Nintendo is awesome! Tetris is brilliant! Open worlds are meh (Digitally Uploaded 2019, Episode #6)

Last week Nintendo held its most impressive Nintendo Direct Web show ever, so we talk about all the awesome announcements that were made there (including Tetris!) We also have a good chat about open world games, given two very high-profile ones released this week: Metro and Far Cry. Is the open world genre perfect for every game? Why is it the most popular going around at the moment? This we discuss. Finally we chat about character mascots - why are they so popular in Japan, and why don't western developers put quite the same effort into their mascots (also Matt gets to talk about Hatsune Miku a bit, which made him very happy.