The Backbone of Portable Gaming
Plus Kirby's adventures remembered, expensive queer Lego, and Mario probably has back pain now.
Howdy partners,
It has been a huge months for games, tech and announcements. We had Silksong taking down all the gaming platforms last week, which is huge for a game made by three guys from Adelaide.
Then this week we had the announcement of a bunch of shiny new iPhones, which I’m sure will be the fastest, bestest iPhones ever, or something. They’re definitely orange.
In this issue of Press Any Button, I (Alice) talk about how you can play games on that shiny new iPhone in relative comfort, and how much I want the Arkham Asylum Lego set. Meanwhile, Tim revisited Kirby and the Forgotten Land and celebrates the 40th birthday of a legend.
Enjoy!
Carting around a Backbone, professionally
By Alice
There are now so many ways to play console games while on the go. Not just subscription services (like Apple Arcade or GeForce Now), but physical ways to interact with the games in ways that don’t suck as much as trying to recreate a controller experience on a touchscreen (Nintendo Switch, Backbone, regular controllers connected to phones, ROG Ally, PlayStation Portal, etc). We truly live in the golden age of way too many choices.
Having both travelled around a bit this year, and also been forced to play games for work sneakily, lest my daughter accidentally see the TV screen, I’ve spent a lot more time on these devices lately. The Backbone Pro in particular has been a constant companion at the beach, on flights, and at night when I should definitely be sleeping instead of playing Fortnite.
I really like the new back buttons, because I never want to have to click the left stick ever again for any reason.
I don’t like that the grips on the thumb sticks are designed for ants, that’s just a weird choice.
But what I love is just how easy it is now to play almost many console-quality games on my iPhone from anywhere, and have a reasonably good experience. This, of course, does depend on your internet connection. Console streaming is OK (assuming you’re not playing a game that requires twitch fast reactions) as long as you have decent upload speed at home, and download wherever you are. I have 1000mbps up and down at home, but most people I know only have 20mbps upload, which (by the time you factor in signal degradation over wifi) isn’t going to cut it for a lot of games. You also need to have a fast download speed, which is pretty easy to get over 5G, but good reception can still be hard to find in many parts of Australia.
But for playing silly tower defence games, Lego mode in Fortnite, and Forza Horizon where you frequently crash into things at high speeds, it’s a good time.
What to play
Since our last newsletter Hollow Knight: Silksong has finally been released, and while it is on all platforms it is also included (as promised) in Game Pass on day one. Also new on the service is revenge thriller FPS I Am Your Beast, tactical tower defense Cataclismo, and excellent RPG Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
A new month means new games to download for all PlayStation Plus subscribers. For September it’s mind-bending and hilarious adventure Psychonauts 2, clever perspective puzzler Viewfinder and cozy classic Stardew Valley.
Nintendo has added Forsaken to the N64 app for Switch Online Expansion Pack subscribers. This is an enjoyable first-person space shooter from 1998, with free-rotating controls that may be a bit tough to get your head around today.
Free on the Epic Games store right now is Monument Valley, a beautiful puzzle game that likely everyone already owns, but should also own again on another platform. If you haven’t played it, rectify that, because I (Alice) think it’s excellent.
Return to the New World
By Tim
I've been having a great time revisiting Kirby and the Forgotten Land now that the Switch 2 Edition is out. But before I get to the positives, allow me to grumble about the one obvious wrinkle here.
The new $30 update is both a Switch 2 patch that brings higher resolution and 60 frames per second performance to the game, and an expansion with 12 brand new levels plus a few extra surprises. Bundling these two things together simply feels unfair, because players who love the game need to buy a Switch 2 to experience the new levels, while Switch 2 owners who are new to the game need to pay a full $110 to get next-gen performance even in the base content. It's a tough sell for everybody except those who already own the game and already own a Switch 2.
That aside, the update only adds more goodness to an already spectacular package. The game feels wonderful at 60fps, and I'm glad I never went back to mop up those last few waddle-dees, boss rushes and post-game challenges until now.
The new levels are integrated into the main campaign, with two per world. If you've already finished the game you can just play them sequentially, otherwise they show up as you go. Each one adds a new crystalline theme to familiar settings, complete with fresh enemies and gimmicks. It's clear the development team had a few ideas left on the drawing board, and the result is a set of levels that feel imaginative and interesting, rather than just revisiting things we've already seen. As with the standard levels these aren’t too difficult to get through, but they’re filled with hidden objectives, secret collectibles and cute little guys to rescue.
The highlights are the new musical remixes of existing themes, which add icy vocal chanting or cool jazz sax, and the new "mouthful modes", which are the game's way of transforming Kirby into objects. None of the additions are as awesome as the car, or as daft as the lightbulb, but they provide still more variety to a game that’s all about offering a smorgasbord of activities.
Bricks, Boards and Beginnings
by Alice
I have given up on looking for value in Lego sets. It’s an impossible dream. Even 15c a piece is dead now and we just have to accept that Lego costs whatever they feel like charging for it.
On a related note, I really want the new Arkham Asylum set and it is extremely expensive.
For the last 15 or so years, being a DC fan has been very affordable, because DC was incapable of making a move people actually enjoyed and wanted to purchase merch from (with limited exceptions), and merch makers ignored the excellent DC TV shows. However, people with only passing knowledge of Superman and mild disdain for women as a concept really loved that new Superman movie, so now there is merch again.
This Arkham Asylum set is beautiful. It would fit in perfectly with the modular street as a corner building, and there are so many mini figures. 16, to be exact, including Harley Quinn, The Joker, Poison Ivy, Catwoman, The Riddler, Robin, Batman and Batwoman. I’m a big Batwoman fan, and I love how much Lego has embraced the character. They’ve gone for Kate Kane rather than Ryan Wilder, sticking with comic book lore instead of the TV show. Either option is great, though having both would be better (both viewers of the TV show would love that). That lineup may also make it the queerest Lego set (outside of Queer Eye) ever, and I love that for us.
At 2953 pieces for $499.99, it is pretty terrible value per piece. But given how many licensed mini figures are included, I’m significantly more OK with it than I would usually be, despite being resigned to bad value. Of course, you should never pay full price for Lego. So I will be waiting patiently for this to go at least 20% off and then get myself an early Christmas present.
Retro Esoterica
by Tim
There are some undeniably influential games that don’t hold up very well today, either because paradigms have changed, or because they’ve been copied so many times that the original now seems pedestrian. But there are other all-time classics that somehow still hold up despite the passing of time. And if you’re looking for one game that can explain why that is, you could do a lot worse than the original Super Mario Bros, which is turning 40 this month.
Obviously, some of the elements of this game that were groundbreaking in 1985 aren’t as impressive today. The screen can’t scroll to the left at all, which feels like a limitation, but at the time scrolling so smoothly to the right was a magic trick. A lot of the secrets and hidden blocks feel arbitrary, but back then they were a reward for your thorough exploration.
Most of the game, though, hasn’t aged at all. The sensation of weight and inertia Mario has is something that makers of platformers still struggle to replicate today. When you hold that run button to speed up you can feel the momentum in the way jumping now carries you across larger gaps, or in the way that trying to stop results in a long skid, and this intuitive and predictable motion makes simply moving through levels a delight.
And speaking of levels, every one is designed both for exploration and for flow-state running, keeping things enjoyable for new players and experts alike. Every design decision seems to have been made according to what’s most fun and satisfying, even if it flies in the face of what came before. A good example is the fireball, which doesn’t shoot straight ahead of you but diagonally down and along the floor, encouraging you to be in the air when taking out goombas. And then there’s the koopa shells, which are super risky to start moving because they tend to come back and kill you, but are irresistible nonetheless.
Very few games of 1985 are still suitable to put in front of someone that’s never played them, and expect that they’ll have fun. But Super Mario Bros. absolutely is.