Bethesda is putting The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on Nintendo's Switch soon (November 17th, 2017). This is going to expand Nintendo's realm of openworld gaming genres and enable that kind of gameplay into a mobile platform. I think it is amazing to have such a distinguished openworld role-playing game title come to a mobile gaming device. While TESV: Skyrim could be a very strong additsion to the Switch family, there are dozens of other openworld games that should be included. Openworld driving simulations, first/third person shooters, and massively multiplayer online genres should make their way over to the Switch.

Now, I'm a gaming desktop/laptop user, so the news about a new console getting an older title wouldn't normally be all that interesting to me, but given the fact that the Nintendo Switch is such a powerful handheld gaming device that also doubles as a full fledge console is definitely worth noting. The fact the TESV: Skyrim is making its way to Switch will almost ensure my investment into this new console.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Series began the third person stealth shooter pace for consoles other than Playstation who greedily hogged the genre with their Metal Gear franchise. However, this isn't about the series' beginning. It's more about the last two games, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction and its successor, Blacklist and the seemingly odd differences between the two. The most obvious difference is that Michael Ironside, the man behind the voice of Sam Fisher for 8 years and 5 Splinter Cell games, did not return for Blacklist. Eric Johnson did a fair job voicing Sam Fisher for Blacklist, but it was definitely not the same Fisher we've come to control. The next thing is Third Echelon has been dismantled and Sam Fisher now runs the highly compact and mobile Fourth Echelon with a handful of highly trusted agents and analysts including Anna "Grim" Grimsdottir, who also changed voice actors from Claudia Besso to Kate Drummond. Something else; in previous games, taking down an enemy combatant was blatant and could easily be seen by other enemies, even in Conviction. While being detected added to the complexity and difficulty of the game, trying to avoid it made for annoyingly long waiting games for the right moment. Lastly, Conviction did away with non-lethal takedowns so it was either kill or be killed. Blacklist brought back non-lethal as an option and kept a few unique features of Conviction like the "Execution" feature for neutralizing multiple enemies. It also added a few other unique features like stealth takedowns. These added very complex maneuvers that dragged or rolled enemies out of sight and then neutralized the enemy lethally or not. There were other trade-offs and additions, but these three stuck out to me.