Games I'm looking forward to in 2013

Animal Crossing and Luigi's Mansion 2 for the 3DS are definite must haves! I hope the latter doesn't have stupid controls. Stupid controls is what drove me away from Kid Icarus Uprising.

I've got a free game coming to me as well in the 3DS XL promotional thing that Nintendo of Europe are offering generously.

I'm also quietly hoping that Dragon Quest VII will come out in Europe for the 3DS.

That's it so far. There's also downloadable stuff of course like Mega Man 2 for the 3DS VC that'll inevitably arrive at some point over the next few months. I'm keeping an eye on the Wii U of course, which should have a couple of big things happening to it this year. Watch this space for other games I can't think of right now.

Coping with YouTube layout changes

Remember YouTube in 2005? No ads, video buffer continued to fill when you pressed pause.... those were the days. Over the past few weeks YouTube did something that threw me off completely.

They got rid of page numbers.

I watch lots of video game videos from YouTubers whom I very much enjoy. These people are often very prolific and have hundreds upon hundreds of videos which used to be easily found as long as you had the page number of the list they were on.

That's all gone out the window and is now replaced with a "Load more" button. All this does is load more of the list of videos on the same page. If I were to do that, going through hundreds of videos, my poor computer would slow to a crawl and lock up. Anyone's would.

Thankfully, and after much swearing I found they added a touch to their playlist feature, which is displayed to the right of the video when you play it. I can pinpoint the url of any video and keep a record of the last one I watched, which I usually do in chronological order. I turn autoplay off and press the previous button to watch the newer video in the sequence. That's how I'm coping and surviving with YouTube right now.

That's the way it'll be, at least until they go and fuck it up again with another update.

Paper Mario 3D proves that 3D technology is extremely primitive

Paper Mario 3D is done the best way it could possibly be done with regards to the 3D effect. The experience still sucks because if you move the screen any bit from dead centre — something which happens naturally with a handheld — it all goes into a blurry mess. Same old story then!

This highlights more than ever that we need better technology in order to execute 3D more successfully but it's just not being sold to us. The empty fucking promise is sold to us though.

3DS is yes, all experimental and the best argument for 3D yet and also the best example yet of 3D in execution, but it's still at a very primitive stage.

Paper Mario 3D's motion control sticker effect

I love this little touch! Just like real collectable glittery stickers, when you move the 3DS, the glittery stickers in your inventory move their shine around. Very clever!

Watching SirRonLionHeart play Majora's Mask

I realy like this Let's Player! He takes getting used to but becomes very watchable with his jokes and voices. I watched his SMW Cookie Crisis and Mario 64 plays and now I'm watching his Majora's Mask one.

My favourite moment so far is when he was fighting the boss from the Great Bay dungeon. Before it appeared he said "This better not be some giant fish- OH WHAT THE" and this giant fish leaps right out of the water. Made me laugh out loud so it did! That cute conversation about taking pictures of the Gerudo was fun too. "Such a guy" Tatl kept saying.

Anyway I was sick after eating so much Christmas food and watching Ron helped get me through all that. I'll continue to watch! Thanks for being so FANTASTIC and ULTRA!

Explaining the 3DS to someone who unwrapped theirs on Christmas Day

Yesterday I was showing a family member how to do StreetPass and about play coins. It took a long time to explain it all to them. They were taken by the initial novelty value of the whole concept though and spent the day after Christmas Dinner walking around the house trying to build up their 10 play coins a day. That was pretty interesting!

Effing arcade is going to be late

Well, Rab Florence's new show is going to be late.

The blog says it, and to me the tone of that statement seems to be same as the one Nintendo have when fans ask about the next Zelda.

Let's wait some more I suppose.

What is the best alternative Christmas game?

http://cinemassacre.com/2012/12/22/whats-the-best-christmas-movie/

He's interesting as always, especially about Die Hard as an alternative Christmas movie, which is always an interesting conversation piece.

It's making me think about what the best alternative Christmas video game is. Going through my memories of games I've played over the years it actually didn't take me long until I came up with both Hotel Dusk and Last Window, neither of which are particularly heavy with the Christmas theme but both of them take place around Christmas and even have their moments.

The one moment that jumps out at me right now is from Hotel Dusk, where Kyle Hyde and the little girl are decorating a Christmas tree in the hotel storage room, surrounded by an unlikely yet likeable group of people who come together to have their own little party and appreciate what they have. It's a nice cosy moment in this detective story and you even get to place the decorations on the tree yourself.

The Wii U has issues with loading times :(

One of the things I wanted from this "Project Café" thing was to not have loading times. Since the machine was designed to be just like the competition, I suppose they figured loading times have to be there too.

But hey! Wait a minute!

Why are people complaining that Nintendo's new console has bad loading times whereas they don't complain about the competition, who have loading times that are just as long if not longer?

Conspiracy? No, not this time.

It is because we expect better from Nintendo that's why. Mario Party 9 and Kirby's Adventure Wii don't have loading times at all, GameCube games didn't really have loading delays either and the N64 was cartridge based so it was also nice and speedy.

The Wii U has loading delays for menu screens!!! Ugh!!!

While we're at it, the 3DS isn't an angel in this regard either. The DS and DS Lite were much faster with their loading of games and the 3DS has many many more menus and other firmware aspects with noticeable delays everywhere. I tried my old DS Phat for the first time in ages lately and I couldn't believe how fast games loaded.

I don't have a Wii U yet.

Nintendo Power to be spiritually succeeded by Nintendo Force

The name sounds... non-consensual...(nah just kidding)

http://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=193296

Have a look at this GoNintendo post about it and see who is working on it. RMC is on the team as we can see from that big list of Miis. I'm also quite pleased to see Matthew Taranto of the Brawl in the Family webcomic on the team! He did some comics for Howard Philips not so long ago so he'd be great on that team! The extremely hardworking Nintendaan, who provided us with all those wonderful Nintendo Week videos, is part of the team too as well as the likeable Jonathan Holmes.

So this is a thing that'll exist and that's all the info we have for now.

Meanwhile here I am thinking about buying the UK Official Nintendo Magazine. We'll see after Christmas.

Shigesato Itoi tweets about MOTHER republication

http://earthboundcentral.com/2012/12/itoi-announces-mother-developments/

Everything you need to know there. What can this be exactly? A MOTHER republication with the intent of making it playable we know that much.

What that tells us at the very very least is a remake of the original MOTHER aka EarthBound Zero. I mean, I can't imagine what else that could mean!

Many people would only appreciate the first game for its legacy rather than actually play it. I really enjoyed the game when I played it and I'm sure I'd enjoy a remake of it as well. There's definitely room for improvement in any case.

If there were to be a remake of Majora's Mask...

I would remove the Gibdo mini-dungeon where you have to trade stuff with them. I know it's not good for the sake of posterity but it's one of the low points of the game and it's not fun to play at all.

Hmm.... putting more thought into it I'm not sure what I'd do. It'd be a dilemma if I was the one responsible for said hypothetical remake!

Sonic 06 Count My Boxes instant laughter Game Grumps vid!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEthu8FaiX8
Just watch from 5 minuts onwards and you'll just burst out laughing, not because of any big joke or anything but just... It's just wonderfully funny and belly achingly hilarious to watch!

Looking forward to Rab Florence's new effing arcade show

So not only does Ryan MacLeod have the new ChuckieDregs but the other Consolevania dude is coming out with a show of his own. There isn't some rivalry going on is there?

I'm looking forward to it of course because I love Consolevania and VideoGaiden among other stuff they both did. Rab is doing some Internet-brand-excitement-building stuff like altering the Consolevania.com front page and running a tumblr blog that can be found here:

http://effingarcade.tumblr.com/

Roll on Christmas Eve! If the two lads are competing then this show will have to be really good as ChuckieDregs features the show-stealing Irish guy from MechaGamezilla.

Maybe get someone like Graham Linehan on board! Rab and Ryan were once going to write a new series of the I.T. Crowd weren't they? I've forgotten.

The wrath of Reggie: a darkly comic Nintendo Direct edit

Nearly every site I browse has been posting this video and with good reason! I've spent the whole evening rewatching this and laughing my head off. Have a look:

Nooooooo! Bill! This all started out as harmless banter in the Nintendo Direct videos and I didn't even pick up on it. Not until now anyway, when someone made the whole thing sound really sinister from 40 seconds onwards. The added effects of dramatic movie music and the slow zooming camera literally gives you images of cement shoes! Immediately followed by a darkly absurd "rip in peace bill", all it can do is make you laugh!

This is right up there with that "Bill Clinton trying to kill Santa" joke. Editing sure is powerful stuff!

A female Link in the Zelda series would be cool

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dXmMQJMFL_I

This links to a video doing the rounds lately of a girl Link that smashes pots. It's a fun and well made tribute and the girl Link is a really likeable character.

I think it would be a great idea to be able to select Link's gender in a Zelda game like you can for Dragon Quest IV.

I'm really sick of world 1-5 in NSMB2

Every StreetPasser I come across only has a record on the mushroom pack and the second level is always this stupid water level.

Water levels aren't generally great but having to do them over and over to beat someone's same challenge again and again is a royal pain.

Denpa Men warns you about people that may call you a pervert while you're playing the game

Okay so it doesn't use the word "pervert" but look at this actual transcription of this warning message in the instruction manual:

"This game does not allow you to take pictures or videos, but when you try to catch Denpa Men in a public space, some people may misinterpret your behavior as trying to record or photograph them without their permission. Press X to change to Manner Mode, which displays only the Denpa Men, making it easier to avoid misunderstandings."

This is essentially telling you to be careful of ignorant people who would wrongly accuse you of being some kind of pervert(an extreme example but still) and this "Manner Mode" thing could possibly be the very first example of a video game mechanic that functions as a protective device against these kinds of misjudgements.

I'd rather just play in a fun & safe place than rely on this thing.

Game Grumps are doing DKC2!

Yay! Just like I wanted! They wouldn't be doing it as a special favour just for li'l ol' me? Naww....

I can't wait until they do this all the way to DKC3 which I constantly say is my favourite of the series. They'll go "Look at this bear ass bear! He's like 'ahrm hmmmrhmmm fuggin hnnhrmm hmmrnnn'" and I will laugh every.single.time they do it

Is the Poisonous Pipeline level from DKC3 a reference to Sabre Wulf?

I played a good bit of Sabre Wulf today and got farther than I ever did. I noticed that when you get a purple flower you turn purple and all the directional controls are reversed. The exact same thing happens in Poisonous Pipeline with the purple water (except for up and down). If this was Rare's intention to make a reference to one of their older games as Ultimate then that's pretty cool!

Poisonous Pipeline is a fun level in DKC3 but if you don't like when the controls are reversed then look at the game in a mirror while playing!

Got the 30,000 coin maximum in NSMB2 Coin Rush

Thanks to the free level pack Nintendo put out recently I was able to do this without too much trouble.

I still only have around 300k coins though so I'm a long way off to that 1 million yet.

From now on I'm going to call Earthworm Jim a "No Hoper"

I recently completed DKC2 fully and I still have to say DKC3 is better. DKC2 does seem cooler and the world is much scarier but DKC3 is just a better made game.

DKC2 is the one that the Internet loves at the moment so bring that to your online discussions and you'll get plenty of kudos and high fives.

The DKC trilogy is without doubt one of the best in video games and it just got better with each entry. DKC Returns is good too but not as much as the SNES trilogy.

3DS friends playing games not available in your region

While I was playing Wario Land 3 the other day, the red LED flashed on my 3DS, notifying me that someone on my friend list was online. I had a look to see who it was and it was one of my American friends. He had the Epic Mickey demo as his software in use, which isn't available in my region (yet) and I had Wario Land 3 as mine, which isn't available in his region yet.

Are we supposed to look at each other's library in envy? hm? HMMM? (just kidding)

Really though, I hope we get the Epic Mickey demo. If we don't there is zero chance I'll buy the game as opposed to slightly above zero chance I'll buy it if we do get the demo.

Does GameStop actually want to sell Paper Mario?

It's a silly question I know but due to their complete eejitry over the last year, I get the feeling that they don't want to sell me the game at all.

Before Nintendo gave the final set in stone release date, GameStop spent the whole year guessing the wrong one and ended up throwing people off. That was bad enough, but last week a clerk told me that it wasn't coming out until next year and that it wasn't even on the shop system. He said this to me with a straight face, even though I had GameStop's recent catalogue open on the page where it explicitly gave the December 7th date for Paper Mario: Sticker Star.

If I was to hazard a guess, I would say he's mixing Paper Mario up with the new Luigi's Mansion. We've had at least two Nintendo Direct features telling us what the final date for the game was but no, some eejit from GameStop has to fuck up the date even now.

Now, I know that the clerk is only there to do the best job he can of selling bits of plastic to people. He mightn't even know who the fuck Satoru Shibata is. This whole mix up though would make anyone feel that GameStop are conspiring against people who want to buy this game.

But hey, of course GameStop isn't involved in some kind of conspiracy. They're just incompetent. Today I saw loads of copies of this newly released game proudly displayed on their shelves. You can buy one right now! You don't have to wait until next year!

This single case more than justifies Nintendo Direct. In a world of uncertainty, this feature is the only true way we can be informed about Nintendo games.

Game Grumps are playing Donkey Kong Country Returns

I thought they'd continue with the SNES trilogy :/

Ah well I'm sure this'll be entertaining.

I've been playing the SNES trilogy lately myself and I'm over halfway through DKC2 now.

Full version of Denpa Men out today!

Nabbed it as soon as I could off the eShop. I really liked the demo of this RPG as I've said before.

Satoru Shibata didn't even mention this game in the Nintendo Direct yesterday which is kind of a pity.

Wario Land 3 is out today on 3DS VC!

One of the few interesting things that were said in the Nintendo Direct today was that this game was being released straight afterwards.

I'm glad it's out because that means I have access the entire GB/GBC/GBA series on the 3DS and that's a really good thing.

This is also the only one in that series I never had on cartridge and it's also the only one I've ever given up on whenever I tried it on an emulator. Maybe now that I have access to it here I'll have some motivation to play all the way through to its end.

I beat the "Denpa" Men demo solo!

I quite like this demo!

I beat it once before using a few party members I had gathered and now I beat it with just the 1 character you start out with! It was tough and I had to do some grinding and use HP replenishing potions almost constantly when I was up against the end of demo boss. It's also tough considering the spell he had was "revive", which is completely useless in a solo adventure.

I think it's safe to say I'm going to love the full game when it comes out on Thursday :)

StreetPassed someone from Tipperary!

I finally got someone from there! I had been trying for ages. They had no Puzzle Swap pieces though.

The Game Grumps play Nintendoland!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxlOOYz-xzk

Well worth watching! Way more so than watching any Wii U coverage done by some shithead game "journalist" anyway. Watch these guys play instead!

Late Late Toy Show 2012

Skylanders for the Wii was shown for two seconds. It was in-game footage of some random character shooting at nothing. There was absolutely no mention of the figurine scanning thing.

They gave a weird magic book thing for the PS3 and its Move controller plenty of attention though. They gave it so much time because it was more of a weird n' wonderful gadget thing than a game thing, but also because it took them a while to get this thing to work properly.

There was also no mention whatsoever of the Wii U.

Video game exposure on the Late Late Toy Show has always been like this really! I remember one time when I was a kid watching this; they showed a tiny bit of footage of Mario 3 where Mario immediately died by running into a goomba.