Can One Controller Really Do It All?

No, but it can do a lot of things. Plus Mario Party, Sonic and Mario Kart

Happy Friday Button Buddies!

This week has been a big one for recovering from Australian International Games Month That Won’t End, I hope you all had a good time at GCAP, the ADGAs, PAX, SXSW and any other initials I may have forgotten.

This week Alice had some fun with the Nintendo Switch trying out a new controller, and trying to work out how she feels about the new Mario Party Jamboree. Meanwhile, Tim had a scooter accident, played the new Sonic game, and further explored the history of Mario Kart. Enjoy!

A controller that’s the Jack of most trades

By Alice

I have a confession to make: I am rubbish at Fortnite with a keyboard and mouse. I can’t do it. My Quake III Arena-obsessed teenage self would be mortified by this. I can play other games with keyboard and mouse just fine, but Fortnite eludes me, so I have become a PC controller player like the filthy casual I am. Usually, I just use an Xbox Elite controller, but I was recently given the opportunity to try out the GuliKit KK3 MAX controller and I’ve gotta say that I really like it.

It’s got the same kind of back paddle layout as the Elite, but with a couple more options. The case isn’t quite as premium (and it also won’t house taller thumbsticks), but it’s compact and hard and a better pick for taking travelling than most other elite controller cases. It’s also got hall effect sensors, making it more accurate and means it won’t fall victim to stick drift.

What I find most interesting about the GuliKit KK3 MAX controller, though, is that it’s compatible with PC, Mac, mobile, and Nintendo Switch. It’s nice as a PC controller, but it’s excellent as a better Switch Pro controller, given the aforementioned hall effect sensors just automatically elevating it. I’ve lost a couple of the Switch Pro controllers to stick drift, so it’s great to have another option. In the box, you get another set of buttons so you can switch out the ABXY for the order required by either PC or Switch. Annoyingly, these extra buttons don’t have a home in the travel case, so I assume I will lose them soon.

While I can’t speak to durability, in the short term, I’m pretty impressed by the GuliKit KK3 MAX controller.

What to play

• It’s big week for fans of shooty shooty with Game Pass Ultimate, as Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 arrives on the service. Mind you, it might be a bigger week for subscribers who aren’t shooty fans, since they can jump in and find out if all the virtual murder is for them without needing to pay $110. The series’ battle royale mode Warzone is also coming to Xbox cloud today. 

• New today is an update for Balatro which brings Cyberpunk 2077 and Stardew Valley- themed decks to the game, as if you needed another reason to lose yet more hours to the game.

The ultimate life form returns

By Tim

“If Tim fell off an e-scooter and broke his arm, and then got a code for a new Sonic game the very next day, would he still play it?” 

Anyone who knows me and thought this was a hypothetical would say “absolutely yes”, but in fact I know now for a fact the answer is “yes, but not for a few days”.

I use this rather tortured intro device not only as a way to explain why I haven’t quite yet finished Sonic x Shadow Generations (I’m doing fine by the way, it’s not a bad break), but also to remind you that I’m very committed to all things blue hedgehog, so feel free to take the following as the rambling of a deranged fan, often slighted by a series that’s barely had a 50-50 hit rate since 1994.

Barring any major screw-ups in the end-game, I believe this may be the best package of 3D Sonic gameplay we’ve ever seen. Better than Adventure 2, better than Colors, and yes even better than Frontiers. It’s uncharacteristically lean, has just the right amount of exploration in its hub world (i.e. a small amount) relative to the high-speed thrills, and it looks and runs great with minimal (but not zero) 3D Sonic broken weirdness.

Included is a remaster of Sonic Generations, which is more or less unchanged save for some new collectibles. It’s a daft story (Sonic and his huge assortment of friends are trapped in a timeless void when some primordial evil interrupts his birthday party), but the levels are great; each inspired by a previous game and split into one 2D-style and one 3D-style run.

The new content is a concurrent storyline starring Shadow, who was in out of space when the time breach happened. But Shadow has been in far fewer games than Sonic, and many of them have sucked, so he doesn’t have a Chemical Plant or City Escape the mere sight of which will have fans cheering. Instead, Sega treats his walk down memory lane as a way to introduce and even redeem the character, showing off much improved versions of the best bits of previous games, furnished with cool new abilities and an intriguing story that contextualises Shadow’s past.

At the same time, the time void is now a 3D Frontiers-style playground rather than a right-to-left level, which gives this new campaign its own signature feel.

Bricks, Boards and Beginnings 

by Alice

Mario Party is one of the most polarising digital board games around, because it can be slow and take a long time, it’s really easy to hate. I fell in love with Mario Party for the first time during Melbourne’s lockdown 6. It is still a game we reference all the time at home, and while I now play Mario Party Superstars significantly less than I once did, it will always hold a special place in my PTSD.

So, I went into Super Mario Party Jamboree with really high hopes. Usually, you can rely on Mario Party to be a game you either really love or really hate, never anything in between. And yet, Jamboree is just fine. I don’t love it, but I certainly don’t hate it, and I will probably still be playing it for a while yet, but I don’t anticipate it being a core game for me any time soon.

A lot of this comes down to niggling issues with how the Jamboree Buddy system is implemented, it’s too easy to steal a buddy by walking past them. I don’t want to call Yoshi a slut, because that is absolutely the wrong word and there’s nothing wrong with being a slut, but that boy will go home with anyone who walks past him and it is causing me great consternation. There should at least be some kind of mini game or something to win his affections once more, rather than just taking the buddy by walking past.

But for all the parts that irritate me, there are things I really like. Birdo has returned, and that beautiful bird just loves to throw back and twerk any time anything good happens. Plus, it’s always nice to see the first transgender character in video games getting a starring role again. The mini games are also really fun, and I greatly enjoy the new boards.

I can never recommend Mario Party, because the only people who don’t have a visceral reaction to this franchise are those who haven’t played it. But if you like Mario Party, you will probably have a good, if not amazing, time with Super Mario Party Jamboree.

Retro Esoterica

by Tim

Revisiting the first six Mario Karts: Part 2

Mario Kart Double Dash!! Nintendo smartly took a sideways step with this fourth entry, introducing a brand-new central mechanic rather than simply presenting a higher fidelity version of Mario Kart 64. Characters now race in pairs, with one steering and driving while the other manages drifts and hurls weapons, making for more chaotic action as well as a greatly expanded roster and options for cooperative local play or even 16-player networked matches. The dinking mechanic does make for some strange trade-offs, as the player on the rear arguably doesn't have as much to do, and the combined weight of your chosen characters greatly limits which karts you can choose to race in. But on the other hand, the game introduces character-specific special items that makes your choice of racer that much more strategic, and drivers who work well together can deftly swap roles in an instant by each hitting the Z button together.

Mario Kart DS Just as Double Dash took advantage of the Gamecube’s specific hardware functions (like the LAN adapter), this second portable entry was a showcase for the Nintendo DS. The lower screen showed a top-down real-time map while the upper had a true 3D view, and the system’s wireless capabilities were also put to great use. This was the first online Mario Kart, and internet play was fantastic until hackers flooded every race with ridiculous cheating opponents. You could also play against nearby friends, even if they didn't have a copy of the game. I have very fond memories of playing with my sibling on long car trips, where would queue up the full 32 tracks (16 originals and 16 from previous games) to play from start to finish. On the singleplayer front, a mission mode gave you some interesting things to do besides winning each gold cup.

Mario Kart Wii As a console, the Wii was all about motion controls, accessibility and easy connectivity, so it's no surprise that this sixth Mario Kart turned out the way it did. At the time it was a thrill to jump online for huge versus races or battle modes, but in retrospect the game may have sacrificed a little too much. The tracks are wide and sparse, the racing slow and quite easy, the battles redesigned to put less of a focus on individual wins and losses. Motorcycles were a fun introduction, but in hindsight I can't believe anybody accepted that motion control wheel as an enjoyable way to play. There’s just no reason to go back and play this game today, though I am grateful for tracks like Maple Treeway and Coconut Mall, which were remixed and improved for Mario Kart 8.