Weird News, Weird Features

Who knew?

Square Enix's Hiroyuki Ito has revealed to 1UP the origin of the turn-based battle system in the original Final Fantasy - and it's somewhat unexpected, to say the least. Driven to create an efficient system for Hironobu Sakaguchi's seminal NES RPG, Ito turned to professional sports for his inspiration. 1UP: So did you create the battle...

Remember the guy who gets all the Nintendo consoles first?

Serial queue-starter Isaiah Triforce Johnson has made a bit of a name for himself as the first person to buy just about every piece of Nintendo hardware in recent history. He was the first to purchase Wii and the first to get his hands on 3DS in North America. Now, he has already begun to...

Who knew that the former governor could influence so many games?

Back in the '80s and early '90s, video game box art was a very different beast to that which we know today. CGI renders were the stuff of a madman's dreams and hand-drawn covers were commonplace. When you consider how many console and arcade titles were released on a yearly basis,...

Epic console wars of the '90s retold in animation

Japanese anime has tackled a wide range of topics over the years. From the price of fame to the effects of the bombing of Japan in World War II, the medium has been put to stunning use by animators in the Far East. However, there's plenty of oddball stuff around, too - like Aoi Sekai no Chuushin...

It's a small world

Last week, the UK Nintendo Life team hosted a meet-up in Nottingham's swanky Broadway cinema lounge, with staff members travelling from all over Great Britain to get together and play a lot of video games. While there are many stories from the evening that we could tell — and plenty more we couldn't — one small chance...

You can soon

Do not underestimate the impact of Super Mario Bros. — it's inspired beatboxers, flautists, orchestras, artists and plenty more in its 25 year history, but it's rarely hit the limelight for its influence on the world of professional ice skating. Today, that injustice ends. Top skaters Tatiana Volosozhar and Maksim Trankov took to the...

Or Pokéboard, if you will

The "games that teach you to type" genre has made one notable contribution to the gaming world: Typing of the Dead, Sega's bizarre typing/zombie title from the Dreamcast days. Right at the opposite end of the zombie spectrum comes this next title, Nintendo's Battle Get! Pokémon Typing for DS. "How can you learn to type on a DS?", we hear you ask. Why,..

Crazy comments from top dog

We could have had 3D gaming years ago, had Nintendo's experiments with the Virtual Boy, Famicom Disk System, GameCube and GameBoy Advance gone better. Does this frustrate President Satoru Iwata? Of course, but it also seemingly makes him hungry, if his comments in the latest Iwata Asks are anything to go by: I don’t know if this

It'll make sense soon

You might remember a story back in May about a Japanese art project where artists created fictitious Famicom cartridges to display their work. Here we are, three months later, bringing you news that some enterprising developers took the cartridges as inspiration to create games. Taking in cat-touching adventure Neco Touch, sloth simulator Namakemono – translated as..

Avert your eyes - SNK Playmore's worrying sequel gets the trailer treatment.

Doki Doki Majo Shinpan is a DS title produced by SNK Playmore that revolves around touching little girls in order to see if they're witches. Unsurprisingly, it failed to get a western release. However, the Japanese absolutely lapped it up and a sequel is now inbound. Entitled Doki Majo Plus, the goal remains very much the..

How to destroy a car in just over a minute

Remember the bonus stage in Capcom's Street Fighter II where you had to rip a car to bits within a set time limit using nothing but your fists and feet (and a few fireballs if you were Ryu and Ken, of course)? As far as vehicular violence was concerned it was pretty sweet, but we also thought it was a bit unrealistic. Surely no one could actually do that..

Every Nintendo fan's dream, or nightmare?

Sex is used to sell an awful lot of things these days, and video games are no exception. However, LA burlesque club Bordello's recent night of video game-themed stripping strikes us as a little bad taste. And we have low standards to begin with! Lucky punters were given the chance to see such highly respected icons as Chun Li (Street Fighter), Princess..

Don't you wish you'd have kept your copy sealed now?

A new and factory sealed copy of the cult SNES RPG Earthbound has sold for over $1000 on auction site eBay, proving once and for all that video game collectors aren't scared of the credit crunch. Seller dave2236 bagged a whopping $1,025.01 for the minty-fresh copy of the game. To give you some indication of the utter madness of this situation,..

Swedish Dentist is forced to change name by Nintendo's crack team of lawyers

It's a classic "David vs. Goliath" battle. A small dental surgery in Malmö, Sweden up against a multi-million dollar video game giant. Sadly, in this case, Goliath won. Nintendo has taken legal action to force the surgery in question to change its name - which was previously "Wii Smile". Before you..