SuperKMx

@MickeyTheGreat What's so funny about that? The actual words make a lot of sense. A touchscreen controller (which practically every phone now has) isn't particularly innovative when you compare it to a device that tracks your movement via a camera (which isn't.) He didn't say "better", he said "more innovative."

@Captain_Balko Profits ahead!

My cat used to sit on my Amstrad CPC 464 keyboard back in 1987. Does that mean I have a case too? You can't copyright "thing being near other thing" surely? If you can, then I want to copyright "Person being photographed near Niagra Falls" - and I'm taking everyone to court who ever had a photo taken at Niagra Falls.

@Assassinated I have a feeling that people are going to view it as embarrassing even if they cut it at E3. And to be fair, cutting the price of your console less than a year after launch IS embarrassing. They already did it once with the 3DSXL, and got away with it by giving away free games. What are they going to give away when they slash the Wii U price by 33%? There's nothing TO give away.

I wish things were different - I had high hopes for the machine, figuring that Nintendo's inventiveness would see it stand proud against more powerful opposition - but Nintendo needs to realise that right now, the Wii U has very little to convince users to buy it, when they can get a competing machine for very similar money.

They need software, and quick - or this thing will go the way of the Gamecube. A bunch of second-rate or "as-good" ports, some decent first-party titles, the very, VERY odd gem of a game from a third party publisher, and then pushed into oblivion by the competing machines. It really wouldn't surprise me to see Nintendo announcing a new home console, or a "Wii U Plus"-style affair with a beefier processor and graphics chip within the next 3 years.

If I knew what I knew now, I never would have bought one on launch day. I've played a couple of hours of the underwhelming, juddery Lego City Undercover, and a couple of hours of F-Zero SNES on it since Christmas. I've had more use out of the Gamecube I got a couple of weeks ago, and that's no lie.

As long as it controls better than the diabolically bad Sonic 4, I'll be happy. Generations was fantastic - so more of that, please.

Outstanding, and heartwarming. Enjoy, George!

I'll be honest and say that I thought that the game looked like it would end up being mediocre at best. It isn't $650,000 worth, as far as I can see.

Plus, Ecco was massively overhyped back in the day. The game was incredibly dull at times, and somewhat average. A nice experiment, but should be left to die - as the Dreamcast "reboot" proved.

I really want a go at this. I imagine I would die long before I got to the long jump pit, but I'd least I'd die doing something that I loved.

Absolutely can't wait.

I keep throwing money at the screen, but nothing appears to be happening.

I'm utterly confused here. If the VC doesn't launch until next week, what are the F-Zero and Punch-Out!! that I bought a few weeks ago? Are they not VC releases anyway? (Or am I genuinely being dumb as paint?)

Given how dire and slow the 360 demo was, I'd imagine that they've delayed it because it isn't fun.

I want this so bad it hurts.

A piddly fee of $430 AUD shouldn't stop you from releasing your game to a market of some 23 million people. This is an absolutely ridiculous excuse, if you ask me.

If you don't think you're going to make a profit because of one-time outlay of $430 AUD after ploughing many times that into development, then I don't think you're doing it right. At the very least, you should take the hit on the ratings fee in order to bring Australian (and let's not forget New Zealanders - another 4.4million people) folks into your fanbase.

Oh right, so its OUR fault.

What happens now that I'm fully familiar with the Gamepad? Does the console suddenly become more powerful? Do games suddenly appear on the shelves as if by magic?

Thought not.

Absolutely outstanding. I want that Metal Slug one hanging in my house. Beautiful.

"Years ago, Hiroshi Yamauchi stated that "Nintendo was a box people bought to play Mario." And, really, he was right..." - And he still is. People don't buy Wii U in order to play Battlefield 4. They buy it for Mario, Zelda, and the like. Did anyone here specifically buy a Wii U with the intention of playing Battlefield 4 on it? Did hardcore Battlefield fans ditch Battlefield 3 and their PS3/Xbox 360 when the Wii U came out? I'm not saying its right to NOT release the game on the platform, but I just can't see that they'll lose many sales by not doing so.

And stating that ZombiiU is "the best selling third-party game" does not mean that it's worth other developers coming on board just yet. A new developer could sell a copy of their game to every single Wii U owner, and still lose money on it - the installed base isn't there, so why would they take the risk? ZombiiU may be the best selling third-party game, but 60% of nothing is still nothing.

@Void Why so?

You know what he should do? Tell everyone on the Internet about it, so that when the manager sees it online and remembers being asked about it by the guy behind the story, he'll fire him before he has a chance to take it out of the store.

Steal it first. Brag later.

@Slapshot Agreed in full.

@Zyph You can be a fan of a company without loving absolutely everything that it produces.

Yes, I think he's been treated harshly. His game, Fez, shows that he's no idiot and as he says, him making a comment on his personal Twitter feed about a personal preference isn't news - and Destructoid and the like shouldn't have treated it as if it was.

Quite funny you've used the shot of him from Indie Game: The Movie where he's doing an impression of people moaning at him on the internet, though!

@aaronsullivan @Ryno - Seconded, Aaron. Why run with controversy when you're supposed to be showing what people actually think? I think the list is interesting, even though I voted on it.

"Maybe the cold weather is putting people off..." - That'll be it. And the fact that it's terribly overpriced.

TaleSpin - all day, every day.

@HeatBombastic SOME of HMV's stores are closing. A lot of them remain open. My local one is open and has been refilling the shelves with new stock like normal. This move is to ensure that they don't have relatively high-value stock sitting around not making any money for them as they look to balance the books.

With that in mind, its still an indicator as to the state of the Wii U market in the UK. The console isn't selling, and HMV are far from the only retailer to be chopping the price. My local Tesco Superstore has two games aisles full of PS3 and 360 stuff, and only FIVE Wii U titles. No consoles. No accessories.

A lot of these retailers are dropping the price because they sense an official price drop coming, and therefore a drop in the trade price, They'll end up with consoles that they paid £200 per unit for sitting in their stock room, when the new Nintendo trade price is £150 per unit, for example. They're looking to avoid that, is all.

@RobbieG HMV are in administration - not bust. Big difference.

This isn't entirely unexpected, but I'm SO glad that I paid for the full premium bundle on launch day, complete with the Pro Controller that only works on one of the five games I bought with the machine. Also glad I bought an extra Pro Controller for all those excellent multiplayer experiences. Or not.

With any luck, Nintendo will do the same as they did with the 3DSXL and officially drop the price, before handing out free games to those that supported them from day one. Saying that, the system desparately needs new software - and fast. Nintendo are going to need a big old E3, I reckon.

Well done, Mike. I've just paid for my preorder of this (based on the strength of your review) and - of course - Luigi's Mansion. Cannot wait!

@Trikeboy "So you are telling us that if your 3 year old daughter came to you and asked for something that you could easily provide, at no cost to you besides your time, that would make her happy, even if it was only for a minute, that you wouldn't do it for her? I pray for your future offspring."

Not every time, no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't want my child turning into a spoilt brat. Whether's it's easy or costly or difficult for me to provide has very, very little to do with it.

When they're 25, still living in your house, eating your food, paying no rent, and demanding that you buy them a new computer because they know that you won $2,000 on a lotto scratcher, you'll realise why.

And please don't waste your prayers on my offspring, since my partner and I are not planning on having any, and we don't believe in deities anyway.

@Slapshot Exactly what I was alluding to.

I think a lot of the issue comes from that fact that as reviewers, we have to have a different agenda to a lot of gamers, whilst still actually being gamers ourselves. Our opinions have to be our opinions of course, but they have to also be relatable by fans of the game series, fans of the genre who aren't fans of the game series, people who have never heard of the game, people who have devoured every minute piece of information about the game and are expecting it to get a 10/10, and also the more casual player who maybe is considering taking a step into the unknown, not to mention your audiophiles, the people who solely play multiplayer games, and also those who would give a maximum score to anything with shiny graphics. Oh, and those that have been gaming for 25 years...and those that are thinking of getting into gaming. And those who like co-op games. And probably a few others.

Most of those demographics would - in a lot of cases - give a different score to the same product, meaning that a large percentage of them would disagree with my review of the product, no matter how I try to hit the bases.

Oh, and we also have to quiet the happy little beast inside when we're reviewing a game that's part of a series that we've loved for years.

Nobody has the definitive answer about how a game will be perceived by a specific person. Even aggregation doesn't work for that. A lot of the time 10 reviewers will give an average of 9 out of 10, and a good percentage of people will hate the game and think it should have been given a 2 or 3 out of 10. There's no way around that, really, outside of giving every game a score of 5 out of 10 and just saying "you might love it, but you might not."

But, if people disagree with a reviewer's opinion, let them disagree. It really smarts when they question your motives, your intelligence, your gaming ability, and your knowledge of the subject, sure, but after writing the better part of 1,000 game reviews over the last 15 years, I've (finally!) learned to just ignore it.

What we can - and should continue to aim to - do, is provide a balanced opinion that is our OWN opinion of the product. That's it. That's the task. That's all there is. If you can sit and say "Did I give an honest opinion on that game?" and answer with a definite "Yes", then your job is done, and done well.

@Lopezdm I'm sorry, but someone taking an Insulin shot - something that is necessary for him to...y'know...go on living - is not in any way gross.

Anyway, lots of hate for Super Meat Boy and the team on here. Not entirely sure why, since the game was a lot of fun and easily one of the best games available on Xbox Live Arcade - and one of the most successful, suggesting that it is actually quite good.

And don't worry about your Smash Bros. lineup, since the developers have confirmed on Twitter that they were only joking about putting the character in the game in exchange for a port. Some people appear to be somewhat confused, thinking that Nintendo have said that it's happening. Nintendo aren't even aware of the conversation, I imagine.

Reading the text of the story is somewhat important, in these cases.

"I told her we couldn't in that particular Mario game, she seemed really bummed out by that. So what else am I supposed to do?"

To each their own, but if he jumps to her beck and call every time she gets upset about something as minor as this - and it IS minor, since it doesn't matter which gender the character is in this game - then he is going to be in for a tough old time of it when she grows up.

The answer to "what else am I supposed to do" would be to teach her to see people, not gender.

Very nice work, Mr. McFerran, as usual.

I've recently acquired a Megadrive II with a stack of games - such great memories flooding back on every bootup.

@Syntax I don't see how this is against the rules. This isn't hardware modification, and it isn't piracy in any way. You need an original Gamecube, an Action Replay cart (which are/were available legally from any high street game retailer), and an original copy of F-Zero GX. The rules state that users can't discuss "Any illegal activity, including any talk of modchips, piracy, warez, unofficial emulators & ROMs"

This is none of those things.

@SCAR392 The thing is that this isn't JUST the extra tracks that you can get for putting your Gamecube memory card into the arcade machine. This is the entire arcade game (more or less), complete with timers.

Aww, this is a shame and no mistake. The Wii U edition was really good fun - probably the game I've played most on the console. I was intending to pick it up on the 3DS in due course. Good review though - saved me a few quid.

I've never loved you more, McFerran. I've played this more over the past weekend than I ever did when I owned it on the SNES.

Yes! 6th of 7! COME ON NOW!

My goal is to not finish last in a race. 6 attempts, 6 fails.

FINALLY, connected to a game with more than 3 players in it!

Modesty is a good quality.

2 players in my lobby...where did everyone go?

Would be good if we could stop running 4 player races here. Come on, now!

Gah...kicked out. Trying to rejoin...

3 races. 3 last place finishes Good fun, though

I'm seeing 1st - erick (MEX) 66pts. 2nd - GK*Zoppy (AUS) 35pts - 3rd Vicki (GBR) 30pts.

2nd, CosmiC Well played