Features

Posted on 13 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, General Nintendo, Videos | 0 comments

I figured the mid-afternoon/early evening are prime discussion hours, so I’m gonna sneak this into the news cycle now as opposed to later. Enjoy your pro-Nintendo nonsense, errybody. :]

Posted on 13 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, General Nintendo, Videos | 0 comments

This week I talk about how Nintendo doesn’t make any sense. Sound off in the comments. :]

Posted on 13 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Features | 0 comments

At Nintendo Everything, news tends to get buried under several pages extremely quickly, especially during one of the biggest game expos in the world. I thought it was for the best that I recapped all the Nintendo-related trailers and information given during the Nintendo 3DS Conference and offer up a few personal anecdotes. This year, Nintendo’s conference and TGS seemed to be focused on handhelds, with a heap of new games revealed for the 3DS as well as its biggest competitor, the PlayStation Vita. From the games showcased by both companies, we’ve got a general idea of where Nintendo are heading, or at least what their marketing strategies in Japan are. Anyway, here are five things we’ve learned from decoding moonspeak.

1. Nintendo totally stole Sony’s biggest titles

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Posted on 13 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in 3DS, Features, General Nintendo, News, Videos, Wii | 0 comments

Been a while, guys! Still shakin’ the rust off… :b

Posted on 13 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in 3DS, Features, News, Wii | 0 comments

Side Note: The conference thing is tonight, so this may just get buried in the fray. I’ll just repost later, but I wanted to make sure it got up before Tuesday! Since I have more junk to post this week…

When most people hear the word “Reimagining”, they think of the failed attempts at bringing back franchises like Pac-Man, Frogger, Tomb Raider, and Sonic the Hedgehog over and over and over again, each time getting slightly excited at the prospect of having these games return to their glory days, and each time getting disappointed because, let be honest, they almost never do. Needless to say, when I went to play Atari’s upcoming Centipede: Infestation, I had pretty much made up my mind about the game and assumed I could’ve written my hands-on impressions in a split second with my eyes closed while I was asleep.

It would have gone something like this.

So when I got to the booth and my tour guide (weirdly also named “Austin”- I think Atari had been watching me sleep) brought me to the Wii version of Infestation, I put a smile on my face and braced myself for the worst. And of course, the one time I go to E3 and get to play a game like this, it actually isn’t all that shitty. Go figure.

Fast forward a few months and I find myself doing my first non-email interview with someone (this time over Skype!) with a wonderful guy over at Atari named Jonathan Moses, with whom I was set to talk all about this upcoming game. Of course, since I have the attention span of a rat, we ended up talking not only about Infestation, but about garden gnomes, development cycles, 3DS difficulties, and when we’d see Atari’s next home console. Though, we didn’t so much “talk” about a new console as “very briefly touch on it”, but I probably shouldn’t say more and just use that as a way to get people to read this unfairly.

I’m not a real journalist; I can do stuff like that.
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Posted on 13 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in 3DS, Features, General Nintendo | 0 comments

Not sure why, but I have an unusual amount of inspiration this evening! It’s a Wednesday night, I’m stressed out of my mind with work and school, yet I feel a weird urge to come on out here and write something so you all have something to think about when you begin your Thursdays across the globe! We’re halfway done with the week, so hang tight and a couple of days off will be at your doorstep in no time.

So last night we heard about two things, and if you’re a frequent visitor of the site, you most certainly are well acquainted with them by now: Monster Hunter Tri G, and the new 3DS Circle Pad attachment. In case you haven’t gotten all caught up, here’s the skinny on both of them:

3DS Circle Pad Attachment – Rundown/Your Thoughts?

First Monster Hunter Tri G Details

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Posted on 13 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, General Nintendo | 0 comments

For me, there are really only two types of games out there: Those that engage me mentally/emotionally, and those that make me happy or have fun. I don’t care what reviews say, how good gameplay is, whether the graphics are up to par, or whether I’m using an Xbox controller or a Corn Dog as my main method of input; if a game fits one of these two categories, then I’ll play it and I’ll love it.

For the most part, people don’t really hate on the games with srs business in them, such as Final Fantasy X, Flower, Zelda, etc. Sure, there are some haters out there, but generally speaking the basic idea is that such games are good quality and it makes sense that we enjoy them. The “fun” and “happy” games I refer to are ones such as Mario Sports Mix, Jeopardy, Mario Party, Wii Party, and Wii Sports. What a lot of people refer to as “party” games or “casual” games.

God forbid you try and say that these games are top-notch gaming.

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Posted on 13 years ago by Patrick(@Patricklous) in Features | 0 comments

In late 2003, Nintendo of America decided to finally release the Fire Emblem games internationally with their localization of Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken. Renamed as simply “Fire Emblem”, this game marked the first time that most people outside of Japan had their first taste of Intelligent Systems’ strategy-RPG series. Or at least it was the first time they’d played it.

You see, five years before Marth showed up in Super Smash Bros. and seven years before any Fire Emblem game was actually localized, an animated adaption of the first Fire Emblem game was produced to tie into a remake that had just been released for the Super Famicom. In 1998, this two part, straight-to-video Fire Emblem feature was picked up by A.D. Vision, a recently closed American producer and distributor. Hopefully this means that there won’t be any lawyers chasing me down for posting these clips here.

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Posted on 13 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, General Nintendo, Wii | 0 comments

Well f*ck.

Okay, so I admit it. I completely and utterly admit that I was unequivocally wrong about Xenoblade Chronicles. If you missed my rant a few weeks ago, I went on a binge talking about how there’s a good reason why games like this never sell in America, so we should stop whining and get over it. One of my points was that (despite rave Famitsu scores) the games would end up getting mediocre reviews upon arrival in the west, and fade away into obscurity some months later as “those games that everyone wanted and no one bought.”

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Posted on 13 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, General Nintendo | 0 comments

The way I see it, there are two parts to making a game: Making the gameplay, and making the atmosphere. These two parts are integral to any great game design, but each one encompasses a totally different set of things. Gameplay includes things like controls, level design, etc, while the atmosphere can encompass everything from the graphics to the music, to the sound effects and character animations. Both are important parts of game design, and when a developer can bring together a perfect balance of the two, we get games that are so full of magic and wonder, we feel like we can never put them down. These, in my opinion, are games like The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and Banjo Kazooie.
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