We’ve been relatively quiet here at the Dorkside about Nintendo’s successor to their hugely popular Switch console because frankly, until 6am this morning there just wasn’t a whole lot to say about it. Like any other upcoming release that gets nerds all worked up, there was plenty of speculation, rumors and theories as to what we could expect to see from the new console. But I’m the kind of guy who wants stone cold facts before I start letting my cheese flap in the wind. So now here we are, Nintendo pulled back the curtain with a presentation this morning revealing the release date, launch titles, new hardware features and all kinds of other goodies that has yours truly crunching the numbers for just how much money is gonna go bye bye on June 5th. I was up pretty early to catch all of the announcements and decided to bullet point my thoughts in real time for your enjoyment.

And at just over 60 minutes, this presentation is a big one so let’s have a looksie, shall we?

I guess I couldn’t let our Dorkside’s 2024 Freddy ‘Fest (*tm) thing go by without bringing this up now could I? A Nightmare on Elm St. for the Nintendo Entertainment is a great, *cough* wonderful, *choke*…I mean, it’s a game that has been lumped in with LJN’s notorious track record of poor 8-bit releases based on movies. Only this one has the odd distinction of having been made by Rare; That’s right, the developers responsible for such stone cold classics as Donkey Kong Country, Goldeneye and the almighty Banjo-Kazooie are to blame for this one.

Please don’t make me play it again.

In the last Nintendo Direct there were plenty of software announcements to get excited about but the one that had the hairs on the back of my hairs stand up was one reveal in particular: A collection of classic Capcom developed arcade games featuring both their own internal characters as well as Marvel IP was miraculously on the way. Now, I have no idea how many legal hoops needed to be jumped through in order for this to happen; but to say that this is truly a huge deal for any fan of fighting games as well as both companies would be the definition of an understatement. And now it’s here.

I’m taking breaks from writing this to play it right now.

Anyone who grew up in the NES/SNES days can attest that games based on licensed properties were with very few exceptions, notoriously awful. But this never took away from their allure, an undeniable curiosity would set in begging the question: Don’t you want to play the movie? Jurassic Park was one of those titles that I never had the chance to check out during it’s 16-bit heyday, but thanks to my SNES Classic which has had a few *cough* modifications *cough*, the other night I decided to finally have a go at it. The idea was to drink a ton of beer and with the help of a gamefaqs walkthrough, attempt to complete the entire game in one sitting.

The post which you are about to read is an account of the tragedy which befell me. It is all the more tragic in that I was drunk.

Back in the summer of ‘89 you couldn’t flush the toilet without seeing a bat symbol. The colorful old 60’s series was playing in endless rotation, action figures, logo covered t-shirts and ball caps were standard issue for grade-schoolers across the country and that smokin’ hot Prince chick was doing the bat-dance nonstop on MTV. I was only 9 years old at the time and needless to say, took Batman any way I could get him. I only managed to see Tim Burton’s first crack at the character in theaters once that Summer (for my Birthday) but went on to tell tales out in the schoolyard the following September of having never blinked once during the entire run-time. Back then even more so then now, the Dark Knight was a huge deal not just to me but the human race as a species. So a video game based on what at the time seemed like the biggest goddamned movie ever was a no-brainer and for the most part Sunsoft did a good job. Batman for the NES delivers fast paced action with tight controls, great music and solid level design.

Even though for the most part, it doesn’t really have all that much to do with the actual movie.

Neo Turf Masters (also known as Big Tournament Golf) is a fantastic slice of pure, pick up and play heaven that was unleashed upon arcades around the world in 1996. Brought to us by the makers of the beloved Metal Slug, Turf Masters shockingly accomplishes the seemingly impossible: It not only makes golf fun but also…yep here we go, I’’m gonna say it…”Cool.” Cleverly approaching a sport that otherwise wouldn’t seem like a natural fit in any way to the arcade format, the developers have successfully delivered an inspired, fast paced, action experience.

You guys, this is a real good one.

With the 7th anniversary of the Nintendo Switch approaching, a lot of nerd palms have begun sweating more than usual in anticipation of the console’s inevitable successor. This means you’ll likely see plenty of retrospectives popping up here and there looking back at all of the great games that have released for the hybrid over the last now near decade. And while there are of course plenty of top shelf first and third party titles to praise, in this series let’s look back even further. Having gone through and selected some personal favorite arcade ports, I’ll be spotlighting some true must haves for anyone who misses the old days of having their sneakers stuck to God knows what on those outer space themed carpets.

Welcome to the first installment of Arcade Archaeology!

Let’s take a moment to soak this in, shall we? Here we are now in 2024 with a retro review of an 11 year old high definition remake of a 21 year old game. And one that is still tethered to Nintendo’s Wii U console, a system that somehow feels more ancient than the GameCube. And for unknown reasons that still manage to baffle, this cel-shaded installment in the series still has yet to make the leap over to the Switch. I mean, the godawful New Super Mario U has a port, so what the deuce you guys? What’s the fucking gosh-darn hold up?

Well here we are finally arriving at my number one slot on this list right as 2023 draws to a close and yes it’s true: In a year that saw Nintendo release a long awaited sequel, one knockout of a remaster and an all new return to form across their holy trinity of IP (Zelda, Metroid and Mario of course), what can I say?

It didn’t get any better than Pikmin 4.

When Nintendo revealed that Metroid Prime 4 was in development, rumors instantly began swirling around about a rerelease of some kind for the original trilogy. A series of first person adventure games that began on Gamecube and seemingly wrapped up on the Wii. Days turned into years without anything materializing, until that fateful moment in early February of 2023. When an official announcement was made that not only was there a remaster of the original installment on the way, it would be available like right then. A “shadow drop” as the children say, I believe.

Well that equaled yours truly frantically stumbling to close the living room blinds for one sexy happy dance.

It’s time to talk about the elephant in the room. Of course any new entry in the at this point iconic side-scrolling series of Mario games is something to be excited about. And once hands on impressions and previews began trickling in, it was sounding as though Wonder played like the Switch’s answer to SMW2: Yoshi’s Island (on most days, my personal favorite game of all time). Or even some kind of return to form; the direct follow up to the great Super Mario World we’d always dreamed of. If I kinda, maybe squint real hard enough I can sorta see the latter. Which makes me wonder:

Man, can you imagine if Nintendo had had the goombas big enough to just call this thing Super Mario Bros. 5!?

The 99 line of games available to NSO members is a series of essentially battle royales where you, the player take on 99 other players via the internet and compete to the “death”. Introduced with Tetris back in 2019 (!?), it has proven to apply itself much more naturally to some games than others. Tetris is an absolute natural for this concept, and highly addictive. The Super Mario Bros. version was oddly fun (though timed and no longer available) and a Pac-Man attempt was a bit too frantic and maybe didn’t work all that great in my opinion.

Well, recently Nintendo decided to give a certain SNES launch title a swing at the gameplay style and oh man, F-Zero 99 where have you been all my life?

This placement on the countdown will probably rub a lot of people the wrong way but we’re all just going to have to accept the fact that not everyone has the same opinion. I know there’s a quality game here and Tears of the Kingdom is an experience which meant quite a bit to many video game players and lovers of the franchise.

It’s just kinda the opposite of everything I loved about BOTW…it’s just kinda too much.

We interrupt our 2023 top ten countdown to bring you this very important announcement: 1080 Snowboarding is now available for the Nintendo Switch. I honestly couldn’t begin to calculate how many hours I sunk into this game back when it first came out for the N64 in 1998.

Mostly because I was 17 years old, real deep into my house music listening/raver days and more often than not in some form of heavily altered state.

Beginning with Mario Kart 8 in the previous entry on this list and as you’ll see for the rest of it, 2023 was a fantastic mixture of both old and new for Nintendo. In anticipation of Pikmin 4, the company decided to release HD versions of the first two installments released for the Gamecube way back when. And with Pikmin 3 already available as a Deluxe version on the console, this makes the Nintendo Switch home to every mainline game in the series.

And this makes the Nintendo Switch quite an awesome Nintendo video game playing machine.