Motz'S Thoughts - James Montemagno https://staging.montemagno.com/tag/motzs-thoughts/ https://staging.montemagno.com/content/images/2017/08/MonogramIcon_Orange_NoBuffer.png Motz'S Thoughts - James Montemagno https://staging.montemagno.com/tag/motzs-thoughts/ Hugo -- gohugo.io Tue, 13 Oct 2026 23:21:57 GMT 60 My Top Nintendo Switch Games & Accessories https://staging.montemagno.com/my-top-nintendo-switch-games-accessories/ 5a44265b538da90021c4b276 Thu, 28 Dec 2017 20:00:00 GMT

So, you just got a Nintendo Switch for the holidays, now what?!?! It can be overwhelming to navigate the eShop, which is full of goodies (and not so good junk), as well as trying to figure out what you actually need for your Nintendo Switch. If you are looking to get started be sure to head over to my original guide that still holds up on just Nintendo Switch accessories, but after I tweeted about SnipperClips, I thought I would put together my 2017 top picks for games and accessories for new Switch owners.

First Things First - SD Card

Yes, it is true that the Switch only has 32GB of internal storage and a bunch of that is reserved for the system. A lot of games now require additional download space even if you buy the retail version, so you will want to grab a large SD Card right away! I still recommend picking up a 128GB so you don't have to worry about it later. My guide still holds up for my top picks from around $60:

Now, on to the games!

Games

Let's first talk retail games. I actually switched back to buying a physical copy of a game if it exists just so I stop buying so many games. Here is my essential guide:

Pick Your Grand Adventure

It is going to be tempting to grab all of the big adventure games for your Switch right away that you can sink 100s of hours into, but I think it is best to start with just Zelda or Mario and after you have crushed 100 hours pick up the other. I sort of recommend just buying one of them and immersing yourself into one of them and not buying anything else for about a month except for maybe a samller downloadable title. This is what I did and couldn't be happier.

zelda Of course I am going to recommend The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild! It is hands down game of the year and perhaps one of the greatest if not the greatest game ever produced. It opened my eyes again to open world adventures, Zelda, and enabled me to sink hours upon hours into the huge world all while sharing stories with all my friends. There is a bunch of great DLC as well to keep you going. This is an absolute classic.

marioodysee Yes, we got brand new FULL Zelda and Mario games all in the same year! This hasn't happened in what seems like forever and they are superb. Mario Odyssey brings you back to that first Mario 64 moment of great adventure and mixes in tons of new elements that keep the game going and going even after it is over.

Support Those Third Parties

Yes, there are tons of great other titles that you can get from Nintendo such as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Splatoon 2, and even the oddball 1-2 Switch, but do yourself a favor and pick up a few non-Nintendo releases to mix it up.

mariorabbids Alright, so basically still a Nintendo game of sorts, but Mario + Rabbids is one of the only games this year that I actually 100% finished and kept going back for tons of little extras. It is a turn based X-Com style of game and it really impressed me. The charm, humor, and graphics were all completely outstanding and I really enjoyed leveling up my team and customizing each and every weapon. You often can find this one on sale for under $40 and it is well worth it.

binding At this point I have purchased The Binding of Isaac around four different times on different systems and I continue to love each and every moment. It is a classic rogue-like game that has randomly generated levels, enemies, and power-ups, that you can sit down and play for 5 minutes or 5 hours if you keep doing runs to get through the whacky story and crazy enemies. I could not recommend this title enough.

Download Only Games

When you are done playing the big AAA titles and want to kick back for a few minutes with something truly unique then there are plenty of great indie titles that can be downloaded from the eShop.

pinballfx Zen has been making amazing pinball games for basically ever and Pinball FX 3 follows up with a great version on the Switch that starts with a FREE download and FREE tables! There are plenty of great additional tables that you can download for around $3 a piece or so and they are great. One of my favorite features here is that you can put the Switch in "Vertical" mode so the pinball table has more room, which is pretty cool.

litch Litchtspeer: Double Speer Edition is a wacky, fun, colorful, and all around awesome game. Waves of enemies storm towards you while you throw spears through the air attempting to hit them. As you advance you get additional powers and customization, but the real joy is the weird humor of the game.

snipperclips Yes, that is right SnipperClips again in case you still didn't know that this is one of the best games on the Switch and crazy fun to play with your family or partner. GET IT!

Other Awesome Stuff

With over 350 games on the Switch in the first year there are tons of other great games that you can grab including: Splatoon 2, Minecraft, NBA Playgrounds, Kamiko, Graceful Explosion Machine, Shovel Knight, Fast RMX, Overcooked, SteamWorld Dig 2, Golf Story, Stardew Valley, Doom, L.A. Noire, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and so much more. Yes, the Nintendo Switch had an amazing year of great games.

How About Accessories?

I am still a sucker for a great bag and the Waterfield cases are the best hands down.

CitySlicker-Switch-WithSwitch_large

For sure they are the most well made and designed bags and they now offer a wide variety of choices based on your playing style.

Besides that I haven't purchased too much for my Switch. I haven't really used my extra joy-cons since you can play most games with the included ones, the joy-con dock isn't really needed as they charge pretty quick.

Besides that the only other thing to think about is picking up this rad Nyko metal kick stand.

Kick_Stand_1_1024x1024

I picked this up because why not and it works really well. Still fits into the dock and also has spare room for SD Cards while providing a stiffer stand overall.

There you have it, my end of 2017 Switch guide! Enjoy and yes I will make a tiny commission if you use my Amazon links <3.

]]> Newman-O's - A Cookie Revolution https://staging.montemagno.com/newman-o-cookies-a-revolution/ 59befa30cb369f002e34f0cd Mon, 18 Sep 2017 01:14:30 GMT

I am not a cookie person. Alright, I like cookies, but you wont find me at the store searching around and wanting to buy cookies, especially not Oreo sandwhich cookies. As a kid I am pretty sure I was all about them, but over time they transformed, morphed, got double stuffed, thinned, pumpkin spiced, and just stopped being interesting to me at all. Then last week I was listening to The Talk Show with John Gruber about Android Oreo and his slight obsession with Newman-O's cookies. He raved about them and how he would never go back to Oreo cookies ever again.

Newman's Own

When he said Newman-O's I could have sworn that I had seen that before, and I have, because it is from the Newman's Own brand. You know the Newman's Own brand, it is the brand that is a little bit more expensive and you are unsure about, but also gives 100% of its profits to chartity: Newman-s_Own_logo

I have purchased a lot of their salad dressing in the past, but then I was walking through my local Bartell Drugs store and BOOM there they were:

I knew I had to have them and I purchased them immediatelly.

A Better Cookie

John was right, they are a darn good cookie. Like I said earlier, I don't even like this style of cookie, but I kept going back for a midnight snack here and there. The big draw for me is that they actually taste like a real cookie and they are made from organic sugar and flour. The cream on the inside is also very tasty and tastes relatively real and not completely artificial. You got me Newman! I am in!

A Revolution

What happened next after mentioning my new Newman-O's obesssion on a recent Merge Conflict episode was a bit of surprise... they seem to be taking twitter by storm!

At first it was slow, but then I started to see a tweet storm of people ranting and raving about Newman-O's!

Even Frank got on the bandwagon and is doing a #forscience experiment!

So what do you think? Have you tried Newman-O's or any other of the Newman's Own product line? Let me know what you think in the comments below.

]]> Motz's Thoughts: Essential Accessories for Nintendo Switch https://staging.montemagno.com/essential-accessories-for-nintendo-switch/ 598df8f2c121b60019bf2fda Sun, 15 Jan 2017 17:08:18 GMT I can’t help it, I am super excited for the Nintendo Switch. I have high hopes for the system even though there are minimal games at launch. Before I jump into the standard games and controller list there are a few things to think about. My recommendations may not be the cheapest option, but are based on trusted brands and positive ratings.

If you haven’t caught up on my thoughts read through my earlier blog on my Nintendo Switch thoughts. Additionally, checkout our Merge Conflict episode:

Storage

Built into the Switch there is only 32GB storage capacity and a bunch of people are complaining about it, but whatever I say. It is NAN flash so the OS “should” be nice and fast compared to other system that just uses a standard hard drive for their OS. Additionally, you can expand the Switch with Micro SDXC which currently ship up to 256GB (currently real expensive), which is crazy. Now those are super expensive so I am picking up a 128GB to start with. Before I ran off to Amazon to pick up the cheapest model I did some research on speeds. Heading to the SD Association you will find this nice guide to the speed class. So you would think what we are looking for is a SDXC with UHS 3 as it has a minimum of 30 MB/s and wouldn’t want anything under that. However, after much research this is actually talking about the write speed and often the read speed (which is what will be happening most of the time) is much much greater and often the write is as well.

If I was going to focus on a UHS 3 there are a few good options:

This means you will get the fastest speeds hands down… assuming the Switch will support speeds that high. Now, that is not to say that a UHS 1 or class 10 couldn’t be as good as UHS 3, but they are rated to have a “minimum” of 10 MB/s. If we compare a few of them we are at:

So in general you aim to save $25-40 to cut your write speed way down. My pick is the Samsumg Pro Select $75: Write 90MB/s - Read 95MB/s as it features the best storage and best writes.

Travel Case

At this point in time thre are only a few travel cases out there that look alright. I am really hoping that Water Field makes a Switch case as they are the best premium case I have run across. Until we find that out it looks like PDP has the Switch case on lock with some really nice designs for $15:

They also seem to be making a full backpack if wanted for $50, but that seems like overkill:

Charging

Those Joy-Con controllers aren’t going to charge themselves! My favorite by far has to be the “maybe” Gamestop exclusive charging dock as it seems to make the most sense.:

Perhaps you don’t want yet another thing to plug into the wall so you could simply grab additional Joy-Con charging grips that are not only awesome grips, but charge your Joy-Cons too.

Joy-Con

While there are tons of other accessories out there it is clear to me that everyone will need to atleast pick up another Joy-Con controller. This will get you up to two players or 4 if the game supports split controllers. Additionally, you can get them in a bunch of colors:

Now, if you are buying the colored ones, you will probably want matching Joy-Con straps, which will up charge you another $8 each! You can buy them in Blue and Red.

At this point there are more things I could list, but this is all I pre-ordered on Amazon to show up day one of my Switch playing. While this may seem like the ultimate affiliate link post (and yes I will make a tiny commission if you use my Amazon links), but I had a hard time researching SD cards and actually just tracking these things down on the amazon page, so hopefully this helps you out a bit.

]]>