Hey folks,
Happy Friday!
The sun is shining, birds are singing, and it’s going to be a great weekend to sit in a dark room and play video games.
This week I (Alice) was disappointed by Drag X Drive and went even deeper into Pokemon TCG Pocket. Meanwhile, Tim saw the future of Xbox and playing a game from 1985 that you’ve probably never heard of, yet can purchase right now.
Plus, all the recommendations you need.
Enjoy!
A bit of a drag (and not in a fabulous way)
By Alice
Of all the games I wanted to love this year, Drag X Drive was the game I wanted to love the most. Wheelchair basketball is one of the most exciting sports out there, and it deserves a robust game that shows off the intricacies, and also just how badass the players are. Plus, quirky Nintendo games that have weird control modes are almost always fun. So, combining using the mouse function on the JoyCon as the way to control each separate wheel on your wheelchair for basketball, in a launch Nintendo game, would seem like the perfect game.
But there was just something missing from Drag X Drive. It lacked a spark. It reminded me a lot of the Roller Champions roller derby game that Ubisoft released in 2022 and that everyone forgot existed almost immediately afterwards, but if all the colour and whimsy was sucked out of it.
I just can’t work out why I don’t love it, though. The gameplay is repetitive, but I’m usually fine with that. The game is devoid of colour and whimsy. It’s got the aesthetic of a warehouse torture chamber, just with less tension and enthusiasm. Though, that isn’t essential to a good game. There isn’t a lot of content, but that’s ok in a $30 game.
Each match in Drag x Drive lasts 3 minutes, which is both too long and not long enough. To play online with friends you must have at least three people to join a match with up to three bot players, or you have to just jump into a public lobby and hope for the best.
The mouse controls are fun, but I found that they lacked consistency. Sometimes one side just wouldn’t register for no obvious reason.
The gameplay loop is good, and the ability to do tricks on the halfpipe for extra fractions of a point adds excitement and a layer of optional skill. However, some of the controls (like jumping, for instance) are tediously difficult to pull off. Not the fun challenge kind of difficult, just the annoying kind.
For $30, Drag X Drive is an interesting tech demo and worth a shot to see if it’s your jam. But it comes across as a missed opportunity that lacks Nintendo’s usual sparkle. It plays like a game that needed fresh eyes at some point in the development cycle, and a voice saying “hey, what if we did this, but fun?”
What to play
Launching onto PlayStation Plus Extra this week is Sword of the Sea, a beautiful exploration game that blends the art and aesthetic of ABZÛ or The Pathless (developer Giant Squid’s previous games) with mechanics inspired by Tony Hawk. Also new on PS+ Extra this week is Marvel’s Spider-man with all its DLC (the remastered version if you’re on PS5), and Vanillaware’s wonderful tactics RPG Unicorn Overlord. If you pay for PS+ Deluxe you also get the PS1 versions of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3.
A few additions to Game Pass this week, headlined by iconic high school / occult serial killer RPG Persona 4 Golden. There’s also the brand new cute cow adventure Herdling from Okomotive, creators of the FAR games, early access medieval smithy simulator Blacksmith Master, and PC-exclusive roguelite FPS Void/Breaker, also in early access.
Nintendo has added Chibi-Robo! to its Gamecube app on Switch 2. It’s a deeply weird 3D platformer where you need to earn “happy points” as a little household robot, but it also rules.
Free on the Epic Games Store this week are occult puzzle game Strange Horticulture and frog collection game Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge. Both games look absolutely delightful, and would be wonderful additions to your pile of shame.
Xbox Ally a point of no return for brand’s PC evolution
By Tim
At Gamescom, Microsoft has further detailed the Xbox Ally handheld it's built with ASUS, revealing a launch date of October 16 and a bunch of new features. And while it still seems largely like a ROG Ally with handles, it also looks like the first step in Xbox's future as a primarily PC-aligned brand.
Xbox has had a PC presence for a long time, but this is the first Xbox-branded hardware that only plays PC games. Of course, if you haven't been paying attention, you might be surprised by how similar the libraries of the Xbox Series X and the Windows Store are. If you've been buying games on Xbox over the last few years you likely own a lot of them on Windows too, and Game Pass gets you access to hundreds of games right away. The Ally also gives you access to any other PC games store (Steam, Epicx, GOG etc), and once you install games from them they'll appear alongside Microsoft Store games in the Xbox-branded home screen.
The Ally runs a modified version of Windows 11 streamlined for gaming performance and gamepad control, which will hopefully make for a less painful experience and open the door for Windows-powered home consoles. The Windows Store is getting a new badge system that will mark games "Handheld Optimised" if they'll work out of the box, and "Mostly Compatible" if they work fine but need some settings tweaks to run acceptably or scale to the smaller screen.
Notably Xbox also showed off a "Windows Performance Fit" badge, which marks games as "good" if they hit at least 30 frames per second and "great" if they hit at least 60. I can see this approach easily being adopted by other pre-built Windows gaming machines, such as future Xbox consoles.
So far the major missing piece of the puzzle (aside from a price announcement) is an ability to access previous games designed for Xbox consoles, from a time when the devices were very separate from PCs. There are hundreds of games that exist both on Xbox and Windows but that are not "Play Anywhere" compatible, meaning that your purchase of the console version does not entitle you to play on PC. And there are also many older games you can play on Series X today that simply don't exist on PC.
Microsoft's current solution is that you can stream these games, but that's not ideal. Streaming over the internet only works for certain games, and streaming from a console limits you to playing in your house. The ultimate solution would be an emulation layer for Windows that simulates the Xbox environment, which is an important step I hope Microsoft makes before it unveils a home console PC running Windows.
Bricks, Boards and Beginnings
by Alice
The grind speed for Pokemon TCG Pocket is absurd. It’s at the point where it makes the Magic The Gathering release schedule seem slow, and measured. We’re chalking up a new set every month now, and while it’s absolutely exhausting, it’s also nice to have new dopamine to shovel into the furnace, in the form of new cards.
But, while we still have two more A4 mini sets to go before the new B1 season drops in two months, we’ve already been given a sneak peek into what we can expect.
Presumably coming in time for the first anniversary of the app (around the 30th of October), B1 will have Mega Evolutions! If you’ve played the Pokemon Trading Card Game on paper, you’re likely already familiar with these beasts, but they’re new to me.
What makes the Mega Evolutions special is that they do a ridiculous amount of damage, while also having a huge amount of HP. For example, Mega Altaria EX has 190HP and a two cost attack that can do 40-130 damage (depending on what’s on your bench). It’s basically basic Sylveon, but with an extra 100HP. Mega Gyrados EX is similar to regular Gyrados EX in that it does 140 damage for 4 energy, but it also discards the top three cards of your opponent’s deck and has 210HP. This is going to really shake up the meta and might finally relegate Darktina (the most popular deck in ranked) to merely being A tier.
The downside to using mega evolutions is that if they die, your opponent gets three points and instantly wins the game. Basic Pokemon currently only net one point, and EXes two. Whether this risk will be enough to mitigate some of their power remains to be seen. What also remains to be seen is if any cards will be rotated out of competitive play with the launch of B1, or if the A series won’t be retired until C launches. Keeping all cards in circulation forever will only disadvantage and discourage new players, but removing cards is going to anger the longtime players who spent money in the game. That’s going to be a difficult line to walk.
While we eagerly anticipate B1, there is still the rest of A to go, and the theme of A4a was just leaked on the App Store last night: The set will feature Raikou EX, Entei EX, Suicune EX, and Hoenn Latios and Latias. There also seems to be something going on with Pollywhirl. Should be a good time.
Retro Esoterica
by Tim
I’ve been playing a new physical retro release that’s unbelievably niche, yet it can also be found at Australian retail for around $45. Tiger-Heli is a 1985 arcade shooter from Toaplan, and this new cartridge brings it to an Atari system for the first time. Specifically the Atari 7800, which was released in 1986. What a time to be alive.
Atari’s current retro output can be a bit confusing if you haven’t been following along since it launched its 2600+ platform in 2023. But essentially it’s made new games and devices that also have a decent level of compatibility with the stuff Atari was putting out 40 years ago. So if you buy a 2600+ console, you can use it to play the new Atari cartridges coming out, but you could also get a haunted old copy of River Raid off eBay and it will probably work. Conversely, if you have an original Atari 2600 from the 70s, you could buy the brand new version of Avalanche from Big W today and plug it in. The 2600+ can also play 7800 games, but you’ll need to buy a controller with two buttons (and like with the games, you can buy one of the new ones Atari is making or get something legitimately retro).
I’ve never even seen an original 7800, which is close in capability to an NES and was a huge flop, but thanks to the Atari 2600+ I’ve been able to collect some old games for the system, and I love checking out the new stuff Atari is putting out.
Which brings me to Tiger-Heli. This is a phenomenal effort to bring a very good shoot-em-up to a platform that really has no business running it. There’s a POKEY sound chip inside the cartridge and the music sounds great. The original gameplay — including cool touches like the cute little mini helicopter powerups, secret targets, and the ability for enemies to trigger one of your special bombs if their bullets graze past your flank — is all here and feels really smooth. The 2600+ and 7800+ have support for a virtual High Score Cartridge in supported 7800 games, so you can even track your best runs.
If you’re a big Tiger-Heli fan you probably already have the arcade perfect version on PS4, Switch or Evercade, so it’s not like you’re going to rush out to get this comparatively dinky version. But if you’re an 8-bit sicko who likes to see what today’s designers can cram onto such ancient hardware, it rules.