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Breath Of The Wild: The Champions’ Ballad Review [Nintendo Switch] – Another Grand Reason To Return To Hyrule

December 23, 2017January 21, 2018 by Chris Wheatley, posted in Reviews

An Ancient Verse Known as The Champions’ Ballad

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has awed and inspired much of the gaming community since its release in March. While the base game itself packs quite the punch of thought inducing shrines, fetch and grab quests, hundreds of collectibles and the freedom to tackle whatever you wish first, it’s no wonder the fans craved for more. While the first DLC – The Master Trials – which released in the summer, gave fans a few more additional content pieces and challenges, the second DLC – The Champions’ Ballad – provides an all new quests line to the mix as well.

Upon defeating Ganon and taming all four divine beasts, Link will then be summoned to undertake the expansion’s series of story quests, The Champions Ballad. Returning back to where everything started, Link is given a new, exclusive questing weapon – the Obliterator, which will aid players into the forthcoming challenges. While the new expansion doesn’t add any more map to the massive world of Hyrule, it does however, add to the amount of puzzling shrines to the mix. But first, we set our eyes on this new weapon.

The ultra powerful weapon – The Obliterator – puts Link in the middle of quite a challenging task

A Fierce New Weapon

First off, players must complete a series of four challenges using the ultimately powerful weapon, the Obliterator. While this weapon is extremely strong capable of knocking off almost any opponent in one hit, it also has the same effect on Link. While equipping this mystical weapon, players are susceptible to being knocked off with the slightest single hit, but the only way to continue forward is to use this coveted weapon. The first task seems simple enough – Link must clear out four bandit camps that lay in the Great Plateau region of Hyrule.

If the player for any reason leaves the Great Plateau, the quest will discontinue, returning the Obliterator weapon back to where you acquired it, at the Shrine of Resurrection. While the four camps to clear isn’t something that’s relatively new to BoTW, using the new unique weapon adds a completely new twist to the strategy. Link’s melee choices is restricted to only using the Obliterator, but pulling out his trusty bow and arrow is still a viable option. With the nuisance of falling to one strike, keeping your distance is futile in survival.

To unlock each new shrine, players must first accomplish all-new tasks.

The long DLC quest line of The Champions’ Ballad is only starting from there. Once finished with the useful, but dangerous weapon, four brand new challenges open up, which act as the main portion of the DLC. A flurry of new shrines await across the four corners of Hyrule, returning Link back to the four now-tamed Divine Beasts.

Brand New Shrines

As faithful as ever, the accordion playing bard – Kass – once again provides useful information leading up to the whimsical quest line. After a series of discovering new shrine locations by using photos of the locations on the map. Each new shrine delivers trivial challenges exactly as the vast majority of base game shrines did. Granting much more of the same from the open world adventure, the new shrine puzzles are still very much as imaginative as any others in the game, fully utilizing the power of the runes.

A slew of new shrines provide even more puzzle solving using the many different rune skills.

Solving three picture locations, clearing the corresponding shrines and taking on the powerful revived version of the elemental Blight Ganon is the repetitive process of The Champions’ Ballad DLC. While the gameplay comes off as rather tedious, the new quest line takes you through a variety of different challenges for revealing each new shrine. The new cut scenes also provide a bit more back story revolving around Princess Zelda, and the five Champions that surround her.

After a long haul of shrine accomplishing and completing new, mostly fun objectives, the DLC closes it out with a brand new style of dungeon. Like the Divine Beasts from the base story, this puzzling labyrinth is by far the most trivial of the Breath of the Wild experience. Following the complicating mechanism of the new dungeon, the DLC finishes with a brutally challenging boss fight, facing off against an all new foe. After conquering what seems like the impossible, the story closes out with a significant sense of accomplishment.

The Champions’ Ballad is a perfect ending to one of the year’s most memorable titles.

Worth the Effort

Though The Champions’ Ballad DLC primarily adds more of the same freedom to go off and accomplish what you will, when you will – it’s still quite refreshing to accomplish more new objectives in Hyrule. Throughout the 5-10 hour-long quest line, players will find themselves back in the same awe-inspiring moments that captured them from the start of Breath of the Wild. And to top it all off, upon slaying the final boss, Link is rewarded with what could only be described as one of the most entertaining experiences in the entire game.

D-pad Joy’s Game Of The Year Picks 2017

December 22, 2017December 27, 2017 by Stephen Carter, posted in Features

So 2017 is on its way out and the D-pad Joy team are well and truly in the festive spirit (after consuming several festive spirits as well). But, before we can sign off until the New Year, there is one last order of business to be addressed; submitting our choices for our Game of the Year.

However, to avoid things being thrown and friendships being broken, we have elected to choose 3 of our top games from the past 12 months as opposed to trying to agree on one overall winner. Call it a cop-out if you may, but we think going down that route will do a great disservice to all the fantastic games we’ve had this year. So strap in, grab a beverage or two and see what picks the team have put forward – it’s going to be a good one…

Nathan Franklin

#3 Mass Effect: Andromeda

A solid space exploration RPG/third-person shooter that instilled you with a sense of awe and kept you gripped with its fun, engaging combat system – and that’s not even mentioning its intriguing cast of characters and great dialogue. Andromeda was by no means perfect, but I personally have great memories of this worthy continuation of the Mass Effect franchise which is why I’ll stick it third here.

#2 Resident Evil 7

I’m not sure if this is the most obvious choice of game to put in a top three, but I have a fairly biased reason for having included it here. RE7 was great for me, not just because of its VR-centred graphic presentation and tense, edge-of-your-seat gameplay, but also because of the time I had playing it with certain family members. You really haven’t lived until you’ve seen someone shriek their butt off after encountering an unexpected ambulatory dead person in true horror movie fashion. A prime example of how to make a great VR game.

#1 Sonic Mania

Topping off my list is the return to gaming glory for everyone’s favourite blue hedgehog. Unlike the relatively lacklustre Sonic Forces that came out this year, Mania put the speedy critter back where he belonged – in two-dimensions, with a whole slew of colourful, inventive levels and challenging bosses and special stages. The addictive retro-style simplicity of Mania is what keeps me coming back to it and I can only guess this is the same for many other Sonic fans across the globe. It takes everything that was great about Sonic’s Mega Drive/Genesis adventures and puts it on steroids.

Christopher Wheatley

#3 Persona 5

The Persona series has managed to captivate audiences with mature themes and its addictive ‘high school life’ simulation throughout its twenty-year tenure. Persona 5 was no step backwards, as it lifted the series to even greater heights, tackling even greater social issues, and doing so in a unique and flashy art style. The sheer amount of content throughout its 100+ hour long story brings waves of emotion across the many different characters and subjects portrayed.

#2 The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

With the launch of the Switch, Breath of the Wild truly marked a new era for the long-running Nintendo franchise. Exploring a massive sandbox littered with all of the Zelda aesthetics, fans and newcomers alike were able to embark on a journey through the vibrant lands of Hyrule like never before. Sprinkling in a flurry of additional side quests, tons of various melee weapons, bows and armour sets, and the absolute freedom to explore at your heart’s content, The Legend of Zelda series has shown yet another strong entry. A remarkable adventure not to be missed any Nintendo Switch owner.

#1 Horizon Zero Dawn

The beautifully designed open world of a futuristic vision of an Earth taken back by mother nature, Horizon Zero Dawn provided an experience that delivered on every aspect of gaming. With a healthy dose of side quests, hunting grounds, other activities and collectables to keep the player satisfied well beyond the main quest line, the stories behind the diverse cast of characters, and not to mention the outstanding visuals/animations, puts Horizon Zero Dawn above anything else that released in 2017.

Tanya Petterson

#3 What Remains of Edith Finch

Edith Finch blew me away – it had me hooked from the first moment I stepped into the huge house of the Finches. I wanted to know more about the intriguing and peculiar past of this family. The developers have said that the game is about what it feels like to be humbled and astonished by the vast and unknowable world around us – and I couldn’t agree more with that statement.

#2 Hellblade Senua’s Sacrifice

As perhaps one of the most talked about and controversial games this year, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice definitely deserves a spot on my top 3 list. Inspired by Norse Mythology and Celtic culture, Hellblade takes us into Senua’s world, a warrior who travels through Helheim to find her lover and release him from the goddess Hela. However, this is a metaphor for its more important theme: mental health. With stunning visuals as well as reflective dialogue, I must say that it has been a long time coming since a game was this emotionally challenging to play through. The dedication and passion that went into the development of this concept, as well as seeing and experiencing the fantastic end product – it would be wrong NOT to have Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice on my list.

#1 Night in the Woods

It was a difficult task to choose which one of my top three would be the “winner,” because they are all so incredibly good – they all have their own strengths and weaknesses. However, there is one that sticks out; that keeps staying closest to my heart. When I first started playing Night in the Woods, I knew that there was something special about it. I keep finding myself coming back to this game, and its lovable story. The characters are memorable and relatable, and I love how the weird gets mixed into the sweet, the sad, the angry, and the fun. The characters are relatable, lovable, warm and funny. I could keep finding similar adjectives to describe this game for ages. But you get the picture. I love everything – everything – about Night in the Woods.

Tom Buxton

#3 Middle-Earth: Shadow of War

Middle-Earth: Shadow of War had no qualms about tossing supposedly pre-established Tolkien canon out of the window, daring Lord of the Rings devotees to try and reconcile the final events in Talion’s journey – featuring spider deities, the Eye of Sauron at war with himself and a complete retcon of past Nazgul mythology – with the Third Age. Get past those borderline heretical subversions and the wafer-thin core storyline, though, and you’ll find an intricate, immensely challenging RPG which packs dynamic AI thanks to the enhanced Nemesis System, compelling side quests that expand Tolkien’s Middle-Earth lore in bold new ways and by far some of the most satisfying boss battles of the year.

#2 LEGO Marvel Superheroes 2

A confession: after the entertaining but mechanically repetitive LEGO Marvel Superheroes and its comprehensive but convoluted MCU sequel LEGO Marvel’s Avengers, this writer thought TT Games had milked the eponymous comic-book publisher’s multiverse for all its worth. Little wonder, then, that in delivering an inventive non-linear storyline, a rich open-world brimming with geographical variety and fan-servicing detail and a huge roster of characters with unique attributes and animations, LEGO Marvel Superheroes 2 caught me completely off-guard. It’s a completely essential purchase for Marvelites everywhere.

#1 Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

How do you follow one of the most critically acclaimed quadrilogies of all-time? Aside from producing perhaps the most critically acclaimed survival horror of all-time in The Last of Us, Naughty Dog’s answer was to shift the limelight from Nathan Drake to two of his best-loved frenemies, an approach which predictably peaked fans’ curiosity from the outset. Between the ambitious open-world second act, dynamic vehicular sequences, its protagonists’ sizzling chemistry and its narrative’s unashamed focus on conducting a personal, provocative character study, this brief but utterly brilliant spin-off adventure easily sets itself apart from Drake’s escapades and, indeed, from the majority of gaming experiences delivered in 2017 to boot.

Jamie Giggs

#3 Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

There’s no doubt that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s infinite playground, otherwise known as the land of Hyrule, is an absolute joy to explore. Throughout the finely-tuned experience, curiosity is encouraged and rewarded, and there’s always something more to find in a world positively swimming with ideas. What excites me the most about Breath of the Wild is that Nintendo wasn’t afraid to innovate and try new things with a series 30 years in the making. They didn’t have to, but it paid off, leaving us with one of the freshest titles in years.

#2 Persona 5

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE on the Wii U, an obscure gem with key elements from Shin Megami Tensei, led me to giving Persona 5 a try – my first foray into the beloved Persona series. I’m glad I did, as it very quickly became one of my games of the year. Quite simply, it’s scary how much there is to accomplish in that world. Like living a second life as an angsty teenager all over again, Persona 5, most brilliantly of all, asks the right questions too. Questions like: why are individuals in positions of utter authority – bankers, politicians, even teachers, the people we need to trust the most – so corrupt in modern society? It was motifs like this, aside from the excellent gameplay, that raised this into special territory for me.

#1 Super Mario Odyssey

There are so many positives things to say about Super Mario Odyssey that you couldn’t possibly fit into the limited space I have here, so a brief, effusive list will have to do: the holiday brochure-style maps, those costumes, the assist mode that guides younger, more inexperienced players, the stunning soundtrack full of whimsy and heroism, the satirical humour, the bonus mini-games, Pauline, that particular festival, that particular Kingdom, the better than expected two-player mode where one of you controls Cappy – really fun. I could easily go on… It’s worth buying a Switch for alone and is certainly one of the best Mario games for many, many years. A grand celebration of the plumber and his long-running history and my third and final pick for Game of the Year.

Stephen Carter

#3 The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Unsurprisingly, Zelda appears in my top three for 2017. It’s impossible for it not to appear as this game was the sole reason why I bought my Switch and boy am I glad I did. Admittedly I haven’t played it in a while, but when I do I love every single minute of it. The sights, the sounds and the missions; they’re all there and each is fantastic. The world Nintendo have built is simply superb and has so many different locations, hooks and unique twists that it’s impossible not to fall in love with it. For many, BotW could easily be classed as one of the best, if not the best, Zelda games there has been.

#2 Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

What can you say about Lost Legacy that hasn’t been said about any of the Uncharted games that have come before it? It is quite simply stunning. Considering that it isn’t one of the main titles, more a spin-off, it’s staggering how much attention has been given to it. For a reduced price, it puts many other games to shame when it comes to storytelling, acting, length and entertainment. Given that Drake seems to have been put into retirement, I would be more than happy for Chloe and Nadine to carry the torch from now on. Where they will go next nobody knows, but I think it’s fair to say that their visit to India sets the benchmark for future travels.

#1 Super Mario Odyssey

Never did I think there would be one Nintendo title in my top games of any year, let alone two. It’s unheard of for me as I am not the biggest Nintendo fan out there and was very sceptical when I first picked up my Switch. Boy was I in for a treat when Mario came to town. For me, this is quite easily his finest hour and it has been a long time since I dedicated all my gaming time to one video game alone – until I rolled the credits on it. From controlling a T-rex, seeing Mario in Speedos and finding out Mario is tiny compared to real humans, it has it all. I can’t resist the call to go back every now and again and witness bits which I may have missed the first time through, but I don’t think I’ll ever find all of those damn moons! Cappy gives Mario a fresh feel and breaks the 2D mould of old – it shows us that Super Mario clearly has a bright and fruitful future on the Switch and beyond. Mario here’s to you and a fantastic 2017!

That’s a wrap! Which were your favourite games of the year? Let us know in the comments below. See you all on the other side in the New Year. Merry Christmas and Happy holidays from your friends at D-pad Joy.

Hello Neighbor Review [PC] – It Might Be Best Just To Say Goodbye

December 20, 2017 by Alisa Hail, posted in Reviews

Hello Neighbor, developed by Dynamic Pixels, has a rather intriguing premise. You witness your neighbor seemingly locking someone in his basement and, like any curious youth might, decide it would be a grand idea to sneak in and investigate. But, what begins as a decidedly simple cat and mouse escapade quickly devolves into a major test of patience and endurance.

There are a few things that Hello Neighbor gets right. The look and feel of the game accomplishes a fine amalgamation of the cartoony and sinister. Even though I was able to quickly get past fears of getting caught (more on that later), the basement sections, in particular, felt appropriately eerie. The bizarre nature of the world itself from the odd puzzles to your neighbor’s increasingly labyrinthine homestead adds to the underlying feeling that something is terribly off about this whole thing.

Also, despite the bright colours and Pixar feel, Hello Neighbor tells a decidedly dark story. The strange nightmare sequences that intermittently crop up, the unnerving atmosphere, and the outlandish, sometimes even supernatural, elements make up a poignant story aptly told through inference and artistic representation. That is not to say that every little thing will make complete sense in the end, but Hello Neighbor is an interesting foray into the human psyche. It is all the more unfortunate, then, that this foray comes with such a high level of frustration and lack of polish when it comes to gameplay that many will find the journey too much of a burden to complete.

The game takes place in three acts, with the player beginning as a young kid and ending with you as an adult. The first act is fairly straightforward. You need to find the key to the basement without the neighbor catching you. It is during this period that you can say goodbye to any tension the neighbor snatching you up might have initially caused – the reason is because it will happen so often. Fortunately for you, even when you do get caught, the game does little more than set you back across the street with all the items you were carrying still in your possession. Since the house is so small at this stage, it will only take you a few moments to get back where you were, so gathering the nerve to simply charge right back over the fence won’t be the source of anxiety it arguably should be for a horror title.

Unfortunately, the AI is rather spotty. So, sometimes your neighbor will hound you like a dog, and other times you will wonder what is taking him so long and why he is repeatedly wondering about a room you almost never go in. In the case of the latter, just be glad you got lucky. In case he starts hounding you, get caught a few times in an area away from where you need to be and he will eventually start looking for you there.

In the later acts, particularly act 3, you can go for long spans of time without running into your neighbor due to the colossal size of his increasingly fort-like home. But, you will have new frustrations in the form of puzzles that, for lack of a better term, just make absolutely no sense. Well, that is not entirely true. Some make sense. But, all too often you will find yourself wondering where to go and what to do.

The main issue with many of the puzzles in Hello Neighbor is that the game does a poor job of implementing a consistent logic. There are times when I made something happen and had no idea what I did or how I did it. Often, it is a game of trial and error. Worse still, the game will sometimes require you to grab items from far corners of the expansive labyrinth without making it clear not only what items you need, but where these items are located. It is like playing a guessing game where you aren’t given any parameters concerning what exactly you are attempting to guess. I eventually had to crack open a walkthrough in order to continue with the game for review, and also to save my sanity.

There is no doubt that Hello Neighbor has found an audience, particularly with streamers who have the patience to plough through the game for views. But, ultimately, there are likely few people who can make it through without seeking outside assistance. Hello Neighbor seems to be designed to be played in a community rather than by oneself. This is not necessarily a negative thing. I see no problem with designing a game that is meant to be solved through communal trial and error. However, that does not make it a particularly well-designed game. If you want a puzzle game that you can solve by yourself without the need for a walkthrough or an unnecessary time investment, Hello Neighbor is not the game for you.

The other issue is the game still lacks polish even after going through several Alpha and Beta stages. During my playthrough, the game crashed on me multiple times. Items and your neighbor can get stuck in walls and doorways. I had a platform I was standing on phase through me somehow, requiring me to stand in a certain corner, cross my fingers, and just hope it would work until it finally did.

Last but not least, the game’s physics could use a bit of a touchup. Stacking boxes in order to climb into otherwise unreachable areas becomes a precarious venture as one misstep and the whole thing goes crashing down. They can be used to break windows, but somehow do not weigh enough to stay put without a delicate and practiced hand.

Despite all the negative aspects, I can see why some people enjoy Hello Neighbor. It plays on our more fantastical curiosities about what sort of sinister deeds our otherwise seemingly mundane neighbors might be hiding behind locked doors. Everyone loves a good mystery, and some people are willing to put in the hours and work needed to solve it, even if that means a great deal of frustration along the way. For them, the difficulty the puzzles offer due to the lack of consistent logic only makes the reward of solving them that much greater.

For me, however, the reward was not worth the traipsing about without a clear goal, and often without any direction. Along with the lack of polish, Hello Neighbor might best be greeted with a passing curiosity, but ultimately a mystery that is left unsolved.

Hello Neighbor is currently available on Steam and Xbox One.

Floor Kids Review [Nintendo Switch] – A Hip, Head Bobbing Good Time

December 16, 2017December 20, 2017 by Chris Wheatley, posted in Reviews

The rhythmic genre found in gaming has recently been regarded as that of a sore spot to much of the gaming community. Sure, we have excellent parties to throw revolving around Rock Band and Dance Dance Revolution, but how long has it been since either of those titles or any of the other music-based titles have been even remotely relevant in recent memory? Well, leave it to the Nintendo Switch to bring back the curve of rhythmic button smashing, but instead of hardy rock ‘n’ roll, we now have hip break-dancing in, Floor Kids.

While the overall premise of Floor Kids is straight forward enough – break-dance to the backtrack, pull off slick combos and moves by pressing the appropriate buttons at the right time, earn enough points to win – the game provides an excellent combination of modern edginess and trivial gameplay. Players choose their break-dancer from a selection of characters whose attributes range in four different skill classes. The four classes are also the four styles of break-dancing moves players can pull off in the break-dancing battles.

Popping off combinations of top rock and down rock moves is as easy as keeping the beat of the song with the proper face buttons.

Time to Bust Out Some Moves

Top rock, down rock, power moves and freezes are the four move sets each player has available to them. Top rock has players dancing at a standing position, on two feet, while Down rock takes the agile break-dancer down on all fours. Each of these two positions have four separate dance moves for every one of the eight playable characters, and are accomplished by tapping one of the four face buttons in coordination with the beat of the song. Simply tapping one of the buttons will have players performing top rock, but holding the down motion on the left analog stick while tapping a face button switches to the down rock position. An easy configuration that keeps the dancer from going idle and losing precious points.

The other two positions are Power and Freeze, but these two are performed in slightly different methods. Power refers to the dizzying motion when break-dancers spin for what seems like an eternity on their head, shoulders or hands. By rotating the left stick in either direction, the dancer then begins their own rendition of the power position. By holding down either the L or R shoulder buttons, the dancers will change into an alternate power move to add even more flavour to the performance.

Lastly, the freeze stance is the act of holding a position completely still in the middle of the song. By holding down one of the four face buttons along with the corresponding direction on the left analogue stick, the character will hold out a freeze move. These are crucial to time perfectly, as holding them out too long will result in the dancer toppling over, thus ending a combo and losing points. Combining the freeze moves together is especially fun, watching as your dancer seamlessly shifts from one handstand position to the next.

The four different stances take the dancers between flashy dance moves, even spinning atop one’s head.

Combining and switching between the four different stances successfully strings together combos and accumulates points. Bouncing your fingers to the beat while changing between moves is rewarding and all-too captivating of a ride. Watching as your hand-sketched character throws down their best moves to the DJ Kid Koala tracks, you can’t help but bob your head along to the beat. As cultured and fun the combo busting break-dancing is, however, the solid tapping beat rarely, if at all, changes rhythm from song to song. What does change is the snappy chorus parts that, if done properly, deal a huge portion of points to your overall score.

Tons of Awesome Tracks to Kick It To

Every song in Floor Kids lasts around 3 minutes or so, and each has two unique chorus sections. Taking place about halfway through and one at the end, the chorus sections mix up the strategy by adding distinct beats to the song at hand. By tapping in the correct positions (marked with an ‘X’ on the screen) players will add a bit more swagger to the dancing routine. While the overall beat stays the same – though the songs indeed change – the chorus acts as the game-changer in the songs.

The chorus sections require the player to hit the desired notes at appropriate moments in the song.

The lay of the land, so to speak, in Floor Kids is divided into a flurry of different settings in which these break-dancing battles take place. Each setting has three different songs to get down and earn your place on the cardboard. Players are scored out of a 5 star rating system based on their total score. By unlocking a certain amount of stars in total, the following venue then opens up. From grocery stores and art centers, to arcades and music studios, Floor Kids has a variety of settings, each with their own unique character to unlock.

At the start of the trivial campaign, players choose one of the eight playable characters, which then locks the unchosen seven. After obtaining 3 or more stars on certain levels, characters will unlock pieces of Breakdeck cards. Four pieces of the card deck will unlock a new character, each one varying in specific skills. While the progression system found in Floor Kids is a nice touch to the otherwise simple campaign, the ease of unlocking all of the characters hardly presents a challenge. Good thing the tunes are extra catchy.

In single-player mode, characters are unlocked in the Breakdeck by achieving high enough scores to earn a piece of a character card.

Let the Battles Begin…at the Scratch of the Record

For those looking to indulge in a little friendly competition with friends, a multiplayer Battle mode is available. Each player will choose a character of their liking and set out to dance like they’ve never danced before. In battle mode, each player has two chances to strut flashy moves in retaliation to their adversary, but not without a little dangerous interference from said foe.

While engaging in break-dance combat, looking for crowd requests for extra points to boost your score and keeping every move fresh and “crispy”, the opponents are capable of hurling giant fireballs – known as “Burns” – at the dancer on the floor. The opponent player taps any button to the beat to fill up their burn meter, and once full the player is then ready to launch the burn ball away. However, the dancing player, if paying attention, can trigger a shield to completely block the Burn attack when timed perfectly.

In Battle mode, the dancer on break is able to build up their “Burn” meter and launch disrupting fireballs at their opponent.

With this unique added element, the two player battle mode really shines. The dances are tense and hectic, way more than the simple idea would lead on. Pumping to the beat, switching stances to the crowd’s liking and keeping your guard up from the inevitable “burn ball” headed your way is truly a rewarding phenomenon if accomplished successfully. Not many rhythm games have this much depth of competition in such a simple sequence of events, but Floor Kids absolutely delivers a remarkable 2-player experience.

All in all, Floor Kids is an excellent addition to anyone’s Switch library. A cute little game with modern hip-hop tunes, and a method of dancing that, until now, haven’t seen very much light of day. The rhythmic stylings of Floor Kids revive a genre that seems to have drifted away with the likes of Rocksmith and SingStar. Easy enough for anyone to pick up and play, the beat-bopping tunes and awesome sketched-out visuals from the creative mind of the artist, JonJon, Merj Media has provided a unique form of entertainment to the ever-growing selection of Switch titles.

Tennis in the Face Review [Nintendo Switch] – A Bit Of Light Relief?

December 12, 2017April 27, 2018 by Stephen Carter, posted in Reviews

As someone who enjoys sports, there has always been one that is my Achilles heel; tennis. Not that I don’t enjoy watching it or partaking in the yearly Wimbledon hype, I’ve just never been able to play it. So when it comes to any form of tennis games I’ve always avoided them. That is until now. In what appears to be their continuation of service to the Switch, 10tons bring us their latest instalment to the console; Tennis in the Face.

Albeit a very light-hearted take on the tennis world, Tennis in the Face is an entertaining experience which sees you whacking tennis balls at unsuspecting victims. The clue is in the title really… The story goes that Explodz Inc, the manufacturer of an addictive energy drink, has taken over an unnamed city. It is your job, as ex-tennis superstar Pete Pagassi, to save the city from evil clowns, corrupt business folk and hipsters to name but a few. I knew there was something untrustworthy about those hipsters…

Each set of enemies have different quirks and defences; some cannot be attacked head-on, others take more than one hit to knock down. The task is to find the most efficient way of taking all enemies in each level down in the most efficient way, using as few tennis balls as possible. There are environmental hazards and objects which will both help and hinder you along the way.

Blocks of ice will shatter upon impact, opening up new routes, whilst crates of Explodz will explode when hit, knocking all down within blast range. Altogether there are over 100 levels to complete, each having a crown to collect from it when a certain score is surpassed. Collecting crowns grants you access to the next area of the city before your penultimate showdown with the Explodz factory.

The mechanics within the game are nothing new or ground-breaking but prove to be entertaining nonetheless. Your balls only bounce a finite amount of times (oo-er) meaning you have to find the sweet spot where they hit as many targets as possible before disappearing. This is both a fun and annoying challenge in equal measures.

The only nuance that I found here is that the game is better when using the touchscreen controls, which I don’t like. Given this has been on the mobile platforms this makes sense but if you’re gaming on the Switch it would make sense, to me, to opt for the use of sticks and buttons.

Why I Will Never Trade In A Console

December 11, 2017December 11, 2017 by Jordan Scott, posted in Features

Gaming systems tend to be pricey when initially launched. Sure, after a year or so on the market, you might see price drops, but traditionally they’re a hefty investment. You simply can’t walk into the store and buy just the system; you need extra controllers, games, cables, memory cards, online subscriptions, and more. By the time you’ve walked out of GameStop, your wallet is empty, and your checking account wants to take revenge. So with that said, here are my top 7 reasons why I will never trade in a system, no matter how badly I want the newest machine on day one.

Nostalgia – Look at the recent frenzy over the NES and Super NES classic systems. Consumers went ballistic over these things, causing mass shortages and in certain cases, outrage over a lack of supply. Gamers love the past, and these two gems represent all that was great in the video gaming world from the 80’s and 90’s. If I didn’t have my working NES from 1985, I would have run out and bought the NES Classic in a heartbeat. To this day, I pop in games such as Castlevania, Super Mario 2, and Double Dragon, spending hours reconnecting with the games that defined my childhood. Nostalgia is huge right now, probably because it allows us to block out all the terrible things going on in today’s world, if only for a little while.

Amazing games have great replay value – I am willing to bet there isn’t a single person who reads this who can say they’ve never played through a game more than once. Whether it’s discovering a hidden path not followed before, collecting every trophy and bonus, or noticing things that didn’t stand out in a previous playthrough, great games will always have lasting replay value. Even if I earned a hundred percent on something, I’ll still go back and play it again; knowing the full story and outcome shouldn’t stop players from enjoying a highly entertaining game from the past. I can tell you exactly how Metal Gear Solid ends, but that doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy the hell out of it repeatedly. The roll of the credits doesn’t have to mean you should seal the game in a vault, never to be seen again. We should cherish the industry’s finest achievements and give them the multiple replays they deserve.

You don’t really get much these days for used systems – Let’s face it, the amount of credit/money you get by trading in games and systems can be insulting at best. By the time you want to trade something in, it’s been out for at least a couple years, and they’ve released a 2.0 version, making your unit even less valuable. It’s simply not worth trading in a beloved console for the pittance stores want to give you; infuriatingly enough, they manage to turn around and sell it for a quite the profit.

Last gen systems still receive great games at the end of their life – With the release of a new system, the older model gets less appealing in the minds of gamers. By ignoring your old faithful console in favour of its successor, you potentially risk missing out on truly imaginative titles. Let’s take the much maligned and often despised Wii U, a system that didn’t sell very well, and made zero impact in the world. With the release of the Switch, gamers rejoiced at the return to form for Nintendo and its beloved hardware. The killer IP for the new system was, of course, Zelda: Breath of the Wild; a stunning masterpiece that deserves the game of the year title it just received. Problem is, at least for me, I couldn’t afford a Switch at the time. Between the system, the game, pro controller, micro SD card, case, screen protector, and extra Joy-Cons, I was looking at hundreds of dollars I didn’t have. What I did have, however, was a Wii U. I bought the predecessor to the Switch so that I could play the HD versions of Wind Waker and Twilight Princess; it was worth every penny to see those games in full HD glory. When Breath of the Wild was first announced, it was going to be a Wii U exclusive; the game looks and plays great. Though I now have a Switch, I don’t think I’ll ever purchase another copy of BOTW, because the Wii U version is amazing in its own right.

I spent too much time and effort building up a library of games to simply sell them off – The Xbox 360 had an eleven-year run, selling over eighty-four million units in its lifetime. Over those eleven years, gamers plunked down an unfathomable amount of money on games and peripherals; there is no way you’d get a fraction of what it’s really worth by trading it all in. I can’t speak for our readers, but I know I meticulously curated my systems and games, and after eleven years, I am not going to part with any of it. Don’t forget, the 360 generation pioneered digital downloads, so you don’t even have the option to trade in a bulk of your games as it is.

They’re like tiny works of art on my shelves – Video game consoles are more than just plastic and metal boxes; they’re works of art, having taken months or even years to design and craft. Love them or hate them, each machine is unique, right down to the placement of the power button. I currently have a select few of my systems set up under my TV, each one meticulously cared for and maintained, ready for use at a moment’s notice. I don’t simply see the entertainment value in them, but rather, the immense aesthetic value as well. I may not actively play all of them, but I still get enjoyment in their mere presence. It’s a goal of mine, once I have more space, to hook up and display all of the systems acquired over the span of my life; each unit will have its own designated space and given the respect that it deserves.

Unmitigated regret – I started this piece off by saying I would never trade in a system; this was a slight lie. Back in the late 90’s, I decided I wanted a PlayStation but didn’t have the money for it (see my memorable moments feature for more on this). In a rather unprecedented move, I gathered up my Super Nintendo with all of its games, marched over to Electronics Boutique (predecessor to GameStop), and traded it all in for a shiny new PS1. At the time, I was ecstatic to have my next-gen gaming machine; everything about the system wowed me. Years later, I can finally admit I regret doing that with every fibre of my being. I loved my Super Nintendo; along with the original NES, it defined my childhood. To this day, I will never forgive myself for parting with my beloved SNES, and I can only hope that whoever bought it, gave it the good home the system deserved. I did manage to buy another one years later, but it’s not the same.

Final thoughts

At this very moment, I still have a working NES, SNES, N64, GameCube, Wii, Wii U, Switch, Game Boy Color, 3DS, TurboGrafx-16, PlayStation 1, 2, 3, 4, Vita, Xbox, Xbox 360, and a Dreamcast to keep me busy. Video games are more than just a way to pass the time; they’re a way to explore one’s imagination, to take yourself somewhere that’s not humanly possible. Where else can you explore ancient ruins, navigate a post-apocalyptic world, or travel through space and time trying to save the universe. Just because I beat a game, doesn’t mean it’s now useless. That’s what makes games and gaming so great; you can always go back and re-immerse yourself in a new world, and take on the role of someone or something else for a while. To all our readers, I simply ask that you think about what you’re doing before you go and trade something in. Video games are like old friends; every now and then, you’ll want to get together and catch up for a while.

Seven: The Days Long Gone Review [PC] – Part Fantasy RPG, Part Techno-Dystopian Drama

December 7, 2017December 7, 2017 by Alisa Hail, posted in Reviews

Seven: The Days Long Gone is an enthralling mishmash of genres that feel surprisingly at home together. Part isometric Assassin’s Creed, part fantasy RPG, and part techno-dystopian drama, the game plays to all the best aspects of each without feeling overstretched or fragmented.

Players will take the role of master thief Teriel who has made a living off of pilfering and looting. In the world of Seven: The Days Long Gone, however, this doesn’t seem as bad of a job as one might think. The “ancients” abandoned the earth for the stars long ago, leaving behind the dregs of humanity to make their way as best they can. After pulling off a particularly high-profile job, Teriel finds himself unwillingly recruited by the emperor and shipped off to a prison island called Peh to find and recover a lost spacecraft. Oh, and as a part of this deal you also equally unwillingly find yourself possessed by a daemon, an inter-dimensional being that will serve as Teriel’s guide and instructor at the behest of the emperor.

Teriel demonstrates his skills as a master thief from the get-go, and his catlike reflexes and dexterous parkour-like traversing allow you to tackle the surrounding world more like a jungle gym than your typical RPG. Teriel comes with a plethora of abilities that allow you to make your own way and accomplish missions through various paths. For example, do you need to sneak into a mansion to steal an artefact? Well, if marching through the front door and ripping your enemies apart with your daggers isn’t your style, then try sneaking in through a skylight, or finding a handy ventilation system to serve as a handy skywalk. You can steal a key from the guard, or break in using your handy drill. Just don’t get caught. If you do, though, try setting up a few traps and let them help you dispatch the oncoming onslaught as you watch with glee.

One of the most exciting features of the game is that you won’t need to wait until you’ve invested tens of hours into it before you can take advantage of a myriad of abilities including hacking, sneaking, looting, stealth kills, and trap building / disabling. Instead, you will spend time increasing the effectiveness of these skills, as well as adding new ones such as magic abilities. You will also be able to steal, craft or buy new gear that will help with both defense and protection.

New abilities are obtained through installing skill chips right into your brain, as one might expect in a dystopian technological future. The chips allow for certain upgrades to be slotted in, making Teriel even more of a force to be reckoned with, and don’t think you won’t need all the brawn and ability you can muster.

Seven: The Days Long Gone does a great job of letting you know the dangers of Peh are nothing to be taken lightly. Get caught pickpocketing and you’ll find yourself swarmed by angry guards faster than you can shout “help me!” If you are in a private area and look like an outsider, you better watch your back. Guards and even fellow prisoners can be hyper vigilant, and just because you think no one is watching doesn’t mean they aren’t.

Making your way around Peh is no easy task, even though the island is quite small. Gates that require a visa block numerous areas. The visas cost quite a bit, making sneaking past the gates more affordable, and also a better way to stick it to the system that left you on this island to begin with. The Visas, by the way, must be ingested and fused with your biology. If you try entering a gate without one, you will be lit up like a Christmas tree on fire. So, learning to take full advantage of your stealth abilities will be a boon.

The isometric view is perfect for stealth, making tracking guards and sneak kills simple. Teriel also has a sense ability that will highlight objects of interest, slow time, and also expands your viewpoint beyond what is immediately around you. This ability goes a great deal toward helping you plan the best routes and discover where to go when it does not seem apparent from the map, which feels far less useful than it should.

The Island of Peh is filled with a mix of oddity, beauty, and menace. Grass covered areas filled with old hovels and wooden walkways exist alongside fluorescent streetlights and flickering signs, resembling something out of Blade Runner or Final Fantasy VII.

The voice acting is good, and the myriad of strange and fantastical characters you run into help bring Peh to life. It becomes easy to see what the world has come to in this far-flung era, presented in a small microcosm of rebels and thieves, adventurers and provocateurs. The island, though small in reality, feels like a grouping of very different cultures all in one place, making discovering each new area a thrill.

Since the game’s launch, developer Fool’s Theory has done a swell job of releasing updates to fix numerous bugs that were still within the game at launch. During my time, however, I still ran into a few glitches, as well as a few minor issues with combat.

On occasion, I would move in for a sneak kill and initiating the attack would instead cause Teriel to leave the crouch position and head into a full-fledged assault, alerting any nearby guards to my presence. I dubbed another glitch the “sticky loot bug.” Seemingly at random, when I looted a crate or a deceased NPC, I would “stick” to them after completing the task, preventing me from moving away. Though, this might have been connected to using a controller rather than the keyboard and mouse. The game will naturally detect whichever you are using. At one point, the screen froze during an attempt to open a door using the controller to make the selection. I then was able to use the mouse to select the action, and the game progressed as usual. So, the “sticky loot bug” may be connected to using a controller. As of right now, the only way I was able to fix the sticky glitch was to go to a previous save and hope for the best next time. Perhaps, until it is fixed, forgoing the use of a controller would be your best bet.

The combat controls, though exhilarating and usually well-designed, can be a bit slippery. A few doomed attempts ended when I accidentally rolled off a cliff or fell off a high-rise along with one of my victims. So, though generally easy to use, the controls could still use a bit of tightening. But, overall, this didn’t majorly distract from my enjoyment of the game.

Seven: The Days Long Gone feels like an assortment of genres that should have been a standard long ago. I wondered why more RPGs didn’t entail stealth kills and the freedom to roam the rooftops like an assassin. The story is interesting, the discovery of new areas is compelling, the risk you take just trying to explore the island and accomplish your missions is rewarding, and the combat is oh, so fun.

Seven: The Days Long Gone is developed by Fool’s Theory and available on Steam.

Memorable Gaming Moments From My Past

December 4, 2017December 4, 2017 by Jordan Scott, posted in Features

Have you ever played a game and just sat in absolute awe at something you saw on screen? Has there ever been a video game moment that just stands out in your mind that’s either unforgettable or unbelievable? Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s, I have seen an amazing evolution in the games and hardware available to home gamers, and as tech got better, so did developers’ imaginations. Over the years, I’ve collected several moments forever embedded in my mind, and here are just a few, ranging from scary to breathtaking to awe-inspiring.

The first of my memorable moments is a scary one… a very scary one. I first purchased the original Resident Evil way back in 1996, took it home, closed all the lights, and started what would later become an iconic adventure. At the time, I heeded no warning that the game was going to freak me out. There were definitely creepy moments at the start, but nothing overly heart-stopping. This, however, all changed in a matter of minutes. Standing at the start of a long dim hallway, with windows on one side and some display cases on another, I knew it was about to get real. Within seconds, a couple of zombie dogs jumped through the windows and attacked me. My heart went berserk as I jumped twenty feet in the air (well maybe not twenty, but you get the point). I was so startled; I could barely kill them before they killed me. In no other part of the game, nor in any other sequel or Resident Evil rip-off since, have I ever reacted in such a way. It’s been twenty years since that night, but it was a moment to remember.

Anyone who has played Zelda: Ocarina of Time knows exactly how beautiful the game really was in its day. Every little detail was breathtaking, and if I weren’t singling out specific instances, I’d say that the entire game was a memorable moment. If I had to pick just one though, it would have to be when Link first takes the Master Sword from the Temple of Time. Examining the sword for a moment, Link moves over and places both hands on the handle. After a short tug, the iconic weapon comes loose from its pedestal and our green-clad hero enters into a whirlwind of light and colour. Emerging as an adult, Link’s adventure was just beginning. I can remember how enthralling it was to travel into the future and marvelled at the changes made to a post-apocalyptic Hyrule. As I finished the game and saw the credits roll by, I realized something often not seen in video games; Miyamoto put his heart and soul into this title. The Time Temple scene was just one of many memorable moments that filled Zelda: Ocarina of Time, a game, which in my opinion is a true work of art.

Ladies and Gentlemen boys and girls, children of all ages, it’s super nostalgia time and I must now discuss a memorable moment from that old-school favourite, the original Nintendo Entertainment System. One of the most anticipated sequels of that generation (for me anyway), had to be Super Mario Bros. 3. The Mario Brothers series of games had always been hugely popular, and back in 1990, the hype was at a fever pitch. As soon as that cartridge was loaded into the console and the power button lit up, I was in absolute platforming heaven. I can remember thinking nothing could make the game better than what I first saw, that was until I discovered that special brown leaf power-up. Instantly transforming into Raccoon Mario, I flew around the colourful world, uncovering secrets way up in the air; as Mario’s new tail waggled back and forth, my grin reached from ear to ear. At the time, I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen and to this day is a great gaming moment from my childhood. Let’s also not forget that Mario 3 was at the centre of The Wizard, the greatest Fred Savage film of all time!

When I was younger, I used to love collecting and reading all of the instruction manuals to my NES games. The intricate drawings of the art were fascinating and exceptionally well-drawn. My favourite (and I am sorry to keep mentioning this series), was the booklet to the original Zelda. Contained in these little manuals of wonder were great drawings of all the enemies and items located within the game. An aspect of the books that I found interesting, was how the drawing done by the artist was placed next to a picture of the way it actually looked in the game. This all may seem like I am going off on a tangent, but I promise there’s a point.

One day when I was in my very early teens, my mother decided it was time to go through my desk and throw away all the “clutter” therewithin. Apparently, all of my NES game booklets were in her cross-hairs, meaning they didn’t have long for this world. She took one look and tossed them all into the garbage, enlisting my brother to help in the process. He knew how much I loved those things and didn’t even think twice before he sacrificed them to the garbage! I almost fainted as I came home to discover my desk draws emptied of their treasured contents. Anger and frustration surrounded me; I didn’t want to talk to either of them. My brother tried to justify it by telling me they kept all my old Nintendo Powers as well as my intricately detailed Map to Zelda; thanks for that bro!

I know they were just dumb instruction manuals, but they were my dumb instruction manuals. It doesn’t really bother me anymore (yes, it does!), but I still carry that devastating memory with me. I know this feature is about memorable moments in video gaming, but this is a very personal memorable moment and I’m sure some of you out there can relate.

Street Fighter II was my jam back in the day, and I played it non-stop (or at least until my quarters ran out). One day, as we were getting ready to go to the arcade, a friend told me about a new fighting game called Mortal Kombat. I wasn’t aware of its existence at the time, but I became intrigued by his bloody description. We got to the local galleria to find a rather large mob huddled around the MK machine. As I was small at the time, I was able to sneak up close to get a nice view. The very first match I witnessed was between the now iconic fighters Sub-Zero and Kano. I had no clue as to what either character could do or who they were for that matter, but it all looked amazing. I watched as Sub-Zero froze Kano in midair and gave him an uppercut, sending blood everywhere. I didn’t think the game could get any better until I saw a finishing move. As the words “Finish Him” appeared on the screen, I watched in amazement as the older kid moved his fingers across the buttons, like an intricate dance that took months to learn and memorize. Out of nowhere, Sub-Zero reached across, grabbed the defeated Kano and tore his head clear off with spinal cord still attached. As blood spewed everywhere, I knew I would never play Street Fighter again. No matter what direction the developers take the MK series, viewing that first match remains one of my most memorable video game moments.

As I mentioned earlier, I have always been a devout Nintendo kid. I had every system released from 1985 on, save for Virtual Boy. I wanted nothing to do with Sega, and couldn’t afford the likes of the Atari Jaguar or SNK Corps Neo Geo. Then, one day, everything changed. Back in the mid to late 90’s, there was a big-box electronic store chain called Incredible Universe. Like the Wiz before it, and Best Buy after, Incredible Universe was your premiere big-box superstore. On one fateful visit, I found myself lured in by giant projection TV’s, its gaming music blasting from its speakers like a siren calling me hither. In front of me, on the biggest TV I had ever seen, was Battle Arena Toshinden, one of the first games released for the then new Sony PlayStation. It was bright and beautiful, with amazing fighters, awesome music and sound, and a 3D fighting environment that was like nothing I had witnessed. I instantly bought a PS One and never looked back. Sure, I will always buy Nintendo, even to this day, but seeing Toshinden for the first time felt nothing short of amazing. I have a love/hate relationship with Sony these days, but that particularly memorable moment was truly magical.

There are countless more memorable moments, too many in fact to mention here. If you don’t mind and are amenable to it, l might just save some for a sequel… In the meantime, I would love to hear which memories are just as near and dear to you. Before I go, however, I’d like to say one last thing. Every time you buy a new game, take it home, unwrap it, and start it up for the first time, how does it make you feel? The anticipation of a new game is something very special, and any true gamer out there knows exactly what I mean.

10tons Talks: An Interview With The Twin-Stick Developers

December 1, 2017December 1, 2017 by PJ Moon, posted in Interviews

If you want twin-stick shooters, you go to 10tons. If you want puzzlers? You go to 10tons. The studio develops their games with a variety of platforms in mind so no gamers miss out. Odds are if you own a platform made in the last decade, you can find 10tons’ games available on said platform.

The Nintendo Switch, young as it may be, has recently been blessed with a number of 10tons’ games. Everything from their debut work, Crimsonland, to the recent cyberpunk-themed hits, Neon Chrome and JYDGE, are available for purchase on the Nintendo Switch eShop.

10tons’ next planned release, Tesla vs. Lovecraft, looks to be another strong addition to not only the Nintendo Switch but also Steam, PS4, and Xbox One.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with 10tons in regards to their prolific catalogue, their involvement with the Nintendo Switch eShop, and their plans for the future. Our conversation is as follows:

10tons released plans earlier this year for a number of releases on the Nintendo Switch and has followed through with that plan. I’d like to talk to you about plans you may have for future releases on the Switch, how developing for the Switch has affected 10tons, and what it is that attracted you to development for the Switch in the first place. I’m a big fan of JYDGE so I’d also like to ask you about Jydge and some of your other games.

As a multiplatform developer and publisher, our plan is straightforward. When we start to support a platform like a new console, we support it with everything that makes sense. In the case of Switch, we’ll be bringing our entire console catalogue – as seen here – to the platform pretty much as fast as we can. We’re more than halfway through by now. From then on we aim to treat Switch as an equal platform to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. That means our next brand new game, Tesla vs. Lovecraft, should be available for Switch simultaneously with other console platforms, in early 2018.

As for what motivated us to start supporting Switch, we’ve always dreamed of being on a Nintendo platform, and now that we have gotten comfortable with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and Switch coming up at the perfect time, it was the most natural thing to make the effort now. It’s also no secret that indie games are a tough business these days, and a new console storefront is well known to be one of the best business opportunities there is. As long as a new console is popular and the amount of available games is limited, everyone who gets on board early will reap outsize rewards. Our games have done really nicely on Switch, but more importantly, the reception among gamers has been awesome.

10tons’ first release, Crimsonland, was recently ported to the Nintendo Switch. How long ago did development begin on Crimsonland and how has 10tons’ philosophy behind game development changed since the initial release of Crimsonland?

Crimsonland indeed is the first proper game 10tons, or rather the founders of 10tons, ever made. That was back in 2002-2003 when they were still university students, and as the shareware game gained popularity, they figured to give indie game development a shot as a career and founded 10tons. The next 11 years or so the company made casual games, as the shooter market just seemed very risky. With PS4 and Steam access via Greenlight, it was decided that Crimsonland would be remastered, which took 2-3 months with mostly two developers. 99% of the code is the same as in the classic version, the most notable difference being entirely redone graphics. The Switch port in itself took a bit over a week for one developer. I can’t even begin to think how much the original creators of Crimsonland have learned in the past 15 years, but I’d imagine a lot!

The Switch is still under a year old and 10tons has already released a wealth of titles for the young console. On a scale of 1-10, how exciting has it been to help support such a young Nintendo console?

It’s a 9. We’ve wanted to be on a Nintendo platform for a long while, and we’re super happy to have that come true. The platform has also exceeded all our expectations regarding developing and publishing, as all that stuff is just very good on Switch. The only slight kink in an otherwise perfect experience is that we’d have liked to get a dev kit sooner and to start our release barrage sooner. Well, if we’d have been able to start six months earlier, we probably wouldn’t have released our catalogue in such a hurry. We just saw that by the time we got there with Sparkle 2, there already were 149 games in eShop, and 19 games launched that week. I think it’s been about 10-20 per week ever since. So while it’s still kind of early, competition has definitely arrived. It’s still good though, our success with Switch will register for everyone’s Christmas bonuses.

What about developing games for the Switch appeals to 10tons?

The Switch is a really good fit for our games, as we’ve always, and especially nowadays, made games that work on desktop, TV, and handheld/touchscreen. Then again, we never think of any single platform. Multiplatforms are so deep in our DNA that we’re really platform agnostic. We just make games, and we make them in a way that we won’t exclude any screen sizes, input methods, or use scenarios. At least to the best of our abilities, obviously, something like King Oddball works ideally in handheld/mobile scenarios and can get kind of monotonous in a three-hour console gaming session on the big screen. Although we know for a fact that a whole lot of people have enjoyed that specific title precisely that way. Anyway, we don’t really target any specific device or platform, because we’re multiplatform developers.

I’ve read about plans to release Tesla vs. Lovecraft on the Switch. How would you describe this games to someone who hasn’t heard or read anything about it?

Tesla vs. Lovecraft is a top-down twin-stick arena shooter featuring the two cult personalities, genius inventor Nikola Tesla and horror author H.P. Lovecraft. Science and metal clash with madness and tentacles in a big way! Twin-stick shooters are obviously one of our things, and with Tesla vs. Lovecraft, we’re exploring yet another direction within the genre.

It’s closer to Crimsonland than Neon Chrome or JYDGE, as we feel we’ve exhausted the cyberpunk vibe with those two titles for a while. Overall we feel like twin-stick shooters are somewhat more niche than we perhaps realized, and with Tesla vs. Lovecraft, we’re seeing if we could widen the audience a bit with the theme we chose and somewhat less obscure mechanics. We’ve also upgraded the graphical fidelity from Neon Chrome and JYDGE quite a bit, and it’s looking great! We’re really excited to have it soon in the hands of gamers.

Why is Nikola Tesla at odds with H.P. Lovecraft in Tesla vs. Lovecraft? How did this idea come about? Will Tesla vs. Lovecraft feature a spooky narrative full of inter-dimensional gods? Are there any game modes where players can play on the H.P. Lovecraft side?

The game was actually originally prototyped as a mage themed shooter, but it quickly evolved into a game with scientists against monsters. Then we just realized after a little while that Tesla vs. Lovecraft is just the perfect distillation of that and a really cool name for the game too! We also learned quickly that Tesla and Lovecraft have already been combined in popular culture quite a bit, which is even better. There’s not many adversarial setups between them though, so everything lined up just perfectly.

As to what the lore of the game is about, it all starts with Tesla’s endeavour to provide free wireless energy to everyone, and Lovecraft is convinced the technology is actually based on really dangerous, otherworldly powers that Tesla doesn’t fully understand. And what happens next, you’ll just have to wait and see for yourselves…

When can gamers expect Tesla vs. Lovecraft to be available for purchase?

We’re currently aiming for an early 2018 release, possibly even January. The game’s practically finished, there’s just the usual final cleanup and console certification processes to go through. With the holidays messing things up, we don’t dare say January 2018 for sure.

Do 10tons have any plans for future Switch releases besides Tesla vs. Lovecraft? Ports?

We plan on finishing our project of bringing our existing console game catalogue to Switch, and then to release every new game for Switch as simultaneously with other platforms as we can. We’ve learned by now that that’s probably the best way to go with multiplatform console releases, as few people actually like their console to be the second one or the last one to get a multiplatform game.

Do any of your planned titles focus on competitive, PvP gameplay?

Online and PvP seem to be all the rage these days, and we’ve discussed it internally a lot. We use the same in-house engine for all our games, and we don’t have online multiplayer tech yet. We could create it for sure, it’d just cost a big chunk of money. We’ll see, it’s certainly possible. Although we can see a whole lot of games, especially twin-stick shooters, with online multiplayer or co-op, and it looks like it’s not at all a feature that guarantees any level of commercial success.

Will any of your future Switch titles include Switch-exclusive features?

Frankly, we try to avoid console specific features as much as we can. Firstly, platform holders by and large demand feature and content parity. So if we made one platform something exclusive, we’d have to make something else exclusive to other platforms. That’d be a whole lot of exclusive stuff! Secondly, we indeed try to treat all our fans as equally as we can, regardless of platform. Sometimes it’s just not possible, but at least we can try to make our games as identical on every platform as we can. We know it’s not a stance a lot of superfans of a specific console will agree with easily, but from our perspective, it’s a very clear case. All gamers are our preferred customers, not just gamers on platform X, Y, or Z.

Recent Switch releases, JYDGE and Neon Chrome are both set in the same universe, right? Are there any plans to expand upon this universe either through sequels, new titles, or other media?

With Neon Chrome we indeed got to fulfil a longtime dream of making a cyberpunk game, and it was great. While a lot of people really loved Neon Chrome in every way, we quickly learned of a subset of players that didn’t enjoy the roguelite aspects much but did like the core gameplay, the theme, the style, the world.

We still love cyberpunk, so the idea of an anti-roguelite Neon Chrome was pretty much there. And it became JYDGE just like that. We’re extremely happy it went exactly as planned, as all the people who had misgivings about Neon Chrome just loved JYDGE! What we didn’t expect, and which really made JYDGE the commercial hit it is, is that even the fans of Neon Chrome’s roguelite aspects loved JYDGE. That said, now that we’ve made Neon Chrome and JYDGE as the official prequel/spinoff, we don’t immediately see ourselves making a third title in the same universe. We still love cyberpunk though, so who knows.

I like how you brought a Robocop/Judge Dredd-esque figure into a classic cyberpunk setting in JYDGE. Is the title “Neon Chrome” itself an homage to writer William Gibson’s Burning Chrome? What else inspired the world and characters of JYDGE and Neon Chrome?

Oh yeah, Neon Chrome comes very much from all the cyberpunk we know and love. Shadowrun, Gibson’s Neuromancer/Count Zero/Mona Lisa Overdrive trifecta, Bladerunner, Deus Ex, you name it. And then JYDGE is obviously a homage to all the future-cop stuff there is, probably more Robocop than Judge Dredd. Early in the project we discussed how on the nose we can or we should be about it, and how tongue-in-cheek.

We settled with very on the nose and tongue very much in cheek, all the way to the silly title and silly spelling everywhere in the game. It worked out fantastic, the recognizability and unusuality catch people really well and by far the most that end up buying the game are really happy with it.

Physical media is great unless you’re concerned about space. Do 10tons have any plans to release physical copies of games on the Switch in the future?

We don’t have any physical copy plans at this time. We haven’t studied it in detail, but as far as we know there’s a quite significant cost associated with it, and these days most indie games don’t sell tens of thousands of units anyway. The superhits may sell millions or hundreds of thousands, but that’s really the top 1%. By far the most, like us, sell some thousands or low tens of thousands of units of a digital game in a few years, including pretty deep discounts, so it’s really iffy if we’d be able to sell a few thousand units of a premium priced physical copy, or whatever the minimum print would be.

Personally I also really love digital, it just skips all the clutter and fuss of it. I appreciate some people’s desire for collecting physical libraries, however.

– END –

There you have it, folks! Check back for more 10tons news as it comes. In the meantime, brush up on Miskatonic lore in preparation for Tesla vs. Lovecraft.

When Is A Game Complete?

November 30, 2017November 30, 2017 by Stephen Carter, posted in Viewpoints

Determining when a game is complete is the subject of a great debate that will never have a conclusion. The reason being, of course, is that this is a subjective measure and everyone is different and wants different things from their games. Never has this been more pertinent to my gaming experience than now, having completed Super Mario Odyssey.

My Switch has seen a lot of action recently and rightly so as Odyssey is a phenomenal game, rightly earning GOTY contender accolades. Between that and Zelda, there’s no reason not to own a Switch right now. Yet both of these games hold two mechanics which I, personally, don’t feel the need to come back to; collectables. In Odyssey, Moons power your ship which you need to power your craft to rescue Princess Peach.

zelda-breath-of-the-wild-korok-seed.jpg.optimal — 900…

In total, there are 999 Moons to collect with you needing around 150-200 to reach the endgame. Beyond that, they don’t have a functional usage when it comes to completing the main storyline. Likewise, with Zelda, the Korok seeds are scattered across the world waiting for you to discover them. The total number of these? 900. For some, this instantly presents a challenge to find them all and truly beat the game. For me, this is just too many on both accounts. I don’t have the time, or often the patience, to find all of these and my sense of satisfaction comes from just playing the game.

Call it contentious, but my definition of complete is once I’ve seen the credits roll. This isn’t to knock the quality of these games either because they’re amazing and this, as someone who isn’t a huge Nintendo fan, is high praise indeed. Having seen the credits on Odyssey my experience with the game is now, to me, complete. I will dip back in overtime to relive some of the classic moments it holds but I won’t pour hours into it to find the remaining 600+ Power Moons.

75._An_invisible_Gleam_4.0.jpg — So good, but so many.

I wouldn’t want this to harm my experience with the game either. I’ve enjoyed my time in Odyssey and spending more time, trudging through it to collect Moons, would be boring and that’s not how I want to remember it. If I were to do that, if someone asked me how I found the game, my first thought would be about the Moons. This would do it a massive disservice given how many memorable moments it holds. I know this is a subjective topic and the completionists out there will love nothing more than finding every last secret Odyssey has to find.

But, when all is said and done, Odyssey doesn’t make you find all/most of the Moons to reach the endgame which doesn’t spoil it for those who don’t want to do so. Maybe it’s just me getting older (at the ripe old age of 26) wanting more from games beyond a metric to tell me when I’ve completed something. Completion is only something I can determine when I get there and I’m happy with that.

I’m comfortable in the knowledge that I won’t see everything in the games I play, which is probably why I rent most of them these days. But having paid full price for Mario, all Moons gathered or not, I’m happy I played it and feel that my money was well spent on the story alone.

5 Awful Tendencies From Retro Gaming That Will Not be Missed

November 27, 2017November 27, 2017 by , posted in Viewpoints

The 8 bit and 16-bit era of gaming is often referred to as the “gaming wild west” for its amazing ability to create a constant stream of new and weird games. We had not yet figured out how many of the things we take for granted now, first appeared in those eras. Controls, menus, gameplay mechanics even whole genres were totally up in the air with how much variety could be in any one game.

And yet for all the creativity and magic we all remember so fondly now, there are a few things that retro games did that honestly, I think we are best to leave behind. Here are 5 awful tendencies from retro gaming that WON’T be missed.

1) Lives

Lives are an old mechanic dragged over to us from the old arcade days of gaming; it was created in order to get the player to keep putting in money, every time you ran out of lives, that’d be another quarter, please!

And yet we bought it with us? When we transitioned from arcade gaming to home consoles we decided as a collective that we should let lives tag along too. Only now rather than dropping another dollar on the machine to keep going, some games would make us restart a level, losing any collectables we had found or worse yet just ending the game, getting the player to start right from the start – unless you happened to remember the games’ 16 letter-long password which you then had to slowly punch in using a controller (we’ll get to that!). It was a bad time all around.

Of course, I am not so naïve to not understand WHY we had lives in retro games. It was pretty simple really, game designers wanted to make very short games that seemed longer. You couldn’t exactly store a ton of data on a NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) cartridge and even back in the 80s games could cost upwards of $60 – game designers wanted you to feel like you got your money’s worth, so they made a punishing life system, that might force newer players to keep playing the same levels over and over. This made the game seem way longer than it really was.

What’s truly mind-blowing is that even some games, launched in 2017, use this ‘lives system’, to limit our ability to progress through the game. Now in some cases like with roguelikes, this makes sense, as it’s an integral part of the game, and without these lives, the genre itself would lose some (if not a lot) of its value. My advice would be if you’re making a platformer or a worse offender of this, an action game, avoid putting in a live system; we’ve outgrown it, we want to see all your game has to offer, not replay the first three levels until something better is released.

2) Game Over!

Losing in a game is inevitable (just like life at times), in fact most of the games I truly love come with a very steep learning curve, the game I normally point to when talking about this is “Demon’s Souls” – a game where you die quite often but the death never feels ill earnt, and the time between death and starting over isn’t too long, so you never have time to dwell on your errors.

So when I say “Game overs were bad” I need to be clear with what I mean. Game overs with a painfully long outro or loading screen following them up, forcing you to sit there for 5 minutes listening to what evil villain you were chasing down laugh at you as the disk struggles to find where you last saved; that’s bad.

Now I will admit this one was more often than not a technical limitation of retro games rather than any sort of design choice. But did they really have to have the game mock me while it forced me to wait? Did you need to laugh at me Castlevania? It just made the action of waiting even more tedious.

Shockingly though this isn’t something that’s completely gone out of fashion, famously Too Human had a amazingly long cutscene every time you died: it was of a Valkyrie coming slowly (very slowly) down to earth, picking your character up and very slowly going back up to the skies. Every. Time. You. Died. The punishment for a player’s death should be to go back to the last checkpoint or the start of a level, you don’t need to add to that by making them wait, waiting doesn’t feel like a good punishment for us dying, waiting feels like a punishment for us buying your game.

3) Passwords

Passwords as a save option were always a fascination of mine, what caused them to not only pop up but become the popular option in games was something I spent a long amount of time reading up on. Let me quickly explain why there were passwords systems, not just continues.

Continues required a programmer to store a lot of the player’s information onto the cartridge the player was using, taking up valuable gameplay space in order to let them continue from where they last stopped. (This was before Zelda came along with its memory chip inside of the cartridge).

However a password eliminates all the issues that saving brings, a password let the programmer skip all of that nonsense, they could just tell the game “If the player puts in this password, teleport them here and give them these items”. Much less space was taken up and as an added bonus it was far easier to program. Not to mention those memory cards in each cartridge sold must have increased production costs a fair amount.

But for some reason, game designers got more and more paranoid that somehow gamers might “guess” their passwords and skip some of their game. To combat this they went to great lengths to make guessing these passwords impossible, the downside of this, of course, is that it also made them impossible to remember and a big pain in the neck to input.

The question quickly comes up of “Why not just use 5 symbols?” I can remember “Monkey, Rabbit, Rabbit, Cat, Monkey.” It’s very unlikely even with a small pool of characters you have to input (A 5 letter password for example) that a player would just get lucky and guess it. If you must give your players a long password, developers really should have made the effort to make it something you could remember, for example, two words stuck together such as “NewHill”. It doesn’t even have to be related to the stage you are skipping to, just making it actual words makes it far easier for a player to remember and to read from a notepad when inputting the password.

I for one am glad that we mastered the art of saving.

4) Leap Of Faith

This was a weirdly common gameplay choice, wasn’t it? You run to the right, jumping, shooting, battling, and timing everything perfectly, then, you hit a cliff edge. You can’t move the screen any further forwards and all you can see in front of you is…nothingness, just the backdrop of the level. What do I do now? You think to yourself, and then it slowly dawns on you. It’s a leap of faith. The developer wants you to trust them, jump right off that cliff and land on the platform below, that you can’t see, nor have any idea if it’s really there. Worst yet, some developers decide this is the perfect place to put a hole in the ground or a tough enemy to deal damage to you. Hiding information from your players just isn’t good game design.

5) Time Limits

Nothing gets the heart pumping like a sense of urgency, builds excitement as the end draws near, a mountain of fire behind you maybe? A pool of lava. Something chasing you.

On the other hand, nothing is more frustrating than an arbitrary time limit that just straight up kills you once it hits 0. No reason, no way to avoid it, you’re just dead. Move faster next time kiddo. Time limits are just an “anti-fun” way to make a game. Rushing to the end of a level, constantly worrying about if you have enough time to beat the stage stops a player actually enjoying what they are doing. Anything challenging quickly stops being engaging and starts becoming a controller breaking frenzy.

A single level with a time limit, designed around that time limit is fine. In fact, it’s a good way to mix up how a player tackles your levels and keeps them guessing about what future levels might pull out. But far too many old classics had a time limit on every level, forcing the player to keep moving forward, rather than explore or try new things.

If your time limit doesn’t add anything to the experience and instead just takes away from player freedom, it probably shouldn’t be in your game.

So that’s my list folks, do you agree? Disagree? I’d love to hear what you won’t be missing from the past…

Doom Review [Nintendo Switch] – An Imperfect, Visual Showpiece

November 24, 2017November 24, 2017 by Nitchigamer, posted in Reviews

The simplest, and yet most fundamental question one can ask about Doom on the Nintendo Switch is this: is it a complete version of the 2016 title running on a portable console? So here you go: yes, principally, it is.

Doom On Switch – Hey Good Looking

While Doom on the Switch doesn’t look as good or indeed run as well as its console brothers – as would be expected looking at the size of the thing – there’s no doubt that seeing it run at all on the Switch’s screen is a bit of a technical marvel. This is a 30fps affair, down from the original 60fps, and with less visual flair and a missing SnapMap editor. But at the same time, it still happens to be a visual showpiece.

Through the very nature of being on a portable, Doom’s visual sacrifices aren’t as noticeable as you would first think. In fact, I found the extent of these compromises only truly apparent when docking the Switch. Admittedly, even then, it still looks good. Considering that many Switch users spend a lot of their time in handheld mode (myself included), it appears that the primary focus of Doom was making it run in portable mode to a respectable level – something the developers Panic Button achieved. Doom reaffirms what we’re all quickly learning then: the Switch may not be that powerful as a home console, but as a portable, it’s a beast.

Doom Nintendo Switch — Nothing can beat the double-barreled super shotgun.

Just One-More-Go

What you get in the overall package is the full, completely awesome Doom campaign with its memorable, and haunting, heavy metal soundtrack, the Arcade Mode that has you competing for top scores on these levels and the multiplayer experience. That’s quite a bit of content right there. I even found myself getting into the often overlooked and sometimes derided multiplayer. It’s an odd hybrid itself, yes, mixing custom loadouts with an old school arena shooter, but its satisfying one-more-go style progression system, along with its relative scarcity, works beautifully in short bursts on the portable.

With all that being said, Doom on Switch can occasionally come across as a bit rough around the edges. I’ve encountered a loud and intrusive audio bug across the main campaign a few times that doesn’t sound all that healthy – even startling me at one point with headphones in. This audio bug can then lower the overall sound levels requiring you to turn up the volume. The loading, at times, could be faster in certain segments of the game and I’ve experienced some minor slow down during particularly heated fights too. Hopefully the developer Panic Button can patch these issues up shortly.

That leaves the high price tag as the last barrier along with how important portability is for you. Although we know, (cough), the South African Nintendo eShop can help you out a little here. You didn’t hear it from us.

Back in Time

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