dartmonkey

I'd hope it's similar to MK8 where two people can go online but I'm having trouble finding details.

Just finished an hour of splatoonery - impressed! The basic core is great fun. Had a whiff of N64. I really like the split objectives of marking territory and splatting people. Lots of opportunity for different tactics and last second switcharoonies. The end-of-match tension between seeing the view of the splattered map and the actual percentage is a lovely little moment. Even with zero communication with my team I found myself punching the air. The paint rollers didn't dominate any of the matches I played in, though I made it a priority to neutralise them quicksmart. I had almost zero problems connecting. The online felt very much like Mario Kart 8's lobby system. The little 8-bit game on the Gamepad while you wait was a great touch. I switched off the motion controls (they only control the Y axis) and quickly found I was rubbish without them. Obviously this is just a server-testing teaser, but my interest has been piqued. Impressed at this beta strategy from Nintendo too. It's crying out for Friend party chat in the finished product, especially with the lack of local multiplayer (I've got that right, right?) This would definitely justify getting a Pro controller, even if it only accommodated a 2-player. Thinking about it, they could just use a nunchuck and a Wiimote. They wouldn't even need the pointer - nunchuck as is, Y-axis motion on the remote, X-axis camera rotation on the D-pad, B to shoot, shake to throw a bomb. Boom! Bosh that in the August patch and I'm in.

Nintendo won't give me 16-bit games to play on it! Sega still doing what Nintendon't (though to be fair, Nintendo have come out on top in that deal for the last couple of decades ) Close enough. Though I do like symbolism of old rivals now cohabiting peacefully. A message of hope for us all. I'm conscious that you NA peeps aren't getting this one, so I'll just say that I'd definitely consider importing it. It's a solid, beautiful refinement that's the best of all worlds. So happy with it, especially after worrying about downsizing - can't wait to play Majora's. And I'll get my 16-bit fix in the summer with some Streets of Rage 2/Sonic 2 inter-console blasphemy. Edit. One tiny detail I love is the little thumb groove shaved out of the hinge above the C-stick. It took me a while to work out why it was there.

I've downloaded the Splatoon demo and I am free and alone on Saturday so I'll try and catch a game. I agree that party voice chat should be in, but I'd be muting all strangers anyway. 3D World only clicked for me once I'd nearly finished it. I've since been back to collect everything and now I appreciate it much more, but I felt like I was playing in a straightjacket after the Galaxys. I've played ZombiU for an hour or so. It's interesting and fine but hasn't grabbed me, probably because I've had lots of other colourful things to play with. I see it almost everywhere for £5 so it's worth a try for that money. Haven't played Hyrule Warriors. Bayonetta is a no-brainer. Mario Kart 8 is the best Mario Kart. That list looks good - loads to be getting on with. And Earthbound. If you're desperate for other stuff to play, there are a handful of great third party games. I highly recommend Need For Speed Most Wanted U if you haven't played it on something else. A full Criterion street racer, really well done and uses the console nicely. I also picked up Assassin's Creed 4 super cheap and I'm pretty taken with it (though it is my first AC game). I'm sure you could get better visuals elsewhere but it's totally playable and, again, has off TV play. I also want to hunt down the Human Evolution Director's Cut which is supposed to be great. I know these are older games and they're available in multiple other places, but the perks of off TV and sweeping all the HUD mess onto the pad really make the Wii U version the pick if you do fancy them somewhen.

3DS loaded with great stuff...but I can't stop playing the baseball minigame in Link Between Worlds. On 172 - determined to break 200. Anybody ever been obsessed with an inconsequential minigame in a 'proper' game? The last one I can remember was the Rambi game in DK64. Played that to death and beyond.

A couple of pics: I'm super pleased with it. I was worried about the downgrade in screen size from the XL but it's the perfect medium. It all looks a bit sharper. The super stable 3D is. I think 90% of people will leave it on 90% of the time now. Having the volume slider on the top screen is a godsend, though I find I've developed a reflex for checking it's down where now I'm just stroking the side. I've gone through an episode of RE Revelations with the C-nub and it works as you'd expect, right down to the grippy, rubbery feel. The unit doesn't click like the XL when you open it, so covert sessions while the wife's asleep have a greater chance of success Only minus is the stylus position being moved to the bottom to accommodate the faceplate design. It's fine, just a bit fiddly. Obviously the coloured ABXY buttons are the greatest innovation since the analogue stick and worth the price alone.

Congratulations! I think the transfer works fine unless you've got Rock Band DLC. Everything else should transfer but you'll lose the licence to any tracks not in the Wii's flash memory (512mb, I think). It is possible with most games (Brawl and Kart being notable exceptions) just to copy the save files to an SD and put that in the Wii U. Time consuming, but keeps DLC safe.

Could you peeps give me a recommendation? I own several Metroids but I've just never got into it. I've played about 10 minutes of the original on 3DS VC, about 20 mins of Fusion in the ambassador programme, and about an hour of Prime from the Wii trilogy disc. I've just bought a Zero Mission cart too. Bearing in mind nothing's really grabbed me, is Zero Mission the best place to start?

I got me a little white New 3DS! Transferred over from my ol' reliable XL last night. I can report it's speedier and sexier. And more cream than white. I've never sullied my systems with stickers before (how perfectly vulgar!!) but I've got some great SNES decals I'm going to put on today. Has anyone ever used decals on their consoles before?

I'd be up for a Alien Isolation 'Lite' - all the art and fright, only 5-6 hours! 20 hours is a slooooog.

I've just heard that Streets of Rage 2 and Sonic 2 are coming to 3DS in the Sega 3D Classics series. These are ports of Sega arcade or Genesis/Mega Drive games but the word 'port' carries a bad smell which these releases don't deserve to be tainted with. They're made by M2 and so much care and attention appears to go into them it makes you want to buy Altered Beast just to support them. If you haven't already, I highly recommend reading through their interviews on the Sega blog. Anyhoo, my joy at the news of Sonic 2 getting rereleased for the thousandth time started me thinking about reissues or VC releases that match or even improve on the original release. The general consensus for playing old games would be to play them on original hardware for the best experience. But with tech getting old and changing and taking up space and dying, it's often a ballache too far. And, while there are differences in controllers, playing Sonic (which requires a D-pad and a button) on a DS rather than a Mega Drive pad is hardly , is it? You've got good, non-virtual buttons. Do I lose anything measurable in the transition? Audio quality perhaps. Is the original Grim Fandango CD-ROM inferior to the remaster? I know they're both the same game, but is it truly worth the time, effort and expense to find the original and get it running when a beautiful remaster with convenient, modern options is so easily available? Would I get ANYTHING from that endeavour, other than purist self-satisfaction? Is a SNES pad and the CRT 'experience' necessary to get the best from Link To The Past or is that nostalgic BS? What if I've got the Wii SNES controller? It's a minefield! With so many re-releases coming thick and fast (and for much younger games), and with retro steaming services soon to become a reality, I think it's interesting to discuss if the hipster playing original Tetris on an original GB is having a better time than me playing it on a 3DS. Will people in 15 years be ebaying PS3s for the 'authentic' Last of Us experience? My question, boiled down: Can you think or any re-released games that suit their new environment well enough to make the original obsolete?

It would be interesting to know how much of Windu was on the page before Jackson got involved. I know the purple lightsaber was his request but I wonder if he was always going to be the one who took down Palpatine. It feels like Lucas adapted to his badass persona. He's Samuel L with a lightsaber.

Master Yoda, Conflict Consultant. Did Yoda have any other given names in EU?

It's conceptually interesting, definitely. But I think it's important to remember the Saturday morning serial roots here. The prequels are full of turgid politics and diplomacy and blockades and sanctions, etc. I think that could have been written in an engaging way but Yoda seeking conference with the senate? Passive protests? This is Star Wars. It's inclusive, but it revolves around conflict. Kids are drawn to it because lightsabers are damn cool. I'm rewatching Star Trek TNG in HD (actually, I must post in that thread) and these themes would be right at home there, but self-immolation on the steps of the senate isn't how I would want to see Yoda combat the rise of the Empire. I fell down a Wookiepedia hole on this subject ages ago. I remember that Obi-Wan's style was ice to Anakin's fire which meant they would forever be locked in a stalemate. But, being a kid, Anakin got cocky (boom!)

I desperately wanted to love Attack of the Clones, but it's such a mess. The droid factory epitomises my problems with the prequels. Vacuous CG 'excitement'. Phantom Menace had the kernel of a good film somewhere in there, there were lots of things I liked about Revenge, but Attack is pretty dire, save for the Tuskan massacre (well, and the Yoda fight .) I don't disagree, but should Yoda (the best the Jedi have) just throw up his hands and watch Palpatine massacre innocents and destroy everything? Does he not fight to defend himself and his people? I don't know. I don't disagree with you, and it could certainly have been written better, but I think the original trilogy gets a lot of credit that it doesn't necessarily deserve. If Lucas could have done so, I think he'd have had Yoda lightsaber sparring with Luke on Dagobah. Budget tied him down and made it tight and personal. CG put an end to it. I think Han might also have a negative gut sensation to something at some point.

Do you guys ever get forum post deja-vu? Just as I hit the post button I'll often get a wave of it. Of course, I'm pretty sure I have written an identical post at some point.

I don't remember thinking about it so much - all I remember was 'Eyy, it's Yoda! But Yoda's not going to fight...is he? No...hang on, he's...he's OMG HE JUST FORCE-PULLED A LIGHTSABER FROM HIS POCKET WTF!!!' *mouth open for 30 seconds* SOMEHOW, I didn't know it was coming. Maybe I'd just seen hundreds of faceless droids and clones and got carried away when a character I actually knew and liked turned up. It certainly wasn't a cerebral analysis, but I still think the way that's set up and how he's animated in those 30 seconds is very well done. I understand what you're saying, and it's a shame that Yoda 'lets' Dooku escape because plot. Maybe I'm not going in deep enough, but it never really bothered me. It's a contrivance and it can be torn apart but they exist in all films. In fact, if we go that way, I kind of enjoy the whiff of hypocrisy. The Jedi are monks constantly striving to achieve an impossible Earthly (Galactic?) serenity. It's hard bloody work being 'good'! If Yoda's sermons contradict themselves, doesn't that make them more interesting? Isn't it an impossible goal? Obi-Wan is shown through the prequels to be questioning and a bit cavalier and but he's still a badass Jedi. If Yoda's the archetype, I kind of like the fact that he's bullshitting to get results. Luke needed some hard lessons, fast. "Do or do not, there is no try" = "We haven't got time for this BS, you're 15 years too old, it's now or never. Chop-fucking-chop." I'd be interested to see a Sith who wasn't a cackling pantomime villain. A character who gave into their whims and desires, but whose whims weren't to slaughter innocents by the thousand.

I remember leaving the cinema slack-jawed after the Yoda fight at the end of AotC. It successfully erased the tedium of the previous two hours and I was convinced I'd just seen a great movie. I still think that scene is one of the best in the series. I'm interested to see what they do with the Sith. The snippets we've seen so far seem a bit generic, like token villains from an EU game. "Guys, we need a Vader substitute. Red lightsaber, obvio. Cowl and scowl. Facial scarring would be lovely. Oh, and a cape." Say what you like about Lucas, his bad guys were pleasingly dissimilar. A lady would be the obvious way to mix it up, maybe with a Samus style reveal at the end. Also, my line above was autocorrected to "Guys, we need a badger substitute..."

By shitty you mean the catalogue rather than the implementation? I don't have any VC games on it, but in general I've only heard good things about it (once they updated with off-screen play). Two versions of the same game seems crazy, but it does have Earthbound. Speaking of Super Mario's World (some parent must have called it that, no?) I've been eyeing up a cheap GBA SP for a while and I bought it today. It's got some scratches but it's a beautiful little thing - light but sturdy. I've got an old GBA in my parent's loft and I have a DS Lite in my house so it's an entirely superfluous purchase. I've just always fancied one. I plugged in SMW (or SMA2: SMW to give it its full acronym) and for the first time it felt like a good 'fit'. I've had the game for a couple of years but every time I fired up the Lite it felt finicky and I put it down after 15 minutes. I might actually stick at it this time. Perhaps LttP would feel better on this too. I realise they're both ports of SNES originals, but after pondering in the opening post if hardware form makes much difference when you've got the requisite D-pad and buttons, it was weird to suddenly feel at home with this game on a different system. The screen is much darker than the Lite's, but everything feels chunkier and...better! Researching today, I think I may have found a candidate for this category - Metroid: Zero Mission. By all accounts it sexes up the original Metroid, adds some new content, makes it portable and even throws in the original too. I've got the NES game on 3DS as part of the Ambassador programme thingy, but could never stomach save-stating my way through it. Zero Mission seems like the best way to do it. It's a bit pricey, mind. And, of course, irony of ironies, now I'm Mr Hipster on the bus with my chunky red SP. It's hardly a wax cylinder...er, player, but still. How appropriately ironic...no, hang on - that doesn't make sense...nooo, NOOOOOOO I've had the Grim CD-ROM sitting on my shelf for ages now, but have never tried it. Should probably do that.

I thought she did a great job too. I've just sat down to watch an episode of Next Generation and guess who pops up: He plays a member of a primitive race that the Federation are observing from a holo-shielded station in a rock face. Following an accident, Beverly transports him to the Enterprise. Cappy P is pissed. Memory wiping fails and on returning to his village he promptly regales everyone with tales of 'the Picard', a god who brought him back to life. From there Leland becomes more and more irrational, convinced that the storm is a sign that he must sacrifice Troi to please 'the Picard.' It's a really great episode ('Who Watches the Watchers?') and it was a surprise to see Ray Wise. To compound it, one of the injured Federation observers is called Palmer so they spend a good fifteen minutes shouting 'We must find Palmer!', 'It's Palmer!', 'Palmer!', etc. It was originally aired in October '89 so it's right around Twin Peaks.

Yeah, some of them definitely seem a little tenuous. I guess you could argue The Wire has a large cast of characters who weave their way through an overarching plot (though I'm speculating - The Wire is on my boxset binge list). It's nice to see Link's Awakening there, but again, it's difficult to see a direct connection, other than 'woah man, it's, like, surreeeeeeeal!' I get the impression that at some point the creators of all of those things have made known their liking of Twin Peaks. Does anyone know the nitty-gritty business details of the Showtime deal? For example, if the deal was to fall through, could Lynch and Frost go to FX or Netflix, or have Showtime locked up the rights?

I've got a blue notification light fetish. thedartmonkey

This may have been mentioned before but Radio 4 did a Twin Peaks programme and have a few little articles up. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05pktlc

Do FTL last. God, that thing's like a Deatheater. Sucked 40 hours from me like it was nothing. And I'm still shit.

I thought that was pretty good too. No massive things but wave after wave of cool stuff. After getting Mega Man in the post today I decided it was time to give the Amiibos a rest for a while. That seems to have lasted a solid 12 hours. I'm having real trouble getting 3 stars on 150cc. 200 looks insane. That Sonic Mii amiibo costume is sweet! Love the eyes. Glad somebody is putting out quality Sonic content-amirite?!?! Boom. FE looks great. Yoshi's Wooly World looks great. Mario Maker looks great. Splatoon looks great. The Mario Kart DLC looks great. So then, pretty great.