Paul Haine | Tales from the city
Everything tagged with “Nintendo”
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The Nintendo e-reader
The Nintendo e-reader isn’t what you think it is; it isn’t a device for reading e-books. The truth is, I’ve just lured you here to read an article about an obscure peripheral for the Game Boy Advance by implying that Nintendo made a Kindle-style e-reader. E-readers are hot right now, aren’t they? It’s all Kindle-this and iBooks-that. I bet a Nintendo one would be lovely, all white and curvy like that Wii U tablet controller.
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A few minutes with the Nintendo 3DS
I only had a vague interest in the 3DS, having abandoned the DS platform some time back. Passing a shop that had a demo unit, I figured I should at least check it out. Could the much-vaunted glasses-free 3D effect bring me back to Nintendo handheld gaming? Spoiler alert! No.
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Where can Nintendo take Mario next?
The Wii is unusual as it’s seen not just one but three ‘proper’ Mario games: Super Mario Galaxy, New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Super Mario Galaxy 2. Normally, we’re lucky to get one of each of Nintendo’s headline games per console generation: Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64, Super Mario Sunshine on the GameCube. I thought this was a good move, but having played the last two Wii games I’ve been left feeling bored and jaded with the whole thing.
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iPhone gaming
Mobile gaming — that is, gaming on mobile phones rather than dedicated portable consoles by dedicated videogame manufacturers — has always been an aspect of gaming that I’ve been happy to let pass me by, because mobile gaming has almost always been awful. When the iPhone was first released it didn’t come with any games at all, and although there was a promise of some iPhone version of Super Monkey Ball in the future, the iPhone’s usefulness as a gaming device didn’t factor at all into my decision to buy it.
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Pokémon Curious
Nintendo are often criticised for their first-party releases being largely based around the same few franchises. Mario in particular appears to whore himself out to all manner of genres — platform games, sporting games, puzzle games, even non-game software such as art and music packages. What critics don’t realise is that the inclusion of Mario is, more often than not, a sign that the game will be of a high quality, just as, for instance, the inclusion of Sonic the Hedgehog can be taken as a sign that the game will blow goats in a big way.
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I Just Wanted to Play Zelda
I am contemplating buying an Xbox 360. This is not because I particularly want an Xbox 360, though they do hold more appeal to me now than the original Xbox ever did. No, the reason I’m contemplating this is due to a process of elimination: aside from handhelds, the X360 might be the only console I can both buy and use, and I find that mildly upsetting.
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Drums Keep Pounding Rhythm to the Brave
Last year, I lamented the lack of iconic, memorable music in today’s games, but it’s dawned on me — partly because I’ve been playing Nintendo’s Soundvoyager, more on which later — that I may have been a little harsh. The focus of my writing back then was on the catchy jingles older games excelled at providing, but while today’s in-game music may not be as well-suited to the world of ringtones, it does provide us with another gaming genre; that where the music is not incidental, but actually integral to the in-game experience.
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Cost and Effect, II
Last week saw me ramble on for far too long about Apple product updates, leaving me with no space to talk about the Nintendo announcements that took place around the same time. Unlike Apple, Nintendo didn’t release news of any new or updated products, just launch details — dates and prices — for the Wii, something they’ve held off doing for some time now.
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Nintendo name their console 'Wii'
So, though I am technically supposed to be spending my time on something else at the moment, I felt unable to let this one pass by unmentioned. As you may have heard already, seeing as the internet exploded with the news last Thursday, Nintendo have revealed that their next console, previously known as the Revolution, will, in actual fact, be known as Wii.
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Nintendogs Revisited
I thought I’d just update you all on the state of my puppies, Buckley the beagle, Titus the King Charles spaniel and Cardigan the dachshund; they are dead. I killed them.
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Nintendogs
I had a dog, once upon a time. He was a cocker spaniel and he was called Jasper, and when he was a puppy he was friendly, loved to meet new people and was full of life. As he got older he grew into a cantankerous, arthritic old bastard, attacking anybody he didn’t know at first, then eventually turning on those he did know until only my mother could control him. Eventually, he was put to sleep.
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Game Boy Micro
It’s a bit of hardware that doesn’t do anything my DS doesn’t do already. It has a tiny screen, it’s so small that it may cause my hands to cramp into tiny little claws, it’s more expensive than a GBA SP (which would also play Gameboy Color and Gameboy games) and is essentially just another cynical attempt by Nintendo to flog the same ageing product again to the remaining few that don’t already own it in one form or another. Naturally, I had to get one.
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That Nintendo Controller
So, Nintendo finally release details of their much-hyped revolutionary game controller that will accompany the Revolution console, the successor to the Gamecube. Some people hate it; naturally, I love it.
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I Own No DS Games
I’ve been going on another of my periodic possession purges recently, clearing out the clutter on ebay and giving away whatever doesn’t sell. The two DS games I owned — Mario 64 and Project Rub — were both great games, but I’d completed them and they were just sitting there, so off they went.
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The Next Generation
Each of The Big Three have now released images and details of their next consoles. Microsoft appear to be aiming at the hardcore online gamer, Sony at the home media centre owner and Nintendo at the Existing Nintendo Fan. So far, so predictable.
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Nintendo DS
It’s often been noted that Nintendo appears to hate the general public, in particular that part of the general public that actually buys its products. It can be difficult to be a Nintendo fan, relying almost entirely upon them for your drip-feed of games and always ending up with strangely featureless hardware.
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Bongo Bong
The embittered old cynic in me is deeply, deeply ashamed. The old cynic watched in horror as I entered Game, stylishly sauntered over to the Gamecube demonstration pod, checked to make sure there weren’t any attractive, single blonde girls (with black-rimmed glasses) watching, and with the minimum of fuss, started whacking the bongos.
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Some Thoughts on Pikmin
As noted previously, Nintendo owns me. When it comes to the Gamecube, I accept that it doesn’t have as many games available as the Xbox or PS2, but what it lacks in 3rd party support, it more than makes up for with the quality of its 1st party releases.
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