Garwoofoo

Play

Final Fantasy XIV which has been completely dominating my gaming time. I'm only a little way into Heavensward, the first expansion, so still an enormously long way to go, but there's already so much to do and see that I'm finding it hard to put down. It's stood the test of time brilliantly too, it's had just enough in the way of graphical updates to ensure it still looks current while also being exactly how you remember it, and they've managed to keep pretty much all of the content current so you don't have that thing you get with WoW where they're always trying to funnel you to the latest expansion OR the thing you get in LOTRO where the starter areas are completely dead. It's just a marvel of game design really and I'm not surprised it is (apparently) propping up the whole of Square Enix with the money it brings in.

Star Fox - I have however managed to find the time to have a quick blast on this and it's really nice actually. It IS basically the N64 game with added shinies but it stands up really well and I love, love, love the taxidermied animals approach they've used for all the cut scenes, they never fail to make me smile. I need to devote some proper time to this though because it is at heart a score attack game and the occasional quick game doesn't really show up its strengths in that way.

Want

Also looking forward to the new Fire Emblem but not a huge amount other than that.

Bin

Count me out for GTA6 too, really not my thing and it's going to dominate everything for months when it lands. It feels in many ways that the wait for this game has been sustaining the entire industry for a couple of years and I'm honestly fearing a collapse once it's finally out. Certainly the prospect of £1000 next gen consoles whose only promise is "this will play GTA6 better" doesn't appeal. Not sure how we get out of this either while the AI fuckwits continue to drive up the cost of RAM and components. Ah, fun times, eh?

Mario Kart: World. I think if you'd asked me if this was an alltimer after a few days of play I'd have given it a strong meh/10. It looks lovely, it plays well, and I really didn't mind it as a little break between other games. Then I got the online pass, and then I started playing the Elimination mode online. Now this game makes sense. What an absolute riot. I haven't had this much fun in an arcade combat racer since Blur. And it is very like Blur. Huge amount of things on track, and complete emergent chaos, punctuated by the thrill of hitting a gate just before the cut off. I haven't won yet, as some people are crazy good, but hitting the top 5 felt like an absolute adrenalin rush. And what is quite clever is as the pack thins, the final rounds are less about items and more about driving. It has a perfect little storytelling arc.

Everyone loves this mode and I think it's taken Nintendo by surprise a bit. They've just added two whole new routes to it after a year which is amazing really given the open world they built and the fact they could be popping up new routes across the map on a weekly basis if they wanted to.

I like Mario Kart World too, it's different to MK8 which is all I wanted really (that game isn't going anywhere). Less emphasis on drifting, much more chaotic, and some great tracks. But it needs more content, or at least ways to see what's already in there. The fact there isn't a single Knockout route that ends in Rainbow Road is frankly just bizarre.

The first time the theme really kicks in, Spoiler - click to showyou're smashing down a back alley in a bin lorry, and it's great.

That is, to be fair, a brilliant moment - one of many scattered throughout the game that made me think "yeah, these guys really get it". The fact that they couldn't quite work out how to string those moments together without going a bit 'generic shooter 101' shouldn't distract from the scale of their achievement. They've not only demonstrated how Bond could work in the modern age (when the movie studios don't seem to have a clue), they've given us a specific new Bond who really works in the role. Also one of the best theme tunes in years, which is obviously really important.

007: First Light

This is a bit disjointed as a game but I had a good time with it all the same.

It's a game of three parts, really. The "walk and talk" scripted sections are amazing - production values are through the roof, voice acting and motion capture is exceptional and Patrick Gibson makes for a great Bond, just sassy enough without ever tipping over into smug. The "Hitman" type sections are also pretty good, and IOI have certainly used everything they've learned in terms of environmental design and crowd technology, but they are a little bit over-scripted and there's not as much freedom as I'd have like other than walking around looking for clearly telegraphed opportunities.

It's the shooting sections that let it down the most: Bond feels as a character feels lightweight and insubstantial, and with "snap to cover" mapped to the same button as "run" he is forever diving in directions you don't expect or blundering out into the middle of firefights. Also it's just not very Bond to have him as a kind of human meat shield who can take multiple bullets as long as he has a little rest in between. I enjoyed these more as the game went on, and I got used to using some of the environmental cues to even things out a bit, but they're definitely the weakest part of the game and not helped by surprisingly long reload times every time you die.

In a way it shoots itself in the foot a bit by having an absolutely superb opening couple of hours and then never quite living up to that ever again. And it's no Hitman (not that it is trying to be). But I enjoyed it, it certainly tells a good story and people who enjoy linear shooters will probably like it even more than I did.

10/10 for production values but overall? 007/10 of course.

I don’t know about the Claw specifically but is it a vsync thing perhaps?

The Steam Deck sometimes gets caught between in-game settings and its own frame limiter and turning vsync off in one or the other often improves frame pacing a lot.

The Switch 2 handles HDR at the system level - I haven't seen anything yet that has in-game HDR settings and the Switch 1 didn't have HDR at all.

You should make sure in the system options that HDR is set to run on compatible titles only, then it won't be trying to force it for games that don't support it.

If you're playing handheld then there's nothing more to be done. If you're on a TV then you will need to set your brightness etc in the system options, annoyingly the Switch 2 loves to reset these when it does system updates so occasionally you'll think "fuck, that's bright" and have to go in and turn it back down again but in general I think its support is really good.