A bunch of articles and stuff I still haven’t done anything with. I really need to start writing more of my own; now that we have a pretty good news staff going over at Kombo, maybe I’ll finally have it in me to get it out.

1. Wired Game|Life has a look at “10 Raw Deals for Gamers.” I agree with pretty much all of them, though I think #3 strikes the biggest chord with me. Come on, Nintendo; surely there was some way you could have released Disaster: Day of Crisis. I wonder if they’d have sat on it if we were in that all-digital gaming era that people are predicting?
2. Sometimes I like water levels, but other times I don’t. I definitely appreciate Super Mario 64‘s, for the most part, but I often found myself struggling with Super Mario Galaxy‘s. And some games just leave out anything remotely like swimming. Kotaku’s Stephen Totilo has taken it upon himself to find out just why that is.

   I should add that I liked those in New Super Mario Bros. and the other 2D Mario games, as well as Donkey Kong Country. By the time Mega Man learned to swim in his eighth outing, though, it felt rather unwieldy to me.

   I am glad that swimming is in Super Smash Bros. Brawl to a small degree, and wish that maybe Animal Crossing would let you jump in the river to avoid a swarm of angry bees. Not asking for an underwater voyage, but just enough to loseWeight Exercise them.

3. Via GoNintendo, GamesRadar has an article about “Soundtracks you didn’t know were stolen.” Though I knew about Chrono Trigger/Rick Astley, Mega Man X/Guns ‘n Roses, Sonic the Hedgehog 3/Michael Jackson, and Earthbound, the rest are new to me.

   Some say that “What’s the Buzz, Tell Me What’s Happening” from Jesus Christ Superstar is like Super Mario Bros.‘ invincible music, but beyond those lyrics, I don’t really hear it.

4. The UK’s Official Nintendo Magazine has an interesting piece asking what the greatest Nintendo environments are, following from a article in the Architect’s Journal that lists their Top 10. That’s a rather tough one, one which I would have to think on. But as it says, Mario and Zelda have some obvious ones, and I dare say Metroid could probably join them.

   And while it may not be “Nintendo,” per se, I think the way the ruins were all interconnected in MegaMan Legends was pretty nifty in itself, if that should count.

5. When Nintendo introduced the Famicom and its subsequent American cousin, the Nintendo Entertainment System, it had much grander aspirations in mind than simply playing video games. Destructoid takes a look at what might have been, had Nintendo not been a bit ahead of its time.

   What’s kind of funny is that, in some ways, they seem to be taking just the opposite strategy now. I guess it would be hard to blame them for being cautious.

   On a side note, I still dig the prototype Zappers shown in the bottom photo– they remind me of the Blade Blasters the old Mighty Morphin Power Rangers used in their eponymous TV show.

And that will do it for tonight. I’ll try to update with more interesting stuff more frequently, so I can at least whittle down this list. Maybe after that, I can try to keep more up-to-date with such things.

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 12:04 am and is filed under Points of Interest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.