Features

Posted on 11 years ago by Patrick(@Patricklous) in Features, General Nintendo, Podcast Stories, Random | 1 Comment

Hey everyone, it’s Patrick here and throughout this week I’ll be celebrating Christmas in the only way relevant to this website – by taking a look at a bunch of terrible Christmas specials based on various Nintendo titles. First up is the Super Mario Bros. Super Show – a late-80’s TV program featuring cartoons based on Super Mario Bros. and Zelda. This Christmas episode —Koopa Klaus— is one of the rare episodes of the show  that isn’t just a reference to a popular movie like  “Raiders of the Lost Mushroom” or “On Her Majesty’s Sewer Service”, but that doesn’t make it any less awful.

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Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, Podcast | 0 comments

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, Podcast | 0 comments

Donkey Kong’s Man Land

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News, what we played, complaint corner, and “this week in news, 5 years ago” make their returns. The list this week is our top five Nintendo Land attractions, and our discussion is a wonderfully saturated talk about “autopilot gaming”.

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I would seriously love to hear what all of you guys think about this whole “autopilot gaming” thing I’m starting to latch onto. Do you think I’m right? Wrong? What games do you “autopilot” through? General thoughts? Comments section!

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features | 0 comments

Well, this stinks! We did another great podcast (that’s two weeks in a row… knock on wood!), but unfortunately our hosting service for “Here’s a Podcast!” is down until late tomorrow night. I’ve uploaded the episode to our old hosting service so you can download the raw MP3 if you’re particularly eager to give it a listen or to have it for listening on your way to places or to put it on while you sleep so you can absorb all the Nintendo goodness, but there’s no embed or subscription capabilities.

Proper post coming tomorrow. For now, here’s a podcast… for you!

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

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Seasoned Mario players may complain about the lack of challenging and iconic moments in the ‘New Super Mario Bros. series, but the latest entry may have that magic hidden away behind optional “sidequests”.

Author: Austin

A couple of months ago I wrote an article called “What has happened to 2D Mario games? (And how to “fix” them!)”, calling on Nintendo to return the sidescrolling plumber to his magical roots with one simple change; not by copying that which made older titles great, but simply by increasing the difficulty, thereby forcing you to spend more time with the game and form stronger memories of individual levels. Sounds pretty simple, right?

Well, despite my high hopes for the game, it appeared as though New Super Mario Bros. U was still the same old New Super Mario Bros. (the irony of which is not lost). Which isn’t to say it’s bad– after all, Nintendo always nails the technicalities of platforming to perfection– but simply that it’s still not as memorable as entries like World and 3. Going into the game, this is what I was expecting, and I was more than fine to play through another good-not-great Mario title with solid platforming and a few standout moments. Instead of just going through it willy-nilly though, I decided to take the approach that I would complete the game as I went, which is to say that I would gather all three “Star” coins in every level of a world before moving onto the next.

The consequence of this is that the game is no longer good– it’s great! If you read not past this point and you’re a seasoned Mario player, please consider following in my footsteps and playing to completion. You will likely enjoy it a whole lot more. If you want to hear more of why this works, read on!

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Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Game Night, News, Podcast Stories | 2 Comments

Paper Mario: Sticker Star spent a fairly long time in development. There’s a reason for that: the game underwent significant changes compared to its initial prototypes.

One of Paper Mario 3DS’ early prototypes would have acted as a conventional entry in the series. But once Shigeru Miyamoto stepped in and tried out the team’s work, he felt that “it was just a port of the GC version.” That would be Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the franchise’s last “conventional” RPG entry.

It was revealed in the latest Iwata Asks:

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Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, Podcast | 0 comments

The “Here’s a Podcast” mascot, ladies and gentlemen!

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News, what we played, and the complaint corner all make their regular returns. On top of that, we discuss ZombiU vs. Resident Evil Remake, whether Wii U games have to use the Gamepad in novel ways (or if they can just be “regular” games), and then list our top four weirdest business decisions by Nintendo.

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Despite a myriad of technical issues, I’d be willing to bet that this show is out best so far! There was no one thing in particular that made it amazing, but energetic discussions (and some really hilarious anecdotes!) made this one a podcast for the record books! Enjoy!

Posted on 11 years ago by Patrick(@Patricklous) in 3DS, 3DS eShop, Podcast Stories, Reviews | 0 comments

Suda51 delivers a well-produced mecha anime that’s as hyperactive as it is hyper-nationalistic. But how’s the actual game?

Level 5 really haven’t been having a whole lot of luck when it comes to the 3DS. Professor Layton and Inazuma Eleven might still bring in the cash, but the company’s attempts at starting new IPs like Time Travelers and Girls RPG: Cinderella Life sold poorly. But perhaps their biggest bomb of all was Guild 01, a compilation of quirky games that sold fewer than 15,000 copies upon its first week of release despite having some well-known game designers collaborating on the project. Oddly enough, Level 5 are now giving Guild 01 a second chance by rereleasing most of the games in the compilation through the 3DS eShop. The first of these titles to be available outside of Japan is Liberation Maiden, a 3D shooter heavily inspired by Japanese cartoons – specifically the kind where plot is second to cool robots flying around and blowing stuff up.

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Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments

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Game publishers and developers shove nonsense into our faces a lot, and most of the time we just say “Yea, that’s cool. It makes sense.”, even when it doesn’t.

Well, I feel like I don’t want to take that anymore. At least for today.

Author: Austin

I wouldn’t be writing this feature if the response to last night’s quote from Gearbox regarding why Borderlands wouldn’t be coming to Wii U was different. If bloggers and pseudo-journalists had called them out and said “Hey, you know what, that reason makes absolutely no sense!”, I wouldn’t be furiously (okay, not furiously– that’s a word to make it seem more exciting) typing away right now, anxious to tell you all why this is a bunch of baloney.

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Posted on 12 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, Wii U | 14 Comments

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There’s a lot of good to be found in Nintendo’s latest home console– but not all of it is as pristine as it seems.

Author: Austin

Sometimes it’s hard to look at a console objectively and pick out its successes and failures with equal clout– especially when you are trying to justify spending over $400 on it– but amid the great leaps forward the Wii U has made in its quest to become Nintendo’s greatest console of all time, it’s painstakingly obvious that parts of it still fall far behind the lines that were drawn even by Microsoft and Sony’s now-last-gen consoles. So here’s a question for you:

What do you think so far? What are your favorite things? What don’t you like about it? Let’s hear all of it, and if you need some inspiration, here are the things I’ve compiled thus far:

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