Alright, so picture this: Nintendo’s rolling out the Switch 2, and already game devs are banging heads against some tech walls. I was reading about this in some Spanish newspaper (thanks to translation magic), and bam! Kazuya Takahashi, who’s the Donkey Kong Bananza bigwig, goes all “Performance might drop,” like it’s no biggie. Why? Because they’re going wild with 3D voxel stuff to wreck in-game environments. It’s like, huh? How often do gaming peeps admit that up front, right? But then Takahashi’s like, “Fun comes first, nothing else matters!” I mean, priorities, people!
Oh, and get this, Donkey Kong’s latest adventure wasn’t even meant for the Switch 2 at first. Nope. It was headed for the OG Switch. Which, honestly, sounds like some cosmic hiccup, considering this is DK’s first go at 3D since — uh, when was it? Donkey Kong 64?! Yeah, forever ago. Anyway, it’s all about massive wreckable worlds now, where DK’s smashing through walls like the Kool-Aid Man, and, maybe, gets to tinker with bits to make weapons or bridges. It’s bonkers but in a good way.
Now, about these, uh, “performance hiccups,” a reporter asked Takahashi, and he had this whole spiel about “hit stop” effects — you know, those dramatic pauses. Kinda cool because, seriously, who doesn’t love a little drama? But sounds like there might be some stuttering moments when the engine’s all “I can’t handle this!” Yet, for the most part, the gameplay’s smooth sailing. Hopefully, they’ll patch things up — fingers crossed!
Detouring a bit here — why do voxel engines sound so ancient? Like, they’ve been on PCs since, what, early ’90s? Comanche: Maximum Overkill, anyone? Guess they needed some hardcore assembly language back then. Makes you wonder how far we’ve come — or not, considering the hiccups.
I’m rambling, but seriously, Nintendo’s tossing this Donkey Kong saga our way this Thursday. High time, eh? And don’t miss out on tech reviews and whatnot from the folks at Tom’s Hardware. They’re on Google News — just hit the follow button if you’re into geeky stuff.
