Mario 25th Anniversary Collection coming to Europe

Today it was announced that this special Wii disc release is coming to Ireland and Europe as well as Japan and it'll be coming out on the 3rd of December, the same day Donkey Kong Country Returns comes out here.

That's quite weird isn't it? It's kind of like that time "Little King's Story" and "New Play Control! Pikmin 2" came out here on the same day. I don't know if sales of one will disrupt the other's. I sure hope not.

It says "All Stars" on the box, the same as the SNES compilation. I wonder if it'll be the SNES remakes of the games that'll be on it? I must say I prefer the original NES versions (not that these aren't nice too).

It would be great if Super Mario World was on it too like it was when the SNES got a revised version that got bundled with consoles. That cartridge was without doubt the greatest retro game compilation ever!

An audio CD will come with it that has tunes from various Mario games.

Kirby's Epic Yarn gets 36/40 from Famitsu

There seems to be people online who are more excited about the new Kirby than the new Donkey Kong Country. Nevertheless both games are very important in the important role of bringing us back to playing games in glorious 2D. Kirby's Epic Yarn won't be out here in Ireland until early next year but over the next week or so it'll be released in America and Japan so I hope you guys abroad are ready to buy it when it gets released!

Famitsu gave it 36/40 (breakdown 9/8/9/10 between the four reviewers) talking about the difficulty level which is quite low. This is somewhat reminiscent of Kirby games in general and it'll be interesting to see how the game sells as there is a healthy bit of buzz about it. There's going to be a lot of it over the next couple of weeks so let's all enjoy it together and hope it's the good kind!

The Angry Videogame Nerd Movie, my thoughts

I've been a big fan of the Angry Videogame Nerd ever since I first saw his video where he was reviewing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES. That part where he talks about the hole you can just walk over resonated with me so much that I ended up watching nearly every single thing he's done since. I first saw it in 2006 and since then I've always checked out his website for future updates.

Recently he uploaded a video where he talks about the AVGN movie which you can see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZw6YHR2EBM

I know I'm slow to blog this but he mentioned that he's spreading the word so that's what I'll do too with this post. I'm looking forward to this and I'm trying to imagine what the movie would be like! For now I hope he and his film crew work really hard at it and that it turns out well for them.

Gonintendo podcast episode 268

In this episode one of the guys (I think it's Kirby) was saying he tried out Last Window for the DS. He liked it though he did note that it was like a novel and was marketed as so( he's not wrong but it's still great). RMC is still mad that Another Code R didn't make it over there... kind of like how mad as I'll be if Shantae Risky's Revenge doesn't come over to Ireland and the rest of Europe!

Some cool music was played too. I'm surprised they didn't recognise Clash at Demonhead!

Listening to Podcasts: Screwattack's sidescrollers

Screwattack.com isn't a bad site. After all they're affiliated with the Angry Video Game Nerd so they musn't be all that bad right? I like their weekly podcast and Stuttering Craig has a really good radio host/sports commentator type of voice. This week he was talking about his trip to Japan and the amazing multi storey arcades they have there. Also with they way they're so polite to each other and the way a lot of adult stuff is right in your face. I'd like to visit there someday myself and maybe learn the language so I could enjoy more entertaining media that comes from there.

Celebrating Super Mario Bros.' 25th Anniversary

Super Mario Bros. is now 25 years old. I thought of doing something special to celebrate the occasion so I thought I'd learn to do that famous 1up trick on world 3-1.

It involves the flight of steps near the end of the level and a Koopa Troopa. As it descends you jump on it and as you bounce off it it rebounds off the step and you can bounce on it again and again until you start getting 1ups for each bounce.

I tried and tried again but kept failing to actually do it. Then I realised that I was playing the PAL version and that made the difference. Did you know the PAL version of the original NES Super Mario Bros runs faster than the NTSC versions? It's really unusual as PAL versions of games are usually noticeably slower than their NTSC counterparts. That means effort must've been taken to make sure the PAL version was actually faster than it was destined to be.

So then I tried the NTSC version of the game and was able to do it straight away! I was really pleased with myself! That was a good way to celebrate the birthday of this game. Those extra lives really come in handy too when you're trying to do a non-warp playthrough of the entire game.

But I still prefer the PAL version released here!

Looking forward to Kirby's Epic Yarn on Wii

Another nice surprise that was revealed at E3 this year was Kirby's Epic Yarn, a game being developed by Good Feel, the same guys who made Wario Land: The Shake Dimension which has some of the most flawless looking graphics ever and Kirby's Epic Yarn looks similar in style.

Really looking forward to this. I'm a big Kirby fan and I have all his DS games! I'm more looking forward to DKC Returns but should be great too.