tegan

It's a Club Nintendo thing, but I think it's just for North American Club Nintendo. I'm using it to get either Professor Layton or Art Academy, myself.

Disney premiered the first of their new Mickey Mouse shorts the other day. I finally found a version that works internationally! http://www.slashfilm.com/watch-disneys-new-mickey-mouse-short-film-croissant-de-triomphe/

I just can't take life anymore. I've skipped work for the past two weeks due to severe stress, I'm having the hardest time convincing myself to go outside, and I feel absolutely crushingly depressed. I'm trying to get recommended to a psychiatrist for some personal problems that I've been having for years, but I'm finding it extremely difficult to get anywhere.

The last episode of Retronauts went up yesterday, and they were specific to say that it was the last episode that they would be doing for 1up, not that it was the last episode. I'm really curious as to what they have planned. I really hope that they continue it, because they've still never done a Metroid episode for some reason.

that text is hard to read whoever recorded this really should have sprung for the Dreamcast VGA cable

The best thing: when Kim Jong-Il died, fucking ESPN of all publishers was the only place where I saw an outright criticism of him by posting a "tribute to the greatest golfer who ever lived," describing this absurd score (for the only game of golf he ever played, incidentally) and then closed out with a brief "either that or he had his secret service make up an incredibly stupid lie." It was incredible.

"Hmm, I should get a 3DS XL already. On the one hand I'm sure there will eventually be a special edition for Pokémon, but that won't be for a while and it probably won't even leave Japan, just like the Pikachu XL." [2 weeks pass] "GOD DAMNIT"

I'm pretty sure this stems from the tradition of Space Invaders, which serves as the base template for the SHMUP genre despite actually being a vertical scene portrayed head-on rather than a horizontal scene portrayed top-down. The perspective thing is also present in early racing games, though, so maybe it's just that top being forward feels right.

admittedly I would be photoshopping Nick's head onto shit every week if there were more than three photos of him on the internet.

I should have clarified that I mean single-player functions. From the Rock Paper Shotgun interview with a Maxis employee two days ago, linked in that article: The region stuff is fine, that's actual multiplayer. But from what I'm seeing here, EA has been saying that their servers do things besides handle save storage and region stuff, which is obviously false since it's already been modded to work offline. So basically there's no good reason for the single player component to be online besides DRM, but it's been consistently stated on EA's part that this isn't the case.

I think it's worth pointing out that EA's public statement has been that the game uses the always-online functionality because some processes are handled by their servers rather than on the users' end, which is now demonstrably a complete lie. Between that and outright refusing to refund customers after promising they would, this is some serious Better Business Bureau shit.

So Nintendo lost a lawsuit for the first time in what feels like a really long time. The 3DS infringes on a patent produced by a former Sony employee, so they've been ordered to pay him more than thirty million dollars. At the risk of sounding defensive of Nintendo, I thought that the stereoscopic display tech was originally developed for the Gamecube. They've said before that Luigi's Mansion was supposed to be in 3D.

This has been the best episode in a while, I think. Crazy mannequin story is the best.

I finally broke down and signed up for Netflix again. On the one hand I'm now paying money for a service that I'll rarely use when I should have learned my lesson during the free trial. On the other hand, I now have instant access to every season of Kids in the Hall.

North Korean documentary about life in America. I wish somebody could confirm whether the English translation is a joke or if the original is actually that insane. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbetNNW_2Dw

So Nintendo unveiled the first game to utilize the Wii U gamepad's NFC technology, Pokémon Rumble U. You buy tiny adorable Pokémon figurines and place them on the gamepad to unlock them in-game. Like Skylanders, but with Pokémon. Wallets will be destroyed.

So apparently you can make a 100% residential city without any drawbacks as long as the most basic of needs (like power) are provided.

I seem to remember Jeremy saying that he'd still like to do podcasts even if he has to do it separately from his new role at IGN. Hopefully that means more Retronauts. It's a real shame since it seems like Bob and Jose were just about to get Retronauts and Games Dammit back on their feet again. You know, as long as we're talking about Retronauts, I feel that this is worth mentioning: I've been listening to the old episodes, and in an early episode (would have been around November 2008, but I can't remember which one), and somebody briefly brought up Famicom horror RPG Sweet Home. They elaborated on the game's mechanic of carrying around planks and using them to cover gaps in the floor. The planks are a finite resource, break at random, and take up precious space in your exceedingly small inventory; so everyone who plays the game inevitably comes up with an elaborate and careful system of ensuring that you'll always have planks available. What did they initially describe the game as? They called it a boards management game.

I was fortunate enough to watch that video before it was blocked in Canada, and I really wish I could see it again. I seem to recall once hearing that American players had a much harder time starting the original Metroid than Japanese players did, and Nintendo's tips hotline got a lot of calls from players who hadn't found the morph ball yet. IIRC, the reason why the morph ball was put to the left in the first place was specifically as a way to teach players that they could go left.

So I played Flower and the first several campaigns of flOw. The first stages of Flower are absolutely perfect for relaxing. I actually found it kind of frustrating toward the end though, because I was trying to open every flower like it was Banjo-Kazooie or something. I know that it's entirely my own fault for approaching it in a very video gamey way when there's no reason to do so, but I really felt encouraged to engage in tedious activities. It makes me really appreciate the scaled-back design of Journey, where nothing exists unless it has to. I played flOw back when it was still a flash game, before thatgamecompany signed on with Sony, and honestly I liked the flash version a whole lot more. This one is prettier, and I like how every organism has its own specialty that you have to learn on your own, but I really hate moving with the sixaxis. It's one of those situations where moving an object in 3D space as an analogy for moving an object in 2D space doesn't feel right no matter how much you do it. Oh, also, I guess I also recently finished Pokémon Black 2. Actually, make that "finished," since the main story is finished but I never have any idea where to stop with those games. I got psyched into a huge Pokémon mood, bought the game, played it for two weeks solid, ploughed through the campaign and caught all the legendaries, and now I don't have much of an interest in continuing.

how weird is it that my takeaway from the video was "oh man Double Dragon Neon I forgot I wanted to play that" Actually, DDN is kind of a weird example to use since that game was specifically made to ruthlessly make fun of its source material for being so moronic.

I realized something this time that I never realized before. Saved me a lot of hassle.

I don't know if anyone's mentioned this yet, but my only real criticism of the content (as opposed to the presentation) was that she said that Zelda's never had a starring role. She's had two. They're not canon and they kind of suck, but they happened. The Star Fox stuff shows that she did her homework, so not giving those a mention kind of stuck out.