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They revealed a while back that you can now play with the gamepad using physical controls with the screen as a map, with the Wii remote and nunchuk on the TV (using the allegedly wonderful control scheme from the Wii ports of the first two games) and the screen as a map, off-TV on the gamepad with physical controls, and off-TV on the gamepad with the Wiimote and nunchuk using the gamepad as a display/sensor bar. They haven't officially stated why you can't use the touchscreen though. My speculation is that they probably wanted people looking at the TV for the nice HD visuals they've put together since Pikmin's always had very pretty visual design, and maybe dividing player attention by looking at the TV and playing with the touchscreen is too much. They've said in interviews that they wanted precise throws to have a more noticeable impact now (ie: you can throw Pikmin at a Bulborb's eye to try to blind it). Also, I encourage anyone who hasn't tried the Pikmin Adventure minigame in NintendoLand to give it a spin if you want to see a really cool, if somewhat simplified, take on how a Pikmin game can take advantage of the Wii U. Play it with friends and take turns playing Captain Olimar.

There's a wicker basket next to the counter on the island. If you interact with it, you can place up to 40 items you got from the island into it, and then pick them up from the basket on the dock in your town. It's a super easy way to make a bundle since the island has so many rare fish, bugs, and fruit trees. So this morning I planted an orchard! I've got a few rows of various fruit trees at the moment. I plan on expanding it bit by bit as my fruit stock increases. I'm also putting in a park clock next to the bench, I decorated my new basement and asked to have a side room installed, I unlocked Cyrus' services, and I severely regretted not buying more turnips because Re-Tail is buying for 512 each.

There's more Streetpass games coming you guys! Streetpass Mansion sounds spectacular.

I got a swank new basement! I made it classier than the rest of the house for some reason. I got a park bench, too, which is helping to make my ongoing park project a reality. Tomorrow I'm having a side room and a park clock put in. Can't wait. If anyone's got a TV yet, did you know that there's an actual programming schedule? At first it seems like you just get a random simple animation every time you turn on the TV, but it's based on the time of day and roughly works in fifteen-to-thirty-minute intervals. It includes things like weather reports, Saturday morning cartoons, and an alien transmission that plays for exactly one minute at 3:33 in the morning on Sundays in between static and test pattterns.

Oh yeah! I saw Man of Steel yesterday! There was a lot to like about it, and a lot to hate. Here's some points! It's weird that Man of Steel feels at the same time like it's trying to diverge from the accepted notion of Superman as much as possible (no Lex Luthor! No Kryptonite!) while also tossing in a lot of weird little continuity nods (both the Phantom Zone and the stupid Kryptonian Birthing Matrix thing from the nineties play roles in the film). The friend that I saw it with said that it reminded him most of the Star Trek reboot, which is a fair comparison. Snyder's usual annoying fast-and-slow camerawork is thankfully absent from the many, many instances of dudes punching each other. The trend of these big action blockbusters having as much property damage as possible is really grating to me. Every time someone knocks over a building I can't help but wonder how many hundreds of people just died when there's a dude right there who's supposed to save them. there's a handful of weird bits that are clearly supposed to be comedic but are so infrequent, so flat, and so uncommented upon that they just kind of distract you. why do all of the kryptonians have pseudo-british accents except for one guy who has a german accent I just know that people are going to complain about her, but this might be my favourite depiction of Lois Lane. Mann O'Steele follows in the tradition of Batman Begins and the like of having my favourite part of the movie be where the hero isn't yet a superhero but more of an urban legend. Clark Kent slumming around as some kind of immortal hobo and hearing people's third-hand descriptions of what he's done in the past is just the best thing. the moment he gets the suit, his beard disappears. where did he find the time the more you flesh out Krypton, the dumber Krypton gets; and this version is pretty damned fleshed out. It just raises more questions than it answers. movie does not pass the Bechdel test There is a heck of a lot of military presence in this movie. Like Michael Bay amounts of military presence. And they continue to fight despite being shown time and time again that their weapons are completely ineffective and only cause collateral damage. One particularly egregious example has a dude challenge Faora-Ul to a knife fight after unloading all of his ammunition into her at point-blank range with no effect. Mana Steal has some really, really bad dialogue; like a short monologue from a character with no grasp of how evolution works. Also: "There's only one way this ends... Either you die, or I do." That's two ways, you stupid fuck. I never want to hear the word "codex" again in my life. Whatshisface does a decent Superman: an idealist who's had to learn to restrain himself. I liked his interactions with Ma Kent. I really like that the movie doesn't frontload itself with origin story like so many others. It's still mostly frontloaded, but leaves quite a bit to slowly trickle out over the course of the film through flashbacks. it's hard to do super speed, flight, etc. convincingly on-screen, and for the most part they did a damned good job. Flying in particular has a very powerful, aggressive nature to it that works well. At this point I'm yammering. I think overall I enjoyed the movie, but it's like a two-and-a-half-stars-out-of-four kind of enjoyment.

Somebody please start some kind of Play4Real style fake video game news site and refer to every single game reviewed as the Citizen Kane of games.

I'd like to just state how much I love the fact that -after previous games permanently assigning you male or female clothing- any player in New Leaf can wear any clothing item regardless of gender. NPCs will notice it, but never be insulting, and the only noticeable effect on gameplay seems to be that wearing skirts gives players a slightly different run animation. Good show, Nintendo.

I bought a Wii U at launch for this, because I severely underestimated what Nintendo considers to be a "launch window." I'm still pretty stoked.

You can also go after 7pm and do nothing but catch beetles and finned fish. A transfer full box of finned fish will get you 600,000 bells.

So here's how twitter reacted to Anita pointing out that Microsoft's E3 press conference had no female protagonists. This one's my favourite:

Apparently a shoe store opens up later. And I will totally take those shoes at a time when it isn't the middle of the night. We can schedule something. =u= ALSO: I did it. I havve 1,000,000 bells in the bank. I already have a top hat, now I need a monocle accessory.

I think it's about time to sell some of my many sharks. (6 regular, 6 saw, 11 hammerhead, and 7 whale. I wanted to turn my house into a shark maze)

You can't technically trade animals, but I'm pretty sure you can just put them up as a flea market item at Re-Tail and have another player buy them. Morning highlights! bridge opening ceremony. All of the villagers were still asleep so it looked like the saddest ceremony ever I love that the nautilus pun is so hilariously lame that they feel obligated to point it out got the helmet for my sweet Varia Suit! I need space boots bought a wetsuit and met Pascal for the first time. This guy? This guy is allllright WELCOME TO SHARK CITY. POPULATION: YOU new shop goin' up! I love the hammering sounds asked to have a fountain built; paid it off myself. I'm making a nice little park by the southern cliffs convinced Prince to adopt my customary greeting I know a dude trying to complete a kingly ensemble who would KILL for this

The tarantulas come out after 6pm, when it gets dark. They'll attack you if you have your net out or approach them too fast or from the front, though. I've seen two and got bitten both times. Also I raked in a couple hundred thousand bells, paid off my mortgage again (new second floor tomorrow!), got first place in the Bug-Off with 113 points, added a bunch of stuff to the museum, caught a bunch of new sharks for the shark collection, hung out with friends a few times... Hot damn; this game.

goddamned tarantulas

Whale shark! You can only catch them on the island; their shadows look like regular sharks. So I set up two guitars in my house and me and my friend had a guitar duel, surrounded by various sharks. I also now have the top and pants of the Varia suit. Tis is the raddest game.

Some highlights: Knox is not part of PC master race creepiest possible look Blathers had the craziest childhood catching this ultra-rare butterfly for the first time. Domestically, even! museum's comin' along real nice

Reggie's house is amazing.

If the open world stuff were basically Spider-Man 2 with some mechanics swapped out for others, I would make an attempt to get over my fear of first-person games and play the heck out of it.

I've been expanding my house and collecting sharks with the intention of creating a basement shark maze. Also, I started my mayoral duties today! I'll have a bridge built by tomorrow, plus the shops will be open later due to an ordinance I passed. This game.

The ideal solution is to tear the door off its hinges, really.

Kindness Coins is an indie game created for the Pulse-Pounding, Heart-Stopping Dating Sim Jam earlier this year. The gist of it is that you play as the girl being wooed by the protagonist in a dating sim. It's like five or ten minutes long and is a pretty brilliant statement on the way relationships work. Download here.

I don't know about the 360, but the PS3 is half of its original -notoriously hefty- price now. I totally know how you feel about buying consoles at launch though. Even I'm a little tempted.

True story: I happen to have hung out online with the guy with the distinctive Street Fighter hat who crashes Fez in the Indie Game the Movie trailer (and, uh, probably in the movie too. I haven't seen it). The reason why Phil Fish is watching him play so intently is because he had crashed the game on at least two previous occasions at other industry events, so to Phil it must have looked like this guy was following him around and breaking his game. I really, really hope he gets to crash Fez 2.

I picked up some comics today! Atom Cat and Unico, both by Osamu Tezuka. I haven't touched either of them yet, but I'm always up for Tezuka. I'm particularly impressed with Unico being four hundred pages in really gorgeous full-colour. Every panel goes right off to the edge of the page and the result is beautiful. It's totally unheard of for manga to have this much colour work. I also took a good long look at Wandering Son, which it looks like is being released as really nice large hardcover volumes right now. I read a little of it as a scanlation ages ago; and while it was an amateur translation it seemed like a very sincere, fair, interesting look at an LGBT story.