Category: Features

Irregular Columns

Nintendo Direct – Better Than E3?

“Great stuff, Nintendo really did hold back at E3!”

“Only Nintendo could royally screw up the biggest trade show of the year but absolutely DESTROY a random Thursday at midnight.”

“Nintendo doesn’t really give a shit about E3 (and maybe any press events) anymore. They love Nintendo Direct. “

“That was approximately a billion times better than E3”

“Way better than E3!”

About A Billion Times Better

I’m pretty excited about Animal Crossing and the new 3DS redesign, but the internet is just too easy to make fun of right now. Nintendo Direct had a successful community reaction because it came out of the blue and completely bypassed all expectations and hype the media likes to sling around. Nintendo found the winning formula for releasing information: talking directly to the fans.

Sorry gaming press, you fucked up and now Nintendo doesn’t need you.

Thoughts – Wii U, E3, Community Reaction

Holy shit! This is the most excited I’ve ever been about a new game console – Nintendo blew my mind with their presentation and I loved every little thing. In fact, the little things were the best part. No catchy title here; I’m just going to run through my thoughts as I watched the conference, and then afterwards when I looked around the community.

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Nintendo’s Corroboree

Anyone ever had one of those mornings where you pass in and out of consciousness? When the dreams feel so real you have conversations with the people in them later about what they said in the dream and they look at you all confused? That has been me all week, passing in and out of consciousness inside my E3 mattress fort. I told Bill I was going to snuggle up for an hour before the Microsoft conference, when I woke it was dark and cold and when I woke again I was eating bananas and Vita-bix while Jack Tretton announced an htc phone as the new Playstation. I’m not really sure when I woke up or if I was ever asleep, but I’m here in the university library now and I have to tell you about the other part of my dream; Nintendo’s Corroboree. Continue reading “Nintendo’s Corroboree” →

The (open) world needs more Red Faction: Guerrilla

2009’s sledgehammer-swinging simulator Red Faction: Guerrilla ended up being one of those games for me. As in a ‘whoa, this is what I dreamed the future of video games would be like as a kid’ type revelation. Emerged from deep within the dustiest corners of my mind; created over countless weekends of rental regrets. While I may have technically been playing the likes of Virtual Bart or Brutal: Paws of Fury, I was actually elsewhere – looking forward to a distant time where a game would reward me for driving a truck into the side of a building to somehow complete a rescue mission which should have required a certain degree of care and planning.

Now you can do the whole ‘walking away from an explosion in the distance’ thing every three seconds

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The Next 5 Years: Naka’s Prediction

Greetings everyone, I am Yuji Naka and I have something to share with you all. This morning I woke up with a clear vision of the future. It was the first time in weeks I had a dream without my pal Sonic interrupting my fishing trip. It started this year and went all the way to the year 2017! Can you believe that? 5 years in a single night! I will have to talk to SEGA about making a new NiGHTs game with this concept. We always have great discussions when they catch me sneaking into my old office, hehe. Anyway, let me start with the year 2012, which I’m sure you all know well!

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The Tragedy of Dynasty Warriors VS

It’s just been announced via Twitter that Dynasty Warriors VS will not be coming to 3DS outside Japan. There’s no reason given, however we do know that Dynasty Warriors VS didn’t do very well in Japan, selling a mere 10,000 copies in its first week despite the heralded appearance of Samus and Link as bonus characters. Who cares, right? The game bombed, why do we care? Doesn’t that justify no western release? Absolutely not, and here’s why I think Tecmo-Koei are blowing a good opportunity.

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Sites I Like: Jaffe’s Game Design

Did you know that maverick game designer David Jaffe runs an incredible game design blog? I feel even talking about the insights and discourse Jaffe provides on his site would do a disservice to Jaffe and the incredible thoughts he conveys. So if you want to check out fascinating, in depth discussion of video game design, head over to http://jaffesgamedesign.blogspot.com.au/. I think he didn’t buy a URL to keep it underground and cool. Jaffe is such a rare talent that I decided to refer him for an amazing job I heard about. I’m sure he can do that while making another car crashing game.

“Durpthroughs” – Fatal Frame IV – Batch 4

After a long absence, I return with the next Durpthrough session of Fatal Frame IV!

Beware the narrow hallways that make fighting ghosts nearly impossible, the deathly fear of potential game-breaking bugs, the bewildering persistence of that nurse I can’t remember the name of, the REVENGENCE of Ayako as I storm her room for sheet music, the wheelchair lady who somehow pushes herself, and the terrifying black death thing that scares the living shit out of me!

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Ninjabread Man 2 – What’s Cooking?

After the critical and commercial success of Ninjabread Man, a press release was issued on 8th of February 2008 announcing the sequel, Ninjabread Man: Blades of Fury for Wii. More than 4 years have passed, and we still haven’t seen any screenshots or had any update on its release. Will it be a Wii U launch title? 3DS eShop game? Or will it still come out for Wii and compete with Dragon Quest X? We did some investigating and got more than we bargained for.

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I wish the TAKEDOWN kickstarter failed

With the successes of Double Fine’s unnamed adventure game and Wasteland 2, Kickstarter is the current darling of the independent gaming community and ‘crowdsourcing’ the hot new buzzword being thrown around by insufferable energetic web 2.0 conmen. Kickstarter hasn’t always been a success though, my favourite unfunded project being the criminals who developed Tony Hawk Ride failing to fund some marble madness clone they wanted to inflict on us. If only the same could be said about smug upstart Serellan’s lame sounding tactical shooter TAKEDOWN.

Continue reading “I wish the TAKEDOWN kickstarter failed” →