Nuclear Monster

  • Microsoft’s Forza Horizon 5 from 2021 is the latest Microsoft game to become cross platform in the war on exclusivity caused by rising development costs and an overwhelming desire for profit. The driving game’s PlayStation 5 port doesn’t have a firm release date yet beyond “Spring 2025”, but it has already been on Windows and Steam for years.

    Forza Horizon 4 was just delisted from online stores last year, due to the same licensing deals for the cars and music that have taken out every other Forza game. I am very curious how long FH5 will be available on any platform given the licensing takedowns that often coincide with a new Forza game being released later in the same year.

    Maybe this means that Forza Horizon 5 won’t get a sequel any time soon, which would be unfortunate since this is in my opinion the best big arcadey driving game series out there unless the Burnout behemoth awakens. At least indies like Walaber have our back with the delightfully retro Parking Garage Rally Circuit.

    Microsoft already announced that Pentiment, Hi-Fi Rush, Grounded, and Sea of Thieves were coming to PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch almost a year ago. Their other recent games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle are also due to come to the PS5. The time of Xbox exclusive games seems to be dead for this console generation at least.

    You can get Forza Horizon 5 right now on Windows through Steam, or the Xbox store which gets you the game on Xbox consoles and Windows on discount for $30 USD. Here’s the link for the PlayStation 5 version to wishlist it, no price has been announced yet.

  • The video showcases a larger Nintendo Switch 2, with Joy-Cons that attach via a new system and we all have to hope that Nintendo has finally started using Hall-Effect analog sticks. Nintendo says that there will be a Nintendo Direct video on the 2nd of April with more details about the new console which is to come out this year.

    Nintendo has a website for the Switch 2 that also advertises a chance for people in the United States to check out the Switch 2 in-person through a lottery system at physical locations. The lottery starts up soon and runs through the 26th of January.

    The trailer also reminds us that the Nintendo Switch 2 will be backwards compatible with Nintendo Switch games on cartridges and digital downloads through the eShop, but warns that “Certain Nintendo Switch games may not be supported on or fully compatible with Nintendo Switch 2.”
    Nintendo says that they’ll have more information about game compatibility later on. The only game shown during the trailer looks like more Mario Kart, but Nintendo hasn’t given us any details on it.

    There have been a lot of leaks about the Nintendo Switch 2 recently, so it’s good to see the system finally get announced. The number 2 is so prominent on the design that you might think that Nintendo is trying to cause less confusion about compatibility than they supposedly had with the Nintendo Wii and Wii-U.

    The Joy-Cons in the trailer also seem to slide around in what some people are speculating is a computer mouse-like mode, but it isn’t at all clear if that is what is happening. Could be good for more Mario Maker, something like a modern Mario Paint, or maybe even a more complex Pikmin game?.

    April isn’t far away. Until then we have no price or more specific release date.

  • Every year thousands of people across Europe watch a short British comedy on New Year’s Eve called Dinner for One or Der 90. Geburtstag (The 90th Birthday).

    The show consists of a simple dinner party, with four guests, Miss Sophie as the host, and her faithful Butler James. Unfortunately Miss Sophie is 90 years old and all of her guests have passed away years ago, but it isn’t so morbid. James does a brilliant job filling in.

    You can watch it here for free via Norddeutcher Rundfunk. Only the first few minutes are in German. Highly recommended.

  • This is Print by teadrinker based on the lovely sound of printers found on freesound.org.

    If you’re not familiar with this kind of video, it’s from the demo scene. Demo groups and people who make art and music with computers that started decades ago on computers that weren’t capable of much but the developers behind these demos would always push the computers to their limits.

  • It can be disappointing to find out that many of the people we respect or appreciate turn out to be less than we had hoped. While I was pretty disappointed at first to find that we could add Feynman to this list, the benefit to finding out is that we can use it as an opportunity to hear new perspectives and here’s Dr. Angela Collier’s thoughtful take on Richard Feynman’s legacy.

    I was given those Feynman books as a kid, and as one whose idea of reading started and ended with the fictional stories of Doctor Who, the Feynman books were so curious and almost as wild as traveling through time. But it’s been so long since I read them, I’m thankful that Dr. Collier has thoroughly investigated these books and what we can find out about Feynman now.