Switch Games 'n' Stuff

A fair argument, but I’m not sure else I’d like to see. I would like to see more courses for golf, as that is the one sport that depends on variety in its challenge. Something like pool would be nice, but all these other sports are quite brisk. I don’t know how you could work that into something like pool.

51 Worldwide Games has a few sport games; bowling, darts, pool, golf. Had some great battles with my eldest.

It does.

I prefer Dread, no doubt about that. It’s the more polished game of the two, but this is a much bigger game and the character growth (in terms of abilities and upgrades) is much more exaggerated. They’re both games I’ll likely hold onto until I die or become desperate for cash.

I was tempted at full price. I ducked in and out of that game around the time of the first update, so I’ve been keen to have another go. Let us know how you get on with it.

I’m pretty deep into Starfield right now, but would like to return to No Man’s Sky eventually and being portable definitely makes it more appealing.

It’s too much work for me to link, but Digital Foundry’s latest Switch video is a good watch if you’re a nerd for graphics. A fitting tribute for the system and we’re starting to get into that window where everyone will be listing their top-game lists and such.

So would that coincide with a price cut to the Switch for Christmas?

I wonder how much of a cross over between the consoles we are going to see. If the OG Switch is still selling well, are we going to see a lot of developers making sure their games can run on both systems or are Nintendo going to want to limit the crossover and encourage people to upgrade?

Some devs have done miracles with the Switch in getting their games running there, but it also clearly has massive limitations. I guess we are all expecting a Switch 2 to mostly just be a resolution bump and a slight improvement on the visuals, alongside some upscaling features, so developing for both won't be that much of an issue. Hopefully the old Switch won't hold back developers tapping into the potential of a new system though.

A fair few of us got a ton of points for renewing our subscriptions. About £14 worth, which went towards a couple of games that were on offer. It’s not too bad. You tend to save about a pound or two on most purchases, if you’re not looking tat the very cheapest of games or offers.

You unlock fast travel once you've finished the first four shrines as part of the intro area, and can then fast travel to any unlocked (not necessarily completed) shrine, among many other places that you haven't encountered yet, via the map. IIRC BotW was just about the same, including the use of cancel you mentioned.

Guidance is kept to a minimum by design (again, much like BotW) to encourage you to go whenever, but there's a sort of natural progression counterclockwise around the big starting island, signposted by things like, for example, the midair rails that you build something to traverse generally leading that way.

Building can be a bit hit or miss, personally I got used to it very quickly (and the amount of things it lets you do with a bit of creativity is downright ridiculous) but I could see it take some doing for others. It's used often, but in places where it's mandatory the materials you need are never far and you can complete a surprising amount of things without using it at all.

Overall, if you didn't like the freeform nature of BotW (or never played it at all and aren't liking what you're seeing now) I'm sorry to say that I don't think you'll enjoy yourself all that much. You still have a lot of things to unlock, but the general vibe is "BotW but much more of it", so...

Played BotW to the end twice with the kids and they enjoyed it a lot. This one - the intro island at least - is leaving us all cold. More linear than BotW was for the most part with lots of unguided fudging around to find the “right” route.

In BotW the kids could just fool around exploring if they hit a bump. In this, you’re locked into a small crèche and not let out until you’ve eaten all your veg.

Maybe it gets more fun but right now is BotW written by a pedantic misanthrope.

Edit: One example of the “Stop having fun” design was facing a choice, after third shrine, of walking back across the entire island to get to the Temple or chancing upon some wings that would fly you there in a fiftieth of the time. Given how much trudging relentlessly across the island we’d already been forced to do, it was YouTube that lit the way to the less stupid path.

jeepers if you and the kids liked BotW I'd recommend pushing through, you'll be in familiar territory pretty much the moment you get off the starting island.

I will point out that it's probably in your best interests to follow the "intended" path for a little while, at least until you

And going along with it for a little longer (heading towards will rather organically introduce you to

(I tried to keep the spoilers vague and double-tagged the ones that have a bit more detail)

It's like an overly long tutorial that somehow tries to hide half the stuff it's trying to teach you. It's weird. And boring.

Seconded. It's even worse on subsequent playthroughs. The rest of the game is awesome (I even liked the last bit!)