Nintendo Switch Review: The First 100 Days

I’m writing about Nintendo on the internet. Totally breaking new ground here. Where do I start? It’s been an interesting few months to be a Nintendo fan. This time last year, you'd be forgiven for forgetting the company were even still making games, such was the extent of the Wii U’s obsolescence. A lack of concrete information around what Nintendo were working on next didn't exactly help, leading to all sorts of purported ‘leaks’ pointing to another underpowered flop for a niche market.

Come October, things began to change. While many of the ‘leaks’ suggesting Switch would be a hybrid console were bang on, the initial reveal went well. The concept was appealing and the messaging was clear, unlike Wii U’s muddled branding, but the reveal video was soon followed up by a… weird January press conference that deflated at least some of that enthusiasm. (By the way in case you ever feel Nintendo should do live E3 stage shows again, let me just point you to this.)

Enter March 2017 and all eyes were on ‘console-elect’ Switch to make Nintendo Great Again after, y’know, the Fisher Price tablet that wasn’t even a real tablet. (I promise I’ll stop being mean about Wii U from this point on, I actually like it a lot.) (I also promise to never make another hamfisted reference to real world politics in my gaming blogs, as much as we wish it were all just a game.) There was a mix of optimism and… you know, the usual.  OMG NINTENDO WILL NEVER MAKE A CONSOLE AGAIN. NINTENDOOMED. SWITCH? MORE LIKE SWITCHERU AMIRITE?

When reviews for Zelda came out calling it the best game ever made, it seemed like suddenly this was the real deal. Preorders went haywire - luckily I’d caved months earlier - March 3rd came around and it was finally time to find out if the Switch delivered.

But not before paranoia began to set in. One minute the left Joycon has Bluetooth problems, then suddenly the dock is scratching people’s screens, or some people’s consoles are just like… BLERGH I’M BROKEN. Or minor amusing issues like that one time when sentient Switches acquired free will and started taking random Minecraft screenshots. Now I’m not denying these issues weren’t real for some small minority, but 3 months in it’s kinda clear, like, yeah, calm down. We’ve all seen worse. The system’s build quality alone is well worth praising. Uh-oh. That sounded like something a Nintendo fan would say. Let’s stop this history lesson and get on with my review...

The Hardware:

While not as powerful as it could have been, the system is still in a great place for the types of games on offer. The battery life is solid; honestly, it’s on a par with any other mobile device and charging via USB-C is super convenient so I don’t get everyone’s problem. I’d rather it didn’t have those small internal fans - I get why they’re there, but moving parts on portable devices just don’t sit that well with me. I don't like that I had to buy a screen protector and it doesn't stick down properly in the top-right corner.

Above: First-world problems.

The main thing I don’t like is how awkward the sideways JoyCons feel; those straps are a pain in the arse to take off even when you put them on the right way, and I’m at least 75% sure it’s not my cack-handedness to blame… (Pro tip: Get the Mario Kart wheels, they're much more comfortable.)

The OS:

Well, minimalist is one way to describe it. Non-existent is another. While on the one hand it makes sense de-emphasising features like the Miis and the wacky interface overkill… (You know what I’m talking about - all the long, unnecessary animations and background music - honestly, as much as we may get nostalgic for it, console menus and digital stores really don’t need a soundtrack.) Still, a complete lack of an accessible browser, video apps, or basically anything to do outside of just playing games is a bit unprecedented for any kind of device in 2017. You can… take a screenshot, add text and post it on Twitter… Ok?

But this gets me on to what might be my single favourite thing about the Switch. It’s got a bloody fast interface. Just the process of starting it up, selecting a game, loading it, backing out and loading another game, is by far the fastest process I’ve seen since, well, since before consoles even had operating systems. While it is bare bones, it gets the basics so utterly right that I can only hope it doesn’t get slower when they inevitably do add more features. Features like the new paid online service, which we don’t really know much about other than how much they totally messed up the system for voice chat. The official Splatoon 2 headset diagram from Hori sums this up better than any textual description can:

This many wires is not a good thing. I don't need to know Japanese to know that.

The Games:  

Well, I’m not going to review Zelda because that would need a blog to itself, but I do think it stands as the most significant Nintendo launch game or indeed Nintendo game in general since Super Mario 64. Now, for a while it was impossible to separate the success of the Switch from the success of Zelda… the game had the luxury of a ridiculous attachment rate of over 100%. There’s Mario Kart of course, a pretty safe bet this early in a system’s lifespan, even if it is mostly a recycling of Wii U’s version.

It has to be said, and while I’d argue there hasn’t been a huge amount of software so far, with the addition of indie games and the multiplayer trials of Splatoon and Arms, there’s been a good variety so far. It feels like Nintendo is riding a high quality wave to make up for their staggered release strategy. Arms in particular feels like the product of a confident development team. It shouldn’t work - motion controls front and center in a fast paced competitive fighting game, but based on my time with the ‘testpunch,’ it does work.

This won't be the last we've seen of these sorts of ads.

I’ve played a couple of indie titles so far. Human Resource Machine is a game about coding that I think I got way more into than I had any right to, considering I normally can’t stand games that remind me of work. Thumper on the other hand is a very repetitive ‘rhythm violence’ game that made a splash on the VR circuit last year, but honestly as a pick up and play title it works really well on the Switch.

So, all in all a strong line-up, with additional indie variety for those brave enough to venture outside the ‘first party’ comfort zone. I should mention though, if you believe some of the things floating around online, Nintendo still has a long way to go before it reaches the full potential of the Switch as a safe haven for indies.

The Overly Positive Section:  

Look, I really want to talk about just how transformative this thing is as a portable console. It’s hard for me to really put a finger on why this feels so fresh when portable powerhouses are hardly a new idea, but I think it comes down to commitment.

PlayStation Vita was all about giving folks a full console experience on the go but it couldn’t hold a candle to the types of experiences Sony themselves were delivering with the PS3 and later PS4. It had all these watered down spin-offs of big budget franchises that just didn’t have anywhere near as much time or effort pumped into them. It just didn’t feel like we were supposed to even care that much or take them seriously. “Oh wow, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, it’s like the Uncharted you play on your TV but it’s a spin-off and it’s not made by Naughty Dog and it’s boring and gimmicky and the level design kinda sucks…  Uh… well it’s cute, I guess. Portable Uncharted yay!” For the record I don’t think the Vita is a bad machine, hell the indie support made it worthwhile on its own, just that by its very nature as a companion machine, it never felt like we were really getting the ‘the real deal.’

This is so, so not the case with the Switch. As Nintendo’s new core platform, it has the full breadth of Nintendo’s development prowess behind it. It launched with the literal biggest game the company has ever made. Being able to play games of that quality on the go is new and exciting, however you slice it.

Now naysayers might say things like “ooh you can’t get immersed in big games unless you  play them in the home for hours on end blah blah blah” and, okay, fine, if you want to do that, then do it. That’s the whole point of the hybrid design. But what I’ve actually noticed is the portability encourages me to go deeper into these sorts of games than I normally would. Often if I’m tackling a big RPG or something where you do lots of grinding or you spend ages just running around talking to NPCs, managing inventories or whatever, I’ll look at the time and just think ‘wow what a waste of 2 hours.’ But now I can get the Switch out whenever I like and just have a quick 5 minute session here or there. I don’t have the bother of blocking out time to use the TV and turning loads of things on and faffing around with half a dozen different remotes. So if anything, I think the Switch is better suited to these huge epic timesink games than just about any other platform. I can hop onto Zelda on the train, maybe find a shrine or two but not really accomplish a whole lot, and it’s fine because I’m doing it on my commute. I don’t think I’d have pumped 70 hours into that game if I’d only been playing it at home, that’s all I’m saying.

Of course, there’s also the idea of having two detachable controllers, meaning I can play a quick, silly, impromptu multiplayer game with literally anyone without even having to organise something in advance. The versatility is something I didn’t fully appreciate until I realised that within 30 seconds I could show off Snipperclips to someone who’s unfamiliar with Nintendo games while sat in the office during a lunch break.

It's cute a'right? Come on, you cynical bastard.

As a twist on the hybrid-gaming concept Switch feels like a very Nintendo-ey way of embracing broader modern trends that Sony and Microsoft don’t seem to care about. It’s like how we now rely on cloud-based platforms for file management no matter where we are; how we have things like Netflix to watch films no matter where we are. It’s a console that fits around daily routines rather than one that you have to make space for and I think that is a bloody good thing.

The Problem: Well, that last section got real fanboyish, I’d better look over my list of criticisms to help balance out this review, let’s see now… Well, I could think of several nitpicks but there is an obvious one to me.

Everything is too goddamn expensive!

The console itself is steep but acceptable - it’s everything else. The accessories, the pro controller, the freakin’ standalone dock. It’s a piece of plastic for £80!

It’s worrying when games are priced a £10 premium compared to other consoles. Now allegedly this is due to the expensive cartridge format, leading to devs actively trying to make their file sizes smaller to fit on the cheaper cards, but still. It’s worrying when Nintendo insists on digital pricing being consistent with the physical RRP’s and offers no discounts whatsoever. It’s worrying when Nintendo games are already notorious for holding their value. Try finding a cheap copy of a five year old 3DS game, and compare that with how easily you can find a cheap copy of a one year old PS4 game. Then there are some publishers just having a laugh. A near-full-price 25 year old port of a certain fighting game, itself over twice the price of the 10 year old HD version it effectively repackages…

There’s certainly no sign of price being a major issue yet, as Switch consoles and games alike continue to sell like hotcakes globally. But when this honeymoon period is over; when the novelty of playing games everywhere wears off, what then?

The Missed Opportunity: I’d be remiss not to mention the biggest missed opportunity so far which is probably the lack of Virtual Console. Now, I’m sure Nintendo has a plan, there’s E3 coming up so what I’m about to say may well soon be redundant, but a Virtual Console on Switch just seems like a no-brainer. However much the idea of paying for roms annoys you, if the NES Classic proved anything it’s that lots of people really, really want to pay for roms. And with a library as big as Nintendo’s, the prospect of legitimately playing more advanced games like N64, and yes, GameCube, on a system like Switch should be ridiculously successful. I don’t think fans would be able to stop throwing money at them. I know this, I’m one of them.

Of course, if you really want to bring the good will back, announce that all VC games from 3DS and Wii U will transfer over and watch the fanboys lose their collective minds. Then throw in Wii support as well, I know you wanted to ditch all association with that brand, but you’ve got the waggle controllers already, why aren’t you flogging us Wii Sports again? Hell, bring back Nintendo Land and make it so we have to own a second Switch to simulate the Wii U Gamepad stuff, I’m sure some idiot somewhere will buy it!

All jokes aside, didn’t I just criticise a certain publisher for releasing a certain 25 year old fighting game again? Well, yes, but that was an extreme example of overpricing. Price it right, and I think the Switch is a double-dipping gold mine. We saw this with Mario Kart - hardly any new content over the Wii U version, yet it still feels like a justifiable purchase. Portability is more exciting than an HD makeover. It feels like Switch really could become into the ultimate all in one Nintendo platform, it’s just way too early to know if it will. Frankly, the weird and random way in which Virtual Console has and continues to be managed is the main reason I’m not all too optimistic. Apparently we’ll get ‘online’ NES games with the launch of Nintendo’s new paid online service, a sort of NES Netflix, if you will. That’s a fun idea, I just hope Nintendo can start thinking bigger. I’m not sure Nintendo is a company that’s used to using the old noggin. Case in point:

A Raymanology: Which one of these three systems do you suppose is the most logical candidate for a re-release of the Game Boy Advance port of Rayman 1? (Why you would want to play the Game Boy Advance port of Rayman 1 in 2017 I don’t know, but anyway...) Is it...

Option A: The 3DS, a compact, super-successful handheld with roughly the same dimensions as the GBA. Option B: The Switch, Nintendo’s brand-new exciting hybrid console.

Option C: Wii U, a home console with no true portability that is officially on its last legs.

As a reminder, Rayman Advance is a portable game. If you said option C, you’d be mental, but also correct, as that is the only digital store on which you can purchase Rayman Advance.

Who knows, maybe they’re holding out on the VC because they don’t want to cannibalise sales of new games which is totally understandable when you’re starting a new brand. But man, the idea of playing F-Zero GX on Switch, analogue triggers be damned…

Closing Thoughts:

I got pretty hung up on the whole Virtual Console thing there, but trust me, Nintendo is on to a really good thing with the Switch. Going in to E3 this year, they have the momentum, they have the games and most importantly they’ve captured gamers’ interests. All they have to do now is not Nintendumb the whole thing up. Nintendo can Nintendumb all they want, but if Nintendo Nintendoes right, they’ll keep Nintendoing until they’ve Nintendone what they always Nintended to do: Put a smile on people’s faces. For the first time in years, the future of their console business is looking up. Let’s see what they do next.

A Mario theme park? Sold.

What's the Point of Speedrunning? A Majora's Mask Story

Brace yourselves, I’m going to talk about video game speedrunning. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Now, the concept of ‘speedrunning,’ that is, the practice of attempting to beat a game in the fastest possible time, has been around for decades. Think back to the early id Software shooters and the quaint old days of ‘rocket jumping.’ In recent times, it has grown into a much broader phenomenon, from the charitable cesspool of awkwardness that is AGDQ to an almost endless of surplus of Twitch streamers, let’s players, ridiculously complex TAS explanations and countless bizarre communities. And yeah, it can get pretty ugly.

It’s fair to say in many cases, speedrunners will obsess over a game to the point where it has become a detriment to their health and social lives. One has to wonder, why bother? What exactly is the point? What is the compulsion to play games beyond the way they were intended - taking a perfectionist attitude to uncovering shortcuts, frame-perfect maneuvers and programming quirks? There’s an element of competition, sure, but there has to be more to it than that. Is it just challenge for the sake of challenge?

Well, plenty of speedrunners no doubt have made up their own minds on the matter and I doubt I’m really qualified to answer that question. I don’t speedrun games, nor do I want to, but the other day I did try something along these lines: The Majora’s Mask 3-day challenge.

Let’s back up a bit. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask: the best game in the series, obviously. (If you disagree then you are wrong and I hate you, though it remains to be seen if the soon-to-be-released Breath of the Wild has a shot.) It’s one of my favourite games, and I could easily fill a whole blog talking about why - hell, one day I probably will, but for now I just want to focus on its potential for impromptu challenge. As you may know, the entire game is built on a timer system. After three in-game days, you are forced to reset the clock, the idea being to plan ahead which tasks to accomplish and gradually make progress through repeated three day loops. As a kid, I always used to speculate on whether it was possible to complete the game in a single loop - that is, after the first reset, when Link is restored to human form - is it possible to clear all four dungeons for the first time and beat the game without having to reset once?

I never attempted this on the N64, but with the added convenience of the portable 3DS version, I thought it could be fun to try. One catch - the total gameplay time (after slowing the clock) of the 3-day loop on 3DS is 1 hour and 48 minutes, substantially less than the original version. That’s less than 2 hours to beat something that, according to howlongtobeat.com, takes most players 24 hours. So I planned ahead; rather than following any one established guide on how to accomplish this, I used my own knowledge of the game’s systems, what items I’d need and what to skip. I still needed to do some research when I realised there would be impossible barriers to overcome. Case in point: Reaching two of the game’s areas requires Epona, your horse, which must be recovered on day one before sundown. To achieve this is… borderline impossible. The workaround I found is sort of amazing - a 3DS-only trick revolving around the sheer luck of additional geometry and a conveniently placed save point, almost as if the designers put it there on purpose:

People dedicate their free time to figuring out tricks like these...

So, I gave it a shot, rehearsing each segment that I’d need to do and then attempting it with as few mistakes as possible. This was about 2 years ago - I failed spectacularly by running out of time in the final dungeon, but having gotten so close I knew it was still possible. So, just the other day I attempted the whole thing again. I ironed out a few specific instances where I could have saved more time and went for it, this time successfully. What made it especially satisfying is just how close-cut my second run actually was. I beat the game’s last dungeon and made it to the ending with literally about 1 minute to spare. The act of clearing Stone Tower Temple and fighting Twinmold on such a stringent limit was especially nerve wracking (Link’s low health and underpowered items from skipping so much doesn't exactly help, neither does the fact that the remade Twinmold fight is incredibly long.) Still, I made it, and the end result was undoubtedly satisfying.

But to come back to that first question: Why bother? Why did I feel the need to achieve this? You could make the case that my self-imposed challenge was even more pointless than those of the folk who spend all day streaming speedruns online. At least those people are competing with each other for world records, or entertaining audiences of basement-dwellers. Was this not all a waste of time? Well, let me backpedal to the thoughts that were going through my head when I was planning my route through the game. When I think about it now, it’s all about the appeal of discovery, of utilising your understanding of a game’s subsystems and mastering something. When you’ve sunk enough hours into a hobby you enjoy, you can’t help but imprint your own self-imposed challenge onto it. Where it goes too far, I believe, is when it completely sabotages any previous enjoyment you got from the activity. And from what I’ve seen of the speedrunning community, a healthy balance of this is not something that is always in abundance.

Anyway, those are my ramblings for now. I’m thinking about making a disillusioned speedrunner the protagonist for a future book one day. I find the psychology behind them interesting even as I cringe at their methods. Living a life consumed by the inanity of self-perpetuating video game challenge.

In the end of the day, video games are supposed to be fun, right?

Is VR gaming a mainstream concept? Impressions and ideas from someone with no authority on the topic

"Is VR gaming a mainstream concept now?" I asked myself, cringing as the sub-par candidates from the latest series of BBC's The Apprentice flailed around with their Vive headsets talking about imaginary space badgers. It certainly doesn’t seem very long ago that the words ‘virtual reality’ were either an overused sci-fi trope or a stock phrase used to refer to video games themselves, usually by the press in another mis-informed rant about violence in the media.

Above: What people used to mean by 'virtual reality'

But VR games certainly have made a splash this year, with the ‘big three’ headsets all launching with a plethora of developer support and prices so alarming it makes you wonder what all the fuss is about. It’s certainly something new to come out of the games industry for once. I’m generalising - there are plenty of new things coming out of the games industry all the time, but to the general public it’s all a bunch of pixels, buttons and nonsense. But with VR, we now have people literally strapping goggles onto their faces in order to play games. It’s not hard to imagine the curiosity around this ‘hip new thing.’ It’s quite clear Lord Sugar and the Apprentice producers are all into ‘hip new things’, even if they couldn’t give a toss about VR or video games in general.

Lord Sugar totally gets VR. This is an actual still from the latest episode of The Apprentice.

Oh, I could certainly harp on about how misguided the entire episode of The Apprentice was - how games don’t get conceptualised, built and then demoed to industry professionals in a day (props to the devs for turning them around so quickly), how the player’s interactions should be the priority of VR development, not the look of the imaginary badger… Anyway, my point is - what was once a fleeting, ‘look what John Carmack’s got cooking up in his basement’ affair for the nichest of the niche tech enthusiasts, seems to have branched out into something the general public is very much aware of, much like the motion controller fad of a few years ago.

Except this time nobody can afford it.

I can’t give much of an informed opinion on VR because I haven’t bought any of this tech. A lot of people have, clearly, but as mainstream as the concept of VR may have become, it certainly hasn’t been adopted by the mainstream. Part of this may well be due to the lack of truly essential software - we all know that software sells hardware. Part of this may also just be down to an overall level of skepticism on the gamer’s side. ‘Why do I need this?’ they’ll ask. ‘It’s early tech, I’ll wait for them to iron out the kinks.’ Or perhaps more damningly, ‘I don’t want to play games with half a hockey mask strapped to my head.’ And fair enough. VR is a fundamentally different way of playing games and it’s never going to appeal to everyone. And it’s expensive. Did I mention that it’s expensive? We’re living in turbulent times. Who is really going to want to spend the best part of a grand on first generation peripheral hardware, with wires trailing all over the place? Seriously, it's gotten so ludicrous people are trying to find ways to tie the cables to the ceiling.

If you’re curious about what VR has to offer I still think the best option is to seek out a demo unit somewhere and try it for yourself. I’ve been lucky enough to try out all of the big three (HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR - I’m discounting the cheaper mobile offerings) at events over the last few months and these are my impressions after just a few minutes* of gameplay:  

*(i.e. don’t trust anything I’m about to write)

HTC Vive: Price before Brexit: £689 Price after Brexit: £759 (Ouch!) By definition, absolutely the most impressive VR experience around. It is room-scale after all, which means a fair amount of standing, ducking and dodging. I was actually most impressed by the motion controllers, which are extremely precise and do create an almost perfect illusion that you are holding real objects. The funny thing I observed is that because the controllers are so light, I felt like the guns and weapons I’d pick up were cheap Fisher-Price toys, not real killing machines. I do wonder if that’s going to require a real suspension of disbelief in some games, as you impale evil warlords with a spear that your brain thinks is made of foam.

I played two games - a robot shooter called Space Pirate Trainer and a zombie shooter that could have been any of the thousands of zombie games on Steam. These were simple wave based survival experiences with limited depth. I appreciated how fresh it felt playing in such a different way - and particularly liked mechanics like the shield in Space Pirate Trainer which you can actually hide behind then lean out to shoot.

Oculus Rift: Price: £549 In terms of visual fidelity and sense of space, I’d say this is almost on par with the considerably more expensive Vive. I was disappointed in the headset itself though. Things weren’t off to a good start when I was told to take off my glasses and place them carefully inside the headset before putting it over my head. I didn’t have to do this with the other two. Then once I’d put the headset on, I was advised to spend a minute or two playing with straps (that I couldn’t even find) and get it all perfectly adjusted. Then after all that - I don’t know if this was my own incompetence or not - I could still see a gap at the bottom of the headset. All in all, pretty cumbersome. The game itself? Red Bull Air Race. And blimey. I’d read about reports of VR sickness before, but to experience it for the first time was… interesting. Yes, armed with just a regular Xbox pad I was doing all manner of loop the loops and flips and… yeah, it was kind of nausea inducing, and I dunno about you but I don’t play video games for induced nausea. Still - if you can handle it - and some people clearly can - I don’t doubt that it’s impressive fun.

PlayStation VR: Price: £349 (plus £100 or so for camera / PS Move) First impressions were that the resolution is pretty awful. To be fair, this is a problem on any VR set and it’s not that much more pronounced here. Actually, the reason why this was my first impression is because the actual act of putting on the headset and adjusting it is amazingly quick for PS VR. Both Vive and Rift take a large amount of faffing just to get the damn thing on, but PS VR fits amazingly well, even for glasses wearers like myself. Now, PS VR obviously works with the PS4 and most games play with just the standard DualShock 4. There are motion controls with the old PlayStation Move but apparently that’s a bit naff. I couldn’t tell you how well either of those work because my only demo was of ‘The Deep,’ an on-rails ride in the ocean you can’t even interact with. Still, I can’t praise enough how convenient and comfortable this headset is - it’s also by far the cheapest and most user friendly, so it’ll be my pick if I ever go impulse-buy crazy.

So, what are my takeways from all this VR dabbling? Well, most of all, I’m just really interested to see where VR goes from here. I love that it’s such a new, massively flawed thing that’s forcing developers to rethink how games should work. To me, that in itself is a good thing. Some may disagree, claiming that VR games are and will continue to be messy and mechanically basic. I like big, complex experiences as much as anyone, but I’m still enthusiastic about something genuinely new.

I tried to come up with a few VR game ideas myself:

• Flip the zombie survival concept: Look I get the whole horror thing, but let’s flip it round so that you are the zombie. Why not? I’d love to flail around in first person with motion controlled limbs awkwardly grabbing survivors, leaning in for the bite. The more awkward it is the better (Note: could work just as well with any awkwardly moving monster creature - Godzilla?)

• Hallway duelling in bullet-time: So Vive has you standing around and… not really walking anywhere, so why not have a pistol duelling game about outwitting your opponent with weird dodge moves. With really slow moving bullets. You know, Matrix style.

• Grapple Man: Ok, so a lot of standing VR games resort to a teleport feature so that you can move around without your character having to walk and without your brain feeling too disconnected. So, instead of that, let’s design a character who can’t walk, but does have a great big grappling hook to pull things towards him - pieces of the environment, enemies… I love the idea of pulling someone in with one hand and thwacking him with a great big (Fisher Price) fist in the other.

• Ant-Man the game: Well Batman got a game already, I was thinking about what other superheroes should follow suit and I settled on… Ant-Man? Really? Well think about it. The sense of scale going from regular to ant size. Thinking ‘gee whizz those are some nicely rendered floorboards.’ Riding ants during an on-rail shooter round someone’s garden. Who needs X-Wings? I’m not even kidding.

• Trolley Simulator 2017: So it has been established that VR games with vehicles work pretty well thanks to the constant frame of reference - so... I’m bending the rules a tad but let’s go with trolleys. Imagine you’re pushing a trolley around, steering it around a shop, having to balance items in front of you. I just think it would be a lot of fun in VR. I promise this is unrelated to the game my friend’s working on.

There, you see Apprentice candidates, it isn’t so hard! Ok, ok, I’m joking. These clearly aren’t the best ideas ever. VR is a tricky thing to get right. It’s not easy for anyone.

To go back to my original point on VR games being a mainstream concept… The concept may well be mainstream, but that doesn’t mean the product is ready to be mainstream. I don’t know if VR will ever truly take off. It feels inherently restrictive, anti-social and cumbersome by its very nature. But put it this way, in 10 years from now, we’re going to look back at these feeble early attempts and laugh. Oh, those poor punters with their massive wallets, buying into unfinished tech. If only they knew what the gaming landscape would be like now. Read into that what you will...

The Witness Nearly Drove Me Insane

FULL SPOILERS for The Witness below. If you haven't played it yet, I suggest you go check it out.

God damn, if I hear 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' one last time, I'm going to have an aneurysm.

I'm referring of course to the final challenge in Jonathan Blow's artsy-fartsy line-drawing puzzle behemoth, The Witness, in which after many tens of hours of careful, measured problem solving and cryptic realisations, Blow throws a curveball. Take all the puzzle mechanics we've become so accustomed to but switch things up - now there's a time limit, and the puzzles are randomly generated.

The Witness' challenge section is an immediately intimidating tonal shift for a game that for the most part encourages a thoughtful pace. Until this point, the player could have (if they had no shame) essentially brute forced the majority of the game's puzzles, or worse, just looked up a tutorial online. Doing so effectively removes the entire point of the game, but for a game this resolutely demanding it's sometimes hard to avoid that temptation

I especially feel for anyone who's colour blind:

(I'm not even colour blind but I figured out I could beat this puzzle by using the PS4's video sharing feature and playing it back frame by frame - a nice little 'meta' solution I was quite proud of)

So, anyway, the challenge section... There's no way to take the easy road here - the challenge is a test of skill. Even an apparent 'cheat' that involved you being able to 'pause' on PS4 by turning the console onto rest mode and back on again has been nixed. The challenge section is a test of skill. Well, skill and luck - more on that in a minute. You could argue that it's an entirely superfluous part of the game that most people would happily pass up, but I'm not so sure. After literally about 30 hours in this world, assuming you've already activated all the lasers, it's hard to resist the pull of the final challenge.

Especially when it's the only trophy left to unlock...

So, you attempt the challenge. Classical music comes on - instantly unnerving for a game that until now has had very little sound to speak of. The first few mazes are simple, giving a false sense of security that isn't going to last. It takes a while to realise that the fourth maze is actually a map of where you need to physically walk towards the end. It became a routine for me to stop for a second and take an actual photo of the screen with my phone. So what? I'm useless memorising directions. You might I'm already showing signs of madness for doing this but I doubt I'm alone. Still, it's slightly disturbing looking back through my phone's images and seeing this:

Wow, I really tried this a lot of times, didn't I?

Not counting attempts where I restarted right at the beginning so as to get a perfect early run, I've probably attempted the challenge run over 100 times across 2 or 3 weeks. Why? Because I knew it was possible. Because after 30 hours of god damn line puzzles, I wanted to prove I could do it.

For a while it almost seemed hopeless. After the initial four easy puzzles the cavern gives way to a larger set of puzzles that come on in a random order and throw more complicated rules into the mix. Tetris blocks - I'm no good with shapes! Symmetrical lines - the absolute bane of my life. Then of course comes the part where you're presented with three puzzles, of which only one is solvable. It's quite a skill to be able to correctly discern, within the space of seconds, whether a puzzle is even solvable - a good many of my runs frankly ended at this point, and it doesn't help that getting a puzzle wrong actually pushes you back.

Then it's on to the physical maze I mentioned earlier - things are incredibly tense at this point because it's incredibly easy to get lost - the triangular puzzles are often some of the hardest ever, and in the 1% of cases when I actually manage to best them both, it's on to the final room - the cylinders.

The cylinders are evil.

Maybe they aren't actually evil, but the first few times I reached this point, it almost felt hopeless. There was no way I could calm down enough to think about what I needed to do, and with a symmetry puzzle - especially one where you can't see the whole puzzle at once - this should be a priority. By this point, if I'm lucky, the challenge mode's second song - the aforementioned In the Hall of the Mountain King, has either just started or well on the way to its full blazing finale. Either way, it makes things almost overbearingly tense, and painful when all I'm doing is standing there facing a puzzle I just don't know how to solve. I think I've got it but - nope - I've missed a dot. Try again. No, I don't see any other way of - oh, too late. Back to the first room. Try again.

So eventually I realised - turn off the sound. Sure enough, an hour or two of relatively relaxed attempts later...

The Mountain King had barely even begun! I had no idea until I watched it back later - but I'd beaten it with a solid two minutes to spare - a record time I don't think I'll ever be able to replicate, even with some of the embarrassing faffing in that video as I wandered about trying to find where the puzzles were.

I think I got lucky. Watching the footage back, a lot of the parts I tend to have trouble with - the symmetry, the triangles, were about as straightforward as I've ever seen. Is this fair? Is The Witness' final challenge based on luck, not skill, after all? I'm not so sure, but after over 100 failed attempts, this moment stands as one of the most powerful, euphoric and rewarding moments I've ever had with a game. That's the reason I had to write this blog. I've never quite experienced anything like this with another game. And I don't even know how I feel about that.

The Witness has certainly left an impression on me, then. I haven't even talked about the game's biggest 'eureka' moment yet - The fact that there are hidden puzzles everywhere in the environment, hidden in plain sight. Many people have mentioned how their view of the real world has become somewhat warped and that they are seeing Witness puzzles any place there's a circle and a line, or a grid, or the shadow of a tree branch, and I totally relate to them. Hell, the game's 'secret ending' even did that literally, even though it's a ridiculously pretentious amateur-hour live action plod. GoPro Blow?

The Witness is also one of the only games where leftover squared paper from my maths degree has actually come in handy.

It's a weird thing that happens as you get drawn in to the internal logic of Blow's game. It's almost like it's rewiring your sense of perception. It's scary - and also very empowering. It nearly drove me insane, but it shed a light on how my brain learns and adapts to new information. It's a very rewarding experience that proves that you don't need guns and action and pretty graphics - you can make an absorbing experience out of nothing more than a few hundred line puzzles... and pretty graphics.

PS: To any fans of the game, I highly recommend watching / listening to Blow's commentary with the Giant Bomb guys - it's pretty much a must-see for anyone wanting to digest the many intricacies.

Now excuse me, I have to go stare at more circles.

Belated thoughts on E3 2015

Alright, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Turns out, if anything was gonna convince me to write a new blog, a major gaming event littered with big budget bombshells will. So, without further adieu, here are my belated thoughts on some of the big announcements from E3 2015:

Star Wars Battlefront
(Nov 2015 - PS4, Xbox One & PC)

It’s been years since we've had a proper Star Wars game. No, I don’t count Kinect Star Wars. I’m not sure if I even count The Force Unleashed. No, for me, I’ve always found the idea of piloting X-Wings and AT-STs far more exciting than running around as an overpowered Jedi. So here’s Dice’s big new Battlefront, and it looks almost too good to be true. Which may well be because all we’ve seen is an incredibly precisely choreographed slice of gameplay, with no context as to how well things will work out on launch day. Nevertheless, it’s Star Wars. It’s big and loud and pretty and it couldn’t be timed any better. It’s no secret that this isn’t the first time a third Battlefront game has been in the works, as the story of LucasArts’ downfall and Free Radical’s failed attempt is pretty well known by this point. While that previous concept was ultimately more ambitious, featuring massive seamless land to space battles, I’m not mourning that loss any more. This new game doesn't even feature space battles, but... man... I want it...

Pros: Extremely authentic and polished, no Star Wars game has ever been this spectacular.

Cons: Question marks around online performance and DLC / monetisation plans

The Last Guardian
(2016, PS4)

Yep, The Last Guardian’s back after being off the radar for a good 5, 6 years. I’m not really surprised that the game is still happening - I know it was rumoured to have been cancelled many times previously. I’m more surprised at just how similar it looks now to it’s original unveiling. That’s not a criticism by the way, it looked amazing back then… it must be a testament to that original design that after all the stops and starts that occurred over this game’s torturous development, the design of the creature and surrounding presentation was strong enough to survive it all. It’s clear that this game is essentially Ico again but with a much larger companion - a rather literal blend of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus that certainly shows Ueda’s intentions at making this a spiritual successor. And when those two games are considered among the greatest of all time, I think it’s safe to say we should be very excited indeed.

Pros: Great surprise to have this back right when people were writing it off. Looks beautiful. I want to pet the giant bird dog thing. 

Cons: Hopefully more than just heartstring bait. Does anyone remember how annoying Ico’s gameplay actually was?



Doom (Remake)
(Spring 2016 - PS4, Xbox One & PC)

Doom is back, once again proving that nobody does FPS gibs like id Software. Anything new from the studio that gave us the Wolfenstein - Doom - Quake lineage back in the 90s is instantly worth note. This time, they seem to have taken a cue from the popular fan mod Brutal Doom, that ups the gore to absurdity levels. The controversy surrounding the ultra-violence showcased in the demo is a bit amusing to me. Complaining that a Doom game is too violent is like complaining that a racing game contains too many roads. What exactly were you expecting? My main point of concern isn’t the level of violence, but the fact that so much of it seems to be shoved in your face, bringing the gunplay to a standstill while you wait for a preset animation to finish. Quick time events are not something I want in a Doom game. It’s a shame, and hopefully most of it’s completely optional, because in all other respects the pacing looks fantastic. While it’s a bit of a cliche that every single shooter these days features fast sprinting and double jumps, I love that circle strafing and speedy movement is back in the game; it’s absence from Doom 3 is what made the game feel… well, not like Doom. Add to that the extremely robust looking level editor tool that’s bundled with every version of the game, and I think id are on their way to a winner.

Pros: BFGs, super shotguns, fire imps, revenants, circle strafing, that E1M1 music…

Cons: Too start - stop with all the execution moves. 

Fallout 4
(Nov 2015 - PS4, Xbox One & PC)

I haven’t played a Fallout game before, which I guess makes me a nutter. But what I’ve seen of Fallout 4 looks really pretty spectacular indeed. Director Todd Howard’s demonstration of the game was quite something - my brother already described him as the ‘Steve Jobs of game presenters,’ (but that’s not exactly much of a compliment considering the competition). He even managed to make a ludicrously exuberant limited edition sound worthwhile. Anyway, Bethesda look to have put together something that’s a real generational leap over the likes of Skyrim, with loads of variety and depth (even managing to riff on Minecraft and the like). There may be no Liam Neeson on voicing duties, but the new dialogue branching sounds interesting, and the dog interaction sounds great too. Luckily, it sounds like the dog will be indestructible, so there’s no need to keep the tissues on standby in anticipation for that heartbreaking scene we all envisage when hearing the word ‘dog’ mentioned in the same sentence as a violent video game. So yeah, I may well break my Fallout virginity upon the game’s release this Winter. Oh wait, I already have, I’ve been playing mobile spin-off Fallout Shelter the past couple weeks. I don’t even like mobile games, what’s going on?

Pros: An open world game that actually stands out from the crowd. The dog can’t die.

Cons: I don’t know if I like Fallout games yet.

Rare Replay
(August 2015 - Xbox One)

I thought it would be nice if Microsoft acknowledged British studio Rare’s 30th anniversary with some kind of compilation, but I wasn’t expecting anything near this generous. Now excuse me for sounding a little bit overly excited here, but this is literally my entire childhood being pressed into a single disc. 30 games, consisting of almost all of the company’s hits (though no licensed games, GoldenEye is out) all in one place for an absurdly cheap price. Sure, the games themselves are likely to be rather bare-bones emulations, but it’s the thought that counts. The overarching interface is well presented, at least from what I’ve seen of the preview videos, and with some cool extra features like a snapshot mode that lets you chain together snippets of older games, NES Remix style. So consider me impressed. And I never, ever expected games as obscure as Blast Corps or Snake Rattle ’n Roll to get a rerelease. Definitely a labour of love for (what was formally) my favourite game developer of all, and as if that wasn’t enough…

Pros: Absurd value for money, nice theatre based presentation. They’re re-releasing Jet Force Gemini.

Cons: Well, obviously there’s nothing new here. Nitpickers will complain that the games aren’t fully remastered. Conker Live & Reloaded didn’t make the cut.

Sea of Thieves
(2016 - Xbox One & PC)

…Is it fair to say Rare is officially back now? Between this, Rare Replay and the recent Kickstarter smash hit for Banjo successor Yooka-Laylee, the stench of years of disappointing losses and mediocre Kinect games is starting to be washed away. Plus, it’s pirate themed, which is extremely fitting for a company that for so many years has insisted on putting pirates in games but never giving them a game for themselves. It’s a new IP, which is a great move, even if it’s effectively a reimagining of the old Project Dream concept. There’s not that much to go on so far, but the visuals are looking lovely, and if this can build on some of the big open world pirate game concepts that Assassin’s Creed IV toyed around with, there’s a lot of good that could come out of this.

Pros: There may not be much of the old staff around, but that’s definitely a Robin Beanland score I hear, and long-time designer Gregg Mayles is on board, judging by the fake usernames floating about in the trailer. Pirates!

Cons: It’s clearly got it’s ambitions in the increasingly worrisome ‘always-online’ arena. Let’s hope they don’t mess it up.

Star Fox Zero
(Q4 2015 - Wii U)

Nintendo’s online E3 event was surreal and shambolic, being mostly comprised of (admittedly entertaining) puppet antics, shockingly light on new game announcements other than ones that angered the entire core fanbase of the company. The one thing that stuck out for me was the game Nintendo decided to focus the most on, their new Wii U Star Fox. My first thought upon watching gameplay for Star Fox Zero was something along the lines of ‘that is definitely Star Fox.’ My next thought was ‘this is almost too Star Fox.’ Artistically and conceptually, Nintendo have adopted an incredibly old-school, almost backwards approach with bright, basic visuals, cheesy dialogue and a general quirky tone that’s right in line with the last ‘true’ game in the series, Star Fox 64. You know, 18 years ago. I loved that game. I don’t know what people without a nostalgia hat are going to make out of this, you know, if they had to choose between this and Star Wars Battlefront.

Pros: First authentic Star Fox game in decades. Platinum Games co-developing.

Cons: Almost too retro? Wii U control gimmicks might end up being a hindrance.

Other thoughts:

Super Mario Maker  - Now that’s a game creation tool I can really get behind…

Metal Gear Solid V  - It’s coming so soon that I don’t want to spoil it for myself, so no comment.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3  - Almost looks like a superhero action game now. Running out of ideas?

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate   - Another one. This time with Cockneys. Think I’ll pass.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole   - Brilliant title. That’s all I wanted to say.

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End   - Flawless cinematic action. Except for the fact that it breaks every time they show it.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake  - Well that’ll shut the fanboys up at last.

Shenmue 3  - Ditto. But doing it via Kickstarter is a bit disingenuous, surely?

No Man’s Sky  - Is this ever going to come out?

Horizon: Zero Dawn  - Female Turok versus robot dinosaurs, or something.

Cuphead:  Oh my god, it’s beautiful.

Dreams - Okay. what is it again?

Halo 5: Guardians  - Pew pew pew. Locke is the most generic character of all time.

Destiny: The Taken King  - They won’t be ‘taken’ my money this time. Hur hur hur… Wait, are those new subclasses? Shhhiii…

Gears 4:  Uh… Too many games with guns. It’s melting my brain.

Rise of the Tomb Raider:   Nope, there’s no way she survived that.

Microsoft’s Hololens:  Waiting to see more of it. If I was into Minecraft, I’d have crapped my pants.

Final thoughts? All this virtual reality tech is certainly very intriguing, but I'm not sure this guy's really sold me on the new Oculus controllers.

That's all guys!