Category: Videogames

Gaming website One More Level has released the following infographic that I think is very interesting. Not only from the perspective of casual gaming, but from a general point of view with gaming as a whole.

Anyone still doubts that the videogames industry isn’t going to be huge in the future?

I think that everyone who’s met me already knows that I’m not a just a Super Mario fan.

No sir. I’m crazy about everything Mario. Yesterday during my User Experience & Prototyping class at the IT University of Copenhagen my classmate Sander Larsen drew a rough sketch of the first level in Super Mario 64 and I could instantly recognize it and be able to tell which parts weren’t exactly the same. That’s how biased I am when I talk about Mario. I simply know its history by heart.

And I’ve got every reason to be crazy about it. Mario has been for many, many years a symbol of gaming. A cultural phenomenon. And it always brings with the iconic character a seal of guaranteed fun.

Because, let’s be frank, if you can play a Mario game and claim that you didn’t like it, then there’s a big, huge chance that you’re not playing a real Mario game, and instead something taken from some flash mini-games website.

So when I stumbled upon this video celebrating 30 years of Mario (ok, the dates are quite unclear, since last year it was the 25th anniversary of the first Super Mario Bros. game, and now this seems to take into account the first game starring Mario, back then called Jumpman in Donkey Kong), I knew I had to post about it.

It’s long. Crazy long. But if you enjoy the Mario tunes (I know I do, I keep playing them on the piano whenever I have the chance), then this video will be an incredible journey through its history. It includes everything from the first Super Mario Bros. to the latest Super Mario Galaxy 2, going through even his Gameboy Super Mario Land series and also spin-offs like Mario Kart or Dr. Mario. All in an incredibly detailed music video.

I’m sure that if you’ve read this far down you probably want to watch it in its entirety. So without further delay, here is this 30th anniversary Super Mario tribute video:

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!

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