Category: Nintendo

Faction Wars.

Despite releasing just a year after its predecessor, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky makes significant changes to the formula of GSC Game World’s venerable series. There are tweaked visuals, improved shooting, and some added systems crammed into this prequel. As a result, it feels markedly different to Shadow of Chornobyl, but not always in a good way. The shift in focus to faction conflict de-emphasises the persistent atmosphere of dread that permeated the first game.

You fill the irradiated boots of Scar, a Stalker with a mysterious condition that allows him to survive the Zone’s emissions. Rescued from such an event by research group Clear Sky, he is tasked with tracking down a group of Stalkers as a means of repayment. These rogue mercenaries have designs on reaching the secrets at the centre of the Zone… and one of their number is our old friend Strelok.

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“I want to stay on the same level”.

Last month’s excellent ‘Ode to Castlevania‘ DLC has got us diving into Poncle’s beautiful bullet hell, Vampire Survivors, all over again. We’ve been having such a good time with the latest expansion that we’d be perfectly happy to see waves of DLC added to this one for years to come, but naturally, Poncle may one day want to move on to a new project. And yet, whatever comes next, it seems we shouldn’t expect it to blow the current project’s scope out of the water.

That is according to the game’s creator, Luca Galante, who, in a recent interview with Metro, stated that he wouldn’t want a follow-up game to “try and do something bigger just because it’s what everyone is expecting”. Instead, Galante claims, he’d rather keep working at his own level: “It would have a higher budget,” he told Metro, “but it wouldn’t be dramatically different in terms of scope, than Vampire Survivors”.

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Full of Eastern promise?

Formed in 2022 as a collaboration between North American publisher Limited Run Games and Japanese localisation company 8-4, Ltd, Superdeluxe Games may be focused more on Japan than the West, but the company is doing some exciting things in the realm of physical releases that the whole world should see.

With this in mind, Superdeluxe was kind enough to send us some samples of its latest games so we could see first-hand what all the fuss is about (thanks to the always-excellent Jake Smith for making this happen, by the way).

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“Thank you very much for your continued support!”.

The man behind some of the Switch’s best music tracks, Yasuaki Iwata, has announced that he has left his role at Nintendo.

The composer took to Twitter to share that he actually stepped back from the position in July 2023, though this is the first time he has publicly acknowledged it.

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Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Epic Games and more…

Nintendo has experienced moments throughout its history where it’s had to rely exclusively on first-party content to get by, but thankfully, things improved during the Switch generation – with many major third-party publishers showing their support for the hybrid device.

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Switch Online will also be available on the “successor”.

Although Nintendo isn’t ready to reveal the ‘Switch 2’ just yet, the company’s president Shuntaro Furukawa has confirmed some big news during the latest corporate management policy briefing.

Nintendo Switch software will be playable on this “successor” system. Along with this, it’s also been confirmed Switch Online will be available on Nintendo’s next-generation hardware. Here’s the translated message shared on Nintendo’s Japanese social accounts:

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It got a surprise release last week.

The new smartphone app ‘Nintendo Music’ has been available for almost a week now and it appears we’ve already got the first update about how it’s performing.

According to Sensor Tower, this new app for “active” Switch Online subscribers is estimated to have been downloaded by 265,000 smartphone users within the first day and went on to surpass 1.2 million downloads in just four days. Around 40 percent of these app downloads were in the US and about 15 percent of the downloads were in Japan.

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With a physical release arriving too.

Publisher Clear River Games and developer City Connection have today announced that the arcade shoot ’em up Under Defeat will be flying onto Switch on 5th December.

Originally released in arcades in 2005 by G.rev, this shmup will see you taking to the skies to defend a world in all-out war. You’ll take command of a heavily armoured ‘copter and shoot down any foes unlucky enough to stumble into your path with Under Defeat’s unique shot-tilting mechanic — a way to take on enemies from all angles.

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In the Zone.

Lauded on its original 2007 release, S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow Of Chornobyl dropped players into a stark world, filled with effective horror and precision combat. It spawned two sequels, both of which refined and improved on the model of their predecessor. Ukraine-based GSC Game World’s Legends Of The Zone bundle squeezes all three expansive adventures onto Switch with modern optimisations and stable visual performance, although each title is also available as a standalone purchase. It’s worth noting that this is the series’ first time on consoles (with the PlayStation versions released back in March), which makes the competency of these ports all the more impressive.

Taking inspiration from the 1971 Russian novel Roadside Picnic, Shadows Of Chornobyl is set in the irradiated wilderness of the Zone. Decades after repopulation efforts, a second Chornobyl disaster occurs, turning residents into mutated creatures and littering the countryside with deadly elemental anomalies. The haunting and oppressive atmosphere of Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 film adaptation Stalker, is prevalent throughout. The Zone always feels like an alien landscape, or a bad dream.

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“Your Pokémon is fighting fit!”.

A stolen Pokémon card supposedly worth up to £30,000 has been safely returned to its rightful owner/trainer.

As reported by the BBC, police have stated that the theft of a Charizard card took place in Heathfield in East Sussex between 2nd and 5th September 2024. The same card was then found to have been listed for sale on Facebook, leading to a search order being completed on an address in Polegate, roughly 11-12 miles away from the original location.

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