themblan's blog

Scrub. Noob. Nub. Git gud scrub. These are all disgusting words or phrases that seem to exist and propagate throughout the competitive video-gaming scene, especially in the fighting-game genre. Words like 'scrub' also are used in competitive sports, but that doesn't excuse its use in any form. Do people use these words on Jeopardy? Chess? Of course not. When videogame-communities display such classless, graceless disrespect within themselves, it's obvious how far we have to go before we get the respect that other communities receive. Instead of falling back on our basic macho instincts, we need to rise above such uninviting, demeaning, egotistical words and embrace everyone so that our hobby can continue to grow and even provide for us a way of life. If you scare the newcomers away, you will be the only ones left playing your silly game, after which you will not be able to make any money from it.

When it comes to games, there is an argument to be made that they can be overrated because of Metacritic. It's a tenuous argument at best because games are subjective works of art and cannot be reduced to numbers. When it comes to game-consoles like Wii U, however, there is no argument. Consoles cannot be overrated because they are not assessed empirical grades. The only way to grade a console would be at the end of its lifespan, and no one really does it. How can one say Wii U is overrated when there is no database of ratings for it? People who say such things are going by what they feel is the general consensus based upon their anecdotal scouring of the internet, but of course that is a highly undisciplined, limited, and biased way of collecting data. The only empirical grade a console can have is its lifetime sales. Thus, Wii U, selling terribly, cannot be overrated, since it sold at a slower pace than the Dreamcast. The only thing one could argue is that its games are overr...

There are a lot of gaming-enthusiasts who are on top of the news and play the biggest releases on every platform, but that is not how I believe a gamer should game. It is not satisfying to just 'beat' a bunch of games. It is far more satisfying to play a few games deeply. This is how a gamer games. Of course, you can play games as casually as you want, but I speak from experience. I am happier when I play only a few games intensely than play a lot of games casually. Playing a lot of games casually or just to 'beat' them is how game-reviewers on big websites game. It might stroke your ego and give you knowledge, but it is not fulfilling and not how developers intended games to be played.

I stumbled upon a past tweet by someone calling Wii U overrated, and it got me bothered once again, and I wondered why. Then I realized that calling nouns overrated is a byproduct of objectification. We do not call people overrated, unless, for example, we refer to athletes as objects to be judged. But that's a terrible thing to do, even in that instance. The Wii U was a marker of a certain time in my life, and it brought me great joy. It is one of my favorite game-consoles of all time. I spent more money on buying games for it than any other gaming-platform. With all these elements taken into consideration, it really bothers me when someone calls Wii U overrated. It's like if someone came up to you and said your significant other was overrated because his or her spouse was 'objectively' better. It's asinine. If we want videogames to be more than toys for children, we have got to ascend beyond objectifying games and ascend into the philosophy of looking at them ...

I can no longer listen to Game Scoop. On its latest episode, Justin Davis insulted the Sonic-series and Sega fanboys once again. It was just immature and unprofessional. It's too bad, because Daemon Hatfield is a great host and I in general, the speakers don't seem to fight, except for Justin Davis. I am not saying I am a perfect human, but for a podcast on a big website, I expect one of its regular speakers to rise above the maturity-level and intelligence of a bottom-dwelling forum-poster. On a related note, I decided to stop listening to Nintendo Voice Chat as well. José Otero also has subjectively bad opinions, but that's not what I have the biggest issue with. The issue is with how he handles others' opinions. He may be the host, but he doesn't have to have a big ego about it. Hatfield is much more gracious, humble, and accepting of others' opinions. There comes a time when we must think for ourselves. Podcasts can be fun to listen to, but after a w...

The first thing I noticed was the beautiful new graphics. It really looks and animates well. If you compare it to Ultra Street Fighter II, that game has very few frames of animation so the increased resolution makes the game look exponentially choppier and more like a Flash-animation. Wonder Boy, on the other hand, animates very smoothly, and it looks more like a cartoon than a Flash-animation. I tried one of the games in the series before, and I didn't like it then, and I do not really find this game fun now. It's a very basic game. You walk around and hit monsters, collect money, buy stuff, find keys, open doors, and explore new areas. I'm not criticizing the game because it was designed decades ago, but some games from the same era are still fun to me, like Super Mario Bros., Mega Man, and Castlevania. This game is just too basic for me, personally.

It is true that most children do not play mostly on Nintendo-systems, like they used to in the US in the '80s and '90s, but that doesn't mean that the majority of users on Nintendo-systems are not children. I see evidence of this when I play online games like Super Smash Bros. and Splatoon. In Smash, there are things called Taunt Parties, where three people will gang up on one person. They will get that person to quit the game, but the three bullies remain, while another unsuspecting victim joins the lobby. I can't imagine adults participating in such an activity. In Splatoon, there are things called Squid Parties, where players will just stay in one place and rapidly jump and turn into squid-form over and over again. Thankfully, three people can't gang up on one person in Splatoon. I used to play multiplayer games online on PC. When I did, thinking back, there was a higher level of maturity there. The most egregious form of immaturity I witnessed on PC was th...

Knowledge can be power, but it is not necessarily. Knowledge can cripple you. If you don't know a language, and someone is cursing at or insulting you in that language, what difference does it make? It's not hurting you. But if he or she is cursing at you in a language you understand, now you get hurt, no matter how much you say "Stick and bones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." Bullshit. Sometimes it's better to willfully be ignorant of something if you know it will hurt you. Comments on the internet are a good example. You may read nine positive comments out of ten, but you know that one negative comment will have more power over you than all those nine positive ones combined. So don't read the comments. Sometimes a belief can change your reality over time. You may start off doing something poorly, but with a good work-ethic and a belief that you'll improve, you may eventually excel at it. However, if you take a snapshot of your pe...

1. Don't go to law-school unless you like studying. If you hated studying, even if you were good at it, don't go to law-school, because it will make undergrad look like a walk in the park. Seriously, even if you're not the smartest person, if you like to study, you will do well in law-school. 2. Don't go to law-school unless you have a full scholarship or a job guaranteed after passing the bar-exam. The job-market is really terrible for everything, including lawyers. Therefore, you should have a full ride or a job guaranteed after law-school. Maybe a parent is a partner at a firm and will hire you. If so, go for it. 3. Don't go to law-school unless you wanted to be a lawyer your whole life. If being a lawyer was and is your dream, go for it. Don't go to law-school as a last resort, or because you can't think of anything better to do. If being a lawyer is your dream, go for it. You will probably realize your dream because I always say that passion trumps...

I stopped playing Ranked in Splatoon after reaching A-. It's not that I didn't have the confidence to go higher. It just wasn't fun. But most people who play a lot of Splatoon - the people that still stream to this day, and a lot of high-levels who still play today, still play Ranked. As someone who didn't enjoy Ranked, I wondered why, and I have finally come up with a hypothesis. The appeal of Ranked shares aspects with gambling. With public Ranked matches, you don't know what kind of teammates you're going to get. You can try all you want, but if your teammates aren't using the right weapons, someone disconnects, or someone is not doing the right things to win the game, you won't win. There is something at stake in Ranked, namely your Rank. Even if you reach max-rank, it can still go down, and so it remains addictive to those addicted to Ranked. That 'high' of staying on top, or staying high, coupled with the danger of losing Rank, must b...

1. "If my internet goes out, I still have my physical game." If my internet goes out, my digital game is still physically on my hard-drive or SD-card. I can still play that game. In fact, it will probably last longer on an HDD or SD-card than a disc, but maybe not a cartridge. 2. "I like having a shelf full of games to look at." I do, too, but not everyone has a big house with tons of space. I also don't like having to physically remove and insert a game into a system to play it. It's annoying, and more prone to failure than having them all selectable in a digital menu. 3. Physical-game collectors will buy a game just because it's physical, even if they do not particularly want to play it, just because it is 'collectible,' or will become rare. This is what a lot of people do. They probably would not buy some indie-game if it was digital-only, but if, for example, Limited Run Games prints a game, they will rush to their keyboards to pre-...

I was reading this interview of Pocket Rumble by Nintendo UK , and happened upon this question and answer. NUK: What are some of the other games that have inspired the characters? CS: There’s Samurai Shodown, obviously King of Fighters and Street Fighter but we also have some interesting ones in there too, like Bloody Roar. We take some Virtua Fighter and Tekken mechanics for a certain character and we’ve even taken inspiration from some modern games like Skullgirls. This is something I see a lot of in indie-games. They get their inspiration from old games, other games, and try to make spiritual successors to those games. Then, they get heaps of praise thrown upon them as if it's honorable and admirable to not be original. This really bothers me. This is one of the reasons I respect Nintendo so much, even if I don't like all their games. At least they try to be original. I was watching a few videos about Daigo Umehara and he said that going solely for the win pr...

I like to think, so I hate hearing live commentary during things, like sporting-events, and videogames. I wish I could turn off the commentary-track and just listen to the game-audio on Twitch. Same with sports.

Russell Westbrook may be the best player in the National Basketball Association right now. Averaging a triple-double for a season is amazing, and it's remarkable how he has stayed healthy for the entire season despite playing with the athleticism, intensity, and ferocity he does. However, he shouldn't be the 2016-2017 NBA Most Valuable Player. When did a player on a team that went 47 and 35 ever win an MVP? This goes against tradition of rewarding the best player on the best team, unless the best team won by committee rather than having a dominant superstar. I remember the last time a single player willed his team to victory for an entire season, and that was Kobe Bryant during the 2005-2006 season. He scored 81 points in a single game during that season, averaged 35.4 points per game, and led the Lakers to the seventh seed with 45 wins and 37 losses. But he didn't win MVP; Steve Nash did, because he was able to orchestrate his team to the second seed and 54 victories. ...

Sometimes, I crave something other than fun. Nintendo is the best at making fun games, but they are not experienced at creating games that are not fun, but equally enjoyable, given the correct mindset. The Last Guardian was the last non-Nintendo game that I truly enjoyed and appreciated beyond mere gameplay-mechanics. Paraphrasing what Peter Brown what said on Gamespot, Trico is the most believable animal in videogame-history. I lost my pet four years ago, and I still miss her to this day. The Last Guardian was a game that made me feel like I was bonding with an animal once again. The context of the game provided a much deeper emotional connection than a game like Nintendogs could ever do. Sometimes, I know I will have fun playing a Nintendo-game, but I think to myself, "What's the point?" Sometimes, fun is not enough, and I want something other than fun.

This is a response to a reddit-post about Mr.Shifty on NS . In it, the topic-creator and posters are whining about framerate once again, how they have been victimized for having the inferior version compared to PC, how they should not support such practices, and other such immature drivel. It is so pathetic to see such conversations on the internet. I have played the first three or four stages of Mr.Shifty and they run fine. Supposedly, the frame-drops might happen later on, but where is the gratitude? Where is the appreciation? Every vociferous, immature adult on the internet whines about something. These people that complain about Mr.Shifty weren't going to buy it in the first place. They just love to find things to complain about. It gives their life meaning to be upset. Stop victimizing yourselves. The developers are not out to get you. They did all they could in the time they had, with the tools they had. Unity is a terribly unoptimized engine, even on PC. The only reason ...

Yesterday, Nintendo disseminated a press-release and one paragraph tried to rationalize why there were more copies of BotW sold on NS than NSes themselves. I thought it was cute. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild game sold over 1.3 million units*. That total includes more than 925,000 units sold for Nintendo Switch and nearly 460,000 units sold for the Wii U console. That means that Nintendo sold more of this game for Nintendo Switch than it sold Nintendo Switch systems, for an attach rate of more than 100 percent. This may be attributed to people who purchased both a limited edition of the game to collect and a second version to play. Look at that last sentence.  This may be attributed to people who purchased both a limited edition of the game to collect and a second version to play. Are you kidding, NoA? It's clearly scalpers, whom you love to support, that are buying games with no intention of playing them. You disgust me more than the scalpers themselves....

Hey! Pikmin , available July 28th, is not something I'm interested in. I'm teetering on the fence about it. I love the real, 3D Pikmins. If it was on NS, I'd be more interested. Ever Oasis , available June 23rd, is not something I'm interested in, either. I really love the art-direction and character-designs, but I saw what kind of game this was at last year's E3 Treehouse. It's a life-simulator - building a town and interacting with its residents, with a co-op dungeon-crawler laid on top - two things I'm not interested in. Monster Hunter is huge in Japan, so I understand where a lot of these developers are getting their inspiration, but I am not a fan. Monster Hunter Stories , available in the fall, is something I am interested in. I'm still on the fence about purchasing it or not, but I find it more visually appealing than the regular Monster Hunters. I do appreciate the gameplay of Monster Hunter, but after a while, it gets to be too much - to...

I see it all the time. People make insult or make fun of themselves. It's a defense-mechanism in many cases. For example, ReviewTechUSA calls himself fat in an attempt to minimize comments about his body-fat. The philosophy is this: if you demean yourself, you are mentally preparing yourself for when others do the same, so it feels less shocking and hurtful. This is a decent survival-strategy, but ultimately, it is not constructive, and doesn't help yourself or others around you. If you are able and willing to insult yourself, how willing and able are you to insult others? This is the insidious root of self-deprecation. Self-deprecation comes from a dark and lonely place of self-hate, and if someone can't love himself or herself, he or she is much less likely to be able to love someone else. When self-deprecation becomes normalized, it becomes open season for hatred. It starts off innocently enough with jokes, but jokes eventually become stereotypes, and stereotypes eve...

Snake Pass came out. Yooka Laylee will come out. In the meantime, let's not forget about another 3D platformer - Unbox: Newbie's Adventure. You play as a box in a big, sandbox-environment. I don't know if you can jump or you just roll around like in Katamari Damacy, or you have to use physics to move around, but the game holds promise and it looks fun, like Goat Simulator.

The poison of the industry - Digital Foundry, often reports that a game is 60 fps on one system, and 30 fps on another. I was thinking about this while playing I am Setsuna . It runs at 60 fps on PS4, but only 30 fps on Nintendo Switch, but 30 fps is a deceptive statistic. Sure 30 is half of 60, but that doesn't mean that a system can only render that game at that framerate. The developers might have locked it to 30 because they think a stable 30 is better than an unstable 60 or a stable 45. We do not know many things about how NS runs IaS. What is the maximum framerate? What is the average framerate? What is the minimum framerate? For all we know, the game might have run at 60 fps or greater with a few dips, and so they opted to lock it to 30 instead of 60 and have dips, because people seem to think framerate-drops are the devil. IaS might run at 45 frames per second, but maybe they wanted to increase the image-quality and lower that rate down to 30. In any case, IaS runs...

Jeremy Lin's impact on the Nets transcends individual stats. He is a positive difference-maker. He's a winner and helps the Nets win. The only numbers that matter are the wins in the win-column, and he has positively impacted that. Ever since he went out with an injury early in the season, the Nets struggled. Ever since he has returned and has played consistent minutes, the Nets are playing much better. If you look purely at him as an individual and not within the context of a basketball-team, you might wonder how he is so special, because his numbers are average for a starting point-guard in the NBA. However, there is something about him that makes him better than the numbers he puts up. Conversely, there are players who are far worse than the numbers they put up, like DeMarcus Cousins The Nets have 14 wins and 22 losses when Jeremy Lin plays. They are 6 and 38 when he doesn't.

Does a game's multiplatform status stunt its success? Obviously releasing a game on more platforms exposes it to a wider audience, but it also reduces its sheen. By being on everything, it makes the game seem less special, and it might reduce its sales overall, even though it can sell to a larger audience than if it was on a single platform. Conversely, a game's exclusivity might help its success by giving it that sheen brought on by its "exclusive" status. Zelda, Last of Us, Halo, and other such games might sell less if they were multiplatform. They might actually sell more because they're exclusive, even if they are selling to a smaller install-base. Of course, this cannot be tested, but an example of the impact of a game's non-monetary value affecting its sales has recently been witnessed. The Wii U has an install-base of over 13 million people, but the NS's version of Breath of the Wild has far outsold the Wii U's version, even though...

On Game Scoop episode 430 , Justin Davis called Nioh overrated, shortly after which he admitted that he had never played it. This exposes all people who say a game is "overrated." This confirmed to me that while there are people who may spend tens of hours playing a game before they say it is overrated, most people never play it, or spend only a few hours playing it before giving up. I wanted to stoop to that level with Breath of the Wild because I had a hard time figuring out how to enjoy the game, but eventually, after 50 hours, I finally began to enjoy it. Of course, it is unreasonable to expect someone to spend that much time with a game he or she dislikes before starting to like it, but sometimes it is the reality of certain games. Most people who like the game have spent over 100 hours playing it, so time-spent is a necessary factor in enjoying it; it won't necessarily come instantly. Justin Davis's emotional immaturity is sadly a common thing among the huma...

It all started at the January 12th Nintendo Switch event in Japan. HD Rumble. It looked cool. You could tell how many ice-cubes were in a cup? Fascinating. Then the Nindies Showcase happened on February 28th. Damon Baker used that buzzword so many times it began to lose its meaning. But still, I wasn't cringing back then. I had never touched an NS before, so I didn't know how meaningless it all was. HD Rumble, in practice, is not all bad. Both JoyCon vibrate, or both sides of the Pro Controller. Usually there is only one motor in a controller that vibrates, but it seems like there are several in any NS-controller, with varying degrees of intensity. But really, it doesn't really make much of a difference to me. When I'm playing a game, I'm not really thinking about how realistic the vibrations are in my controller; I'm concentrating on accomplishing the task at hand. I can't tell that this vibration was stronger than the previous, or anything like that. ...

Addictive game-design. It seems to be what developers are going for these days, especially in the mobile arena. They want users to be addicted so that these users will fork down money for microtransactions, or just keep playing the game. Aren't these good things? Not necessarily. I believe that satisfying game-design is better than addictive game-design. Addictive game-design is inherently unsatisfying, because why would you keep playing a game if you were satisfied? Addictive game-design has you nearly tasting satisfaction, but never lets you lick it. Instead, the metaphorical carrot is constantly dangling in front of you while you run towards it, arms flailing wildly towards it. Maybe you get to lick it once in a while, or you get a piece of the carrot, but you never get the full carrot. You never get the satisfaction of scarfing that carrot whole. Satisfying game-design is better because it can also be addictive. Satisfying games, for example, are complete games that can end...

Every day I boot up Breath of the Wild, I discover something new, learn something, and am further penning the book of my journey through the game by the things I do. It's remarkable. I don't mean this pejoratively, but BotW may be the most casual game of all time because you can play it totally relaxed, without any pressure to do anything. The lack of pressure really bothered me at first, but I grew to like it. At first, I felt like I was wasting time. I had spent hours in the game, but I didn't feel like I had accomplished anything. Now I welcome that. I don't need that feeling of accomplishment. Other games are not very good or fun without that feeling of accomplishment, but the actual mechanics and gameplay in BotW are so sound, intuitive, polished, inventive, and fun, that merely playing the game is its own reward. "Where do you want to go today?" used to be a slogan for Microsoft Windows '95, but it would fit perfectly with BotW as well.

Back when World of Warcraft first launched, it felt a lot like an RPG. Nowadays, it feels more like a sport, competition, race, or social game, rather than an RPG. Maybe that's a byproduct of having played the game for years - the mystery is gone. World of Warcraft has made the game too friendly to newcomers. You couldn't track quests in the beginning. You had to explore the world or go to thottbot.com to figure out which mobs to kill. You had to actually read the quest-text. Burning Crusade started the slow decline into making WoW the shell of the great game it once was. Daily quests, introduced in BC, should not be a thing in an RPG. Grinding reputation should be possible, and not gated by a daily timer. There was a time when leveling-up was an anticipated event, and not just a hurdle on the roadmap to the maximum level. "Ding!" we would exclaim in guild-chat. We could assign talent-points on our talent-trees. Developers claim that there were only a few optimal ...

Although I was a shopaholic on the Wii U's eShop, I never got Lego City Undercover on Wii U. I never wanted to. Playing as Legos never really appealed to me. However, with the current drought on NS, and wanting to give this game a chance, I purchased this physically. I'm glad I did. I could definitely tell that it ran at 1080p, not that it really matters. It's just a nice touch. Everything technically looks a little crisper and cleaner, than say for example, Breath of the Wild. Unlike BotW, LCU is a more Western, 'traditional' open-world game with a lot of story and dialogue. I've never played Grand Theft Auto, but I did play Watch Dogs, and it reminded me a lot of that game. People said LCU was funny, and they weren't kidding. It's not a subtle kind of humor either. They really try to be funny, and most of the time, they hit the mark. There are also a lot of references to movies that probably not everyone will get, but that's all right. I'...

Yes, I am late to the party, but I have arrived to it nonetheless. Best Buy had a sale on the game, amounting to $32 with Gamer's Club Unlocked, so I jumped on the deal. It has since risen back to $40 with GCU. The box itself is one of the most aesthetically-pleasing boxes on NS. It's bright, colorful, and creative. The vector-based art and animation in the cutscenes did not displease me. Usually when developers go in this direction, it looks like bad Flash animation - they look stilted and limbs movingly unnaturally on an inanimate body, but not here. The in-game graphics are gorgeous. The 3D models look like they were composed with very high polygon-counts. The lighting and effects in the game are very strikingly impressive. The Unity-engine is certainly capable of great-looking games, even if the framerates in those games are not very high. Super Bomberman R allegedly runs at 30 frames per second, not that I really care, or could tell during gameplay. This seems to be ...

Is sugar completely evil and worthless? No. Yesterday, I was constipated, and I had some sweet treats, and my bowel started moving. I did an online search, and I found that sugar is a power stimulant of the colon . When digestive enzymes, probiotics, ginger, water, or anything else won't work, try eating a sweet treat.

This has been a small topic on the past few Nintendo Voice Chat podcasts: a reader wondered whether he, she, or we as a collective gaming-collective could go back to the older, more-linear Zeldas. I sure can. Even at its most linear, as in Skyward Sword, Zelda has always offered freedom and sidequests. Also, why is linear game-design so looked-down-upon? There is nothing wrong with linearity, when done right. I appreciate linear game-design when done right. In fact, linear game-progression mixed with exploration is one of my favorite types of game-design. A lot of new games are like this, like the two newest Tomb Raiders, or The Last of Us. There is a point you must reach as a gamer to trigger the next event, but in the meantime, you have immense freedom in how you want to get there, and along the way you can explore the environment to find collectibles or things that will help you with the game. When a game is very open-ended in nature, and when a game just plops you in the middle...

I have written many negative things about BotW, but it's time to lay down the things I like. I love the NPCs in the game. I love helping them with their problems. It reminds of Animal Crossing, but in a huge, open world. I love how it alleviates the loneliness that permates most of the game. Most of the time, you are exploring the world by yourself, but when you enter a bustling town and music starts, children are running around, and NPCs are on their daily routines, you don't feel lonely anymore. This is an overused term, but the game feels like a "living, breathing world." The NPCs also have a lot of character-quirks, and personality. There are a lot of NPCs, and they don't feel generic. Even guards who just stand in one spot have little backstories to them. It is a nice touch by Nintendo; they really go ham on the details.

A couple of 2D shooters, shoot-em-ups, or shmups, appeared on the Nintendo Switch eShop yesterday, and I played them for a little bit. Alpha Mission II Let's start with the bad. Alpha Mission II, originally released on Neo Geo in 1991, is a mostly vertically-scrolling shooter (with some horizontal leeway) that has some questionable design-decisions. There are two "planes" that enemies exist on: the air and the ground. Enemies in the air can be attacked with your lasers, and enemies on the ground can be attacked with your missiles. A lot of 2D shooters have this feature, but usually the enemies on the ground are less numerous than the enemies in the air. This is because usually your main weapon - the one that can be fired the most rapidly, can only hit airborne targets. This is not the case in Alpha Mission II. In Alpha Mission II, most of the enemies are on the ground, which is fine. Just increase the rate at which your missiles fire, right? Nope; SNK did not do th...

Skyrim and Zelda on the same console? Could they coexist? Would they cannibalize each other's sales? There's a reason that Skyrim is not at launch, and it's that Bethesda did not want to compete with BotW. The more I play BotW, however, the more I long for a game like Skyrim, with more traditional RPG-elements. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is more of a survival-game, like Minecraft, Don't Starve, or The Forest, and so there are certain things that I wanted from it that it lacks. BotW lacks a meaningful sense of gear-progression. Because every weapon breaks, it doesn't matter if you find a weapon that has better stats than your last because it, too, will break. The only permanent upgrades are your clothing, heart-containers, and stamina-gauge. Although clothing doesn't break, you need different clothing for different environments, so it doesn't feel like an upgrade, more of a sidegrade. The way you get more heart-containers and increase your st...

Foolish souls all over the internet only care about resolution and framerate. The recent patch reportedly stabilized the framerate somewhat, but none of the reports mention that it also added pop-up to the game. Pop-up or pop-in is when objects appear out of nowhere when you get close to it. The object-draw-distance before the patch was pretty good, but post-patch, it is terrible. I'd rather have non-smooth framerates than pop-up. I tried going back to the previous patch by deleting the patch on my NS, but when I tried starting the game, it said the patch was mandatory. The only way I would be able to play pre-patch Zelda would be to factory-reset my NS. I'm playing Zelda off a Game Card so it would have pre-patch Zelda intact. Please, developers, don't give in to the stupid masses. Keep your vision intact.

How To Pronounce Hearthstone Hearthstone is a popular card-game that is rumored to being ported to Nintendo Switch, and it is often pronounced incorrectly. The 'hearth' in hearthstone is pronounced like 'heart' but with a 'th' sound at the end, or like Marth with an 'h' at the beginning. Dictionary.com , Merriam-Webster Impressions of Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+ on Nintendo Switch I had an unpleasant trip to Target in which two employees were standing in front of an open display-case. I picked up a copy of Binding of Isaac, and then immediately one of the employees nervously half-smiled and took it from my grasp and back into the case, only to take it out a minute later and have the other employee ring it up for me. That was just nonsense, pure idiocy and control-freakiness. Instead of handling it constructively, he handled it defensively, treating me like I was a shoplifter. I'm never shopping at Target again. I even paid more than I s...

I've played through the first, forest-y world and completed a few levels of the next (water-themed). While this is a happy-looking, colorful game with cute characters, it is far from being a kid's game. I appreciate new concepts, and Snake Pass has them in spades, but execution is just as important, and that is where Snake Pass falters. I don't think, if you know what you're doing, that Snake Pass controls badly, it's just that you have to be very precise, slow, and methodical to traverse the more difficult routes; and that is just not fun. It is not fun having to think about every single step of what you're doing before you do it. It is not fun falling to your death over and over. It is not fun to get through a difficult section, only to not have a checkpoint, fail the next section, and have to do both sections over again. Snake Pass is a game for masochists. If you derive pleasure from failing over and over, then more power to you. Maybe your cortisol-leve...