For 2024 especially it’s pretty fucking bad yeah. I’m really not a handheld guy but in 2016 it didn’t seem as terrible. Only ever used mine out of its dock for a total of a couple hours
To be fair when it came out seven years ago it really shook up the portable gaming scene. Every portable console coming out since is an iteration on that design. The joycons can go to hell though. And those weird ass online plans.
I really liked the original 2DS personally. The announcement left everyone incredulous as the device sounded and looked like a dumb downgrade. I mean, it was hard to tell if it was joke or not. In the end though it’s light, cheap, tough and surprisingly comfortable.
Hey, is it too late to buy a couple of n3dsxl in 2024? Is it unusable now as all online services are shut down? Can you still find game cartridges to buy?
I just want something simple to play co-op game with the wife and kids on camping trip or on-the-go sometimes. Last month I dug out my old DSLite from the attic and it’s still boot. My candy-crush-4-life wife love the Mario kart and couldn’t stop playing LOL. But we can’t justify to buy 2-4 Switch.
Because fuck Nintendo and their predatory anti consumer business model.
I think that calling BOtW similar to other full-scale console games of 2017 like Sniper Elite 4, Middle Earth: Shadow of War, Nier Automata, Prey, Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus, RE7, or AssCreed Origins, is a biiiiiiig stretch.
It was a huge jump for Nintendo (it was basically putting GameCube-level games on a handheld), but it was still far behind other consoles. Witcher 3 (2015) even eventually released on the Switch in 2019, and it was massively graphically gimped compared to ahemreal consoles.
I didn’t say it’s not good, I said it’s not equivalent to console releases of that year. Graphics isn’t everything, and I still enjoy playing Pax Imperia and Nox, but that doesn’t change that it was a handheld game, not a console game. Pokemon Red/Blue were also some of the best selling games the year they released, but that doesn’t make the Gameboy equivalent as a console to PSX or N64 either.
BotW was originally developed for the WiiU, which it also released on. It is not a “handheld game”, and tbh I’d take it’s gameplay loop over Nier Automata or Shadow of War any day of the week.
The Switch design is an evolution of the Wii U controller, which itself was evolved from the the lower screen design of the DS, which itself was modelled on the old Vertical Multi Screen Game and Watches from the 1980s.
Have a look through all of Nintendo’s consoles and you’ll see the lines of inspiration drawn from generation to generation.
The OLED dock has an Ethernet port. They’ll work with non-OLED switches so you could buy one if you need the port.
The two USB’s on the side of the case seem sufficient for most use cases. Might be able to add a tiny usb hub if need be, there’s a few tiny ones fore less than $9.
Ergonomics are a bit odd, but the 3DS had similar issues as well. I ended up 3d printing ergonomics grips for my 3ds and I know they have something similar for the switch. I feel like they were towing a line between OTG usability and being able to hold the joycons in multiple orientations (think just dance, 1-2 switch, Mario party, 51 games, etc), or in different accessories (not sure how well an ergo one would work in a leg strap with the ring fit).
Edit: also the first thing I did was buy a cheap 128GB micro SD and never look back. Sure it probably would her been nice if it wasn’t needed, but it’s swappable and it’s cheaper than if they built it in.
It’s definitely not as comfortable as something like the Steam Deck, but I played so much Switch while commuting on the train since it came out. It’s been a real joy to have. It’s also WAY smaller than any of the current-gen handhelds.
What do you mean by “cart games being downloaded in full to the system?”
I never owned a Switch, but I would say it was instrumental in the Deck’s conception. If the popularity of the Switch had never happened, I wonder if Gabe would have taken the chance.
Nintendo cuts all kinds of corners and usually doesn’t bother competing as a “performance” console, but people generally loved that thing when it first came out. I’m sure people will have gripes about Steam Deck v1 when v2+ comes out, too.
Further to this - it doesn’t download cart data to the Switch/SD card, but it does store save data, update data and DLC data on the Switch/SD card. So while BOTW may not download its whole 10Gb onto the Switch, you may end up with a few Gb in other data that’s locally stored.
Yeah, I’d almost say it’s an essential purchase. I buy a fair few online titles and I’ve found my 128Gb SD to be a bit lacking. I’m considering upgrading to a 256Gb or 512Gb but they’re still too expensive at high transfer rates.
If you have to choose between capacity and transfer rate for an SD card for a Switch, go for transfer. I had an old slow card and that was abhorrent for load times and stuttering on games that were stored there.
“It’s okay to fail” seems like it would have been a more valuable life lesson than “it feels good to beat a really hard video game” and it concerns me that you’re so okay with the amount of trauma this entertainment product caused him.
The fact that you’re sharing this story of years of repeated meltdowns caused by a video game and calling it an example of games being beneficial is pretty surreal.
My point is that I described the same distress you’re describing using the same terminology you did. I didn’t accuse you of anything, I just strongly disagreed with your takeaway that this story describes something positive.
I’m glad you can recognize how important this is to a kid. So many wow raiders in the 00s were ostracized by society for being this dedicated to a team of other humans and a shared goal. It really is something we need to learn to embrace and harness. I love the unique emotional responses that video games are capable of eliciting in people that movies and tv never could.
WOW is proof that human beings are biologically programmed to work together to achieve goals. It’s a shame capitalism suppresses this desire in people and forces them to only let it out in games. Imagine if we had a society where people’s work was properly valued, where they could self organise to accomplish great things.
In theory, capitalism is supposed to create exactly that environment. The problem is we have a society that doesn’t believe in proper regulation to prioritize the wellbeing of the society over that of the achievements and desires of individuals.
So much like how modern WoW has transformed into this uninteresting, solved meta that requires weakauras to do your thinking, gold buying to have gear and reagents, and no interesting competition for loot, our society is now an uninteresting solved meta where the wealthy nullify any possibility of competition, everyone is employed as wageslaves with a corporate handbook doing their thinking for them, and there’s no safety net to allow anyone take a chance at working together on interesting projects to actually compete.
The problem isn’t that we have capitalism, it’s that capitalism is synonymous with patriotism.
Seems orthogonal. I don’t care how regulation is accomplished, just that it is. I feel like the tax levels and safety nets we had in place ~70 years ago were fine, until red scare propaganda convinced everyone to vote against their own interests.
Also I feel a bit like you’ve hijacked this discussion about the importance of video games in child development.
In addition to what others said, due to the architecture it was notoriously hard to develop for. The Playstation dev kits were a dream to work with in comparison. Sega of Japan hedged their bets on 2D remaining king due to the Japanese market preferring arcade ports and slowness to accept change, and slapped on some 3D capabilities almost as an afterthought. Meanwhile Sega of America assumed the US market would scoff at spending 500 on a console when the 32X had just released and was very similar (and also selling poorly).
Sony took risks by pushing 3D hard, were aggressive with pricing, did a ton of marketing, and completely ate Sega’s lunch. Despite the Saturn being arguably more powerful and better made than the PS1, it wasn’t enough to right the ship. And it continued on this downward spiral due to the negative impressions that Sega was dying with the Dreamcast where they again flubbed the launch timing while people were enamored with the N64 and the PS1 had a massive library.
There were lots of other shenanigans involved, I’m skimming the surface here. Regardless, both consoles have some bangers and I recommend trying some out if you ever have the chance. The hardware is also very cool if you can find them cheap but might need refurbed at this age.
That’s incredible. Your son has far, far, more patience than I ever did. I still haven’t managed to clock most of the games I grew up with, such as Dangerous Dave, Prince of Persia 1 & 2, Wolf3D, Doom 1 & 2, Crystal Caves, Aladdin, Lion King, Jazz Jackrabbit, Mario (NES), Pokemon Red (GBA), Crash Bandicoot (PS1)…
Every now and then I try to clock one of those old games, but then I get stuck and/or lose interest, and move on to something else. Even among recent games, I spent over 400 hours playing BotW and only managed to do two of the divine beasts. I also have over 200 hours in TotK and still haven’t gotten to the first major spirit quest. Similarly, got several hundreds of hours in Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, but never actually completed any of those games.
I think the only game that I recall beating would be the Bio Menace trilogy - which I finally managed to complete as an adult, and that too thanks to DOSBox’s save states. Oh, and Diablo II too, it someone had the perfect mix of action + story + game length, to keep me interested till the end.
Honestly I’ve no idea how people manage to stick to one thing for so long and see it thru till the end, without losing interest or getting distracted by something else.
He chooses to beat Elden Ring in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of his energies and skills, because that challenge is one that he is willing to accept, one he is unwilling to postpone, and one he intends to win, and the others, too.
Fallout: New Vegas, because it’s been like a decade and I want to play again, especially after watching the series.
Took a while for me to get back into it (and figure out the right mods and settings for me), and I’m still feeling a little bit of that overwhelming “fuck, there’s maybe too much shit to do”, but I’ll just chill with it for now.
Edit: LOOOOOOL. Legion already hates me and I haven’t even met (and killed) Caesar yet. Barely even started the main quest at this point, which I suppose is tradition with Fallout, to be fair.
I’ve expressed this many many times to him over the years. I’ve said something like “I want to play games to have fun. If the game isn’t fun for me, then I will not play it anymore”.
I believe that he understands this. However, he just wanted so much to understand Elden Ring and beat it.
Personally, Elden Ring is NOT fun to play and that’s why I don’t play it.
I’m just astounded that my 8-10 year old son persevered so much to beat it.
Elden Ring and Dark Souls games are not fun to play per se, but it’s very rewarding due to the difficulty and skill required. That sense of accomplishment is why a lot of people play, even if it’s not explicitly fun to keep dying and restarting. Not everyone’s cup of tea for sure but many good lessons and skills to be learned playing it
I’m in my 30s. I’m gradually getting calmer. But seriously, if a game doesn’t induce the urge to throw objects around the room from time to time, it probably won’t make my list of favourites.
Yeah ps4 works a charm, the hard part for me was figuring out why an Xbox controller didn’t. Turns out some of the older models had deprecated Bluetooth that it couldn’t connect to, so went with a ps4 one instead.
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