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Monday, March 31, 2014

The Last Of Us: Movie and Port

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I promise I won't talk about the business value of porting games again.

Back last year, KoopaTV watched The Last of Us as a movie. So there really will be an actual movie of it that is a game adaptation. There is also going to be a port of it coming to the PS4. In other words, Sony and Naughty Dog are milking this for all it is worth.

We said by the end of our live viewing of the game's cutscenes that it'll be better off as a movie. Not that we'd watch it or anything when it's released. (We WOULD watch the "Madden Curse" movie, though.)

Porting the game to the PS4 is kind of like porting the latest Tomb Raider game. Everyone who has a PS4 right now had a PS3, in all likelihood. This won't actually open any new markets. The direct comparison I want to make is that everyone talks badly about the Nintendo Wii U because its best game is a game that came out two generations and ten years ago, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD. Well, now the PlayStation 4, with its currently limited selection of games, will have its best game be a game that came out one generation ago. Last year. The Last Of Us.

Is it really the last of you if you get to be immediately ported, get a movie, got DLC, getting more DLC, AND talks of a sequel? It's as short-sighted an IP title as Square Enix's Final Fantasy. Names aside, I don't really know what Naughty Dog fans actually want, and I suspect that KoopaTV's regular readers don't fall into that category. Or maybe y'all do and I'm in my own bubble.

...I might want to burst that bubble... soon... Very... very soon...


Ludwig still has never played The Last of Us, but it's not like he needs to.


Eight years later, and The Last of Us gets another remake and a TV series.

Friday, March 28, 2014

The Value of GBA VC Games

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A bargain.
To be honest, I'm kind of tired about writing how Nintendo ports things and that has value to people. I just wrote about that. However, I want to preempt complaining. Actually, it has already happened, but let's preempt the main wave. Here's a list of GBA games coming out on the Wii U VC in America, with more to come and being found out by the dudes who sit at ratings board sites or registration offices all day looking for breaking news.

So why would anyone complain? Ports help break up the supposed "droughts" that the Wii U suffers. I haven't even played all of the games on that list (Kirby & The Amazing Mirror is something I've always wanted to play for myself), so I doubt you have. Incidentally, all of you can stop bitching about Super Mario Bros. 3, and that's not even a GBA game. Well, there is Super Mario Advance 4, but no, the inferior NES version is what y'all deserve. Meanwhile, the GBA version of Yoshi's Island is coming out at the end of April: If you've never played it before, then you've been ignoring all of my praise of it on KoopaTV. You also get to compare it to Arzest's Yoshi's New Island.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Fact-Checking: Rick Santorum's "Obamaville"

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Rick Santorum should know better than try to see the future.

I bet you don't remember this, but back in the 2012 Republican Presidential Primaries, failed candidate and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum released this ad titled "Obamaville". In it, he portrays a dystopian America in two years suffering under Barack Obama's policies. The ad was released March 25, 2012. It is now really two years later, and KoopaTV would like to take this exclusive opportunity to fact-check Mr. Santorum's claims.

You can deride KoopaTV as a right-wing rag all you want, but the truth transcends partisanship. And we hold everyone accountable. Let's start by watching the video.


Wednesday, March 26, 2014

SEGA Does What Tecmo Kan't?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Not my best pun ever, but just compare the trailers.

I know to never trust a trailer, but let's just look at production values and hype-building value. The trailer for Tecmo Koei's Hyrule Warriors (still a tentative title) was discussed in a fair amount of detail here. It resulted in me dismissing the whole game as crappy-looking. Compare to this Sonic Lost World trailer featuring The Legend of Zelda Zone DLC. Free DLC at that. You know, the one we knew was coming for months.


Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Nintendo Redirect: Occupy Nintendo Street!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Occupy Wall Street for Nintendo.

There is this Nintendo fan on YouTube out there named Shokio. He decided to organize a movement to represent the Nintendo fanbase to improve the Wii U. We all know what I think about these YouTube idol figures. Regardless, he and his minions want to give feedback to Nintendo about a list of things they want to see. What ended up happening?

A giant mob of morons on Twitter, Facebook, and Miiverse spammed the #NintendoRedirect hashtag and spouted a gigantic mountain of requests. Many people didn't even know what the hell they were asking for. In short, it was the videogame equivalent of Occupy Wall Street.

Punks defecating on AUTHORITY!

Monday, March 24, 2014

One Year As a Wii U Owner

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Also one year as a Miiverse user.

March 24, 2013. I paid a friend of someone I knew $300 to get a Wii U Deluxe with Nintendo Land and New Super Mario Bros. U, along with all the nice stuff that came with it. They didn't actually use their Wii U for some reason, and factory-reset it for me. So it was pretty much good as new when I got it.

The GamePad was an absolutely new and amazing experience for me. "Wow, it's really light to hold! And it actually feels good to hold too!" Back at E3 when they showed it I thought it would pretty much be a rectangular prism. In other words, an uncomfortable brick. Nope, it feels great. So I got my NNID, PrinceOfKoopas, and started playing Nintendo Land. And... it was pretty amazing to witness that Miiverse integration. So much so... I made a Miiverse post about it!

Since then, I had fun with Ubisoft's Rayman Legends: Challenge App, which was absolutely free. I also spent a lot of time just playing that, Nintendo Land, and Miiverse. Eventually I decided to actually play New Super Mario Bros. U, and I immediately bought EarthBound when it was made available. Target had a "buy 2 get 1 free" deal and I picked up Rayman Legends to thank Ubisoft, and Pikmin 3 and The Wonderful 101. And now I have Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, too. Nintendo has a fantastic system, and I really enjoy it. I have a lot of statistics to share below, so keep reading.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Choice: Texas, A Very Serious Game With Serious Complications

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - If they went to their favourite doctors to fix the complications, the project would be aborted.

Do you remember when I posted that article about Choice: Texas? Well, who cares when I posted it, but I actually wrote it many months before that publishing date. The point is, (as usual) I wrote some very perceptive things in that article. Let's take a look at how Choice: Texas is doing now.

According to this February 27 post from Choice: Texas,
"On a less positive note, our initial web designer fell through, so we are facing some delays in production. We are currently working to find  new team member, and we’ll have the game up and running as soon as we can."
Recall what they claimed on their Indiegogo page:
"We will have a working prototype of the game prepared by the conference dates in late September, and look forward to completing the game by February 2014."
Well, that passed already! Woops! It gets a bit worse than just a minor delay, though. Delays happen to the best of us, anyway. No, it's more their hubris that I'm here to bash.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Nationalistic Nintendo Video & John Cena

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - In plain English, that means the only Nintendo Video in plain English will be in America.
A long time ago, the "Nintendo Video" service on the Nintendo 3DS launched. Four videos at a time would be automatically downloaded to your 3DS and new ones would replace the previous ones. These ranged from crap to amusing. Now, only America will get to experience it. It was international before, but, starting on March 31, it will be shutting down in Oceania, Europe, and Japan.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Mustering the Remasters

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - High Definition or Definitely High?

It's a trend in the industry: HD Remastering is everywhere, and it's about time KoopaTV talks about it. What separates a remaster from a remake? A rehash from a port? Sure, I'll break it down for you because you'll need to be armed for when the arguments you have with other people break down to semantics. You should discontinue the argument at that point anyway, but you're probably immature to keep arguing if you're the type of person who reads KoopaTV to begin with.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

The Year of Luigi Has Ended

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Finally. Let's have a Year of Bowser instead.

Nintendo is finally done clowning around celebrating that green-hatted plumber. My personal belief that nothing would really happen in the final 1/3 of the year was... wrong, depending on how you look at it. I guess if you count a ROM hack of Mario Bros. and a spin-off of Dr. Mario called Dr. Luigi to be eventful, then the past year has been nothing but action-packed Luigi adventures!

Monday, March 17, 2014

High School DxD's Erotic Miiverse Existence

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - This article is not safe for work. You have been warned.

Once upon a time, in the land of Miiverse, there was a meme. This meme was unlike the other memes that plague the Super Smash Bros. community every day: This meme was specific to Miiverse and was based on Miiverse. And... it was actually interesting, and not based on any sole user's cult of personality.

The American Super Smash Bros. Miiversers had discovered the Japanese-only High School DxD community. What is High School DxD? It's... an "erotic battle adventure" by Kadokawa Shoten. Apparently there's a manga and an anime too. The opening to the anime is provided below, but that's also not-safe-for-work. There are similar "eroge" games with communities on Miiverse too, like the 3DS remake of the 20-year-old PC game Toshin City. No idea what it's about or how it plays. But there's a trailer for it embedded in this article later.

The question for this article is this: Why is Nintendo allowing this community on here? You can post screenshots on High School DxD (many will be provided below) but not Pokémon XY! I'd say that Nintendo in Japan is a lot less strict about their standards than Nintendo in America, but that's simply not true if Pokémon is restricted worldwide. I wish I had an answer, but I don't. Perhaps one day, I'll ask Nintendo about it. I'd rather interview them about... more pressing matters, though. 

Is this why Pokémon XY screenshots are banned?

Again, the rest of this article will... demonstrate just how weird and out-of-character Nintendo's decision is here, and they should reconsider their "every game gets a community" policy. Sure, it drives sales, but look at what you're driving! Again, it's very important to understand, for educational purposes, just what Nintendo is allowing here.

You have to be 17+ to play the game, but you can be any age to look at screenshots of it on Miiverse! And if you drew this type of stuff with your stylus, it'd be deleted. Quickly. You can also look at screenshots from the game itself, posted directly on Miiverse, by continuing to read this article. Don't catch your boss reading it, though. He or she should catch you reading these stock figures from EA, or something. So content warning.

Friday, March 14, 2014

Yoshi's New Failure

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The game is a critical disaster.

You know, today is the day. Yoshi's New Island has been released. I've been closely reporting on the game since KoopaTV was established. The whole Miiverse has been eagerly anticipating this day. After all, today everyone was ABSOLUTELY SURE that Masahiro Sakurai would announce Yoshi in Super Smash Bros. 4!

Tada! IT'S YOSHI! ...That's the name of the skateboard.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Percy's Predicament

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The name of this game is actually perfect for an article title.

Once upon a time, a new Texas-based game developer named Maestro Interactive Games decided to release a game on the Wii U. That game is named Percy's Predicament, featuring a penguin rolling around in a ball. It's out now, trying to take advantage of Everything Is Better With Penguins. Here's the launch trailer.


It plays nothing like Super Monkey Ball, by the way (you control the penguin, not the stage). If you like the jazzy sound of 0:56 like me, then you'll appreciate Maestro's self-described vision:
 "Maestro Interactive Games was founded in 2012 by Monty Goulet. Our vision is to create the highest quality gaming products with a focus on art, design and audio. We plan to create new and exciting titles immersed with addictive and compelling soundtracks.

It sounds cliche but we are making the kind of games we want to play. We appreciate good art, thoughtful design, engaging stories, and of course powerful, emotional audio, and we truly believe there are plenty of gamers out there that agree with us."

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Melee's New Round of Approval

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Nintendo allows Super Smash Bros. Melee at EVO 2014 and MLG Anaheim 2014.

Hopefully you remember EVO 2013. That's the fighting game tournament that... happened in 2013. We briefly covered it here because of a controversy relating to Nintendo allegedly not allowing Super Smash Bros. Melee to be streamed. Their decision was reversed after outcry. To this day, EVO organizers never provided an official statement from Nintendo stating their position, and so to this day I believe EVO organizers made the whole thing up to attract publicity. And publicity it certainly attracted.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Welcome to Smash 4, Mac Baby!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - No doubt thanks to KoopaTV's effective lobbying efforts.

Back in August 2013, KoopaTV dedicated a week to Punch-Out!!. We even changed the site's banner and everything. For Punch-Out!! week, I advocated for Little Mac to be a newcomer to Super Smash Bros. 4 as the first on my list. Then later on in the week, we released Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!!, which is a SMASH hit, winning PC Game of the Year. That raised Little Mac's public profile considerably.


"Become a Super Smash Brother!" And so, he did.
And so, we're very pleased that Masahiro Sakurai took our advocacy to heart and inserted Little Mac as a playable character into Super Smash Bros. 4.



Monday, March 10, 2014

Ludwig In The February Direct

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Hopefully this explains my hiatus.

I'm going to admit that the KoopaTV hiatus message might've been a little bit too reliant on being a giant Ace Attorney reference and did not focus enough on actually giving a substantive answer on why I threw away KoopaTV's momentum for a whole month right at its peak performance.

Well, if you watched the Nintendo Direct that happened in February 2014, that's the real answer why. Apologies on not having a Reaction Log for it, but the gist is that we were very pleased by it. Here's an embedded video of it (there's another video coming up so don't actually watch this unless you haven't seen it before):

Friday, March 7, 2014

Cold Feet: Zimmerman's Escapades Canceled

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - He wasn't punched out — he didn't even get to enter.

Back in January KoopaTV left you with a very exciting prospect: the famous George Zimmerman was directly inspired by Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!! and decided to reenact it in real life. KoopaTV decided to try to draft the Reverend Al Sharpton as Zimmerman's opponent for reasons explained previously. We sent Al Sharpton and his National Action Network e-mails. The fight was to be scheduled for March 1: So what happened?

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Koopa Keep Turns Ten

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - So I'm at least 10 years old, right?

Welcome back to KoopaTV, y'all. Back at the start of this wonderful site I mentioned the Enlightenment Movement, and said I started an organization called Koopa Keep in 2004. That time in 2004 happens to be March 6, 2004. So it has now been ten years since that time on the Nintendo NSider Forums when the "Koopa Base" thread was made on the Power On forum. That's Nintendo of America's official forum.

I'm not really sure how to present that it's the ten-year anniversary. I feel like no one is interested in a history lesson. So if that's the case, then I'll leave this here from last year for your enjoyment. Read on for history anyway. And... lessons!