest form with the exception of the internet. Not even half a century old, many people who were around to play the “first” video game (Pong and the first surge of arcade cabinet games) are still alive today. It’s a young market, and its growth has been, as a whole, exponential and hard to ignore. It’s to the point where all forms of entertainment mentioned above have included video games at some point; there are cartoons and movies based on video games, there are TV shows dedicated to TALKING about video games, websites like Youtube are catering more to the gaming community, and just recently a marching band performed the Legend of Zelda theme song at a grand football game. So to read about how this all essentially started was fascinating. Now, I’ll try to stay unbiased as always, but I must say that as the great 21st century console wars go on, I’m Team Nintendo. I’m not exclusively Nintendo, but I’ve always been drawn to their bold, colorful and positively fun games rather than Playstation and X-Box’s direction of gritty “adult” action titles. There’s pros and cons with all three consoles, and I know Playstation and X-Box have done some things better than Nintendo. Like my preference with fiction and non-fiction books, that’s all I mean to express here: a preference. And I’m sure there’s books like “Super Mario” that go as in-depth with Playstation and X-Box’s histories (in fact, Playstation’s history started thanks to Nintendo, as they backed out of a deal with Sony in an admittedly scummy manner, prompting Sony to drop the idea of collaborating with Nintendo in favor of making their own console: the Playstation). But Nintendo is a unique specimen because this book doesn’t just talk about Nintendo’s history, but makes it quite clear that Nintendo IS video game history. They are the grandfathers of video gaming as we know it today. Nintendo has 10+ years on Playstation and X-Box, and it’s all thanks to Mario, their mascot still as synonymous with gaming as Mickey Mouse is to Disney nearly 40 years later. And that is the hefty goal of this book- to showcase Nintendo from its humble beginnings to their growth to now (well, to 2012, when the book was last updated).

“Super Mario” starts not just with the release of the NES/Famicom or the hiring of Shigeru Miyamoto, the father of Mario, but with the formation of Nintendo itself, when it was a trading card company... in 1889. So, how did it go from cards to electronics almost a century later? That’s what author Jeff Ryan breaks down for the reader. The book is separated by five parts with five chapters per segment. As this is a book depicting Nintendo’s development over the years, its parts are sequential and correlate to (almost) each new game console Nintendo has created and Mario has taken part in: The Donkey Kong arcade cabinets, the NES/Famicom, the SNES/Super Famicom, the Nintendo64, and the Wii. Each chapter, Ryan states, is named after a Mario game (’Mario’s Party’, ‘Mario’s Brawl’, ‘Mario’s World’) and just the fact that there are enough Mario games out there that Ryan could use 25 of them without repeating is pretty telling of Mario’s success. At times I felt the names were distracting or too much of an attempt to be ‘punny’, simply because some names had nothing to do with the subject matter. ‘Mario’s World’ is about the N64, and ‘Mario’s Kart(ridge)’ is about the Virtual Boy. It might just be because I’m doing a review, but finding events in a book to go back to is not easy when the chapter name and subject don’t correspond to one another.

Throughout the book, there are certainly parts that come off more as talking about Nintendo’s history rather than Mario’s  but Mario is ingrained in Nintendo electronics; there really is no separating the two, nor a way to talk about one without the other. And in the world of video games in the 1980s, where the rules were not yet made and the potential limitless, reading about seemingly small and minute decisions Nintendo made with Mario with nothing to go off of but instinct was amazing, especially when you read about the subsequent payoff of those decisions a few paragraphs later. There was a reason for Mario’s name, there was an idea that they wanted him to be not just a mascot but a character that wasn’t defined by one game/genre of game but could easily adapt to any situation (similar to Bugs Bunny), and there was even a reason to Mario’s design, stemming from both graphical limitations of the arcade cabinet and simply from laziness. Because no one was challenging them in the beginning, the risks were both high and low. Some choices Nintendo/Miyamoto made for the world of Mario stemmed from real life (such as the idea of the Chain Chomp enemies, created from a dog on a chain that would attempt to chase Miyamoto as a child). If they didn’t come from real life events, they came from a blend of business (Kirby, the pink ball-like creature in the Kirby franchise, was named after the last name of the lawyer who helped Nintendo during a lawsuit over Donkey Kong’s name) and culture (with Wario being named for the Japanese word “Warui”, meaning “bad”). I found all of these little factoids interspersed through the chapters, between talks of schematics for games and the reception of said games, really cool simply because I’m a lover of the useless fact. It got to a point when even stuff I didn’t think was done for a reason was, indeed, done for a reason (”Color theory links purple [Nintendo Gamecube] to feelings of royalty... Dreamcast had chosen white with neon orange highlights: orange was the color of happiness. Sony’s... Playstation 2 was black with distinctive blue piping: blue is the color of intelligence... [The XBox’s] black came with hints of green. Green is the color of renewal... These weren’t accidental choices.”).

As you can probably tell, reviewing non-fiction isn’t exactly my forte. Giving my opinions on facts is a little strange. So let me get to a part I can always critique: the structure. Obviously it has to go in chronological order, so on that it does an A+ job. But in the beginning of a majority of the chapters, before picking up where the last left off, Ryan does this really weird intro where he talks about pop culture and Mario’s presence in it. Sometimes it correlates with the timeline of the chapter (he talks about the Super Mario Bros. Super Show in a chapter also taking place in the early 90s, for instance), but sometimes it doesn’t. It’s detached from the timeline and just serves to talk about how impactful Mario is: “Mario garners 1,500,000 search results when you type in ‘Mario Cake’ on Google! Mario is on hundreds of T-shirts! Mario was painted onto a sponsored Nascar racecar and won its first race!” Those are all great achievements and serve the purpose of showing how big Mario is even today, but they’re just dropped in the beginning, Ryan brags about Mario for about 3 pages, and then the first line of a separate paragraph will be in bold, indicating that the singing of the praises is over and we’re back to the timeline again. It’s distracting to the point of being annoying sometimes. Why did all of these accolades have to be spread out through openings of various chapters? Why not just have a chapter dedicated to his pop culture impact? It just makes no sense when, for some of these intros, all Ryan is doing is literally listing things Mario has been in or on. 

And I feel the need to point this out, because despite the cover pictured above looking how it does, my copy has the words “with a new chapter” written in the top pixelated cloud. Ryan originally published this in 2011 (hence why it stops at talking about the Wii), but added this new chapter at the beginning of 2012. And what is this new chapter about? Well, to start, it’s titled “Mario’s Misfortunes”. And it’s about just that: it goes in month by month talking about the missteps and stock hits Mario and Nintendo took in 2011. We go from singing high praises to shooting him off his pedestal with a Nintendo Zapper. I feel similarly to this chapter’s inclusion as I did with the “bonus chapter” included in “The Bane Chronicles”: I hate it. Hate it hate it hate it. Yes, it’s factual, and yes, it was a pretty dismal year for Nintendo, but to end the book made to present Mario and Nintendo’s rise from underdog to top dog on that? On THAT? It’s so utterly depressing. And suddenly Ryan inserts himself in the book, in this additional chapter, addressing the audience directly and giving a solution to this “crisis” that no one asked for: “It’s time for a Mario theme park,” he declares. I’m still so baffled by this whole last part. He details it to even the specific location of this imaginary theme park and why it makes sense to put it there. I can’t honestly figure out why this exists other than to serve as a pitch, but we, the ones reading it, are not the people he should be pitching this to. It honestly made me irritated when I first read it. This is a book that, up until now, has been written in grounded facts (although, if you look on websites like Amazon where this book is sold, many Nintendo connoisseurs have been quick to point out some inaccuracies in the book as far as release dates and timeline happenings). Why, now, do we need it to veer from fact to opinion? “Because it’s an updated chapter” is not an excuse. I found something so smug about it, as if Ryan was saying “Well, if I was running the company, I’d do this. Dummies.” It was a chapter that really didn’t need to be. Nintendo is still up and running in 2017, and doing pretty spectacular in comparison (without a theme park, too, however I hear that one is actually in the works), and at this rate they’ll continue to exist. It’s pointless to add commentary for one year and then stop. If you commentate on 2011/2012, why not 2013, 2014, and so on? You set yourself up for failure by adding on to an already-complete book. If you really want to say more, just make another book ten years from now. Dummy.

Admittedly, I found the first half of the book more interesting than the second; that may be why my bookmark was lodged in page 116 for months and months. What I found so enjoyable about it was simply the history. The first half of the book is the start-up, how things came to be, how the public first reacted to the concept of “home gaming consoles”. Hands down my favorite story in the book was about Nintendo fighting a lawsuit from Universal who owned the rights to King Kong and argued copyright infringement against Nintendo for their similarly-named ape. That alone is a wonderful standalone story about Nintendo and just a good lesson for big companies trying to claim people “stole” something when it’s all within fair use. But then the second half starts to become more familiar territory. The N64, the Gamecube, the Wii... us millennials were around for all of that. Maybe not as game reviewers or commentators, but we saw the progression happen right before our eyes as players. It’s nostalgia-inducing, sure, and there are neat behind-the-scenes pieces about how Super Mario 64 was made as the first successful mainstream attempt at 3D graphics and why they made the Gamecube purple (really, I think I’m the only one that found that so totally enthralling), but it felt more like a recap at times than anything new and interesting (I know that’s not necessarily the point of a book chronicling Nintendo and Mario). I will say this, though- The second half, especially five years after this was written, makes for good comparison between then and now. Ryan points out that Nintendo like to keep to themselves and are weary about releasing things like mobile games; he even quotes the late great Satoru Iwata in talking about how Nintendo isn’t doing enough to meet the demands of the huge online demographic “nowadays” (2010). Fast-forward to now, and the WiiU and Switch both heavily encourage online play, and Mario exists in a mobile phone game. It’s like opening a time capsule and seeing what’s changed now to what it was back then. It’s an unexpected enjoyable treat at the end (thanks, last 40 pages of the book!) 

"Super Mario” is an easy, interesting read showcasing a history that is still so young, one has to wonder if you can really call it a “history”. I can guarantee that there are things you didn’t know about Nintendo or Mario in this book, and whether you’re just a casual gamer or a Nintendo fanboy/girl, you’ll find a reason to like this book and keep reading, as I did. While I had to force myself to read the book sometimes and was kind of critical of it in here, I enjoyed it. I learned a lot, looked at some game and consoles in my home in a different light, and I gained a lot of respect for Nintendo, for Ryan who took (I’m assuming) months to research all of this, and for the everlasting Renaissance man, Mario himself.

[ciathyzareposts]

Game 370: Final Fantasy (1987)

This title screen doesn’t occur until a couple of hours into the game.

           Final Fantasy

Japan

Square (developer); Nintendo (publisher)

Released in 1987 for NES in Japan, 1989 for MSX, 1990 for NES in North America

Remade numerous times for various platforms, including mobile, between 1994 and 2016

Date Started: 11 June 2020

                     I decided it was time. There are a few things that I want to do in the future that all require me to have had a look at the first game in this apparently never-ending series. I had an original plan to cover the game in a single entry, as I’ve typically done with console games, but it’s clear to me now that to do it justice, the entry would have to be the size of small novel. Keep in mind that I’m fitting this in between my regularly scheduled titles, so I’ll cover as much as I can in this initial entry, you can all tell me what I’m doing wrong, and I can pick it up again at a future date.      We’ve seen eight Japanese RPGs prior to 1987 on this blog, representing a fairly wide range of subgenres, including a text/RPG hybrid (The Dragon and Princess, 1982), a Wizardry-inspired first-person dungeon crawler (The Black Onyx, 1984), and a number of console-style action games with limited RPG elements (Dragon Slayer, 1984; Deadly Towers, 1986). While these games don’t share much, they do have characteristics common for a genre in its toddler years–lots of unevenness, stumbling, and experimentation along ultimately unproductive paths.          

The game’s status screen. Those four orbs in the upper-left are going to become important somehow.

          To me, 1987 feels like the first year that Japanese RPGs learned how to walk. (We do have to keep in mind that there are more than 40 untranslated games between 1982 and 1986 that might change my mind.) The Ancient Land of Ys, Sorcerian, and now Final Fantasy feel like whole products in the way that their predecessors do not. That doesn’t mean that they’re original; Final Fantasy, as we’ll see, is mostly a composite of several American RPGs, particularly Wizardry, Ultima, and Phantasie. But when borrowing elements from a previous title, there’s a difference between doing it blindly and doing it craftily. In playing most clones, you get the sense that the developer of the clone didn’t know any better; that he included an element because he couldn’t think of an alternative; that he didn’t have enough experience with the scope of previous RPGs to truly understand when something works and why. Final Fantasy is something of the opposite. It strikes me as a product of someone who has really analyzed the best American RPGs and has deliberately created a composite of their strongest characteristics.       In fact, I’m willing to venture that at the time, it might not have been possible to create a better console RPG experience. It exemplifies the simplicity that we have come to expect from a console of the era. It doesn’t bog itself down in character creation or in a long backstory, and it requires minimal preparation in terms of reading a manual. It is the very essence of plug-and-play. As I started playing, I initially saw its approach as an object of criticism, but as the hours wore on, I began to understand. The game has a relatively detailed backstory; it just chooses to feed it to the player in small bites. It comes with an 84-page manual, but the first two pages cover everything you need to know to get started (the rest quite literally walk you through the entire first half of the game). Its one-line dialogues seem less like a limitation of the platform and more like an effort not to exhaust the player with too much text. I don’t always like the result, but I admire its success in what it wanted to achieve.            

The only backstory you get.

          So little has been provided on the backstory so far that I’m not even sure how to summarize it. A single-screen opening text crawl says that the world is in trouble (for some reason), but a prophecy says that four warriors will set things right. Enter your four warriors, “each holding an ORB.” That’s enough to start you off, but with every town and castle you visit, you learn just a little bit more. Not in the way–I hasten to add–that you learn more about the main plot of, say, The Legacy or Ultima VII. Those games have mysteries that you slowly unravel, but at least it’s perfectly clear from the beginning who you are and what your basic mission is. In Final Fantasy, on the other hand, you get the sense that your own characters know more than you do. After all, they each have an ORB. Why? Where did they get them? Why do people keep calling them “Warriors of Light”?      Character creation allows you to select four characters from six classes: fighter, thief, black belt, red mage, white mage, and black mage. Aside from the “black belt,” these seem mostly inspired by Wizardry, with the white mage taking the role of the priest (mostly defensive and healing magic), the black mage taking the role of the mage (mostly offensive spells), and the red mage taking the role of a bishop (able to cast both). The inclusion of a “black belt” class made me chuckle with remembrance of a time in the 1980s when “black belts” were considered the ne plus ultra of martial artists, and you had several games of that title and movies with black belt protagonists. And then dweeby kids we went to high school with started getting black belts, ruining the entire illusion, and we started worshiping more nebulous figures like ninjas whose designations couldn’t be bestowed by the local used car dealer running a “dojo” on the side.           

Party creation is just names and classes.

         Each character is assigned starting attributes in strength, agility, intelligence, vitality, and luck, this list coming from Wizardry but lacking “wisdom.” From these are calculated a variety of derived statistics: damage done, hit percentage, damage absorbed, and evade percentage.          

My white mage’s statistics towards the end of this session.

           Once you’ve selected a party, you’re locked in for the game. I selected poorly. I wasn’t paying attention to what the manual said about the different mage classes, and I went with a fighter, a thief, a black belt, and a white mage. A couple hours later, I realized that I really wanted two mages, or at least a red mage instead of a white. The thief doesn’t seem terribly useful–there really isn’t any thieving to be done in the game–and if I could do it over I would have replaced him with a black mage. My selections mean that I miss out on most of the offensive magic in the game. However, each class later gets a “prestige class” upgrade that introduces some more magic options.           

The opening scene.

         Gameplay begins outside a castle with an attached town (it looks like six attached towns, in fact, but the town icons all lead to the same locations). Towns have shops that sell weapons, armor, spells, resurrection, and potions and magic items, the selection getting more advanced as the game progresses. Inns are one of the few places where you can legally save the game (like Zelda, the cartridge came with an internal battery), the others being a variety of temporary magical structures (tents, cabins, and houses) that you can purchase from the magic shop. (Inns restore all hit points while these magic items restore only some.) Either way, save points are limited, and you have to pay to save.     

Buying an initial selection of weapons.

Checking in at the inn.

           Towns also have about half a dozen wandering NPCs, each of whom deliver a sentence or two when you approach them. From the ones in this town, I learn that someone named Lukahn foretold our arrival, and that he has gone to “join his colleagues at Crescent Lake”; the princess has been kidnapped; and the city of Pravoka lies to the east.            

I get a hint from an NPC north of two magic shops.

           At the nearby castle, we learn that Princess Sara has been kidnapped by someone named “Garland,” a former knight until something happened. (If the name seems familiar, it’s also the name of the duke in Zeliard.) He took the princess to a temple to the northeast. For a while, I’m dumb enough to think that this will be the main plot of the game.           

The king asks for my help. I suppose we’ll find out who “Lukahn” is later.

          So far, we’ve encountered a character system similar to Wizardry (classes, attributes, prestige classes, leveling) and a top-down exploration system with towns and NPC dialogue similar to Ultima, but outside we run into combat that couldn’t come from anywhere but Phantasie. Enemies face the party on the combat screen (left-to-right here, instead of top-down). You specify an action for each character–attack, cast a spell, use an item, drink a potion, or flee–and the game threads your actions with the attackers’ based on an underlying initiative score. As each character acts, his icon leaps forward and has an accompanying animation. This is cute at the beginning but (like Phantasie) soon just adds unnecessary time to the encounter. So does the silly dance that the kids do when they’ve won a battle.          

Battle options against a party full of pirates.

          Unlike Phantasie, there isn’t much consideration of enemy rank–any character can attack any enemy. There is a consideration of character rank. The character appearing first gets about 50% of the attacks, the next 25%, then 15%, then 10%. It’s thus important to keep the strongest, most well-armored character at the top. This is particularly annoying because certain enemy effects, like stunning and poison, plus fleeing battle, seems to cause the party to spontaneously re-arrange, and you spend a lot of wasted time untangling them.      The magic system is a hybrid. Final Fantasy uses spells with names and effects similar to Phantasie, with numbers indicating relative power, though all shortened to four characters for space reasons. So instead of “Healing 2” and “Fireflash 3,” we get HEL2 and FIR3. There are four spells per level and spellcasters can only learn three of them, which must create real agony for the red mage, who is mixing white and black magic. Anyway, instead of Phantasie‘s magic points system, Final Fantasy uses the “slots” system of Wizardry, in which each character gets a certain number of spell allocations per level, all of them restored when you rest.         I find the combat system fun and relatively tactical when exploring dungeons (where you can’t save or rest) and facing boss-level enemies. You have to carefully ration your spell slots, strategically use fleeing to preserve your resources, cast the right spells for the foes you’re facing, and find the right balance between concentrating your attacks and spreading them out, so that you kill the most powerful foes as quickly as possible, but don’t waste extra attacks on creatures killed by an earlier character.        

The white mage doesn’t get many damage spells, but she does get one that only works against undead.

           In general, however, combat becomes exhausting quickly. Both outdoors and in dungeons, you get yanked into combat (it’s always a surprise; you don’t see enemies on the screen) every 5 to 10 seconds of travel time. As long as you keep an eye on health levels, most of the outdoor combats are of negligible danger, so all they do is sap time. NESTopia comes with an “alternate speed” mode that you can activate by holding down the TAB key, but it only goes to a maximum of 240%, not the “warp” of other emulators. So I spend a lot of time just holding TAB and mashing my way through combat.    The game is pretty relentless in its generation of “random” encounters, too. If it decides that in 8 seconds, you’re going to face 3 ogres, and they’re going to get a surprise attack, there’s no fiddling that you can do to save yourself, not even using emulator save states. You can’t pause and wait until they pass like you can in Dragon Warrior because their appearance is based on movement rather than time. Duck into a town and the clock happily pauses until you leave again and then resumes. And the list of numbers generated for combat must be different than those generated for other purposes, because you can’t avoid the encounter by, say, casting a spell to force it to use the next set of numbers for a different purpose. You’re going to face those 3 ogres, and that’s that–unless you want to save and shut down the machine. There isn’t a lot of reason to avoid any one specific encounter anyway, but I thought it was amusing how futile it is to even try.              

Multi-level dungeons, where you cannot rest or save for long periods, are hard to survive without grinding.

          You don’t want to avoid encounters anyway because you need the experience. This is an extremely grindy game. I’m aware that some party combinations–four fighters?–might lessen the amount of grind early in the game, but overall it’s clearly designed with grinding in mind. The manual even tells you to go grind (or, in its words, “power-up by battling”) in strategic locations. You not only need grinding for leveling but also for gold, as each new town offers more expensive weapons, armor, and spells. Easily half the time I’ve spent on this game so far has been spent grinding.           

The manual makes it clear that grinding is expected.

          Leveling up happens immediately after the battle in which you cross the threshold, and like Wizardry, you get boosts in a random selection of attributes. The frequency of leveling has thus far been satisfying enough.          

My thief levels up at the end of combat.

          That leaves the game’s plot, which has been distressingly linear for this session, at least. What looks like a relatively open world map artificially channels the player through the use of terrain. At the beginning, the player can’t leave a small strip of land between the castle and the temple being occupied by Garland. Finishing the first mission is a simple matter of entering the temple and finding Garland in the first room. He attacks alone and dies quickly; the random monsters roaming throughout the temple are harder than him.        

Battling the first “boss” enemy.

         The princess is freed and returns to the castle, and one of the nice things about the game is that NPC dialogue in the castle and nearby town changes to reflect her rescue. The king and queen now offer thanks, and other NPCs who had lines about the princess have substitutes instead. Even in its later editions, Ultima didn’t often make such concessions to the changing game world, and it’s one of the several small signs that more care and craft went into Final Fantasy than the typical RPG of the 1980s.    In gratitude for her rescue, the princess gives the party a lute. The king has a bridge built from the land you’ve been able to explore to the main continent, extending the party’s range. He also tells the party to “make the ORBS shine again,” which is another clue as to the developing plot. As the party crosses the bridge, the title screen finally appears, suggesting that the game so far has been a prologue. A few text windows add here that the ORBS used to shine with light 2,000 years ago.             

Everyone in the area has different dialogue once you’ve rescued the princess.

             The party next encounters a witch named Matoya living in a cave to the north. She demands the return of her crystal. If you talk to one of her magically animated brooms, you get a secret key combination that brings up a map of the world with the party’s location and the locations of places to visit clearly annotated.

            The game world. You start north of the inner sea on the southern continent.

         Moving on, the city of Pravoka has been invaded by pirates. If the party wins a single battle against the pirates, the pirate captain (Bikke) capitulates and gives the party his ship. This opens up the game world a little. The problem is that the ship can only embark and disembark at docks, and the dock to which it is attached is on the continent’s inner sea. There are only a few places to land from here. A variety of sea monsters attack the ship, but frankly I wonder why we bother to stop and fight some of them. You can imagine that that the “sahags” are clambering aboard the ship and engaging us in melee combat, but why are we fighting sharks?

           This game likes to include Dungeons and Dragons enemies but with skipped letters. I suppose “sahags” are sahuagins, but they could also be seahags.

          West along the sea, the party comes to Elfland, another structure with a castle and town. The castle was sacked a few years ago by someone named Astos, who put their prince in a magical slumber. Only some herb from Matoya will awaken him. While searching for Matoya’s crystal, I come across a castle where the king says that Astos betrayed him. He asks me to get his crown from the Cave of Marsh.

         We find our ship waiting in Pravoka’s port.

           The Cave is easily the hardest part of the game so far. A three-level dungeon, it is full of tough random encounters, including plenty of enemies that can poison the party, for which we need to keep a large stock of curing potions. I had to grind, try, grind, and try again for several hours before I was able to survive the journey to the third level, the boss combat against several wizards (who are guarding the crown), and the journey back.  

           A difficult combat that I had trouble winning with all my characters alive.

        Returning the crown to the mysterious king, we find that he has tricked us and that he’s Astos. His triumph is short-lived, and soon the party has left the castle, Matoya’s crystal in our hands, Astos’s body on the floor. Thus begins a lot of backtracking. We have to circle back through Elfland to the ship, take the ship to Pravoka, then walk to Matoya’s cave. Matoya takes the crystal and gratefully gives us the herb for the prince.

              The prince needs an herb. It has a different connotation if you say it that way.

            We thus reverse our travel and go all the way back to Elfland. The prince is awakened, and he gives the party the mystic key.

            I feel like we could have saved ourselves a lot of time by taking it from him while he was sleeping.

           I was wondering when I’d finally get this. Throughout the game so far–at both castles, the temple, and the Cave of Marsh–there have been multiple locked doors that require this mystic key. Now that I have it, I have to backtrack through just about every location I’ve visited so far. It’s mostly worth it, as some of the items I find are powerful weapons armor, but it’s still a lot of time.

             The runesword is a decent weapon.

           All the way back at the original castle, the key opens a door to a treasure chest that contains TNT, which turns out to be prized by the king of the dwarves, who is building a channel between the inner sea and outer. Once we deliver the TNT to him, he finishes the channel and now the ship can sail just about anywhere, finally opening up the world. I suspect I’ll still continue to find plot linearity, but we’ll see. 

            Now we can get around.

           I’m used to console games making things easy for the player and not requiring the type of mapping and note-taking that a computer RPG often requires. This game is a little different; if you don’t take some notes, you’ll swiftly lose track of who wants what object and why. The manual tries to instill a note-taking ethos in the player by suggesting bullet points at the end of each city. That’s fine for me, in 2020, at the computer, but I don’t know how I would have felt about it in 1990 on the couch. To the extent that console RPGs have any appeal to me, it’s that I can play them somewhat mindlessly from a semi-recumbent (or, let’s face it, sometimes fully recumbent) position. If I reach for an end table, it’s going to be at most for a potato chip or bottle of soda. 

         I haven’t spoken much about the graphics. I like the monster graphics. As for the protagonists, they are what they are. As usual, they look like children. The manual is clearly written for children. There’s something childish about all RPGs, perhaps all video games, but I wish that Japanese RPGs didn’t have to emphasize it so much. You have to imagine that it limited their markets. Kids may not mind role-playing kids but probably also don’t mind role-playing adults. Adults, meanwhile, probably don’t want to role-play kids. I hear a lot from readers who had Nintendos in the 1980s when they were kids and still look upon the games fondly. I don’t think I’ve heard from a single person who was an adult in the 1980s and started on the Nintendo. This is not true, of course, about personal computers.

                The manual not only walks you through the first part of the game step-by-step, but it also provides a summary of the walkthrough.

              But beyond the graphics, there’s an intriguing complexity to this one, and it helps me understand why the series became so popular. There’s still a lot to say about the influence of the game and the people who made it, so we’ll have a second entry after I’ve won The Legacy and Ultima VII.

         Time so far: 7 hours

         source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/game-370-final-fantasy-1987/

[entergamingxp]

New Switch mod delivers real-time CPU, GPU and thermal monitoring

Back in the day it was all about FRAPS. These days, Riva Tuner Statistics Server and OCAT are the tools of choice. For decades now, PC users have relied on real-time on-screen displays with frame-rate counters and system monitoring tools to give them some idea of how their PCs are being utilised during gaming. But what if similar tools were available to console users? Remarkably, a recent breakthrough in Switch modding has made this a reality. Frame-rates, CPU/GPU utilisation, temperature monitors, fan speeds: all are exposed, giving us a fascinating insight into how Switch titles pushe the hardware during gaming.

Of course, this is all limited to earlier Switch revisions, vulnerable to a recovery mode hardware exploit on which custom firmware was developed. Yes, you can run these tools yourself but there is a route to piracy here – so not surprisingly, consoles attached to Nintendo’s online gaming service are routinely banned. But the interesting part from the Digital Foundry perspective is the flourishing homebrew environment, which recently saw the release of the Tesla frame-work – code that runs on the Switch’s reserved CPU core, bringing up an interactive overlay at any time during gaming. Tesla was swifty followed by the release of the Switch overlay mod, which essentially builds much of Riva Tuner Statistics Server’s functionality onto the Tesla foundation. Voila: full real-time system analysis – but what does it reveal?

Well, at the most basic level, you get instant confirmation that Nintendo does indeed reserve one of the Switch’s CPU cores for the OS and front-end – the overlay shows cores zero to two essentially dormant while navigating the shell, with only core three active as the menus are traversed. Similarly, there’s on-screen confirmation that Switch’s docked clocks are totally locked during gameplay: 1020MHz for the CPU, 768MHz for the GPU, 1600MHz on the EMC (embedded memory controller).

However, there is a twist and it’s something we’ve covered before, that we can now see play out in real-time – Nintendo’s ‘boost mode’. This amounts to optimisations in how certain games selectively overclock the CPU to improve loading times. For example, when you die in Mario Odyssey, the screen fades to black and the game loads you back to the last checkpoint. There is a fairly quick turnaround in Odyssey but this is faster thanks to boost mode. During loading, the CPU gets upclocked temporarily to 1785MHz – a 75 per cent increase on the stock clock. Meanwhile, the GPU actually drops all the way down to 76.8MHz – a tenth of its usual speed. Nintendo is balancing thermals by overclocking one component to the max, while downclocking another to the bare minimum.

Riva Tuner Statistics Server for Switch? The System Overlay mod delivers a ton of RTSS functionality on a console for the first time and the results are fascinating.

This technique is used in plenty of modern titles: Wolfenstein Youngblood, and even Crash Team Racing take advantage, while Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey were patched to include it. Loading times are predicated not just on the speed of the internal NAND storage or your SD card, but also on the CPU decompressing assets in the background. With the screen being blank or static, there’s no need to have the graphics processing running at full power anyway. At least, not for this moment. At the first sign of gameplay, the Switch reverts back to default clocks. Boost mode certainly does the trick – I noticed around seven seconds lopped off the loading time from the main menu to the Great Plateau in Breath of the Wild – 23 seconds vs 30 seconds.

The system monitor overlay also reveals how certain titles have pushed Switch hardware to the point where Nintendo has stepped in to provide tweaked performance mode at the OS level – something that, outside of boost mode, only applies to portable configurations. When we first revealed Switch’s clocks, CPU was locked to 1020MHz, GPU to 307.2MHz. Just prior to launch, portable graphics were boosted to a more reasonable 384MHz. These days, Switch’s most challenging titles run the GPU at 460MHz – but that’s just part of the story.

Mortal Kombat 11 is a classic example. After the arena’s loaded in, the GPU boosts to 460MHz from the opening cutscenes to gameplay. It’s an exceptionally high clock speed, but it’s limited to gameplay only. Back at the menus we go back to 384MHz again. Super Mario Odyssey uses the same improved GPU clock, but there are some surprising releases that don’t. Hellblade: Senua’s sacrifice would likely benefit from the higher frequencies – its dynamic resolution would be higher and its frame-rate more solid, yet it’s running locked at the standard 384MHz.

How fast and how capable is a Nintendo Switch running key games at its very fastest CPU and GPU clocks? Find out right here.

It’s the same situation with Link’s Awakening, which struggles with its frame-rate, in certain scenes and which in the past has shown significant improvement via overclocking. Perhaps the developers opted for standard clocks in order to preserve battery life, as users are more likely to put in extended game sessions on an RPG. There is an interesting postscript to Link’s Awakening analysis. Yes, overclocking the GPU helps to iron out its frame-rate problems but the CPU and GPU monitoring suggest that there’s still plenty of performance left in the silicon when these stutters kick in, suggesting that the problem is elsewhere.

One of the most fascinating results from the system monitor tool is the concept of dynamic changes to clocks in portable mode. Games that use it are few and far between, but Luigi’s Mansion 3 has the ability to swap dynamically between 307.2MHz and 384MHz. It’s as is the Switch is able to throttle back its GPU in less demanding scenarios in order to maintain as much battery life as it can. Meanwhile, in the id Tech 6 ports from Panic Button, GPU clocks run the gamut, switching between 307.2MHz, 384Mhz and 460MHz. A while back, patches were released for the earlier id Tech 6 ports that improved performance and I wonder if it’s related to this.

The system monitor overlay also gives us detailed information on Switch’s thermals too. While docked, Doom and Wolfenstein are generally the titles that get the fan speeds revving highest. – and that makes sense when you see the temperatures. In an air conditioned office at 22 degrees Celsius, these two take no time at all to push the PCB heat sensor to 60c and to 55c on the Tegra X1 SoC itself. All of this gets the fans moving at 47 per cent speed max. Higher is obviously possible but with consistent test conditions it’s always these two titles that get the warmest results – along with Luigi’s Mansion 3 bizarrely, which hits the same peaks in temps and fan speed. Given these are all technical powerhouse games, all of which hammer the CPU cores to the high 90 per cent region, it does make sense. Equally, it highlights potential headroom we have for overclocking, assuming we’re avoiding boiling point 100c temps here – 60c is still a safe point. The biggest issue we’ve encountered with overclocking is simply down to acoustics. Push CPU and GPU too far and the fan noise becomes seriously intrusive.

Switch modding is branching out to games too. Many of the mods made to The Witcher 3 actually made their way across to the latest official patch for the game.

but perhaps increasing clocks still further to a certain extent is on the Nintendo roadmap. If so, our tests continue to demonstrate that the best bang for the buck boost to the Tegra X1 is – perhaps surprisingly – to overclock the CPU. Our understanding is that Nintendo has a developer mode which puts the CPU at 1220MHz – a 19.6 per cent improvement to standard clocks. Our tests demonstrate that doing so via homebrew OC tool sysclk doesn’t melt the battery and helps to mitigate a lot of performance problems in many, many games.

The system monitor overlay shows that titles like Smash Bros Ultimate, Doom, Wolfenstein and Luigi’s Mansion 3 all push the CPU to over 90 per cent utilisation – and extra overhead there could certainly help to boost performance. A quick test in Wolfenstein Youngblood shows a big improvement in overall fluidity, for example, right from the very first level. Nintendo has proven willing to adjust performance profiles on Switch as we’ve seen with the dynamic GPU speeds, boost mode for improved loading times and the 460MHz portable configuration. it stands to reason that there could be more down the line, hopefully for the CPU side this time.

Whether it’s through access to the silicon for monitoring purposes, overclocking system components or even tweaking games (as we saw recently with The Witcher 3), the work being carried out on the system by the modding community has allowed us to get a much deeper, fuller understanding of how the console hybrid works and how Nintendo continues to evolve its performance. The system monitor overlay in particular shines a light on how versatile the machine can be and where the hardware can be pushed via a delicate balancing act between thermals, fan speed, GPU load and performance. It’s the most comprehensive look at how a current generation console performs – and it’ll be fascinating to see where Nintendo takes it next.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/03/new-switch-mod-delivers-real-time-cpu-gpu-and-thermal-monitoring/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-switch-mod-delivers-real-time-cpu-gpu-and-thermal-monitoring

[fazeupmag-blog]

New Post has been published on Fazeup

New Post has been published on https://www.fazeup.tk/2019/06/11-issues-its-essential-to-know-in-tech-as-we-speak/

11 issues it's essential to know in tech as we speak

Right here’s your each day tech digest, by the use of the DGiT Every day publication, for Monday, June 10, 2019!

1. E3 highlights: The following Xbox, Microsoft streaming, way more

Throughout the E3 press conferences we go, with a number of latest video games and developments already introduced. There’s an excessive amount of happening, actually, however right here’s the massive stuff you’ll be able to’t miss.

Microsoft’s “Project Scarlett”: its next-gen Xbox console

Microsoft revealed some scant particulars about Venture Scarlett, it’s next-generation Xbox console. A 3m 58s trailer on YouTube confirmed off some glimpses of the hardware, promising “this generation is going to bigger leap than any generation we’ve done before” – Four occasions the efficiency of the current-gen Xbox.

What we all know:

It’s powered by a “custom-designed processor,” from AMD, utilizing newest Zen 2 and Radeon RDNA structure.

Extra specs: Excessive-bandwidth GDDR6 RAM, and a strong state drive. Microsoft says the SSD is able to a 40x enhance in efficiency, that means a lot quicker load speeds.

8K functionality, ray tracing, variable refresh price as much as 120fps, and ultra-low latency enter.

Sound acquainted? Microsoft is providing a lot of what we heard out of Sony and the upcoming PlayStation 5, which will even characteristic SSD storage, 8K assist, and 3D audio.

And it’s additionally what recreation streaming companies are promising within the subsequent few cycles.

Arriving “Holiday 2020”.

Oh, and there’s a brand new Halo, due to course there may be.

Halo Infinite, will launch with the machine as its main launch title, an entire new chapter for Grasp Chief, with this practically six minute trailer that disappointingly doesn’t comprise a single second of gameplay.

By the best way, Microsoft hid a tonne of keys in that trailer, all redeemed inside minutes for three-months of the brand new Xbox Recreation Final go.

Microsoft additionally unveiled the Xbox Elite Wi-fi Controller Collection 2, with longer battery life, USB-C, Bluetooth, and a raft of different enhancements. It’s additionally appropriate with Xbox Scarlett, and launches November 4, for $179.99 USD.

Xbox Recreation Cross is now obtainable on PC

Xbox Recreation Cross has launched on Home windows 10 as of proper now, the service launching at affordable $4.99 per 30 days.

That’s an “introductory” worth, with common pricing at $9.99.

Xbox Recreation Cross for PC provides 100 video games from over 75 builders and publishers, together with Soccer Supervisor 2019, Imperator: Rome, and Metro Exodus.

Now that is fairly good worth, buuuut….

I don’t have a transparent view forward right here however I’ve by no means appreciated that on Xbox you’ll be able to solely recreation on-line with a paid subscription. (The PlayStation initially had free multiplayer, earlier than Sony borrowed Microsoft’s mannequin, whereas the Nintendo Swap has a paid mannequin too.)

Pay $60+ for a recreation, pay $49 a 12 months (or $9.99 per 30 days) for a Reside Gold sub. to play on-line.

It’s been like that for years, too.

If that method seeps into the world of PC gaming, even barely, it’s not “for the gamers” nevertheless Microsoft spins its world of Xbox.

To be clear, that’s not taking place but. However signposts are being erected.

Yet one more factor – Microsoft launched Xbox Recreation Cross Final, with PC and Xbox video games, for $14.99 per 30 days. Included in that’s an Xbox Reside Gold subscription, making it a pleasant all-in-one if that’s your ecosystem.

Microsoft’s Venture xCloud

Microsoft isn’t letting Google Stadia muscle in on its hard-won gaming turf, with some extra element about Venture xCloud – its personal streaming service taking Xbox video games and extra to PC.

Primarily, this seems to be prefer it’ll be streaming out of your Xbox One library – together with video games from Xbox Recreation Cross – to any machine.

We didn’t get much more element than that, although. Microsoft didn’t present any dates or pricing for its service, though a public preview begins in October.

On the E3 present flooring, the service is being proven, with avid gamers in a position to strive Halo 5: Guardians and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice streaming on smartphones and tablets.

What else at E3? Video games!

Elden Ring is the brand new fantasy recreation from George R.R. Martin and FromSoftware – the oldsters behind Darkish Souls (The Verge).

There’s a brand new Microsoft Flight Simulator (trailer) and a few Gears 5 motion (trailer).

Additionally, Keanu Reeves is in “Cyberpunk 2077” coming subsequent 12 months and all types of mania is occurring (reveal trailer + Keanu).

Digital Arts confirmed off 14 minutes of gameplay for its upcoming action-adventure recreation, “Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order” (trailer). Given the cautious concentrate on the lightsaber and use of the Drive through new mechanics, persons are hype.

Additionally from EA, “Apex Legends” season 2 kicks off July 2, a brand new legend “Wattson” was launched (trailer).

From Bethesda: “Ghostwire: Tokyo” has lots of people speaking (Kotaku), and it may be as a result of somebody on stage was plenty of enjoyable. (Too scary for me, I’d say).

“Doom Eternal” is popping out on November 22 (trailer) and it seems to be devilishly good.

“Fallout 76” will get an enormous (free) DLC in Fall 2019, plus battle royale, and it’s free to strive from as we speak for per week (trailer).

Additionally, Bethesda has new tech to make streaming video games quicker with decrease necessities.

The Id Software program basic “Commander Keen” is coming again as an iOS/Android recreation however … nobody needs that? (I’m borderline irate over this. My colleagues assume I’m nuts. Kotaku is with me, at the very least.)

And probably the most important information: “Final Fantasy VII Remake” will likely be launched on March third, 2020 (Engadget).

Extra to return: There’s a PC gaming Present convention as we speak, Ubisoft additionally has bulletins as we speak together with Sq. Enix, with Nintendo taking on tomorrow. (There’s no Sony PlayStation occasion at E3 2019, simply in case you’d forgotten!)

2. We requested, you informed us: Most aren’t shopping for 5G telephones till networks are prepared (Android Authority).

3. OnePlus 7 vs OnePlus 7 Professional battery comparability (AA).

4. Google Stadia: The finer print of Google’s recreation streaming service (AA).

5. Xbox’s greatest competitor isn’t PlayStation: It’s Google (Engadget).

6. Quibi is coming! Pronounced Quib-eye, this can be a new streaming service approaching April 6 2020 for cell gadgets solely, and one thing I don’t perceive in any respect. Nevertheless it has raised $1 billion to get off the bottom? (Selection).

7. Apple is Listening (marco.org).

8. EU will pressure electrical vehicles to emit a noise when touring under 20 km/h from July 1 (The Subsequent Internet).

9. Tesla will quickly downgrade software program on the entry-level Mannequin 3, even in the event you already personal it and had unlocked software program on the time, through an replace. Some say folks received a bonus they hadn’t paid for which has now expired; others are questioning the legality behind a seeming bait-and-switch tactic (Engadget).

10. That is how hackers earn money out of your stolen medical knowledge (ZDNet).

11. High voting machine maker reverses place on election safety, guarantees paper ballots – important and vital about-face, as a result of hackers (TechCrunch).

DGiT Every day: Your Tech Useful resource

In case you don’t know, the DGiT Every day delivers a each day electronic mail that retains you forward of the curve for all tech information, opinions, and hyperlinks to what’s taking place within the planet’s most vital discipline. You get all of the context and perception you want, and all with a contact of enjoyable, and the each day enjoyable aspect that you simply in any other case miss.

Supply

[babs572gamings-blog]

What Zombies Could Educate You Almost READY

Online Gaming Blog

Developing a gaming site with WordPress has in no way been less difficult. How do businesses fight back even though keeping their consumers delighted? We chatted with Danièle Thillmann, Senior VP of Fraud and Payments at Green Man Gaming. Danièle reveals how businesses can confront the special challenges of a digital vertical. Armed with years of expertise in the gaming world, Danièle shares how gaming businesses make a difficult and crucial choice: which fraud prevention resolution to use.

Truly glad that my weblog inspired you to start your personal. Yes it's tough operate and it requires some time to develop, but if you do it appropriately you can have a wonderful on line brand. Beginning the weblog is only the starting, so make positive to read the rest of my articles in the Gaming Blog Series which will take you by means of all the measures. If you have any questions never hesitate to ask me, I'm satisfied to enable where I can.

Luca is functioning in the field of gaming for six years, initially as an indie one particular-man-group junior developer and, the latter 5 years, as gameplay programmer and application architect in a business exactly where he created video games for all most important mobile platforms, Pc, Steam, PS4 and Xbox One particular, as properly as minor gaming consoles, expanding as a experienced. Recently he founded Twin Wolves, an indie video games development studio, where he's the CTO.

DBL Tap is one more fantastic esports news web site, focusing mainly on CS:GO and Overwatch. What makes DBL tap exciting is that in addition to a employees of qualified writers, any gaming fan can write and submit their own short article to the web site. This mixture of content material from specialist writers and each day gamers tends to make for a unique blend of insights into the esports market.

Due to mobile game development outsourcing , the most recent indie games created by smaller studios or person programmers get lots of consideration and good feedback from both players and journalists. With the help of software outsourcing businesses, each and every individual, with proper knowledge, can develop and market gaming apps without having any obstacles.

Microsoft — with our practically 40 years of gaming expertise starting with Computer, as effectively as our breadth and depth of capabilities from computer software to hardware and deep encounter of being a platform company — is nicely equipped to address the complicated challenge of cloud game-streaming. With datacenters in 54 Azure regions and solutions obtainable in 140 countries, Azure has the scale to provide a wonderful gaming knowledge for players worldwide, regardless of their place.

Interesting Truth I Guess You Never Learned About GAMING

Paul: Our business enterprise model is growth focused and we cover three important places in the gaming market. Firstly, we're a international e-Commerce shop promoting more than 7,500 games from 450 publishers in over 190 countries to millions of gamers. Secondly, Green Man Gaming has a thriving neighborhood who go over and track their game achievements on our community platform. This information combined with the industrial data of the store provides Green Man Gaming a considerable depth of understanding of our clients. Finally, we have a publishing arm that aids developers publish their own games and bring them to marketplace, supporting them every step of the way. The fusion of Green Man Gaming's e-Commerce retailer, a strong neighborhood creating billions of data points and publisher assistance sets us apart from our competitors.

Today's games are bigger, far better, and far more immersive than ever. You can locate incredible games across a wide variety of genres. Most main game franchises are accessible on both PlayStation 4 and Xbox A single, when the Nintendo Switch provides a huge selection of games suited for kids and families. For the most realistic visual experiences, upgrade to the PlayStation 4 Pro or Xbox 1 S to love breathtaking 4K and HDR gaming. Exclusive titles are available for every console, which further underscores the will need to strategy ahead and pick up the correct program for your will have to-personal games. Explore the huge collections of previously played games at terrific bargains and give your older consoles like the PlayStation 3 , Xbox 360 , and Nintendo Wii U continued life.

Nintendo 64 and PlayStation ushered in a new era of gaming. Polygons replaced pixels, and 3D rendering entered into the gaming vocabulary. Retro gaming hits like Crash Bandicoot, Mario Kart 64, and 007: Goldeneye pushed the limits of technology, and designed the most realistic virtual environments seen up to that point. We also have some retro games for systems that may not feel as old as they are, like PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, and the original Xbox.

Gaming content material remains one of very best approaches to reach young males. Tubular Labs reports that amongst millennial males, gaming— particularly, gameplay— ranks in the prime 3 categories for each 18���24-year-olds (#1) and 25—34-year-olds (#two). But what about females? As it turns out, adult girls have not too long ago unseated teenage boys as the largest video game— playing demographic, according to the Entertainment Software Association YouTube trends reflect this: Viewership among women has doubled year more than year, and females over the age of 25 are the fastest-increasing demographic for gaming content material.

Social media is one particular of the finest techniques to reach out to your audience, as it aids make communication a lot more hassle-free by permitting comments and messages. Gamers across the planet use Facebook as a single of their major social media platforms, and it is very evident when you see how a lot of likes, shares, and views gaming-related content get on a every day basis.

These numbers can certainly vary per study, but it does look like the quantity of female critical gamers are on a downward trend. The final time we checked in females have been closer to 45%-48% of gamers. We can speculate as to why this is. Probably females are significantly less fond of the emergence of the eSports trend. Perhaps females are feeling much less included in gaming forums and on the net communities immediately after the harassment accusations of the final couple of years. Possibly they're just additional drawn to other entertainment industries, but this is absolutely a trend to continue watching.

Previously, N'Gai Croal wrote articles for Newsweek, Croal left Newsweek back in March simply because he wanted to follow his passions slanted additional towards the development end of gaming. Croal describes himself as a inventive maverick that located himself sidetracked in journalism, but this short-term exploration became a single of the most awesome factors that Croal has ever completed. As a journalist, Croal has enriched his own viewpoint and enhanced his understanding by means https://www.sport-total.info of journalism for the reason that he has written about a range of subjects.

Commonly made use of to refer to games that are created by big studios with a substantial price range, requiring a high sales volume and substantial application expansions to preserve profitability. Like hollywood, these games tend to rely on fairly low-danger sequels more than higher-threat artistic projects, so anticipate to see your perform all more than billboards and Tv ads. You will be focused primarily on Pc, Playstation and Xbox gaming for AAA titles.

We use our GeForce Practical experience servers to figure out the very best high-quality settings primarily based on the user's CPU and GPU, and target higher frame rates than 'normal' optimal settings to make certain the lowest latency gaming practical experience. These settings are automatically applied when the game is launched so gamers never have to be concerned about configuring these settings themselves.

[themoneybuff-blog]

Questions About Checking Accounts, Nintendo Switch, iPods, TSP, and More!

Whats inside? Here are the questions answered in todays reader mailbag, boiled down to summaries of five or fewer words. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question. 1. Great advice for job seekers 2. Old hometown checking account 3. Making your own seasoning mixes 4. Inexpensive Nintendo Switch games 5. Partner has extreme debt 6. TSP contribution questions 7. Uses for old iPod? 8. Job search not that simple 9. Value of authenticating sports cards 10. Financial independence and career plans 11. Advice for selling books 12. True hourly discretionary income question I wanted to offer a little update on my switch to a standing desk for professional purposes. About two weeks ago, I moved my main workstation to a standing desk. The purpose for doing this was to significantly reduce the amount of time I spend sitting in a given day, because sitting for your job all the time has some negative long term health consequences. I did recognize that doing this fully cold turkey is a bad idea, and so I planned from the start to do it in stages. My plan was and still is to use the desk until I felt noticeable discomfort, then switch to a laptop in a chair for a while, then maybe alternate back later in the day. My goal was to simply raise my average time at the standing desk a little each week as I strengthen different muscle groups. After a couple of weeks of doing this, Ive found that the big impact has been on my lower back, with a smaller impact on my feet. Im able to work for about four to five hours a day at the standing desk, with other work time spent sitting in a comfortable chair with a laptop. What generally happens is that my lower back starts to get sore, not in a something is broken way but in a this is a muscle thats getting taxed due to exertion and needs a break way. Ill sit down for a while and itll feel much better. However, its constantly experiencing a low-grade soreness, the kind of soreness that happens when you exercise a muscle group. Theres nothing wrong here if I felt something wrong, I would stop using the standing desk for a while. However, it can be a little uncomfortable. Ive had some very minor foot discomfort, mostly on my heels, but nothing significant and it honestly seems to be fading over the last few days. Its hard to tell yet whether or not the standing desk is improving my health in any notable way. I certainly dont think its been bad, but I havent noticed a big health improvement. I do exercise most days, so thats definitely a positive factor, but its hard to extract the benefits of standing with the other benefits of exercise. I think its very likely that there have been some minor benefits, and I likely would have noticed more if I didnt already exercise. Its all about feeling healthy for as long as possible. On with the questions. Q1: Great advice for job seekers I wanted to share some advice from my own experience as an interviewer [in a large corporate HR department]. The big thing is that you shouldnt be hard on yourself if you interview for a job and dont get it. Often, there is already a candidate that is pre-selected and the interview process is a mere formality. Someone thought you were a good candidate and brought you in, but you didnt actually have a real chance at the job no matter how you interviewed. In fact, you should treat all interviews like that. Dont get stressed about them, because theres a good chance that theres already an anointed candidate. I would say that 75-80% of the time, we already have our minds made up regarding which candidate to hire before the interview process begins and interviews virtually never change our minds. Sometimes we will interview someone great and put them on a list of people to call in the future but almost without fail those people already have a job when we call them back. So please dont be hard on yourself if you dont succeed at an interview! And dont get overly stressed about it because theres a good chance that theres already an anointed candidate anyway. Just go in there and answer the questions and learn about the company and let the chips fall where they may. Alison This is great advice, and in line with some of my own hiring experiences in the past. I have been on all sides of this coin at various points. I have been the anointed candidate in a hiring process. I have also been one of the other candidates in a hiring process (where I knew someone else was anointed for an absolute fact). Ive also been involved with several hirings, some of which had strongly preferred candidates and some of which did not. The thing is, you never really know which kind of situation it is when youre interviewing. It may be a more open position where you actually have a good chance, or it may be a situation where you are one of the other candidates in an open process engineered to bring in the vastly preferred candidate with minimal questions. I think the mantra of dont worry about it is the right one here. Just go in there, answer the questions, ask some questions about the company, and move on and keep looking for the next interview or opportunity. If youre the right candidate, theyll call. Often, you wont be, and it wont be due to a fault of your own. Q2: Old hometown checking account I have left a checking account open at my old hometown bank for the last 20 years. It pays a very small interest rate 0.05%. I have a balance of about $1,200 in there. I have always looked at it as a last ditch emergency fund. If anything seriously goes wrong, Ill go there and use that money. But its just sitting there. Isnt there something better I could be doing with it? Dana I dont think theres anything wrong with having a last ditch emergency fund in a bank thats not easy to access. That idea is fine by me. However, its probably just going to sit there for a long time, so you might want to consider doing something with it that earns a better return. The next time youre in your hometown, stop by that bank and see what other options they have. Simply explain that this is an emergency fund for you and you want it in a place where it earns a little more, doesnt lose value, and could be withdrawn in an emergency but isnt likely to be withdrawn. Its very likely that theyll suggest a certificate of deposit, which is akin to a savings account except that it earns a bit higher interest rate and theres a small penalty for withdrawing it early. It wont take very long at all for the CD to earn more than the penalty for early withdrawal and then, after that, its onwards and upwards. Make sure that the bank allows you to automatically roll over the CD when it matures. Right now, with interest rates a bit higher than they were but still fairly low, Id choose a medium term CD, something in the range of one to two years. That will give you a higher interest rate than a short term CD but wont lock you in to these relatively low historical rates forever. Set it to automatically roll over, then forget about it until that last ditch emergency occurs. Q3: Making your own seasoning mixes Have you ever written an article about making your own seasoning mixes instead of buying mixes at the store? You can buy the component spices and mix them yourself and save a lot of money if you use seasonings a lot. I make an Italian seasoning and a chili seasoning and a toast seasoning myself. Margaret Toast seasoning? Youre going to have to send me that one. I have a bagel seasoning mix that I like to use on buttered toast sometimes I wonder if theyre similar. Although Ive mentioned seasoning mixes before and noted how its cheaper to make your own, I dont think Ive ever written a listing of the various spice mixes we have and how we store them. I store most of my spice mixes in large baby food jars that we still have from when our children were babies. I usually make them by mixing other spices by the teaspoon into a bowl and then stirring them thoroughly so theyre mixed, then I fill up the jar with the spice mix. I use masking tape for labeling. Using a mix is a learning experience. Over time, you start figuring out how much to put in stuff. Our chili mix, for example, usually takes a tablespoon and a half per batch, and a batch fills up our slow cooker about halfway. I could write a full post about this if theres interest, including some of my recipes. Just send me a message on Facebook if youd like to see that. Q4: Inexpensive Nintendo Switch games My husband and I bought our son a Nintendo Switch for Christmas. It is his first video game console and he had been asking for it all year so it was really fun to see him open it. Both sets of grandparents got him a game for it so he has had two games to play. His birthday is coming up soon and we asked him what he wanted and of course he wanted a Switch game. We asked him for a list of the ones he wanted and it has 15 or so games on it. The problem is that they are all $50 or more. Why are Switch games so expensive? Our full birthday gift budget for him is $50. Can you help? Anna This is a consistent challenge with Nintendos consoles, and it has been since the 1980s. Nintendo makes very high quality exclusive titles for their consoles those are usually the ones that wind up filling wish lists for console owners but they rarely go down in price until later in the consoles production cycle and the Switch is a pretty young system. Trust me your son isnt being greedy here. Hes probably listing most of the best games for the console, but they all happen to be expensive ones. I would guess that in a year or two, Nintendo will have a line of some of their top titles from a few years prior as Platinum titles for a much lower price point around $20 but were not there yet. So what can you do now? My recommendation is to visit a video game store that sells used games, like Gamestop, and see what they have available for the Switch thats used. Switch games, as you know, come on small cartridges, so its very easy to test a game to make sure it works you can ask them to test it before you buy. Getting a game used in the original packaging will still cost 50% to 75% of the sticker price and the selection may be a bit limited, but this is probably a fairly safe bet for getting one of the games he wants within your price point. A used Switch game is just as good as a new one in terms of someone focused on actually playing the games, so Id look there. Another approach would be to give him a gift card to the Nintendo eShop. There are a lot of very good downloadable titles for the Switch, and you use those gift cards to buy those downloadable titles. While this wouldnt give him any of the games he specifically wants, it would enable him to get a couple of games at least, and there are some very good games for $9.99 or less on the eShop. Q5: Partner has extreme debt I recently discovered that my bride-to-be (June) has about $140K in student loan debt. She had said that she had some student loans in the past but I did not have any idea how much. I am very uncomfortable with being saddled with that much debt. This has caused a great deal of conflict between us over the last few months and I found this out during the holidays. I am not sure what to do. Daniel The biggest factor Id look at is her day to day behavior right now. Is she a frugal person? Does she watch her nickels and dimes? Is she committed not in words but in actions to getting that debt paid off? Is she making extra payments on that debt? If you see that, then I wouldnt fret about it. On the other hand, if she seems to think that such a big debt isnt a big deal, she spends money frivolously all the time, and she isnt making much progress on that debt I would think very, very carefully about this relationship, because thats a value mismatch thats going to chafe for years and years. Beyond that, I would also consider what kind of field that her degree is in. Was the degree she earned in a field with a high income potential, or was it something that will never earn a substantial income? Also, Id look at other factors, like whether or not parental support was promised and then denied. If shes aiming for a high paying career, such as medicine or law or some types of engineering, I wouldnt worry too much about it. If she took out that much debt for a career path that has a very low likelihood of earning a high salary, I would be really concerned. I would also be concerned with that level of debt if there was also significant financial support from her parents where did all of that money go? The challenge with marriage is that you are financially tied to each other in a very deep way and her choices regarding the debt she took out for her education are indicative of the decision making process she will likely employ going forward except now youll be financially liable for them. Having that much debt unless you are both high income earners will significantly affect your life decisions for a very long time, likely for the rest of your life. It will delay your ability to have children that you can support financially, for starters. It will alter both of your career choices and possibilities. It will delay your ability to have a home of your own. I guess, in this situation, what I would really look for are signs of financial maturity beyond that of the student loans. Is she focused on repaying that debt with or without you? Is she making the most of her degree? Does she spend frivolously? I cant answer for you whether this woman is worth it to you. She may be perfect for you in every other way, in which case youll be happier with her. However, having that much student loan debt, and given the alarm bells it sets off in your head, is a sign of likely incompatibility over financial issues, and thats not a recipe for a great marriage. As always, conversation is key, as is paying attention to her actions. What kind of steps is she taking (not just talking about, but taking) in her life knowing that huge debt is sitting there? If youre struggling to answer that and this debt makes you this uncomfortable, this may not be the best situation for you. Q6: TSP contribution questions I am 36 years old, single, no children, no plans to ever marry. I just got a government job that I hope to keep for the rest of my life. Knowing that I am receiving FERS and Social Security already in retirement, how much should I contribute to my TSP to be able to have a comfortable retirement?Want to retire at 65 and have about the same amount of disposable income when I retire. Janine For those unfamiliar, FERS is the pension plan for US federal government employees. TSP is an optional 401(k)-like plan for additional retirement savings. Based on this, FERS should provide about 33% of your final salary when you retire. Social Security, depending on your income level, will provide somewhere around 30% of your income. That means you need to make up about 37% of your income from TSP. If you contribute 5% of your salary to TSP, the federal government matches another 4%. Above that, theres no matching. Given all of that information, I ran some back of the envelope calculations and conclude that given your age and your aim to retire at age 65 with your full salary intact from your various retirement sources and that you want to be able to draw from TSP for the rest of your life, you should contribute 15% of your salary to TSP. This should enable you to withdraw enough from TSP each year to make up your salary shortfall when you retire at age 65 and the TSP balance should last for the rest of your life. Youll want to invest TSP fairly aggressively the target retirement options should work. While I cant guarantee that 15% will get you there, I can certainly say that it is extremely likely that it will either get you there or get you very close to your goal. Q7: Uses for old iPod? Found an old iPod in a desk drawer along with charging cable. Is there any use for this or should I just junk it? I powered it up and it turns on just fine. Adam I dont own an original iPod (I had one way back in the day but I sold it off circa 2007-2008), but a friend of mine keeps one in her car and listens to music with it every day using a cassette tape adapter. You could do the same thing with an auxiliary cable if your car has an AUX port. Just load it up with mp3s of a bunch of music and/or podcasts that you like, keep it in your car, and listen to it during commutes. If you have a charger that hooks into the cigarette lighting receptacle in your car, then you can plug into that and keep it permanently charged. My friend has hundreds of albums that she loved in her teens and twenties. If you like alternative or indie rock from about 1990 to about 2007, theres a good chance youll find a ton to love on her iPod. Just fill yours up to the brim with stuff you like and youll always have something to listen to. You can fill it up with the full archives of a podcast and listen to the entire run of a podcast, too. Old iPods are great for these kinds of things. In other words, use it for what it was intended for. Load it up with audio. Q8: Job search not that simple While I appreciate your regular encouragement to go find a new job if your current one is sapping you, its not always that simple. I have been working as a legacy systems programmer for the same company for 16 years. Most of my day is maintaining old code, migrating it to new machines, and dealing with corporate [nonsense]. I literally hate going into work each day. There arent any available jobs nearby that match my skill set. Trust me, Ive looked. I cant move because my daughter has particular health care needs and needs to be near a top notch medical facility. That also means I need good insurance. I cant just go into work and say, Well, time to find a new job today! Thats just a pipe dream. Terry All right, so what jobs are available in your area that are close to your skill set? Youre obviously in a metro area of some kind. I guarantee there are programming jobs in that area. Whats actually available? What things are most similar to your skillset? Once you know that, start honing your skillset at work so that you can make that leap. Learn how to write tools that will help you with the legacy coding you already do. Start trying to port your legacy code over to a new language for modern systems during your downtime. Use this as an opportunity to learn new languages and paradigms. Get involved with any and all local software development groups. Try to go to their face to face meetings and get heavily involved in any online spaces they have, being as helpful as you possibly can there. Build up some good relationships in your field, then just casually ask about positions that match your refurbished skill set. Also, keep your resume honed on LinkedIn so you can be discovered by people who might be looking for folks in your area. Dont aim for hopelessness. Aim for a light at the end of the tunnel. You can do this at any job. I had a job where I was literally shoveling dirt for hours and hours during the middle of the night by myself and yet I found ways to aim that toward my next step. Q9: Value of authenticating sports cards I have a bunch of sports cards mostly baseball and basketball from the 1960s. I have looked at selling some of them individually but when I look online almost all sales are authenticated cards in a special holder. I looked into this and it looks like you send your cards to an authentication service and pay them a fee and they put them in a special plastic holder with a tag that says its authentic and gives it a grade for its condition. Is this worth it for selling trading cards? Are there ways to sell cards without this kind of service? Marvin You basically described the sports card authentication world pretty well. It exists because there was rampant fraud in older sports cards and other trading cards for a while, so some reputable dealers popped up and started offering authentication and grading services so that people would know exactly what they were buying. Its become the de facto standard for any sports cards of significant value. Basically, if the card is older than about 1975 or so, the player has any name recognition at all, and the card is in reasonably good shape, youre going to make more money selling it after authentication than before, even including the cost of authentication. If its a no-name player or its beat up, youre not going to make a whole lot for it anyway, as people will just want those to help complete sets and they wont sell for more than pennies. What Id do is look for Hall of Fame caliber player cards from your collection (or, as a friend of mine said, Hall of Famers plus Pete Rose) and get those authenticated to sell individually. The rest, Id just divide out by set and sell in bulk. (I have an almost complete 1965 Topps set missing just a few commons that Ive worked on for literally decades, so Im fairly familiar with all of this.) Q10: Financial independence and career plans So how much financial independence would a person need to be able to have full career independence where you still want to have a career but you just feel empowered to make whatever choice seems exciting to you without really worrying about salary but still assuming youre earning a decent salary to live on? I make about $80K and think I can live well on about $40K so my savings rate is about 30% after taxes. How many years would I have to do this before money exits the equation as a career consideration? Barney I think the real question youre asking is how much do I need to save so that retirement is fully covered? This calculator is probably my preferred one. Youll want to play around with different settings to see how long youll need to save to hit your goals. The further you are from retirement, the lower your total savings goal will be. Also, if you assume Social Security benefits will come to you at rates similar to whats available today, the lower your total savings goal will be. You may even be at your target in several years. However, Id still recommend that you save for retirement after you hit your goal number if youre earning a good salary. This allows you to walk away even earlier if you just get tired of the rat race before a typical retirement age. Q11: Advice for selling books I have a collection of hardback books I want to sell. What is the best way to get maximum value for them? Tracy First of all, it depends a lot on what books youre exactly trying to sell. Are they novels? Cookbooks? Old Dungeons and Dragons books? Encyclopedias? Youll want to go to eBay and try to get a sense as to what theyre actually worth. You will probably get the maximum value from them by selling them individually. However, that is exponentially more work for only a fairly modest rate of return. You might be able to sell a lot of ten books for $20 or sell them each individually for $3, for example. Is that extra effort in packaging and shipping and tracking and communication for nine additional packages worth the $10 to you? Another note: if youre selling books, USPS Media Mail is your friend. Its a highly discounted shipping rate that applies to sending books through the mail, and it comes with a tracking number. (Its cheap because its slow and USPS knows a book can sit in a warehouse for a day with zero problems.) You should always use this when shipping books and magazines. Q12: True hourly discretionary income question I understand how this perspective helps to highlight the high cost of non-necessary spending now in terms of lost leisure in the future. But I think it overstates the cost of non-necessities in terms of hours worked. In your example where your annual net wage is $34,000 and your annual work hours is 2,740 (so you net $12.41 per hour worked) and your necessities cost $24,600/year, you should account for 1,982 work hours (= $24,600/$12.41 per hour) as covering necessities, leaving 2,740 1982 = 758 hours for non-necessities. In each of those 758 hours, you net $12.41/hour, and that is the cost of your necessities in terms of hour worked. So a $50 board game costs you $50/$12.41 per hour = 4 hours, not 10.5 hours. The key is to see that you still actually net $12.41/hour, regardless of whether those earnings go to necessities or non-necessities. One way to see this is to realize that the approach in the post can lead to unrealistic implications for the hours of work required to purchase non-necessities. For example, suppose in your example above, necessities are only $10,000 year, and non-necessary spending is then $34,000 $10,000 = $24,000. If your hourly wage for non-necessities is really $4.96/hour like the post says, then it would take $24,000/$4.96 per hour = 4,838 hours to earn that $24,000. But you earned the $34,000 with only 2,740 hours, so something is wrong. Max Max is referring to this article from last week, Using Your True Hourly Discretionary Income to Make Smarter Purchases. Youre just looking at the same issue in a different way. Rather than looking at each hour as being subdivided between essential expenses and non-essential expenses, youre doing the same thing with the total hours over a year. In that example, then, 1,741 of the hours you work essentially earn you nothing in terms of spending money, because all of it goes to essentials. So, frugality in essence just means that youre migrating some of the hours you work from your pool of hours spent on essential expenses to the hours you work for spending money. My angle was different. I divided the income from each hour into essential expenses and spending money. The essential expenses gobble up $7.45 of the $12.41 you earn each hour, while your spending money makes up only $4.96 of the $12.41 you earn each hour. So, then, you judge whether an expense is worth it using just the $4.96, since its the only portion you can actually freely spend. In this case, frugality moves a little bit of money from the $7.45 essential expenses per hour pile to the $4.96 spending money per hour pile. Got any questions? The best way to ask is to follow me on Facebook and ask questions directly there. Ill attempt to answer them in a future mailbag (which, by way of full disclosure, may also get re-posted on other websites that pick up my blog). However, I do receive many, many questions per week, so I may not necessarily be able to answer yours. https://www.thesimpledollar.com/questions-about-checking-accounts-nintendo-switch-ipods-tsp-and-more/

[rinabrunoblog]

Upcoming Games for Switch in 2019

As far as this last year goes, we’ve covered all the games that caused a ruckus and attracted mainly positive feedback from the players in our Nintendo Switch Games Retrospective of 2018 take. Suffice to say this last year and a half since Switch came out was enormously successful, mainly for: 1) Switch is one freaking powerful portable device; and 2) Nintendo made an excellent selection of games to push out during this initial grace period. Upcoming Switch Games 2019 seem to defy everyone’s expectations.

We can now freely say that with the beginning of 2019, Switch became a part of the mainstream tradition and is included in all big gaming sites, communities, and forums. But, instead of relaxing a bit Nintendo actually plans to up the game even more as the list of announced games keeps growing. We are barely halfway through January 2019 and already we’ve seen Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition, and on Jan 18th we will get Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes, which promises to be a fast-paced, action-packed omnibus where you play as Travis (obviously) and slide through virtually every gaming genre available today.

We got to hand it to Nintendo though for taking over some of the best franchises and reserving it exclusively for Switch, like the upcoming Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 game. But, not to spoil anything, check out the titles and the dates and start counting days, for we are in for one expensive year if you plan on purchasing them all (like we have any choice *eyes tear up*).

Steins;Gate Elite

Release Date: 19th February

Steins;Gate Elite is played in Japan for almost a year now and its popularity led to a decision to expand it to the world. If you haven’t heard about the franchise, this game is an upgrade to a 2009 Steins;Gate edition and its subsequent anime series from 2011, both enjoying high praise in the land of the rising Sun. The game arrives on Switch and PS4 in Feb, while it will be a little late for PC.

Trials Rising

Release Date: 21st February

Ubisoft made the announcement at the 2018’s E3, while this Trials Rising switch edition will mark the motorcycle action series’ first attempt at the portable preferring crowd. The game’s two previous editions, Trials Fusion (2014) and Trials of the Blood Dragon (2016) both made an impact on the Xbox One, Ps4, and PC and it will respectively appear on those platforms as well, but this time around the developers are upping the stakes even more and expanding the world to include all the famous places, like the Eiffel Tower, Great Wall of China, and others.

Mortal Combat 11

Release Date: 23rd April

The long awaited sequel is finally here and the NetherRealm Studios delighted everyone when they announced the words Mortal Combat 11 Switch! The game is sure to maximize the use of the multiplayer convenience Switch offers, as now, for the first time ever, you will be able to play with your opponent in the same room, without the two of you sharing the same screen.

Super Meat Boy Forever

Release Date: Sometime in April

We know! The game’s title leaves you confused, but bear with us, please. This game’s epic trailer left everyone with their jaws dropped so if you haven’t watched it, go do it now! After a few release date postponing, Super Meat Boy Forever Switch is happening this April. This game promises to be one of the best platforms so far in the new generation of platforms, as it will attempt to improve if not reinvent the genre.

Team Sonic Racing

Release Date: 21st May

Sega took the play from Nintendo’s book and got Sonic and his crew on 4 wheels, racing on a crazy track. This new kart game from Sumo Digital developer, who were at the help of previous titles Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing and its sequel Transformed, are not bringing it to switch. We will have 15 playable characters as well as kart customization features. It will have co-op and multiplayer naturally and it intends on taking Mario Kart of his throne apparently.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Release Date: Sometime in the spring of 2019

Finally, Fire Emblem switch is happening this year! The series is quite popular and has spread over all platforms, handheld or otherwise, and now it’s time for the powerful switch to have its go. Developers are also promising new features, a change in the perspective to better accommodate players, and an overhaul of the game as per usual.

Yoshi’s Crafted World

Release Date: Sometime in the spring of 2019

Nintendo continues to capitalize on Mario games and characters. This side scroller with Yoshi as the main characters plans to unite this genre with the crafting feature. The game will be heavily oriented on the building materials, textures, and the overall physics of the world, which will be interesting to see on switch.

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled

Release Date: 21st June

Another kart racer will be coming in at summer time. The old school cult favorite Crash Bandicoot’s racer will be making its appearance on Switch. Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled switch will be done by Beenox, who did several spider-Man games recently. They intend to bring many new features and modes, and overall refresh the franchise.

Animal Crossing

Release Date: Sometime in 2019 (TBD)

Little is known about the new Animal Crossing switch debut, besides it definitely is coming this year. We do not yet have the title nor the release date set.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Release Date: 2019 TBD

Koji Igarashi’s solo franchise was a success, after he left Konami. He brought all the good parts of Castlevania with him and presents it in this title. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night switch promises to leave everyone with a bite mark on the neck, and thirsting for more.

Daemon X Machina

Release Date: 2019 TBD

Finally a Mecha game will come to Switch! This action-focus Kenichiro Tsukuda game was promised by Armored Core on E3 in 2018. We are waiting to see the awesome character design and gameplay it promises to bring.

Dragon Quest Builders 2

Continuing along the lines of what the first edition started, Dragon Quest Builders 2 switch plans on being a rare peek at the genre on portable consoles. It is out in Japan for a year now, so it was about time.

Luigi’s Mansion 3

Release date: 2019 TBD

Luigi’s Mansion 3 plans on continuing its notoriously intricate and difficult, but fun and rewarding level design and storyline. It will follow-up the Dark Moon edition and bring back Luigi and Poltergust to switch sometime in 2019.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order

Release Date: 2019 TBD

Nintendo’s heavy hitter for 2019 is definitely Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 exclusively for switch. Team Ninja is at the helm of development as this game plans to capitalize greatly on the co-op multiplayer convenience of Nintendo switch. We do hope it’s coming soon!

Sayonara Wild Hearts

Release Date: 2019 TBD

Simogo, the developer behind Year Walk and Device 6, announced just recently this stylish title will come to switch sometime during the year. This crazy combination of skateboarding, dancing, sword fighting, and god knows what else will be interesting to say the least.

Town

Release Date: 2019 TBD

Only with its working title so far, Town switch promises to bring a turn-based fantasy story battle gameplay, in an RPG environment naturally.

Pokemon (Still Untitled Core RPG)

Release Date: Late 2019

Unfortunately, the fans will have to wait towards the end of the year to get this eagerly awaited Pokemon switch entry. We are promised role-play adventure style game, with all the staff from the original titles. It should seal 2019 properly.

Upcoming Games for Switch in 2019 syndicated from https://lucystrickland.wordpress.com/

[instantanchorprincess-blog]

xbox vs nintendo wii, help ! PS4 vs Xbox One vs Wii U Which One is Right For You

The GPU doesn’t do the system any favors either, logging just 352 GFLOPS and 4.4 GPixels per second at maximum clip. PS4 vs Xbox One vs Wii U: Which One is Right For You? The console wars. A test of will, strength, and perseverance almost as old as gaming itself. Over the past few decades companies from every corner of the technosphere have thrown their hat into the ring with one wacky system or another, with only a select few fighting through the fold to make their way to the top of the heap. These days, however, only three major manufacturers have survived to tell the tale: Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony. Responsible for the Wii U, Xbox One, and PS4 respectively, each company has put their best foot forward to give their customers the absolute best gaming experience possible, but how do you know which one is best for you or your household? Affectionately referred to as the “Xbone” since it first debuted at Microsoft’s 2013 E3 press conference, the Xbox One is another in a long line of devices that the Redmond company believes can offer gamers a perfect combination of fun and functionality like no other console can. And while Microsoft’s latest outing has struggled to maintain the same lead that the Xbox 360 first established in the previous generation, this hasn’t been through any fault of its own. The Xbox One comes with a solid lineup of games (primarily cross-platform for now), a bevvy of available media streaming options including (but not limited to) Netflix, Hulu, HBO GO and NFL Redzone, and a hardware kit that’s impressive without being overbearing on the customer’s wallet. Until now, it seems the main problem since the One’s release has been a lack of Xbox-exclusive titles, i.e- games that would make you want to pick the console over the more powerful PS4 or family-friendly Wii U. There are quite a few big hitters slated to hit the shelves sometime next year, but if the idea of waiting until 2016 for some of the console’s biggest games isn’t enough to entice you, this fall users will have the chance to get their hands on Microsoft’s latest attempt at creating a universal OS ecosystem with the debut of Windows 10 for Xbox. The unique console-based operating system will give users the opportunity to run all new types of native apps and software, as well as view files and folders across any type of device, mobile or otherwise. Popular add-ons like the voice-activated digital assistant Cortana will be integrated into the Xbox’s main Dashboard as well, while the option to browse the web or check emails will be a cinch thanks to a flurry of new apps set to be released via the Windows Store. Not only that, but if you also have a laptop or tablet installed with Windows 10, you can play all your Xbox games on your computer with the One’s internal streaming feature. From the hardware perspective, the Xbox One and PS4 feature a similar 8-Core AMD CPU, although the Xbox has a slight clockspeed advantage of 1.75GHz, compared to Sony’s 1.6GHz. This is pretty much the only advantage it maintains, however, as we’ll talk about in the next section below. But did we mention Halo 5?... View more ...

[nazih-fares]

Now more than five years after its original release, Rockstar Games decided to give us a remastered version of one of its most iconic game of the past decade: L.A. Noire. Originally released on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 (which I’ve reviewed for At7addak.com back in the days) and PC in 2011, the new launch is mainly for those that might’ve missed the original game, and wanted to experience it with updated technology. Themed like a noire film, with the desire to take the concept of the open world on a different road, more focused on the investigation than the pure and hard action, Team Bondi’s original work was amazing for its time. With amazing facial animations which were key to the title’s core gameplay as to be able to deduce your witnesses and criminal’s intentions or lies during investigations.  so that the player can better understand the impact of his lines, during interrogations. So now that I got my hand on a PlayStation 4 copy and Nintendo Switch version, the question is: is L.A. Noire still worth playing nowadays?

As you would expect from most remastered or re-released versions of games, L.A. Noire’s core storyline remains intact and untouched, almost to a point that it is better now with time, when compared to our most recent day’s productions. You see, few games since the initial release of L.A. Noire in 2011 have reached such a level of coherence between its universe and the narrative aspect of it. The player plays the role of Cole Phelps, a former Marines and war hero from the Okinawa battle during the second World War. When he returns to Los Angeles, medals don’t make it is easier for him to get back in the civilian lifestyle, and certainly not his career in the local police. Starting like everyone else as a mere patrol cop, our main character soon will discover by himself that he’s got a talent for investigation work, and starts solving more and more difficult cases. As he advance in his career, Phelps will soon discover that corruption is raging in his beloved city, and that appearances sometimes hide real monsters.

L.A. Noire is an amazing story until this day, with both lead and supporting characters all becoming immediately memorable. Whether these protagonists are Phelps teammates, murder victims, culprits or mere witnesses, they were all treated equally in terms of writing, down to the smallest detail, which reinforces the immersion, so much so that I find myself here replaying this game furiously and eagerly, even after all these years. There’s always a great story progression, pushing you to want to discover more, full of twists that are hard to see coming, and references to other known film noir. Your Femme fatale, late 1940s mobsters, Hollywood crooks, it’s all in there, with a slight dose of comedy, yet keeping a dark tone.

Now I should note that while this is a game clearly created by Rockstar Games, newcomers should be aware that L.A Noire is first and foremost a story to be told at its core, and not an open-world adventure like other titles done by the famed studio. Don’t expect to be grabbing uzis and shooting everything that moves, because this is no GTA.

L.A. Noire in terms of gameplay is an adventure led by police or detective investigation, more than an open world adventure. While the game is based on a fairly large map, it is not governed by the same mechanics as a GTA, to take the most obvious example. You will have the opportunity to travel throughout the city as you see fit, but that will mostly be to go from one key investigation scene to another, with no events on the way to distract you from your goal. Once again, as pointed out above, you are not going to experience the same model as what a Red Dead Redemption or GTA has introduced in the past, but that’s not a bad thing. Investigations are so well packaged that you will never be bored, thanks to the same proven cycle. After a cutscene presenting the facts, you will have to search on ground for clues, which are hinted to you thanks to little audio tunes (or vibrations on your controllers).

You’ll have to collect all these clues, which will be written in your trusty notebook, and help you with you interrogations. And this my friends and future detectives to be is where L.A. Noire shines! The choice of dialogues are relevant, even if we feel that it is still difficult to be wrong, or to launch into the wrong lead, thanks to Team Bondi’s insane work on facial animations, to be able to deduce if the person you’re questioning is lying or not.

Finally, your investigation only ends when you find a culprit. In this third part, you often have are led into a pure action sequences. Sadly, this is where L.A. Noire is not perfect, and unfortunately this remastered version was not an opportunity for Rockstar Games to fix this. Car chases and gun fights are too slow, and not engaging enough, in comparison to other games done by the mighty developer, which funny enough can be completely skipped if you fail them three times in a row. In any case, after handcuffing the one you think is the big bad guy in your case, you’ll get a general score or police report on your performance. If you have called for the wrong culprit and put an innocent goon behind bars, you’ll be able to restart the case from the beginning, which is great for those of you out there that are completionists.

This release of L.A. Noire on Nintendo Switch, was also an opportunity to add some small gameplay features for Rockstar Games. First of all, Joy-cons adds a sort of gyroscopic camera control, as well as the tablet itself uses its touch abilities to help you zoom into clues during investigations. You can also navigate through your notebook with a single finger movement, and even direct Phelps through the screen. All this gives the game a sort of point & click angle to the title, far from being anecdotal because it actually gives an undeniable comfort.

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Nevertheless, L.A. Noire cannot hide the fact that it is after all a 5 years and more game. Sure the game will run at full 1080p In dock mode, but the pure technical aspect of the game is still running on old generation technology. There is a hint of aliasing, but mostly framerate drops, and some environmental elements and the scenery tend to load late, creating a clipping noticed during driving sequence. And like it is the case with other titles on the  Nintendo Switch, playing it on the handheld mode fixes these concerns, but you’ll end up swapping these issues with occasional pop-ups and stuttering.

Other big issue for some of you, is that the Nintendo Switch version of L.A. Noir is about 30 GB on the Nintendo Switch which is too big for its internal memory, so expect to cough up some extra dollars on a brand new MicroSD card.

But what about the other console versions? Well, on PlayStation 4 (and Xbox One) L.A. Noire runs at 1080p, while jumping to 4K with HDR support on PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X. Both versions of the Sony and Microsoft console got their shares of upgraded textures, better lighting and additional camera angles for cutscenes, but sadly all locked to 30FPS. Too bad for those of you that hoped for something more dynamic in terms of frame rates, especially when you could probably get up to 60FPS with the specs inside the Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro.

The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 version of L.A. Noire has updated textures and up to 4K HDR support but still reminds us that this is an early 2010 game

As always, I’d like to point that Rockstar Games are just great when it comes to their game’s soundtrack. The latter is actually split into two parts, which are known tunes and real classics from performers such as Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong or Tex Williams which I’m personally a big fan of, but it’s the other part of the soundtrack that are worth your time. Produced especially for L.A. Noire, and composed by Andrew Hale (who won a BAFTA award for best Original Music), the game’s themes are just marvelous, and some of the singing tracks, performed by Claudia Brücken are fit for this unique setting, and noire mood.

Finally, to end this review, you should know that investing into L.A. Noire nowadays is in general a neat package full of content. The game boast more than 25 cases, which average between an hour or two per case. And that is if you are content to only follow the main story, because L.A. Noire also has a multitude of smaller tasks and quests to finish, plus all previously released DLCs and exclusive console content are now available in these versions.

L.A. Noire was reviewed using a Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 retail copy of the game provided by Take-Two Interactive as well as an Xbox 360 copy purchased by the writer. The original game was released in 2011 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC is available in both retail and downloadable versions on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. We don’t discuss review scores with publishers or developers prior to the review being published.

If you are someone that never played L.A. Noire back in 2011, then you shouldn't miss this remastered version of Rockstar Games' detective storytelling adventure. Now more than five years after its original release, Rockstar Games decided to give us a remastered version of one of its most iconic game of the past decade: L.A.

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