May 8 - 14 | Gamers With Jobs

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IMAGE(https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/files/pictures/pictures/picture-13445.jpg) Felix “Tears for Fears” Threepaper

Welcome folks, and happy “137th Anniversary of the sale of the first bottle of Coca-Cola” week!

Yes, Coke first went on sale on May 8, 1886 (a lot of firsts happened in 1886—gilded age ftw!). And yes, it had cocaine in it, along with caffeine from kola nuts. Its inventor was a pharmacist named John Pemberton, who had been wounded in the Civil War and became addicted to morphine. He envisaged Coca-Cola as an over-the-counter medicine that could help him and others manage their addiction to the harder stuff. The cocaine was taken out in 1903, by which time Pemberton had died and there had been all sorts of skulduggery among his son and other businessmen to claim sole rights over the increasingly-popular drink. You may all celebrate by playing a game where the merchants all fight each other.

It’s the Switch’s week to shine as there’s only one game worth talking about: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

The previews and hands-ons have focused mainly on the open-world, sandbox aspects of Tears. The map is largely based on Breath of the Wild, but they’ve added lots of islands in the sky, and an underground world.

The big-ticket new features involve building: firstly, there will be a variety of mechanical components to find that make vehicles that fly, float, drive, explode, or any combination of these. The game models real physics, so expect some Kerbal-style trial and error as you work out your thrust angles and weight balances. Then there’s the item fusing, where you can add crafting ingredients to your weapons or shield for bonus effects. Put an eyeball on an arrow to make a homing arrow, for example.

These new features warrant 30-minute explainers all on their own, and they look essential to the experience. Unlike, say, Fallout 4, where you could choose to ignore all the building malarkey, in Tears it seems compulsory: weapons that aren’t fused will degrade faster and do way less damage, and many areas and their puzzles require you to build things to get to, and solve, them. Sorry hoarders, Tears wants you to use up all those crafting items, rather than save them for a rainy day that never comes.

Although they’ve been kept under wraps for preview purposes, there will also be your more traditional Zelda dungeons, each with a theme that will dictate the powers and tools you use to progress, as well as shrines.

The new features excite me, because the overall effect is to make Tears into an immersive sim. You want to get to the top of that tower filled with Bokoblins? You could start at the bottom and fight your way up, using all sorts of improvised weapons and powers to chaotic effect. Or you could build a hot-air balloon and simply fly to the top. Or you could crash your balloon halfway up and fight the rest of the way. Or something else I haven’t thought of.

It goes without saying that Tears looks as good as you can get on the Switch. This could be a last hurrah for the Switch, like God of War 2 was on PS2, squeezing every last drop of performance and graphics out of its creaky hardware. Tears is a clear GOTW, and I would be shocked if it didn’t feature prominently on GOTY lists. Enjoy!

Here's the list, in release-date AND alphabetical order!