By GameSpot Staff on Aug 14, 2017 08:30 pm
Nintendo has released enough high-quality Switch games to keep you happy for the rest of 2017, but there are also plenty of other developers with great games on Switch that you may have overlooked. So if you're finally done playing Zelda: Breath of the Wild, or simply need a break from Splatoon 2, don't fret: there are excellent fighting games, RPGs, and platformers waiting for you in the eShop. In the gallery above, we've compiled a list of our favorite Switch games that we think you should play if you haven't already. Keep an eye out in the coming days for similar features for other platforms.
Cave Story +
Cave Story was one of the early indie gems when it debuted on PC in 2004, and its popularity there eventually led to console (Wii) and handheld ports (PSP and DS). There was even a 3D remake for 3DS. Nintendo Switch is the most recent recipient--based on the 2011 PC upgrade, Cave Story+--and it is packed with all of the features die-hard Cave Story fans want, including both 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios, and alternate soundtracks. But why all the excitement over a game that appears pretty simple from the outside looking in? Nevermind that the original version was made by a lone developer (Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya) in their spare time: Cave Story delivers personable characters and familiar retro action in an 8- meets-16-bit world. Though clearly inspired by select Metroid and Castlevania games, Cave Story's spirit is distinct and positively quaint. And with Cave Story+ on Switch, it finally gets the physical release it deserves, with a full-color manual, and soundtrack, among other packed-in goodies.
Fast RMX
Nintendo, or at the very least Shigeru Miyamoto, has made one thing clear: F-Zero is a series that's as good as dead. The last proper F-Zero game was F-Zero GX, released 14 years ago for the GameCube, with repeated requests for a new game shot down by Nintendo time and time again. Thankfully, Nintendo fans aren't entirely out of luck when it comes to high-speed racing games. In comes Fast RMX, an upgraded port of Wii U's Fast Racing Neo. This fast (duh), futuristic game offers 30 tracks and 15 vehicles, as well as online and local multiplayer options, and it features both shield and boost mechanics that closely mirror F-Zero in practice. No, it doesn't have Captain Falcon, but Fast RMX manages to capture the thrilling speed and, to an extent, the attitude of F-Zero GX--with a little influence from the WipeOut series' eye for graphic design.
Garou: Mark of the Wolves
One of the great joys of owning a Nintendo Switch is having access to excellent ports of Neo Geo games courtesy of Hamster Corp., a Japanese company with a solid track record of bringing arcade games to modern consoles. Neo Geo games--real Neo Geo games--can cost hundreds of dollars on the secondhand market. But for $8 a pop, you can play games like Garou: Mark of the Wolves at home and on the go on Switch. That game in particular is perhaps one of the first Neo Geo ports you should try, though be warned: it may set a bar so high that other Neo Geo games appear quaint by comparison. Mark of the Wolves enjoys a spot in the upper-echelon of pre-HD fighting games for its incredible style and sense of speed. It still holds up as a deep and enjoyable fighting game today, 18 years after its debut, and on a system with few fighting games, it's a no-brainer for Switch owners itching for a little competition.
Gonner
Gonner is a procedurally generated action platformer, and quite the looker, with surreal neon chalk lines outlining abstract environments that come together and break apart as you trot and hop across its stages. Enemies aren't particularly cunning, but they are numerous and overwhelming in the face of your gun's limited ammunition. Gonner gets difficult pretty quickly, and thus becomes a game where you chase high scores, and tailor new sets of abilities to eek out a new strategy with each successive attempt. It's kept interesting despite its simple mechanics by the procedurally generated levels that not only come together, but ultimately work together too. In other words: it's more than random for randomness' sake alone. You may never see everything it has to offer, but any time spent with Gonner is an enjoyable test of skill and a feast for the senses worth seeking out.
Graceful Explosion Machine
Graceful Explosion Machine falls into the category of frantic, 2D spaceship shooters, but it's not quite a bullet-hell experience--no dense curtains of seemingly unavoidable projectiles here. Still, it offers a challenge that speaks to the little Space Invader player in us all, albeit in a controlled environment. Rather than waiting for wave after wave of enemies to come your way, you pilot a (cute) spaceship through corridors and face off against swarms of enemies using both traditional laser cannons and a small but varied selection of special weapons. Dashing--boosting through groups of enemies--is an empowering and useful tactic that recalls the feeling of playing Resogun, a great game for a dev to draw inspiration. The trick to Graceful Explosion Machine is to quickly juggle your various weapons while also boosting through groups of increasingly stronger enemies, and once it's under your skin, the dance is an adrenaline-rush fight to survive, and to climb the leaderboards. As far as Switch games are concerned, this is one of the best examples of arcade action you can currently find.
I Am Setsuna
Tokyo RPG Factory is a studio that exists for the sole purpose of creating new RPGs that are inspired by classics of the genre, such as I Am Setsuna's basis in Chrono Trigger. I Am Setsuna can't match its inspiration's stellar reputation, but it is a worthwhile RPG with an old-school heart. If anything, it stands out for its somber atmosphere, accentuated by tragic plot points and drearily whimsical piano orchestration. If hearing the title "Chrono Trigger" gets you all worked up and you happen to own a Switch, you should give I Am Setsuna a try.
Severed
Severed is a traditional dungeon-crawling RPG with modern sensibilities. Its mechanics favor touchscreen devices, not simply for the sake of convenience, but to facilitate a combat system with demanding enemies that must be cut in the right location at the right time with a well-placed swipe of your finger. On Switch, Severed gets a slight upgrade from the Vita version, and a big upgrade from the iPhone version, thanks to the system's larger display. Beyond the clever integration of touchscreen controls and traditional gameplay, Severed presents the fascinating tale of Sasha, a one-armed warrior with a magical sword, caught in a hellish dreamscape in search of her loved ones. The monsters she faces are creatively nasty, accentuated by developer Drinkbox Studio's easily identifiable visual style, with sharp edges and expressive use of color. It's no surprise then that Severed makes a strong first impression, but it's not a fluke: the game is just as interesting to play as it is to look at. It's everything you'd expect from a dungeon crawler, but thanks to Drinkbox's inventive spirit, it's also packed with interesting motifs and ideas that you never see coming.
Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment
Shovel Knight is 8-bit gaming not as it was--glitchy and fuzzy--but as we choose to remember it--pixelated, vibrant, and cleverly detailed. The sequel-by-expansion, Specter of Torment, is a similar retro action-platformer that is by all appearances on par with the original. The key difference is that the star, the lead character you control, is a villain from the first game: Specter Knight. His identity obviously plays into a narrative differently than Shovel Knight's did, but more importantly, Specter Knight moves and attacks in new ways, too. This is all to say that Specter of Torment is an excuse to revisit Shovel Knight's wonderfully nostalgic world and undergo a new range of challenges that call upon a unique set of skills. And the reason it's worth playing at all is because developer Yacht Club Games' work rises above the team's inspirations, and ultimately our rose-tinted memories as well. If you see any value at all in classic 2D platformers, Shovel Knight and Specter of Torment will more than likely make your day.
Snake Pass
At first glance, Snake Pass' colorful art style makes it seem reminiscent of classic Rare platformers like Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64. However, its mechanics differ wildly from those games; there's no jumping here. You control a snake named Noodle, maneuvering and curling around objects with his serpentine body, navigating intricate obstacles to reach collectibles, and solving a multitude of physics-based puzzles. The challenges you encounter are each meticulously crafted around Noodle's unconventional physicality, demanding you to know the ins and outs of his physics to fully master. It's quite unlike many games out there, which is more than enough reason for you to check it out, if only to discover how charming and different it is.
Snipperclips: Cut It Out, Together
Snipperclips may not have the name recognition of Mario Kart or Splatoon, but this unassuming little Eshop game remains one of the best multiplayer experiences on Switch. Its premise is deceptively simple: players control a paper-like character and must snip each other into the appropriate shapes to solve puzzles. These start out easy enough; early challenges will have you simply trying to fit into a designated shape. However, the puzzles quickly ramp up in complexity, requiring some clever thinking and precise snipping to complete; one has players trying to retrieve and pop a balloon, while another challenges them with figuring out how to throw a basketball into a hoop. While the entire game can be played solo, Snipperclips is undoubtedly meant to be played with friends. The game supports up to four players, and trying to snip each other into the right shapes is surprisingly addictive, hilarious, and maddening all at the same time. This is accentuated by the game's charming animations; it's impossible not to smile at the faces your character makes when it squats or gets snipped. Snipperclips is the perfect showpiece for Switch's "play anywhere" portability and one of the hidden gems in the console's growing library.
Thumper
Do you remember when rhythm games were in style? It's been awhile, but that doesn't mean the genre is devoid of potential. No game in the past few years has proven the relevance of music as a driving force in game design as successfully as Thumper, the so-called rhythm-violence game from developer Drool. Mechanically, Thumper is a simple call and response game with added layers of complexity as you complete subsequent stages. Spiritually, Thumper is a disturbance. It heaves and crashes with unbridled intensity, with tracks that grow faster and time signatures more irregular the deeper you venture into its well of madness. Call it dramatic, but this is the effect Thumper's relentless speed and atmosphere can have on a person--the perfect argument to give it a try. They say music soothes the savage beast, but in Thumper's case, music makes way for the savage beast within us all. Play it on a TV, play it in VR, play it pressed up against your face on Switch; however you can, play Thumper.
Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap
Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap is a game that sets out to bring the retro platforming adventuring series to the present day, while also celebrating its beginnings in the classic era. As a full remake of the original of Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap for the Sega Master System and TurboGrafix-16, it features a brand new artstyle that's lush and vivid, giving off a greater depth in its atmosphere--along with a fully orchestral soundtrack based on the original music. In keeping with its respect for the original, the remake allows you to shift between classic and modern styles of music and graphics on the fly. Feel like playing the original game in HD? You can do that, but if you're feeling crazy, you can mix things up and play with modern graphics along with retro sound and music. It even allows old passwords from the classic game to be used again, just like the old days. Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap is a wonderful send-up to the classic era, while showing that retro titles still hold up incredibly well to this day.
By Jimmy Thang on Aug 14, 2017 06:30 pm
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Review
While AMD's 400- and 500-series Polaris graphics card were great value GPUs, they were aimed at budget-conscious gamers. This meant that Nvidia's high-end 10 series cards have remained unchallenged...until now. With AMD's new Vega GPU architecture, the company is back in the enthusiast mix and asserts that its RX Vega 64 graphics card will be competitive with Nvidia's $550 GeForce GTX 1080 for $50 less. We're going to put that claim to the test in our review. Table of Contents
Design
AMD offers three RX Vega 64 SKUs, which include a liquid-cooled variant and a Limited Edition version with a metallic shroud. We're reviewing the reference model, which is a dual-slot card that measures approximately 10.5 inches long and comes with a traditional black shroud coupled with one 30mm fan. The RX Vega 64 is a power-hungry 295-watt thermal design power (TDP) card. This is unprecedented for any single GPU board we've ever reviewed. It requires a beefy 750-watt PSU with two 8-pin power connectors. That's pretty absurd when you consider that the competing GTX 1080 is a 180-watt TDP GPU. Why should you care about TDP? In addition to racking up your power bill, it means that the card may run hot, loud, and potentially hinder its overclockability. In terms of ports, the RX Vega 64 includes three DisplayPort 1.4 connections and one HDMI output.
Specs
Spec Chart | | AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 | CUDA Cores/Stream Processors | 4096 | 3584 | 2560 | 1920 | Texture Units | 64 | 224 | 160 | 120 | ROPs | 64 | 88 | 64 | 64 | Core Clock | 1274MHz | 1480MHz | 1607MHz | 1506MHz | Boost Clock | 1546MHz | 1582MHz | 1733MHz | 1683MHz | Memory Clock | 945MHz | 11Gbps GDDR5X | 10Gbps GDDR5X | 8Gbps GDDR5 | Memory Bus Width | 2048-bit | 352-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | VRAM | 8GB HBM2 | 11GB | 8GB | 8GB | Transistor Count | 12.5B | 12B | 7.2B | 7.2B | Teraflops | 12.7 | 11.34 | 8.9 | 6.5 | TDP | 295W | 250W | 180W | 150W | Manufacturing Process | 14nm FinFET | 16nm FinFET | 16nm FinFET | 16nm FinFET | Architecture | Vega | Pascal | Pascal | Pascal | GPU | Vega 10 | GP102 | GP104 | GP104 | Launch Date | 8/14/2017 | 3/10/2017 | 5/27/2016 | 6/10/2016 | MSRP | $499 | $699 | $549 | $399 |
Note: Specs like stream processors, CUDA cores, and core clocks, etc. should only be used as a frame of reference against other cards within the same family for an apples-to-apples comparison. The RX Vega 64 partially gets its name from the fact that it has 64 compute units. Like AMD's RX 480 and RX 580 Polaris GPUs before it, Vega graphics cards are based on a 14nm FinFet production process. This contributes to its GPU efficiency. In terms of core and boost clocks, it's clocked at 1274MHz and 1546MHz, respectively. These are some of AMD's highest clock speeds to date, and the company says the card is tuned for high frequencies and should be able to boost higher than those numbers if it gets adequate power and cooling. It uses 8GB of second-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM2) for video RAM. HBM2 is a new type of "3D" VRAM, which means it's memory that's densely stacked vertically. It's clocked at 945MHz, but what makes it really efficient is its really wide 2048-bit memory bus. This allows the card to deliver up to 483.8GB/s of memory bandwidth. That's a lot. For reference, the GTX 1080's GDDDR5X VRAM is capped at 320GB/s. The RX Vega 64 is a 12.7 teraflop card, which trumps Nvidia's equivalent GPU by 3.8 teraflops. As you'll see from our benchmarks below, however, teraflop count doesn't tell the whole story.
Testing Methodology
Since AMD claims that the RX Vega 64 is competitive with Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1080, we're going to make direct comparisons against it. We're also going to add in benchmark numbers for the slightly lower-end GTX 1070 and Nvidia's flagship GeForce GTX 1080 Ti to give more context as to how these cards compare. To ensure benchmarking consistency, we're using the same test rig for all GPUs, which is a system equipped with an Intel Core i7-5930K Haswell-E CPU clocked at 3.9GHz and 16GB of DDR4 RAM clocked at 2133MHz running in quad-channel mode. We're going to test the cards using the same suite of synthetic, VR, and game benchmarks. These tests encompass three resolutions (1080p, 1440p, and 4K). We also ran each benchmark at their respective max settings to really put the cards through their paces.
Synthetic Benchmark
3DMark 11 Extreme
3DMark 11 Extreme is a synthetic 1080p test that provides a score and measures a GPU's DirectX 11 performance. As you can see from the chart above, the RX Vega 64 scored a 8247, which is 13 percent less than the GeForce GTX 1080. Here's a bit of a spoiler warning: The RX Vega 64 doesn't really live up to its full potential at 1080p. It appears that the resolution isn't demanding enough for it to fully flex its specs.
1080p Benchmarks
From left to right: Tomb Raider, BioShock Infinite, Shadow of Mordor, Unigine Valley, Metro Last Light
Image above from left to right: Tomb Raider, BioShock Infinite, Shadow of Mordor, Unigine Valley, Metro Last Light The RX Vega 64 performs a bit strangely in our 1080p tests. It beats the GeForce GTX 1080 in our Shadow of Mordor and Metro Last Light benchmarks by 5.5 and 1.7 percent, respectively, but loses to the lower-tiered GeForce GTX 1070 in BioShock Infinite and Unigine Valley by a respective 10 and 7 percent. The GeForce GTX 1080 beats the RX Vega 64 by 8.2 percent in Tomb Raider, and overall, it seems like the GTX 1080 is better for standard HD gaming. A consolation prize for AMD's card here is that the RX Vega 64 never dipped below 80 average FPS in any of our tests. This indicates that it's generally overkill for 1920x1080 unless you have a really high-refresh rate monitor.
1440p Benchmarks
From left to right: Tomb Raider, BioShock Infinite, Shadow of Mordor, Unigine Valley, Metro Last Light
Image above from left to right: Tomb Raider, BioShock Infinite, Shadow of Mordor, Unigine Valley, Metro Last Light Moving up to 2560x1440, the GeForce GTX 1080 continues to show its overall edge by repeatedly beating AMD's card in Tomb Raider, BioShock Infinite, and Unigine Valley. AMD's card does once again outperform the GeForce GTX 1080 in Shadow of Mordor and Metro Last Light by 1.7 and 10.3 percentages, respectively, however.
4K Benchmarks
From left to right: Tomb Raider, BioShock Infinite, Shadow of Mordor, Metro Last Light
Image above from left to right: Tomb Raider, BioShock Infinite, Shadow of Mordor, Metro Last Light 3840x2160 is where the RX Vega 64 really starts to pull ahead. AMD's GPU beats the GTX 1080 here in all of our 4K tests. Oddly enough, one of the biggest leads comes by way of BioShock Infinite. The GTX 1080 lost out by 22.5 percent here, which is surprising given that Nvidia's card overwhelmingly beat the RX Vega 64 in this benchmark at 1080p and 1440p. At 4K, video RAM can really bottleneck a GPU since it has to push out so many high-resolution assets. One of the likely reasons that the RX Vega 64 comes into its own here is that it can quickly do so with its very high memory bandwidth. While the RX Vega 64 is faster than the GTX 1080 by 24.3 percent in the graphically demanding Metro Last Light benchmark, its 24 average FPS suggests that the RX Vega 64 is certainly no GTX 1080 Ti and will still struggle to smoothly run the most taxing games at 2160p.
VR Test
The RX Vega 64 was able to get an 11 score in Valve's SteamVR Performance Test. This is considered "very high" and is the same grade that the GTX 1080 received. For more granular information, the benchmark also tells you how many frames your system was able to produce rendering Valve's virtual reality scene. AMD's card was able to generate 12,442 frames here. This is 11 percent lower than the GTX 1080 and indicates that Nvidia's equivalent GPU is better for VR.
Overclocking, Acoustics, and Temperatures
AMD has a history of struggling with thermals. Considering our air-cooled RX Vega 64 carries a crazy-high 295-watt TDP, we expected the GPU to run louder and hotter than it does. It's not quite whisper-quiet with its fan hitting around 2,400RPM when we gamed with it, but it never became a distraction and certainly never got obnoxious. In terms of temperatures, we saw it hit a high of 81C. While this is pretty hot, it stayed in the high 70s for the most part, which is warm, but acceptable. We tried manually overclocking the card to see how far we could push it, but unfortunately the pre-release drivers that AMD provided prevented us from doing so. We were able to perform a simple overclock by cranking the power preset from "balanced" to "turbo" using AMD's Wattman software, however. Here its core clock hit a high of 1630MHz. This is 84MHz faster than AMD's advertised boost speed.
Conclusion
Some people were hoping that AMD's leading Vega GPU would outperform the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. Those people may be disappointed with the RX Vega 64, as Nvidia's leading $700 graphics card still remains in a league of its own, but it does largely live up to AMD's claim that it's competitive with the $550 GeForce GTX 1080. As a matter of fact, it runs slightly better at 4K given our results. It won't be able to max out every single 4K game, though. The most graphically demanding games will give it a tough time. AMD says that it's an ideal card to max out ultra-wide 3440x1440p monitors, and we'd agree and say that's where its sweet spot is. While the RX Vega 64 is a really good card, it's a bit hard to get super excited since it's coming out more than 14 months after the GTX 1080 and doesn't completely trounce it. It also consumes a bewildering amount of power and runs a bit warm. Still, this doesn't prevent the card from being arguably faster than the GTX 1080 for $50 less. The ball is now in Nvidia's court to respond with either a price drop or a sooner reveal of its upcoming Volta GPUs, because AMD is back with a compelling choice for enthusiast gamers.
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