And it's going on right now. If you have any digital-only content you want to get, now's the chance before the store shuts down for good. This one's going to take even more content down than the 3DS did, so now's the time to move.
Or you can hoist the colors once it's down. Frankly that's an understandable move I can't see a moral fault with.
More Doom, this time "The Dark Ages". I mean it's still set in the future, but it's got a very gothic feel to it. Also metal. I mean it's got a flack canon fueled by crunched up skulls.
Take a look at this thing. I noticed a lot of changes this time around. First of all, the massive number of enemies is finally approaching what the original DOS games were capable of. Secondly, far more open levels which apparently devs are indicating will involve more exploration, looping back and changes to previous sections of levels. Again, a mark of the old Romero designed levels of the original game.
The ammo and health piñata effect is gone, so they seem to be totally rethinking how health and ammo get restored. Maybe it'll just automatically be filling those UI bars instead of bothering with animating a bunch of little glowing powerups that get sucked up, or maybe they have something else in mind.
And that something may tie into the brand new parry mechanic. So, it seems they decided that instead of having a shield AND a chainsaw, why not just make controls a little easier by combining them? The new shield is meant to enable directly approaching heavy fire, parrying it for a stun, and going in for massive damage. Speaking of massive damage, I didn't see any "glory kills". It looks like they're rethinking that as a mechanic too, which dramatically opens up finishing enemies any way you like. In fact, Hugo Martin went on to say that they were apparently listening to complaints about how Eternal locked in very prescribed playstyles and weapon rotations, so that now it allows a much more free and open method of using whatever weapons the player might like. To that end, an enemy that reminded me of those much maligned marauders moseyed on my... by... and now they seem to have many more strats available for tackling their barrage of attacks and defenses.
All in all, as much as I'd have liked to see either a brand new property or a revisit to, say, Quake or even Catacombs 3D, if they're going to do Doom again, this is the way to do it. I love that Id aren't just sitting on their laurels.
I can't begin to express how much of a relief this trailer was. After so many years of so very many dull Mario RPGs with nothing but toads toads and more toads thanks to some supposed internal "mandate" never to stray from existing characters being "on model" or whatever, we finally get an RPG (that isn't a remake!) going back to the weird! Clearly Nintendo's done some thinking internally after the sheer success of the remake of Super Mario RPG, because after getting Paper Mario Thousand Year Door remade along with the amazingly creative Super Mario Wonder, Mario is finally allowed to be WEIRD again!
Well, not quite sure what to make of it just yet. The trailer is very cinematic and story focused, which isn't really what I want from a Metroid Prime game, but it very likely is just a sort of introductory level so I'm reserving judgment until the game comes out and I see some reviews.
But, seriously that weird blue helmet alien at the end is very familiar. VERY familiar. I had to pull out my old DS to confirm and... that's the guy! That's one of the weird aliens from that spin-off Hunters game on the DS! From the demo that came with all of our DSes, and then was an actual kinda sorta game...
Nintendo had their not-E3 Nintendo Direct yesterday, a week after not-E3 Summer Games Fest and the rest of the industry's announcements, and it was a quite good show. I'd say that the highlight of the show for sure, though, was the announcement of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom... a Zelda game where you actually play as Zelda! And it looks like it's a somewhat traditionally-styled title also, being 2d. As someone who has very little interest in BotW and has never played TotK because I find open world games some of the most boring things ever, I was kind of giving up on the Zelda franchise as something I cared about anymore. Yeah, I used to love Zelda, until they made it into boring open-world games that totally lost me... until this.
Yes, going against all of my expectations given their past comments like "but then what would Link do?", Nintendo is making a Zelda game where you play as Zelda. This is a 2d Zelda game with some unique design elements. Visually the game clearly seems to be running in the Link's Awakening remake engine, and has an overhead view and a similar look to that game. I'd imagine it's by the same developer as that one was. I think the game looks great, I'm quite excited. I'd be almost as excited if you played as Link, too; the main thing I'm excited for is the gameplay. That you actually play as Zelda this time for once makes it even better, but that isn't the main draw.
Here's the trailer:
So yeah, you play as Zelda after Link got kidnapped or something when he fell in a portal that opened up. She can't directly attack enemies, though, and instead uses a summoning rod to summon things to stand on or to fight for her. They showed all kinds of things, including summoning tables to stand on, rocks to throw at enemies, and more. You can combine things too; items can stack, and at one point Zelda is shown carrying around a rock-shooting thing, basically working like a hand cannon. Pretty cool stuff. I think this should lead to some pretty interesting puzzles, and fun combat challenges as well.
Also, there are sure to be more items in this game. An item cross is shown on screen, which means that you will get other things to equip that they haven't mentioned yet. It sounds like Zelda won't get a sword in this game because they want to leave direct combat to Link, but I'm looking forward to seeing what new and interesting items they come up with. The 'summon stuff and do silly or useful things with it' concept is great and should lead to a lot of fun gameplay.
The game is already causing some controversy, though; some people are upset about Zelda's lack of a direct attack, either because they'd rather fight enemies directly instead of having to use slightly indirect means, or because of arguments that it's evidence of Nintendo's sexism or what have you. And like... yeah, that may be in a way true in that they're finding a way to make a Zelda game starring Zelda that sticks to what they have said in the past about Link and Zelda's characters instead of making the "it's the same but as a girl now" game that some want, but this doesn't bother me at all, personally. Nintendo is trying something that is both familiar and new with this game, and the results so far look fantastic. Oh no, Zelda needs to hit enemies with other enemies, tables, rocks, or more instead of cutting them with a sword! How awful! (Yes, I know TP Zelda had a sword. She was no accomplished warrior, though.)
So yeah, this game is looking amazing! The summoning rod is clearly the central item here, but it'll be very interesting to see what other things Zelda gets to use in the game. Will it be a selection of all-new things instead of Link's usual expected selection of items, the bow, bombs, hookshot, etc? If so that will be pretty interesting to see.
As for the graphics, they've gone for a very cutesey style. I do think it works in the overhead view that Echoes of Wisdom uses. Is this my favorite Zelda art style, no, but it looks nice. It's got a similar style to LttP and LA.
A video from one of my favorite deep-dive ROM hackers, making that absolutely incredible new Mario game for the system.
The video outlines two things. One, the N64 actually does have a CPU with a 64 bit mode. Two, it's not a useful mode and actually hurts game clock speed to run any code in that mode. 32 bit code runs better considering all the other limitations of the system, and 64 bit modes were rarely used even by official developers.
A third thing... The Gamecube, Wii, and Wii U all run on 32 bit CPUs that have no 64 bit mode.
Seriously, like a lot of people I was kind of believing that Trump would never actually be convicted of anything, that despite being extremely guilty he'd get away with it all, if just because of some diehard Trumper making it onto the jury...
But no, it didn't happen. Donald Trump was convicted on all 34 counts he was charged with. Sadly these charges won't lead to the very long prison sentence he richly deserves, but he may get a short prison sentence and it sure was richly deserved. Finally, Trump suffers a real consequence for his actions.
Wow. America, and trials by jury, still may survive this test against it...
Yippee, though way too expensive for what it is. Lego prices for these sets can get ridiculous. I'm curious if Nintendo shouldn't go back to making their own building block toys. I understand their blocks were even compatible with Lego.
Mario Builder 64 is an incredibly cool romhack project just released a few days ago. It's basically a 3d Mario 64 level creator toolkit, inspired by Mario Maker but 3 and it's an actual Nintendo 64 game that does run on real hardware. I'm sure it's possible to make levels that use too many objects and will crash on real hardware, but the tools themselves and at least many of the levels will work on a real N64, which is important to note since a great many Mario 64 hacks don't.
Unlike Mario Maker, the game doesn't have a built in internet connection of course, but being able to play these fan-created stages by just putting files in a folder on your N64 flashcart SD card, instead of having to create a custom rom patch file for every single hack -- seriously, this is a really tedious and time consuming process -- is pretty fantastic. The level creation tools are as easy to learn as they could be for creating levels in a 3d space, too. It does use every button on the N64 controller so you will need to use the d-pad as well as the analog stick and the C-buttons, but oh well, it works.
Of course, the main problem with a 3d level editor is that 3d is much more complex than 2d. Making a platformer level that is as good, or as challenging, as a 2d level is dramatically more difficult. And given the ... suspect ... quality of so many Mario Maker 1 and 2 levels, and yes I love the game as much because of this as despite it, that 3d levels in a widely available official title like this would be .. . mostly really poor, I am sure. I haven't made a level in this yet, but I sure remember quickly giving up on any attempts at making anything in a 3d level editor, after making a few not very good stages in Warcraft II and Starcraft and such. Mario Builder 64 simplifies things by using a block-based design. There can be only one object per block, so you can't just put an enemy on a sloped ramp, you need to put them on the block above that slope's block. Once you start they will fall onto the slope. The game has over a hundred objects, so there's a lot of variety for creators. The one thing it doesn't have is invisible blocks or the ability to place invisible walls in your stages, I'm sure troll and kaizo creators would like that, but who knows, that could be added at some point. Or not, I don't like invisible blocks at all.
Anyway, this thing is amazing, and the polish level is quite impressive as well. It's as simple to control as a 3d level bulder could be and is built off of the mechanics and gameplay of one of gaming's greatest masterpieces, Mario 64. There is no equivalently easy to use level creation tool hack for other official Mario games -- stuff like Lunar Magic, the SMW editor, is a much more complex thing. There are a decent number of fanmade levels already, too. I'm sure many will be large empty spaces with just scattered stuff in them, but again, that's the problem of creation in 3d --- it's HARD to make something good, way harder than it is in 2d. I sure don't know if I could make a 3d level worth playing. I fully understand why Nintendo hasn't made an official product like this, but it's amazing that it exists now.
(Yes, I know TP Zelda had a sword. She was no accomplished warrior, though.)