Steam World Heist Switch Review

STEAM WORLD HEIST YouTube Review

For me Steam World Heist  is a 2d flat side on turn-based strategy game, which plays like a somewhat simplified XCOM, there is no base building or anything like that, you simple go from level to level using yourt brains to prosper. There is a lot more direct player skill here though, not only do you manoeuvr your team through the levels, figuring out how to best search the ships collecting as much loot as possible but you also try to dispatch your enemies while trying to avoid damage as much as possible. The skill in this really comes from how you attack your enemies; you manually aim each character’s gun and its not just always a case of aaiming it at the badies no you can ricochet bullets off walls to get around cover, and then if you can pull off a headshot you can bring enemies down faster.

You find new robots to join your team as you explore space with Different classes having different advantages, different types of robots can use diffrent kinds of guns and there are absolutly tonnes in the game with my personal favourate being one which refrences the prince song purple rain, keep an eye out for it It brought a massive smile to my face. 

The skill element is not just in how you shoot and move your men though you also have to0 make sure to Properly kit out your team as a well-balanced team can be the essential ingrediant to your success,... I think the game needs to be given serious bonus points not only for its story but also for the characters in it, each of them has there own wonderful little personality and you will find yourself warming to certain ones and wanting to have them by your side on missions.

experience points are only awarded to those who take part in a mission, and most characters really start to hit their stride after you level them up a couple times. the real upgrades come in the unique character abilities that greatly boost their effectiveness in certain situations. Each character becomes more unique as you develop them, and it can be genuinely exciting to see them evolve as you move them up. Suffice to say, you won’t be at much of a loss for options when it comes to team arrangement, and this also gives the game a fair bit of replayability as if your anything like me then youll find you want to go through the game again just to use some of the characters you dont feel you got to know so well the first time around

Nintendo Direct on the 11th of January 2018 my rundown and opinions

OK so today on the 11th of January 2018 at about a quarter past 3

Nintendo released a Nintendo Direct Mini presentation on us. The presentation lasted about 15 minutes more or less but in all honesty a lot was said in what you would think would be a reasonable short amount of time.

The World Ends With You – Final Remix was announced for the Switch. For those who don't know basically The World Ends with you was an RPG on the Nintendo DS which gained an excellent reputation but in this country at least seemed to be pretty darn hard to get, as such it still demands a pretty high price. To put it basically The World Ends with you Final Remix is a Switch port of this title with HD graphics, touch controls and optional joycon controls. The port is not apparently going to just be a tarted up port it will also have new story content and is going to be released this year (2018) I think this is a great idea, its a game I have often considered buying but never quiet got around to. I think this is a very good news and I am about as excited about it as I can get over a re-release.

 

So Pokken Tournament Deluxe is getting some new DLC characters that we will be able to buy, they will come in two ''Battle Packs'' Wave 1 and 2. Wave 1 will contain Aegislash and support Pokemon Rayquaza and Mimikyu. Wave two contains Blastoise, and the new support Pokemon Mew and Celebi. The battle pack will also  include new avatar items. Wave 1 launches January 31st 2018, with wave 2 following on March 23rd.This doesn't really excite me at all as in all honesty Pokken hasn't really grabbed me, sure I got a second hand copy of the Wii U one but it just didn't grab me at all, I am interested in seeing how much Nintendo charge for these and I am also interested in seeing if there is every a game of the year version in the works including this later on but only from a curiosity point of view.

A demo for Dragon Quest Builders is available from today on the Switch. I have looked at this game and considered buying it for the PS4 quiet a few times, it looks pretty good but I am afraid If I buy it then I will still buy the PS4 version, look at it on the PS4 its an old game you can probably grab on there for very little or you can pay more and have it for the switch, now if you only own a Switch or need to have it in a portable fashion then fair enough pay more but I feel for those of us with other options the release of this game on this platform is a little bit pointless.

Kirby Star Allies was showcased in a trailer showing Kirby's new Painter and Spider abilities. It looked great and in my opinion Kirby always brings home the bacon, he is a great little character and his games are always light fun and charming. I will be excited when this launches which it apparently is on March the 16th 2018.

 

Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition. OK so its a port of Hyrule Warriors which contains all of the content from both the Wii U and 3DS versions which were previously released. Well I own the Wii U version and don't give a crap about it so in honesty I don't give a monkeys about this re-release. For those who care when docked the game runs at 1080p and 60FPS, there are also new outfits based on Breath of the Wild added for Link and Zelda. Its going to launch sometime in spring 2018 for those who care

 

Mario Aces Tennis was announced for the Switch and with its title it doesn't take a brain surgeon to work out that this is a new Mario Tennis game. Apparently the game will feature a story mode and is due out this spring.I have to admit to having always having been a big fan of the Mario Tennis and Golf games and this one looks good so I am looking forward to it.

 

Ys VIII. So a Switch port of Ys VIII has been announced. The Ys games have been around forever and while not as popular as the Final Fantasy games its good to see an RPG coming to the Switch, its already on the PS4 and available as we speak but its not like its in the bargain bins like some of the other titles that have been getting the porting treatment.  It is being released during summer 2018. 

 

Super Mario Odyssey is receiving free update. This update is aimed at players who have completed the main game. The update adds a mode called Balloon Mode. Balloon Mode can be activated by finding Luigi in each Kingdom. Players are given 30 seconds to either hide a balloon in the world, or 30 seconds to find other player's balloons, as part of online leaderboards. This is not everything though apparently the update will also add new outfits, and camera filters, to the game. The update is due in February. Hey its free so there if nothing to complain about at all, in fact  is it sounds pretty decent overall.

 

SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy. Ok so this is an SNK (NEO-GEO) female character based two on two tag team fighting game for the switch. So far so good, I like SNK's stuff and everything but apparently you have to use a special move at the end of each fight to win which doesn't sit right with me but hey maybe it wont be too bad when it launches in summer. 

 

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle Donkey Kong DLC. OK so I really really like Mario + Rabbids so new DLC for it adding Donkey Kong to the game, and what looks like new story content in the form of a plot centered around him well this is all good in my opinion. It wasn't made clear if this is the story DLC which is included in the game's season pass but I imagine that it is. The DLC arrives in spring, I haven't finished the game yet but if I am not tired of it by the end of the game then yeah I might give this a bash.

 

PAYDAY 2 on the Switch is getting a timed exclusive additional character called Joy, who is a female hacker with an LED mask. The port launches February 27th. Sorry but to me this is another port that I am just not bothered about, maybe its because I own lots of other platforms and this is a little bit late to the party and will cost most people more than getting it elsewhere but in all honesty YAWN. 

 

Fe is coming to Switch on February 16th. It's a very beautiful looking game  and its been made by a small studio with support and funding from EA so that kind of says little ambitious developer with good source of revenue hopefully this means excellent game but I guess time will tell but I am excited so see what it brings to the table.

 

Celeste is another indy title, basically in it you climb mountains, mountains covered in spikes, it looks decent enough but its not something which is going to blow the world apart, it looks like it will be decent enough but not really my kind of thing. If it sounds like its up your street then you don't have long to wait as its coming out on the 25th of January 2018.

 

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is getting ported to the Switch, with a new mode where Kranky Kong can surf through obstacles. The port releases on May 4th. I cant blame Nintendo for doing this, after all its not like games that came out on the Wii U really reached the audience they deserved but for those of us who had Wii U's and supported Nintendo at that point in time this is pretty much a pointless release. I hope that this game is not released at full retail but who knows I guess we will see soon enough.

Dark Souls Remastered. OK so Dark Souls is getting a Re-master for Switch. A re-master with both  visual and technical upgrades, the new version supports up to 6 player multiplayer but again I dont really care. Dark Souls is old now, and I am not buying things again just to have them on the Switch, I want to play new things not just the same thing again and again.

 

OK so thats everything covered and its not too bad, but I do think that things could have been a lot more exciting in some areas.  I just want less remakes, or if your going to remake something either remake something old where a demand has built up for it to come on stage and take a bow or either add lots and lots of extra stuff not available in other places or lower the price of it on release to reflect its rehashed nature.

Why the Nintendo Switches e-shop is a little boring and what they could do to change this.

So I was looking at the Switch's eshop and I noticed there were some Neo Geo games I would like I was going to grab Garou Mark of the Wolf and King Of the Fighters 98 which would have been £12.58 for the 2 games, might not sound too bad but hey, figured Id check on the Xbox One first afetr all I always like to try and get the best bang for my buck. So I checked and there was a BackWards Compatability sale on and guess what there was a whole bunch of Neo Geo games on it including the two I had been looking at on the Switch's eshop.

So while looking at the backwards compatability sale I decided that I would spend the £12.58 on there on games to play on my Xbox One and So I got Garou Mark of The Wolf, King Of the Fighters 98, King Of the Fighters 2002, Samurai Showdown 2, Neo Geo Battle Coliseum, Double Dragon Neo, Bomberman Battlefest and Alien Hominid HD for £14, yes this was a tiny bit more than I intended to spend but well who minds paying about £1.50 more to get 6 more games? This made me stop and think is Nintendo really handling the whole Virtual Console thing correctly this time?

Dont get me wrong I love the Neo Geo and its games and £6.29 is a darn site less than the games went for on cartridge back in the day, the thing is though that the games have come out so many times in so many diffrent places by now that they are just very old hat. I have Metal Slug 3 on the PS2 and Xbox on disc, then I have the SNK collection Volume 1 on both the Wii and PSP as well as having the Metal Slug Anthology on the Wii, all of these were gotten for very little and I have played them to death. This is before you realise that lots of people have been emulating the Neo Geo back before the whole Virtual Console/ PSN store and various other stores became a thing. Heck I even donated to charity to get a Neo Geo humble bundle from the popular charity donating video game bundle site Humble Bundle.

One of the issues is that if you look on any service that lets you download retro games you are likly to see the same titles again and again, Steam, the PSN Store, Xbox Live all of them will have for example the same 40 Megadrive games, the ones that usually fill up compilation discs. Nintendo's switch can not hope to compete with these services as the games have been available on them for a long time so people will have either already purchased them or will be able to grab them for much less during sales like I have.

What Nintendo should have done for the release of the Switch is looked for titles they could put up which have not been so easily available already. They should have reached out to companies who have less touched back catalogs and they should have dug into there own archives. I for one would love to see them finally release Star Fox 2 onto a Virtual Console, its never had a proper release despite being finished so surly there is money and equally importantly headlines to be made there. They should also take a good long look at what has been done elsewere. People have hacked SNES roms for example and added better more high quality music, emulators have been able to let you play snes games in multiplayer over the internet, textures have been smothed, fans have translated import titles. Why not use this, grab these translations, check them and if there good then release previously unreleased games on the virtual console giving some credit to those who have done the work for you, just stop and think outside of the box for a moment instead of offering something that every single company going has already done, surly Nintendo with your Wii-motes and touch screens and just general inovation you could apply some of this to the virtual console scene and not only make it something to get excited about but also use it to plug some of the holes in your release scedule.

The Problem of being a Switch owner.

So as the owner of a Switch, or as I call it at the moment a Zelda box, largly because thats all mine gets used for I wanted to talk about what happening with mine so far. I do own Bomberman R, 1 2 Switch, and have recently got Mario Kart but havent done much with any of them, well apart from written 1 2 Switch off as a steaming bag of crap. So far I have loved the new Zelda but I find myself in a very simmilar situation to which I have been in with previous Nintendo consoles, basically playing a really good Nintendo made game waiting for the next really good Nintendo game to come out because there aint much else to do. What do I mean by this well I am basically saying that 3rd party support is hardly buzzing, so far we have some games that have been ported either from the Xbox One, the PS4 or Nintendo's previous console the switch and some that have released on the Switch at the same time as the PS4 but cost far more on the Switch.

Lego City for example has just come out for the Switch but its just an update of the exact same Lego City that was on the Wii U, heck even Mario Kart 8 deluxe released by Nintendo is the old Wii U game with some bells and whistles thrown on to it. You can Preorder Skyrim which is proberbly going to be about £50 on release maybe more in some shops or you could basically go grab it now for Xbox One or PS4 and finish it before its even out on the Switch and only pay £25, its a good game but its old now. You can buy Troll and I for the PS4 or XBOX One now for £20 to £25 or you can wait till its out on the switch (apparently around christmas) and pay what looks like it will be £39.99, heck Puyo Puyo Tetris has released on Switch and PS4 at the same time but its £25 for the PS4 version and £35 for the Switch. If you really want to get into how your paying more for the same on Switch Rayman Legends is coming to the switch for £59.99 and thats been free on Xbox Games with Gold (yes the Switch one is supposed to be a definitive edition but still).

I know some people will think I am being a little premature in saying this but I dont think that the Switch has really been handled in a way which will make it either the number one choice or the only console for most people, its going to be a secondery console in almost all cases I think. If I can get a game much cheaper or sooner on the PS4 or Xbox One then that is what I am going to do, as for Wii U remakes well I will only get them if I can get them cheap or if something is added to the game that I really feel I need and I cant help but think that this is how the majority of people will feel.  One of the games I saw that most excited me that I was in fact planning on getting was I am Setsuna but then I learned that this isent just a switch game, nope its on the PS4 and Steam and to be honest I know that sooner or latter it will be dirt cheap on either steam or the PSN store.

I know some people will think that I am being unfair to judge Nintendo so early on in the game, they will argue that great and new intresting 3rd party games could be right around the corner, games which wont be available on anything but the Switch due to the way they use the machine but this is something that I have heard about past Nintendo consoles and the more times you hear it and it doesnt come true the harder it becomes to swallow it each and every time. Originally I set out to just write a blog post about the Capcom Five because I thought it was a really intresting subject but in order to do so I started to think about and talk about the current situation with the Switch to try and use it as a starting block to explain where Nintendo where with the GameCube when the Capcom Five were announced and the subject just took on a life of its own. For those not in the know the Capcom Five were 5 games which were orignally announced to be coming out as GameCube exclusives something which a lot of people pinned an awful lot of hopes on and a topic I may return to in the future.

Now I am not trying to knock Nintendo here or say that anyone shouldnt buy a Switch, heck I got one at release but I am trying to say that Nintendo could have handled things better, they could have with a small investment courted various indy developers to get new unique and quriky indy titles on the system early on, sure there is Snipper clips and a few other bits and pieces but not nearly enough, also why when Nintendo have over 30 years of classic games to look back on why is the Virtual Console currently nothing but a Neo Geo showcase? Ok now I know that they proberbly want to drip feed old games on to the service so I am not saying throw SNES game after SNES game at us one after another but surly one juicy one a week wouldnt hurt now would it? Still lets end this post here with the simple phrase ''Time will Tell''.