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Just wanted to say I remembered that you can turn the Gamepad display off in the Home button menu. The gamepad is still considered turned on, and it's still dumb, but at least that'll save you some battery life. I just leave mine in the cradle when I'm using the Pro controller, personally. Hope that helps. It's kind of bonkers to me that TVii is still a mandatory part of the system here, since in Canada it's barely functional. We don't have three of the four streaming services it supports and the other one doesn't work, so it just comes down to being a thing to route cable service through for no reason.

Steve Gaynor's twitter seems to indicate that he discovered a copy of Atom Cat somewhere. I secretly hope he bought it, because it's one of Tezuka's more insane releases.

Other Canadian Nintendo deals that I didn't realize were on.

For Canadians: The Source has an online-only 2/$50 deal on Wii Remote Pluses starting tomorrow and continuing until the sixth, and Amazon's going to have Mario & Luigi 4, Luigi's Mansion 2, and Fire Emblem Awakening on sale for $25 each tomorrow.

Credits rolled!

Okay, so the map for the world I'm on now is incredible. It's a bit of a spoiler since it's right after the first "gotcha" moment.

I'd give those ones my SEELE of approval.

They're still "Ghost Houses." Looks like the only exception was "Haunted Houses" in Super Mario World. ...I have no idea why I said "Boo House." Sorry. "Boo Mansion" was the best area in Paper Mario, though.

Important update: one of the Boo Houses in this game is a fucking ship graveyard populated in part by the Big Bullies from Super Mario 64. Best Mario game ever? y/y

Weirdest thing about the Wii U interface: You know those icons of games that appear on the plaza on the TV screen? You can launch games straight from those using the Pro Controller or the Wii remote. So you have a shortcut available right there, but it's pretty much guaranteed to be gone in a few months when people are done playing that game. I mean, you can also just press X or 1 to swap the gamepad and TV screens, but still.

When I finished high school in 2008*, we still used them. How fucking weird and terrible is it that technology that's barely changed in 25 years is in the same price range as a new phone? *oh god I've been out of high school for five years I'm ooooooold

Jeez. It doesn't sound any better than when I bought mine on day one and had to install a bunch of updates. Definitely give Nintendo Land a shot, especially the multiplayer co-op in Metroid Blast and the incredibly hard Donkey Kong thing. Also good on the system: Pikmin 3, Wonderful 101 (I didn't like the demo myself, but I know loads of people have been enjoying it), Earthbound on virtual console, and Super Mario 3D Land (I have no idea what you mean by playing the Mario games chronologically, but it would be a tragedy to miss out on by far the best game on the system).

...Did you only get to the blue one?

100%, too! Every heart piece, item upgrade, etc. So how about that ending? Best Zelda since Wind Waker. For realsies.

The only thing I have left to do before the final dungeon is get one last heart piece. It's the Octoball Derby one. Why the fuck does Nintendo always insist on adding these awful, awful minigames into every Zelda game? EDIT: and then I beat it.

Youtube is out as of today, if anybody's interested. The video quality is kind of butt, but otherwise it has no real problems.

PS Vita with 4GB Memory Card, The Walking Dead, Uncharted, Sly Cooper, and Retro City Rampage for $175.

Also, regarding Charles Martinet playing everyone in Mario: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=HO5imsViKp0#t=373 (skip to 6:13 if it doesn't automatically)

The joke is that it's Florida.

Persona 4 Golden is $20 on both Amazon and PSN, for people with a Vita.

Yesssssss. Metric's one of my favourite bands ever, and the Emily Haines/Envy Adams connection (especially in the movie, when The Clash At Demonhead performed a then-unreleased Metric song) is my favourite thing. more Metric on accounta' why not

Looks like there's a few worthwhile prizes. Me missing out on Heart Pieces because I refuse to play terrible minigames has become a Zelda tradition at this point. Oh yeah, I'm playing this now, thanks to an early Christmas gift from SecretAsianMan! Yaaaay! Thus far I'm on my second Lorule dungeon (Skull Woods, previously did Thieves' Hideout) and really digging it. I've already bought everything except for the Fire and Ice Rods and found more than half of the Maiamais. This is a really fun game. Probably the best Zelda since Wind Waker.

Man, "people do crazy and/or hilarious shit with Mega Man music" is practically a genre unto itself now. My favourites are the guy who recreated the entire Mega Man 3 soundtrack using the Castlevania III soundchip: ...And the only approprite use of Hatsune Miku:

So now that I'm finished the episode I've got two things to say: Jake, take a look at one of the Zelda trailers in the 3DS eshop. The art looks really weird in screenshots and really good in 3D. Regarding the Russian mafia anecdote at the end... Remember the Gizmondo? The failed console ostensibly meant to compete with the PSP and DS? One of the higher-ups was a Swedish mafioso and had basically been using the company as a front.