Nintendo

Yes, The New Assassin’s Creed Is Like That Lovely Zelda Game

They don’t make many games that let you sail wherever you want to go on the sea, battling other ships, discovering islands, hunting for treasure. But they do make some games like that. In fact, Nintendo made a Zelda all about that: 2002/3’s The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for GameCube. Naturally, if you…

If You’re Going to Deface Your School Books, Do It Well. Like This.

Doodling in your text books is bad! I do not recommend it. At all. However, let’s say you have to doodle in your text—like, if you don’t, you get in trouble. Then, by all means, please deface the book in the most entertaining way possible. Above, you can see Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen getting the…

Super Smash Kittens Should Probably Be Nintendo’s Next WiiWare Game

I would like to wholeheartedly thank Youtuber TyVerteLive for creating this masterful work of parody, which will surely be hailed by future generations as the perfect example of how to combine cats and video games. And there are plenty of those Now someone please run with this idea—I want it on Nintendo’s eShop by the…

Wii U Can Handle Crysis 3 (And Almost Did), Says Crytek Head

Despite what Nintendo would likely call its own best efforts, the Wii U has struggled to attract third-party game makers. Some developers might tell you that’s because the Wii U is underpowered, but Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli told a different story to VentureBeat this week. When asked about the Nintendo console, Yerli offered up the…

Nickels, Dimes, and Quarters

The video game industry is just that. An industry. Which means that it exists in a capitalistic world. You know, a free market. A place where you’re welcome to spend your money on whatever you please… or to refrain from spending that money. Those companies that put these products out? They’re for profit businesses. They…

This Must Be the Coolest University Graduation Ceremony on Earth

Think your graduation was cool? Maybe it was. Maybe it was totally gnarly. But, I’ll tell you what, I’m pretty damn sure Sailor Moon didn’t roll in and a red Pikmin didn’t stroll up on stage. Oh, and there probably wasn’t a large Wii Remote, nor was there a large Xperia phone. Call it a…

Yoshi’s Unlicensed Adventure Available on Android, At Least Until Nintendo Figures Out How to Remove It

If you’re a Hungarian Android developer looking to cut game design corners by co-opting an existing character, you might want to go a little more obscure than one of Nintendo’s most beloved characters. Spotted by the keen eyes over at NeoGAF, Era’s Adventures is a real game you can purchase on Google Play for $1.99.…

New Smash Bros. Could Be Impacted By Designer’s Bad Arm

“I wonder what games I can play with just my left hand?” writes Masahiro Sakurai, designer of the Kirby and Super Smash Bros. series, in his Weekly Famitsu column. Get your mind out of the gutter; this is serious. Over the past several weeks, Sakurai has written in his column about his condition which has…

Um, This Sure Is A Lot Of Ass Cheek For A Nintendo-Licensed Product

Nintendo is about as family-friendly as video game companies can get. This goes double for the company’s merchandise, which normally begins at t-shirts and ends with plush representations of cute little Mushroom Kingdom characters. So it’s strange to see this figure of Tharja from Fire Emblem Awakening on the 3DS turn up, not only because…

Two New 3DS Colors for Japan

On March 20, Japan is getting two new 3DS colors: Light Blue and Gloss Pink. They are priced at ¥15,000 (US$163) and come with 4GB SDHC memory cards, instead of the standard 2GB ones. Note that the new memory cards don’t make these handhelds cost more. ニンテンドー3DSに新色2色を追加 [Nintendo] Kotaku East is your slice of Asian…

An Admirable Attempt To Explain Why Gamers “Love” Company Executives

It’s one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen in this job, especially when you consider so many gamers spend so much of their time loathing the companies they represent. But when it comes to the actual men and women running giant video game publishers, there’s a lot of love in the house. We saw…

Super Smash Bros. Is Amazing, Even If It Doesn’t Make All Fighting Game Fans Happy

Here’s ReallyFreakinClever with an earnest video about the merits of Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. You may not agree with all of it; I didn’t. But I think he’s on-point when he lauds the accessibility of the franchise, particularly when compared to the fighting game genre as a whole (though that’s improving nowadays). Then again, I…

‘Nintendo’s Doomed, They Should Go Third-Party!’—Said Everyone, Ever.

Yesterday, former Epic Games designer and Dead Space aficionado Cliff Bleszinski was quoted by GamesIndustry International about what he perceived as the worst turmoil the industry’s experienced since the eighties. The situation was so bad, he suggested, that even Nintendo might throw in the towel and go software-only, like Sega did after the Dreamcast’s meager…

The Wii Mini—aka the “most pointless console upgrade of all time“—goes on sale in Europe next month.

Fire Emblem: Awakening Has One Hell Of A Grand Finale

The grand finale of Fire Emblem: Awakening made me feel things. Emotional things. In fact, it made me feel so many things it kinda knocked me out. This was unexpected. It took me about 27 hours to complete the game. If, about halfway through, you had told me that the ending was going to make…

Bond Takes All Comers In A Real-Life Reenactment Of The N64 GoldenEye

I always figured I’d be pretty crap if I had to survive in a real-life version of GoldenEye. I was pretty solid at the N64 game back in the day (or at least, I think I was), but give me an actual Klobb and set me loose, and I’d be done for. In honor of…

Shigeru Miyamoto Link Cosplay Portraits Are A Wii U Exclusive

I thought giant Majora’s Mask illustrations were good. And, hey, they are. But enormous portraits of Shigeru Miyamoto in Link cosplay are even better. [via AndrewNK]

Pikachu Used To Be Way Cuter (and Fatter)

Pikachu, the iconic Pokémon from Pocket Monsters, looks slightly different these days. Adorable, sure, but not nearly as adorable as in 1997, back when the Pokémon anime first debuted. Not nearly as fat, either. Over the weekend, a thread called “Pikachu in the early days was way too cute” (初期のピカチュウかわいすぎ) appeared on 2ch, Japan’s largest…

There’s A Sly Inside Joke On The Cover Of Fire Emblem: Awakening

I’m not sure how many times I’ve seen the cover of the recent 3DS strategy game Fire Emblem: Awakening. Dozens, at least. And yet I never noticed that there’s a great little inside-joke hidden in plain sight. Fortunately, Bill Mudron caught it. If you look at the cover, you’ll notice that only one character’s face…

Nintendo’s Commercial For Luigi’s Mansion 2 Is Straight-Up 90s

Grab your Gushers, kids. This new commercial for the second Luigi’s Mansion—out March 24 for 3DS—feels straight out of 1995. That’s not a bad thing, of course. Nothing like some good old 90s nostalgia to brighten up your Friday afternoon.