99.2 million Wiis and counting!

After about two weeks we reach the next milestone from 99.1! We're still nearly new in our count towards 100 million. During that time the Wii Mini got released in Ireland (it comes in a tiny box. Try not to blink when you scan the shelves) along with some new entries in the Nintendo Selects Range. That should help!

Watching Ben Hur, thinking of Zelda

I watched Ben Hur for the first time ever today. It's a very good film and it got me thinking about Zelda.

Since the film was about someone who lived in the time of Jesus I thought it would be interesting if there was a Zelda game (not movie) where you play as a character in Hyrule but you don't play as Link. Instead you play as one of the people whose lives are affected by what's going on. You might even meet Link and help him in some way or have him help you.

Of course, one character comes to mind and that's Tingle. But some fans seem to be interested in the idea of a Shiek game or other ideas based on the flooding or the fall of the hero.

But yeah, imagine Tingle as the Ben Hur of the Zelda series? :P

Shovel Knight seems pretty interesting

A game about a knight that uses a shovel as a weapon. I've been watching videos where it uses its shovel as a pogo stick like in DuckTales or the downward thrust in Zelda 2. The 8-bit aesthetic of course is appealing and it seems like it might be a nice enough game with the dynamics it could offer. The very concept of a knight using a shovel itself is interesting enough to make me want to have a look.

Fire Emblem Awakening demo is out

Finally we in Europe can try the Fire Emblem Awakening demo so yay I guess. I didn't have a go yet because it took me hours to download it.

The first Game Boy Harvest Moon is out on the 3DS VC tomorrow

It'll be in colour too. I'm gonna get this. My memories of Harvest Moon go back to that era and I only had the second game in the GB trilogy. I liked it well enough but I kept giving up on it. I'd like to get more into it because I still have an interest in the series.

Luigi's Mansion 2 doesn't have boring tutorials! Yes!

As read from this GoNintendo summary:

http://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=198940

...of gamertagradio.com's review that has the phrase "No real tutorials – lots of “figure it out yourself”" under the list of BAD points!

A GOOD and AWESOME point somehow got placed in the other list! Can you believe it? This just goes to show that with game reviews you often have to read between the lines and in cases like this, a major selling point for you is given unwittingly :)

Grant Kirkhope on Game Grumps!

A brand new segment called Guest Grumps along with a new intro theme by (and starring) Grant Kirkhope! He of course is the guy who did all the music for the N64 games featured in this episode which include Banjo-Kazooie, GoldenEye 007 and Donkey Kong 64!

They all play the games together, have a laugh and Grant points out here and there what he did and what's what and what the story was behind them... for example, an enemy would grunt or something and he says "that was me!".

Needless to say, this episode is something very special indeed! :)

It's an hour long too and I'm still watching bits and pieces between buffer pauses. I love Banjo-Kazooie and DK64 of course so that makes him one of my childhood(well, teenagehood) heroes! Seriously, something like this gives Retro Gamer magazine a run for their money and that is no faint praise!

Nintendo Selects Super Paper Mario, Wii Sports Resort are out along with the Wii Mini

They just came out this past Friday along with a couple of others like Mario Party 8. The Wii Mini also got released. The display box for the Wii Mini looked so tiny compared to the other console boxes!

Anyway the new Nintendo Selects games can be found in Argos and you can register them, even if you registered the originals. I didn't bother looking in GameStop, seeing how they're such fuckups.

DuckTales Remastered announced. Holy Shit!

Here's the trailer. Word of warning: It features the catchy theme song so it may cause major nostalgia pangs!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6N0PzqF9gWY#t=48s

I have it set at 48 seconds in because there's a slideshow of quotes from boring people who don't matter. (Seriously, fuck off the lot of ye.)

So yeah! A remake of the NES DuckTales done by WayForward and coming to Wii U (and other consoles for some reason. Do non-Nintendo console owners even like games like DuckTales? I suppose we'll see!)

*sigh* DuckTales... I was too young when your cartoon stopped being broadcasted. I reminisced afterwards but I was still a child. A child isn't supposed to reminisce about the good old days but that's what happened when this went off the air.

Iwata Asks: Canada VS Japan edition!

Oh god just look at this fantastic picture:

CANADA VS JAPAN!

What a wonderful way to illustrate the latest installment of Iwata Asks, which can be found here:

http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/luigis-mansion-dark-moon/0/0

I haven't even read it yet! The above picture alone inspires this entry.

To give some clarity, Next Level Games in Canada developed Luigi's Mansion 2 for Nintendo and now they've come together here for the battle of the century a nice chat.

Playing the HarmoKnight demo

This demo came out today! The full game'll be out on the eShop soon and it'll cost 15 Euro.

It's automatically better than any other rhythm game on the DS/3DS because it doesn't use the stylus so you don't lose yourself in the lovely rhythm while scrawling the touch screen. However, it commits the heinous crime of using B to jump and A to attack with no option to change. You can use Y to attack too if you like which is more comfortable (and X inexplicably jumps as well).

Hats off to the visual design though! So colourful and such likeable looking characters!

This demo is worth a go.

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate will be illegible on SD TVs

http://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=198411

Just as I suspected! Good thing I'm getting the 3DS version which has its own screen. I could read the text in the 3DS demo just fine. Big point in favour of handhelds!

I knew this was going to happen because I bought Tri a few years ago and I couldn't read a thing from that game on my tv screen. I'm still using my SD CRT. It serves me very well.

But hey! Developers! Stop making your in-game text so small and hard to read! I have Opoona for the Wii and the text is wonderfully big no matter what screen I play it on! Make it a proper reading size or I won't buy your game!

Iwata and Itoi chat about Mother 2/EarthBound for the Japanese VC release event

Go to this link to read a translation for it!

http://kamedani.tumblr.com/

They chat about the time when they were developing the game. They even refer to the time Iwata came up with his "2 years or 6 months" solution.

Fascinating read for fans! There's different parts so check back to that site now and again.

99.1 Million Wiis and counting!

Let's do a countdown! Countdowns are exciting and 100 million is a nice round number to count to. I'll be using vgchartz.com, the site that's famously known among forum posters for immediately becoming "unreliable" when the Wii first passed the Xbox 360 in sales.

This first post serves as an introduction and it'll have the label "100 million Wii countdown". I'll be making a new post for every 100 thousand sold, rooting for the Wii to break the 100 million benchmark. Watch this space for more!

No StreetPasses for Patrick's Day...

I went to a parade today with the 3DS but alas no StreetPasses. Ah well.

AVGN episode 110: Ikari Warriors

http://cinemassacre.com/2013/03/06/avgn-ikari-warriors/

Enjoyed this episode a lot with Kyle's music. Very jam session-y and lots of fun. It is great to see the return of Kyle. He and James work well together so it's nice to see them together like this again.

Be sure to look at the outtakes video too!

...and yes I fully support the idea of there being a Rambo & Commando movie!

Tried the Sonic racing transformed thingy demo

I can't recall the unwieldy title right now but it's the one on 3DS I tried. The racing is ok but unsmooth and laggy. The loading times are an absolute disgrace. It was bad with Naruto too.

Tried the Naruto Powerful Shippuden demo

I never played or watched a Naruto anything before so I thought I'd give it a go. There was a tutorial I couldn't skip where I had to learn various ways of punching the same 3 animals over and over again. When I beat a tutorial, a little path to another tutorial opened and I earned tutorial experience points and... I got fed up and deleted the demo.

Don't fall behind on Game Grumps episodes!

The Game Grumps normally upload two episodes per day. For a while there I fell behind and it just built up and up and up! The number of episodes I hadn't seen was getting too large and was nearly falling beyond the "load more" button on the page. I had to put my foot down and do a marathon (or an omnibus as they do with soap operas)

It took ages and I had to take a break a couple of times. (by break I mean leave and put it on the shelf until I got hungry for more grumpness) Finally caught up now! Better not fall back again... it could be trouble!

Finally hunted the plesioth in the Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate demo

ugh... this took too many failed attempts. I don't even feel that satisfied and just got so frustrated. This is just painful and yet I'm still thinking about buying the boxed game. I'm that addicted to it.

If you're having trouble with this monster, well, block strategically and just keep going at it with your strongest moves. You've nearly got it if you see it limp and whimper away.

Classic Game Room's review of the Wii U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5d4yz9bY7s

Finally! I've been waiting a few months now to hear what Mark thinks of this and to see what funny/cool thing he'll do with a retro system while he's reviewing it.

He did a very good job with this. Massive ensemble of video game system goodness there. I like his frank and honest assessment of the Wii U as well. It really is one of the most controversial game systems ever made.

Watching Arino play Fire Emblem on Wii U VC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB9PNu98EZw

This was available on the Japanese Wii U online service but now someone awesome has subtitled and uploaded it here. Nice work!

It's been a small while since I watched Game Centre CX. We see Arino playing this game with the usual excitement of the tv show. It's a little weird how the staff appears to laugh at every little thing he says but that's probably just a consequence of the show's editing.

I played a little bit of the 3DS Ambassador GBA Fire Emblem and it seems that they've been consistent with the series which must be nice for fans.

Thinking about the circle pad pro and the IR port

The circle pad pro for the 3DS works through the IR port. So I was just wondering, what else can be done? Actually I was thinking it would be kinda cool if there was some kind of IR adaptor thingy that would let me use different controllers on the 3DS like an NES pad. It's an absolutely pointless level of gadgetry but it would be kinda fun to have that option!

Legend of the River King for 3DS VC has maps!(it's pretty good too!)

This game came out on the VC yesterday. Back in the Game Boy Colour days I ignored it because fishing didn't sound particularly enticing to me and I couldn't imagine how it could also be an adventure/RPG game. I'm making up for that now that I realise how nice of an adventure game it is. The fishing isn't too complicated and it's something you do to trade for money and other things that'll help you progress to other areas in the game. Fishing is your quest; your ticket to adventure!

Now, the maps. The included electronic manual has these wonderfully detailed maps showing the game's areas and they show where the various fish can be found. I'm looking at these maps and I can't wait to explore these upcoming areas! I love that kind of excitement! The rest of the manual is filled with all these wonderful and daft fishing puns. It could be a direct transcription from the original manual. In any case, they did a mighty job on this re-release! Well done!

I'm confident about Luigi's Mansion 2 now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uswNpCwIQA

Just watched this video, keeping an eye out for any stylus usage and I'm pleased to see that there is none. I get nervous about using the touch screen too much so this helped put my mind at rest.

I'm happy to see now that this game features a "SCAREscraper" without being a "SCREENscraper".

Castlevania on 3DS VC in full 60 Hz

If you have any interest at all in Mirror of Fate, you should play the original NES game first. It came out over here in Europe on the 3DS VC on Valentines Day. It's also the first time we get to officially play it at the proper 60 Hz speed.

If you were to compare Castlevania on the NES to the Mirror of Fate demo, you'll see why many people prefer retro games!

A non-exclusive Minecraft would still be unlikely to come to Wii U

http://www.edge-online.com/news/minecraft-on-playstation-being-considered-wii-u-version-very-unlikely/
So the exclusivity deal with Microsoft isn't our only enemy?

People would love to play this on Wii U.

One cool thing about Mirror of Fate

I like the way you come across scrolls and it contains someone's dying words or their lament or whatever. It's a nice little touch.

Going back to Super Mario 3D Land

There's some stuff I haven't done yet. I have to beat all the levels with Mario and Luigi to get another star on my file. I also had to beat bowser in the normal final castle after the special final castle for some reason. Ah well, it unlocked a funny Peach tanooki picture anyway.

I also turned on the StreetPass function; I had it off until now! The mushroom house presents and purple question boxes are ok but don't mean much to me now that I'm in "post-game". Their level completion times make for a nice little challenge though!

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate will have cross-region play

Yikes! That is going to make a LOT of discussion board posters happy!

We haven't been able to play the game with American players but now we will with the Wii U version.

The AVGN's relaxation tape thingy has a download now!

I blogged about this cool little thing James Rolfe put out a few months ago and forgot to blog about it again when he made it available as a download from his site. I nabbed it straight away because I enjoyed it so much!

You can get it from here:
http://cinemassacre.com/2013/01/29/audio-downloads-available/