I've played all of the Animal Crossing games in the main series... どうぶつの森 (Animal Forest) on the GameCube, Wild World on the Nintendo DS, City Folk on the Wii, New Leaf on the Nintendo DS, Pocket Camp on the iPhone, and now New Horizons on the Nintendo Switch. For anybody not familiar with the series, it's essential a "life simulation" game where you live amongst animals and pass your time with activities like catching bugs and fish, digging up fossils, expanding and improving your house, and collecting clothing and furnishings to build a custom lifestyle. It's a relaxing way to spend time and forget about the world, and since the game progresses in real time, you're compelled to check in from time to time to see what's new.

The latest effort, New Horizons on the Nintendo Switch adds some important new ideas... while hampered by some really poor game-mechanics which have plagued the game since the beginning (with one notable exception, which I'll get to below). If I were rating it, I guess it would be four stars, maybe? I mean, I do enjoy it very much, but there are times it frustrates me so badly that I want to never play it again.

So let's discuss that, shall we?

This time, instead of moving into a forest (or city), you are dropped on a deserted island with the games business moguls... Tom Nook and his twin (sons? nephews?) employees Timmy and Tommy. The three of them are responsible for building and upgrading your home, selling you stuff, and pretty much run everything. All you have when you start is a tent, a simple bed, and a lantern... along with the clothes on your back. Fairly quickly Tom Nook will inform you that you no longer get the tools you need to survive... instead you have to collect tree branches and stones to craft your own. Like the bug net I made here...

In short order you are informed that the "deserted island" will be getting two new inhabitants. For me this is a pink deer named "Fuchsia" and a body-building-obsessed ape named "Louie." Befriending them gets you advice and occasional gifts, which are much needed when you start the game.

One of the cool new features for New Horizons is the addition of the "Nook Phone." The phone has all kinds of nifty features. Like an app to catalogue all the fish and bugs you catch, your crafting recipes, and even a camera... which has surprising depth of field plus filter features for altering your images. It's a cooler way than a screen snapshot to record events on the island. Compare this image taken with the camera app compared to the screen-cap above...

Your early days will be spent collecting bugs, fish, seashells, weeds, flowers, and the like so you can sell them to Timmy and Tommy for "bells" which is the in-game currency. You need bells to pay off your loan for the tent so you can take out a new loan for a house. You also need them to buy stuff you might need for your home. You also need to collect branches, wood, rocks, weeds, and such for crafting tools, furniture, and accessories. Here you can see me sneaking up on a snail that crawled out when it started raining...

New to this game is the idea of "Nook Miles" which are earned for completing certain tasks... catching this many bugs... talking to this many neighbors... selling stuff for this many bells... that kind of thing. Nook Miles can be exchanged for upgrades, specialty items, and (most importantly) a ticket for a plane ride to neighboring islands where you can plunder its resources and raze its vegetation for fun and profit...

The ecological message here is really scary, albeit historically accurate. You essentially rip everything of value from the island until you are standing in a destroyed wasteland where once a beautiful island stood, all so you can improve your island...

Plunder and raze efficiently enough, and soon you have the funds to upgrade from a tent to a house...

Adding more rooms to your house only takes money. Ever-increasing amounts of money. But, since you can decorate your rooms however you want, that's where the fun is...

You can add progressively more rooms to your house, with each expansion costing more and more bells to procure. Most people turn the first expansion into a bedroom. I turned mine into a big bathroom/laundry room...

Yes, you can absolutely sit on the toilet and take a dump. It even flushes automatically when you get up! Many items have features like this. The washing machine will start up if you close the lid. The little Nintendo Switch will turn on. That kind of thing.

My bathroom is serious business. I couldn't find a bathtub, so I used an oar-fish pool. The Nintendo Switch is handy so I can play games while taking a dump. The katana swords are there to defend myself if somebody intrudes while I'm taking a dump. Don't mind the fish in the corner, I ran out of storage in my attic.

As time goes on, you'll be able to get even more buildings added to your thriving island community. Like a Resident Services Building...

Every time a new structure is built in town, there's a celebration. But there are other seasonal celebrations to be had... including your birthday...

As time goes on, you'll be able to get even more buildings added to your thriving island community. Like a Resident Services Building...

The villagers in my hood are a strange lot. The ape is obsessed with working out and injects it into every conversation you have. He can mostly be found wandering around the island with his ass hanging out...

The airport also allows players to fly to their friends' islands over the internet, or have them fly to you...

At the airport they also have a stationary rack where you can write letters to everybody that they will then deliver for you by the next day. I like dashing out notes to them because they will think you like them and give you stuff. Doesn't seem to matter what you write, they still love getting your letters. As an added bonus, I usually attach a gift of something I have left over...

After you get rich enough and have the materials to craft enough, other animals will move to your island. I always welcome them with a warm letter greeting then do a follow-up in-person visit. Here's my letter to Sherb, who looks like he's a goat...

After a while, a stoner dog named Harvey will show up and invite you to the photo studio on his private island. And, yes... it's as creepy as it sounds. If you have Animal Crossing Amiibo statues, you can transfer them to the game and have them pose for photos with you. My Amiibo for KK Slider the musician, Timmy and Tommy the entrepreneurs, and Mabel the clothing magnate worked just fine. For whatever reason my Amiibo for Cyrus and Reese (the alpaca husband-and-wife duo who make furniture) wouldn't work. My guess is that they will eventually be added to New Horizons in the future, and will likely work when they arrive. The photo studio itself is filled with various rooms, props, and wardrobe so you can pose and create various scenarios for your pictures. I don't have that kind of time to waste, so I just photographed us in front of a brick wall...

I'm not sure how else Amiibo will figure into the game, but I hope it nets me some cool stuff.

And speaking of cool stuff, eventually Blathers the owl will come to the island to collect and catalog the wildlife and any fossils that are found. Like in the other Animal Crossing games, Blathers will build a full-on museum after you donate enough specimens and artifacts...

Don't be fooled by the building. It may be rather small on the outside, but it is absolutely massively huge on the inside... housing an entire wing for bugs, another wing for fish, and a basement full of fossil displays. It's spectacular. If the museum existed in real life, I would absolutely visit it. All the environments are great, and the way that the fossil exhibit tries to follow evolutionary patterns is cute...

My real goal... more than anything else... is to complete the museum collection. I've never done it on any other Animal Crossing game, but maybe this time? How awesome would that be?

So... pretty cool game, right?

Not completely, no. Let's get to the bad stuff here...

REPETITION. The first couple times your character catches a bug or walks into the museum, the conversation bubbles that show up are cute... charming even. But after a couple days you want to put your fist through the television screen every time. You can speed up some conversations with the B-button. You can speed up the crafting session with rapid A-button presses. But you can't eliminate them entirely and it's such a stupid, boring waste of time. For heaven's sake... LET US SKIP THIS IDIOCY.

TOOL ACCURACY. I have no clue why Nintendo doesn't fix the most horrifically frustrating part of the game... the total lack of accuracy in using tools. Whether it's fishing or digging or catching bugs, it's a crapshoot to determine where your tool is going to land. People keep telling me "You'll get used to it!" But in all these many years of Animal Crossing games, I NEVER have. I face to where I want my tool to hit... and inevitably end up going somewhere else half the time. You can literally see it in these screen captures. You face in one direction, your tool hits in another... and don't think you can compensate because your character will shift in random ways...

How hard would it be to have a cursor show you where your tool is going to land as an option?

I may have hated the way that the iPhone version... Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp... added pay-for-play to the game, but at least you could tap the screen to specify where your tool will hit and save a lot of frustration.

CRAFTING. Crafting is new to the console version of the game. I like it. A lot. You collect rocks, sticks, wood, and minerals and get to make new stuff. It adds new depth and gives you something more to do. But, in addition to having to suffer through the crafting animation every damn time, there's no way to craft multiples of an item. Have seven clams and want to craft seven sacks of fish bait? You have to click through the menus and go through that stupid animation SEVEN TIMES. Good Lord. Nobody wants this. Give us the opportunity to specify multiple crafted items at the same time.

CRITTERPEDIA. The Critterpedia, which keeps track of all the bugs and fish you manage to capture is a fun tool to look at...

But incomplete and hardly efficient. First of all, no listing for the fossils you've collected. Second of all, you can't tell at a glance which items you've donated to the museum. You have to click through on every individual critter to find out...

Add a fossil checklist. Add icons to each of the caught critters showing if they're in the museum. Make it ACTUALLY USEFUL AS A TOOL instead of a novelty.

SAVE ME. Saves are automatic. But I'm not sure if they are saved online... even if you have a Switch Online account? And you can't transfer your save data to another Switch, making it impossible to have a home unit and a travel handheld unit both be used for the same game. I am assuming that this has something to do with people not wanting to have multiple saves of the same game, but that's absurd. Surely they can make it be a check-in, check-out situation for people who need it.

ONLINE? It's great that you can travel to the islands of your friends and invite them to your island... but why is it so hard to communicate otherwise? In order to send a gift or a message, your friend has to be online at the time? Why? What if your friend lives across the world 12 times zones away? This is phenomenally idiotic. The Switch is online all the time. How hard could it be to allow messages and gifts and such to be sent whenever and retrieved whenever?

SWITCH TOUCH. The biggest problem I've saved for last... the touch-screen when your Switch is in handheld IS NOT USED! I think you can type out letters on the keyboard that appears when you compose a letter. AND THAT'S IT! Shocking. And stupid. You can't tap to do anything. Even stuff it would be perfectly appropriate for. I have no idea... none why this is the case. Every model of the Switch has a touch-screen, and to intentionally ignore it is criminal.

And that's about it.

It will be interesting to see if this iteration of the game will capture my attention longer than the previous games. I always start obsessed with collecting everything only to get bored and frustrated as time goes by.

I've played Minecraft Dungeons entirely too much. And it's strange. Even my most favorite games didn't result in my playing the levels more than a couple times... but there are levels in Minecraft Dungeons which I've played a dozen times. It's just so wonderfully replayable.

It's all because the game plays entirely differently depending on which weapons you choose and what enchantments are added to those weapons. Play with a super-fast dual-blade set and it's a radically different play than using a slow but lethal hammer. In other dungeon crawlers, you would have to restart the entire game and change your class to do that. Since Minecraft Dungeons doesn't have classes, you're free to change things up on a whim. Likewise, using a multi-fire crossbow makes for a different experience than having a more powerful single-fire bow. Throw in a switch to Adventure Mode or Apocalypse Mode, and the game changes again! Fun stuff.

Sure beats having to listen to the same exact dialogue repeat a hundred times in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. That got really old really fast, and I'm starting to dread playing it. Kinda makes you wonder why Nintendo doesn't offer a way to turn that shit off.

But the best part? Minecraft Dungeons is going to be adding new content... including an island. So even when you're done with it... you're not.

No, this isn't a revolutionary game, but it is definitely a fun one. And the total blast I'm having replaying it? That's pretty much all that matters when it comes to getting your money's worth... and Minecraft Dungeons costs $20 on my Nintendo Switch, which makes it an even bigger bargain.

And now? Back to "Creeper Crypt" for me.

NOTE: I should mention that Minecraft Dungeons has major issues on Switch once you reach higher levels with lots of enemies on the screen. Skipping, stuttering, crashing... it's pretty bad. Apparently even high-end PC's and Xbox have the crashes, so I guess I'll take the slowdown-stuttering if it means I can undock my Switch and take the game with me.

Life sucks, but don't expect a reprieve from the suckage THIS Sunday... because a Very Special Technology All-Fail Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Mojang! The only video game I want to play lately is Minecraft Dungeons. It's a fun dungeon-crawler that's accessible to play because the difficulty is selectable for each level. You can go harder than your character-power if you want a challenge... or easier if you just want something to do that won't stress you out. In lieu of a LEGO dungeon crawler, it's exactly what I need...

EXCEPT... I bought it for Nintendo Switch so I have the option of playing it on my television or taking it with me as a portable. The problem is that Mojang did a shitty job of the Switch conversion, so it's jerky and rough if things get even a little bit intense... especially on a television. This is absurd. FAR more complicated games, like Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Diablo III, don't have this problem. Bad enough that Mojang did such a poor job... but to not allow players to decrease resolution and frame-rate settings so they can have a playable game is kinda unforgivable. With the new DLC packs I just bought, it's even more critical that Mojang get off their asses and improve the translation for Switch or, at the very least let us turn the specs down so it plays well.

   
• Mojang Deux! And while we're at it... why does Minecraft Dungeons crash so often? It happens most when I am playing the Daily Trial, which means all the parameters change when I have to restart and begin the level all over again. That SUCKS. Let me go back to the saved game so I can keep going! But instead it's see a Daily Trial game you like, start to play, crash, then you can't get the same game back. Also... why is the online network capabilities so abysmal? Most times when I resume a game, it wants to go back to the Main Menu so it can connect to the Microsoft Network (again), then gives me an error, then allows me on. It's almost to the point where I wish I could afford an Xbox so I'd have a platform that Mojang/Microsoft gives a shit about. Except I don't think that cross-platform saves are available (even though cross-platform playing is), so that may not even help.

   
• Apple Watch! Apple Watch is both genius and stupid at the same time. The main reason I bought it was to track my sleep and hopefully get better insight into how I sleep so I can get better rest. Apple Watch doesn't really do much of that, even though it's got all the sensors and crap to do all of that (it can't even keep track of multiple sleep sessions in a 24 hour period!). The Sleep app they give you is complete shit, which is why I bought the fantastic AutoSleep app for $4. It is phenomenal, and what Apple should have included. And, surprise! It will automatically log multiple sleep sessions and doesn't require you to manually set a sleep window. It's just class all the way through...

One thing I'm trying to do is experiment with going to bed earlier. Last night I decided to go to bed at 9:00pm, but Apple Watch kept me awake because the display is on. "Hey Siri, good night." — "Hey Siri, turn off the display." — "Hey Siri, how do I turn off the Apple Watch display?" — And of course none of that works because Siri is a fucking idiot. My blood pressure rising because I can't find a way to put the watch to sleep or tell it's I'm going to bed in the shitty Sleep app, I have to Google that shit on my iPhone and eventually find out that there's a "Theater Mode" that I can turn on. Jesus. For a company that prides itself on making technology easy to use... Apple sure fucked up this part. Might want to look into actually making Siri be useful.

   
• Ubiquiti! When my old WiFi router died, I wanted to buy a future-proof model with excellent WiFi 6 capability. I landed on the Amplifi Alien because Ubiquiti has such an amazing reputation. It was $380, but I figured it would be worth the insane investment if I could hang onto it for 5 or 6 years...

Turns out that NOPE, it really isn't worth the money. Mostly because the built-in firewall is total shit, and there's no way to do the most simple shit like blacklist IP addresses or block countries or anything. THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY DOLLARS AND YOU CAN'T BLACKLIST AN IP ADDRESS?? Jesus. What a fucking turd of a router. What's worse? You can't add a third-party device like a Firewalla because it's not compatible with the Alien and, of course, the Alien has no configuration options so you can make it compatible. Thinking of buying a new WiFi router? Avoid the Amplifi Alien at all costs. Overpriced trash with minimal configurability and a pathetic feature set.

   
• Samsung! I am still feeling very raw that my seriously expensive Samsung television died after just five years. And the fact that there are NO repair parts available and I have to go to the secondary market in order to find them... at a highly inflated price, of course... is typical of a manufacturer who counts on their products being disposible. They want them to fail so they can sell you a new one. Well, I may be having to buy a new television, but it sure as fuck ain't going to be from Samsung.

   
• PARAMOUNT+! When CBS became Paramount+, there was a special offer to go ad-free for the price of ad-enabled if you bought a year. I did it, because there's a lot of stuff on the streaming service I liked. Problem is? A lot of their older stuff WILL NOT STREAM. New shows? Yes. Old shows? Rarely. Sometimes it will work on a laptop, iPad, and iPhone if you have no ad-blocker, allow pop-ups, don't use a VPN, and turn off every conceivable protection to your network. But even then it's a crapshoot. But here's the thing... it NEVER works on my AppleTV. Old episodes of Ink Master or Drag Race or whatever? NOPE! And it's so fucking stupid. I don't have to turn off all my protection shit when I stream from Netflix, Discovery+, AppleTV+, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Philo, or any other service I use all the time... only Paramount+. What a bunch of fucking assholes. And OF COURSE when you write to their customer support they have you jump through hoops that don't do shit. If ALL MY OTHER streaming services work, maybe it's YOU. If new shows from your network stream fine, but old shows don't, maybe it's YOU. I will not be resubscribing when my year runs out.

   
• QNAP! This past week QNAP, the makers of my NAS (Network Attached Storage) had some kind of vulnerability which allowed malware/ransomeware hackers to install a program on everybody's NAS drives which encrypted all their files. The only way to get your files back is to pay $500+ to the hackers and they would give you the encryption key. I didn't pay them shit because I have redundant offline backups of all my data (which is harder than it should be because QNAP has a shitty, SHITTY fucking backup app)...

I just deleted all the encrypted files and replaced them with the original. No big deal. After that, I installed a bunch of new stuff on my NAS (including a firewall) to (hopefully) avoid new problems. But here's my beef... WHY THE FUCK DOESN'T QNAP HELP CUSTOMERS UNDERSTAND HOW TO SECURE THEIR DATA AGAINST THESE ATTACKS BETTER? Everything with them is far more complicated than it needs to be, and their customers are paying the price for it. Looking for a NAS? Thinking of buying QNAP? AVOID! AVOID! AVOID!

   
And that's it for stuff that sucks on this fine Sunday.

I like video games. I love the LEGO video games. I think I own all of them multiple times over (for multiple platforms). They are essentially kid games, which means they're low-stress... but there's challenges and humor which make them a blast for adults too.

The latest release is LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. There have been many Star Wars LEGO games before, but this is a new take on the material which is more expansive and clever than any LEGO game I've played before. Even if you own the original games, this is one worth looking at if you've enjoyed any of the other LEGO video games...

Alas... it's a LEGO video game, so it's cute as can be... but all is not perfect from a gaming standpoint. TellTale Games has always traded on the fact that people want to ply LEGO and the experience doesn't have to be perfect.

My profanity-laden thoughts about the game follow...

• Vehicle control is still absolute shit. I do not for the life of me understand how after NEARLY TWO DECADES of these games they can't make vehicles actually fucking drivable. You will smash into shit and have trouble navigating because the controls are a sloppy mess. It's like they somehow take pride in the fact that everything to do with driving is crap.
• The puzzles are the same as they've always been. Aside from a few minor unique innovations, you've played this before. Or, if you're me, dozens of times before.
• One of the hallmarks of all the licensed games is that they are wonderfully humorous and can make even the most mundane cut-scenes interesting and fun to watch. The crap Star Wars prequels are made bearable, and that's quite a feat. I just wish that some of the cut-scenes can be skipped, but very few can. This is especially infuriating when you consider that the game crashes uneventfully (today it crashed when I was changing characters!), thus forcing you to sit through the last cut-scene all over again.
• The LEGO games have a reputation for bugs and glitches. With The Skywalker Saga, it's not so bad that it's unplayable, but there's still bugs. Glitches aren't too bad, but every once in a while I end up in a spot where walls disappear or I can't move. The camera is bonkers, and many, many times I can't see me and am stuck to a wall. Fortunately saves are frequent so I'm not losing much progress, but still...
• With this game, there's been effort to make the fighting more than just a button-mashing affair. In fighting there are different moves you can make... blocks you can bring up... and combos to spice things up. This would be admirable if it weren't so badly handled. One of my favorite movies is to jump in the air, then use a combo lightsaber smash move which plunges the lightsaber into the ground and smashes the enemies around you. But then there's times that the move just doesn't work for some random reason. Hell... when you're fighting Kylo Ren, YOU CAN'T EVEN JUMP AT ALL! What the hell? How can your character all of a sudden forget to fucking jump? What sense does that make?
• Another nonsensical bit of idiocy? Disguises. If a Stormtrooper gets blasted, sometimes their armor will drop and be wearable. Sometimes. Finn can wear it most of the time, but there are times that he can't... from what I can tell, it's when he is holding a lightsaber. But you can't drop the lightsaber or stick it in his pocket, which means that dressing up as a Stormtrooper to fool other stormtroopers is impossible. BUT THEY STILL INDICATE THAT HE CAN WEAR IT EVEN WHEN HE CAN'T! Which is just stupid. Almost as stupid? Han Solo in The Force Awakens cannot wear Stormtrooper armor at all! and this is despite the fact that he literally dressed up as a Stormtrooper in the very first Star Wars movie! God.
• These LEGO games used to be a fun romp. With each new game, more complications are added. For a while, it was cool. Minikits... Magic Bricks... New Abilities. Fun! But now there's just too much going on. The menu system is insane. There's sub-menus to sub-menus to sub-menus. And now they've initiated a class system with ability upgrade trees... which is okay for adult gamers because they've probably seen them before. But for kids?!? I honestly don't know how a kid (any many adults) are supposed to be able to wrap their heads around it all. The Endor level is all complicated maneuvers at great heights, which cause you to fall again and again and again. That's not "fun" it's frustrating.
• Waiting for scenes to load is not too horrible... but still annoyingly slow on Nintendo Switch. Oh well. Being able to take the game with me on the go is a fantastic feature that Xbox and PlayStation can't give me.
• Usually LEGO puzzles are fairly uncomplicated. That's part of the appeal. You don't have to stress, because you can eventually figure things out. But this time around there's some puzzles that just defy belief. They tell you what has to happen, but give you no idea how you accomplish it! On Ahch-To, there's a puzzle where you need to get at least five people dancing. Then they draw a perimeter which is assumably where the dancing takes place. Then there's characters with a wifi symbol above their head. That's it. I've tried wiggling in front of them in an attempt to "dance." I've talked to everybody. I have no clue at all what to do. Assumably somebody with dancing ability must come along, because otherwise... dang.
• When making a jump from one planet to another, you can have your flight interrupted by a space battle. And it's like... sure. But they can happen multiple times in a single trip! The last time it happened, I had three space battled interrupt my flight IN A ROW! It was fun at first, but now I just want to attack my television with a baseball bat.
• They are so unoriginal that they use a fucking Wilhelm Scream. For the love of God... just stop with the Wilhelm Screams already! It's not even funny any more. Not in movies and most certainly not in video games. And yet they do it multiple times. Infuriating.

In other news... I got the Deluxe Version of the game which comes with a Blue Milk variant of Luke Skywalker. The thing is trending online because people are selling them on eBay for up to $300!

Wow.

If I were to rate this game, I'd probably tag it with a B-. It's expansive, adorable, and looks great... but there are some serious gameplay problems which keep it from reaching greatness.

I am not a hardcore gamer by any stretch of the imagination. I have a Nintendo Switch. I have an Xbox S. I play games from time to time when I need a distraction from the horrors of the world. Usually it's games that are challenging without being frustrating, though all games become frustrating to me eventually since I always reach a threshold where I my skills just can't carry me through.

The latest game to occupy my time is the "Early Access Package" to Disney Speedstorm, a Mario Kart style racing game featuring Disney characters. Disney Kart, if you will. It looks amazing on my Xbox S. The music is great. The racetracks are well-designed. The game is a lot of fun to play. At least right now it is...

And here's a taste of the gameplay...

To gain early access, you'll have to pay for a package. They start at $30, and there's really no reason to pay more than that because you'll eventually get everything in the bigger packages just by playing the game. Upon final release, Speedstorm will be Free-To-Play. Which is to say that you can play for free, but you'll be NAGGED TO DEATH to pay for micro-transactions to unlock things you need to keep advancing and be competitive in multi-player. So... if you have any aspirations to play the game, I'd do it now when you just have to pay once instead of paying small amounts over and over and over and over AND OVER. They don't have these micro-transactions enabled yet, but the path to do so is painfully obvious. There's a boatload of in-game currencies along with special tokens and credits, each of which unlocks something or another...

There's a super-special kind of in-game currency called "shards" which "star-up" your racer characters and Pit-Crew characters. In the example below, I got a single "Mickey Mouse Shard," which is 1/10th what you need to get the next star... at least to start... after you have one star the amount needed escalates to 1/20th (2 stars), 1/35 (3 stars), and so on, making it much harder to level up the higher you go...

If you don't want to wait to randomly earn the shards from racing, you can purchase them randomly in "boxes" or purchase them outright in the online store "Daily Specials" section (which change every day). Here I can buy 5 Mickey shards for 49,500 Season Coins...

My favorite racers to play are Mike Wazowski and Donald Duck, so I wait for those characters to be on offer, because there's only so much currency to go around. Along with a character's "stars" there's also their "level" which requires special general tokens along with token specific to a character's "collection." In the example below, I have to have 9 General Wrenches, 4 Turbo Boosters, and 5 Boo Doors to get him to Level 17...

Characters and their supporting Pit-Crew characters are specific to different "collections" of characters. Some races can only use characters from a specific collection. It's best to pick your favorite out of each collection to star-up and level-up...

All characters are dropped into one of four character classes... Brawlers, Speedsters, Tricksters, and Defenders. The character's stats, hit bonus, and boost all shift depending on which class they're in, and affects how you play. Donald Duck is a Brawler, so he has better car handling, stuns when you hit, and gets manual boost power any time you stun. Mike Wazowski is a Speedster, so he has a higher top speed, gets an automatic speed boost when you hit, and gives power to your boost bar when you run over an auto-boost. Eventually I'll try and level up Elizabeth Swan as my Defender and Mulan as my Trickster so I can get a handle on the different kinds of play that's offered.

Characters have generic abilities that change effect depending on whether you fire them forward, charge them to fire forward, or fire backwards. They also have a unique special ability. Mike's "special ability" is Hold the Door (HODOR!) which allows you to teleport-jump ahead on the track by summoning a magical door. The more stars you have, the further ahead you appear...

As mentioned above, each collection of characters shares a "Pit-Crew" and the more stars you have the more Pit-Crew characters you can assign. Each of your Pit-Crew varies in rarity and adds to your stats in some way(s). For the Monsters Inc. collection, one of the better Pit-Crew options is the CDA Agents which add a bit to your Top Speed, Acceleration, and Bomb Skill. The more shards you collect, the higher their star level and the better their bonus...

The highest class of Pit-Crew is "Epic Level" but their shards are incredibly hard to get, thus they're very hard to unlock, and even harder to "star-up"...

Each racer has their own car. You can change car appearance with various cosmetic changes (like paint) and different accessories (like wheels). I honestly don't know if changing your wheels or adding a spoiler (called "wings") or repainting your car actually does anything except allow you to make your car look unique, so I don't really focus on them...

Actually playing the game is done by choosing your "Game Mode"...

• Starter Circuit: This is where you are introduced to the racer characters and how the game works. As you advance you earn various in-game currencies.
• Season Tour: You race your way through 8 chapters which each unlock after 1 week. The current season is called Unafraid and focuses on the Monsters Inc. character collection. The chapters have names like "We Scare Because We Care and "May the Best Monster Win" and "Don't Panic!" You earn "Season Coins" which have to be spent while the season is active.
• Limited Events: Playing these wins you featured rewards like stars or upgrades if you meet certain objectives at certain levels of play.
• Local Freeplay: Allows you to race against up to three people in the comfort of your own home (no internet or premium online membership required) on the track of your choice, for the number of laps you want, at the speed you decide, against the number of CPU racers you dictate.
• Private Track: Essentially it's like Local Freeplay above, but online. You select the people you want to admit to your private track. Requires an internet connection and premium online membership (like Xbox Live) to play.
• Online Multiplayer: You can either select Ranked (meaning you compete against players on your level of play) or Regulated (where everybody has the same level of character and no upgrades).

The racetracks that are included are so good. Each is based off of a Disney location that come out of each collection. You've got tracks set in places, like Mount Olympus from Hercules and The Great Wall from Mulan... plus tracks inspired by themes, like pirate ships from Pirates of the Caribbean and jungle ruins from The Jungle Book. There's even tracks which are themed off of an idea, like "The Silver Screen" which is in black-and-white. Within each track are various courses. "The Castle" (from Beauty and The Beast) includes options like "Main Hall" and "The West Wing" and "Time for Tea"...

Controlling your racer is insane. At least for somebody like me who started out with Night Driver and Pole Position. There's so many buttons and combinations to remember, that this game will be a challenge for young kids (or old kids like me)...

I suggest turning steering assist and auto-acceleration on so you have two less things to worry about, then focus on mastering one skill at a time. I started practicing how to launch attacks and use my manual speed-boosts. Then spent time learning how to drift, which is essential because drifting fills up your manual boost meter faster (essential to winning races). Then I focused on dashing, which allows you to bump other players as you approach or pass, hopefully stunning them enough to get ahead. Then I practiced rear-view so I can look behind me. Then rear attacked so I can hit what I see behind me. Then jumping so I can hop up on grind-rails or reach ramps and such. It's a lot.

Whether you are blazing through the Starter Circuit or working your way through the Season Tour, you have a map of the races you need to play along with what goals have to be met to win experience or coins or whatever. This could be using a certain number/kind of skills, placing 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, or even just completing the race...

After the race you're told the results and how many of the goals you met. Most of the races can be played as many times as you want to get a better time or meet all the goals (some races are special and can only be played a limited number of times)...

Certain races are special for some reason. Maybe the track is foggy. Maybe there's a guest boss you have to beat. Maybe the boosts and skill power-ups are floating. Maybe to win you have to be the Last One Standing...

If there's a flaw, it's that there doesn't seem to be any surround sound despite my having 7.1 turned on and surround sound enabled. It would be very cool if cars went whizzing past you audibly as well as visually. That's partially compensated for by the music. They got funky electronic versions of Disneyeque tracks that really adds to the atmosphere of the game...

Ultimately, there's a lot to like about Disney Speedstorm. Above all, it's fun. At least for now. I'm very glad that I bought the Early Access before the micro-transactions kick in and everything becomes a "He Who Spends The Most Money Wins the Race" kind of situation. Or, in some situations, "He Who Doesn't Spend Money Can't Access The Full Game" because parts of it like Speedstorm's "Golden Pass" will also likely require your money to get.

Given that this is a Disney game, I was surprised at how brutal it can get. Ramming into other players is a big part of what makes it so dang entertaining (at least when you do it... not so fun when it happens to you), which isn't the nicest way for young children to spend time in a game. Zooming up on poor Meg from Hercules and shoving her into the rails is nasty business, but given the complexity of the controls, maybe they won't be playing it? I dunno. It seems like kids have a better shot at being good at modern games than I do anymore.

So, yeah. If you're into Mario Kart and want to play as Disney characters, this is your ticket (so long as complicated controls and the incredibly complicated array of currencies doesn't scare you away). But if being financially bled to death by micro-transactions is not your idea of fun, then eventually when the free-to-play goes live you will be pretty miserable indeed. The frickin' ridiculous number of in-game currencies make this abundantly clear. My guess is that there will be a monthly package you can buy to get a set number of various tokens, coins, rewards, credits, and whatever at a discount, but regardless of how they bundle things up, having to keep paying to play really sucks. Which is to say that the future of all gaming sucks, because this is the future we're headed towards.

And oh what a crappy future that will be.

It may be getting cold enough that I'm contemplating turning on the heat, but it's always warm on my blog... because an all new Very Special Video Edition of Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Kookaburra! Now, granted, I would not want this outside my window (and I remember them very well from my trip to Australia), but it's sure nice to admire them from afar...

So cute. Are there any baby creatures that are not adorable?

   
• Andor! Diego Luna is precious and life-affirming. This entire video is fantastic...

On top of that? He's a remarkably gifted actor. I am dying for the second season of Andor to arrive.

   
• ¡Yo Quiero! "It's the same thing in a different thing." — HE'S FIGURED IT OUT! HE'S DISCOVERED THE TACO BELL FORMULA!

LOL. These foreign takes on quintessentially American things never gets old!

   
• Does Whatever a Spider Can! Video games have reached the point where you're basically playing a feature film. This looks incredible...

This was a Spider-Man game when I first started playing...

Insanity. And soon we'll have much, much better VR experiences, which could take it to an even more immersive level.

   
• Unreal! If you want a look into the absolutely fascinating world of 3D computer graphics, this is an amazing behind-the-scenes look at how photogrammetry works...

Now, I've written about the Unity gaming engine a couple times before. The stuff people are doing with it is breathtaking (including companies like Lucasfilm and Marvel using it for producing their projects). It is an amazing, amazing tool. Unfortunately, they've just unveiled a hugely controversial licensing model, which is gouging game developers in a terrible way. It's easy to say "Just switch to a different gaming engine if you don't like the cost!" Except video games take years to develop. Even for large studios with hundreds of employees. So if you've been working on a game for two or three years... how can you afford to switch to a different engine? This is a major deal. So major that some game projects are being canceled... and some developers are going to switch engines despite the additional time needed...

Of course the people behind Unity deserve to get paid for their hard work. But to kill developers to get there seems like a horrifically bad business model. Hopefully they will re-evaluate what they're doing and come up with something more reasonable.

   
• SCIENCE! Despite an inexplicable (and highly selective) anti-science movement by fucking idiots, science marches on. And this is fascinating...

Fascinating and scary. Plants screaming? But in brighter news... research into Alzheimer's just keeps advancing. Very promising that one day we might have a cure.

   
• HomeShit! For anybody saying that I am exaggerating about just how fucking shitty Apple's HomeKit is, this guy is a total expert and even he can't solve the problems he's been having. He finally ended up resetting and rebuilding his entire HomeKit setup...

If I get this desperate, I'm just going to bail on HomeShit altogether and go with Matter and some kind of smarter home hub (like Homey Pro). In the meanwhile, I am just applying Band-Aids to try to solve the massive fucking problems I'm having. As an example, I just installed a light and motion sensor in my garage as a backup to automatically turn the light on when the doors open since HomeShit automations keep dying on my door sensor for some reason (even though the light switch and sensor itself is operating perfectly).

   
And on that happy note... enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

I am banging this entry out early because I have a house to clean, but better early than ever... because an all new Very Special YouTube Edition of Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Strangers! The meat of this excellent video story is about 10 minutes long. It is absolutely worth your valuable time to watch. Especially if you want to know what this experiment we call "life" is all about...

I've seen feature-length movies that didn't work this hard. Brilliant.

   
• Crash! Remember when police officers stood on the driver's side to talk to you when you get pulled over? Thank heavens they changed procedure and switched to the passenger side, or this officer would have certainly been killed...

Wild. It's just wild to watch it happen. Even more wild that nobody as hurt. And you have to wonder what happened. Was somebody looking at their phone or what?

   
• We Are the World! It's interesting how USA for Africa came together. I mean, not shocking because it's pretty much what you'd expect, but it's exciting to watch as the dominoes started to fall and people were getting involved. If you have Netflix, this documentary is gold. Especially if you like music...

I actually think there was likely enough material to make a second part, because the stories behind having so many legends in a single room are undoubtedly endless.

   
• Power! On Friday I mentioned the Marques Brownlee Waveform Podcast where they were talking about the Apple Vision Pro, and they mentioned a relaxing "game" called Powerwash Simulator. I played this at a friend's house, but don't actually own it, so I had no idea what all it contains. Basically, you select a dirt object in the game, then power wash it until it's clean. That's it. When you wash all the dirt and grime off the object you selected, you finish the job and "win." It turns out that one of the things you can wash is the Perseverance Mars Rover! I've fast-forwarded to that part of this review (5:45 minutes)...

And look! The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is there too! How cool is that? If I had a Vision Pro and Powerwash Simulator was available, I'd buy it just for this.

   
• Attendant! I learned very early on when I was flying constantly about how being a flight attendant works. There are all kinds of excuses as to why their pay doesn’t start until the cabin door closes, usually having to do with making sure that their maximum legal hours worked doesn’t expire in mid-flight after a delay. But it’s all bullshit. I 1000% support flight attendants earning a living wage for the work they do, and excuses are just excuses. Airlines can find a way to pay these hard-working people fairly for the work they do...

   
• HOT! Hot Ones is a surprisingly deep interview that runs at a brisk pace while buying into an absurd concept of eating hot sauce. And regardless of how you feel about John Oliver and his politics, he has some really funny moments... and some surprisingly astute observations... that aren't straying into political territory...

It just goes to show that John Oliver has some very smart takes the go beyond politics.

   
• Tay Tay Today! The bat-shit insane conspiracy theories that Fox "News" is drumming up over Taylor Swift don't concern me. It's the fact that some of their viewers actually buy into the conspiracy theories. They don't even make any fucking sense. Like if Taylor Swift says anything AT ALL that's political, she's an evil Biden puppet. But all the "musicians" who show up on Fox "News" to talk Conservative politics are real patriots? Jesus Christ. Taylor Swift hasn't said shit. But apparently Conservatives are shitting their pants over the idea that she could, and so they want to jump in front of it. Anyway... Seth Meyers has a look down the rabbit hole of Taylor's existence, and it's worth a closer look...

Anymore doesn't our reality seem like a fucking bad movie?

At the beginning of each year I don't make resolutions. Instead I make a list of dreams for the next 365 (366 in 2024) days. I'm not talking about pie-in-the-sky dreams of unrealistic fantasy that are unachievable, but dreams which can actually happen. High on that list is that Taylor Swift continue to trigger people in all the best ways. Because apparently this is something that is badly needed. And you know what? January just ended and I'm just going to check that one off my list. Whether she's just existing... or watching her boyfriend play football... or she's being accused of being a demon in league with satan... she triggers more ridiculous people on a daily basis than I could ever hope for. And I love you for that, Taylor!

   
Now I need to get back to cleaning my wreck of a house. See you next Sunday with more bullets.

As anybody who has read this blog for some time knows, I love LEGO building sets and really love LEGO video games. They're light puzzle games that are more fun than stressful, and I still play them often to relax. Over the years I've owned all of them, from Star Wars and Indiana Jones to Jurassic Park and Batman... and beyond! If LEGO has made it, I've bought it. They're clever, funny, and entertaining.

Today I discovered that Traveller's Tales (the company behind most of the games) had worked up a pitch for a LEGO James Bond game. It never occurred to me to pair them up, but now that their presentation video has leaked it's such a natural franchise to immortalize in LEGO...

Sadly, nothing ever came of the idea, which is a shame. I'd 100% buy it if it existed.

I've made it my mission today to start deep-cleaning my home because it's just gone too long without. But I won't leave my daily blog entry hanging... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Furnishings! When I bought my home, I had less than no money. But I had to furnish it completely from scratch for two people because the stuff my mom had was all hand-me-downs that were damaged and falling apart. I ended up buying everything at IKEA because it was cheap (though I did buy the real wood "Hemnes" IKEA instead of the MDF fake wood stuff, because I needed it to last a while). With the exception of my IKEA Hemnes bed, which is a squeaky pile of shit, I'm happy with all the furniture. But it's not ideal. My dream is to learn how to make quality furniture to replace all my IKEA, but wood has just been too expensive. Maybe one day! — Anyway, this is a fascinating video which explains where we're at when it comes to furniture in America...

Yeah, I gotta learn to make my own furniture! Starting with a bed!

   
• -A45! She's not wrong. Just like America's idiotic failure to adopt the metric system, failing to adopt the A4 system is equally stupid...

I am increasingly convinced that the USA clings to stupid as a point of pride, because we do it all the time.

   
• Prophecies Unfulfilled! When Dune: Prophecy began, it had narrative and structure problems but I liked the idea of it all. For the first three episodes they felt like they were building towards something interesting, and I was intrigued enough that I was willing to overlook the flaws. Plus it was beautiful. Then the fourth episode came along and it was awful. It was so bad that it instantly negated the excitement I was trying to hold onto, and it only went downhill from there. It was so badly scripted and so boring, and by the end of it all I didn't give a shit about any of it. Everything amazing about the Denis Villeneuve Dune masterpieces was gone. I was badly disappointed. But not as disappointed as this guy...

Oh yeah, he totally nailed it. And watching this video shows me just how desperate I was to love the show that I was overlooking all the bad things about it. Until I couldn't any more with Episode 04. I hope to God that they manage to write their way out of the dud the show became in its first season, because I really want to have great Dune stories to watch.

   
• Shocking! BWAH HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA: The Vegas Tesla Loop Is A Glorified Crosswalk.

   
• Switch it Up! I bought the original Nintendo Switch the minute I could get my hands on one. I wanted a very good handheld system, and Nintendo pumps out games that are exceptional and fun. I wish I had time to use it more, but I don't, so I am not sure I'll be investing in the Switch 2. Unless there's a game for it that's super-compelling...

What we really need to see are specs. Just once I'd love for Nintendo to release something that's not woefully underpowered when compared to Xbox and PlayStation. Sure, Nintendo is smart in realizing that the game play is more important than anything else... but it's just sad that games which run beautifully on my Xbox drop to a subpar experience on my Switch. It would be different if it was only a handheld system, but it's a television console as well and really needs to be able to keep up.

   
• Climate Changed! NEWSFLASH: 2024 first year to pass 1.5C global warming limit. Online, people are laugh-reacting to this story. Guess they find the challenges and horrors that their kids and grandkids will face to be funny? — As for me? I'm done giving a shit about selfish, uneducated, ignorant, asshole humans. What I care about are the other living creatures on this planet that are facing extinction because of something they had nothing to do with.

   
• The Future is Now! Just over seven years ago, I wrote a post about guns. In this post, which got me some pushback, I said that passing gun control legislation was a stop-gap measure that was doomed to fail because technology would eventually allow people to 3D print any gun they want. Well... surprise: Americans Are Posting 3D-Printed Gun Videos to China’s RedNote With Surprising Success. This right here is what I've been talking about all this time. Banning guns in a day and age where anybody can 3-D print whatever they want in their basement is not going to solve the problem. And what happens when 3-D metal printing technology is mainstream? We need to be creative in how we address gun violence, and yet everybody continues to think old world solutions are going to work in the new world which we live. Just think about the horrors of what will be possible in another seven years. We're late on creating solutions. Soon we'll be too late, and hand-wringing has gotten us nowhere.

   
Back to house cleaning, I suppose. Ugh.

In order to de-stress from my day, I've decided to play through all the LEGO video games I own, trying to get them each to 100% completion. I started with LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga played it off-and-on for a couple weeks, then set it aside to start in on my favorite of all the LEGO releases: the first LEGO Batman game, which is the first one that I bought in 2008. I skipped LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Indiana Jones because they looked like they were just replaying the movies. But LEGO Batman was a fully original story, looked like silly no-stress fun, and was playable on my Nintendo Wii (the only system I had at the time).

And it was exactly what I needed. A simple diversion from life. It was amazing just how much they packed into it, with clever puzzles and smart level design from start to finish...

The vehicle levels had crappy controls and the ladder/jumping mechanics were terrible... but still fun to play.

Then I went back and played LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Indiana Jones, found them equally easy to pick up as a distraction, and have been buying all the LEGO games ever since.

Just for fun I thought I'd rank all the LEGO games I've played...

1. LEGO Batman. It was the first one I played and still feels like it's the best. Newer games got bigger and more complex, but this was a home run right out of the gate.
2. LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga. It's LEGO. It's Star Wars. It's beautifully designed gameplay that has been refined to perfection.
3. LEGO Marvel Super-Heroes Collection. The missions for the sequel, LEGO Marvel Super-Heroes 2 were better, and the open world they created for it was incredible... but I still prefer the first one. It was perfectly balanced and meticulously designed in a way the sequel didn't quite reach. But when they both got released together, it elevated the pair.
4. LEGO DC Villains. I never expected that LEGO would build a game around the bad guys, but here it is. And it's a lot of fun to play.
5. LEGO Batman 2: DC Heroes. When this title debuted, I was shocked at the fact that they made an open-world LEGO game... and let you play as other DC heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman. That set the standard for everything that followed, but this is the game where it all began.
6. LEGO City Undercover. This huge open-world game has one of the best stories of any LEGO game. Plus it used the Wii-U touch-screen controller in fun and smart ways.
7. LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga. This collection included the first two LEGO Star Wars games in one box and, while not as vast as The Complete Saga, this was loads of fun to play.
8. LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures When I finally got around to playing this, I was surprised at the way they managed to take such a limited character set (compared to the huge number for Batman and Star Wars) and manage to keep all the levels so fresh.
9. LEGO Lord of the Rings. You just knew the game was going to be good based on the source material alone. But they got so many of the details so right that it was easy to look past some of the faults in the gameplay.
10. LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean. I spent way too much time just staring at how they made Captain Jack Sparrow walk. He kinda has this saunter which mimics Johnny Depp so flawlessly that it's almost a distraction. But a good one.
11. LEGO Dimensions. This incredible game which was massive in scope and had unexpected level releases that came with actual LEGO brick sets to build (seriously... everything from Wizard of Oz to Back to the Future to Ghostbusters to Doctor Who to ET to Adventure Time... and so much more!) were there. Alas, the game got shut down, so now I have are the memories.
12. LEGO Jurassic World. You can play as the LEGO dinosaurs. What more could you ever want in a game?
13. LEGO Harry Potter Collection. Containing both the Years 1-4 and Years 5-7 games, this is a good puzzler with a charming take on material that I don't care for at all (I hated the first two Harry Potter books so much I never picked up another). Then Joanne "JK" Rowling ended up being a raging bigot and transphobic pile of shit and I begrudgingly still play the LEGO games even though I have no desire to buy anything she touches ever again.
14. LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham This was a truly disappointing release after the brilliant original two LEGO Batman games. No idea what happened... maybe they were rushed... but this just didn't hit (or play) the same as what came before. But, hey. It's LEGO Batman.
15. LEGO The Hobbit. Just like the movies, this game took a small amount of excellent material and dragged it out in a way that made it less great. But it's still a lot of fun to play.
16. LEGO Indiana Jones 2. I had fun... I guess... but the puzzles and action were just not up to the stratospheric levels of the original. And there were parts of it that were incredibly frustrating to try and play through.
17. The Lego Ninjago Movie. This time around the game focused more on the combat than the puzzles. And since the repetitive combat is the thing I like least about the games, it kinda sunk this one for me. Still, the levels were well-designed and had enough to keep me playing.
18. LEGO Marvel's Avengers. This was a 100% adaptation of the movies, and kinda suffered because of it. Where the LEGO Marvel Super-Heroes games were a joy to play with their original stories and open worlds that could take you anywhere... this time around things felt a lot more limited.
19. The Lego Movie Videogame. Given how much I loved the movie, I was expecting this to be a home run. But it just... wasn't. It had problems. Though the way they mimicked the way the characters moved through the scenes was not one of them. That part was brilliant.
20. LEGO The Incredibles. This was a very good adaptation of the movies, but not a great game to play. It was so repetetive that it was a slog just to get through story mode, and some glitches had me screaming at my television. Not what I'm looking for in a game that's supposed to be easy and stress-reducing.
21. LEGO Universe. This was LEGO's attempt at a MMORPG (Massive Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game) which was actually well-thought out and designed, but technically frustrating and difficult to play (and sometimes actually unplayable). Probably because I was playing the MacOS X version, which was actually the Windows version with an emulator wrapper (or so I've heard). I was ultimately mad that I spent good money to access it from its earliest days in public beta because I didn't want to play it. LEGO shut down the game servers fairly quickly (I don't think it even made it two years). Kinda a ripoff, to be honest.
22. The Lego Movie 2 Videogame. All the problems from the first game were somehow magnified. This is the only game I didn't even play through the entire storyline, because I got so frustrated with it. I will undoubtedly try again... though probably won't be worrying about going back in Free Play to get it to 100%. Probably.

Strange. It seems like there's more than this. Probably because I excluded the Nintendo 3DS and iOS games, which were well-constructed but just not as good as the console games and were less fun to play.

You know what the world needs now? A total video game crash like what happened in 1983.

Back then studios got greedy and lazy. They were dumping out as many shitty, overpriced games as they could that were (mostly) lacking in quality and innovation. All so they could make more money at the expense of the gamers that built them. On top of all that, the game system manufacturers had become pieces of shit who went all-in on anti-consumer practices so they could wring out every last cent from their customers.

Gamers, not willing to put up with this bullshit, turned away from video game systems en masse. They played games on their computers that were cheaper, more fun, and gave a quality experience for the money.

And thus the Great North American Video Game Crash of 1983.

It was an interesting time to be alive and be a gamer.

Then a miracle happened.

Nintendo came out with the NES in 1985. The Nintendo Entertainment System was affordable. It had innovative games that were high-quality and a blast to play. There were memorable characters that got you invested in the stories. Everything Nintendo touched was magic. They completely turned around gaming. Not just for North America, but the world. Gaming exploded in popularity again. Everybody thought "This is how gaming should be, and we're never turning back!"

And yet... here we are again.

Except instead of being gaming's savior... Nintendo is now everything that's wrong with the industry.

It's-a me... a greedy fucking piece of shit! © Nintendo

When Nintendo's Switch 2 system was teased, I was thrilled. I loved the original Switch because it had fixed all the issues I had with Wii-U, and surely the Switch 2 would be fixing all the issues I had with Switch, right?

Spoiler Alert: Not even close.

When the latest Nintendo Direct event dropped all the details about the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 gaming system, I immediately ran to Nintendo's site so I could sign up for the option to sign up for a pre-sale of the console system.

Even though I have absolutely no intention of actually buying one.

And let me tell you why...

• Price. The console price is $450 ($500 if you want a copy of the latest Mario Cart game to play on it). This is a horribly bad value for the hardware you get (see next bullet) but it's not the dealbreaker for me. That would be the price of the games. $80 a pop is an outrageous amount of money to pay. AND THAT'S FOR DIGITAL! If you want to buy a cartridge, that'll cost you $90! And these aren't even special editions which includes future DLC! There are precious few games I would pay this much to have. Especially when Nintendo just keeps releasing the same old shit over and over. Absolutely nothing in Nintendo's entire exclusive lineup is worth that to me. I've played it all before. Sure it looks prettier and has more stuff, but it's essentially the same old shit.
• Specs. Nintendo has always had lackluster specs compared to other consoles on the market. They care less about the hardware and more about the gaming experience. When they do innovate in hardware, it's usually a new controller or configuration that makes the system compelling. Which is fine. That's their thing. Nintendo games may look like technology from ten years ago, but they play beautifully, are well-crafted, and are fun. And yet... Nintendo has now become the greedy, lazy assholes that they were fighting against in 1985. For example... they finally have 4K, but to play at that resolution you only get 60 FPS? And you only get 256GB of storage? Seriously? The price is within spitting distance of Sony and Microsoft, yet you're getting these ancient specs that don't come close to measuring up. And this time there's no innovative feature to compensate you for all their shortcomings.
• Cards Aren't Cards. Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but apparently some Nintendo games sold on physical cards have no actual game on the card? You still have to download the game. The card is just a license of some kind. This is astronomically shitty because you have to take up what precious little storage space they give you to store a game that should be on the card you're paying $10 extra to own. For this reason alone Nintendo can go fuck themselves and shove the Switch 2 up their asses.
• Cards Aren't Virtually Cards. We never really own the games we buy. It's more like a lease with conditions attached. That alone makes me detest every fucking asshole gaming company on the planet. But it gets worse. Remember when you could share your game cartridges? Remember when you could trade your game cartridges? Remember when you could sell your game cartridges? You bought the game, you can do with it whatever the fuck you want. Set it on fire if that's your thing. But now there's "Virtual Game Cards" that allow none of that. Nintendo has "virtual cards" that you must "virtually eject" so they can be "virtually downloaded" on another system... but only if that other system is in your Account Family Group! This is a laughably evil cash-grab to sell more copies of their games. But if you want to side-step this idiocy... BLAM! $90 instead of $80, please! And, because I wouldn't put it past Nintendo, it could be that even if you do pay for the cartridge it gets permanently linked to your account and can't be shared, traded, or sold. Each card has a serial number embedded... so even if it doesn't arrive with Switch 2, it's still coming.
• Switch 2 Edition. One of the great features of gaming consoles is the ability to be backwards compatible. Meaning all the games you bought for the previous generation system can be played on the newest generation system. Hopefully at a higher resolution and frame rate. Maybe with smoother gameplay. But fuck that! Let's get more money out of the gamers for the games they already bought! Yes, you can play Switch games on the Switch 2, but in order to see any benefit from the Switch 2's improved hardware (such as it is), you have to pay $20 to Nintendo for a Switch 2 Edition. My God how I hate these fucking assholes.
• Not Included. In the good old days, you'd get a simple piece of software included to introduce you to the system. The most famous being Wii Sports. A freebie to show you how things work with your new console in a fun way. But now? Not so much. There's a simple app which introduces you to the system that's called Welcome Tour, but you have to pay for it. Oh fuck no.
• Non-Chat. Nintendo made a big deal about the new in-game chat button (the "C Button"). But it won't work in all games. Even worse, your ability to chat depends on whether or not you have an online membership? The thing that bothers me about this so much is that open peer to peer protocols exist. Nintendo doesn't have to host shit. But they want to host it because that way they can charge money for it. I am not opposed to an online membership unlocking extra features for subscribers. Everybody does that. But if you have a dedicated fucking button on your console that is utterly fucking useless unless you pay to use it? What kind of dystopian bullshit is that? Cannot tell Nintendo to go fuck themselves enough.
• Tariff Fake-Out. It's surprising how many people are saying that the high price is justified in the USA because of tariffs. Except that's Nintendo boot-licking at its finest because A) The system costs the same world-wide, except for a cheaper language-locked Japan-only version they'll be selling in Japan, and B) Nintendo announced today that pre-sales for the USA have been paused because of the uncertainty of the tariff situation... meaning the high price of Switch 2 had nothing to do with tariffs, and the price will likely go even higher once they slap on a tariff surcharge (or whatever) on top. There's no defending this bullshit. Nintendo has taken corporate greed to another level entirely, and I'd play games on my iPhone before I would reward the assholes.

To put all this another way... if Nintendo started making toilets, they would find a way to charge you a convenience fee if you want to wipe your ass after you shit. That's where we're at now. In 1985 they were crowned a savior. But now Nintendo has lived long enough to become the enemy. Nintendo 2025 is everything Nintendo 1985 was trying to destroy.

And this is why we need another video game crash like we had in 1983.

Look, I know that the video game business is a business. And it's a business that's competitive and tough. And maybe Nintendo is being smart about how they launch a Switch 2. Instead of letting the secondary market buy their gaming system for $300 and re-sell it for $500... they're just going to initially sell it for $500 themselves so they get the money for their efforts instead of re-sellers. Then, once their system has distribution in-depth, they'll "listen to the people" and lower the price back down to $300. I dunno. It seems like a pretty good strategy, if I'm being honest. Helps curb inflation taking a bite out of selling the system at a loss so they can make their money on the games.

And that's where my grace towards Nintendo stops.

Because the shitty fucking way that they've come up with to sell their games is fucking abhorrent. Astronomical prices for games you aren't even allowed to fully own. Deviously cutting out companies like GameStop by charging $10 additional for the game card version that's sold in stores. Re-making the same fucking games over and over and over (sometimes by literally just doing a conversion of an old game you already bought). Not to mention making you pay for the privilege of using a fucking button that only a few games will even use. It goes on and on and on.

Abso-fucking-lutely not.

Maybe if enough people stop rewarding Nintendo for being evil bastards, they'll stop being evil bastards.

Except who am I fooling? People will buy into this abomination simply because it's something new from Nintendo, and Nintendo is going to make billions off of Switch 2. I know it. You know it. And Nintendo absolutely knows it.

And coming soon to a bathroom near you? Nintendo is going to make that fucking toilet. I can feel it.

To decompress from the horrors of the day, I've been playing Torchlight II, which is one of my favorite Diablo video game clones.

On regular difficulty, my pet is an orange cat named Jenny, and she's just a normal companion that helps when she can...

When playing on casual difficulty (where I don't want to stress so much) my pet is a gray cat named Jake. Because it's so easy to play, I prefer to just use my abilities and not any spells, so I give all my spells to Jake.

And he's gone all psychotic. CONSTANTLY summoning zombies or skeleton archers to help with a fight, even if it's not needed. CONSTANTLY casting all kinds of spells just because he can, not because it's helping.

It's both funny and upsetting. All I can say from my experience is that I would never give a cat magic spells in Real Life.