25/October/2016
ONM Remembered - #418
"Sticks and stones may break your bones, but large hooks will kill you"
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 123 (December 2002)
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is yet another Gamecube game I've never heard of, and it's no surprise, seeing how it never saw release... at least, not as a video game, but as a graphic novel instead! I'm always a sucker for passion projects, so it's cool to know that all the design work put into the game still found a home somewhere, at least. It's a pity the screenshots are so dark, as there's some rad environments you can only barely make out through the cranked-up contrast; Unseen64 has much clearer shots.
27/October/2016
ONM Remembered - #419
"There's evil afoot, deep within the ancient pyramid. Go get 'em, fat boy!"
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 94 (July 2000)
A nifty preview of Eternal Darkness, back in its boxy and polygonal era of development on the N64. It's tough to tell when the screenshots are so small and bitty, but it still looks nearly as good then as it does on the GameCube's beefed-up hardware. The merits of prerendered backgrounds!
29/October/2016
ONM Remembered - #420
"ADULTS GET SCARED TOO"
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 121 (October 2002)
01/November/2016
ONM Remembered - #421
"Even after artificially raising their hopes for a universal
machine then releasing a late, overpriced, absurdly slower model and charging
ludicrous sums for late, incompetently-converted games, such as, for example,
Wave Race, Britain remains tenaciously eager! What could we possibly do next
that's more fun? Wait! I have it. We'll delay the PAL Yoshi's Island until 2002
and call it Hands Up! I Have A Gun - Put The Money In The Bag. Surely not even
they will stand for that."
from N64 Magazine issue 8 (November 1997)
An entertaining review for Lylat Wars' UK release ("as we must now teeth-grindingly call Starfox 64") by Jonathan Nash. Alongside oodles of lovely screenshots, it includes Fox McCloud's very British journal entries across the various planets, lots of griping about Nintendo's UK releases, and of all things, a sub-vs-dub argument on the English translation. You half expect him to complain they didn't leave the honorifics in.
Looking back, it's almost strange knowing that gaming media and Nintendo 64 owners were blowing their tops in excitement over a rail shooter, of all things. It just seems so foreign now that unless it's third-person exploration or a first-person shooter, it's tough for mainstream media to get hyped for any other game. I'd love for a modern lightgun game to rock the news the way Lylat Wars did.
03/November/2016
ONM Remembered - #422
"Live and let live... you filthy gutter crawling social misfit."
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 97 (October 2000)
05/November/2016
ONM Remembered - #423
"Some sources claim that it's an updated version of Ocarina of Time with GameCube-style graphics and elements which had to be left out of the N64 original."
Forget hype campaigns or fancy previews or any of that nonsense, here's a quick 'n' nasty list to remind yourself of what upcoming projects to get excited for, and hope they'll still somewhat resemble how they're described here!
New Zelda Game: It'd be three years before we got a whiff of
Twilight Princess, so this was actually the Legend Of Zelda: Collector's
Edition. I'm not sure what source embellished that crap about three discs,
but there's certainly no behind-the-scenes documentary (unless
that tiny lousy retrospective video counts), they didn't bundle a
soundtrack with the game as far as I recall, and get outta here if you thought
they'd remake Ocarina of Time when the game wasn't even five years old
yet.
(have any of Nintendo's remakes ever gone ahead and
included stuff they couldn't the first time? i feel like someone oughta hold
them to it sooner or later, it's grinding my gears, it is)
Resident Evil 4: The game shipped on two discs, not three. Boasting about how many discs your game came on must've been the dick-measuring contest of the day.
Kirby Tilt 'N' Tumble 2: Disappeared into the freakin' ether! One of the few games to really sell the GBA-to-GCN connectivity, too, and it just never showed up. What a bummer. Especially with that outrageous claim of having a basic programming engine for players to construct mini-games out of. A precursor to WarioWare D.I.Y., perhaps...?
Pichu Bros.: These Pokémon demos confuddled the heck out of reporters, as nobody seemed quite sure what was to become of them. There was all sorts of wild speculation about the supposed games behind the Pichu Bros. and Meowth's Party titles... but in the end they were just in-game TV shows for Pokémon Channel.
Probotector: A Contra game for GameCube would've been a
pleasant surprise, but it was actually a dodgy port of Contra 3 to Game
Boy Advance. Cheers, lads.
As I always do because I never research anything, I was about to remark a
Contra game on GameCube would've been the only legacy franchise of Konami's
to appear on the console... until I remembered Metal Gear Solid: The Twin
Snakes, and those weird 3D Frogger games, and Mario Dance Dance
Revolution, and maybe even Dream Mix TV World Fighters and Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles if you want to be pedantic. So I am talking straight
out of my arse. Still, 3D Contra would've been nice rather than
we've-seen-this-already Contra.
Super Mario Advance 3: We got Yoshi's Island instead. And it was a good call, apparently, as it's far easier for Nintendo to emulate this game on Virtual Console than try to replicate the Super FX2 chip. Ninty are a strange bunch.
The Matrix: We were graced with Enter The Matrix, which received such colourful review quotes as "Enter the Matrix is a polished turd. Pick it up and you'll likely be mesmerized by its sparkly veneer—but play it for an hour and its sticky fecal filling oozes all over your hands." Good news indeed.
08/November/2016
ONM Remembered - #424
"That's right, blame Nintendo's dull screen instead of your own failings."
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 137 (February 2004)
I feel like every darn week I'm mentioning yet another feature ONM
ran for a few months before dropping, and in this case it's Nintendo
Know-it-all, wherein two members of the public would square off to prove who
knows more Nintendo minutiae. I think some instalments might even have pitted a
game developer against a joe schmoe, though in this case it's pitting a couple
against each other.
It's probably aiming for a cheeky vibe that dabbles in both self-deprecating
nerd humour and "haha, look at those sods who aren't as geeky we are" affair
(much like in ONM #416), though in this context it just
perpetuates the stereotype of gatekeeping nerds evicting anyone from the fandom
who can't recite inane trivia. We've had nearly twenty years of that, lads,
maybe now's the time for a change of regime. Evict everyone who knows too much
instead. I want to see communities where literally no one knows what's going on
and people think Spyro the Dragon's real name is Lance Duboule. Who's going to prove them
wrong?
10/November/2016
ONM Remembered - #425
"HIP HIP HOORAY!!!!!!!"
from Mean Machines SEGA Issue 15 (January 1994)
12/November/2016
ONM Remembered - #426
"The car engines sound like vacuum cleaners, and there aren't many other sounds aside from that."
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 88 (January 2000)
If I remember correctly*, this game was announced very early in the N64's life, supposedly planned for release in early 1998/1999, but gave everyone the run-around until the new millennium. There was no shortage of racers on the N64 at this point - some of them even half-decent! - so for one to come out that controlled like a bar of soap in a skating rink... you have to ask yourself, why bother? Why did anyone bother?
To its credit, it's strangely compelling to watch on YouTube. It might be the lack of sleep talking, but the game in motion looks like a botched chalk drawing brought to life, and I can think of no other game that lets you run over the cast of The Land Before Time. It might very well be the first video game performance art piece. Put that gameplay on an easel and stick it in an art show.
* (i wouldn't need to remember if i could be arsed to dig out the issues again - have you ever tried filing things? it's boring as hell! filing things is always a precursor to chucking those things out because who can live with that kind of responsibility)
15/November/2016
ONM Remembered - #427
"We're going to send him a birthday card with greetings from the UK's biggest Nintendo fans - that's all you NOM readers!"
Shiggy's an old dodger, and yet he's still out and about making games and
being a charming goofball at game announcements even at the grand old age of 62
- and tomorrow, 63! Admittedly reception to him in some circles has dampened
after the arguable stagnation of the Zelda and Mario franchises,
but come on, this is Miyamoto we're talking about. The man's been responsible
for goodness knows how many classics, to make a big ol' understatement of it.
Surely you can put aside your forty-paragraph diatribes on how Skyward Sword
ruined your childhood to wish him a happy birthday.
Happy birthday, Shigeru Miyamoto!
17/November/2016
ONM Remembered - #428
"Move over Man Of Steel. The ultimate super hero is back!"
19/November/2016
ONM Remembered - #429
"It's like a Mario platformer only YOU DRAW the levels. If you can't see what's awesome about that, batter yourself now. With a wet fish. Hard."
I feel like I've written the same sentence every time I talk about console
previews. New consoles are exciting, alright? And the DS wasn't just a new
console, it was a weird new console - how are going to play with
two screens now? And touchscreens? What the heck is this, Star
Trek?! I only have two hands and two eyes, Nintendo!
It was an interesting new change and kind of cemented Nintendo's slant towards
oddball innovations ever since... as well as their inability to just get things
right the first time. (How many DS variants were there in the
end...?) It's not a handheld I have many personal comments about; I've
grumbled about its dodgy library numerous times I'm sure, but I simply didn't
invest as much into it as I did the GBA for me to grow mildly impassioned about
it. Sorry, DS! You're at the threshold where my nostalgia grows faintest!
I will say, gosh, did they make Yoshi Touch & Go sound way more exciting than a slightly polished-up tech demo.
22/November/2016
ONM Remembered - #430
"Oi! Newsy I've got no MULTI RACING CHAMPIONSHIP DRIVER'S GUIDE"
I think this was the second ever issue of ONM I picked up all those years ago. The only way to follow up a sporty Mario giving you a well-needed thumbs-up, is having a giant cheery chimp who's positively thrilled at his aerial tour of windmill country. Couldn't ask for a more eye-catching over, I'll tell you what.
... I've also completely ruined this image for myself because I can't stop interpreting Diddy Kong's mono-eye as a giant tooth (with eyeball tats), wearing his snout as part of an elaborate disguise. I'm not sure what to do with this information, to be honest. My day was quite fine until now.
24/November/2016
ONM Remembered - #431
"● Surreal levels ● Bizarre heroes ● Tonnes of challenge"
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 69 (June 1998)
B-Daman is one of those long-running toy franchises that's always been a bit of a curiosity to me - partly because chucking marbles around is a hoot, but mostly because it began life as a by-product between Hudson Soft and Takara, making marble-shooting toys explicitly based off of Bomberman's design. It's something I'd love to cover for the Totally Bombastic Bomberman Shrine Place sooner or later, but it'd be a heck of a thing to research. There's a hundred episodes of anime, a rake of manga, a slew of video games, not to mention an immeasurable number of toys and merch out there!
I think this game is from when the franchise stopped being billed as a Bomberman product, so I probably won't be writing about it for the Shrine Place... but darn it, it looks like a daft bunch of fun. It's got modes for every possible activity you can do with spring-propelled marbles! You can shoot your friends with them! You can play pool with them! You can whack moles with them! You can partake in an on-rails shooter with them! You can't blast apart your own oesophagus with them, but I'm sure you could mod that in if you so desired.
26/November/2016
ONM Remembered - #432
"The game will also come complete with 3D models of Mazza and all your favourite Nintendo heroes which you can bend beyond belief."
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 64 (January 1998)
I'm disappointed that I've talked so much about the 64DD, but never with the excerpts that got me so excited as a kid. That N64 Pro article was informative and all, but why care about that when you've got all these info-graphics?! Look at the cross-compatibility between software! You can doodle up stupid textures, slap them on your hand-crafted 3D models and then export them into Talent Maker to make them dance or whatever the hell! And who's to say that's the limit of its capabilities? What's stopping you from copying level data between games and having unholy crossovers between Glover and Goldeneye?!
... at least, that's the way I interpreted it as a kid. Now you can look up footage of those games on YouTube and see it for what it is - the logical extension of Mario Paint and nothing more. Despite all the games proposed for the 64DD, very few of them made it to the platform, so all the fancy ideas of sharing data between them went nowhere. And in hindsight, the idea of sharing data between games might've been me embellishing the notion of trading creatures in Pokemon and Tamagotchi. (well they shouldn't have been referring to the creatures as "data". they have names, you callous cretins!)
On the bright side, all those wild ideas of crossovers and building games out of ganked assets were satisfied the moment I discovered fangames, modding, and the internet in general. And it didn't require me mail-ordering some doomed peripheral from Japan. Can't argue with that!
29/November/2016
ONM Remembered - #433
"Dom grasps the basketball tightly and sets himself up for the mother of all slam dunks. Leaping gazelle-like from the court, Dom aims his hands towards the basket. You should been there - it was just like poetry in motion."
Sponsored by the now-defunct London Towers, Dom manages to slam a few dunks without blasting his shins apart. This isn't what we pay you for, Dom. Break a leg and make the readers feel good about themselves.
01/December/2016
ONM Remembered - #434
"Educational? S'cuse me a minute, mum. *SPEW!*"
from Mean Machines SEGA Issue 5 (February 1993)
03/December/2016
ONM Remembered - #435
"Smokin' Dawg! Chav Radar! Bike/Plane crash?!"
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 07 (September 2006)
Ah, the "mobile phone trash" ads.
...
I don't miss these one bit.
It feels totally alien that mobile phones were once so limited in
customization and accessibility that you could barely upload images or files to
them, meaning if you wanted to fill your phone with images of hot babes,
pitbulls, marijuana imagery and any combination of the three smoking blunts,
then you had to pony up some dough. Mercifully, there's now a dozen ways of
accomplishing that with utmost ease and zero cost, as one acquaintance at my
workplace will testify. (there's something charmingly meta about
an anthropomorphic joint with Bob Marley's face toking up)
Tacky apps and digital curios have always been a thing for mobile phones, and
they've never been a high-class act, but at least nowadays you can point to at
least a couple of creations that were notable successes or just plain nifty.
Back then the technology was such dreck and the payment methods so skeezy that
it felt like you'd be endangering your security if you used it, all for the
thrill of Shrek shouting at you as a ringtone.
I've mentioned it before in my
mobile phone game playthroughs, but as far as I'm aware, there's a shocking
lack of documentation on this side of game development. What was it like trying
to squeeze a game onto a medium that came in multiple different screen sizes,
with a wide range of different 'control schemes' and had difficulty downloading
even the smallest file? Heck, I wonder if there was a legitimate cottage
indsutry of folks making these custom animations for phone home screens... or if
it was just some bozo ripping off animations online and making bank off other
people's work.
You know, I think that's the running theme throughout all of mobile phone app
development.