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Showing posts with the label Nintendo Switch

Pokémon Sword and Shield Pokédex- who is in and who is out?

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Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield are out, and have been for a while and although the Official That Guy's A Maniac Review(tm) has yet to come out, suffice to say we've both ploughed a heckuva lot of hours into it, especially the online components and it's good. It's very good. However, before we take a deeper dive in a review let's look at who made the final cut. We wrote about ' Dexit ' in the run up to release but now the games are out let's take a look at who is in and who is out. A bit of SPOILERS housekeeping first, we won't be talking about any of the new pokémon just which ones of the first 809 made the cut but there are some minor spoilers about pokémon with new forms so if you're still keeping yourself clean, look away now. Here's a handy chart of who is in and who is out at the time of writing. Look at it in amazement/despair. If you've ever played and liked a previous pokémon game, there's bound to be at least one or t

TGAM: Our Games of 2019

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A.K.A it's 1998 again, A.K.A Richie and Cunzy's gaming tastes are so on the beaten track that there's a well worn runnel slap bang in the middle of the beaten track, the very beaten track if you like, and that's the only place we'll ever walk. Apologies to all those indies, new IPs, unique genres and innovative games we're only playing stuff we know, stuff we played already, remasters, re-releases and sequels. Looking through the games of 2019 I made myself actual chunder with how boringly quotidian our games list was going to be. We apologise to both of you in advance. IT WAS ALSO A BUMPER FUCKING YEAR FOR GAMES. It's like 1998 again. The Switch is the new PlayStation and we've not been excited for """"""new""""" releases like this for a long time. I think we picked up almost all of these on launch day and it's been a long time since a year has inspired us to do that. In no apparent ord

Countdown to Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield

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We've not been this excited for a new game for a while. Yes, there are National Dex (or lack thereof) 'woes' but we can't wait to jump into a new region, on the big screen, we're relatively spoiler free and there seems to be a tonne of quality of life improvements including, finally, thankfully being able to change natures of pokémon (easy mode though?). Will the open fields and valleys actually be open? Will the end game content be more Alpha Sapphire/Omega Ruby or X/Y ? Will the new additions to the pokédex end up as fan favourites or niche beasts? Has Omastar made it in? Funny how games can sometimes still get us like this.

TGAM Ponders: New Galarian Form Pokémon

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Pokémon Sun introduced the idea of regional forms or variants of pokémon previously known and loved from other games and it looks like the same is going to be true for the Galar region in Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield . We got a first glimpse of four new form pokémon as well as a newbie Morpeko so we'll take a look at that too. Flaming Galar Region On the brink of the UK's collapse, Game Freak have seen fit to commemorate the end of the state by setting  Pokémon Sword  and  Pokémon Shield in a region, heavily inspired by the UK. In particular it seems that the British Empire and industrialisation are being celebrated with the coal pokémon Rolycoly and a new Weezing form inspired, it seems, by factory owners. What better way to celebrate colonialism and the tens of thousands of children that died working in factories for a pittance? Here's the new Weezing: Richie: Yaaaaas Fairy/Poison, dig that shit! Maining Weezing, calling it now! I cant abandon my fire-rabbit

An Omastar is STILL For Life

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With the, how shall we say, 'fan backlash' to the recent confirmation and reiteration that some Pokémon would not be compatible with the upcoming  Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield for Nintendo Switch it's perhaps timely to check in with Dactylocer, the Omastar that, alongside a few others, we've transferred from game to game, region to region and hardware generation to generation since 2004's  Pokémon Fire Red for the Game Boy Advance*. The Story So Far We last checked in with Dactylocer back in 2013 in blogpost  An Omastar is for life  charting one spiral pokémon's journey from Game Boy Advance to Game Cube to Nintendo DS to Wii to a pedometer and even exploration of the Dream World on PC. Unova had been conquered and we were waiting to hear about compatibility with Pokémon X and Y and the chance to take on the Kalos region. Generation Six Fortunately, after a little longer wait that anticipated , thanks to the delay in  Pokémon Bank and a quick st

Acid Rounds: Starlink Battle For Atlas (Switch)

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Acid rounds is a semi-regular, irregular spot on TGAM for games we have beasted from start to finish. Richie: Sunday is the day of God, apparently it was made his day cuz he had just churned out a 6 day week, and decided he was gonna rest on his laurels. Every week we do the same, except instead of resting on our laurels we brag about games we have beasted from start to finish, Last week I went off on one about Oblivion this week Cunzers tells us about yet another spaceship game ! So What's this one about? Cunzy1 1: Starlink: Battle for Atlas is an interesting mix, it's part space game, part planetary exploration and part RTS with a more-complex-than-it-needs-to-be toys to life element. Pilots, ships, wings and weapons can either be changed on the fly by plugging and swapping around physical parts or used to unlock parts and pilots for time limited use in digital/handheld mode. The story in Starlink won't be threatening narrative titans of Sci-Fi, Starlink is a b

The Secret Language of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (and Mario Kart 8), Kartography and Motion Language

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Mario Kart 8 was released for the WiiU in 2014 and the Deluxe version of the game came out for Nintendo Switch in 2017. The Mario Kart series of games remain highly popular and although the longevity of these titles through online racing means that these games demand high prices years (almost decades in the case of Mario Kart 7 ) after release, the communities that build up in these games are rarely subject to academic enquiry or basic coverage in the average games media.  Fascinatingly, because Nintendo EAD, the developer of the game and Nintendo the publisher take online harassment and bullying seriously players of online Nintendo games and games on Nintendo platforms often have a highly limited mode of expression to communicate with other players when playing online together. This is of interest because enterprising players use the limited tools they have to contrive and develop new languages and forms of expression through cosmetics in games (costumes, 'emotes', equip

Judging Journos Nintendo Labo VR Kit. How did they do?

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In what was a rather typical week in gaming for some reason journos gave a lot of air time to that rape game, crap opinions about  Anthem evolved and game journos all had the same opinion about Nintendo Labo VR Kit. It continues to be disheartening to us that games journalism just isn't very good still. The broader games industry has a wealth of issues from understanding employment law to widespread amoral attitudes foster on the forums and in spite of this rather than because of it, it produces those games we love to lose ourselves in. Having a respected and professional industry of critics around it would also help a little bit to raise the perception and cultural standing of gaming instead, with rare exception, it's a race to the bottom for coverage of the hot topics and well, why read a hungry hack's regurgitated press release when you can watch your favourite streamer play the thing for four days straight instead. Considered critical opinion is very rare and many of

WIMMD: SF30 Pro

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Introducing a little micro feature on the the buttons we press and joysticks we waggle! Recently I was rummaging around in my computer detritus box. A box which contains, SD card adaptors, proprietary USB cables for devices I have long since lost, devices which have long lost proprietary usb cables, external dvd drives, scratched DVDs with ancient Linux distros  etc etc and Controllers, I have collected quite a few, and I'd like to share a few of may Favourites. First up is this bad boy! The expertly knocked off SNES Controller, the 8bitdo SF30: Oh man there is so much to love about this controller. First up, just look at it! Its a fucking upgraded SNES controller. It is a thing of beauty, and honestly I had my doubts and reservations before I took the plunge and bought it. Given how good it looked, it was a bit concerning: what were the sacrifices here? Is it going to feel cheap, is it going to me heavy cuz its wireless etc. Most specifically I was concerned about tho

Acid Rounds: Manticore Galaxy on Fire (Switch)

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Acid rounds is a semi regular, irregular spot on TGAM for games we have beasted from start to finish. Richie: Oooh a spaceship, flying game that is a change of pace for you , what made you snap this one up? Cunzy11: Since Colony Wars and Rogue Squadron series ended back in the 1890s, it feels like there's been a drought of proper space 'em ups. Sure there's been variants on the theme like spreadsheet manager EVE Online , top down ships FTL , almost ships flight fighting in the new Battlefront but no real proper space games ( Elite Dangerous , No Man's Sky, Kerbal Space Program ?). I'd been lucky enough to catch the single tweet from Gamescom announcing that  Everspace was coming to the Switch, got too excited and decided to pick up Manticore: Galaxy on Fire in the meantime. Richie: What sets this one apart from all the other sci-fi shootery games that swell the marketplace? Cunzy11: That it was out at the time. Seriously. It's extremely playable

Acid Rounds: Into the Breach (Switch)

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Acid rounds is a semi regular, irregular spot on TGAM for games we have beasted from start to finish. Richie: I heard that Into the Breach is a game by indie cunts for indie cunts, why are you an indie cunt? Cunzy11: Okay, so yes. In some circles. It's one of those indie darling games. Particularly amongst those bearded, shoes and no socks PC boyos. I'd managed to miss all the hype completely and against all the odds spotted it on the eShop on sale and thought it looked cool. Imagine my surprise to see it on every fedorad arm-tat hipster's game of the year lists. And quite fucking rightly too. I liked it well after it was famous. Richie: So its a hipster strategy game? X-Com: Avocado edition? Cunzy11: *clears throat*  it's a retro styled, tile-based, time travelling, rogue-like, dungeon runner with mechs, tanks and kaijus. Yes. Yes it's X-Com: Avocado edition.  Richie: Right so you beasted this on the Switch, What made it tear you away fro

Starlink: Tourist Around Atlas

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We treated ourself to Starlink: Battle for Atlas , Ubisoft's buildable ship toys-to-life game over Christmas seeing as the starter pack and accessories were criminally discounted and we love a good space flight ship game (we're somewhat in a renaissance after years of nothing!) & didn't have enough single title use plastic crap. I'm loving the game, so much that I'm savouring it rather than smashing through to hit the credits but in lieu of a longer post on it here's some postcards from Atlas taken using the excellent photo mode, added as a bonus free update over Christmas! Photo mode comes with a range of tools and filters and we've spent shockingly long snapping away. SHIPS We're playing it on Switch, so obviously Arwing is best but we're a little bit in love with Pulse, the saucy little red number piloted by ex-racing driver Chase. It's true that red ones go faster. This one we call 'BLUE'. It hangs above our sex bed in ou