As divisive as the Paper Mario series has been, it’s undeniable that the brightly coloured and playful likes of our truly 2D plumber are welcome in all the current doom and gloom. Revealed only a couple of months ago, and promising a whole load of fun around origami, it was honestly hard not to look forward to another instalment of ‘Nintendo messing around’ in 2020.
In New Horizons you get to move in with a bunch of dumbass animals, and pitch a tent on your very own randomised deserted island (that you pick from a small selection). This excursion is arranged by that Bell-grabbing scumbag, Tom Nook, and a selection of animal folk join you at first. From here it plays out much like other games in the Animal Crossing series.
Mario is a video game icon. From bothering an ape almost 40 years ago as the imaginatively named “Jumpman” to travelling around to stop what would have likely been a beautiful wedding, the portly plumber has been an integral part of our lives for a long time. It’s undoubtable that he has range also, appearing across almost every game genre from adventure to sports.
Being a child of the 80s, I grew up with Mario, beginning with the phenomenal Super Mario Bros. on dad’s NES. I didn’t appreciate truly how well it was designed when I was young, but I played the first three main games practically to death. But that’s not what I wanted to focus on here, I wanted to talk about when the series transcended beyond mere games for me –
Super Mario World.
Luigi is the best brother, and I simply won’t hear a bad word against him. Where his more famous big brother fits in wherever he is needed, Luigi has maintained a consistent personality for years. Cowardly and cautious is our green prince (except when behind the wheel of a go kart), so it beggars belief that we’re up to the third time that he’s ended up battling ghosts through spooky buildings.
Luigi may be one of my favourites, but he is mostly definitely a little dumb. This time, the Green Machine has been invited, along with Mario, Peach and some Toads, to a gorgeous remote hotel. Rather than realising that such invitations always lead to trouble, they all willingly run into – you guessed it – a trap!
I was there at the beginning. I got my copy of Pokémon Blue back in 1999 and, as I didn’t have a GameBoy yet, my friend let me borrow his Super GameBoy peripheral for the SNES so I could play this new game that everyone was so excited about. I have a lot of love for these early days of the series. So, after a lot of agonising, I wanted to talk about my ten favourite Kanto Pokémon.
Being a huge fan of the Resident Evil series, I’ve feverishly consumed every morsel of flesh the franchise has had to offer, with the exception of a few outliers like the abysmal-looking Umbrella Corps, of course. However, one has always escaped me, the black sheep, Resident Evil Gaiden. Now is the time to right that wrong, for better or worse.
The “look at what shit we have” portion of E3 2019 has been passed, and we’re left both empty and satisfied by the proceedings – much like the after affects of going to a Chinese all-you-can-eat restaurant. But, how were the showings themselves? It’s time for my rating (read: berating) of the E3 2019 Conferences!
E3, otherwise known as Gamer Christmas™, is upon us again along with all the hype, leaks, and cringeworthy conferences. So, I’ve been thinking about what I would want to come out of the showings this year, discounting EA because who really gives a flying fuck about them? Although seriously, I’m feeling Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, don’t you dare fuck this EA.
As such, I just wanted to quickly go over what I wanted from the showings of Microsoft, Bethesda, Ubisoft, Square Enix, Devolver Digital, and Nintendo. I won’t keep you too long, just a couple of things for each, along with their show times in UK time for your convenience.
Right? Right.
Mario and his friends have been getting into sports-related scrapes for years, duking it out across tennis, football, golf and several trips to the Olympics. As long as you don’t think to much about the odd canonical implications of them, they’re often really fun games. So enter the latest sportsball free-for-all Mario Tennis Aces for Switch! But is it advantage Nintendo, or a disappointing double fault?
You all know Super Smash Bros., that fighting game that a lot of people claim isn’t a fighting game where you can play as Kirby and wipe the moustache off Mario’s face with a hammer? Well, Nintendo have only gone and released Sakurai from the asylum he lives in during his downtime to make another one – Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Reu The Gamer 