Yes, after decades of never re-releasing the arcade version of Donkey Kong, spurring many rumors of if Nintendo has the rights to it at all -- because of how Nintendo treated the outside team that did the programming, pretty much -- they... suddenly released it for Arcade Archives on the Switch! That's pretty awesome. I've never really loved the original DK, but still, it's really fantastic that the original arcade version finally, at long last, has an official home console release. It includes the Japanese and International versions of the game, too, which is great. And it was released during E3.
And at the same time, Nintendo also announced that next month they will release the arcade version of Sky Skipper, another arcade game from 1981. The game released in Japan in arcades, and there is a Western-released Atari 2600 version (that I have a copy of; it's not great), but for some reason the Western arcade release was cancelled. Yes, a 2600 version, which is not mentioned in the Treehouse stream video above, was released here, but not the arcade game. How odd. Anyway, this Arcade Archives version is a port of the US arcade version, which Nintendo kept one of in their archives after cancelling it. The cabinet has some pretty neat artwork done by Miyamoto on it, see the video. I haven't played arcade Sky Skipper, but it looks okay based on the video, better than that 2600 version hopefully but not great. Still, it's awesome to see it, and I hope that the classic Nintendo arcade releases continue; they do have more.
So, this year at E3, Nintendo has decided to focus on a single game for the third year in a row. In 2016 it was Zelda, last year Mario, and this year it's Smash... but people seem to be a lot more upset at that focus than they were the last two years, as I'm seeing a lot of criticism of Nintendo's lack of games this E3. That criticism is accurate, as they have very little to show other than Smash, and there may be even fewer games shown than there were the last couple of years -- they aren't mentioning the 3DS at all for example, sadly, unlike 2017 (this is really unfortunate! The 3DS needs more games...) -- but it doesn't seem THAT different.
That said though, I've never loved this focus-all-on-one-game thing, so yes, I wish that they were showing more. In particular, what's going on with Retro? It now has been five years since they last released a game, and still we heard nothing about whatever it is they're making. They must be having development problems, five years of nothing is not normal. And not hearing anything about Metroid Prime 4 is also a disappointment, they should have had something to show of that here.
Nintendo does have a few non-Smash games to show, including a DLC addon for Xenoblade Chronicles 2, a new Mario Party game they just announced (and are showing on the Treehouse stream right now, as it's taking a break from its heavy Smash focus for the moment), some mech game called Daemon x Machina, and details on the upcoming Switch Fire Emblem game (which has been delayed to 2019 and looks like Fire Emblem), but there isn't a lot. And again so far there hasn't even been any 3DS on the Treehouse stream, which, again, I do think is a mistake. Oh well.
As for Smash though, it looks pretty good. It seems that they're building it on the core gameplay of the last one, Smash 4 (Wii U / 3DS), but with a lot of changes. The last game's good, if not quite on par with Melee, so that's fine. It'll have every single character from all past Smash games, plus a few more, and every character has had some changes to their looks, moves, and such. The E3 Direct mentions some of the major changes for just about every character, and some sound good. Link now is the Breath of the Wild Link, for example, and bombs can be remotely detonated. I don't like the new Zelda design, however; they went with the Link to the Past Zelda this time, and I think it's the least good Zelda design yet in a Smash game. Going from the fantastic TP Zelda design from Smash 4 to this is a huge downgrade... ah well.
Visually, on that note, this game has a very cartoony style, more than I remember past Smash games looking. It looks nice, but different from before. The gameplay is mostly the same however, though there are some balance changes, such as to dashing. I am, of course, not the biggest Smash fan -- they're good games, but I've never loved them enough to play huge amounts of the games, Melee sort of excepted -- but the game does look good and I'm sure I'll get it eventually. Smash is very popular and should be enough for a good holiday season this year, but it'd have been better to have a bit more than they seem to have... though Microsoft doesn't seem to have much either, almost everything major they showed was for next year. It's kind of a weird year, it seems.
Yes, it's that time again. Currently we are in the pre-show press conference phase. Day one was earlier than ever, as EA had their conference midday Saturday. It was an okay but unexciting presentation with no major new announcements, unless you think things like a Command & Conquer mobile game and that Madden will be on PC again significant. I don't. Unravel Two was announced, which is kind of surprising given the mediocre response the first one got, but it must have sold alright. That's nice, I hope it's good. The other EA Originals title after that might be interesting, but I'm not sure. Otherwise, the main focus was Bioware's Anthem. It looks like it could be a good game, but we'll really need to see more of it to know. It's definitely going for gameplay with some Destiny or The Division style, but with jetpacks and some Bioware style elements, and I hope it works out. Still, overall EA's conference was not great. I usually find EA's the least interesting conferences, though, so that's no surprse really.
Next, Sunday, there were two conferences, Microsoft and Bethesda. Microsoft had a good show, and showed a lot of games... none of which are exclusive to the Xbox One (though this is fine, I like their enhanced PC support), and most of which are also going to be on PS4. They also showed a LOT of 2019 games. Like, most of their show felt like "coming 2019 or later", which is not great when their game lineup for the rest of this year seems to be pretty thin. And for one more criticism, the exclusives MS does have are mostly long-running franchise titles, including new Halo, Gears, and Forza games, and another trailer for the upcoming Crackdown title as well. They had a few second-tier new projects, but from an IP standpoint this was a pretty safe lineup. Some interesting games were shown, though, and I will want to play some of them. Oh, and MS also announced that they bought four new studios and started up one new one on top of that. They bought Ninja Theory (Hellblade, etc.) and Playground Games (Forza), along with two others, and are starting a new team in Santa Monica. MS needs more game studios, given how many they've shut down, but any game projects from these teams will surely be quite a ways off so this isn't helpful for MS's seriously thin exclusive game library anytime soon. They'd better hope that Sea of Thieves holds player attention long term I guess... because Crackdown is a 2019 game now, along with most of the rest of the games they showed.
As for Bethesda, I'm often a critic of theirs of course but they have done some solid press conferences. This year they spend some time on things for this year, most notably Fallout 76, which now has a 2018 release date, but most of the conference is on games for 2019 or later. Id's legacy had a very strong presence in the conference, as new Doom (a sequel to Doom 2016 was just announced here), Wolfenstein (Young Blood, a game wherey ou play as BJ Blazkowitz's twin daughters in a Nazi-run 1980s Paris, apparently), Quake (Champions, whcih still isn't out), and Rage (2) all showed up in the conference. The Elder Scrolls, including more about TES Online, the announcement of a new TES mobile game, and a far-off announcement of TES VI; Fallout (76); Prey (DLC for the last one); and an announcement of the rumored, but still far-off, space-based Bethesda game all also made appearances, so it kind of felt like Bethesda decided to toss almost all of their major IPs into this conference, regardless of how far along the projects actually are. It made for a packed show, but I wonder how many of these games we'll see at the next E3 or two... and do all four of id's shooter franchises need projects in development at the same time? I know each is different -- modern Wolf is much more story-focused; Rage is open-world and has driving; Doom presumably will be single player smaller-level focused; and Quake is a multiplayer arena shooter -- but still... huh.
The Nintendo Switch and Modern Console UIs: Why is it Hard to Find and Play Your Games?
In this thread I'd like to discuss several important elements of console system menu design which are done ... oddly to say the least ... on many modern systems. The Switch may be in the title, but everyone is guilty here in different ways! I have two main points.
These two points are, essentially, one good and one bad thing about the Switch UI, with lots of comparisons to how other consoles do things. Before i start though, I've seen a lot of criticism of the Switch OS on a lot of fronts, including its lack of visual customization, lack of cloud saves, limited options in the shop (though Nintendo did just slightly improve on this), and more, but for the Switch or any other console, those things, while important, are secondary. These are, after all, gaming consoles, things which exist to allow us to play videogames. So, the top issue, of primary importance, is simple: How hard is it in any given console's operating system to actually find and run the games that you own and have installed on the system and/or own a physical copy of? And why does every modern system make this a lot harder than it should be, though each in very different ways?
First: Is the Game Playable Right Now?
On the last generation of consoles, including the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, DSi, Wii, and usch, each system had a menu system for digital titles only, but ran physical games from the disc or cart. As a result, their OSes clearly delineate your digital game library from the game currently in the system, which they also easily let you play. Two more current systems, the 3DS and Wii U, still work that way. The rest of the current generation of systems, however, work differently, and the way they do so cause some really annoying problems in every case. The rest of the modern, current-generation consoles, including the Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and Playstation Vita, have a menu system which list every game you have played on the system, digital or physical, in the system menu's games list.
This is an important change because all consoles which list all games you have played on the system on your system menu also require any game you own a physical disc or cartridge copy of to be in the system in order to play the game. Even though the PS4 and Xbox One fully install all games to their hard drives, for DRM reasons you need to put the disc in to play any game you didn't buy digitally. This makes sense and is a good thing, since it still allows for used game sales. I really like that even on these systems I can still buy used games.
However, the Xbox One and Vita all have a critical flaw in their interface design: they do a terrible job of telling you which games you own physically and which are digital. On the Vita, there are no hints at all about which games are which. All games you've put into your system have an icon, as do all digital downloads, and those icons all look the same. You'll just need to remember which are which. On the Xbox One, there is an icon on the home screen with a disc logo on it, which shows you what's in your disc drive right now. When you put a new disc game in it'll automatically appear and let you launch that game. However, it's just an icon in the recently-used-things section of the home screen, so if you just leave a disc in while playing a bunch of digital games, that icon will be pushed off the list. At this point you'll need to go to the full games list to find the game... but this screen has absolutely no indicators whatsoever of whether games are physical or digital. That is, it won't tell you until you try to launch a game you own on disc, when an error message will pop up prompting you to put in the disc. Yes, Microsoft doesn't want you to know which games games you need to put a disc in for, and which you own digitally and can directly play! This is just insane stuff, and I have no idea how not one, but TWO current consoles all completely mess up this very basic element of user-interface design. All I can do on my Xbox One and Vita is just memorize which games I own a physical copy of and which I don't, so I know which ones I'll need to get a disc out for and which I don't. This is possible of course, but it's an annoying and perplexing thing for console hardware manufacturers to force on their userbase. Microsoft has done a great job with backwards compatibility, including the ability to play even backwards compatible original Xbox games on your Xbox One with the original disc, but in this important way they're behind.
What is the point of this, to encourage digital purchases over physical? That seems like a fair guess, because there is no good reason to annoy and inconvenience your users like this when it's an issue that would be so, so easy to fix, but regardless of the reason this is a problem that it's kind of crazy to see has never been fixed...
It is different on the Playstation 4 and the Nintendo Switch, however. Both have nice, clear little icons next to each games' name in the system menu for games which you own physically and thus will need to put into the system in order to play. It's great! Any game you own on cart/disc has a little icon next to it, which is empty for the games not currently in the system, and filled in for the game that's in your system right now. It's a great touch which all consoles should have. With the Switch there's never any confusion about which games I can play. Its OS has another major problem, however...
Second: How Do I Find the Game I Want to Play?
In the past, console games all were on physical media. Every game was on its own cartridge, card, or disc, and you put the game in the console in order to play it; it was simple, on a console-UI front. However, thanks to the advent of digital downloads things are very different now, and console operating systems need to be able to allow the user to sift through a potentially very large game library. Most modern consoles deal with this by allowing the user to search and sort their game libraries, in order to either display games the way you want, or at least to be able to find the kind of game you are looking for in the potentially-long list. Some consoles do a better job of this than others, but from the Xbox 360 and on, every console had sorting and/or search functions.
Nintendo, on the Wii, DSi, 3DS, and Wii U, allow you to fully customize how the games appear, as each has an icon which you can drag around the screen to put them where you want for easy finding of the games you want to play more often. The 3DS and Wii U additionally allow you to make folders, in order to further categorize your collection. Neither system had folders when they first launched, but their addition was welcome. These interfaces have some issues, particularly on the Wii where the decision that all games on external storage, that is an SD card, must be copied into the system memory is a crippling flaw for anyone with a larger collection, but this issue is fortunately fixed on Nintendo's other modern consoles, or rather, it was. The 3DS and Wii U game-selection UIs are fantastic, among the best ever in my opinion. With nice icons for each game, nice-looking OSes, easy customization, and more, they are very good menu systems that get you to your games quickly and allow you to organize things just how you want. Nintendo should have stuck with something along these lines, but sadly they did not. I will I'll get to the unfortunate, absolute disaster that is the Switch's UI later.
Microsoft, in contrast, does not allow you to directly move your game list around, but does give some nice sorting tools. I particularly like the Xbox 360's, which has a great option to hide game demos, an option sorely missed on all the rest of the consoles here. I really wish the Xbox One, PS3, and Switch had that option, it is needed! The 360 also allows you to sort either in alphabetical order or by how recently you have played a game, and both ways are useful. The system displays only about five games at a time, in a long horizontal list, but it switches through batches of five quickly. The 360 has the easiest to use single-wide list I have seen in a console. I'd still rather be able to customize it by having folders and such, but this works. The multiple sorting options and move-five-games-at-a-time features are key.
The Xbox One changes interfaces from the 360, and while still functional and sometimes good, most of the changes are for the worse. First, I have often found it difficult to figure out which game is the one in the drive, if I've forgotten, as the main menu doesn't necessarily show the icon for the game in the system right now and, as point one above says, the OS doesn't tell you which games even need the disc inserted until you try to run them. All other systems with physical media have a clear location in the OS where it shows what's in your console's disc drive or cart port, but not this one for some weird reason. I know MS wants people to buy digital copies of things and not physical, but come on! Once you do get into the list of games though things improve, as it is displayed in a nice, quick-to-navigate grid, but there are still some limitations. You can still sort your games list, thankfully. The Xbox One isn't quite as good as the 360 in this respect, as the hide-demos option is gone, but you can still sort alphabetically or by most recently played, and it also has options to display games only installed on one specific hard drive and more, which can be nice depending on how you have your games organized. It also shows a lot of icons on screen, in horizontal rows. It's not the best, but is a solid interface and finding games isn't too hard.
On both the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, Microsoft also has very good search tools which allow you to use voice commands (if you have a Kinect attached to your console) or text search, better if you have a keypad addon for your gamepad, to directly search for games and such. I don't use this a lot, but it is a good option to include that I'm sure some make use of. Having a search box in their console OS is something that only Microsoft does, I believe, and it is actually useful.
Sony has tried several interfaces, but the PS3's is, as I have said before, pretty bad. The PS3, and also the PSP which uses nearly the same interface, but all games installed on your console one massive vertically-scrolling single-wide list, and there are essentially no good sorting or search tools available. The only sorting options are to list in order of the last time you used each game, newest to oldest; by platform, separated for PS1, PS2, PS Minis, and PS3 (or PSP games, as the case may be) games, with unsortable listed-by-last-use lists within each category; or in a single folder which again is sorted by use only. You cannot create your own folders, sadly. As a result, the alternatives to the main list are mostly useless, so basically you just need to scroll down a massive list of games, or mixed demos and games in my case, hoping to eventually find the one you're looking for. You can't even sort alphabetically instead of by use, or quickly move through the list! It's a huge pain. The PS3/PSP user interface is terrible and barely works if you have more than a few digital games. No, I do not want to scroll 100 items down a slowly-scrolling list in order to find the one I want! You can't even scroll very quickly, a group of games at a time, like you can on MS's consoles, either. The absence of customizable sorting options, user-creatable folders, and a better design than a single list are sorely missed.
The PS Vita abandoned that bad old interface in favor of one much more like the Wii or a cellphone's, as there are now icons for each game, in pages which display about a dozen games or folders each. You can make folders and put icons in them, and move icons around the screen just like on the Nintendo interfaces it resembles. This interface works great and is the best interface of any of these Sony consoles, except for that annoying bit I mention in issue one above about how it doesn't say which games require you to put the cartridge in. Like the Xbox One it doesn't highlight what game is currently inserted into the system either, you just have to remember. But that is a separate point here.
As for the PS4, I've never used it myself, but from what I see it seems to have a horizontal list of recently-used stuff, and a separate page with all of your games. It looks much more like the PS3 interface than the Vita's, though, unfortunately, but it is at least a lot better looking than the PS3/PSP's. The horizontal list of recently-used stuff allows you to create folders here for quick access to games, and the library has a three-wide grid and actual good sorting functions finally, for the first time on a Sony console -- you can sort by name forwards or back, install date, or recently used. That's good, and that folder support allows for at least some custom organization support, but other things about the PS4 OS still look clumsy and slow, like Sony OSes always seem to be. The PS4 also has voice support if you have a PS4 camera, like the X1. Features-wise this is pretty decent stuff, but I'd need to use it for a while to know how I think it compares to the X1 OS, which has issues but mostly works fairly well.
So, how does the newest console, Nintendo's Switch, handle things?
With one of the worst interfaces of the last couple of console generations, that's how. Seriously, how did Nintendo mess things up this horribly? It all starts off so well, with those great icons I mention in point one, showing if games are actually playable right now or not! That's great... but the list they are a part of is the worst. Very much like the PS4 but without any sorting or folder support, the Switch's game list is in two parts, a horizontal scrolling list of the ten or so games you have played the most recently, and a list, which you have to scroll all the way over to the end to access, of all of your games. This list is a grid of maybe five wide by however many deep as you have games. It's easy to scroll through, but has NO customization or sorting functions WHATSOEVER, which is unbelievably awful! Instead, it has only one sorting method: by most-recently-played. It will sort from what you have used the most recently, at the top, to the things you've used the longest ago or never, at the bottom. I can't even begin to understand why Nintendo decided to remove the great, fully customizeable interfaces of the Wii, DSi, 3DS, and Wii U in favor of this stripped-down debacle, but this is almost PS3 levels of bad, maybe better because the list is quicker to scroll through, but maybe worse because there are even fewer sorting options -- literally zero other than the default. What the heck, how did this happen?
So, here are one very good and one very bad thing about the Switch's OS UI. I really hope that at some point Nintendo adds options to the Switch game library list, because they are desperately badly needed. Nintendo should be commended for showing users which games you own physically and what game is in the system right now, though.
There's a big one for me. I hate when a series takes a break, and in the next season they suddenly reveal that some established single character has been dating a brand new character never been on the show before, for months, and it's a deep passion destined to last forever, until they die or break up 5 episodes into it.
Never ever introduce an entire relationship that happened off-screen between seasons. It's annoying and kills the entire notion that I'm actually following these people's lives.
Nintendo released more information about their online service recently, and... it's still really bad, just like it was before, except now you will have to spend $20 a year to continue using their unforgivably horribly thought through cellphone-required online gaming network. Thanks. Nintendo saw the dollar signs from Sony and Microsoft's paid online services and are copying them but with a worse network and less reward for paying. At least the price is lower, and that is nice, but I'd rather get better services than a low price for something no good, so that's not worth too much.
That said, the big announcement here is perhaps that with your subscription you get access to 20 NES games on the Switch. However, a full Virtual Console service is not coming, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Seriously, I thought Nintendo likes making money! A VC service, where people pay for games, would probably be more profitable than this online network will be, particularly when you could just do both, like how Sony and MS give you 'free' games which you need to continue subscribing to play, or you can pay for access to the game as long as the consoles' internet network stays up. But no, the Switch will continue to have no classic Nintendo console games available for purchase, only arcade and Neo-Geo games. I know Nintendo has choices to make here -- should they go harder in on a subscription service for access to their old games, with different payment tiers for access to different consoles and such as some people have suggested online, or should they bring back a traditional paid classic-games shop like Virtual Console? But the problem is, the Switch released over a year ago, and we still have no answers to what Nintendo's answer to that decision is; it's still 'no VC or full subscription service for you, enjoy our new games and classic arcade games!'. That's okay, but it's throwing away all kinds of money, given how many people surely would buy their favorite Nintendo classics yet again if Nintendo offered them for sale!
Seriously, still not seeming to have made a decision, this far into the Switch's life, for what to do with their potentially valuable classic library is really strange. Nintendo is usually good at making good financial decisions...
Otherwise though, so long as this online service mostly requires a cellphone it's awful and needs to go, so not much else has changed.
I've been thinking of making a thread like this again for a while, and I've finally gotten around to it. The idea here is to have a thread for posts about games I've just tried or played and want to say something about, but don't think deserve a thread yet. I know that there have been threads like this before, but not for a while.
I'm going to start by saying a little about the Vita. My most important impression about the system got a thread already, that it has very few games that aren't available elsewhere, and really the main reason to get it is to play games you already have on PC (or maybe console) portably. It does have some exclusives though, and a few games that are only on PS4 and Vita which I'll play here since I don't have a PS4 or plan to get one anytime soon. Most notably in that latter category I really want Summon Night 6, though I don't have it yet.
As for games I do have though:
TxK - This is Jeff Minter's Vita-exclusive shooter. This game pretty much just is straight Tempest 2000 with a few names changed, so I can see why it got Jeff Minter in more trouble with 'Atari' than Space Giraffe did; that game is of course also Tempest-inspired, but it has some new ideas which changes the gameplay in noticeable ways. This game doesn't do that. So, Atari went after him and while this game is still available, his attame to the PC have been sadly blocked, making this a Vita exclusive. For a big Tempest 2000 fan like me, this game is a definite must-play and yes, it's great! It's classic Tempest 2000, but with nice graphics and new levels. It's awesome and a lot of fun, and at only $10 it's well worth it. The game is tiny too, so even though it's download only and a Vita game the size is not much of a problem.
Exist Archive - I don't think I had heard of this game before, but it's a game from Tri-Ace with gameplay inspired by Valkyrie Profile, and a somewhat isekai-ish anime story about people who seem to have died in the real world and been pulled into a fantasy land. The plot is decent and fortunately isn't really isekai (which is a genre full of really terrible mangas/animes), but the gameplay and exploration ar the main draws here for sure. Dungeons are side-scrolling, but they have multiple layers and are fun to explore. The battle system's good too, though the difficulty level is unfortunately low. The game looks nice and plays well, though, so I like it so far.
Mod Nation Road Trip - While probably better than the PSP game, this kart racer is, lie its predecessors, quite average. Sure I've only done a couple of races, but I didn't see much here to keep me going. There is plenty of content and customization, but the controls and gameplay are quite generic.
Operation Abyss - This game is a decent-to-good first-person dungeon crawler. It's no Etrian Odyssey, but it seems fun. I'll definitely play more.
Ridge Racer - This game has good graphics and standard (ie, decent but I have issues with the drifting) Ridge Racer handling, but is brought down with its total absence of real single player content. Basically, this game only has two modes: single race, or online. There is no campaign, unlike the PSP Ridge Racer games. There's nothing to unlock ingame, all unlockables are things you have to purchase separately. It comes with only a couple of tracks built in, and you have to buy the rest as DLC. While some games can get away with this heavy multiplayer focus, this game definitely is not among them; I'm sure it never had the kind of online community that would be required to make the design make any sense at all.
I'm sure I will say a bit more about more Vita games soon. That last one reminds me of another game I want to mention though...
Micro Machines World Tour (Xbox One, also available for PC and PS4) - This game brought back the Micro Machines franchise after over a decade, and as a fan of the series since the first one I had to get it despite the bad reviews the game got. And playing it,. I'm torn. On the one hand, the graphics here are fantastic! The cars in this game look much more like real Micro Machines vehicles than anything I've seen in a videogame before. The controls aren't the best and take some getting used to, but they're fine once you adjust. The other gameplay issue of note I want to mention is that the game has a weapon system now, making races more chaotic than ever before. It's mostly fun, but it gets frustrating when you repeatedly get hit right before the finish line. Still, it's mostly a good game, ignoring the serious flaws in the second paragraph below. I like playing Micro Machines World Tour for sure. There are a good number of tracks in this game too. If they had only included a single player game, I'd definitely be praising it here!
Unfortunately though, this is yet another game that has no single player campaign. Instead, this game has randomized races in a couple of game modes, Overwatch style but with overhead car racing, and loot boxes as a "progression " system. Yes, it's Micro Machines with lootboxes at the core of the experience, and that's not good. Sure, you're just unlocking cosmetic stuff with these loot boxes, but it's still a bad, exploitative system. Unlike Overwatch, however, nobody is playing this game online because it didn't sell, so the exclusive focus on online multiplayer wrecks the game. There are bots to race against, so you can play the game at least, but there are NO options beyond choosing a mode -- standard race, classic Micro Machines battle, arena battle with weapons, and such. You can't choose your track, that's random. And while there are a bunch of tracks, the randomizer mostly seems to pick the same few over and over. You can't choose the difficulty of your AI opponents, either, and the one difficulty level they have is fairly high, so this game will be frustrating and you'll be hit out of the lead a lot.
So overall, most people just passed on this game and called it not good, but I'm honestly kind of sad for this game. It's so close to being a great return to form for a classic series I like a lot... but because of some very bad game design choices, it's not. I still don't regret getting it, but only serious Micro Machine fans should even consider it.
