Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze’s reviews are just now starting to arrive. You can find a roundup of verdicts below.

Destructoid – 10 / 10
Game Informer – 9.25 / 10
USGamer – 9 / 10
EDGE – 7 / 10
Eurogamer – 7 / 10
GamesRadar – 9.1 / 10
Polygon – 8.5 / 10
IGN – 9 / 10
GameSpot – 6 / 10
Joystiq – 4 / 5
Polygon – 8.5 / 10
GamesRadar – 4 / 5
Nintendo Life – 9 / 10
DigitalSpy – 4 / 5
NintendoWorldReport – 8.5 / 10
CVG – 8 / 10

More: Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, reviews roundup

Along with today’s screenshot, Sakurai passed along the following message on Miiverse:

Little Mac can deliver some solid punches while fighting on the ground.

More: Masahiro Sakurai, Miiverse, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U/3DS, top

With Yumi’s Odd Odyssey’s North American launch just on the horizon, we spoke with Natsume’s Graham Markay and Kiyoshi Sakai, one of the series’ original developers. Topics include the game’s digital-only release, returning to the franchise after it had been dormant for so many years, and more. We also asked Natsume about a few other things such as Virtual Console and Wii U support.

We’ve split up the interview into a couple of pages – you’ll find Markay’s comments below and Sakai’s remarks on page two.

Read More

More: Graham Markay, highlight, interview, Kiyoshi Sakai, top

Well guys and gals, it’s time once again for another NintendoEverything videogame book club! This time up we have a trio of fairly interesting games that will likely breed a lot of discussion regardless of which is picked, so take a look at the poll below and take your pick. It’s worth noting that sheer number of votes will not be the only determining factor when we’re considering which game to play and discuss on the podcast; another large factor will be which game has the strongest case made for it in the text answer within the poll, so do your best to rationalize which one of these three is most worth discussing in a serious sense.

Unsure what the NintendoEverything Book Club for Videogames is? It’s simple: Just like a real book club, we get together every week and discuss a game chronologically in great depth with the goal of promoting and enjoying some genuine discussion of games on a deeper level than you might find elsewhere. Listeners are encouraged to send their thoughts along to our podcast email to potentially be read on the show.

More: highlight

ON THIS EPISODE: A return to normal quality sees us talk about how impressive Portal is and how Valve achieved such a cohesive sense of place in a relatively minimalist game, and a discussion of Persona 4 turns towards the analytical with some exploitative discussion on more complicated games and what elements might help and hurt such ambitious experiences.

PLUS: We go through every announcement in the Nintendo Direct and give our thumbs up or thumbs down, in addition to general discussion about all of the games/features shown.

AND: Listener mail has a few really great game-design-driven questions that have us analyzing screenshots from Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and speaking on the subject of redundancy and teaching in games, and how this might separate the good games from the great games. Here are the two screenshots we refer to in the segment: Image 1 Image 2

This Week’s Podcast Crew: Austin, Jack, and Laura

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More: Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, highlight, Super Mario Bros.

So this is kind of a crazy thing. Twitch users – thousands upon thousands, might I add – are attempting to play through Pokemon Red by entering commands on chat.

It’s almost been four days. How long will it take to complete?

Thanks to Carlos D for the tip.

More: fan video

A bunch of details regarding Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark have come in from the Toy Fair 2014. You can find a roundup of information below.

– Story campaign, co-op Escalation modes included
– Take command of a Transformer aligned with the Autobots or the Decepticons
– Protect our planet or destroy it
– Story campaign mode world has 1-4 players offline
– Online co-op Escalation mode works with up to 4 players as well
– Out sometime this year
– Made by Edge of Reality on consoles
– WayForward seems to be handling the 3DS version (not confirmed)
– Story incorporates War For/Fall of Cybertron and the movieverse
– Not a movie-based video game, but it incorporates many elements of it
– Story, “runs in parallel” to Age of Extinction.
– A portion of the game takes place on Cybertron, and another portion on Earth (with Age of Extinction characters)
– Voice actors include Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime and Gregg Burger as Grimlock
– Gameplay will be similar to that of Fall of Cybertron
– Multi-player cooperative will be available, but not cooperative campaign

Source 1, Source 2

More: Activision, details roundup, Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark

Below are the latest titles that can be currently pre-ordered at retailers:

Wii U

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (last chance) – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
Watch Dogs – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
LEGO The Hobbit – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
Bayonetta 2 – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
Super Smash Bros. – Amazon, Best Buy
Mario Kart 8 – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
Yarn Yoshi – Best Buy

3DS

Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
Yoshi’s New Island – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
Cut The Rope: Triple Treat – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
Disney Magical World – Amazon, GameStop
Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
LEGO The Hobbit – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
Mario Golf: World Tour – Amazon, GameStop
Super Smash Bros. – Amazon, Best Buy
Kirby Triple Deluxe – GameStop

Thanks to Jake for the tip.

R & P Studio has announced “Adventure Thru 8-Bit Land” for the Wii U eShop. A release is planned for later in 2014.

The Wii U-exclusive side-scroller supports off-TV play as well as the Pro Controller. Additionally, the studio has passed along the following information about its project:

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More: Adventure Thru 8-Bit Land, indie, R & P Studios

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