The Daily ‘Shroom – 8/27/09
August 27th, 2009- Batman Buyers: Beware of Budget Batarangs – $40 more for a cheap plastic Batarang and a few other goodies? Pass.
Aaaaaand, look who’s back! SummerFestSlam was a blast, and the upcoming WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2010 looks to be incredibly awesome. I’ll be writing about that for Kombo soon, and will link to it from here once that’s done. Of course, it will have to be done around my regular news chores; I figure I’ll have it done this weekend, if not before (I hope).
And now, the news:
Well, except number eight. I think he apologized for that one. Incidentally, it was nice of them to pick a rather bad pic of the game.
TheShiznit.co.uk has an interesting feature (with some blinding titles) on the Top 10 Worst Movies for Product Placement. Personally, I liked how it was used in Demoition Man and Back to the Future; it’s easier to actually feel and understand how things have changed over the years if it’s something you actually know, rather than Cola brand cola or something.
–LBD “Nytetrayn”
Okay, since no one objected (and I received one vote of active encouragement), here are the stories I posted over at Kombo today.
I usually mention that I do most of my posting over at Kombo.com, for reasons I won’t go into here but which I’m sure most anyone can understand. That said, as I mentioned yesterday, I’m usually a bit gun-shy about linking to my stuff there. So here’s a question for you guys: would you like me to start?
Of course, I wouldn’t be posting just that stuff, but maybe throwing in the odd story here and there, or more, if people desired. Should I do it? Or would that seem too self-serving? I’d love to know your thoughts.
On with Points of Interest!
It is these characters which Official Nintendo Magazine has chosen to pay tribute to in their feature, “Unsung Mario Heroes.” Number one seems like he gets around a bit, but personally, I can’t believe that the second one has yet to return.
Three I think has mostly been replaced by Lakitu (though there are more reappearances than one might think), and four should have been in Super Mario Galaxy. There remains time to make it right with Galaxy 2, but I don’t see that happening.
Number seven’s entry has given me a completely new look at the character, in light of the mention of “reaching the goal.” If that was Nintendo’s intent… well played. Very, very well played.
It was also hard as nails, and I never beat it. Somehow, I didn’t mind though. It was just that cool.
Lens of Truth takes a look back at this classic, one which really should be released on Virtual Console.
Well, allow me to correct that: I love classic video game commercials. I don’t know if I’ve just gotten older and more cynical (and nostalgic), or if the newer ads are actually, in fact, just that bad. I know that it seems like fewer ads are capable of making me want the newest game advertised, that’s for sure.
Of course, the awesome Punch-Out!! ads for Nintendo’s recent Wii release are an exception. Pity they shelved some of them.
I digress, however. Among the early memorable ads I can remember are those belonging to the first three entries of Nintendo’s Metroid series, and 4 color rebellion has taken an analytical look at not only these commercials, but how they fare against their Japanese counterparts as well.
Japan? Now they can do commercials.
Interesting thing, though. While in retrospect, I think the Japanese Super Metroid commercial is the more favorable of the two, I think Nintendo more or less had to use what they did, given the rivalry they were facing from SEGA at the time.
It was time to fight back, and Nintendo was ready to have the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy knocking at SEGA’s door.
Yahoo! Finance takes a look back at several such companies and whose changes worked, and whose didn’t, as well as why.
–LBD “Nytetrayn”
Ugh, I meant to have more updates for you guys, but then someone had to throw a link to TV Tropes in my way. And then the rest of the night just went all to Hell.
Still, not without an update; below, you’ll find my remembrances of the SEGA Genesis (which I will add pictures to later). And here, I don’t normally pimp my own work on-site, but it’s late and just more convenient this way.
SEGA America Blog has spent the past week looking back at the Genesis, and I link to all of their posts in this article on Kombo. What’s more, the 10th anniversary of the Dreamcast is coming soon, and courtesy of Kotaku, we find out what SEGA has in mind for it. Sort of.
I’ll try to bring more links and fun stuff tonight, but for now, enjoy this, and feel free to leave your SEGA Genesis memories in the comments here, or in the story below.
–LBD “Nytetrayn”
I’ve been doing the video game thing for quite a while, and as I do so, it has not escaped my attention that I’m really not getting any younger. In addition to not having as much time to play games, it also sometimes seems as though games don’t have as much time for me, either.
Over on GameSpite, Michael Ayles has written an interesting article about the “Aging Gamer,” which takes a look at gaming then and gaming now, and makes a few interesting suggestions as to how developers and publishers might better appeal to the “older gamer,” rather than continue to include enormous cutscenes that touch upon “deep” issues.