Gamebro.biz.id - At one point, the people who made the Switch 2 thought about naming it the Super Nintendo Switch. They opted against it, though, because it could play original Switch games, while the Super NES from 1990 couldn't play games from the NES from 1983. I played with it all weekend and think the Switch Pro is a better moniker. It's more like a modernized and improved version of the original system than a whole new generation. The bigger screen and faster processor are the most visible improvements, but every part of the system is better. The larger Joy-Cons seem stronger and are easier to operate. I like how they magnetically clip onto the console. The user interface is a graceful but somewhat monotonous version of the Switch's, with mild haptic feedback and nice little sounds that make it feel like you're playing. Some people might be upset that the Switch OLED model goes back to a regular LCD screen, but the quality is good and the extra screen spac...
Gamebro.biz.id - Destruction is the name of the game as DK sets off on his first solo journey in ten years. The people who brought him back tell all
It's hard to think about Nintendo without also thinking of Donkey Kong. The ape that began it all, Donkey Kong's tie-donning, barrel-launching arcade antics brought Mario to the world and almost bankrupted Nintendo in the process, after a near-miss legal struggle over suspected King Kong copyright infringement. Donkey Kong is an important part of gaming history, and he has to be in Smash Bros. and Mario Kart, but for the last few console generations, Donkey Kong platformers have been missing. Donkey Kong Bananza is DK's first solo journey in 11 years.
Mario has been on some wild adventures lately, like reaching the farthest reaches of space or taking over foes with an anthropomorphic hat. But DK's big comeback is all about raw wrath. DK's Switch 2 adventure uses a voxel-based technology similar to Minecraft's. Instead of building a smart Lego-like universe, players can destroy every colorful level into little pieces.
You can dig all the way down to the ground below by smashing and punching your way through walls, floors, and ceilings. This will create new passageways and reveal hidden treasures. It's a new and fun variation on the Nintendo platformer that normally has everything in order.
"Bananza started when my boss, Koizumi-san, came to our team and asked us if we could make a 3D Donkey Kong game," says Kenta Motokura, the producer of Donkey Kong Bananza and director of Super Mario Odyssey. He says it was a full-circle event because the plastic bongo-controlled Donkey Kong Jungle Beat was the first game he worked on at Nintendo 25 years ago. He recalls, "The first time I played Donkey Kong was on Game and Watch. But when Donkey Kong became 3D, I started making 3D games myself." Koizumi-san was the director of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, and I learnt a lot from him about how to take on new difficulties and learn about Donkey Kong's personality.
Nintendo's monkey mascot, Donkey Kong, last appeared in 3D on the Nintendo 64. The issue was, where would Nintendo take him next? The team quickly became interested in DK's huge, furry hands after talking to Shigeru Miyamoto, the inventor of Mario, and Motokura's old boss. Motokura recalls, "When I talked to Miyamoto-san, who had worked on the original and on making the DK games with Rare, he said he had focused on Donkey Kong's power and actions, like the hand claps." "We were testing voxel technology actually, we used it in Super Mario Odyssey—and we thought that combining the power of Donkey Kong with voxel technology would fit with the theme of destruction."
The Super Mario Odyssey crew and Motokura both knew a lot about 3D platformers. But Kazuya Takahashi, the game's director at Bananza, had only worked on open world RPGs before he joined the project halfway through development. "It wasn't too scary," Takahashi says about the pressure of bringing Donkey Kong back. "The team had also worked on Odyssey, so there were a lot of people on the team who knew how to make 3D platform action games."
Even though the crew had a lot of experience with platforming, the voxel-based destruction was a new problem for Nintendo's Tokyo team. Takahashi explains, "There was no precedent for this kind of game, where you can destroy anything." "So, in that way, we did have trouble with a few things. It was hard to make the levels. We wanted to make sure that each level would be interesting even without the devastation part.
The crew wasn't going in blind, though; they had an all-star playtester on their side. Motokura explains, "We had Miyamoto-san check the game from time to time." "But instead of moving forward in the game, he just stayed in one place and smashed and dug about a lot. Seeing him play that manner was a good sign. It showed that there are a lot of things that players could want to know about the game.
A lot of Nintendo fans think that Mario and Donkey Kong wouldn't exist without Nintendo veterans like Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. But the next generation of developers says they're ready to carry on their mentors' work. Motokura says, "Longtime developers like Miyamoto-san and Teztuka-san also let us younger developers talk about things on the same level, so in that sense, I think a lot of ideas are going to be shared among the developers." "Newer, younger developers will also continue the work we do at Nintendo."
Takahashi says, "Even though I joined this team partway through, I really enjoyed the work I was able to do on this team, and Nintendo was very open to exploring these kinds of new and difficult ideas." "Being able to find your own shortcuts in Bananza..." In that way, there is more freedom than in Odyssey, and we were able to offer a whole new type of gameplay experience.
What to do
Like a lot of people my age, I've been reliving my wasted youth with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and 4, the best playable piece of 2000s nostalgia. Even while some of the soundtrack's missing songs are frustrating (and the original sandbox campaign for 4 is strangely bare-bones), grinding and kickflipping your way throughout Rio, London, Canada, and Alcatraz is still as addictive as it was in the early 2000s. People that played the originals might be upset that there isn't any Alien Ant Farm, Papa Roach, or Less Than Jake, but the addition of Denzel Curry, Turnstile, Fontaines DC, Drain, Vince Staples, and Mastodon whisper it almost makes up for it. Almost.
This time, I've chosen to flail and fall on Nintendo's brand new Switch 2. It's one of the first third-party games to come out on the platform, and it's a surprisingly good port that lets me carry my trick-tastic adventures with me wherever I go. Let's hope that future Switch 2 ports do just as well. In the end, this isn't quite as well-made as Vicarious Vision's 2020 1+2 remakes, but when you're in the zone and get that six-figure high score, Pro Skater is still an arcade-like pleasure that feels great.
What to read
Stop Killing Games, a petition to protect online media, has gotten 1.2 million signatures. This made Nicolae Ștefănuță, one of the vice-presidents of the European parliament, respond. The goal of the campaign is to raise awareness of consumer rights and help people understand how "ownership" works in a world when live service games are no longer available. A laudable struggle, but I'm still a little amazed that this all started due of The Crew, of all games. You can find out more on PC Gamer.
Did you not get anything from the PS5 30th Anniversary line last year? Don't worry, fellow things lovers. These classic PS1-inspired controllers, consoles, and PS Portals will be back in store on July 21. I love my anniversary controller so much that I wanted to share the news with you. Check out Eurogamer for all the information.
After laying off thousands of workers, a few Xbox employees have made things worse by supporting AI in two LinkedIn posts that were not very sensitive. In one, a publishing lead said that those who had been laid off should ask AI for help with their careers. In the other, Xbox released a job ad that plainly employed an AI image. The summary of events in Aftermath is appropriately sad.
Question Block:
Reader P Holck raises this question regarding how to bridge the gap between generations when it comes to gaming:
"I used to really like my son's Civilization III. I just got a PlayStation 5 and wanted to play some newer, more active games. But the ones I've tried are just too hard; I get stuck and don't know how to continue on! What games do you think a gamer over 70 would like?
First, good job for taking the plunge and playing! Reconnecting with gaming can feel like a lot of work, just like hearing a new type of music for the first time or, God forbid, getting into anime. It can be hard to find genres that you like, and it's even harder to grasp the more complicated control schemes, gameplay mechanics, and visual clues that others who have been playing for a long time take for granted.
Tetris Effect is a game I would recommend if you loved the original. It takes the basic block-dropping puzzle game and adds a psychedelic visual overlay, bringing you on a very deep journey. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and God of War from 2018 are both terrific action games to play first. They are fun story-driven epics, and the gameplay is rather easy on lower difficulty levels, so you can get a decent feel for how third-person games work.
The Witcher 3 and Baldur's Gate 3 are both great RPGs that let you get really into the story. Baldur's Gate 3 lets you pause combat to make it easier to handle, and the Mass Effect trilogy has a nice mix of turn-based RPG choices and third-person action. Astro Bot from last year is a colorful, platforming-based rush of serotonin. The Resident Evil 4 remake and The Last of Us Part 1 are both modern classics that are a tad scarier. They also include easier difficulty levels to help you get used to them. Good luck! Please tell us how it goes.
If you want to ask Question Block something or say something else about the newsletter, just hit reply or send us an email at pushingbuttons@theguardian.com.
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