Watch the live keynote with Steven Sinofsky presenting the next generation of Windows, Windows 8, which is probably the biggest change since Windows 95 came out. Goodbye, traditional desktop full of icons!
Expect my impressions soon afterwards!
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Is this the death of the Nintendo 3DS?
It’s been quite a crazy week. After the not so surprising news that the Nintendo 3DS wasn’t selling as well as expected for various reasons (mostly because of the lack of killer titles on sale right now), a lot of uncertainty has fallen upon Nintendo. And with that, a huge amount of criticism and skepticism upon any piece of news that has the Big N name on it.
That’s why, when a picture from Japanese games magazine Famitsu revealing this add-on for the 3DS leaked online the gaming community went ablaze. Especially considering
There was pretty much no information about it, just a picture and a big text mentioning Monster Hunter Tri-G (a remake of Capcom’s super popular RPG for the Wii coming to the 3DS). But that didn’t stop news sites and bloggers everywhere from claiming that Nintendo was already dead.
All of a sudden the most talked-about story in Nintendo related news was how the gaming giant didn’t have the foresight to include a second analog input in its latest-gen handheld, something that “all modern games need nowadays”. Gaming website IGN even wrote several articles about how much this was needed, while at the same time claiming Nintendo was doomed. Seriously, all this coming from one single picture leaked online.
Now let me be clear on my thoughts upon this. First and foremost I have to strongly disagree on the absolute need for a second analog input. While I understand the benefits that this second pad can bring to control in games, I also believe that it is completely unnecessary on the 3DS. You know, it’s not like the handheld lacks control inputs when it has a touch-screen, a D-pad, one analog pad and a gyroscope. Developers should seriously try to be a bit more creative and map their control schemes around these readily available inputs that every 3DS owner already has.
Now that Nintendo has finally given its press conference the true nature of this artifact has been revealed.
And, just as I thought, in no way this is a mandatory add-on. Just in the same way that there won’t be a 3DS redesign this year with a slide pad included. It’s just an optional attachment that a few games will make use of, mainly ports of console games whose developers thought that fans of the original would probably want to keep the original control layout of. In this case, Monster Hunter Tri-G, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater 3D, Kingdom Hearts 3D and Resident Evil: Revelations. Oh, and it’s also a cheap add-on of around $12 for it.
Meanwhile Nintendo’s conference was full of other announcements, from release dates for Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 3DS to Kid Icarus: Uprising, Fire Emblem and even a new Square-Enix RPG, among others. Even more, the announcement of Monster Hunter 4 coming to the 3DS, which considering what a huge system seller that series is, it could easily be the piece of news that is more forthcoming on the future success of the system.
Yes. Success. Now all gaming sites are talking about the great things coming up for the 3DS, when just a few days ago everyone was spelling a certain doom for the entire company just because of one single, unexplained leaked picture.
It tells a lot about the current state of games journalism…
If you are a Tetris fan, or if you simply enjoy this timeless classic, you owe yourself to giving this one a try. Or at least be amazed with this video.
We’re talking about Tetris here, the classic Gameboy version one, with an added twist: blocks are now ruled by the laws of physics. This means that when you rotate, it no longer switches 90º in a split second, but rather it slowly rotates, gaining speed if you keep on rotating, the same when you push the blocks down. The result can be seen in the video below:
Oh, and don’t forget that you can download the game from its official website!
As someone who loves social networks, I also love all the jokes and comic strips that appear around every now and then. And this one in particular from The Joy of Tech hits the spot. It touches on the most common profile pictures on Facebook and Twitter, while poking fun at MySpace.
I saw this comic strip in Spanish and I couldn’t avoid translating it into English. It’s the ultimate truth!
Ubisoft, if the rest of your upcoming Michel Ancel game, Rayman Origins, is as good as your latest batch of pictures, then count me in to have the game since day 1.
Of course the fact that Michel Ancel wants to make the UbiArt game engine freely available for game designers everywhere to use is also a big thing for me.
Ubisoft, I’m one big fan of the Rayman series of yore (the Raving Rabbids were fun as characters, but you pushed them to their own death), owning pretty much every single one of the entries (latest one being Rayman 3D for the Nintendo 3DS, even if it is simply a remake). So you can imagine my excitement for this game. Please, do it right. Oh! And don’t forget us PC gamers!
More pictures of the game and a trailer below (click to zoom in):
E3 2011 Trailer