The extended focus on the Joy Con and their physical features was one of the highlights of the announcement last week for me. The Wii/DS generation was probably my favorite to date simply because of how the experimentation with input and feedback inspired new ways to play. These aren't doing anything drastically new,…

"Giant sex game in disguise" describes, like, forty games in my Wii collection, though, and I love them all dearly.

I am extremely hyped for this. I love so much of Victor Fresco's television work (even his Sean Hayes vehicle from a few years ago wasn't bad) and the combination of confident star power and the freedom of Netflix suggests some really good wacky stuff is about to go down that will make the wildest pseudo-science of Bet…

Gerardi has informed me repeatedly that Legends is completely unplayable on a non-New 3DS. I have occasionally turned on the 3D while playing on my New 3DS XL and, while pretty, it kind of obscures the main gameplay and actually drastically slows down the cinema sequences (turning on 3D for the end-battle animations,…

Eh, Wii U launched with New Super Mario Bros U, but that's an easy one to overlook. Gamecube and Wii definitely had no Mario at launch.

Still chugging away at Hyrule Warriors Legends. The end of the first Adventure Map is within sight! I'm only a few squares away, but I still need to unlock at least one more character to get there.

The two new IPs they started the night with were most exciting for me. 1, 2, Switch is exactly what I want at a console launch, something whimsical that shows off exactly what is new about this technology. Most importantly, it reminded me of my favorite Wii U party game, Spin The Bottle: Bumpie's Party, which also put…

The theme song still pops up once every few months at my regular karaoke spot and it never fails to delight the whole bar.

So they sped up production, then?

The overall spooky and lo-fi vibe was fun enough, but "Pa Pa Power" is a genuinely good tune and has been in my "background pop for work" playlist for a few years. Not to be slept on.

*sheepishly raises hand*
I liked Super Paper Mario

The trick, for me, is practice and recognizing patterns. I'm routinely playing against people with Toad counts of 9999 and I still lose Toads fairly often but I win Runs enough for my total to go up (you always win at least twice as many as you would have lost, so if you just make a couple of mistakes on a run and…

There were two games that came out in late 2016 I deliberately stayed away from specifically so my fiancée and her parents would have something they could get me for the holidays, so I've been playing a lot of both of those.

The Hypernova power in Triple Deluxe was especially upsetting as it was just a flashy instant-win effect. They even had a boss rush near the end of the story where you get the Hypernova power and proceed to just suck up every single boss in the game without even trying. It's supposed to feel empowering, but all it did…

To a lesser extent…

Personally, it was one of my mid-year best-ofs (along with Firewatch) and I didn't feel right talking it up again when I could sing the praises of Pokémon Go instead. The Witness is almost certainly my GOTY.

Some of us were also in debate club.

Part 2 goes up tomorrow. Plenty of games discussed in the comments here should be represented in that article.

I am now imagining a bitter old racist walking up to a group of focus-group-approved-multicultural teens outside a mall Hot Topic and asking them where to find the freshest Dratini. I like this new sitcom in my brain.

Agreed, the phenomenon was never going to last, but for a couple of weeks in the dead of Summer it really felt like everyone was engaged in the same activity in a way I haven't felt before. My fiancée and I would go to the park to challenge the gym there and we would see other couples on the other park benches all…