Category: Nintendo News

Print media may be a shadow of its former self but in the UK, one publication continues to earn the respect of gamers and developers – and that’s EDGE. 

The magazine has been around since the early ’90s and regularly runs yearly awards to celebrate the best games, hardware and developers of the past 12 months. Issue #315 features the 2017 list, and it should come as little surprise to learn that Nintendo features quite heavily.

The top 10 games of 2017, according to EDGE magazine, are as follows:

1. Zelda: BOTW
2. Super Mario Odyssey 
3. What Remains of Edith Finch 
4. PUBG
5. ARMS
6. Nex Machina
7. Nioh
8. Yakuza 0
9. Polybius
10. Divinity: Original Sin II 

The Nintendo Switch won the year’s “Best Hardware” award, with the SNES Classic Edition coming in as a runner-up. Nintendo was Publisher of the Year, while Nintendo EPD was Studio of the Year.

Elsewhere, ARMS won Best Visual Design and Zelda: Breath of the Wild scooped the Best Audio Design award, with Splatoon 2 being a runner-up in the latter category.

All of which rounds off a pretty spectacular 2017 for Nintendo, we’re sure you’ll agree.

You’ve got to give developers Arc System Works and TOYBOX Inc some props because not many studios would attempt to gamify the entire process of evolution, but that’s exactly what they’ve done with the Switch-bound Birthdays The Beginning.

Set to arrive in Japan in March, the Yasuhiro Wada led project combines the world building principles of Minecraft and adds in the ability to grow and nurture a cuboid garden as it goes from simple plankton to dinosaurs and even humans. It’s Civilization meets Viva Piñata and it’s proved a real hit on PC and PS4 so we’re excited to see it hit Switch.

No words on an western version yet, but it has been localised on other platforms so we imagine we should be seeing it on North American and European eShops after it arrives in Japan on 29th March. What do you guys make of this Spore-esque offering? Life simulation on the go? We’re certainly intrigued…

Two-hundred eighty-five. If that number holds any special meaning to you, then you were likely a lifetime follower of the American official Nintendo magazine Nintendo Power. While other magazines, namely Famitsu, have had longer runs and more issues multiple times over, Nintendo Power always held the spot as the longest-lived monthly Nintendo-focused magazine. That now changes as a new king of the hill emerges. The February 2018 issue of Japanese magazine Nintendo Dream will be number 286!

The issue – which features Breath of the Wild Champions’ Ballad DLC on the cover – also comes with a “Switch All Software Catalogue,” highlighting each Japanese release from 3rd March last year until 19th January. Other new and soon-to-be-released games are featured as well. 

Nintendo Dream began life as The 64 Dream, and was the first Nintendo dedicated magazine in Japan. The first issue saw release on 21st September 1996 and gave N64 fans a home for more in-depth detailed coverage that other multi-format magazines couldn’t do. 

When the N64 gave way to the GameCube, the name was changed to Nintendo Dream and month after month after month they kept putting out issue after issue after issue. Next year, “Nindori” (as its often also called) will pass 300 issues. With the popularity of The Switch and Japan’s continued devotion to print, who knows how long the publication will last?

As for Nintendo Power, from 1988 all the way to 2012, it dutifully appeared in mailboxes delivering the best news, tips and insider info straight from the source. Even in the Internet Age, Nintendo Power still held its own against the web. Despite the speed and access that online delivery can bring, fans of the magazine kept renewing their subscriptions and keeping with tradition. However, Future Publishing, which had taken control of the magazine from Nintendo in 2007, just couldn’t maintain Nintendo Power any longer and in December, 2012 ended the magazine on a high note. 

What remained were 285 issues, and several great guidebooks as its legacy. At least we can take comfort that the idea that Nintendo Power started lives on in Japan and continues to do so.

You’ve probably seen in the mainstream news this week that a serious security flaw has been found in the way most modern CPUs work. Devices are already being patched, but come with a cost of a performance loss.

The exploits have been confirmed by Apple to affect both their Intel based devices and ARM-based iOS devices. With Nintendo Switch’s Nvidia Tegra X1 system also using an ARM-based CPU, it seems to be likely that Nintendo Switch will be vulnerable to the techniques.

Essentially both exploits dubbed “Meltdown” and “Spectre” allow an attacker to read parts of the system memory that they ordinarily wouldn’t be allowed to read. This is possible through clever manipulation of a CPU feature known as “speculative execution” which is common across many different CPU designs.

The bug happens when a set of instructions are sent to a CPU and it speculates the result of one instruction, so it can jump ahead and execute the next. These branch predictions are cached for speed and essentially “predict” outcomes to save time. Those caches are then vulnerable to attack, allowing attackers to gain access to things such as security keys. In the case of Nintendo Switch, these exploits could help hackers understand how Switch’s security works and make things easier to run homebrew software.

Whilst this is primarily an issue for servers, it likely affects consumer devices too. Google, who discovered the vulnerabilities, along with other companies such as Apple and Microsoft have already issued updates to protect against these attacks. You can read about this on Anandtech.

The company behind the Nintendo Switch CPU, Nvidia, are currently preparing appropriate fixes:

Nvidia’s core business is GPU computing. We believe our GPU hardware is immune to the reported security issue and are updating our GPU drivers to help mitigate the CPU security issue. As for our SoCs with ARM CPUs, we have analyzed them to determine which are affected and are preparing appropriate mitigations.

When news first broke about the issue, speculation was that the fixes would potentially have a large performance loss, with some predicting up to 30% loss. However, more official responses have been given by both Apple and Google who both downplay this saying “[Meltdown] no measurable reduction in the performance of macOS and iOS”, “[Spectre] impact of less than 2.5% on the JetStream benchmark” and  “deployed it on Google’s systems, where we have observed negligible impact on performance” respectively.

Whilst we’re not claiming to have a definitive answer on the subject, it appears more than likely that the exploit will affect Nintendo Switch; however, the fear of it having a significant performance hit on games is a lot less likely.

Following speculation that it would be remastering one of the best open-world driving games ever made, EA has confirmed that Burnout Paradise HD Remaster (that’s a tentative title currently) will hit PlayStation 4 in Japan on March 16th, costing 4,104 Yen.

Given the Xbox One’s dire standing in Japan, it would seem that EA only has plans to release the game physically on PS4 in that region – but we’d imagine it will come to both consoles elsewhere in the world.

It’s also worth pondering where this leaves the Switch version of the game, which was mentioned in those Brazilian rumours. EA is one of the companies Nintendo cites as offering third-party support for the console in 2018, so perhaps we’ll see Burnout Paradise confirmed at the (rumoured) Nintendo Direct we’re (hopefully) getting this month?

If you follow the competitive fighting game scene then the name Rivals of Aether may be familiar to you already; created by Dan Fornace – who previously worked on the Xbox One remake of Killer Instinct – Aether has been doing the rounds at various gaming events following its release on Xbox One and Steam.

Fornace has written a fairly detailed analysis of how the game has done so far, and mentions that the future involves bringing it to other systems – with Switch being the priority:

Right now we are prioritizing the Nintendo Switch as we are currently looking into developers who can help us port the game out of Game Maker Studio so we can release on the Switch. 

At the moment, Game Maker Studio – in which Aether is built – doesn’t support Switch, which means it and many other titles made using the engine (Hotline Miami, Hyper Light Drifter, Undertale) would have to be ported by other means, which is naturally a time-consuming process. 

Hopefully Fornace and his team can find external help to bring the game to Nintendo’s machine, but it would be lovely to see Game Maker support introduced at some point. In the meantime, tell us if you’d be interested in playing this 2D take on the Smash Bros. concept by posting a comment below.

One of the standout indie releases of 2016 was that of Furi, a hack ‘n’ slash boss rush game with plenty of visual style. You play as a nameless Stranger, who must cut through about a dozen tough-as-nails foes in a desperate bid for freedom from a strange prison. A ‘complete edition’ was announced for the Switch back in November, which will include the DLC along with a new game mode that hasn’t previously been on consoles.

It sounds like a pretty sweet deal, and The Game Bakers just announced when we can expect to see it arrive on the eShop. Furi will be launching on 11^th January for £17.99 / $19.99 / €19.99, quite a steal for what comes included. We’ll be sure to give this one a review, but in the meantime, check out the launch trailer above.

What do you think? Have you played Furi before? Will you be getting it for the Switch? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Nintendo Switch continues to prove itself as the place to be in 2018 as The Vanir Project’s nightmarish platformer Nightmare Boy gets a handheld release date. Best of all, you’ll be able to spook up a storm in less than a fortnite with the monster mash hitting the Switch eShop on 16th January.

This Spanish-made indie takes that well-worn Metroidvania template (because, let’s be honest, you’re not a cool 2D platformer these days if you don’t have open-ended level design) and sprinkles in a horror-inspired nightmare setting, giant bosses and a consequence-based system that sees the gameworld drastically transformed by NPCs and their actions.

So if you’re in the mood for a scary romp in 2D, you’ll be able to download Nightmare Boy from 16th Jan with a £8.99/$8.99 price tag. Suitably spooked by this Spanish indie? Share your horror stories below… 

With NBA 2K18 now patched into fine form, it’s finally time for Switch’s other basketball experience to get its due with a nice new update. So now we have NBA Playgrounds Enhanced Edition, which bundles together all the game’s free post-launch content, adds in 100 new players and a brand new three-point shooting mode.

The addition of all those new NBA stars (including legends such as Tim Duncan, Julius Erving, Steve Nash and Manu Ginobili) and a new mode should help make NBA Playgrounds seem like a more attractive package, but it’s the mechanical improvements we’re interested in. Developer Saber Interactive has confirmed the game’s previously exploitable rebound system has been revamped, although we hope the game’s repetitive card packs – something that stuck out in our original review – have been sorted as well. 

There’s good news if you’ve already purchased NBA Playgrounds in its original form, with Saber Interactive confirming you can now access the Enhanced Edition for free. However, this new edition is a separate game, so you’ll need to download the new one and delete the old version to access it. All your saves will be automatically converted, so make sure you don’t wipe those in the process. If you’re heading onto the court for the first time, grab your shorts quick because it’s currently 50% on the Switch eShop at £8.99/$8.99 for a limited time.