New Super Mario plays the nostalgia card plenty of times over the course of the game, what with the hammer bros. encounters on the world map from Super Mario Bros. 3 (complete with remixed battle theme!), Koopaling boss battles in line with Super Mario World, dancin' Koopa Troopas as seen in the original New Super Mario Bros., rideable Yoshi gameplay last found in Super Mario Sunshine, and the return of plenty of forgotten minor foes such as Spike, Rocky Wrench, Microgoombas, Fire & Sledge Bros., and even Fire Chomps, but my favorite returning element has to be Kamek the Magikoopa stopping by end-world boss battles to add an unstable element to the fight as he did in Yoshi's Island.  After assisting the Koopalings and Bowser Jr. throughout the game, the sorcerer turns up in a surprising way to offer Bowser an assist.  Check out this YouTube video of the action from Boo Mansion:

Everything begins traditionally enough with Mario destroying the bridge and sending Bowser crashing into the basement, but then goes awry when the charming "rescue the princess" moment aped from Super Mario Bros. 3 turns into Kamek's final act of interference. I actually jolted in my seat when giant Bowser leapt up from the depths, and I think it reflects highly on Nintendo's talented creative team when what could have easily been a phoned-in sequel instead surprises and shocks me with startling moments after all these years. I especially love the little moment where Kamek sticks around a little too long to admire his handiwork. See what loyalty to a despotic turtle king gets you?

A Boy and His Blob's most impressive attribute is its heartwarmingly adorable art direction. Everything in the boy's world is smoothly animated, inviting, and charming. Some levels even make endearing use of shadows and silhouettes to help paint an emotional picture of the bond between the two heroes. Considering that the boy and the blog are silent protagonists (well, the boy does occasionally call out to the blob to hurry), all of the characterization comes from the various visual elements. The game even goes out of its way to avoid distracting the player with on-screen meters and indicators which lends a cinematic vibe to the action. Fans of the original NES game will spot the tribute to the 1989 adventure in Stage 11 immediately, too. 

This delightfully adorable puzzle platformer is fated to go ignored this holiday season, but don't let flashier games with bloodier box art get the better of you.  Fans of endearing 2D animation, puzzles solved with jellybeans, or games that feature a button that causes the two protagonists to hug on demand should not let this game get away.

It also contains a Sonic image gallery and a "History of Sonic" video, as well as a trailer for Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood.  It's that last component which seems to be leading people to suspect that it, unlike every other Sonic collection out there, is made for the Nintendo DS. Others, however, wonder if this could be related to the leaked SEGA document from their talks with Sony, which spoke of a "Best of Sonic" Blu-ray that would contain "all of the old Sonic games" on a Blu-ray for nearly $100.  All I can really say is that the list hardly comprises "all" of the old Sonic games, and definitely not $100 worth at that; we've seen them offer so much more for so much less, so whatever that project is or might have been, it seems doubtful this is it as it stands.

Frankly, the idea that these four games make up a $100 Blu-ray disc for the Sony PlayStation 3 is insulting to everyone.  A DS compilation would be nice and makes more sense, but it still seems like too little, too late at this point.  Does anyone who fondly remembers the Genesis set of Sonic games not already own them in some re-released format by now?  This makes me think that this set — if it is for the DS — is actually aimed at newer, younger Sonic fans that have come into the series with the Sonic Rush titles and last year's Sonic Unleashed. 

We had to nail down the blob’s role as the boy’s faithful companion. He’s a bit like a dog, but it’s important to understand that he’s also an intelligent alien being.  Art-wise, getting the blob’s actions across was a challenge considering we had only eyes and a gooey form to work with. We had a detailed style guide, which is a sort of cheat sheet of do’s and don’ts when drawing and animating the blob. With these materials, the blob’s whimsical nature came through in all of his actions and animations

I can’t stress enough that the programming of the blob was also a large factor in his personality. Lead gameplay programmer Larry Holdaway has a real knack for details in the blob’s AI. Larry would put in touches that no one might ever notice; but when I would see the blob running from danger or chasing down butterflies when he got bored, I knew he had crafted quite a character.

A Boy and His Blob really is a charming little game that deserves some success.  You can't go wrong with a characters that are this adorable who interact with a Hug button, and the Blob really does seem alive in the way that he moves, reacts, and explores.  Majesco and WayForward have created something really special, so don't let it pass you by.  I've been playing it for the last few weeks in little bursts and have enjoyed every bit of it.

Hey, let's play a Mario game except instead of having fun punching blocks and stomping on turtles, let's type! Wait a second...that's no game at all! Yes, this 1991 program duped poor, typing-challenged kids into learning a useful skill by emblazoned the famed plumber on it.  Even the title screen image has Peach, Luigi and Toad running away in horror from Mario, because they know learning how to type sucks.  Also, why is someone who speaks in broken English and says things like It's-a Me, Mario!" allowed to teach anyone about anything relating to English? Also, how does he type with those gloves on?

I own three of the games featured on the list, and while they certainly be terrible at times, I think it's a bit harsh to come down so forcefully on... heh, I can't even finish that sentence without bursting into a laughing fit.  But seriously, Mario Clash isn't so bad if you can get past the headaches.

The AlphaGrip's idea of making things easier is by simplifying the keyboard and mouse that PC gamers are so used to, and cramming it all into one controller. While the average PC game controller has 12 to 15 buttons, the AlphaGrip makes things easier by having only 42. So it's like simplifying Shakespeare by translating it into Klingon. The 42-key design was to allow all 10 fingers to be in use at the same time. Apparently the makers felt that your pinky finger was getting left out of all the fun. The makers also couldn't think of 42 functions for the buttons so 6 of the buttons are SHIFT keys.  There is a capital-shift, punctuation-shift and number-shift on both the left and right sides of the controller (don't worry, they didn't forget caps lock).

Other items on the list include the Sega Activator and the Atari Mindlink, a gizmo that allegedly allows players to control Atari 2600 games with the awesome power of the human brain eyebrows.  One could consider all of these strange input devices successful in that someone somewhere convinced corporations to develop and produce these things, but maybe I'm just feeling charitable today.

To be even remotely fun, racing games require proper controls to simulate performance steering on all kinds of terrain. This kart incarnation of the smart-ass Woodpecker's animated adventures just flat-out doesn't have it, leaving painfully jerky gameplay to instigate as much rage as Woody's maddening guffaw. Adding injury to insult, the characters are animated in the rich spirit of gross overcompensation. Each driver's head warbles dramatically from side to side through turns, resulting in vicarious player whiplash. The graphics are also second rate (even for a rushed 2001 PC game), resulting in a sad experience for everyone involved, much like a woodpecker hitting a nail.

All of your favorite has-been characters make an appearance on the list, plus a few franchises that really should have known better than to star in a quick cash-in kart racer.  Is there really a modern audience for a racing game starring the Smurfs?  Or the Muppets?  Or third-string Disney characters such as Ned Shredbetter?  If you want to know where aging franchises go to die, look no further than the cheaply produced, poor quality kart racer genre.

[T]here’s a whole load of unused text in EarthBound. Some of it is just loose scraps that isn’t fully implemented into the game anymore, but there are some lines of text that work perfectly except for simple programming bugs that prevent the NPCs from appearing. Using the power of ROM hacking, we can see how they were meant to show up.  The bug in those instances were simple event flag settings being incorrectly set. It looks like Threed was probably one of the first few big areas that was developed in the game, so maybe that’s why these bugs snuck in.

There are additional bits of dialog summarized in the original article, so be sure to check it out to get the whole story.  Once again, game archeologists have sifted through the dust to find a neat fossil.  Consider this another artifact to display in the museum.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3

The con becomes readily apparent once you think about it a little, obviously enough. The original Sonic 3 cart had an absolute plethora of save spots, something new to the series altogether, and a spiffy menu to go with it, and it was just as long as the previous two Sonic adventures with the addition of a multiplayer mode to boot. The Sonic & Knuckles cart, on the other hand, had that goofy “Lock-On” dealie on top of it and had no save menu at all, and you could only choose between the title characters on the main screen with no extra menus and no multiplayer mode. Of course, if you were a kid like me, you probably just popped the Sonic 3 cart into the lock-on slot and had at it with the mind-blowing realization that Sonic 3 & Knuckles let you pick up at the start of the new material from a clear save from the first game.

My only Genesis-owning friend of the time owned Sonic & Knuckles, but none of the other games in the franchise.  He never actually locked it on to Sonic 3 or Sonic 2 which, to me, seemed like such a waste.  The end result feels like only watching half a movie or just reading half a book.  I never did understand the method to his particular brand of madness.