I already forgot what we talk about in this one.
Welcome to a (relatively) short news edition of Nerds Without Pants! Julian was on vacation when we recorded this, and is still in “away” mode as this goes up, so please excuse the brief show notes this week
Platforming perfection
On October 23, 1988, Mario series creator Shigeru Miyamoto and his crack team of Nintendo EAD ninjas released Super Mario Bros. 3 in Japan. To coincide with its US launch 16 months later, Nintendo produced a commercial featuring kids clamoring for the game like it was the second coming of Christ. The hype was intense, and it worked exceedingly well. The game went on to exceed the first one in sales, fandom, and legendary status. Mario and the crew had undeniably hit their stride.
The Italian Stallion.....and Luigi.
It’s no secret that some of the best ideas started in Japan. This was certainly true of Nintendo back in the early 80’s. One of their creations was a simple arcade game, Mario Bros., featuring sibling plumbers Mario and Luigi on a quest to rid the screen of pests in the sewer pipes. Due to its success, Nintendo decided to create a bigger adventure based on the two characters for their new cartridge-based home console. Thus, Super Mario Brothers was born on September 13, 1985 in Japan and 1986 in the US, making Mario a household name along with the company that created him.
A considerable improvement from the first.
After NES Remix, I badly wanted a sequel. My main concerns with the first Remix were that developers EAD Tokyo and indieszero focused on Nintendo’s 1983-1986 Famicom line-up, which has not aged well. This second Remix, like all good sequels, takes what made the first game so great and improves upon the flaws. They also threw in backwards Super Mario Bros. with Luigi physics and a Nintendo World Championship mini-game if you own the first NES Remix -- how can you say no to that?
Wii U and 3DS owners have a lot to be happy about.
Nintendo has always been a company that dances to the beat of its own drum. While Sony and Microsoft have been duking it out since 2001, Nintendo has been content to stay the course, remaining profitable while leveraging their wildly successful franchises. It shouldn’t have been surprising, then, when the company announced that they would not be doing a traditional E3 press conference this year, but instead would be issuing one of their very popular Nintendo Direct streams. What was shown was light on surprises, but pure Nintendo, through and through.
Blocking, BnB’s and More.
You’ve got your game and you’ve got your character, so the next step is potentially one of the most difficult – learning the basics. At this point, assuming you’ve fiddled around with the game, and at least have a handle on the game’s systems, there is still a lot to learn in terms of playing the game properly. Learning the basics at times makes people feel like they don’t know how to play the game at all. It can be frustrating, but the payoff is well worth it, because not only will it you progress in your game of choice, but it will improve your success rate with many other fighting games.
Throw Mario, Mega Man, Firebrand, and Samus into a blender and...
It’s rare that I can use the word “charming” to describe a game, and rarer still when I play a game that puts a steady smile on my face. Somehow in the chase for realistic polygon models, normal mapping, and Euphoria physics engines we lost a little bit of that magic that got us into gaming in the first place. That’s where Mutant Mudds comes into the picture—a game that may play on my nostalgia for the 8- and 16-bit days of gaming, but does so with skill and style.
Sora ran out of magic spells and keys to unlock new video games.
The developer who designed the critically acclaimed Kid Icarus: Uprising has shut its doors recently. Unfortunately, the company has released a statement on their website noting that they closed on June 30, 2012. The company was spawned as a joint venture between Sakurai and Nintendo and funded almost entirely by the Big N.
Team Sora acquires a huge partner.
Since its premature announcement last E3, fans have been curious about the fate of the next iteration in the extremely popular Super Smash Brothers series. During Thursday’s Nintendo Direct presentation, Smash fans were spoon fed a little more information. Namco Bandai, the company behind a wealth of series like Tekken, SoulCalibur, and Tales will be partnering up with Team Sora to bring fans the latest in the series.
Donkey Kong Country Returns and others are also receiving price cuts.
Nintendo announced via press release yesterday that two popular titles will be augmenting the Nintendo Selects collection. Chief among the two is the recently announced US release of Pikmin 2 for the Nintendo Wii. The GameCube favorite will be released on June 10, 2012 and will retail for $19.99. Pikmin 2's primary upgrade are new controls that take advantage of the Wii Remote.
