Nintendo Switch, nice bait.

So the new Nintendo Switch looks like a really nice slab of consumer electronics. But as usual i am very cautious about what it actually can deliver, you see i get annoyed at the battery life of my iPhone and i feel that the weight of my old iPad was a bit to high to casually lug around. The Switch looks like it could clock in at the same, if not more. And while i would enjoy being able to play more substantial games, as opposed to most mobile games... bless their souls. I am still not sure the ups outweighs the downs.

Among the rumors we have a 3 hour mobile battery life, that is a problem, but even 5 or even 6 hours would be on the short side. I have also seen a few people complaining about the lackluster backwards compatibility. This does not bother me because my last Nintendo console was a Super Nintendo. But i can see how some people would find it irritating. Also i look forward to the wear and tear of the docking station and the unavoidable day when your Switch switches to carry along only due to a dead base station. I also predict a lot of glitchy controllers and shit simply dying.

Now i also hope that nintendo have a stronger lineup of games than the WiiU... I am seriously down for a new Mario Kart (and the new Zelda game looks really cool) but that has never and will never be enough to sell me a new console.

All in all time will tell and i will remain cautiously optimistic at this point, it looks fun and whimsical... And that is all yuo can hope for with Nintendo these days.

Can´t spell SONY without a N and a O

So the latest thing people got angry over was... well... SONY being SONY. 

Last time... i promise.... 

The story goes thusly.... 

Sony nixed Fallout and 

Skyrim mods on the PS4. 

Something that makes fair sense going by the very rigid and monolithic nature of SONY. Heck it would cost them a lot i guess... for no return... Not a wise move if one is in the market for money. (what other reason is there). Now on one hand this does suck, especially if you are a console gamer. But on the other hand having your hopes and dreams being crushed should be fairly common ground. 

Now the fun part of this is ofc Microsoft gloating like there is no tomorrow, having been the small kid having his lunch money stolen, this egg on the face of the tormentor is a god sent. Not that the thrashing they will get for it won´t hurt. Nut short term satisfaction is worth it i guess. Rest assured MS will find a way to completely fuck this up too.

Now for me, as a outsider looking in i get equal amounts of entertainment and uneasy feelings from this. Especially as MS move their PC stuff closer to the consoles, not the other way around. The PC will always be a superior medium if you are willing to invest in it. But it will also always be more expensive and need more attention. But it is that complexity i like. That and the fact that i can do all the fun, work and... well... other stuff on it. 

But getting back to the whole no mods on PS4. This i guess will set the tone for the war going forward, on one hand MS that is willing to do pretty much anything for more customers and SONY trying to set them self up as a "elite" brand but in the process dicking over part of their customer base. 

Now the tie-breaker will be if Nintendo smoked the good or the bad weed.... Time will tell. 

Not really much to say about the situation... I fully understand why SONY did what they did, but i thin it was a bad move and will kost them short term. But i also guess they will save money on it long term because CSR are expensive, as is multi skilling. 

Now i am going to sleep because i have worked a 10 hour day today. 

Cheers and take care. 

Pokemon is go

I literally have nothing to say about the app Pokemon GO. Actually that is not entirely true, I have some choice words like piss poor and barley working. But that is in the long and short of it irrelevant because it is not the app it self that have made a impact. 

No it is the sheer social movement behind this barley AR like app that has me scratching my head and in equal measures praise humanity and start question if we should not start hand out "almost Darwin awards". But then again I have been a long time viewer of Radio Dead Air and the show What the fuck is wrong with you... So I have a fairly high bar for the stupidity of people. I am not even going to dignify you with a explanation of what Pokemon GO is, if you somehow have missed it i am utterly impressed. 

Now let us instead do a little mental exercise and I want you to try and remember the last time you saw a huge group of people from all walks of life getting together and sharing... Now try and find one that did not happen due to a tragedy of some kind. 

Pokemon GO have brought people together in a way that give me hope for humanity and show us that despite what media is trying to say, the world is not teetering on the bring of destruction. Not really. 

Of course this crazy will die down soon, give it a month or two and most people will be feed up and the novelty will have worn off. But that will not really matter because it will still have changed the people using it in a small way. And it have opened the eyes of the general public to what Augmented Reality is and what it can do. No longer is it a weird buzz word... OK it is still a weird buzz word but now you can tie it to P:GO and that way make it tangible. That in it self is a victory i think. 

As for all the arsehats and socially misaligned fucknuts, they will also move on to the next way to ruin their own and others life, because that is what they do. 

Then Pokemon GO 2 will come out and we start all over again. 

Until then 

Go forth and conquer. 

Can a green pixie outrun a portly plumber?

So I read on Kotaku today (they in turn was quoting a Tweet) about a planned Link character as a DLC character for the new Mario Kart 8.  Now my very first reaction was to gently apply the palm of my hand to my face with a reassuring slapping sound... But as I get back in to alignment with the world and put aside any remaining nerd rage that smash bros and Hyrule Warriors had not burnt away already I realized that this is actually a kind of cool idea. Now my Link I got to know was not exactly known to ride much of anything but I have gathered that it is sort of a thing these days. I also really like to have as many drivers as I can in my Mario Kart games… So why not go the Smash Bros way of things and just jam every last one they can in there. I personally really would like to see a bunch of Mega Man themed drivers… with Rush driving a MegaMan kart as the nr 1. Just to shake thing up.

One day rush... One day.

There is after all nothing really making the Zelda games any more sacred than anything else Nintendo have produced over the years and just because I fell in love with “a Link to the past” does not in any way give me the right to dictate how the Zelda franchise should be used. In fact I think that games like Smash bros and Mario Kart are perfect venues to play with the different properties that Nintendo owns or have access to. After all there is a certain charm to games like Marvel vs Capcom and the Kingdom Heart series. Do I stand to lose anything by this cross-over? Not really, and while it could be argued that it will cheapen the brand I am firmly in the camp that thinks of Hyrule Warriors does that way more effective than this. After all this is an entirely different genre and it was not that very serious to begin with. 

And there is no denying that the concept is pretty kickass, helping me to grow a liking for this DLC. It does also help that I am an old Mario Kart fan, from the old SNES game all the way up to the Gamecube one. Have yet to play the Wii games but the series have been solid and I really enjoy the crazy and simple but yet engaging driving that keep sucking me back in. Another part of this DLC is a “kart” inspired by F-Zero, another really fun SNES racer that sort of lived through the years and the racing style in the new Mario Kart games is sort of reminiscent of how F-Zero played. To have the Blue Falcon in my garage for this game would be a nice thrill. Now it does not hurt either that they are priced very fairly at a mere 8$ a pop or 12 for a bundle with both upcoming DLC´s.

I really hope this will be a trend going forward with the Mario Kart series. Heck I would not be all against them making a deal with SEGA to finally settle that old grudge of who is the fastest and strongest in a real sport… Fantasy go-kart.