zekepliskin

@Bizzyb If by "graphical improvements" you mean poor AI based upscaling which makes the game look plasticy, then sure. I'd say the remaster of Luigi's Mansion 2 actually counts as a remaster because from what I see some if not all of the original assets were redrawn (there's new detail and design present that upscaling couldn't add) and it's a much more solid port that looks good and runs well.

@countzero The crashes and performance issues show how little effort went into making the port.

You're still better off playing an original version on GameCube, PS2 or Xbox or the PS3/Xbox 360 releases which run about the same but have slightly sharper visuals due to the jump to HD.

I'll be honest the most recent port (it doesn't qualify as a remaster because it uses lazy AI upscaling) doesn't add much and everything looks like it's covered in melted plastic, it's awful and completely tramples over the original art design and style. It's a cult classic, flawed but kinda brilliant, and deserves better.

Save your money.

Japanese players are still using Waluwiggler combos which means if you get lobbied with a bunch of them, if it's a full grid of 12 usually about 6 are still using this even though it received slight balance in the patch.

I use a medium Mii on the Sports Bike with Leaf Tyres and I do notice a little stat boost here and there. Unless you get yeeted to death (or that thing where you do and climb back up the rankings only to get yeeted again) the odds of winning with that combo do seem higher.

I have more respect for players who use their own combo rather than follow the herd and do the cliché choices like Waluwiggler. Hearing them all make cartoon villain noises in unison while racing average at best is very meh.

You know, as I grew up in the 90s I was convinced every Japanese company would be on the cutting edge of everything in their field, such was the prominence of their electronics back then. Now I'm older I get to see actually they're still using a SYSTEM from the 90s, practically, so that's dispelled that illusion pretty quick.

About the only games I online with Nintendo are MK8 and Tennis Aces, which only have lag when the other sides have poor connection, so as long as those work the same or better (quicker matchmaking would be nice) that'll do. I don't expect a lot from it so my expectations are easy to meet, yet if they don't I'll just chalk it up to "classic Nintendo".

Probably worth bearing in mind that their countrymen over at Sony don't always get it right either. Sony PS Store has been a mess forever, and often the prices and buy button don't appear on a laptop via their PSN website regardless of browser used, so you have to load it on say a PS4 and it takes forever. Rule one of capitalism :- never put any barriers between you and the customer's money. Microsoft knows this - using the store on Xbox One X is basically seamless and makes it way too easy to buy and download armfuls of games any way you choose (smartphone app/console/browser) which is the way it should be. Using the Sony and Nintendo stores is a chore, rather than being an exciting trip to a digital candy store like it should be.

Okay, I've rambled enough. Thanks for reading all of it, one person that did. 📖😂

It's probably as simple as, this is pre made promotional material, there's a heatwave, Nintendo are using this to make a temperature based gag out of it.

Typical Internet rumour mill/false hope/exaggeration cycle. This is exactly the kind of attitude that leads to "Sony are releasing a new handheld console ZOMG!?" nonsense just because they filed a patent for something vaguely related to it that might never be made anyway. Sometimes companies just do these things to do them; they're not grand masters of foreshadowing whose every social media post has some hidden meaning or ulterior motive. As always, people just need to get a grip.

I love the righteous anger and idealism of some folks commenting here, but as I recall the eShop wasn't brilliant from day one. Vroom in the Night Sky and dozens of obscure-ish Neo Geo titles littered the thing for weeks before the plethora of decent first and third party games I didn't already have started to appear.

Game research is pretty easy these days, type <name of game> and "review" into YouTube, watch a few, draw own conclusions on whether it's worth your money or not. Those with discerning taste borne of knowing their own specific preferences may find they end up with a plethora of brilliant titles, changing the problem to "when do I find time to play them all", although from what I understand people typically have more free time these days due to the all the panicdemic around CV19.

@YANDMAN No chance of getting Moonwalker. MJ's likeness and music are featured and credited. Royalties wouldn't make it worth $EGA'$ while.

Simple solution to all this - don't indulge a company who have been running their formerly best IP into the ground for 2 decades by buying another port of it, emulate any that haven't been ported for free instead. Then it doesn't matter whether or not the company does, and you can play those games now, not when THEY feel like maybe porting it, if at all.

@Mambitos I love that you assume I'm trolling and/or butthurt (2008 called they want the word butthurt back by the way) rather than what I was actually doing, which was making a snarky little joke for my own amusement. Sense of humour failure on your part perhaps? Either way lighten up 👍😁

@Mambitos You type lolzz a lot. Does that mean that laughing triggers your narcolepsy?

Author writes article to justify purchasing more Switches for AC and posts to allow those who already have or will soon some catharsis?

I don't know, man. It's tough for me because I won't touch Animal Crossing, but more Switches sold means higher likelihood of games I do want coming to the console so I don't feel I can slag people off for doing that.

I can't help but feel bad for those who want the option of their own island in this game on a shared console though and feel compelled to buy Switch consoles they wouldn't have because the game doesn't include the option. It feels like the sort of dick move Sony would pull, by releasing a PS4 that isn't backward compatible with any previous home console versions and forcing people to buy or rent (PS Now) any PS1, PS2 or PS3 titles they want on their PS4s. Kinda thought Ninty were better than that.

Isn't cheating in the way described in the article the equivalent of deliberately reading the plot for a movie you're about to watch and spoiling the surprises for yourself? Or someone else seeing the movie and then spelling it out for you in detail at least. That practice has been around a lot longer than cheating in video games and is the same kind of thing.

Plenty of great single player experiences to be had on Switch and PS4. If online goes down then, meh, try something not tied into it. Just with the Covid scare it's not the end of the world, no matter how much people howl and protest that it is.

"The philosophy behind them doesn’t go in line with Nintendo’s philosophy in that some of these players are playing for the prize money...it comes to a point where they’re playing the game for the money, and I feel that kind of direction doesn’t coincide with Nintendo’s view of what games should be."

Methinks Masahiro Sakurai misunderstands the concept of eSports due to ignorance (i.e. not knowing enough about it to judge). If the competitors enjoy playing the game, and the spectators enjoy watching them - and let's be honest some of these events can be hugely entertaining even just live streaming - then they are still getting FUN and ENTERTAINMENT VALUE out of the game(s).

I was hoping if Ninty did change their tune and support them even just a little more, there would be more likelihood of Mario Kart tournaments, something I'd actually compete in because I suck at the SSB titles, great though they are. But Ninty dance to their own esoteric jazzy Mario-themed tunes, and they're very catchy so they won't be changing them any time soon.

squinting Fry face
Trying to work out if former Crysis 3 designer being brought on board will help result in one of the prettiest Switch games ever... or have no bearing at all...

@Xiovanni Ha! I always assumed Petey was a hermaphrodite, able to reproduce asexually. Technically both and neither gender - i.e. non-binary gender discussion doesn't apply here

I think the modder has done it the wrong way round though. Should have recreated Super Mario 64 in the game engine of Super Mario Sunshine - now that, I'd play. SMS has a great game engine, Mario controls really well, camera control is good (although I play SMS hacked to invert the y-axis as the regular way is backwards by modern standard).

FIFA and CoD owning the top two, how boring and predictable. I'm glad gaming isn't all kicking a football and shooting at things or I'd give up! Maybe they should combine the two, Pokken Tournament style, and have the ability to snipe off the other team's star striker to prevent him scoring goals, and be able to throw frag grenades at loot boxes so no-one can get suckered in to the usual micro-transaction shenanigans... I'd play that.

I just re-acquired a PS4 yesterday (my third one, a slim this time, as I tend to sell them after a year or so due to boredom and annoyance with the crappy UI it comes with, settings all over the place in illogical places ugh) to play Spiderman, God of War IV (aka Kratos Rebooted: Norse Not Greek), Detroit: Become Human (again), Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and in anticipation of Cyberpunk 2077, assuming CDPR don't screw us like Saber Interactive did with The sWitcher 3 update and pull it from current gen at the last minute.

These things are as always to be taken with a pinch of salt and not taken as gospel, nor disregarded out of hand.

The thing is "avoid all reviews" as people have posted here is not helpful. You can tell a review where the person has played the game and it's not all glowing feedback or all outright criticism pretty easily, same as on Amazon or anywhere else, and weight your own expectations against that. A well written review on a 10 scale where games are scoring 4-8 can often be way more useful than a 1 or a 10 that's made to skew.

Personally when I take the time to do a user review i give it whatever score i think it deserves. If other people don't do that, it's up to you to act as your own filter.

@guamyankee This. So much this. EVERY track from old games as a retro cup. There are some amazing tracks that deserve a remake, like Wario Colosseum and Mushroom Bridge from Double Dash, I mean Wario Colosseum has parts almost tailor-made for anti-gravity sections. Then you could also do things like custom GPs with every Rainbow Road oldest to newest. Mario Kart has been a smash hit since the SNES days so I think an Ultimate version is due.

@Elvie If you mean that port on the bottom of the Wii U Gamepad, that's used for the charging dock, zapper or no zapper!

I'm sure he finds the money made from licensing to CD Projekt Red for the games and Netflix for the first successful screen adaptation spends just as well as that made from his books alone. 😁

It's more than a little narrow minded to write off an entire medium without having experienced it for yourself though. Its obvious he is tired of answering those sorts of questions, but if I were a successful author whose works were adapted into a different medium I'd take at least a cursory glance. Tom Clancy actually turned things full circle and wrote books based on the game based on his original books so it's pretty obvious he's at least tried a few of them, and is quite supportive of gaming as a whole. Wouldn't kill Andrzej to at least try one, or watch a Cavill Netflix episode, before pooh-poohing the whole lot.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to see if I can eat my carbonara while riding my bicycle.

@Don Wasn't it just. Trying to do analogue movement control on a resistive touchscreen was never going to compare to the proper analogue stick on the old N64 Trident controller. It was an early DS port that was overly ambitious, and Mario was too slippery to do any of the acrobatic flips needed for certain stars on a touchscreen.

I've been waiting for Ninty to announce GameCube Virtual Console support since I bought my Switch a week or so after launch day in 2017. There are dozens of quality titles I would pay to have in hybrid console form, legally. L

As it is I've been making do with the excellent Nintendont on modded Wii U - thanks to FIX94 making a channel forwarder basically everything can be played via the Wii U Gamepad now. Or with original controllers with rumble support with the GameCube USB Adapter, which as someone rightly pointed out also works on Switch (from firmware 4 onwards I believe) with the ability to control the UI and play titles that don't have overly complex controls, such as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

If they're able to polish up Wii U highlights like Tropical Freeze then I don't see why at the very least, first party GameCube and less demanding Wii titles couldn't be moved across. Nintendo have already proved that games written for PowerPC/ATI architecture can work on a slightly more powerful ARM/Nvidia SoC and have a little more graphical finesse so 15-20 year old GameCube titles shouldn't be a problem. I shouldn't need to do the RCM/jig method and nor should anyone else but that's the choice we're left with if we want Dolphin/RetroArch to play the many titles Nintendo haven't brought to the Switch for reasons.

I dug my modded black 32GB Wii U out of storage and hooked it up for the first time in a few years just two weeks ago and I'm glad I did. It was worth it for Nintendont alone, playing quality GameCube titles upscaled to 1080p with the original controllers via the USB adapter, Haxchi for my ripped games like Human Revolution and Arkham City installed on a 64GB USB thumb drive and a plethora of old consoles emulated via RetroArch, which after extra years in development is a lot more slick on the Wii U now.

In my case it also plays more versions of Mario Kart than any other console :-

• Super Mario Kart (SNES)
• Mario Kart 64 (N64)
• Mario Kart: Super Circuit (GBA)
• Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (GCN)
• Mario Kart DS (DS)
• Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 (Triforce)
• Mario Kart Wii (Wii)
• Mario Kart 8 (WIi U)

Yep, eight different versions. And with the fairly recent FIX94 hack a lot of GameCube titles can be played directly on the Wii U Gamepad with all the controls working for true Off TV Play (all we need now is a more reliable method of getting Wii titles with Classic Controller support working from the Wii U menu because the current Wii U VC Inject method usually fails).

Just because it was a sales failure doesn't mean it failed as an awesome piece of gaming hardware. Bummer that Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer and presumably other video apps beyond Netflix and YouTube don't work any more though. And what the Wii U did with it's browser dual screening was really clever, I've not seen anything like that since.

Well whatever happens I'll bet they've patched the security old from the OG Switch which allows full system exploit/control. Probably while leaving another backdoor open somewhere for a different but not as powerful exploit.

Can't Nintendo just release a proper 2D Mario game with levels and some kinda amusing excuse plot like they did in the 90s? Despite New Super Mario Bros. there hasn't yet been one that takes the crown from Super Mario World and that's over 25 years old at this point.

Surely this is just an April Fool's joke and there's no actual movie at the end of this? Jim is way too tired to be back to wacky 90s slapstick.

I predict an abomination of Super Mario Bros proportions. You know, that schlocky thing from the 90s which was borderline unwatchable and made zero sense from a story standpoint. That it's produced by the same people who are responsible for the Fast And Furious - never really bastions of high quality cinema - really seems to hammer that point home.

If it recoups it's budget I'll be genuinely surprised because goodwill nostalgia only goes so far.

Hilarious trailer though, all things considered. For all the wrong reasons...

I was interested by the idea. The concept of tweaking the old formula to introduce new elements for the audience that's been playing since the original Red/Blue GB days (or Red/Green depending on your region I guess) including me is a bit different since I've never played a PokeRom hack before.

But the real problem for me is, Pokemon games are mobile. They're somewhat simplified RPGs because that suits the format, anything overly complex will lose a bit of that "pick up and play" appeal unless you're logging several hours a day every day, which as an adult isn't always possible. I was excited because if this had been a GBA/DS/3DS rom hack I could have grabbed it and run it on my softmodded 3DS (menuhax/rxtools with emuNAND) so it could have sat comfortably next to my other versions on the same SD cards, namely GBA FireRed/LeafGreen, DS HeartGold/SoulSilver and 3DS X/Y. But it can't, because it's a PC game, so I can't easily do that. This makes it too niche to be worth considering.