Episode 929: James Jones – Neanderthal Art Critic on Radio Free Nintendo

You ever got stuck thinking about ancient cave art? Yeah, me neither. But there I was, staring at what was supposed to be an aurochs or something. Let’s just say, not impressed. Here’s a thing: most of the rock art we know, like the stuff around Montignac-Lascaux, came from the Magdalenian folks. That means it was the modern humans doodling away some 20,000 to 10,000 years back.

Oh, and I gotta mention the Neanderthals. Yeah, they were into cave art too, especially in Spain. But they weren’t sketching out intricate animal anatomy or anything—more like handprints and patterns. Think dots and ladders. Their stuff’s older, so, you know, it’s not exactly in mint condition.

To cut it short, their art kinda sucked.

Look, I’m just spitting facts here, not doing any deep dives or Wikipedia rabbit holes. So if you disagree, aim your fact-checking missiles right at me, pal!

Anyway, fast forward to modern times. Imagine me and a James from Hot Tub Time Machine observing art—in a funny way, not the kind that makes you snore. Now about Jon and his shiny new Switch 2. He got it from the digital clutches of bestbuy.com, LLC. He’s been diving headfirst into Mario Kart World. That game, huh? Red shell chaos everywhere; Jon’s living room’s just a battlefield. Oddly relaxing though, I guess?

Oh, they announced a new Splatoon single player too, by the way—if you’re into that sort of thing.

So, other stuff happened. Don’t ask me how we get to things on this show, I seriously have no clue. We did take a mental health break (much needed), but duty calls! Guillaume’s convinced everyone to try F-Zero GX on the NSO Expansion Pack for Switch 2. I’m not onboard—dude’s all about that destructiveness. He’s also been glued to Valfaris, a two-dimensional shoot-em-up kind of deal with lots of boom and bang. Go figure.

Meanwhile, Greg’s been eyeing the new patch for Splatoon 3. Talks about HDR popping and framerate steading as if it’s revolutionary or something. Yep, Nintendo’s gonna owe him a marketing paycheck.

And me? James, your humble scribe, well, I’ve been fiddling with Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time on Switch 2. Messed around with time thieves in real life—kids, bosses, you name it—but not quite like this. My journey’s just begun though; still paddling through the tutorial. Plans to dive deeper next week? Unpredictable, like life.

Feel free to scribble your own cave art here.