Nintendo overestimated the intelligence of their customers with the Wii U. They won’t make that mistake ever again.
Not that they are alone in this. There’s a reason why the Xbox 360 was called the Xbox 360 and not the Xbox 2. Microsoft didn’t want the second Xbox console to appear a generation older by name than the upcoming Playstation 3. Nintendo at least don’t have that problem, because the Switch 2 is in a market of its own and won’t be compared to the Playstation 5 by the vast majority of those interested in buying it.
Wreckfest has been big for the last week or so. The only reason why I picked it up again in the first place (after having only played about an hour of it before, mostly on the Steam Deck) was that I got a new controller (from 8bitdo), more or less replacing my worn out Xbone controller, and the idea was that I wanted to test it properly with a proper racing game - and proper racing it is! Hard and punishing, but not really unfair. I’ve been a fan of Finish developer Bugbear ever since the first Flatout (which this is a clear spiritual successor to), so it’s not exactly surprising that it finally clicked with me.
Driving physics in particular are sublime. Even with just a controller, you can feel the mass of the vehicle shifting around, you notice tires losing grip as springs are decompressed on top of a hill. Add to that the second best crash physics after BeamNG and delightfully aggressive AI drivers and the end result is pure carnage. There is some frustration (most races are decided in the first three corners and a single mistake can eliminate any chance of victory at the second highest and highest difficulty), later races are getting too long (since it’s not particularly interesting to lead for five laps after having basically won the race in the first lap) and the gameplay surrounding the races themselves is bare-bones to say the least, with a very basic campaign, upgrade and leveling system and some live service (ultra)lite challenges sprinkled on top, but it does the job.
There are destruction derbies (fun, but laughably easy, all of them) and wacky events like racing a tiny three wheeler against a field of school buses, but the majority of those are really more fun in theory than actually playing them, since most of these unusual vehicles are just slow, fragile and control purely. Worst example so far: RV racing. Nothing fun or interesting about that and the Top Gear segment they copied this from wasn’t exactly a high point in the series either. Normal racing is downright exhilarating though at the best of times, when you just edge out a victory on a slippery, brilliantly designed dirt track, worn out tires barely holding on, opponents trying to spin you out in every corner. I hope there’s more of that in the upcoming sequel. I have not tried the multiplayer yet, but I might in the future. Graphics are excellent - save for the complete lack of driver animations - and there’s a banging soundtrack that would be perfect if it had less screamo, but that’s just my taste. The soundtrack doesn’t quite reach the same heights as Flatout 1 and 2’s, but it’s close.
This really applies to the whole game. It’s not just nostalgia, since I replayed both relatively recently. Wreckfest has better driving physics than its predecessors (or really most other racing games), but that’s about it. The wackiness is more grounded, with plausible or almost plausible and no strictly unrealistic events that involve the driver being hurled into targets anymore, but this also means that, since there is really no “innovation” outside of ultra-basic leveling and daily events compared to the predecessors that it feels like they didn’t really have any ideas and were just doing it by the numbers. Bugbear are masters at the craft of designing tracks, vehicles and the physics that tie it all together, but outside of the immediate racing action, there really is nothing of note there. A campaign system that was below average 21 years ago is now hopelessly outdated. I’m not saying that they should try and make a dirty, ratty version of Forza Horizon with more of those lovely banged up real cars that handle so brilliantly, but… - okay, they totally should, that would be amazing! Anyway, 10/10 racing, 6/10 other events, 3/10 surrounding stuff for a weighed average of 7.99999/10. Don’t check if my math is correct.
Okay, and I also played a few more hours of Balatro (more hours than Wreckfest, I mean), because, well, I was forced to. Yup. I didn’t do it willingly, I swear! Is there a “Balatro players anonymous”? Asking for a friend.
The controller I mentioned (8BitDo Ultimate 2C Wired) is great, by the way. It’s a simple wired-only thing (there’s also a Bluetooth variant) that closely mimics the Xbone controller, except for two additional small shoulder buttons that I haven’t found any use for yet, as well as a turbo and remap feature that allegedly works without any software (don’t care about either, so I haven’t tried them). PC and Android only, just FYI. It has the best sticks and triggers I’ve ever used (both Hall effect, so I hope they’ll last) and the buttons and d-pad are also outstanding, despite this thing costing less than half as much as a first party controller. It feels exactly as solid as an original controller, even down to the plastic making the same noises at precisely the same level of grip strength when some hick from outta town spins ya out in the last corner of tha race for some goddarn reason, which is one hell of an achievement for the price. I’ve already had a Super Famicon style Bluetooth controller from the same company for a few years, so I knew their stuff was high quality. The only aspect about it that might put some people off is that for some reason, it’s only available in bright, almost garish pastel colors, but I quickly got over that. There is a branded Black Myth Wukong version with more muted colors, but it didn’t mention having vibration on any of the spec sheets on any site, so I avoided that one.
They are steaming ahead towards becoming another Sega at full power - or in other words, as their consoles are failing to attract customers, they are transforming themselves - intentionally or not - into just another third party publisher in the gaming sector.
What kind of bugs did the console have at launch? I must admit, I wasn’t taking it particularly seriously when it came out and didn’t pay much attention to it.
Honestly, I kind of learned to like not having my headphones randomly yanked out of my ears by clothing, door handles, tree branches and other random objects, as well as random movement. Or maybe I’m just a little clumsy.
The only real problem I have with Bluetooth headphones is that they are fairly prone to interference in my experience, especially in busy areas. Battery life is pretty much a solved issue at this point (even for those tiny things that barely stick out of your ear), as are size, comfort and ease of use.
I’m not listening to any podcasts. I think these are pretty obvious conclusions that anyone can easily reach on their own with the available information.
Nintendo are trying to avoid a shortage and scalpers at launch, which is why they are producing the device in large numbers before having officially unveiled it. Given how highly anticipated this console has been for years and how many people have seen it or at least parts of it by sheer necessity, the leaks are unsurprising.
They were also wise to not have revealed the Switch 2 any earlier, because it would have jeopardized sales of the Switch 1. Enough companies have made this mistake in the past. Leaks - which the vast majority of their overwhelmingly non-techie customer base will barely even hear about - are a small price to pay for the obvious economic advantages of this approach.
Good analysis, but I checked again and must have either misremembered or different versions of the same test were different in this regard: Upon running one of these again (this one is from 2002), it reported 32 GB of RAM as 2 GB of RAM and gave the system the green light. Notice how it also reported a fabulously high speed for the (virtual) CD-ROM drive:
I never thought that this compatibility mode would limit the amount of memory that is available to an application. In fact, this is the case with all other working compatibility modes as well (Vista, 7, 8 - 95 and 98/ME don’t work with this application).
That’s neat, quite different from old installers not recognizing newer hardware properly (who can blame the devs after several decades?) and instead stating that the game would not work. There was a German gaming magazine (Computer Bild Spiele) that always put a system check in front of game installers (even software installers) on their discs that would compare your system to the title’s minimum specs, using a simple stoplight (green=far exceeds requirements, yellow=just meets them, red=below minimum specs). It’s kind of similar to modern online services like “Can You Run It”.
I tried to install a very old game from one of these discs recently and it didn’t quite know what to make of the hardware. IIRC, my 32 GB of RAM was more than the developers of this check anticipated and it reported that I didn’t have enough RAM (the game needed 32 MB).