In this last episode before Nintendo’s big E3 presentation on Tuesday, the focus is on Mario Tennis Open. A game that had I never experienced the blinding mediocrity of Power Tennis on GameCube, I’d be all over like a Zero Suit. Anyway, is it just me or is Jesse looking a little slim these days? I’m starting to worry about the poor thing.
Meh.
In case you haven’t had your fill with Rayman lately, the 3DS Virtual Console continues to show signs of life with today’s update. Rayman for the Game Boy Color is now available at the low, low price of $4.99. About 25 dollars less than what I threw at this thing when it originally came out at the turn of the century. It’s a decent enough portable platformer but for those of you who have yet to check out this franchise, I’d suggest downloading the DSi remake of the original Playstation entry or holding off until Origins for 3DS hits store shelves this coming Tuesday.
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I was on vacation all last week so for once this site had a legitimate excuse for the lack of updates. But one thing I stumbled across online and haven’t gotten out of my head is this guy’s incredible 8-bit tribute to possibly Radiohead’s best album. Using only NES style sound tools, youtube user QuintonSung covers the entire Kid A record and the results are something that sound like…well, something Radiohead might release themselves.
The guys also gives OK Computer the 8-bit makeover but to be honest I haven’t been able to stop listening to this thing long enough to check that out yet.
Hank Chien, the plastic surgeon from Queens who famously knocked Billy Mitchell out of the top spot to nab the arcade Donkey Kong high score record for himself a while back has done it again. Topping his reigning high score to reclaim the title from himself, Chien hit 1,110,100 points and says he still has plenty more to earn before hitting the ceiling on his Donkey Kong skills:
“This was not a killscreen game. I died two screens shy of the killscreen so my score would have been a little higher, perhaps 1.12 million points. I had a spare man going into Level 21 and was mentally preparing to sacrifice it on the last barrel board and my game was over a few minutes later. That’s how Donkey Kong rolls sometimes.”
Yeah, yeah. Maybe try a little harder next time there, buddy.
That charger looks familiar.
The shot above that leaked this past week supposedly reveals Nintendo’s finalized design for their upcoming Wii U controller. There aren’t really any drastic changes or anything from what was originally displayed at last year’s E3 but some subtle alterations have been made here and there that will hopefully help some of you nerds out there stop pissing yourselves in your sleep. The most noticeable change is in the control sticks. No longer the same flat “nub” sliding pads that 3DS owners have become familiar with, the new analogue input more closely resembles the traditional sticks we’ve been using since the good old N64 days. Also, the start and select buttons have now been moved from under the screen to the right hand side and there’s a mysterious new square right under the cross pad that industry insiders are speculating houses a very important screw that will hold the entire gamepad together. If nothing in this opening paragraph has made you laugh, that’s because we’re talking serious business here.
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We aren’t responsible in any way for the work that went into this awesome video but I did stumble across it while browsing the internet today and if you didn’t know already: This site is all about sharing.
Just ignore the dipshit in the second half.
Jesus, I'm starting to rhyme my post titles just like Matt.
The Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the GC is one of those games that I bought purely out of impulse because it was a compilation and then let it fade away in the background. I threw it on once or twice in the ten years that I’ve had it of course but that was mostly only ever done out of those 3am drunken rage-needs to rock out to the Password screen in Mega Man 2. I mean we’ve all been there, right? So out of sheer boredom, last week I decided to take Mega Man 8 for a whirl for the first time. The fact that this is the one and only entry in the proper series to not originally appear on a Nintendo system (Playstation/Sega Saturn) obviously meant that I never played it back when it came out and that I was definitely going into this thing with completely blind prejudice against it. Ready and willing to hate every detail with unbridled and furious anger.
I should really work on how much I let stuff like this get to me.
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There was this video game character I grew up with. I sorta looked up to him, you know. We did our first work together, worked our way through several titles. Things were good, we made the most of it. During the N64 era, we collected lums in 3D for the first time… made a fortune, your father, too. As much as anyone, I loved him and trusted him. Later on there was an idea to make a game for him that would be in true 3D for Nintendo’s new portable system. That character’s name was Rayman, and the new game that he intended to star in was Rayman: Origins for the 3DS. This was a great mascot, and the game promised to be one full of vision and guts. And then when it was time for the game to hit store shelves it was nowhere to be seen! Someone delayed it for several extra months. No one knows who gave the order. When I heard it, I wasn’t angry; I knew Ubisoft and the game’s lead designer Michel Ancel, I knew they were head-strong, talking loud, saying stupid things. So when I realized I had to wait even longer for a portable version of this game that I loved on Wii, I let it go. And I said to myself, this is the hobby I’ve chosen; I didn’t ask who gave the order, because it was probably a smart business decision!
Here Wii go again.
Welp.
My Wii is giving me the good old “System files are corrupted” song and dance yet again. And not even a month after I finally forced myself to muscle my way through that boring ass Subspace Emissary shit in Brawl to re-unlock all of the characters. Y’see this actually happened once before and I learned the hard way that any data that isn’t saved to an SD card goes bye-bye when those knuckleheads fix your system. Fine, whatever. The only problem is that both SSB: Brawl and Animal Crossing are delightful enough to not even allow saving to an SD card as an option.
GOD.DAMN.IT.
The really terrible part about this is that I’m going to have to re-download all of my hundred plus VC games again.That is both a brag and complaint.
On the heels of Super Street Fighter II (again) coming to the Virtual Console (but now with online play!), Sega have put out three more releases over the last couple of Thursdays, with at least one of them being kind of a big deal in some gaming circles. Yesterday saw another two Wonder Boy/Monster World titles make their appearance: the arcade title Wonder Boy in Monster Land, whose Sega Master System port has been available for some time; and Monster World IV, a 1994 Sega Genesis game, the final game in the series to date, and which makes its Western debut with this release. Not only is it another VC import title, but Sega have actually gone through the trouble of translating the whole thing, making it another Virtual Console first five and a half years into the Wii’s lifespan. I’ve played a bit of it today and it’s lovely- like a polished Zelda II in some ways.
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Who doesn't love a little revisionist history.
Both Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS) and City Life (Wii) were decent if not overly familiar sequels to the incredibly addictive GameCube original, sure. But aside from the lack of including full on playable NES games as in the first, they really blew it in the soundtrack department too. I’d say that the theme to the original game’s menu screen alone is better than any one track from those follow ups. Most of the tracks (that change hourly) are so good that back when I was knee deep in that shit I’d find myself waiting until certain times of day before I’d play just to catch my favorites. Well, I just came across this this website which is apparently hosting each track in accordance with the actual time of day that it appears in during the game.
I know what tab will be open every night at 1:00am from now on.
When I started this website over two years ago now, my primary inspiration was Nintendorks.com so I guess it makes sense that the updates haven’t been um…shall we say, frequent recently. But if any of you follow my Tumblr you know that I’ve been online and writing stuff so where are the damn Slist posts? Well, I can answer that for you kids real quick:
I dunno.
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… and it’s a pretty cool commercial at that. Stop-motion commercials really warm my heart and make me want to throw money at whatever they’re advertising.
Thank God Leni Riefenstahl never became a Teutonic Will Vinton.
“And thank God for Wikipedia,” said the reader.
