Features

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, Reviews, Wii U | 2 Comments

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“This particular Pikmin pellet blossomed into a great big purple Pikmin, so give Reggie your $60 already whydontcha?”

System: Nintendo Wii U
Release Date: August 4, 2013
Developer: Nintendo EAD Group No. 4, Monolith Soft
Publisher: Nintendo

Author: Jack

There seem to be two branching philosophies various game developers employ for their secondary and tertiary takes on intellectual properties.

The first take is the “disparate” sequel, where designers conjure up an intriguing gameplay concept and slap a brand well-ingrained in the public conscious onto it, majorly or even wholly changing core gameplay from a sequel’s preceding entry. While many consider this a less-than-affable way of spreading new ideas by exploiting referential IPs, it’s a path that’s lead to more than its fair share of iconic and revolutionary games (Resident Evil 4, Grand Theft Auto III, Jak II, and Dynasty Warriors 6 all being great examples).

The second and more oft-used take is the “retread” sequel, where the original strengths in a game are rehashed and expanded upon, with a sprinkling of nuance-extrapolation here, and a dazzle of fresh-gameplay-motifs-wrapped-around-the-same-core-gameplay there. Sequels made in this vein, in large, try to refine a presented idea with sheer heuristic redaction, letting time and outside perspective lend itself in the design and development process. Retread sequels often attract a fair degree of criticism; in many cases, retreads aren’t perceived to have strayed far enough from the origin, and while some games feel like they do just need more pure content iterated out, a lot of the time it just feels like we’re hopelessly doing the same thing a year later, a foot taller.

The work of Nintendo’s development teams has fallen into both camps, sometimes to aplomb, and sometimes to obscurity; they’ve (by popular consensus, mind you me) succeeded and failed with re-imaginings Super Mario 64 and Star Fox Adventures, and respectively waxed and waned with retreads Animal Crossing: New Leaf and New Super Mario Bros. 2.

So, where does Pikmin 3 fit into all of this?

Read More

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, Podcast | 1 Comment

Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Game Night | 0 comments

Update 3: Added in the live-stream below. Austin provided some lovely commentary!

Update 2: Game Night is now over!

Update: If you plan on playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 on Wii U, please send a friend request to “NE_austin”. If you plan on playing Mario Kart 7, please join the NintendoEverything MK7 community! Community code is 22-5271-0357-0675

Game Night will begin at 4 PM ET / 1 PM PT. Most of the friend code exchanging will take place around a half hour prior (10 minutes).

Two items are attached to this page. First, above, is our official Twitch account. Any Wii U games played during Game Night will be streamed, and will eventually be posted to our official YouTube channel.

Below is what we’ll use to communicate with each other. You don’t need to sign up with any sort of service to join, and you don’t have to be playing to chat with us. Just enter any name you desire and we’ll be good to go.

As mentioned last night, Call of Duty: Black Ops II will be the game of choice on Wii U, which Austin will be handling. I’ll mainly be in charge of Mario Kart 7 sessions.

We’ll see how well this goes. I imagine things will improve over the next few weeks!

What is Game Night? You can find details right here.

Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Game Night, Site updates | 2 Comments

After a several months hiatus, Game Nights are finally returning to Nintendo Everything. Although, perhaps we should change the phrase to “Game Afternoons”!

The event will officially kick off at 4 PM ET. Call of Duty: Black Ops II is the game of choice for Wii U, while the 3DS will be getting some Mario Kart 7 action. We advise you to show up early to exchange friend codes and whatnot.

An official Game Night post will go live 30-60 minutes before the event begins. You won’t need any sort of account to join, and you won’t be forced to game with us in order to chat with others – so feel free to say hello even if you don’t intend to play.

You can find more details about Game Nights here. See you all later today!

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Eggbusters, Features, Videos, Wii U, Wii U eShop | 4 Comments

Two Eggbusters episodes in one day!? Yup! One of them is a bit shorter, but that’s because it’s a revisit, remaster sort of thing. Hopefully you find them both enjoyable, and if you have any game suggestions please leave a comment.

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in 3DS, Features, Game Night, Wii U | 3 Comments

We’ve got the poll ready and waiting for you below. All you need handy is your Nintendo Network ID (if you have a Wii U), your 3DS friend code (if you have a 3DS), and an idea of which online games for those systems you’d want to play this coming Sunday at 4PM ET. We’ll take a look at the votes this Thursday and let you know which games we’ll be playing, in addition to what 3DS/Wii U friends you need to add.

Please don’t fill this out unless you plan on playing this weekend. There will be a new poll each week, so you can fill out a future one if/when you plan on participating.

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, News, Podcast | 1 Comment

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Game Night, Site updates | 7 Comments

Let’s be honest: This is the game we’re waiting for for Game Night.

A couple of weeks ago we polled all of you to see which days and times worked best for getting together and playing video games every week, and today we’ve made our decision: Nintendo Everything Game Nights will be returning on Sunday, August 18th, at 4PM ET. Here’s all of the stuff you should know:

What: Game nights! We all get together (NintendoEverything staff, plus you guys) to play online games for a couple of hours every week. Just a small way of getting ourselves more involved with our games! On top of that, the event will be live-streamed for all to watch.

Where: On your Nintendo Wii U or Nintendo 3DS systems! Maybe Wii as well, depending on the week.

What games?: We’ll hold a poll every week to decide what games to play. If the same game keeps winning every week, we may force it out of rotation for a bit to give other games a chance as well.

How long? Probably just about two hours! Not a huge commitment, but enough to have some fun, chat with each other, and make good memories of blowing each other up with blue shells and stuff.

If you have any other questions, comment away! We’ll be here to answer.

Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Features, Previews, Videos, Wii U | 1 Comment

I decided to take some footage of the The Wonderful 101 demo and edit it together to help some of you make sense of what the game really is! Within the footage is both explanation and review, so you’ll know what things work and what things don’t about the game prior to ever having to try it yourself!

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Eggbusters, Videos, Wii | 1 Comment

I decided to finally harness my power of custom thumbnails to show you all this silly picture of a goron. Isn’t is nice? Here’s another Twilight Princess episode of Eggbusters, courtesy of Aysha. She picked the game.