Review by Ben Pierson. Today was a good day. Today was the day I brought a new gaming console. Today, I brought a Nintendo Switch.
A little late to the game, I know. The Switch came out in March 2017, well over a year ago and has had several critically acclaimed titles released such as the visually stunning Breath of The Wild. I can’t deny that I’ve been tempted by the prospect of owning one for a while but it was after watching the Nintendostage at 2018’s E3 that showed the upcoming titles: Let’s Go Pikachu, Let’s Go Eevee, Super Smash Brothers Ultimate and with rumours of a brand new Pokémon game in the works, I finally pulled my finger out.
I was immediately surprised with how small the console itself was, seeming less than half the size of my Playstation 4. The Joycons have a plastic controller that they can sit in if you want to use them as a traditional style controller but I found the real fun was when you put that bit aside. The Joycons can not only be used as a traditional controller without the restriction of their holster, something I felt much more comfortable doing, but if you want to play with a friend, you simply turn the Joycons on their side and BOOM, two controllers. Each bringing to mind the old NES and SNES controls but with a joystick in place of a D-Pad, they also perfectly keep their motion sensors active for use in games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. The shoulder buttons when using the ‘Cons like this take a tiny bit of getting used to but you’ll soon be drifting round corners, grabbing coins and swearing mercilessly at whoever launched that Blue Shell your way.
The fact that each Joycon can be used as an independent controller really comes in useful considering the fact that you can also attach the Joycons to the console itself and take it down the pub.
I know, right?
This feature is obviously well known by now but I still think that it’s really undervalued. You can take your high def console anywhere you like in your bag and at a moments notice, whip it out, pop it up using it’s little kickstand and you’re away playing multiplayer. Even if you’re feeling anti-social or just don’t have any friends, leave the Joycons attached and you can use your Switch as a handheld. While, as I said the console itself is relatively small, it’s almost all screen so you don’t have to be huddled with your nose pressed against it when playing it out and about. That would probably interfere with the touchscreen if that were the case.
Did I not mention that it’s touchscreen? No? Well it is. Do I know why it’s touchscreen? No, I don’t. And I don’t care in the slightest, it’s awesome.
All in all, I love my Switch. It doesn’t do Netflix. It doesn’t have access to iPlayer or All4or any way to get onto nudey sites but that’s why I love it. It’s a Games Console and I think it does that brilliantly.