Expedition 33’s Composer Breaks Down

Oh no!

the Soundtrack

Oh, okay.

I dislike roguelikes and soulslikes. It feels like that cuts out the vast majority of indie games being made nowadays.

The loss of Reggie and Iwata are sorely felt. Nintendo is just run by generic corporate suits now, and it really shows.

It didn’t come with one, no, but plenty are available and I use mine just like a Switch with no problems. From plenty of experience having to fiddle with running laptops on bigger screens, it shows when a device was made with seamless screen switching in mind. I don’t have experience with the other popular PC handhelds - are they as easy to swap between big screens and portable as the Switch or Steam Deck? My assumption is that they all have that in mind, but maybe they don’t.

I wouldn’t consider the GPD Win in the same category because it was not designed to easily switch between being hooked up to a big screen or used portably. It’s a palmtop computer with a controller embedded in it, not a hybrid. Being able to hook it up to a screen is an afterthought.

Hard to say for sure without seeing a timeline where Nintendo didn’t make a hybrid console and seeing if the Steam Deck and other PC handhelds still happened the same way. I’d be surprised if the success of the Switch had absolutely nothing to do with the Steam Deck’s creation, however.

Much as I hate Nintendo now, their contribution to gaming can’t be denied. First they revived it from the crash in 1983, then they showed that there’s a market for a hybrid console/handheld device, paving the way for PC handhelds.

I don’t blame them.

100% perfect for both BK and BT, from what I’ve played. I also played through Beautiful Katamari and it seemed perfect as well aside from the katamari not showing up in the King’s hand in the results screen. Oddly, this exact same issue happens in Katamari Forever via the RPCS3 emulator as well.

I prefer the non-job system DQ games from IV onwards. Hoping they keep going and do IV and V with the HD treatment!

What have you been playing!?

I’ve been tinkering with my Steam Deck almost since I got it a month ago. I mostly use it hooked up to the TV with a PS5 controller. I have a problem with sticking to one game and tend to jump around a lot between them, but here are ones I can remember playing in the last week or so for a decent amount of time:

Fantasy Life i: Not usually a fan of cozy games - I like more direction - so this one looked right up my ally with an actual plot to follow along. I got about 10 hours in until the game started blocking my progress by requiring I find buddies to advance the story. I’m not interested in having to look up where they can be found, so I dropped it. It was a fun 10 hours, though!

Broforce: Bought it for the 3rd time on Steam so I could access player-made levels, something not available on other platforms. I love this game! Wish they’d make a sequel or even an official expansion.

Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie: I recently decided to test out 360 emulation on the Deck via Xenia and remembered these 2 were on it with better framerates and camera control than the originals. Pretty funny to use a 360 emulator to play N64 games, but until the fanmade PC ports are available it’s the best way to play them.

My next tinker project is seeing if I can get the DS models and texture mod for Mario 64 EX working. I have a thing where I prefer to play official upgrades to graphics when possible, which is why I’m use the 3DS textures for Ocarina of Time on the PC port.

Because of the tariffs that only apply to the US, see, they have to charge more for digital goods in other countries because reasons.

Not a big fan of the new Dooms, although I did like 2016. Nothing beats the ol’ Doom II (via source ports).

Instead of just saying it’s incorrect, say why. I can just as easily say that you’re incorrect.

No one who matters does, no. “Woke” is in quotes because it’s a bullshit term.

Maybe the guy at the front will eat vanilla paste instead of cuttlefish this time.

They don’t have to. They can release the code and let people run their own servers once they’re no longer interested in doing so. This costs them nothing.

Slapped it together real fast, yup.

You can also choose to call them out on having anti-consumer practices. You are entitled to criticize shitty business practices.

Marvel Heroes Omega is one I recently discovered has private servers now. I really miss that one. The whole campaign is playable, but the server will be wiped once 1.0 of the emu comes out, possibly early next year.

It is not about piracy, it is about preservation.

Plenty of American developers are making “woke” games. This isn’t a country-specific thing. But in general, yes!

If a game has a non-white or non-male protagonist, it’s automatically “woke.”

Yup, with movies and games alike if it’s “woke” and flops they always say that’s why, when the truth is it just sucked.

If a game is deemed “woke” by right-wing shitheads, that’s like a seal of approval for me. Now, the game might still suck, but it’s not because of being inclusive and diverse.

Yeah, dancing baby was 1996, 9 years before 2005, which is an eternity in internet years. Leeroy is one of the internet’s older memes, sure, but way too new to qualify as one of the oldest.

Now it’ll be $110!

1 - good

2 - good

everything else - meh

I picked up Yakuza 0 on a whim in 2020 and absolutely loved it. I subsequently played every main game in the series back to back (including Judgment!) and have eagerly gotten the games at launch even though I very rarely buy games at full price. They’re just that good. Even the goofy Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii connected to the main story in surprising ways. <spoiler>spoiler!<spoiler>

It actually makes sense in Fallout since it’s post-apocalyptic. Yes, the apocalypse happened hundreds of years earlier, but most people still live in squalor while only a privileged few have high tech stuff. Starfield, though? The “apocalypse” took like 50 years to happen and everyone escaped Earth. There’s no excuse for widespread telecommunication to not exist.

Except it doesn’t. Nintendo was only able to do this by exploiting Japanese-specific patent law since Palworld is made by a Japanese company. They had no case otherwise.

Wonder who owns the rights to Fly Boy now?

I jailbroke my Switch after they went after Yuzu in March last year. Every time I read about them, it makes pirating new games on it more satisfying. I’m really gonna enjoy Metroid Prime 4 on it!

That would be a nice “fuck you,” but it’s probably not worth the extra effort to them.

Even that group is a tiny minority. Most buyers are people who just want to play Nintendo games and don’t care about anything else.

OLED made some minor improvements, but $150 more for the next step up is a huge ask. You act as if there are plenty of easily available cheaper handheld PCs out there. Not that I’ve found. Prices for old technology are going up, not down.

But the cost is hard to justify given its age now.

Is it? When I last checked online, you’d be hard-pressed to find any other PC handheld for $400 or less, even used.

You know what’s wild? The original Vice City was a period piece, taking place in 1986, 16 years before the year it was released. This Vice City will be released 13 years after the last GTA.

It’s still a year away.