Tag Archives: Mario

[NYCC 2013] Hands-on with Super Mario 3D World

A new 3D Mario platformer is upon us, and this time it’s taking after the 3DS outing. Super Mario 3D World expands on the foundation of the previous 3D Land game and adds two more characters in the fray, Peach and Toad. Mario is your standard character. Luigi can jump higher than his brother (with the trade-off being low traction). Peach can float for across the air a la Super Mario Bros. 2. And Toad can run faster that any other character. Gameplay can be done on both the TV and on the Gamepad’s screen.

Hit the jump to see gameplay of World 4-2 with James.

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Super Mario 3D World Trailer Finally Shows Bowser (And His Sweet Pimpin’ Ride!)

During a Nintendo Direct presentation earlier last week, we got so see more Super Mario 3D World gameplay, and a little more on what the Mario crew has to deal with this time (a bit more on that later). Along with the bell power-up that gives our heroes a catsuit, a cherry is introduced that multiplies them into two. Picking up another one during this time adds another copy. We also see Mario donning a Boomerang Bro suit, and the Tanooki Suit from Super Mario 3D Land makes a comeback. Some new carried power-ups are shown off, including one that fires red balls at enemies, disguises you as a Goomba, A baseball and a bomb, and a Piranha Plant pot that eats enemies. The graphics are also looking much prettier than the previous trailers, with lighting similar to Super Mario Galaxy in certain night-time situations.

And finally for the first time in Super Mario 3D World, we see Bowser. In a previous article, I expressed interest on what exactly Bowser has planned this time, and even wondered if he was in this game. Well, that second part is answered as he pops up at the beginning of the trailer. This time he’s taken a fairy hostage, suggesting that this fairy probably has a power that might suit Bowser’s plan to take over the Mushroom Kingdom. Maybe he changed his tactics after realizing taking Peach to lure Mario isn’t working so well? Regardless, he’s back with a new plan, and donning a sweet ride to boot. Just look at that thing! We gotta see more of that car in future installments. Mario Kart 8 perhaps? Please add it to Mario Kart 8 Nintendo.

Characters Confirmed So Far For Super Smash Bros. 4

Characters so far for SSB4

Super Smash Bros 4. (if you haven’t noticed the sly pun) was finally revealed during Nintendo’s E3 Direct presentation this year. Along with some returning favorites, we were acquainted with a few new faces. Since the initial E3 trailers, we’ve had a steady stream of info coming in from both the Miiverse SSB Community and the official SSB4 website, and with them some more veterans. So, who’s been revealed so far? Hit the jump and let’s review.

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With Peach Playable In Super Mario 3D World, What’s Bowser Planning? Is He Even The Main Villain?

Is he even the villain

After one of Nintendo’s Direct Presentations earlier this summer, one of the smaller surprises of the broadcast was Super Mario 3D World‘s revelation of Peach as a playable character. While she’s been playable in other Mario games, like Mario Kart, Mario Golf, Mario Party, and a couple of the RPG games, you don’t really see her taking center stage as a playable character in a straight-up platformer. Her first foray as a playable character started way back in our version of Super Mario Bros. 2. What she lacked in turnip-pulling strength, she made up for in her ability to float. In more recent times, she starred in her own game, Super Princess Peach, which flipped the script and put her in charge of the saving duty.

So now Peach is playable once again in a mainline Mario platformer. Awesome. But what about Bowser? What’s he scheming in all of this? Is he even involved in any of this? Let’s theorize on this a bit.

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Gamer Review: Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon

*Insert Pink Floyd reference here*

Not every kiss begins with K…

  • Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon
  • Release Date: March 20th, 2013 (24th in America)
  • Developer: Next Level Games
  • Publisher: Nintendo

Ahhhh, remember the early 2000’s? Gods, those were heady times. The Dreamcast went under with the arrival of the PS2, Microsoft was throwing its hat into the world of console gaming with this nifty thing of theirs called “The Xbox”, and games were poised to explode into mainstream culture as never before.

And here comes Nintendo, with their little purple Picnic Basket of a console. But in a break with tradition, they launched, not with a new Mario game (that would come a bit later, with the…divisive, Super Mario Sunshine), but with a Luigi game. A Luigi game featuring him sucking up ghosts with a vacuum cleaner. Huh. Regardless, Luigi’s Mansion is a fondly remembered part of the Gamecube’s launch window, and has lain dormant as a franchise for a number of years.

Until now. Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon features the return of ol’ Mr. Green to the world of Ghostbusting, with all the flashlight shining, specter catching and treasure seeking you can want. Almost more than you can want, actually. But his return also heralds the arrival of one of the 3DS’ most unique little gems, one that evolves its predecessor, and yet still feels nostalgic at heart…

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Retro Weekends – Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

Super Mario RPG

During my Livejournal days, I remember talking about this game when this segment was still called Retro Gaming Weekends. However, the way it was brought up was very out of place, out of nowhere, and very last minute. While I mentioned Mario’s 25th anniversary in the initial article, it still feels like I didn’t give it proper thought. So I’m bringing it back here to give it the proper attention it deserves. But why am I giving it this much attention? Well, it holds a very special place in my gaming heart, and for nearly a decade has held the #1 spot in my Favorite Games of All Time list. While many games have come and gone — some being better admittedly than Super Mario RPG— they never had the level of impact this game had on my gaming habits and preferences. So sit back and get ready to take turns as on this Holiday Edition of Retro Weekends, we’ll look back at my #1 game of all time, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars.

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[NYCC 2012] The Cosplayers of New York Comic-Con 2012

One thing you can expect when going to a convention is cosplayers. Lots of ’em. There’s some good ones, and some bad ones. But at The Wired Fish, only the best get their pictures taken and shown. Like last year, this was joint effort between TWF staff members. So sit back and check out some of the awesome cosplay pics. They’ve also been named for your convenience. Uh… a little sidenote, there’s a few characters that unfortunately I don’t know the names to. So if you can help me identify them, that’d be greatly appreciate it! [Update] More photos added at the end. Also, two characters identified! All characters identified! Thanks Lewis and Val.

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Pokemon, Mario, Zelda, And Halo Represented In College Marching Band Tribute

I’ve seen routines like this, but not at the level of finesse these guys at Ohio State University do it. They kick it off with Space Invaders, but surprised me when they decided to do Pokemon and the Red/Blue battle theme. You can hear someone near the camera guy question why the hell they’re doing Pokemon. I’m guessing his knowledge of the videogame franchise only went as far as the anime or trading cards. Good game OSU, good game.

Big ups to our podcast cameraman Gesfrid P. for the tip.

The Ohio State University Marching Band – TBDBITL Halftime 10-6-12 Video games Nebraska [Youtube, via MSN Now]

Night-Time Listenings Wrap-Up: Week of 9/24/12

Another Weekend is here, and it’s time fro another Night-Time Listenings Wrap-Up. This week we covered originals and remakes. The way it worked was that I talked about the first appearance of a song and put it together with its most recent version. Only the recent versions got the embeds, so I can still showcase the originals on their own in the future. This week we met Gilgamesh on the Big Bridge. Then we had a Deadline to meet in Revelations Persona and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment (PSP). We explored an endless battlefield in the World of Mana with Final Fantasy Adventure and Dawn of Mana. We went underwater in Mega Man X2 and X5. And finally, it was a throwback day with Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy 2.

If you want to see the music as it goes up (and not wait every Saturday for these wrap-ups), remember to go to our Tumblr page and follow it. Music for Night-Time Listenings goes up every weekday at 10PM

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Miyamoto Thinking Of Making An FPS

Reading that title might give you a jolt, and rightly so. The First Person Shooter is the most popular genre this generation, and for Shigeru Miyamoto to want to make one almost goes beyond the philosophy (we think) that he’s established for himself (and probably the entire company). But you know what, this is Miyamoto. Someone can give him a crumpled piece of paper and he’d make a game out of it. All joking aside, in an interview with Kotaku, he states that he would make an FPS that would focus more on exploring the environment, the situation, and the weapon in your hand, and how enemies would react. “Having that 3D space that in theory you are in and being able to look around and explore that—particularly being able to do that in conjunction with another person—is very interesting,” he says, highlighting the exploration advantage that FPS can have (but are woefully underutilized).

Much of what he says can be seen in the Metroid Prime games, which emphasized exploration over action (though that was present, more so in Prime 3). The Elder Scrolls games also come to mind. But probably the one game that really took advantage of the environment was Mirror’s Edge, and it does almost what Metroid Prime does — albeit in a more linear fashion — when it comes to exploration. It’s virtually a platformer. Heck, one of the achievements is an homage to one of Miyamoto’s biggest creations. If Miyamoto wants to make an FPS, let the man make one. Heck, let DICE give him Mirror’s Edge!

…Yes I really want another Mirror’s Edge game.

The Creator of Mario and Zelda Wants to Make a First-Person Shooter [Kotaku]

Retro Weekends – Super Mario Kart

Next weekend is the weekend of Christmas. That tree of yours is packed with presents, and there’s probably a 3DS in one of those. Good luck to you with that. But today, we’re going back in time again (as we always do with Retro Weekends) to the year 1996. If you read last week’s Retro Weekend on Donkey Kong Country 3, you’ll know that I also received Super Mario Kart alongside it as a Christmas gift as well. Well, this week is Part 2 of our little Holiday Special of Retro Weekends. Hit the jump and join me as we talk about Super Mario Kart. Continue reading

[NYCC] Super-Mario 3D Land Hands-On 3-Part Preview

Mario finally makes his debut on the 3DS with Super Mario 3D Land. Suikoinfinity and Prota play the four stages of the demo. Part 1 is up there. Hit the break for part 2 and part 3.

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Cry Manly Tears At This Super Mario Music Compilation

Here’s another compilation of Mario music. But this is no orchestral arrangement or some half-assed compilation that only covers the core Mario games. Oh no. This gets almost alllll of them. We’re talking from Donkey Kong, to Super Mario World, Super Mario Land, Paper Mario, Mario Golf (you know, that game I didn’t get to play in my youth). Even Luigi gets in on the action! Just as amazing is the effects on display in the video and how creatively the sprites, footage, and text is used. Just watch. And cry…

Art of the Week: Feature 4 – robotpencil

You may have remembered some time last year that his artwork was featured on Kotaku. Well since then, robotpencil, real name Anthony Jones, has seen his popularity sky rocket and is reaping the benefits of his exposure since now he works at Sony Santa Monica. He is concept artist with them and is working on a few projects, including a graphic novel. His main base of operations is his website, but he is also on deviantART as well. What helped his popularity to grow was his interpretations of the Mario crew that the was shown in the initial Kotaku feature. It was reminiscent of the fan film There Will Be Brawl (and the movie that inspired it, There Will Be Blood). The manner in which he handled the subject matter made it stand out amongst other realistic reinterpretations of the Mario cast, in which a lot of them felt more like parodies of GTA that tried to hard, thus became distracting. Here, Mr. Jones interprets them in a manner that is believable. We can believe that Mario is a tough ol’ bastard, that Luigi is down on his luck, that Toad is a drug pusher, and that Peach has done more “work” outside being a princess. Many on dA are proud of what he has accomplished since his feature and wish him the best of luck.

After the break, you can see a small sample of his other fanart work below. But I’m only scraping the tip of the iceberg as I’m only showing what I can show, in keeping with the theme of the blog. He has a lot more amazing original artwork as well that deserves just as much attention. See it all on his website and deviantART gallery.

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Art of the Week: Feature 2 – AnyaUribe

For this second feature, we take a look at an artist who goes by AnyaUribe (formerly known as ASSESINA). Her main base of operations being on deviantART, she sports a bright comic artstyle with a tinge of anime. The subject matter she covers ranges from fighting games such as Street Fighter and Darkstalkers, to comics like Batman, and cartoons like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (the toon side) and G.I. Joe, and then some. With this bright style, nothing is taken too seriously with the subject matter of the art, a good thing when compared to most other artists on deviantART. Things are consistently playful. Rather than trying to match the artstyle of the source material, she draws characters (mostly female) in a different, albeit curvy, style. The cool thing about Anya is the she has the original linearts of her work available for anyone to color (as long as credit is given). From my own experience in coloring her lineart (here and here nsfw), her lines are easy to manage and quite fun to work with. You can catch her art gallery over at deviantART.

Art below after the jump.

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