What is Nintendo hiding about Switch 2?
Plus game orchestras, Ticket to Ride France, and Ristar turns 30.
Hello there! This week we’re doing some speculating on Switch 2, looking forward to a night at the orchestra, playing more Ticket to Ride and celebrating some gaming anniversaries. It’s a quiet week in game releases, which I think is because Monster Hunter Wilds is out on Friday and everybody else wanted to get out of the way. Still, if killing massive lizards and turning them into shoes isn’t your thing, you might still be chewing on Avowed or Pirate Yakuza from last week.
And speaking of which, I have to thank Sega for sending over a bottle of non-alcoholic spiced rum featuring Majima’s gurning face on the label. I haven’t tried it yet but as a Captain Morgan connoisseur I’m torn. One the one hand, it definitely won’t have the same kick. On the other hand, I could drink dark ‘n’ stormies all day while working.
Mmm, delicious breadcrumbs
By Tim
When it comes to Switch 2, there are things we know and things we suspect. We know what the unit itself and the revised magnetic Joy-Cons look like. We suspect we know some of their capabilities, including AI upscaling to 4K and a mouse controller mode, thanks to leaks and patents. We know we’ll hear more from Nintendo in April, but we suspect (or at least I suspect) that there’s something major the company is keeping very close to its chest.
A more powerful Switch with larger, more reliable controllers sounds like a great product. But are you going to want to rush out and get it on day one if the only incentive is that some games will arbitrarily be published on Switch 2 and not Switch 1? Probably not, and that kind of forced upgrade doesn’t always feel as celebratory as I’m sure Nintendo wants the Switch 2 to feel.
Which means it will want one or both of these two things:
Games that very clearly would not have been possible to pull off on the original Switch.
Unique hardware innovations or gimmicks.
I don’t think there’s going to be rug-pull where all of a sudden the Switch 2 is a wildly different idea for a game console, but there’s plenty of room for a surprise.
For example, we’ve seen patents that indicate the Switch will be playable upside down, with the screen re-orienting automatically. And the reveal trailer shows two USB-C ports, on the top and bottom of the device. Is Nintendo just adding stuff in advance of future possible peripherals and Labo-style inventions? Or could there be unique accessories, gadgets and controllers already planned that require flipping?
We’ve also seen very little of the dock that connects the device to a TV. In the one image we have, it looks like more of the device’s screen is exposed above the dock when it’s inserted, and there’s a seam at the bottom that suggests the front panel may be removable. Could we see the TV and dock display something simultaneously, somehow?
Finally there’s that mysterious square button on the right Joy-Con, which was labelled “C” in leaks but appears blank in the trailer. Its placement suggests a function of equivalent importance to Home and Share, but what could that be? Might the system have some kind of social Miiverse successor, or other messaging system, that needs its own button?
These are all guesses obviously, but the point is I don’t think this will be a purely straight-forward upgrade. There’s something extra waiting to be revealed.
What to play
Recently added to Game Pass is F1 24, plus story-rich RPG Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. This week the library will get Watch Dogs Legion, which is a bit of an uneven one but could tide you over if you’re hanging out for GTA VI.
Free on the Epic Games Store this week are Garden Story and World War Z: Aftermath which are two incredibly different games. Garden Story is similar to Stardew Valley, but with more of a focus on mine-style brawling to rid the world of evil or whatever. World War Z: Aftermath is a slick co-op zombie shooter. Truly something for everyone. Epic is also now promising free games (currently the two Knights of the Old Republic RPGs) if you sign up to its mobile app, which is only on Android outside of Europe.
There are a bunch of free games available for Amazon Prime subscribers at the moment, well worth claiming if you’re already giving Bezos money. My (Alice) personal picks are BioShock Infinite, BioShock 2 Remastered, Deus Ex, The Talos Principle: Gold Edition, Jurassic World Evolution, The Outer Worlds and Wolfenstein Young Blood. But there is a lot there, and you may as well get your money’s worth.
Sony’s current sale is worth a look, with Lego, Need for Speed and Mortal Kombat games, plus heaps of good indies, under $10.
Video game music live and dramatic
By Alice
Opera companies, symphony orchestras and theatres have long been trying to work out how to attract younger crowds. Because, much like newspapers, when the traditional audiences of these mediums die, they’re screwed. This has led to cheap theatre tickets for The Youth, and to orchestras occasionally stepping away from focusing on Mozart and his ilk to host extremely successful screenings of popular films that they score live, which is an incredible experience.
But what I love the most is how many orchestras are doing live performances of video game music. It’s a risk for these orchestras, because some of their more traditional season ticket holders might turn their nose up initially, but it has been a huge boon for bringing new audiences to appreciate these beautiful orchestral game scores, and to appreciate the talent of these musicians. Both halves of the audience benefit, and I think that’s beautiful.
This comes up now due to the announcement that video game music concert Game On will be coming to Melbourne this May. Directed and conducted by award-winning composer Andy Brick (best known for The Sims, Civilisation and Warhammer), the one-night-only event will feature the Melbourne Opera Orchestra playing music from The Witcher 3, Ori, World of Warcraft, The Elder Scrolls, Assassin’s Creed and BioShock.
Hilariously, the trailer boasts “magnificent HD video”, which isn’t really a flex. But it also shows a selection of large stringed instruments sounding dramatic, and that’s all I want in life.
Tickets start from $139, and the show will be at MCEC on the 10th of May.
Bricks, Boards and Beginnings
by Alice
Continuing my quest to play every version of Ticket To Ride, I recently played Ticket To Ride France. Now, reader, I could have sworn that I had already played France, but that’s because we played with Paris during the Olympics. France is an expansion for the base game, not a city mini version like Paris was.
France comes in a box with a double sided board (the other side is the Old West expansion), train cards, destination cards, and track bed tokens. There is also some other stuff for Old West, but we’ll get to that another time. Importantly, there are no train pieces, you have to bring those from either the USA or Europe base games, along with the base rules. This seems a little odd, given everything else is in the box, but maybe the pieces are the most expensive part?
What sets France apart from the rest is that at the beginning of the game, most of the track beds are grey and every time you pick up new train tickets, you can place a coloured track bed down to make that path claimable. Adding some difficulty to that is that some paths close off others, so if there is somewhere you absolutely have to go, you’re forced to act earlier than you might have otherwise. In other versions of TTR, I spend the first half of the game gathering as many train tickets as possible, and then the second half placing everything. In France, you need to be a bit more savvy and proactive from the beginning.
Another difference is that some destination tickets will get you to travel to another region (like Germany), rather than a specific town, allowing for more paths to success.
One change I’m in two minds about is the new achievement for completing the most destination tickets. Getting 10 points for the longest unbroken route is great and makes sense, but given how many points you get for completing destination tickets, getting an extra 10 points for completing the most of them seems a bit iffy. I suppose it could incentivise people to do more shorter routes and take risks, but I dunno how fair that is. Then again, given I usually do the most destination tickets, I am ok with this.
All up, if you’ve got Ticket To Ride and feel like switching it up a bit, France has enough changes to feel fresh, but not so many that it doesn’t feel comfortably familiar.
Retro Esoterica
by Tim
It’s the last post of the month, so here are three games that celebrated a big birthday in the past 30 days.
Now 25: The Sims I would have been in my early teens when I first played The Sims, and to be honest I think that was the perfect age for it. The idea of creating myself and my friends as adults, and guiding us through the process of furnishing a house, feeding and looking after ourselves, getting a job and starting a family was captivating, and I still have strong memories of those versions of us. Earning enough money for a nicer bed or a gaming PC felt like an achievement in the game, as did progressing socially with neighbours and romantic partners (yes, I did have the Hot Date expansion). The sequel would basically supplant it in terms of features and gameplay, but there’s still a sizeable part of my brain devoted to the simlish conversations, incessant nonsense TV noises and music of the original.
Now 30: Ristar As a Sonic-adjacent, Sega-made side-scroller of 1995, you’d think Ristar would figure more prominently in the minds of the retro-loving public. The problem is, the game was released on the Mega Drive at a time when the Sega Saturn was either already out or just about to release, depending on where you lived. It’s a beautiful, interesting, planet-hoping platformer that focuses less on running or jumping and more on gripping stuff with our hero’s stretchy multi-directional arms, but nobody gave it much thought at the time. Not that history would have treated Ristar better had it released exclusively on Saturn with higher quality sprites. Tryrush Deppy and Astal aren’t exactly topping any “beloved platformer” lists.
Now 40: Ice Climber This is by no means the worst game on the NES. It probably isn’t even in the worst hundred. But it may just be the worst game that Nintendo insists on keeping alive. Originally released simultaneously on the NES and in arcades, it’s since been ported to at least eight additional platforms. Popo and Nana are in Smash, and the game is alway first in line for NES remix releases like last year’s Nintendo World Championships. Yet its jump mechanics are absolutely farcical, and outside of the pure glee of masochism I can’t see how anybody gets anything out of it. Meanwhile Devil World goes mostly forgotten!