8 Reasons To Be Excited About The Nintendo Switch 2
5. New Ways To Play
All that said, Nintendo are still going to Nintendo, and there was no way that the Switch 2 wasn’t going to have some of its unique bells and whistles. Even when the globe unanimously agreed that all they really needed to do was make a more powerful Switch, they couldn’t help themselves.
Adding to the motion controls, the Joy Con 2 can now be operated with mouse controls. Whilst this, of course, is not new for console gaming, let alone in general, it is new for Nintendo; the masters of squeezing the unique gameplay juice out of each fruit handed to them.
The most perfect example, and perhaps the centre-piece, of mouse controls is Drag x Drive - a 3v3 basketball game that exclusively features players in wheelchairs. Dragging two joycons like hands on the wheels, players propel themselves across the court and raise the controllers to shoot for the hoop or wave to their teammates for a pass.
Aside from just being a very cool concept featuring clever representation, playing with two mouse controllers is very unique in every way. Who knows how deep this game goes, but it’s at least something worth thinking about. A console that can promise unique premises that are less “because we own the rights to this” and more “because why else would you have two mouses in your hand” are always welcome.
Some of the other mouse-integrated gameplay (like Mario Party) seemed a little gimmicky, but if a handful of developers have this idea presented them and make something cool out of it, it’ll be worth it.