hello, nintendo

Trying to catch a fairie

The fairie is still on the loose.

Squid

Squid necklace via finn.

Gamer Gone Wild.

I hope this kid grew up to be a game developer.  Or maybe a marketer.  Industry friends have been sending this video around all day because we've all been there (or close).  When you're my age, things might not be expressed with so much enthusiasm but the passion is definitely still there. 

Super Mario Kill Bill

I know I'm close to the last person in the world to see this, but I still like it. The joke wears thin after about 30 seconds, but there are some great edits near the end. This video is Tarantino violent, so be forewarned. (via nedlog.)

Penn & Teller's Magic Bus Veers Right

While chatting about Takeshi no Chousenjou Andy mentioned Penn & Teller's "Smoke and Mirrors," a video game with the same aesthetic sensibility as their stage show. That is uncomprising, rude, and not always done with the audiences interest in mind. Andy writes:

Among the minigames is "Desert Bus," in which you drive a bus across the straight Nevada desert for six hours IN REAL-TIME to score one point. Then you drive it home. Also, I've heard the bus veers slightly to the right intermittently, so you can't just leave it propped up. And going offroad immediately ends your game.

Andy's made the game and the emulator files you need to play it available on waxy.org. He also highlights what seems to be the most excruciating "feature," the bus occasionally veers off to the right.

This got my attention because spontaneity and variation like this are what's missing from most games today, even as game play and interfaces get more interesting. The steps in Dance Dance Revolution are exactly the same every time you play it, likewise the beats and cues in Taiko Drummer are so static it could be played with your eyes closed. Both games overcompensate for their lack of variance in game play with over-the-top psychedelic graphics and sound effects. This is not a new problem of course with Pac-man and Super Mario Brothers often held up as classic examples. Mario Brothers even has it's own tablature!

Madden football treats variance as a feature, in fact it's one of the game's top selling points. The conditions and gameplay change from play to play as players get tired and injured, the sky gets darker and the field gets wetter (if it's snowing or raining) and the crowd gets louder (which distracts the visiting team from making plays). There's literally no end to the variation of games to play, which is one reason that Madden is one of the few true blockbuster video games year after year.

There's a further discussion of weather in video games over at armchair arcade (also at pasta and vinegar). Animal Crossing gets a lot of this stuff right as well, but I stopped playing when I got bored of watering turnips and picking peaches. We have a real peach tree in our back yard, it's much more exciting than the nintendo peach trees (even in the winter).

Katamari Damacy is somewhat of a sacred cow in hipster video gaming circles, but it's one of the worst offenders when it comes to turning innovative game play into a parlor trick. As Jason pointed out, the game is basically 3-D Pac-Man, with ~wild~ graphics and Asian accent/dubbing jokes thrown in to make the game seem more interesting. "We Love Katamari" was so disappointing as a seque, because it was the exact same as the original but bigger. There was nothing to introduce variation to the game play. A few things they could have done -

• Variation in the number, size and placement of the objects to pick up. This one is a gimme. Katamari as it's currently designed is the exact same every time you play it, which is why people can go on speed runs to the moon or attach rubber bands to their controller to roll up 10^6 roses wihtout human intervention. Any game that involves a speed run probably has little or no interesting variation.
• Truly collaborative game play - two players could work together to grow large enought to break through a barrier, or to roll over a very large object at the same time to knock it over and break it into manageable bits. Social gaming (Madden, Animal Crossing, Mario Kart) is the most obvious and effective way to introduce variance into games.
• Game play should change with mood and weather - the Prince should get tired, or angry, or fed up and sad. Wouldn't you, if you're abusive father kept insulting you and threatening to replace you?

"But all games are basically 3-D pac-man," game designers often exclaim, which is exactly my point. I do love Katamari, but I don't think Video Game designers are innovating fast enough.

Takeshi no Chousenjou

Mr. Tibbles of the Lady Upgrade Project pointed me to Takeshi no Chousenjou, or Takeshi's Challenge, the 1986 video game by one of my favorite directors "Beat" Takeshi Kitano.

I played the game a little bit using my GBA Movie Player. I don't think I unlocked the karaoke level in which you have to sing for an hour (not that the DS mic can emulate the old famicon mic), and I definitely didn't get to the boss that you have to punch 20,000 times to defeat, but I did enjoy the classic side scroller action and simple controls (jump and punch).

My understanding of the plot is limited by my lack of Japanese language comprehension, but I squished a lot of people. A man behind a desk kept offering me bundles of books that were either rewards or instructions (the dialogue was continually changing). If anyone who has an emulator and speaks Japanese, I'd welcome some pointers.

Why, Halo there kitty

Why, Halo there kitty
Originally uploaded by Heroine Sheik.

I guess I'm the last person to know about the incredible Halo Kitty shirts over at Threadless.

Via Wonderland.

Dave Adams on the GameBoy Micro

"I'm in 9th grade again, except now I have money!"

-Dave Adams

Omnigraffle Mario

Omnigraffle Mario
Originally uploaded by david.

Who's Bad?

Michael Jackson as Super Mario. Genuinely surprising and delightful.

Zelda legos

Coming soon: Zelda legos. Not much to distinguish these from regular legos, right? They're Zelda legos as much as this is the "Zelda template," you can't just stick a Zelda label at the top and call it a day. Where's the princess, the ladder, the switches, the shields, the bush with a trap door underneath?

update: Lego's free CAD software, Lego Designer, was upgraded today. Go forth, Hello, nintendo readers, and make a million zelda models!

How SMB 3 Got Made

Over at the super mario bros. 3 worship temple of doom, some scans of an old Nintendo Power article called "The Making of Super Mario Bros 3". No great revelations, but a fun quick read.

NES: A history

A history of the NES at everything2 is a great read of how Nintendo reintroduced gaming to a burnt-out North American market in the mid-eighties.

Steroids for your classic console

Epic Gaming - original NES overclocking, via waxy. I wonder if this will affect any Mario or Zelda speed records?

Huge GTA release coming soon...

That would be GrandTheftEndo, the port of GTA III to 8-bit NES.

Grand Theftendo is a port of Grand Theft Auto III for the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It is Grand Theft Auto III running on an 8 bit, 256×240 resolution, 2 bit colour x 2 bit palette, 1.79 Mhz system, written entirely in 6502 Assembly Language! It includes the entire Portland city!

(thanks, forevergeek.com)

Life lessons from Mario and Luigi

McSweeney's has a new list up: Life Lessons (a.k.a. Tips From the Mario Brothers Instruction Booklet). I use the "don't get too lazy about swimming or you'll get pulled under by the whirlpool at the bottom of the screen" advice at least daily.

Classic Game Vote

Nintendo is conducting a survey. After supplying some simple demographic information (age and gender), select up to 15 classic NES games you want to see on the GBA.

I wish I could vote for Kid Icarus 15 times.

NES on the GameCube

GameTech is putting out a device to let you play Famicom games on the SP -- the Time Machine. Pros include the ability to preorder at Lik-Sang and a product picture that, while a little vague, seems to picture a device that would fit nicely into the Gameboy Player on my GameCube. Cons include reliance on batteries, a seperate audio-out (or its own speakers), and the almost certain inability to play two-player NES games (or use a Light Gun, or Arkanoid controller, or NES controller (though the Hori Digital Controller will be winging its way to me along with the Time Machine once it's released)). Will Nintendo or a third party ever release a device to interface to the Gamecube properly for SNES and NES carts?

Revenge of Pac Man

The New York Times has a story on old video games making a comeback:

"Retro's very popular now," said Perrin Kaplan, vice president for marketing and corporate affairs at Nintendo of America, which is introducing a classics game line. "We are part of the initiative that's happening across fashion, music and otherwise."

...

Next week Nintendo, which has only sporadically reoffered games from its extensive back catalog, will release a nostalgia line for the Game Boy Advance that includes replica versions of Donkey Kong, Super Mario Brothers and six other titles once playable on TV sets through the 1985 Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES. It will also sell a special Game Boy Advance painted to resemble the NES. The games will retail for $20 each, a price close to that of many retro compilations of five or more games from competing publishers. Ms. Kaplan said a similar Nintendo line in Japan sold one million games in eight days.

I still haven't beaten the first quest

A few great comments from the games.slashdot thread "Zelda beaten in 27 minutes".

Doesn't beating Zelda mean beating the ENTIRE game, not just half of it?

and later

you certainly haven't beaten Zelda if you can't tell me where the silver arrow was in the second quest.

What about the second quest indeed? And if you're looking for tips to try and beat the record yourself, check out the commentary by Vaevictis666:

4) Bombs. Lots of bombs. MFried used bombs only for blowing doors and some enemies. Sleepz is using them in regular combat to hit 4-6 enemies in one blow. Sometimes using multiple bombs for the silver knights and such.

5) Flute abuse - sleepz is hitting the flute twice in a row, before the first whirlwind gets to them. Looks like this is still getting them to the same spot. Nice trick though :)

So, we meet again

Nintendo has launched their Mario vs. Donkey Kong teaser site, containing only a few screenshots and promises of more to come. In this return to one of gaming's most classic duels, Donkey Kong has run off with Mario's "mini-mario toys", whatever those are, and the gamer as Mario must get them back.

The screenshots are curiously skewed and small and hard to make out, but it looks like a pretty good classic platformer. Run, jump, dodge, yay!

GBA Time Machine

Haven't had enough handheld Famicom action? Well, the Time Machine is an incredibly unwieldy device that actually lets you physically plug old NES cartridges into your GameBoy, albeit through an adapter. How freaking cool!

Naturally, there's bad news. The display is wonky looking, and battery life is short. In summary, it's a technology demonstration, not a product you'd actually want to buy, especially in a world where you can just run all these as ROMs on your computer.

But still, how freaking cool!

Nintendo's Mystery Device: The DS

Nintendo has been promising us a "mystery" device since last May, and today they raised the curtain, it's a new handheld with two screens that can show independent perspectives of the video game in progress.

From information made available today, players can look forward to being able to simultaneously manage their game progress from two different perspectives, enhancing both the speed and strategy of the challenge. For example, players will no longer be forced to interrupt game play to shift perspective, such as moving from a wide shot to a close up, or alternating between a character's ongoing battle and a map of their environment. Nintendo DS makes it possible to perform the tasks in real time by simply glancing from one screen to the other. Today's announcement is but a glimpse of the additional features and benefits that will be shown in full at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles in May. Once fully revealed, players will see innovative advances in game interaction.

My first video games were Nintendo two screen handhelds - "Game & Watches" that my parents bought me so I'd be quiet on car trips between Virginia and New York. I had Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong. 1982: I reached 999 points on Donkey Kong without losing a life. Donkey Kong went crazy, the screen started blinking and everything was moving twice as fast. My parents weren't home and I was at the neighbor's house. I told Marian, my best friend's mother about my accomplishment, but she didn't care.

Let's hope Nintendo can bring back more of that old gaming magic!