Sneak Peek at the Nintendo Switch 2

2 days ago

Transcript

00:00It is 5.48 on a Friday morning, and I am getting ready to head to London to try out the Nintendo Switch 2.

00:09And so I'm back now from London, having had four hours with the Nintendo Switch 2, demoing some games and the features,

00:35and I'm going to dive into a few things that I learned and a few of my thoughts on the experience.

00:41I think my clear highlight of the show was Mario Kart World.

00:47There was two different demos on the show.

00:49There was, you did a few of the Grand Prix races, which were really fun.

00:53The way that you raced between tracks was, it's a really nice twist.

00:58It's something different than your usual Mario Kart experience.

01:01I've been playing Mario Kart since Double Dash, I think it was, on the GameCube.

01:06So, yeah, it felt familiar but fresh.

01:08But the real standout, and it wasn't just for me, I think everyone that was there will attest to it,

01:14was the knockout mode, which is sort of a bit like Fortnite, I guess.

01:19But with Mario Kart, you start with 24 races, and then after a certain amount of time,

01:26you have to be placed 20th or higher to survive, and then it keeps eliminating people until there's just four left,

01:32and then they race for the win.

01:34It's really tense.

01:35It's really sort of gets your adrenaline pumping.

01:38Yeah, it's very frantic and very fun, and, yeah, I just can't wait to play more of it down the line,

01:45and I'm sure once people get their hands on it, it'll be a firm favourite.

01:48Donkey Kong Bonanza was a really great showcase for sort of what the Switch 2 can do

01:54and how much more powerful it is than the OG Switch, which is obviously like eight years old now, I think.

02:01Was it 2017 it came out?

02:03So, yeah, it has this gimmick of you can smash pretty much everything.

02:08Like, there's some of the myths, like, you can't smash the whole world.

02:11It's like this bedrock that you can't smash.

02:14But it was really fun.

02:16It felt, you know, really realised.

02:19There seems to be a lot of cool twists on it.

02:22It's not, it doesn't feel as if it's going to get boring.

02:25There was things to discover.

02:26I only had about 20 minutes with it, but, yeah, it felt fun and fresh and, yeah,

02:32real good show gifts for the Switch 2 and feels like it's going to be fun to play.

02:38I also was surprised at how light the Switch 2 felt.

02:44Obviously, it's more powerful.

02:45There's, you know, it's bigger, it's heftier, but it didn't feel like I can't use this in handheld mode.

02:52This is going to, like, knacken my arms really quick.

02:55It felt a little bit heavier than the normal Switch, but it felt lighter than I was expecting as well.

03:01It feels like you can easily hold it in handheld mode and use it if that's your preferred way.

03:08Yeah, I was surprised at how light it felt, if I'm honest.

03:11And also the screen.

03:13Now, I know a lot of people were a bit disappointed that it's an LED screen instead of an OLED screen,

03:18but it was actually a real big step up compared to my OG Switch, which is LED,

03:25and this is an even better LED.

03:28It was bright.

03:28It was crisp.

03:29It looked amazing.

03:31Like, yeah, I actually couldn't believe that it was LED.

03:33It felt as if it was, like, OLED to me, at least.

03:36Yeah, to my normal size, I guess.

03:39But the mouse mode, which is one of the big features with the Switch tier is that the Joy-Cons can now be used like a computer mouse.

03:47You turn them on the side and you can put them down on your surface and use it like a mouse.

03:52I tried it out in Drag X Drive, which is the wheelchair basketball game.

03:59That was, yeah, it was really fun.

04:01That was a lot more, like, you're playing around, you're sort of wheeling them like this.

04:07But you're playing a bit of basketball.

04:10It was, that feels like there's a bit more of a learning curve, but then also used it for Metroid Prime 4.

04:17Yeah, Metroid Prime 4.

04:20And you used it as if you were playing, like, a shooter on your PC.

04:24So you used the mouse to move it around.

04:27It really did feel like using an actual computer mouse.

04:30It didn't feel sluggish.

04:31It felt intuitive.

04:32It felt, yeah, like using a proper mouse.

04:34And then one of the big surprises for me, I think, was how much better the Zelda games played on the Switch 2.

04:43Like, I developed both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, which are obviously Switch games.

04:49But the performance was so much better than, you know, those games are amazing, but they're a bit choppy when it comes to the frame rate and a bit sluggish sometimes.

05:00Obviously, it's pushing the machine to the max, but on the Switch 2, it just felt like this was the way they were always meant to be played.

05:06And if you haven't tried them out yet, maybe wait for the Switch 2 and do it there, because that feels as if it's the way they were supposed to be played.