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.
A very interesting article I found. It looks like after a rather exhaustive search, it's been pretty much confirmed that 2.4 ghz is the only model they ever made of this controller.
Just so everyone understands, Nintendo, along with MS and Sony, have record profits. So, you know, any time they claim that they simply MUST jack up video game prices or do any of these other exploitative things, or in Nintendo's specific case, they simply MUST attack their own biggest fans for making what amounts to interactive fan art or just plain tools, just keep that in mind. They don't have to. They choose to.
And apparently, according to the below video, this chart is already accounting for inflation.
I suppose if there's one thing to take from this, it's that video games aren't too cheap now, they were too expensive in the 80's and 90's! We did already kind of know this. Keep in mind that Sega did pretty well in the US during the 16 era, and they were consistently charging less for their cartridge components than Nintendo. Nintendo themselves also overcharged for their parts during the N64 era, which was a daring move when Sony was able to charge quite a bit less.
And then compare that to today, when manufacturing costs are basically nil because most people already buy digital over physical. Keep in mind that economies of scale matter for file hosting too, so that it's basically free at the scale of a company like Microsoft. They were going to have those servers up ANYWAY, see.
EA is going to implement "thoughtful" ads in their games. The way they're talking about it like it'll be a new thing, it sounds like this is going to be a far cry from the billboards in modern cityscapes that games already do. It sounds like gameplay will be interrupted by advertising. And they want to charge $70 for the privilege. Screw that.
I'll just not buy games that do this. I'm not compromising on this, at all. One game stuck a full game interrupting ad inside back in retro days, and it was done as a joke:
Of course, the Tom's Hardware article got this right from the horse's mouth, so they can't say anything bad about it or risk losing access.
Many methods and tricks have been made available, but here is a little program that manages to properly convert the stats of all those original pokemon in the color and metal generations of pokemon to the gem generation. From there, they can be taken all the way to the modern era... but for not much longer. As I predicted when Pokemon Bank first came out, the decision to lock the service as an online only thing rather than providing an offline storage option on your 3DS's SD card is going to kill that possibility in the very near future. It'll be left to hackers to pick up the slack.
