Nintendo

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 4.28.06

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Nintendo renames the Revolution
Nintendo is the US after September 11th. They built up a great deal of good will, especially after developers revealed they’re making real games for the system. But like Bush II, Nintendo has squandered the world’s interest by pursuing a terrible PR campaign and bombing Iraq. So the analogy isn’t perfect. My point is Nintendo had everyone listening and now they have everyone laughing. Image has long been one of their main problems and they seem to revel in not fixing it.

I will stop being friends with anyone who actually calls it the Wiimote.

With that, I present to you the Nintendo Wii, pronounced “we.” In case the pun wasn’t painful enough, Nintendo has named the Revolution controller the “wiimote.” In order to stress how stupid their marketing people are, Nintendo’s press conference consisted of terrible puns. →  Read the rest

Naming the Revolution

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The Nintendo Revolution still lacks an official name. Nintendo will likely rename the console in May at E3, but chances are they’ll come up with a less than stellar moniker. Luckily, I am here to suggest names that are sure to be winners in the court of public opinion. Of course I’ll expect royalties.

Gamecube 2 – The most obvious and worst choice. Similar to Sony renaming the Blu Ray discs BETA Max 2.

Nintendo 540 – The new Xbox thinks it’s xtreme and in your face, but a 360 is a pretty easy move in most new extreme sports other than freestyle walking. Besides, a 360 leaves you facing the exact same direction you were prior to the move, which explains why the new Xbox is also tanking in Japan. →  Read the rest

A rant about fanboys

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He shaves his head because he's mostly bald

Microsoft’s J Allard is paid to be a fanboy. For no extra cost, he is also a tool.

Fanboys remind me of the villain from the Serenity movie. He was sharp and eloquent but also utterly and completely blind. His faith was clearly proven wrong by the reality before his eyes, but rather than rethink his faith, he simply changed his perception of reality. Intelligent people who believe weird or extreme things are very dangerous because they’re able to make their faith sound rational. Thus, a fanboy is a force to be reckoned with. A forum of onlookers is often persuaded by a fanboy’s arguments, much like an intelligent design proponent can easily confuse and place doubt in the heads of smart, rational people.

One of the sure signs you’re speaking to a fanboy is that he refuses to allow reviews to influence him. →  Read the rest

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 4.14.06

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Video game skills do not usually transfer to real life skills
Man in his 30s attempts to outrun cops in a car because he did it in GTA. Instead of putting age restrictions on games, there should be an IQ test. Is anyone else waiting for the guy who played too much Trauma Center to show up in the news?

photoshopped

Too good to be true?

Two Revolution games announced
Red Steel is coming to the Revolution, and check out the fake screen shots. Maybe they’re not polished, who knows. The game seems to be another attempt by Nintendo to convince gamers that they can appeal to an older crowd. The choice of a FPS is slightly odd, though. They tend to do terribly in Japan and if the Revolution is to stand a chance, my guess is that it’d have to repeat the DS’s and Allied Forces strategy of dominating the homeland. →  Read the rest

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 4.7.06

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Bloated cash cow, I choose you!

Nintendo engineers talk about the process of designing the DSLite
I personally find this article to be fascinating. More interviews with hardware designer’s would be a welcome thing.

Nintendo has great year financially
Despite having a dead console, Nintendo made a lot of yen this past year, thanks to the “favorable” performance of the DS. Maybe one day they’ll stop living off of handhelds and Pokemon and be a real player in the console wars again.

First Amendment bitch slaps anti-game lobbyists
Said the judge, “Video games are a form of creative expression that are constitutionally protected under the First Amendment. They contain original artwork, graphics, music, story lines and characters similar to movies and television shows, both of which are considered protected free speech.” →  Read the rest

Review – Megaman Powered Up

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Megaman Powered Up
Developed by Capcom
Published by Capcom
Released 3.14.06
Here, Megaman faces off against Cutman, who would later go on to challenge a variety of social norms by becoming the first gay hairdresser robot.

I often wonder whether games have gotten easier over time, or if I’ve just gotten better. This weekend I picked up Megaman: Powered Up, Capcom’s PSP remake of the original Megaman, and I can now definitively answer this question: old-school games were, and still are, hard as fuck. Still, a potent combination of 1337 gaming skills, perseverance, and far too much free time on my hands allowed me to conquer (at least a significant portion of) the game and bring you this delectable review!

For those who didn’t catch the Blue Bomber’s debut back on the NES, the game takes place sometime in the year 20XX, which I guess is a really long time from now because we still just use numbers for our years. →  Read the rest

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Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 3.31.06

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Must miss
I did my part to support UMD movies by buying 25 copies of this classic story about a girl who wakes up a slut.

UMD movies failing
Is it possible Sony somehow is responsible for a failed format? Of course it is, they love failing, and I love to see their new formats fail. This is a good sign for those of us who want game systems to focus on playing games. To read more complaining, read this.

Blizzard sued by some guy who wants to sell Warcraft guides on the internet
This is a very interesting and possibly important lawsuit. The guy suing Blizzard sold his guides on eBay until Blizzard complained and they were taken down. They say he is trying to make money off of their good will and recognition they’ve built with their games, whatever that means. →  Read the rest

Review – Super Princess Peach

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Super Princess Peach
Developed by Nintendo
Published by Nintendo
Released 2.27.06

Waaa

“Why can’t I have more than one line of dialogue in my own game? Hey look a vine… neato!”

I have to admit I wasn’t too excited when I first heard about this game. I mean, of all the characters in the Mario universe I’d want to have there own game, Princess Peach wasn’t at the top of my list. My girlfriend, on the other hand, bought it the day the game came out and I haven’t given it back to her since. This game is seriously addictive.

The story starts with Mario, Luigi and Toad being taken prisoner by Bowser’s hench-turtles using their newfound Vibe Wand. The wand’s vaguely-explained powers are related to emotions, and allows the normally bumbling koopas to take down an entire castle of Toads and subdue our usual heroes. →  Read the rest

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 3.24.06

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PS3 to be region free.
Woohoo. Now I can buy RPGs I can’t play without getting the system modded. I expect this will increase the number of gamers who import titles from Japan, but also eat into sales of Western releases by a little, which is part of the reason console manufacturers always used region encoding.

GameStop makes huge profits.
Buying your competitors and selling used games as new really works.

Errrr
This pic of Representative Keeley is really a stronger argument against her position than anything I could write.

Jack Thompson and Delaware Representative try to brand violent games as obscene, thereby getting around that pesky First Amendment.
According to them games are not speech so they shouldn’t be protected. Since when did artistic expression need to be in the form of spoken words? →  Read the rest

Best Game Ever – Dragon Quest

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Developed by Enix

Published by Nintendo for the NES

Released 1989

What more can be said about the original Dragon Quest? As the story goes, it was Enix’s attempt to bring American style Role Playing Games like Wizardry and Ultima to Japanese consoles (a game called The Black Onyx introduced the genre to Japanese PC’s a year earlier). This attempt gave birth to a cultural phenomenon, as well as the most popular franchise in Japanese gaming.
A sight so beautiful it almost hurts.

Yet while most know about the Dragon Quest series in general, not many people ever discuss the original game. It may get a few paragraphs in “history of RPGs” or “NES classics” articles, but it is often overlooked by its biggest competitor of the time: Final Fantasy 1. →  Read the rest

Best Game Ever – Secret of Mana

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Secret of Mana
Developed by Square
Published by Square for the SNES
Released 1993

Evil Cult
Our three heroes find themselves at the gate of the Scientology compound.

Before I finished grade school, my older brother had taught me that Sega was superior to Nintendo. For nearly a decade I took this as gospel. I enjoyed playing the NES at friends houses but I always believed the Master System was better. I even convinced my best friend of this and got him to give up his Nintendo for a Master System and eventually a Genesis.

It was with this supreme confidence I first played Secret of Mana. We played all night and I left my friend’s house the next morning disillusioned. SoM was so good I needed to get an SNES, which until that point had been my sworn enemy. →  Read the rest

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 3.17.06

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OMG itz a remote control!11111

Miyamoto confirms the new Zelda will use the Revolution controller.
Though in what regard, we are still not sure. If it’s simply for mini games or something silly like that, many fans may pissed off. I think Nintendo painted themselves into a corner with this new Zelda game. They wanted to release it as a GC game but then there are no other big games coming out on that system… possibly ever. So instead of supporting their own dead system they decided to launch it with the Revolution. Making it a Rev launch title makes sense, but then Nintendo would just alienate more fans because the game was originally promised for the GC. So now they’re trying to dress it up like a Revolution title to sell the system. →  Read the rest

Review – Super Mario Strikers

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Super Mario Strikers
Developed by Next Level games
Published by Nintendo
Released 12.5.05
Oh sweet Jesus.

Today’s review, along with (hopefully) a few more to follow, is the result of a complete immersion in the multiplayer games available on what has become the premier multiplayer system of this aging generation, the Nintendo Gamecube. No other system has the range or the number of quality multiplayer titles as the Gamecube, and no company has put as much emphasis on multiplayer gaming as Nintendo. It is possible this is as a result of the fact that Nintendo likely can not compete with the monoliths of Sony and Microsoft, relegating once powerful Nintendo to a niche market. Regardless of the reason, Nintendo has largely made multiplayer gaming its bread and butter, and the results have been very good. →  Read the rest

Bad Reviews

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I have read a lot of bad reviews, and not just on this site. There are things I feel should be mandatory in a good review besides just a breakdown of graphics, audio, gameplay and control. At worst, a review is nothing but three 80 word blurbs, half of each spent on being “funny” or about 300 words and then some pictures representing the reviewers feelings of the game, we in the biz call them emoticons.

Tell us who made the game. Mario Golf was not made by Nintendo, nor was Paper Mario. I cannot tell if this is due to a lack of research or if reviewers just think we don’t need to know. I guess their logic is that telling us Nintendo made a game is easier than telling us Camelot did. →  Read the rest

And the future shall be as so

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Five Predictions for 2006 by Billy

1. Sony and Microsoft are going to duke it out again for the mainstream. While Nintendo is going to fall further into its niche market. However, there will still be several interesting things to look for:

Will the lead Microsoft is taking now really matter, with their dirty shortages trick? Will Sony’s whole root kit thing and failure to use good memory storage really hurt them and allow Microsoft to rule the domestic US game market? I have a feeling that if Sony doesn’t amend its ways and stop the nonsense many game companies will pull out and work more with the Xbox people in an attempt to not lose sales. This will especially be a big deal next holiday season when Xbox 360 and PS3 are going for each others throats. →  Read the rest

The Year in Review Reviewed

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When I conceived this site I already knew I wanted it to be not just about games, but about the industry and game media. Actually, those high ideas came after my initial idea of, “If I have a site I’ll get rich, famous, and have 12 wives without becoming a Mormon.” But the thing about the different parts of gaming came soon after. To the cynic, which you should be unless you’re one of those brain-dead optimistic people, an article reviewing other websites material is simply a desperate gesture by a bottom feeder. I assure you that while this is true, I really am dedicated to the idea of reporting on reporting. So look forward to more articles on magazines and other sites (or just read other magazines or sites, they’re far better). →  Read the rest

Review – Zelda: Wind Waker

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Zelda: Wind Waker
Developed by Nintendo
Published by Nintendo
Released 3.24.03

Sexy pose
Mr. Link, you’re trying to seduce me, aren’t you?

I grade games on a 100 point scale broken down into several categories. Each category gives a maximum of 20 points. The combined total is score of the game.

A 100 = perfect.

Graphics: 20

Music: 20

Game play: 20

Plot: 10

Replay ability: 10

Total Value: 80%

What can be said of The Wind Waker? Gorgeous! Smooth! Colorful! An auditory pleasure! No plot. As with most game of the Zelda franchise the story is rather dull if not redundant. Collect your power up items (Triforce parts and weapons) kill the bad guy, and make sweet sweet underage lovin’s to the princess.

Plain wall
The environments are a little underdetailed but extremely sharp and clean.
 →  Read the rest

Review – Wario Ware, Inc.

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Wario Ware, Inc.
Developed by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems
Published by Nintendo
Released 10.17.03

Jump rope game
The Daddy Mac will make you…

Nintendo gets a bad rap (from normal people, not losers like me). They practically invented the platform game, brought video games back after the crash of the early 80’s, showed us how a 3D platformer should look, perfected the action RPG, pioneered handheld gaming and released a headset game system after even Sega pulled the plug on their Virtual (or should I say Virtua) Reality system (although not doing what Sega does is generally good business practice). Well add another accomplishment to Nintendo’s long list, because Wario Ware Inc is incredibly different.

Most games made up of minigames are crappy, but if the games are good enough then the game as a whole can be excellent, like Pirates! →  Read the rest

Media Station 363

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XBox360 back
There seem to be about 250 ports on the back of this thing!

It’s said that Americans want everything in a single package. We want a machine that chops, dices, blends, cooks, roasts, minces, and purees. We want a lawn tool that cuts, mows, prunes, digs, weeds, and buries bodies. The Japanese, however, supposedly want specific devices for each thing. They would rather own more things, each doing what they are designed for very well. I agree with the Japanese; I do not want a cell phone that takes pictures. I want a cell phone that has a long battery life, gets great reception and has clear sound. I do not want a dolly that is also a hand truck, a step ladder land a flatbed cart. Actually, I probably don’t really want any dolly. →  Read the rest

Micro Madness

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GB Micro
Exact size.

The Game Boy Micro is stupid and anyone who denies it is a biased fanboy (as opposed to the more objective fanboy) or a Nintendo employee. The first problem a consumer will notice is the systems price. A hundred bucks for something you probably already have a different version of?

The next obvious problem is the tiny screen. I already have trouble playing action games on my GBA-SP because the screen isn’t very big. The tiny screen is a part of the overall tiny system. This is the major selling point but it’s also one of the best reasons not to buy one. The GBA-SP already hurts my hands. If the SP is designed for Japanese fingers then the Micro is design for Japanese ants’ fingers.

Then there is the competition. →  Read the rest