The Nintendo Switch

Those Wii U numbers are sad, especially for the ~13 million that DID buy the system that it's considered a bomb financially

It's good that Nintendo finally got their act together for their production line and you can actually buy Switches this holiday season. SNES Classic still a pain, but them's the breaks

for all the shit that Xenoblade rightfully got for Pyra’s design, there are some really good female characters in this game, Morag in particular.
Steamworld Heist is coming out on Dec 28th, don’t sleep on this if you want a tactics game

my Switch was delivered today but we're gonna hold out for Santa Day because I dunno it's still a surprise for the kids & this way I can work through my iOS backlog a little more before starting Zelda.

gonna buy Overcooked right away, in fact seeing that it was on Switch was what tipped me from "wait another year" to "buy now" because I love cooking games and I love coop games and this is both!

this thing's 2nd and 3rd fiscal years are going to be even better, whenever they get a "truly portable" model at the one-for-every-kid price point.

if they can either get the technology down to build a smaller switch (without too much joycon compromise), or keep the current size but double the battery life, this thing will just keep growing and growing.

the switch is the first full console i’ve bought since the free ps3 i got with a tv purchase in 2010 (i also bought a 3ds in 2011 iirc). the combination of price, versatility (i can play while ‘er indoors is watching tv) and killer games is the reason i even considered getting a switch, and i reckon it’ll get a load of jaded 30-50yo ex-gamers back into consoles as well. i love the absolute pants off this thing.

you can play 'er outdoors too

ewwww

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-12-13-xenoblade-chronicles-2s-december-update-will-aim-to-fix-its-awful-map

Nintendo's December 22nd update will offer two initial upgrades; firstly, Xenoblade 2's mini-map overlay will gain a new 1:1 zoomed option that can be triggered by clicking the L stick. "This will allow improved visibility of your surroundings and make it easier to check quest locations," says Nintendo.

Additionally, pressing the X button after the update will cause the Skip Travel screen to open the map directly on your current location, meaning you'll no longer be required to rifle through countless sub-screens to find the fast travel locations and Salvage Points you need.

Monolith Soft says that it intends to "further improve the convenience of the mini map as we add more quests and additional elements for second playthroughs next year". This "second playthrough" feature is essentially a New Game Plus mode, and will be added as a free update for everyone, not just expansion pass owners.

Nintendo's description of second playthrough functionality is purposefully cryptic to avoid spoilers, but you might find the following handy: "In your second playthrough, you will be able to have 'those' Blades join your party! You can also dispatch Blades like Pyra and Dromarch as a Merc Group, and unlock the 'LV 4 Special' of a certain Blade."

And this!!!!!!!
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-12-13-inxile-teases-wasteland-2-on-nintendo-switch

I just bought that on PC from GameStop for $0.98

Gave the kids their (our) switch last night. I had pre-loaded Overcooked and Steamworld (which were 20% off) and Stardew Valley (which they both seem into, I'm worried they are going to fight over who gets to play), then bought them Just Dance 2018. They don't know I have Mario, Zelda, and Mario Kart ready to gift ...

Nice! That’s an ace present.

i approve of this dad job

https://kotaku.com/the-puzzle-of-a-lifetime-1821235999

i'm playing that now on ipad. it's okay so far? not quite as engaging as they would suggest and fairly easy so far.

it's definitely gorgeous

yeah i dunno i just started it + it looks cool + the review promised oohs and aahs... maybe i have been deceived by gaming journalism yet again. def my kinda game though, i love virtually anything that harkens back to puzzley mid 2000's flash games

I was planning to try it tonight idk if I was expecting oohs and aahs though, just a nice looking puzzle game

it gets more complicated fast!

Interesting, hadn't heard about that game at all. I'll give it a shot someday

i just played through it, it's very clever & well made but yeah only about an hour or 2 long. i didn't really get stuck but it wasn't too easy either, the solutions just kind of flowed naturally over time from interacting with the game. very satisfying experience.

OK, post-gifting:

Mario Kart is a really nice update over our old Wii version, but it is of course a known quantity
I haven't played Zelda yet, but my daughter seems to like it
Overcooked is a blast but super high stress
Haven't played Mario yet, thinking of saving that one for the future
Just Dance ... kids wanted it and played it once, but I hope they actually return to it

Have Snipperclips on its way (wanted games we could play as a family), but the one I keep coming back to in the short term is Steamworld! Lots of fun, clever, well-designed.

Nice. I just completed Mario Odyssey (well, only like 200 or so moons, but completed the main story), so looking to move onto Steamworld Dig 2 over the next week until (spoiler alert) I get Skyrim as a Christmas present. At 35 I feel a bit too old to be getting video games as presents from my mum, but it saves me spending £50 of my own money on it.

I'm intrigued by Never Stop Sneakin', and was tempted by Gorogoa but I'm worried it's all hype. Also, is Tiny Metal out this week? Super hyped for that, but not heard/seen much press.

Gorogoa is not a long puzzle game, but is one of the absolute best I have ever played.

(On iPhone, so it may be a little wasted on a 44KK TV)

gorogoa is worth five bucks, no problem. it is gorgeous, it is fun. It will take you less than two hours to beat. as with many such "art games," i wish the subtext was less maudlin OH HOW I HAVE LIVED MY LIFE but the puzzles are occasionally challenging without requiring google help and the visual style is spectacular.

That’s some seriously bullshit SwitchTax. £11.99 on Switch, £4.99 on iOS.

Get it on iOS for sure, control scheme is totally natural there... close ups for iPhone I hear

I found that Kotaku puff piece unbearably indulgent after the second or third posed photograph of the developer so I refuse to play this game on any platform (I got far enough to note that Annapurna brought him a marketing & pr budget, seems like that’s definitely paying off)

Also can you, like, pick a username dude

lol

said this before but for your benefit tombo: i left forks on my mobile so that i could keep track of the 8 zillion bookmarks i had there which is the main reason i switched to this one

wait so do you like the bookmarks or not

then just make your alt “forks not a phone”

okay i thought i was going insane, good

well i like the bookmarks occasionally but i had developed this ocd tic where i had to clear all my bookmarks before i fell asleep and it was either get a new username or erase all the bookmarks... and i think i seriously had like 2500 bookmarks? and that felt worth hanging on to in some way. Besides which I got the itch to maybe post and follow ilx a lot less. but that became "a little less" and here we are now.

you're bad and you should feel bad

nuke those bookmarks man

it's okay guys, i feel okay about all this
i'm here if you wanna talk about it

kill the sock, free your soul

I initially read that as Tombot asking if you could choose a username in the game, like yeah yeah beautiful art and great puzzles and all that, but c’mon, can you name your character?

Got splatoon 2 yesterday, lots of fun, but I find it frustrating when teammates ghost or can't hold their own, it just feels hopeless.

That's just every online team game for you

Yeah, I guess so. Haven't really played any before.

Splatoon is better than most since it has very short games and it is possible to win practically on your own if you're really locked in. The worst experiences are still way better than getting stuck in a 30 minute MOBA game with a teammate who's not trying to win

oh I guess you have to play turf war for your first several hours though where the 'win on your own' bit doesn't apply as much. the ranked modes are a better experience imo, I haven't touched turf war since I got to level 10 except for splatfests

apart from some wacky interference which seems to fuck up everything bluetooth (and i have nfi where it's coming from

it was coming from my leg

Games I am tempted to check out:

Yōdanji
Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King
DragonFangZ - The Rose & Dungeon of Time

I need clarification from AA re: leg interference

yeah wtf does he have a cyborg leg or what

I was thinking x-powers