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Tag: Mario Kart Double Dash

  • The Best Mario Games, According To You

    The Best Mario Games, According To You

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    Nintendo / LongplayArchive

    “Definitely Mario Galaxy, and not just because it’s the picture. It felt like such a huge improvement over Sunshine (which I liked well enough when it came out but really does not hold up). The orchestral music, new characters, motion controls, a genuine story, and levels that all felt very different. (64 and Sunshine involve repeating levels over and over and over again to get all the stars/shines; Galaxy gives you a different path almost every time through the world.)” – sxp151

    Galaxy 1 just hit a sweet spot for me. Like all the things you listed – the music is phenomenal (one of my favorite video game soundtracks), some of the best use of Wii motion controls, the gravity physics were mindblowing, it had an incredible reward/progression system, and overall it was just fun and addictive in a way few others have matched for me (even other Marios). One of the only games that I’ve gone out of my way to do everything, pitting myself up against its toughest challenges.

    Plus, the story is surprisingly melancholy, which just gives a great mood to the whole experience. One of my all-time favorites.” – AmaltheaElanor

    Galaxy 2. Some might argue that it ‘doesn’t have enough moves,’ as if a deep moveset is what put Mario on the map. Some might argue it’s ‘too slow’ as if going speed is the ultimate benchmark of quality by which games are to be judged.

    No, what made Mario Mario is neither of those things. What made him is straightforward, crisp movement in impeccably designed levels. Sure, he can’t do a divekick or midair kick or whatever it might be, but crispness of movement is about elegance and the balance between freedom & commitment, not just filling space with new ways to change trajectory for no reason than to fill space. What’s more, he’s doing all of this elegant movement in the hands-down best level design the medium of video games has ever seen. Developed enough to build upon ideas, yet still with enough awareness to know when to move on, these spaces are creativity incarnate. They stretch the bounds of what is possible, take only the best ideas from that thinking, and pares it down to platformer par excellence. It’s hard to not keep comparing it more favorably to other games in the series, so “best level design in the business” will have to do the heavy lifting for now. And with the best level design, you have the best Mario game. Full stop.” – Jakisthe

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    Kenneth Shepard

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  • Wait, The GameCube Nearly Had An Official LCD Monitor?

    Wait, The GameCube Nearly Had An Official LCD Monitor?

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    The Nintendo GameCube was a weird little console, one that had all kinds of wacky add-ons and peripherals released for it over the years, from LAN adapters to Game Boy Links to bongo drums. One thing I never knew about until today, however, were the company’s plans for an official LCD screen.

    Via Go Nintendo, Adam Doree has uploaded an uncut video of a presentation Nintendo made at E3 2002, featuring Shigeru Miyamoto, Satoru Iwata and Bill Trinen. In this video, after the crew had spent ages talking about Wind Waker and Metroid Prime, Iwata reveals that they have one last surprise to discuss: a first-party LCD screen, designed to attach to the top of the console and make it even more portable than it already was (the GameCube, famously, included a carrying handle on the back). I’ve set the video to autoplay at the beginning of the discussion about the screen:

    Shigeru Miyamoto – Unseen/Extended 2002 Interview Feature, ft. Satoru Iwata & Takashi Tezuka

    I never knew this! Sure other companies have stepped into this vacuum over the years, releasing various screens of varying quality, but it would have been very cool to get an official Nintendo monitor.

    It measured just five inches across, with a 4:3 ratio, and a resolution of just 320×240. Which sounds bad by 2023 standards but this was 2002, so for the time they weren’t terrible, as you can see in the footage above, where Mario Sunshine looks just fine! It’s also interesting hearing Iwata say it was peripherals like this that specifically convinced Nintendo to install digital output—itself a forgotten but amazing aspect of the hardware—for the GameCube.

    Iwata even reveals that he had met with Sega’s Yuji Naka—in happier times—about Phantasy Star Online, and the pair discussed whether they could take that title and “make it a portable game” to make the most of this screen. None of which ever came to pass, of course, but it’s still neat imagining a GameCube era where you could have grabbed your console by its handle, taken it to a friends house and played Mario Kart Double Dash on your own little official Nintendo screen.

    Just because I’m only learning about this today doesn’t mean there isn’t other stuff out there about the screen; here’s a 2002 write-up on IGN about how nice it looked, for example, while its listing on Console Variations speculates that the high cost of LCD screens at the time made it too expensive to release. The video below, meanwhile, has a good linger on footage of the screen alongside some speakers, part of the most 2002 gaming setup imaginable.

    E3 2002 – Nintendo Booth Footage

    UPDATE: Thanks to Spindash on Twitter, there’s more! Satoru Iwata quietly revealed years later that the monitor had secret, glasses-free 3D capabilities that Nintendo “kept secret”, along with the trivia that the Phantasy Star Online figures visible in some of the display units ended up getting stolen off the showroom floor!

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    Luke Plunkett

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