Hoho, Happy April Fools' Day everyone! We gathered around the imaginary tree and exchanged fake gifts, laughing at the silliness of it all. LOL! That one's great! RAGE! That one's realistic enough that I want it to be true! Punches were thrown, noses bloodied.

So let's look at some of the 'Best' April Fools' of 2015 - or 'Worst', depending on your point of view. As for ours this year, we rejected ideas that were too 'realistic' in fear of enraging everyone, so instead did a fairly silly article about a Legend of Zelda musical on Broadway, starring Adam Sandler. Some of our readers seemed to enjoy it, but a number said in rather harsh terms that it wasn't realistic enough to enrage them, therefore sucked. Such larks, glad we went to the effort!

Bitter sniping aside, there were plenty of jolly japes today around the web, so let's get them out of our system so, in the hours to come, we can focus on more important things. There's a Nintendo Direct today, after all.

Pac-Man on Google Maps - Google (obviously)

One of the first to emerge courtesy of time-zones, this is less an April Fools' and more a cool thing that Google did. When you use Google Maps there's a Pac-Man button at the bottom left that turns the map into the retro arcade game, bending to suit the roads. Neat.

Pac Man Google Maps

The Great Ace Attorney: Animal Edition - Capcom

Another prank, this time from Capcom, the developer of a number of fun games that's still not much loved due to some weird mis-steps. Our hearts melted a little at this video in which the cast of upcoming 3DS title The Great Ace Attorney are all animals. The flying squirrel (or bat?) with a moustache is an obvious highlight.

Nintendo's Special Edition Apple Watch - Pocket Gamer / AppSpy

The Apple Watch is looming upon us, as an expensive and slightly pointless small-smartphone-that's-not-a-phone, but will nevertheless sell about 100 million units in a month because it has an Apple logo. With Nintendo's move towards smart devices with DeNA, Pocket Gamer / AppSpy decided to show off a Nintendo Edition of the upcoming tech.

Smash Store and a Whole Load of DLC - IMGUR / Gamnesia

We're 95% sure, maybe 96%, that this is indeed a fake, with April Fools' Day having been underway in some timezones when it popped up. It's a series of images on IMGUR under a new account - 'wolfodonnel' with the title 'WEAKLINGS THE BUNCH OF YOU'. The reported screengrabs - which are edits of an existing official page - show a Smash Bros. store with four DLC packs on the way, including payable characters such as Wolf and Popo. In light of how long it's taking the development team - led by Masahiro Sakurai - to bring us Mewtwo, the Miiverse stage and Tournies, it seems like a stretch that there'll be a whole load of new characters in DLC packs.

There may be more DLC in future, and possibly an eShop link (we've seen that rumour before), but we don't believe this to be legit; we'd love to be proven wrong!

Smash April1 St

The Binding of Isaac: Censored for Wii U and 3DS - Edmund McMillen

It's fairly common knowledge that The Binding of Isaac has had problems making it onto Nintendo hardware as the result of its themes; in particular, its religious subject has been an issue for it seeking approval. The game's creator, Edmund McMillen, has posted a joke article highlighting changes made to the game to get through the approval process - Isaac has a fig-leaf over his naked body, a Dog replaces God etc. Hopefully this title will eventually arrive, but we can safely say these changes won't be part of it.

Binding of Isaac - April Fool

Peach Mode in Super Mario Bros. - @jp_smbhack and Retro Collect

This is a neat one, as it reports of a just-discovered 'Peach Mode' in the original Super Mario Bros., in which the Princess takes over from Mario to rescue... herself. This non-code is supposedly initiated by holding Left + A + B while pressing Start to kick off a single player game. It would have been a fantastic find if true.

Peach SMB

The Nintendo Direct 'Leak' - Anonymous

Not an April Fools' Day reveal, admittedly, but deserves a mention because people won't stop talking about it. Posted from a 'Nintendo of Europe employee' in German on Google+, it blends enough realism - some of it absolutely will be accurate - and a few aspects that seem far-fetched. As with the Smash Store above, we'd actually be pleased to be proven wrong, but are pretty sure this was just made up by an excited fan that got lucky with a guessed date (they had the time wrong, though).

The Whole of Nintendo Direct?

It's the greatest Nintendo Direct ever, with astonishing announcements. After 30 intense minutes Satoru Iwata appears for a sign-off - "Thank you for watching, we hope you enjoyed this April Fools' Nintendo Direct. Please Understand". (Bows)

Don't worry, that won't happen!

And Finally... One More Nintendo Direct Leak

A creation from Alex on our YouTube channel to wrap up the festivities.


Have we missed any so far? Fire them at us in the comments and we'll add some more if they're good 'uns.