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Nintendo rose a fair few eyebrows in technology circles, as well as here at Sanitarium Towers, when it announced the 3D Classics line – classic games from older consoles such as the NES and Game Boy with a 3D graphic upgrade, offering a unique way to show of the power of the Nintendo 3DS handheld. While the idea has its merits, with a number of classic Nintendo titles getting the 3D Treatment – and persuading SEGA to join in and do the same to some classic SEGA titles – it has to be said that there are actually very few titles that have had the 3D Classic treatment.
Wouldn’t it be cool if you could take a NES game of your own choosing, and add 3D? If you’ve found yourself thinking that, you may want to check out Geod Studio’s new project, 3DNes – a work-in-progress Unity-based emulator that, as the name suggests, converts NES games into 3D.
Considering the simplicity of NES games, translating them into 3D is actually a difficult task. Unlike SNES games, which have four background layers, NES games have a single layer for the entire background. Imagine a diorama or a board game – everything in the background is printed on one board, while all the sprites – like your character the ground, enemies, items – are all just pieces on top. To allow the entire game to look 3D, 3DNes uses an algorithm that analyses the flat background and cuts it up into the pieces that make it up, then attempts to turn each piece into a 3D Object. The software is even clever enough to turn round objects into spheres or tubes, so for example, a ball will actually look like a ball instead of just a circle.
Exactly how well this works depends on the game in question, with things getting messier as the backgrounds get more complex. Games like my favourite franchise, Mega Man are translated well and benefit greatly from the effect, but games such as Contra or Castlevania somewhat struggle. Perhaps the best-emulated game is the original Super Mario Bros., which the developer admits was the main focus of the emulator and the most tested, which may explain the gap in quality between it and other games.
This having been said, Geod Studio hopes to improve the number of games that work well through subsequent beta releases, with head of the project Trần Vũ Trúc aiming for one-tenth of the entire NES library as his marker for success. He also suggests that there might be the potential for users to individually tailor the emulator for certain games, but is quick to state this is not currently the case, as he wants to ensure there’s “a strong emulation engine as the backbone” first.
At the moment, the emulator exists only online, as a WebGL game playable through the Unity Player. This means it only properly supports Mozilla-based browsers, such as Firefox or Seamonkey. It’s also extremely unstable, particularly when not using a AMD Graphics card, and may fail to go beyond loading the ROM, or even fail to work at all. However, Trần states that future releases of the emulator will be made available as software downloads, so it should only be a matter of time before we all get to try it properly.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for several months, you might be aware that 2016 has been declared the “Year of Pokémon” by Nintendo in honour of the franchise’s 20th Anniversary. Nintendo are definitely the kind to celebrate in style, with plenty of Pokémon-themed treats announced for the year, such as a Tekken-Pokémon Cross co-developed by Namco Bandai themselves (Pokkén Tournament); and new 2DS and “New 3DS XL” Designs with the original Pokémon Red and Blue built in – but what could be sweeter than to get some free Pokémon for your games?
Following the Announcement that download codes for Mew are being made available and can be picked up from any GAME store in the UK until the end of February, Nintendo have now announced that for the rest of 2016, there will be another Legendary Pokémon given away every month for the first four weeks of the month. Some of the Pokémon will be made available in-game for download via Mystery Gift; others will be in-store promotions with Nintendo’s retail partners.
Which retailers? Our sources reliably inform us that American distribution of the Pokémon we’ve marked as “Retailer” below will take place at most GameStop stores. And for the UK? Well, Nintendo typically partner with GAME for promotions such as these; and with Mew already available there until the end of the month, it’s a pretty safe bet we’ll see the others hit there too.
So here it is – the full list of Pokémon being given away, when and where:
Celebi: March 1 – 24 (Nintendo Network)
Jirachi: April 1 – 24 (Nintendo Network)
Darkrai: May 1 – 24 (Retailer)
Manaphy: June 1 – 24 (Nintendo Network)
Shaymin: July 1 – 24 (Nintendo Network)
Arceus: August 1 – 24 (Retailer)
Victini: September 1 – 24 (Nintendo Network)
Keldeo: October 1 – 24 (Nintendo Network)
Genesect: November 1 – 24 (Retailer)
Meloetta: December 1 – 24 (Nintendo Network)
With every generation having a legendary represented, never has there been a better time to catch them all!
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD Launches with a Wolf Link amiibo
REDMOND, Wash., Jan. 21, 2016 – The Nintendo games launching in the first part of the year are going to include some fun amiibo functionality. Games like The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD for the Wii U console and Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games™ for the Nintendo 3DS family of systems, both launching in March, use a wide variety of different compatible amiibo figures. Some new amiibo figures will also launch in March, including the legendary Wolf Link amiibo that is included in every physical version of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD, as well as three new figures in the Animal Crossing amiibo series, featuring fan-favorite characters like Timmy & Tommy, Kapp’n and Rover. The previously announced Ryu, Roy and R.O.B. (Famicom Colors) amiibo figures will also launch in March.
“New amiibo figures and functionality will keep surprising fans in 2016,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing. “All the upcoming amiibo prove that the must-have figures are continuing to evolve in unexpected and fun ways.”
When the physical version of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD launches on March 4 at a suggested retail price of $59.99, it will include a beautiful Wolf Link amiibo figure based on the same character from the classic game. Purchasing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD and Wolf Link amiibo bundle will currently be the only way to get this amiibo figure. When tapped to the Wii U GamePad controller, this legendary lupine opens the Cave of Shadows, a challenging new bonus dungeon in the game. After completing the Cave of Shadows, players can save their remaining hearts to the Wolf Link amiibo, and then use those hearts inside the Cave of Shadows to replenish life energy. After conquering the cave, players can save a record of their remaining hearts to the Wolf Link amiibo and attempt to beat their score at any time. Some of the data stored on the Wolf Link amiibo figure can also be used with The Legend of Zelda game for Wii U, which launches this year. More details about this functionality will be revealed in the future.
In addition to the Wolf Link amiibo, other amiibo figures in the Super Smash Bros. series like Link, Toon Link, Zelda, Sheik and Ganondorf will work with The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD. By tapping the Link or Toon Link amiibo, players can replenish their arrows. Tapping Zelda or Sheik will refill the player’s hearts, while, in a devious twist, tapping the Ganondorf figure will actually make Link take double the damage!
On March 18, new amiibo figures in the Animal Crossing series will launch in stores, including characters like Timmy & Tommy, Kapp’n and Rover. Digby will also be made available as a stand-alone amiibo. The next series of Animal Crossing amiibo cards also launches in March, bringing the grand total of available amiibo cards to be used in games like Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival for Wii U and Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer for Nintendo 3DS to a whopping 300. Let the collecting begin!
Fans who are ready to compete in Rio de Janeiro with Mario, Sonic and the gang in Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games will also have to warm up their amiibo-tapping fingers. When the action-filled game launches for Nintendo 3DS on March 18 at a suggested retail price of $39.99, both Mario and Sonic amiibo figures will be compatible*. By tapping the Mario or Sonic amiibo figures to the New Nintendo 3DS system (or on a Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo 3DS XL or Nintendo 2DS system using the NFC Reader/Writer accessory), players can boost Mario and Sonic’s outfits with that character’s power for the day.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Pokémon, some of the Pokémon amiibo will be made available again at select retailers. Fans should be on the lookout for Charizard, Jigglypuff, Greninja and Lucario to once again return to shelves right next to Pikachu.
Finally, Star Fox Zero delivers a new beginning for the classic shooter series. With a unique control scheme that uses both the TV screen and the screen on the GamePad, players pilot multiple vehicles through intergalactic levels with Fox and his classic crew. The game launches exclusively for Wii U on April 22 and will feature amiibo compatibility. More details will be revealed at a later time.
Every Pokémon Trainer worth their salt knows that with every new generation of Pokémon that launches, the officially announced Pokédex is never all the Pokémon out there to be discovered. Certain legendary Pokémon are always hidden from public eyes, waiting to be revealed by Nintendo later in the Generation’s lifetime to tease us and get us hyped for a potential exclusive giveaway in the future – and the current Generation VI is no exception. We’ve had Diancie and Hoopa; but today, The Pokémon company has revealed the latest “new” Pokémon for Gen VI; and there’s a very good reason to be interested.
Officially revealed in the January 2016 issue of CoroCoro magazine; and today announced worldwide by Nintendo in the form of a Youtube video on The Pokémon Company’s official channel, the third – and final – hidden Pokémon for Generation VI has been named as Volcanion (in Japanese: ボルケニオン Borukenion or Volcanion). Known as the “Steam Pokémon”, Volcanion is the series’ first dual-type Fire and Water Pokémon, with power to “blow away mountains” according to fan analysis of in-game Pokédex data.
Little else is known about this new Pokémon, but Nintendo have hyped that more information will be revealed “soon”. For now, just take a look at the official Youtube reveal:
Whatever happened to the damn good guy? I liked the damn good guy, the damn good guy was a…Damn. Good. Guy.
You’re probably wondering what I mean by “the damn good guy”. What I mean is pieces of entertainment that aren’t huge, massive, world changing, innovative behemoths that somehow seem to fail living up to the expectations of the creator. The damn good guy refers to pieces of media that are just enjoyable because they’re well put together, well written and don’t try to cast a net so wide and cast that they can’t possibly hope to be considered a success.
Example, Tomb Raider 2013. That was a good game, really good in fact. Solid gameplay/mechanics, great voice acting, very good atmosphere and was a nice long length. Square Enix however deemed the game a failure despite it selling a whopping 3.4 million units worldwide. Seriously Square? How big were your expectations of the game that you needed to re-release it for Playstation 4 and Xbox One just to beef up the sales? How much was the budget for this endeavour?
According to an article from Eurogamer.net the budget for Tomb Raider was $60 Million…HO-LY FUCK!!
I think we can all agree that’s pretty tall order to fill, a really tall order to fill. And there’s my point, set the bar too high and the chances of you hauling your arse over it decreases, don’t get me wrong I really enjoyed Tom Raider, but to have it deemed a failure due to unreasonable expectations just seems rude (for the lack of a better word), I’m no game designer but even I can see effort when it’s right in front of me.
Square sadly seemed to act like EA is constantly acting with their Battlefield franchise which ends up with a game that makes a huge amount of money and sells an insane amount of copies but is deems a failure anyway. Instead EA just end up aping Call of Duty in order to try and win over their audience, which they seem to keep failing at. These developers can clearly dominate in their fields of work but they’re tunnel-visioning so hard that they forget that they’ve still made a metric fuckton anyway. There’s nothing wrong with 2nd place is what I’m saying and there’s also nothing wrong with not releasing a game every fucking year, yeah I’m looking at you Assassin’s Creed, I love you but slow the hell down, you make tons of money with what you have maybe you should take the time to enjoy it? You know make some use of that company yacht you undoubtedly have, maybe take it for a sail and unwind?
See, this is why I love the damn good guy. The damn good guy gets their budget and knows exactly what to do with it, the damn good guy thought process I imagine would be something akin to this:
“Ok, I’ve been given $25,000,000 to make a piece of entertainment”
“My piece of entertainment will be about this”
“I will spend the money accordingly in all the necessary areas in order to make this piece of entertainment as appealing to its target audience as possible”
“The product has been released, sales figures are strong and we’ve made the budget back plus a little extra, even the reviews are positive I’m going to spend some time with my kids as I’ve been coming home late recently”
The damn good guy thought process probably does not resemble,
“OHDEARGOD, WE’VE BEEN GIVEN $70,000,000 TO MAKE A PIECE OF ENTERTAINMENT, WE MUST BE BETTER THEN EVERYONE ELSE IN ORDER TO BECOME ANY KIND OF SUCCESS”
“But sir we’re making a ton of money anyway…”
“DAMMIT HENDERSON NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR YOUR INSANE RAMBLINGS ABOUT THIS MYTHICAL MONEY NONSENSE, WE MUST BEAT THE COMPETITION OR BE BRANDED AS FAILURES AND BE CAST OUT FOR ALL ETERNITY BY THE HUMAN RACE”
“Sir we’ve been getting ratings up in the 90% range…”
“WE NEED TO TRY AGAIN AT BEATING THEM, WE’VE ONLY GOT A FEW MINUTES”
At this point Henderson has defected to a Studio that isn’t staffed by impatient tunnel-visioning weirdos who scream a lot.
This is why we need to support the damn good guy, the damn good guy takes their time, evaluates their options and sets themselves a reasonable goal and when all is said and done, the result is damn good. The result is
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Solomon Kane
Dishonoured
Darkman
Hellboy
Dredd
The A-Team (2010)
The Grey,
Do you see what I’m driving at? Not to say that giant bits of game changing innovation are a bad thing, they can just get out of hand fast and end up bloated, fat and always hungry for more.
Bottom line, support the Damn Good Guy. Because he’s a damn good guy.
