Something I haven’t seen talked about too much is that there is a hidden meta-puzzle involving a hidden 51st game, and one of the fictional in-universe devs trying to catalog what happened to/at the company.
You should definitely check out the original Monkey Island games when you have a chance! 1 and 2 got well done remasters, and 3 onward don’t really need any remastering.
The first switch emulator that was taken down (I think yuzu), was justified by Nintendo as copyright infringement because people (including moderators) were sharing copyrighted material openly on their public discord. BIOS files, links to games, and early leaks.
The more recent one (Ryujinx I think) was the one that did things right, so Nintendo didn’t have that copyright leg to stand on. So instead (according to the maintainer of the Mac fork) they sent goons to the house of the head dev in Brazil… to “talk” him into taking it down.
The funny thing to me is, I think that 3D render is either from Conker’s Pocket Tales (an isometric GameBoy game using the original family friendly plan for the character), or for the original family friendly N64 game before they shifted gears entirely into Bad Fur Day.
The team that made Banjo-Kazooie, a cutesy animal mascot platforming game, made another animal mascot platforming game that was as not child friendly as possible and had tons of references to pop culture media and movies at the time.
One of your first goals is to cure your hangover. Along the way, you give laxatives to cows, collect bees to tickle a flower with big boobs to stop covering them up so you can use them as a jump pad, murder living teddy bears filled with meat in a war, have a boss battle against a giant opera singing pile of shit (probably the most well known scene of the game, the great mighty poo), and more. It was shocking for the N64 era, and they really worked some programming magic to get absolutely every ounce of power they could out of it.
If you have xbox gamepass, it’s included in Rare Replay (which at least used to be part of gamepass).
Director’s Cut eases some of that, but it’s definitely a game that could use better guidance. The first map is a slog, but if you charge through it (past the point where you take a barge to a new map) things open up pretty quickly with vehicles, new obstacles, and other tools to keep things more interesting.
The worst part is that the game doesn’t really direct you towards unlocking the tools and upgrades that make things better. A lot is unlocked through the main plot path, but there’s more that’s just not signposted at all. Is grinding out the full 5 star approval of this guy going to unlock a level 3 exoskeleton, or is it just unlocking a new decorative patch for my backpack? How am I supposed to naturally find out what places give you the best boots in the game as delivery rewards?
It’s a game where you just kind of have to accept the slog as part of the narrative. You’re one singular delivery man tasked with reconnecting the remaining people and settlements in a ruined america. It’s going to be tough. Moments of power fantasy will be few and far between. As you reconnect more, you gain the ability to build infrastructure (and use infrastructure built by others through the network you’re making) to make things easier.
Like, if you can find enjoyment in the slow moments, then you earn the more enjoyable stuff over time. Definitely not for everyone. I like it, but I play on and off in bursts. Think I have like 100 hours over four years. Biggest advice is to speed through the first map, just do the main quests. On the second map you can start taking your time if you want to.
There will be ways to force your Windows 10 machine to pull down the continued updates meant for government and extended support contracts, just like there was for Windows 7.
Not a good or particularly safe way to keep your PC, and even the extended updates will stop eventually, but worth knowing in case anyone is afraid of making the full switch to Linux.
Um… they are, and have been for almost 20 years, since the Wii. Or the N64 depending on how you look at it.
What did you think Virtual Console was? How about the NES and SNES mini? What about the “Nintendo Game Pass” or whatever they’re calling it?
Animal Crossing’s original Japan release had NES games in it, and so did the GC rerelease/psuedosequel we got internationally too.
Even better: During the Wii era, the Wiis at the Nintendo Store in New York City ran official Nintendo made software to load games off a connected hard drive, so you could play multiple of their new releases without workers having to switch discs.
It has always been about attempts to prevent piracy and keep control over how people access their games for Nintendo, and they are roughly 10 years behind the curve on modern tech trends.
Ugh, I hate that the actual ethical issues in games journalism got swallowed up by all the other hateful bullshit.
Like, sponsored articles weren’t being disclosed, and some games journalists were being fired for refusing to give favorable reviews to games that were advertising on their site. There were private mailing lists where behind the scenes coordination was happening to push kinder reviews of one member of the list’s friend’s indie game. White jounalists were claiming themselves as mouthpieces for minority gamers who never asked for someone else to speak for them.
Which gave cover for explicit mysogyny and hate… then further got twisted by far-right idealogues like Milo Yannopolous and Breitbart.