I’m buggered. As soon as I heard the emergency call I shot my rocket nozzle straight towards Pianta Village. Taking advantage of the chaos, Shadow Mario stole my FLUDD backpack as I went through the pipe. Great. Doesn’t he get tired of ruining people’s lives?
Things have been tough ever since we arrived at Isle Delfino. I’ve been framed, thrown in jail, and treated like a criminal. Shadow Mario propaganda is all over town, and the Piantas all look at me in disgust. This was my chance to make things right.
How do you explore the origins of a pandemic? Play a survival horror videogame from 2002 of course! Resident Evil Zero was once contained to a small proprietary GameCube disc, but now the whole world can learn the truth. The last pure traditional Resident Evil game has now been re-released on every modern console in HD widescreen.
Racing simulators have quite the history of avoiding Nintendo consoles entirely. The last really good one I remember playing is F1 2009 on the Wii, ten years ago. Since then I’ve just got my racing fix from other consoles, with their analog triggers and in-house games like Forza offering a very solid driving simulation experience. Suddenly out of nowhere, a port of GRID Autosport has landed on the Switch eShop. I was a little cautious at first, as racing developers have treated Nintendo consoles with the bare minimum apathy in the past. Anyone remember Project CARS on Wii U? Exactly. However here we are in 2019 with the Switch kicking arse and taking names, and GRID Autosport is the real deal.
To say this game delivered what I wanted would be an understatement, it vastly exceeded expectations. Feral Interactive have not just ported the game, but upgraded it in every way imaginable, with a higher resolution and framerate than the original game, and controls and graphics optimised for both docked and handheld mode. This game is quite simply the best racing simulator to ever grace a Nintendo console, and by extension, the best one ever to grace a handheld. It’s an absolute miracle.
The cosmos. In the vast universe, the history of gaming is but a flash of light from a lone television. The light of a single console should be lost in space and time, but in the disc tray there is one light that burns brighter than all the rest. The light of Metroid Prime. Its legacy extends beyond the GameCube’s life and etches itself into gaming history. Today, a review of that legacy will be written.
As a follow-up to my previous E3 scan, here’s some subtle marketing Nintendo spread around E3 2001, again, on the back of the E3 Show Daily magazines. Checkout the “interesting” front covers, too, and maybe you’ll question how there could be any excitement for such an unappealing video game industry at the time (as presented by the magazine). “Doug Lowensteins’ State of the Industry 2000-2001 Report: IDSA findings indicate games are fully mainstream…” Yes!…? Wait, is that really a good thing or a bad thing? Continue reading “Part of the Nintendo Difference: E3 2001”→
Forget all the modern gaming crap for a moment and let me offer a slice of my life leading up to the Casual Gamer I am today.
Let’s go back, umm 13 years, when times were simpler, and gaming was getting interesting and taking a turn for the worst at the same time (bloating budgets, wannabe movies, dumb-downed gameplay, with a corrupt and/or unskilled gaming press shoving it all down your throat; you saw what happened). OK, off-topic, I mean… just trying to say this is an informal snapshot of life surrounding that hobby; a new feature about old stuff. Continue reading “PieHaus Digest – Pro Daisy 2002”→
I played a lot of games at PAX Australia over the past few days; Mario 3D World, Wind Waker HD, Sonic Lost World, but I’m writing about Pikmin 3 first because it was the best. That’s right, the conclusion is in the introduction. You can stop reading now. Pikmin 3 is out here on Saturday and may already be out in your part of the world, and I never initially planned on playing this demo for that reason since the game is so close. My innocent eyes had not seen much of the game because I enjoy surprise in games, so I don’t much care for trailers or screenshots. Once I caught a glance of Pikmin 3 however I had no choice, I had to play it.
It’s a good thing the big April Wuu update isn’t out yet, giving me a chance to complain about stuff while it’s valid. Let’s briefly revisit some of Wuu’s non-features, or why I didn’t fall for that “trap”: never performed that permanent “system transfer” of my Wii data as soon as I got my Wuu. As with any dangerous entertainment content migration of this sort, I had to find out: does Wuu’s “Wii Mode” retain all the features the Wii did?
We’ve all heard the announcement by now, Wind Waker is being completely remade for Wii U. The seas aren’t exactly forgotten, but I had a different motive for this article. The Zelda Symphony hits Sydney this weekend and I’ve been playing Zelda games in frothing anticipation, namely The Wind Waker which I just finished an entire playthrough of. I’m so glad I did because it’s every bit as amazing as I remember, it was the great gaming cleanse I needed. When Nintendo made the announcement of the remake I almost shat my pants because I was playing Wind Waker a few hours before the conference and hadn’t even thought about the idea of a remake. The game is pretty much perfect already in my eyes. My last playthrough was in 2005 according to my save file, and playing it now allowed me to enjoy it with a different perspective.
While Americans have been updating their Wii U’s and drawing dicks in Nintendo Land, I’ve been playing GrooveRider, the best slot car game ever made. Browsing the Playstation Store I noticed this PS2 classic for $8 with an average user review of 4.5 stars. Could a slot car game really be that good? Sure, why not? I downloaded it immediately without even consulting the internet, because that’s the kind of risk worth taking.
About a month before suffering my Professional Engineer Exams at the end of October, I fired up Geist for the Nintendo SHEETKYUUB (actually, my Wii system) in an effort to update my aging, neglected GC video library. This recording session was the FIRST and ONLY time I played ANY “dual analog” shooter this entire generation (2006-2011). This experience was HORRIBLE. I kept tarding-out into walls like classic Resident Evil controls, and the screen was stiff and jerky while the camera dragged ass. And the enemies were kind enough to shoot me with 20-30 rifle rounds without killing me, sympathetic to your inability to be a real threat (impotence) given the limitations of the “traditional” input method.
From what I hear, today’s shooty games treat customers like children more than ever; probably because it’s the most appropriate thing to do.
Why do people keep playing like this after 10 years? (and keep paying for it?) Why are games still made this way? What’s wrong with this industry?
Luckily, the game’s first-person adventure (FPA) principles are still intact and meaningful after all these years.
Does anyone remember the former upcoming next-generation “possession mechanic” zombie action-strategy title, Possession? Nope, nobody.
Congrats, n-Space – despite the cruel passage of time, your masterpiece is still unrivaled.
Special thanks to Deguello for providing me with explicit, uncensored access to the best moments of the StarFox franchise. This update would not be possible without him.
Let us celebrate – the release of StarFox 64 3D? NO! I don’t give a crap. This is about KRYSTAL – those eyes, that accent, that fur. I finally finished capturing the StarFox Adventures media I originally started years ago, but almost abandoned because I didn’t want to play it again to get to the critical parts (got so busy with all the casual games).
Aside from her cutscenes, some of the screenshots have great facial expressions and can be taken out of context. All this, for the sake of archiving high-quality media of Rare’s surviving legacy (maybe Retro can make a Krystal game for Wii U?). The content is stored on my homepage; see the links at the bottom.
As the eleventh of September rolls around, the thoughts of everyone around the world will turn back to the victims of this terrible tragedy. And as we do, we let our minds wander towards the powerful feelings of sorrow, hate, and eventually a thirst for vengeance against the extremist group. Why? – we ask in exasperation, why did thousands have to die? Who could commit such atrocities? Certainly not Al Qaeda, a ragtag group of gun hobbyists in Central Asia. There is only one organisation with the resources, motive, willpower, and flagrant disregard for human life to disrupt the Nintendo GameCube launch in such an atrocious manner: Sony. Sony, the entertainment and electronic conglomerate were responsible for 9/11!!!!!!!
In the picture below, taken from a website that said it was from video footage of the World Trade Center attacks, you can clearly see the Sony logo on the tail of the plane. The other circles indicate where explosives, disguised as PS2s, were strapped to the exterior of the plan. You know, in case you’re too blind to make them out. I mean it’s clear to see, really.
But why would Sony, not Al Qaeda, fly planes into buildings? Let us paint the picture.
…(deep in thought)…
Pietriots 