This Week At Bungie –3/29/2018

This week at Bungie, we deployed Update 1.1.4.

If you haven’t heard, Destiny 2 just got a pretty substantial update. There are changes to your abilities, your weapons, gameplay in the Crucible, rewards in the Nightfall, and more. To give us a taste of the human element behind game development, Design Lead Josh Hamrick sat down in front of a camera to represent the team that worked on this new update.

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Want to see these changes in action? We also put out a video showing off the hero moments you can expect in the new state of Destiny 2.

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If those videos have you asking questions, all the juicy details can be found in our full 1.1.4 Patch Notes. We’ve already got a lot of feedback about this update and will continue to monitor the conversation. We know this hasn’t addressed all of the concerns brought up by the community. There are other hot topics we haven’t discussed, like Random Rolls, Weapon Slots, and Progression Systems. Our team has been exploring each of these concerns behind the scenes. You’ll see them front and center discussing their solutions in due time. This game update was another step in the direction of our mission to improve Destiny 2.

Drang-o Unchained

With 1.1.4 out the door, we now turn our attention to 1.2.0.

If you have been paying attention to our Development Roadmap, you may have noticed that Exotic Weapon changes will be a part of the next evolution of Destiny 2. We felt like now was a good opportunity for a little show and tell. First off, Senior Designer Jon Weisnewski is here to tell you a little about the changes we have for two of the less celebrated Exotic Weapons in the arsenal. 

Jon: Hello everyone. I’m dropping by for another tease of the Exotic Weapon tuning work being done for 1.2.0. Today we’re going to talk about Sturm & Drang.
For those who don’t know the core loop of Sturm and Drang, kills with one weapon reload the other while it’s stowed. Consecutive kills with Drang will overload rounds into Sturm, capping out at a 20 round mag for a Hand Cannon. Currently, the gameplay is focused on fast swapping, and while fun, this lacks that exotic flare we’re hoping to add. Sturm is also a bit unwieldy to use, so we’re addressing that, too.

As standalone weapons, both Sturm and Drang have had their base stats improved for ease of gameplay. Drang now has Rampage and a maxed out magazine to help rack up sidearm kills quickly. The true payoff comes in the overloaded Sturm magazine: overflow rounds in Sturm now have a damage boost of 1.8x. This allows for a significant damage increase in PVE and crispy precision 2-taps in PVP (just don’t miss).

Now that we’ve told you how these guns are changing let’s show you how they’re behaving with the current changes applied.

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We’ll talk more about the changes to Exotic weapons in the weeks to come. All of these upgrades to weapon performance will land in the inventory of players when Season 3 begins. We’ll have a lot more to talk about before then.

Companion Update

As the game changes, so does its Companion. The Bungie.net team is working on some upgrades to both the website and mobile apps. These changes will deploy next week. 

Bungie.net Team: The companion has a new update coming on 4/4, and we’re excited to share some of the details with you.  The team is working on bringing back one of our more frequently requested features from the original Destiny companion — viewing your full 3D guardian in all their glory and sharing their awesomeness with your friends. Here is what you can expect when this releases:

• View the individual models for all your weapons, ships, sparrows, ghosts, etc., now available on Android as well as iOS
• Render your guardian and gear with all shader and ornament combinations you’ve chosen
• We’ve also provided a means to disable the rendering, should you choose, if the impact on your device is too much

Additionally (coming soon!) the team has been working on the evolution of our existing recruitment feature and will be releasing a beta for the revised experience on iOS and web. Here is an overview of what you can expect with this update:

• Create fireteams in your clan and keep them private to your clan or open them to the public
• As the fireteam creator, you can issue Sony and Xbox platform invites directly from within the app
• Schedule and set a native mobile calendar reminder for your fireteams for the future or set them to start immediately

We expect that this version will replace the existing Find Fireteam feature in the near future, but both will be available when the beta releases.  We’re anxious to have you all try the revised version, then head over to the feedback forums and let us know what you think!  While the beta is missing a few important things (an Android version, chat, and locale support), we will be adding to this beta over time, and your feedback is key to making sure is the best it can be.

And last, but certainly not least, the team has made some quality of life improvements to the website and mobile applications:

• We’ve updated the homepage layout and navigation to better share some of the most relevant articles and information at a glance 
• Our Vendors details on iOS and Android now show all available destination and tower vendors, with their available inventories in addition to all their possible rewards
• Updated the iOS mobile navigation to include your account information which hosts your profile, communications, and app settings information

Long Live the King

New Monarchy cannot be stopped. They claimed their fourth Faction Rallies victory in a row this week. We’re starting to wonder if anyone can challenge the dominance of their growing dynasty. Here are the results of the final Faction Rallies of Season 2:

The other two factions will have some time to regroup and plot their comebacks. Faction Rallies is taking some time off while we work on some improvements to the event. Keep an eye on our Development Roadmap for more info on when you can pledge to your favorite faction again. 

Most Dangerous Game

With a new state of combat live in the Crucible, you’re invited to hunt us down and beat us at our own game. Next week, we are putting a target on our back. We’ve decided to fire up the stream machine and conduct a Bungie Bounty on PC. Here are the full details:

4/4/18 10 AM – 12 PM Pacific

Platform: PC

Playlist: Mayhem

That’s right, we are going to let the Supers fly and chaos reign as Mayhem will be the gametype. Here is the fireteam of brave Bungie volunteers you will be hunting for.

TTLCozmo

Dmg04

Teribble

Liqvid

If you are able to match against us and win the game, you will be rewarded with this special emblem. 

Between matches, DeeJ will be talking to Design Lead Josh Hamrick and Senior Designer Kevin Yanes on the present and future states of the Sandbox and Crucible. Come and hang out in chat, make fun of our performance in the arena, try to stream snipe us from your command posts, or ask some questions of the creators on the couch.

Alpha Dogs

With the introduction of scoring in Nightfall strikes in Update 1.1.3 we decided to start showing off the highest scores each week. Right now it’s more a contest of who can most efficiently clear Lost Sectors during a Strike, but we are working on some changes to that. As it stands, here are the top scores for last week.

Even with the current methods available to run up the scores, most of the community is putting up scores within our expected thresholds, well below the outliers at the top. Only the top 1% are breaking 100K each week. We will continue to track these scores and evaluate if we should change up the thresholds for earning the emblems.  

This is Bat Country

The members of Destiny Player Support are the watchful protectors always working diligently behind the scenes. They are making sure you have the info you need to have the best Destiny 2 experience.

This is their report.

BAT Errors

At the release of Destiny Update 1.1.4, we began to receive reports that players were encountering BAT errors after completing matches. When encountering these errors, players would be returned to orbit and have to manually enter Strike or Crucible matchmaking to continue playing.

We have identified that this was caused by the Strike and Crucible Repeat Repetition feature introduced with 1.1.4, and have since disabled the feature. While players should no longer expect to encounter BAT errors, they will now encounter repeat Strike activities or Crucible maps when playing these activities.

We are currently investigating the issue to see if we can address the root cause of these errors, and potentially re-enable the repeat reduction features. 

Issue Progress: Tower Black Screen

Since launch, we have been investigating an issue where players could encounter an indefinite black screen when attempting to load into the tower. This week, we have discovered the root cause, and are aiming to address the issue in Destiny Update 1.2.0. Until resolved, players may have to enter alternate activities from the Director and attempt to re-launch the tower if they encounter a black screen error.

Cream of the Crop

You got some movies for us? Send them to the Creations page. Every week we pick a few to share here, and we send them creators an Emblem to show off to the community. This week is no exception. Here is the cream of the crop. 

Movie of the Week: 2 Man Calus 1 Phase

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Honorable Mention: Street Fighting Man

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This isn’t even our final form. We have more changes coming to Destiny 2. This was another step. The next one is coming in May. Keep an eye on our Roadmap and we will keep you up to date with what to expect. It’s about time for us to plot more future waypoints over a more distant horizon.

You have a lot of changes to experiment with. We are already hearing some cool stories from the battlefield about weapons and abilities performing well. Just be careful out there with your new powers. Go fast responsibly. 

It took longer than expected, but Nike Air Penny fans will air jordan nike finally receive a Royal Blue colorway of the Nike Zoom Rookie! Remember, the initially buzz-growing colorway was the infamous Glow In The Dark edition, which was followed by the in-line Binary Blue , but since those two served as the debut, we haven t seen anything Royal in terms of Zoom Rookie colorways since. Penny s 1-of-1 Memphis Blues was the lone exception, but thankfully that 1-of-1 designation slowly unraveled into a wide releases, going down this  weekend. 

It s true that greatness tends to shadow those who have already made their profound marks in society on any scale; whether it be in a prominent industry or in your local community, greatness is an instant process that begins with one step forward. Over the last few years, Nike Basketball has risen far above being the undisputed champion of performance footwear into the driving force of the sneaker game; signature models like the LeBron, Kobe, and Zoom KD and in-line models like the Hyperdunk have air max nike absolutely dominated the scene largely in part due to the neck-breakers and energetic releases and Player Exclusives. One individual responsible for this renaissance is former Nike employee Kyle Yamaguchi, who brings his sublime touch of design and detail to his latest endeavor LOOK/SEE. 

The Nike Air Max Tempo is the latest to be run through Nike Sportswear s rejuvenation all black nike shoes project, as the mid-90 s classic made popular by the likes of Chris Webber gets considerably lighter with a Hyperfuse-laden upper shell. In addition to the Fuse injection is the streamlined basketball-specific full-length Max Unit and apparent seamless upper a la the revamped Air Max2 CB 94 simply dubbed the Air Max Barkley. This Spring 2013, six colorways of the rebuilt classic will become available, so keep an eye out on Sneaker News for any updates regarding the new model. 

Coming up as part of Nike SB s spring 2013 lineup is a new lowtop dunk whose color scheme has some comparing them to the way we ll soon see Eric Koston appropriate the iconic Infrared Air Max 90 look.  Their basketball shoes nike connections remain to be seen, so you could just as easily argue that we re simply looking at a timeless athletic palette, and one whose new nickname further reflects that sense of timeless refinement.  The Nike SB Dunk Low Earl Grey  utilizes the same nubby ripstop nylon material we just saw on a black/purple pair also slated for SP13, but this pair relegates that unique material to the ankle collar and tongue.  Have a closer look after the jump and stick with Sneaker News for more details including word on the Q1 release. 

Once Nike officially added Kobe Bryant to its roster of signature athletes in 2003, you d think a Kobe shoe would be produced immediately. In truth, it took Nike a while to put Kobe Bryant out there with his first official signature shoe in light of the scandal that surfaced in the Summer of 2003, but the Swoosh stuck by it s superstar s side and finally unveiled the Air Zoom Kobe 1 in February of 2006. While Kobe did rock the Huarache 2k4 and 2k5 with his bold new Shozoku logo, the Air Zoom Kobe 1 is the first official signature shoe for the Mamba and based on the quick sales of the inline Black/Yellow colorway, it was clear that the debut was long-awaited. 

After lacing up for a fresh re-stock in 2010, the Nike Air Max 90 Infrared makes yet another return to stateside retailers rebuilt in Nike s latest Hyperfuse technology. That s right: the Nike Air Max 90 Hyperfuse Infrared black nike air max has been confirmed for a release in the States, so much like the OG Blue Air Max 1 Hyperfuse that hit stores suddenly a few weekends ago, these are likely to disappear quickly as well. August 25th is the date to circle on your calendar, and $120 is the amount you need to set aside, so don t miss out on the return of one of the most revered Air Max OGs in history when the Infrared 90 Hyperfuse becomes available toward the end of the month. Need them ahead of time? Get em now from lloyd112345 on eBay.

ÿþNike Skateboarding can t get one of its nike huarache nm signature athletes onto the London podiums because (wait, remind us why skateboarding isn t an Olympic sport?), but they ve managed to contribute the Lunar Blazer to roughly a third of Team USA athletes for their medal ceremonies.  This new Nike Blazer Mid LR would make a solid alternate with its Dark Obsidian suede upper and Dark Gold Leaf accents, its perfect timing furthered by the Michigan Wolverines rapidly approaching kickoff.  Have a closer look at this autumn-leaning Blazer LR after the jump and stick with Sneaker News for updates on its August 2012 release. 

The next installment of the Nike Zoom Hyperfuse series begins now, as the five nation-specific colorways of the 2012 re-design hits Nike Basketball retailers after a much-anticipated wait. Featuring the seamless and stitchless one-piece Hyperfuse upper, the Zoom Hyperfuse 2012 re-captures the excitement brought on by the debut of the basketball sneaker and game-changing material in 2010 by releasing in these five outstanding colorways. Whether you re repping your country or just like the colorways, cop a pair of the nike huarache run Zoom Hyperfuse 2012 right now at Nikestore and other Nike Basketball retailers. 

Air Max is the embodiment of Nike s leading standard of Innovation and Technology, so for the final Classics Revisited segment of the week, we ll focus on one of Nike s game-changing breakthroughs of Air Max history Tuned Air. While Tuned Air first debuted a year prior in nike huarache women the Nike Air Max Plus (also referred to as the Nike Air Max TN), the Air Tuned Max (hope you re following us) featured the first full-length system of Tuned Air. To quickly summarize what Tuned Air is: this breakthrough in Air technology combined Nike Air with Tuned mechanical elements for high performance impact protection. The Pebax-built Tuned hemispheres provided low pressure cushioning at the heel, providing a natural foot-landing while providing the stability of the Air Max. In other words, it made an already-perfect cushioning system even better, and the Air Tuned Max provided the system on a much larger scale than the Air Max Plus did. Although Tuned Air itself isn t used anymore. 

One particular Saturday in February was nike lebron considered as the biggest sneaker release day in history. However, tomorrow, August 4th, will give that February 11th date a run for its money as a wide variety of sneakers are poised for a release, starting with the Air Jordan J2K Pack; the J2K set includes the Air Jordan 1 and two colorways of the Air Jordan VII, built with a triangular patchwork upper similar to Nike s Trash Talk Considered series. The entire Air Jordan J2K set of releases will see limited distribution and is sure to sell out instantly, so make sure you ve got your RSVPs and wristbands ready for this big-time release, or cop what limited selection is available on eBay. 

We get that the Galaxy colorway of this Foamposite hybrid might be on your mind more at the moment, but don t let that eclipse the fact that yet another Nike Zoom Rookie will be up for grabs in just a few short hours. That pair is the Memphis Blues pictured here, one that s been pretty slow to arrive with the photos first surfacing what seems like eons ago. Are you ready to pick up a pair? Hit the jump with us to get the shots of the full on blue look and if you don t feel like waiting till tomorrow, August 4th 

Nike Basketball s 20 Years retrospective clued us in on the Nike co-founder s impact during Eric Avar s design for the Air Hyperflight, and now here s another way of examining What would Bill Bowerman do?  The Nike Air Trainer 1 BB51 nike running shoes pack brings together two of Tinker Hatfield s game-changing cross-trainers with premium leathers in elegant colors to celebrate a man without whom you wouldn t be reading these words.   BB51 on the heels connects back to Bowerman s Oregon roots with a reference to his classic UO Ducks football uniform number while the outrigger area s diagonal striping evokes images of the Vintage Box and all its past glories.  An impressive ode to one of this industry s giants, the BB51 Air Trainer 1s are going on sale at Tier Zero retailers in Asia like Kasina on Saturday.

Au début des années 2000, les baskets de nike air footscape basket-ball, en tant que tout collectif, cherchaient désespérément un nouveau visage pour rajeunir l'horizon des chaussures de marque. Michael Jordan a pris sa retraite définitivement en 2003 et les signatures Shox répétitives et décevantes du label Vince Carter n'ont pas duré au-delà d'un cinquième modèle; En d'autres termes, il n'y avait pas de baskets Nike Basketball résistantes disponibles portant le nom d'un joueur, et bien que Nike était prête à reconstruire un super-héros dans le plan Jordan, il n'y avait pas de joueur digne d'immortalité sneaker. Les meilleurs joueurs de la ligue de la ligue (traditionnellement les meilleurs espadrilles) comme Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson, Tracy McGrady, Steve Francis, etc ont tous été attrapés par des marques rivales, donc Nike est allé all-in dans le concours LeBron James quand il a signé le talent de lycéen encore une fois-dans-une-génération non prouvée à un contrat sans précédent de 87 millions de dollars. 

Lorsque vous observez l'art visuel des gymnastes olympiques, des plongeurs et des nageurs synchronisés, il est difficile de ne pas se fâcher que la planche à roulettes n'ait pas encore rejoint le calendrier des Jeux d'été. Le snowboard fonctionne pour l'Olympiade d'hiver, alors pourquoi un gars comme Eric Koston pourrait-il être jugé comme Shawn White (ou nike air force 1 flyknit low Shawn Johnson, d'ailleurs)? Jusqu'à ce que le CIO se rassemble, la prochaine nouveauté est cette nouvelle Nike Eric Koston One en Anthracite avec des accents Buff Gold, un quasi-black-out impressionnant dont la profondeur subtile en fait un incontournable chez des détaillants comme Flatspot. 

L'annonce de Nike à la fin du mois de mai de se départir des marques Umbro et Cole Haan était relativement surprenante étant donné que la gamme LunarGrand venait nike air force 1 homme juste d'être lancée (et a plus de versions en cours), mais le Swoosh n'est pas B entreprise sans faire des affaires dans le bon sens. En effet, il semble que Nike Golf ait déjà calculé la perte et proposé un remplacement approprié pour le design haut de gamme de LunarLon, et celui-ci pourrait être encore plus polyvalent. La Nike Lunar Swingtip est une chaussure de golf sans crics inspirée par les filiales de sports d'action de Beaverton chez Hurley, un design dont l'apparence intelligente et les cosses de traction fonctionnelles devraient favoriser le mélange entre le skate / streetwear et les vêtements masculins traditionnels haut de gamme. Trois colorways de daim simples sont représentés plus en détail ci-dessous, alors laissez-nous savoir ce qui semble le mieux et s'en tenir à Sneaker News pour le mot sur la sortie américaine. 

Dans quelle mesure nike air force 1 suede Innovation Kitchen de Nike est-elle disposée à repousser les limites? Que diriez-vous d'un communiqué de détail pour deux bottes militaires renforcées de Kevlar qui ont été Frankenstein avec l'une des plates-formes de rembourrage de mousse spatiale les plus avancées du monde de la course! La Nike LunaRacer SFB vient d'arriver chez certains détaillants dans les coloris British Khaki et Dark Army avec des semelles Nike + équipées de LunarLon. Le résultat est une conception extrêmement confortable et révolutionnaire qui peut rivaliser avec les efforts les plus extravagants de Jeremy Scott, et vous les trouverez dans des photos supplémentaires ci-dessous avant de choisir une paire chez des revendeurs Nike Sportswear comme Social Status. 

À la fin de juin, Nike a dévoilé des capsules collaboratives avec la marque de jeans américaine Levi's, mettant l'accent sur une sélection de chaussures et d'habillements spécifiques aux skate qui mettaient en vedette la fusion de deux icônes rebelles de la culture américaine. Peu après le dévoilement, nous avons aperçu une version Hyperstrike du SB Dunk Low, un coloris denim Dark Obsidian avec une semelle intercalaire blanche / rouge et des coutures contrastantes dorées sur le Swoosh. Rapidement, l'excitation entourant les Denim SB Dunks a monté, car ils ont tiré sur le trésor culte massif de Denim SB Dunk original de Reese Forbes de 2002, et comme nous obtenons un regard détaillé sur cette libération limitée attendue, nous ne pouvons qu'espérer que ce sera un Un peu plus facile à atteindre Le détaillant asiatique arktz rapporte une baisse ce samedi. Nous avons quelques meilleurs angles de cette chaussure ci-dessous, alors jetez un coup d'oeil et nous vous tiendrons au courant de quand et où cela sortira. 

L'équipe des États-Unis était au moins 113% meilleure que l'équipe nationale de basket-ball nigériane jeudi, et a quitté l'aréna de Marshmallow à Londres avec une poignée de records olympiques. Le résultat n'a jamais été remis en question, et même si USA Basketball utilise chaque match comme une chance nike air huarache run ultra de peaufiner son collectif, il est presque certain qu'il sera en lice pour la médaille d'or le 12 août. Le samedi 11 août, la médaille d'or de la Nike Lunar Hyperdunk, variante du Sport Pack et du LeBron James PEs, est également attendue pour ce week-end, grâce à un Swoosh métallique à la pointe du progrès. Regardez-les plus en détail après le saut, laissez-nous savoir où les classements de redémarrage de Hyperdunk cette année par rapport aux 20 dernières années d'innovations Nike Basketball nous avons suivi ici sur Sneaker News et revenez avec nous pour la date de sortie américaine.

Owlboy



Owlboy is a vertical platform adventure set in the sky, where the islands of the world have been spread apart after a great calamity. You play as Otus, among the last of the Owls, a renowned race that has produced many of the world's great wonders

Publisher: Soedesco

Release Date: Apr 10, 2018

Frostpunk



In a completely frozen world, people develop steam-powered technology to oppose the overwhelming cold. Society in its current form becomes ineffective and it has to change in order to survive.

Publisher: 11 bit studios

Release Date: Apr 24, 2018

Capcom scrapping Puzzle Fighter to focus on Dead Rising

Daily Deal – War for the Overworld, 75% Off

Starbound’s Story Within a Sandbox is Coming Soon to Xbox One

For those of you unfamiliar with Starbound, it’s an open-ended sandbox game with a strong focus on building and crafting, like Minecraft and Terraria. It presents a whole universe of procedurally generated worlds that you can travel between at your leisure. A strong design principle of Starbound during its development was “a story in a sandbox,” which presented the team with some interesting design challenges to overcome!

We had several goals that we wanted to reach so that Starbound would live up to its aim of presenting a typical video-game storyline with progression, without the player being forced on to a linear path. With a game like Starbound, players would want to feel like they are free to accomplish any tasks they want, but we also wanted to make sure that they wouldn’t miss the storyline!

We decided that the game’s storyline would be separated from the “sandbox” locations of procedurally generated worlds. There would be set hand-crafted missions with a boss to defeat at the end, and players wouldn’t be able to dig their way through these locations like they could on the sandbox worlds. However, they would be able to use all their equipment and weapons that they had accumulated in their travels, so that these missions wouldn’t feel too disconnected. These missions would all be optional except for the first one – that way, a new player would not unintentionally miss the storyline entirely but wouldn’t be forced to carry on with it if they didn’t want to.

Finally, we had to figure out how to encourage the player to explore between the story missions, so that they wouldn’t be given the opportunity to complete them all straight away and to also encourage players to explore through the game’s higher difficulty sandbox worlds. We decided on a system where players would have to “scan” objects and talk to NPCs on new worlds to build intel, which would lead them to unlock the next mission. This meant that players would have to travel to new worlds and find new civilizations to progress, meaning they would also encounter new content, items, and enemies on the way! We found that with this method, players who were only interested in the story content could play through the game quite efficiently, but also players who would prefer to take their time and explore the universe at their own pace would also find a lot of motivation to do so.

Starbound took us many years to complete and is a labor of love – it also presented us with a lot of fun design challenges to solve! Whether you’re an old fan or a newcomer, we hope that you will enjoy it on Xbox One when it releases later this year!

Review: Arcade Archives Punch-Out!! (Switch eShop)

Fisticuffs were always a perfect subject for video games. However how to properly deliver the experience was a technical challenge due to limited technology the 80’s, with previous efforts opting for a side or top view of the in-ring action. Nintendo tackled this issue in Punch-Out!! by allowing players to control their pugilist from a third-person perspective with a cleverly designed wireframe torso enabling a better view of your opponent across the screen.

The controls are clean and simple to pick up: ‘A’ delivers a right-hand hook while ‘Y’ does the same for your left hand. Holding ‘down’ while pressing either button will deliver a body blow instead of going for the face. Pressing ‘up’ will raise your guard to protect your face and you can weave left and right by pressing either direction. Hit your adversary enough times while not getting hit yourself and you’ll fill up the bar on top of the ring screen – you’ll then be able to unlock the ‘X’ button, delivering devastating uppercuts that are the fastest way to bring your opponent to the mat. While some of weaker opponents might stay down after the first knock down, to win most of the times you will need to make them fall three times. Of course, your adversaries can take you out the same way. You will feel right at home if you ever played any other game of the series.

Even in this first entry in the franchise, it is actually your unique and ‘bigger than life’ opponents that steal the spotlight. On your way to becoming ‘World Video Boxing Champion’ you will face Glass Joe, Piston Hurricane, Bald Bull, Kid Quick, Pizza Pasta and the current champion Mr. Sandman. Each is a sort of ‘puzzle’ you need to ‘solve’ by paying attention to their moves and their ‘tells’ (during the initial loop, the eyes flash yellow when they are about to attack) and acting to block or counter the best way you deem fit. 

If you are familiar with some of those names, know that the strategies you picked up from other games will work here. You can still take down Glass Joe blindfolded and with one hand only while a perfectly timed gut punch at the charging Bald Bull will send him down to an immediate knock down. It might be a shorter roster than future entries, but the same trademark satisfying learning experience is still present.

Graphics were state of the art by 1983 standards with big, detailed sprites bringing your opponents to life and there was even space left to hide Donkey Kong inside the audience. The music is mostly made up of earworm-friendly jingles composed by newcomer Koji Kondo, already taking the first steps to become one of the world’s biggest renowned video game composers of today. Most impressive of all is the constant speech. Every match is narrated by a synthesised narrator whose colour commentary successfully manages to elevate the on-screen action to new heights and remains an impressive feat.

The original arcade used a unique layout that stacked two monitors on top of each other. The top one shows character portraits, round and time information along with the player’s score while the proper boxing action happens on the bottom one. HAMSTER solved this layout issued by simply putting the monitors side-by-side if you are playing in regular 16:9 landscape mode. It might take a little time to adjust to just having to keep up with one half the screen, but it is the only solution to properly emulate this one without resorting to having two very tiny screens on top of each other. You can, however, chose to play this in TATE mode, rotating either your Switch in portable mode or your TV/monitor to an upright position in order to get as close as possible to the real 1984 experience.

Like other HAMSTER releases the emulation wrapper gives you the chance to customize your experience, providing access to DIP switch settings and optional screen filters. When you are done playing by your lonesome you can test your video boxing skills against the world with the ever popular ‘Caravan mode’ and challenge the online leaderboards.

Conclusion

Punch-Out!! is not only a nostalgic slice of Nintendo’s arcade history, it just so happens to be one of the most enjoyable boxing games ever made, laying down the entire foundation not only for the whole series but for several other games adopting the ‘behind the boxer’ viewpoint. Over three decades later, it is still a joy to pick up and play, still proving to be extremely rewarding when you finally figure out your opponent’s ‘tell’ and proceed to take them to the floor. Until Pato Box steps in the ring, there is no other boxing alternative on the system and despite being content wise lacking when set side-by-side with later entries in the series, the core gameplay loop still delivers the goods. Short, sweet and straight to the point, just like Mr. Sandman’s right uppercut.