I'm a Switch, I'm a Lover, Talk About It With Each Other

1, 2 Switch
This wasn’t quite the “Wii Sports of the Switch” that I had hoped for, but fun times were had. Jay’s hubris and subsequent fall in the shootout will be the stuff of GNamer legend for all time, the board game mode made for a few amusing sessions and, whatever else, that HD rumble moment with the balls in the box is blody amazing the first time.
1 out of 2

1979 Revolution: Black Friday
A Telltale Games-esque story-driven piece about a time and a place I wish I knew more about. I can heartily recommend this to anyone and feel confident that they’ll come back from the experience a little more woke with regards to the Middle East and the terrible crimes committed upon it by the West.
69/79

ARMS
The best fighting game ever made, for my money. Intuitive controls and mechanics let me get to that tense, wonderful place that Street Fighter fans always talk about but which I could never find the time to “git gud” for elsewhere. With a constant internet connection, a TV and a pro controller, I have zero doubts this would be among my most played games on the Switch. Alas, I’ve not touched it since arriving in Nagano. Fun character design and quality music, too.
Min out of Min.

Astro Bears Party
This is basically Snake, or in multiplayer TRON, played on a Mario Galaxy planet. If that sounds good, give it a go, I guess? I reviewed this one for Gintendo and didn’t hate it, but it is pretty crazy to me that this is a product that people are charged money for. It’s very slight.
5/10

Caveman Warriors
Pretty weak side-scrolling action game which looks and plays like a mid-2000s Flash game. It isn’t dreadful or anything, and it gets kinda fun and weird, but it doesn’t do anything which isn’t done considerably better by a dozen other games.
5/10

Celeste
Easily my favourite game of last year, especially if you’re the kind of tedious person who discounts Hollow Knight and Smash as being ports from previous years. Emotional story, wonderful art and music, and some of the tightest 2D platforming I’ve ever played. There’s still more I could do in the game, but I kind of like just knowing its there. One day I’ll go back and rinse it, maybe on a new playthrough.
10/10

Daemon X Machina Prototype Missions
This is alright, this! I quite like the cel-shaded aesthetic, the mech designs are cool, the action is about what I expected, the bosses are great and I’ll definitely grab the full thing. Also: nobody is talking about the music. That opening title piece was tremendous!
2019

Dark Souls
Influential. Important. Impeccable. Emotional. Beautiful. One of the best games ever made. I beat Ornstein and Smough a couple of weeks back, which means I’m in the slightly weaker second half of the game. It also means I’ll definitely finish this, meaning I’ll have played through the game on a Nintendo, PC and Xbox. I kind of want to buy another, hopefully working, disk and finish it on playstation now . . .
2010/10

Death Squared
Co-op puzzle robot thing. Fun enough, and me and my brother had some laughs on it. Switch has quite a lot of this sort of thing, and I’m sure there are better ones, but it’s worth a butcher’s.
6/10

DOOM
Fucking BELTING game, this. I’ve not quite finished it – I had an awkward bug, and then I fixed that with an update but now I’m getting to later parts of the game and keeping up with the action is a little tough in handheld mode. Another one for the list of games I’ll polish off when I’m set up with a TV and pro controller soon.
100M/100M

Dream Alone
Fucking shite game. So shite it is actually genuinely hilarious at times, but still it should be left alone.
2/10

Fallout Shelter
Downloaded it, never played it. Shen says I shouldn’t bother. Probably won’t.

Fast RMX
This was really good fun, and the big online sessions in the early days of the machine are some fond memories. It dropped off a bit after Mario Kart, as we all knew it would, but if anyone ever fancied a go on this, I’d be up for it. I had a little bash on the way to Tokyo back around new year, when I went to play F-Zero AX. It’s still fun, but oh man . . . F-Zero remains the king. Give us a new one, Nintendo!
Zero/ F-Zero

Fifa 18
As with every machine, I picked up a FIFA to occasionally poke at but never get super invested in. When I feel like playing a videogame, this is never top of the list, and when I’m in the mood for football I’d rather watch the real thing. Every now and then I get the urge, though, and it’s good to have the option I guess.
Fifa 17/ Fifa 19

Fortnite
This is alright. The battle royale “thing” is fun, these guys know how to do Free-to-play well and the aesthetic is inoffensive. Unfortunately, the shooting isn’t all that and I’m never gonna be as good at the crafting stuff as the minecraft generation are. I think I could enjoy one of these things eventually, but I haven’t found the one for me yet.
One week/ two weeks

Gone Home
The go-to example for the “walking sim”, “not really a game”, “narrative experience” thing. This is a well-told and emotional story, it uses the interactive medium to get across feelings and experiences another artform couldn’t. What surprised me most, though, is that actually does feel very videogamey. Exploring the house and unlocking secret sections is actually very satisfying.
10/10

Gorogoa
Artistic and unique puzzle that reaches its peak a little too early, and might be a little short for the asking price, but is well worth your time if you get the chance. Unparalleled.
8/10

GRIS
Overrated, self-indulgent wank.
4/10

Hollow Knight
Genuinely phenomenal. One of the best and tightest games I’ve ever played. Of all the games given the “it’s a bit like Dark Souls” treatment, this is the only one which has felt worthy of the comparison.
This and Celeste showed that indie titles are more than enough to tide me over between Nintendo first-party releases even if the big third-parties aren’t bringing their mediocre, unethically made shooters to the Switch.
110/110

Hyper Light Drifter
Bought this with my Christmas vouchers and haven’t played it yet, but very excited to.

Jackbox Party Pack 2
I’ve not had any chances to fire this up since leaving Blighty, but the times we had with it were bloody glorious. Like Cards Against Humanity, it has a nasty habit of bringing out the worst in people – unlike CAH, one can’t hide behind the cards as an excuse for their shit humour and awful opinions.
However funny your m8s are/ 10

Kamiko
This was a nice little game. Since it came out, other games have done the same schtick better, but at a cheap price and a nice little run-time, this is well worth a pop.
7/10

Kingdom
I’m still absolutely in love with the gorgeous pixelart, and I’m sure this would be a wonderful little game to throw on of an evening and relax with. Alas, I goofed and blew all my money early on with something that is probably meant to be endgame, messed up my progress and couln’t figure out how to reset my save. I’ll probably delete the data and go back at some point.
Pretty but I’m not witty

LA Noire
I played the opening and enjoyed myself. I like the time period and it seemed like the story might be interesting. That open world is entirely superfluous though, hey? I had an inkling to write about this bit by bit as a comparison to how Japanese games (Ace Attorney and Cing in particular) deal with criminal investigation, which I might go back to when I get my internet up and running.

Mario + Rabbids
This was okay, and the combination of Mario simplicity with XCom gameplay should have been right up my Street, but it never grabbed me unfortunately.
Meh-rio

Mario Kart 8
I played loads of this on Wii U- singleplayer, multiplayer, online, offline, sober, pissed – and I’m not that bothered by battle mode, so I’m sure the Switch one would have been a waste of money . . . oh, apparently I’ve played 125 hours. VERY GOOD.
1:30:165 at 150cc on Moo Moo

Mario Tennis ACES Online Tournament
This was fun enough, I suppose. If I thought I’d be having lots of couch multiplayer sessions in the near future, I might have plumped for the full game but I guess it came out at the wrong time for me.

Monster Hunter XX
I quite like Monster Hunter, you know. I think I put something like 160 hours into this. Once I get Shen a Switch, I’ll probably pick us both up the English version and get stuck into it again, but I am loathe to quit the Japanese copy without finishing my Valfalk armour. I just need those gloves. . . which just means killing a G-Rank Kushala Daora. Maybe once I get the internet up, I’l enlist the Mash Lads. Speaking of which, now that Zero has saved gintendo . . .
X/X

Morphite
A real overlooked gem, this. Weird minimalist visuals, an amazing soundtrack that apes 70s pre-Star Wars sci-fi synths, and compulsive space exploration gameplay with a little touch of Metroid Prime’s scanning. If you’re stuck for things to play and want something cheap with a whole lot of content, give it a shot.
8/10

Neurovoider
Very dumb but pretty fun top-down mech shooting. I didn’t spend as much time as I might have liked playing this in co-op. I can imagine 15-year-old luke and 3 friends pouring obscene amounts of time into this game.
6/10

Oh . . . Sir!
A bad idea poorly executed. This isn’t funny and it doesn’t work. Maybe, potentially, it might be possible to squeeze one or two chuckles out of this with a mate, but you’d have genuinely a lot more fun switching it off and just insulting eachother by opening pages of a dictionary or something.
Oh no

Okami
Another one which I bought with my Christmas vouchers but which I haven’t played yet. I bounced off it on Wii, but I’m considerably more invested in ancient Japanese culture than I was then – I’ve even visited Amaterasu’s main shrine – so I’m really excited to give it another go. Probably the next big game I’ll start.

One Strike
Considering I paid less than a pound of money which I got for free for buying other games, this is alright! Cool samurai scenes depicted in lovingly drawn pixel art, and tense but simple gameplay. Move, block and attack – if sword hits flesh, you’re dead. I’m pretty keen to give it a proper go in multiplayer.
1/1

Oxenfree
This is good! The teen drama was mildly diverting on its own, but once the weird paranormal stuff starts going on this is a brilliantly creepy and weird little tale. It plays out on a kind of 2D plane and a little zoomed out, feeling almost like a picture book or a stylised map. I’d recommend this, especially at night, with the lights out and headphones in.
9/10

Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu
I had a good time with this. Obviously it has its limitations, but it was a fun little trip down memory lane, it looked pretty and it very successfully whet my appetite for the full Gen 8 game later this year. Also, if I ever get back to making Luke Loves Pokemon a youtube thing as well as a podcast, this will give me great footage of the original 151 monsters.
153/809

Pokemon Quest
This kind of plays itself, but it looks funky and it had some okay music. I like having it on while I write. Plus, it was free.
£0.00

Rocket League
I can see why people really like this, and if I ever put the time in to git gud I would probably agree, but it launched at the wrong time in my life and I’m not gonna sit and play it in singleplayer, am I?
Broom/ broom

Semispheres
Twin-stick puzzle thing. Alright.
6/10

Shovel Knight
Once again I played through the main campaign and then felt pretty much satisfied, with no real desire to try the others. I’m sure I’ll play them one day.
1/3 . . . or is it 4 now?

Skyrim
I played a fair chunk of this when I was on the farm and offline. It’s okay, but everything it does has been bettered since it first released. Open worlds feel much less empty, the story-driven stuff has been vastly improved upon, the sidequests felt like so much nothing compared to say a Witcher, the combat was unsatisfying, and I didn’t care about the lore. Maybe if I had a companion app so I could read all those tomes I was finding while I wasn’t playing the game . . . maybe I’ll go back to it.
2011/2019

Spla2n
Fucking quality game! Endlessly fun online multiplayer, with not one but two great campaigns and a brilliant horde mode. Stylish, slick, and I’m still not quite out of the habit of buying every piece of Splatoon merch I see, even though it isn’t rare at all over here. Again, one that I’ll no doubt jump right back into once I’m all set up again.
8/8

Super Mario Odyssey
This is lovely, this is. A huge, delightful Mario game. There’s still loads I’ve not played in the postgame, but I’m more than happy to take my time, dipping in for a moon or two when I need something bright and cheerful. What a first year the Switch had!
300/999

Super Smash Bros Ultimate
For me, a Smash Bros game is all about the multiplayer sessions with all your mates. Its more of a party game than a fighter. The online might be a laugh, now and then. Singleplayer? Not really that fussed. Except this time round . . . I am? I’m still hopping on this, at lunch times and stuff, mopping up Classic Modes and Spirits and all that. I’ve had one or two chances to throw down with friends but actually the content has kept me engaged all on my lonesome. If couch multiplayer smash is sex and the 3DS version was a perfunctory wank to a Nikki Minaj music video, the Switch one is a posh session in a hotel room with a tenga egg, pornhub premium and some wet wipes.
72/72

Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido Demo
The gameplay felt pretty empty and boring but the over the top anime stylings and OF COURSE that song were good fun. Can’t see myself ponying up for the full thing though.

Tetris 99
Oooooh, this is good! All the addictive qualities of a good tetris and a good battle royale game . . . even with my limited internet access, I’ve been making trips to Starbucks just to get in sessions with this. The Top Ten is still out of my reach – my Tetris is rusty – but nonetheless it always feels like the win is just one more game away.
99/99

The Banner Saga
This is really good, but the slow pace and dour tone mean I’m only chipping away at it slowly. Still, its not the kind of story that feels like it should be rushed, and the high quality mean I’m glad there’s still a lot of this one left and two more games beside.
1/3

The Deep Ones
I really liked the demo of this – ominous music mixed with visuals so old-school they look pre-NES. The name and the synopsis made it seem this is going to get pretty Lovecraftian, and I’m hoping it does something clever and creepy with it all. I bought a copy with the points from my Smash download, so watch this space.

The First Tree
Pretty naff, but I got some nice screenshots.
5/10

The Gardens Between
Weird and cute puzzle game where you play as some vague animating force – maybe time itself – and explore the memories of two young friends or something. Not very long or especially taxing, but pretty bloody clever and a nice way to spend an evening.
7/10

The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild
It was definitely the best game ever made, but I’m now also happy to say it’s my favourite game of all time as well. It genuinely improved me as a person - the way I've been exploring Japan, particularly with mountains and wilderness, always reminds me of this game. Since getting here, I've seen so many aspects of BOTW through a new lens - there's plenty I still want to write about this game. I still have the main theme in my head at least once a day. And on top of how bloody good it is, playing this side-by-side with Shen, helping eachother find each dungeon, was a really wonderful part of our early courtship that has given this game an extra personal attachment for me.
∞

Thumper
Rhythm violence. Intense and weird in a way that I can only honestly compare to a fever dream. Awkward, in that I’d like to play this sort of game in little bursts on the bus and that but this game’s musical leanings and intense difficulty kind of demand full attention. I still like it, though.
4/4

Warframe
I downloaded it but haven’t played it. A bloke a work is really keen for me to jump online and play with him, so I’m hoping even when I have internet I’ll be able to keep that fact secret . . .

Xenbobob Bobicles 2
I loved the original and was disappointed by the lack of impetus I felt with the second. I started this one, and it was nice enough, but the opening was a little slow and it still hasn’t really grabbed me with its world or characters. By this point in the original, I was screaming a vow of revenge to the heavens and so excited to explore the Bionis and Mechonis. I will persevere at some point.

Yoku’s Island Express
The second best beetle-based Metroidvania on Switch! This is charming, unique and doesn’t outstay its welcome. If you’re better than I am at pinball, add one or two to the score.
7/10

Yoshi’s Crafted World
The gameplay was so far, so Yoshi, but this is one of the downright cutest things I’ve ever seen. The little knitted characters in the home-made levels, that train made from a vending machine coffee bottle, and oh my god when you see the unpainted back of the level . . . I don’t know if I’ll ever play the full game, but I’m so glad it exists.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
The most overrated game of ALL TIME which has made me excited for Links Awakening 6/10

Snake Pass
Controls were a bit weird but was fun enough 6/10

Puyo Puyo Tetris
Story mode was actually rather good 7/10

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
Port of the second best Mario Kart, due to racers being unlocked I never have much drive to play this still 8/10

ARMS
Didn't have LEGS 6/10

Splatoon 2
Decent Single Player and Multiplayer, one game when I had the Switch cull I wish I still had 8.5/10

Sonic Mania
I don't think it's good as people say it is and I'd still prefer CD and Pocket Adventure by a long way 7/10

Pan-Pan: A Tiny Big Adventure
Pretty short and easy but I liked it a lot 7/10

SteamWorld Dig 2
Easily one of the best games I've played on Switch and Metroidvanias 9/10

FIFA 18
Strangely put a lot of time into this due to starting with Exeter City and ending up winning the CL with Napoli, however, it's a port of older version and wasn't quite up to par with PS4ONE 7/10

Fire Emblem Warriors
Fun Musou were I can mash buttons as all the Waifu's and Husbando's 7.5/10

Super Mario Odyssey
The actual best game on Switch 9.5/10

Wheels of Aurelia
Even BotW is better than this 2/10

Koi DX
A not very good Flower-like genre thing 5/10

LA Noire
I did like this but just seem drag on and on 6/10

Rime
Often overlooked as it ran like a turd on Switch but if you can get past that then there is a good game here 7/10

Mantis Burn Racing
If you like micro machines then you will like this, I just found that no was playing online even with crossplay 6/10

Xenoblade Chronicles 2
I play a decent amount of RPG's and this is not good part from the Welsh cat lady which only reminded me of the far better Ni No Kuni 5/10

Gorogoa
Played after the hype, I feel missed IT though 6/10

Celeste
Fantastic story, I just felt the actual game was just okay 7/10

Night in the Woods
Play this utter banger at Halloween 9/10

Old Man's Journey
I think Zero raved about this on mobile and it might not have transitioned well to Switch as I didn't get IT 5/10

Subsurface Circular
Fantastically written and if you're happy playing something which is sort like a Visual Novel 9/10

Kirby Star Allies
Just sort of there 7/10

Octopath Traveller
I messed myself up on this due to the ability which meant fewer fights which meant I was under-levelled and I couldn't be bothered to grind or start again being 12hrs in. Still, I would have said this was the best RPG on Switch before FFIX came out 7.75/10

2064: Read Only Memories Integral
It has Austin Creed in it and Jim Sterling but wasn't worth the wait to play it 6.5/10

Pokémon: Let's Go, Eevee!
Yay nostalgia 8/10

GRIS
One of the best experiences I had last year, a true piece of art 9/10