The stream was a bust, but that didn’t stop me from playing ARMS while quickly running down the news from the latest Nintendo Direct! Also, Smash Bros.!
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Oxenfree Review
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A group of teenagers get together for a night of debauchery in a secluded area before twisted and horrific things begin to happen. Even in the world of video games, this premise has been done before by Until Dawn on the PlayStation 4.
Oxenfree by Night School Studio puts its own twist on the teen thriller by shifting the perspective. In this game, you watch the action from a 2D side-scrolling view. While it does give the game a unique look, it’s not the only trick the game has up its sleeve.
SteamWorld Heist Review
Before the release of SteamWorld Dig 2, Image & Form expanded on the SteamWorld franchise with a 2D turn-based strategy game. SteamWorld Heist is that game. Set in space, you control a team of robot space pirates as they venture through the galaxy, oftentimes finding themselves caught in gunfights within enemy ships. Is this a secret gem in the SteamWorld series?
Celeste Review
There is a magic to Celeste that you won’t see at first glance. Having seen it in Nintendo’s Direct Mini, I brushed it off as just another Super Meat Boy clone. Hasn’t the world been subject to enough challenging 2D platformers with retro graphics? After playing this game, the answer is a resounding, “No.”
ARMS 5.1 Finally Includes A Mode With All Arms Unlocked
Finally!
One of the biggest knocks against ARMS was the inability to play a local versus match with all arms unlocked. This greatly hampered the tournament scene, as tournament organizers simply didn’t have the time to unlock every arm for every copy of the game. As such, tournaments up until now have been forced to use default arms for each character, undermining the core game design and severely limiting the meta.
Now with the 5.1 patch, players will have access to a Tournament mode that unlocks all arms. You will be locked out of other modes and records will not be kept, but that’s fine for the purposes of running a local tournament.
This is great news for a fighter that continues to get better. Plus, with the game having sold about 250,000 copies in Q4 2017, the game now has an install base of 1.6 million, making it a great success for a new fighting game IP. Now if they could only fix the lag in LAN play…
Nintendo is Thinking Outside of the Box With Nintendo Labo
…what?
In a world where companies are racing towards 4K resolutions and virtual reality, Nintendo’s next technological innovation is…cardboard.
Nintendo Labo is a line of kid-focused games that incorporate the use of cardboard in a variety of different ways. In the example video shown, cardboard is used to make a piano, where the tablet sits in the middle. There’s a bug with Joy Con controllers on the sides that moves through HD rumble and inputs from the tablet. The most insane example is a full-on cardboard mech suit with a headset to mount the screen directly in front of your face.
…WHAT?!?!?
Riptide GP: Renegade on the Nintendo Switch Review
After the hey day of Wave Race 64 and Jet Moto in the mid 90s, jet ski racing games fell off the face of the earth. It’s a shame that they did, as the inclusion of water physics makes for a racing experience unlike anything else on the marketplace. Originally released last year on other consoles, Riptide GP: Renegade aims to take advantage of this deficiency by being more or less the only game in town. While I’ve only played a few hours of the single player, I did want to note down some early thoughts on this one.
Floor Kids Impressions
Floor Kids is a rhythm game about the art of breakdancing. Available on the Nintendo eShop, players will break it down to original music by DJ Kid Koala. Hip-hop video games are few and far between, but is this one worth trying based on its concept alone?
Nintendo Dominated My 2017
Coming off their biggest home console flop of all-time, most of us did not foresee a world in which Nintendo struck back with a vengeance. Little did we know that the new little console that The Big N unveiled towards the end of 2016 would become a juggernaut. And little did I know that the device would dominate my time and money in 2017.
Biggest Game Surprise of 2017
2017 has certainly been an eventful one for the video game industry. From Nintendo’s resurrection off the strength of the Nintendo Switch, to the franchise-crushing disappointment of Mass Effect: Andromeda, there was a lot about this year that we didn’t see coming.
In this post, I’m going to highlight the biggest surprise in terms of software. I think the success of the Nintendo Switch would take it hands-down otherwise. Anywho, here’s my biggest video game software surprise of 2017!
In Third Person 