Mario Kart 8 Driving The News! *Update June 20*

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - So it's officially out today.

This is it guys! We've accelerated to the finish line: Mario Kart 8 is officially out today. Now, some people took some shortcuts: The street date was broken in many places (the Mario Kart 8 community is proof of this). Now, we're all on a level racetrack. It's time for Nintendo to rev up for the next cup!

Now, you can get the Wii U bundle for $330! Comes with a Deluxe Wii U, Mario Kart 8, and other stuff like a Wiimote+. Plus, if you register Mario Kart 8 within the next two months on Club Nintendo, you can get another game! For free! Via download code! And you can get Deluxe Digital Promotion eShop credit on both games!

Almost makes me wish I waited until now to get a Wii U. ...Not really, it's been fantastic for over a year.

Smash Invitational: Doing Everything Right!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Self-explanatory hype.

I was going to write about something else today, but then this popped up, and it's my job as a Nintendo fan and a Super Smash Bros. fan to relay it:

The "Brothers" On Ellen

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It's a shame I have to put brothers in scare-quotes.

I wonder what will happen this weekend. Two weekends ago, we had this absolutely disgusting John Oliver skit. Now last weekend, Ellen DeGeneres tried to one-up John Oliver. So, who's going to make a skit this weekend? Al Sharpton? I'll embed this one. It's still disgusting, but in another way. John Oliver tried to disgust us visually, while Ellen goes after grossing out our minds. If you don't want that to happen, then don't watch this.

SMASH FEST BEST BUY LOCATIONS REVEALED! *Updated*

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - List included in this article! The article title is in all-caps to convey my HYPE!!

After we memorialized its predecessor, we now know where we can play Super Smash Bros. 4 at Best Buy. Here's the list, right from their site, with the times. Apparently, Canada has it too. Here's their list.

I also painstakingly recreated the list at the bottom of this article with no drop-down stuff for your copy-pasting pleasure.

This news was enough to pretty much give me super-charged energy despite not getting much sleep. So here's Mike's Song from Brawl that pretty much describes my excitement.

To play, visit a participating store:
• Wednesday, June 11 from 4 p.m.–9 p.m.
• Saturday, June 14 from Noon–5 p.m.

Be one of the first 70 attendees at each event to pre-order Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS or Wii U and receive a rare collectible Super Smash Bros. gold coin (one per customer, while supplies last). You will also get a $5 My Best Buy™ certificate when you pick up your fully paid game upon release.

Not sure if I want to pre-order it and we don't know what the coin looks like, but sounds awesome, like Pokémon TCG-like coin. And it's gold! While New Super Mario Bros. 2 drastically devalued the gold coin as a currency, it'll still look cool, right?

Canadian locations are only the first 25 attendees get the gold coin. Guess gold is rarer in Canada. 

UPDATE: It'll be at the Nintendo World Store from June 11 to June 15.  9 AM to 8 PM on June 11 and June 12, 9 AM to 9 PM on June 13 and 14, and 11 AM to 6 PM on June 15.

Memorial of Super Smash Bros. Brawl

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - For one particularly creative feature we'll never see again.

By now, hopefully the entire world is well-aware that Super Smash Bros. Brawl and other games that use Nintendo's Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection no longer can do things online. This means no battling with your friends across the world. It also means you can't ever do anything ever again like the Planet Koopa Advertisement Video.

It's the video with the most production values on my YouTube channel at PrinceOfKoopas. Just ignore what it's advertising for a moment (Planet Koopa now functions as KoopaTV's Intranet) and observe what we did for the video.

Ike, The Radiant Hero

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - WE LIKE IKE!

So did you hear? Republican President Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower has been resurrected. He's running for president in 2016, and he's screwing the 22nd Amendment. (The Supreme Court doesn't know if it applies to zombies.) Eisenhower is notable for being the last popular Republican president among the people of the Democrat Party, and he was pretty cool.

Personally, I'm still a Rand Paul kind of guy. Oh, and this announcement came from Japan, for some reason. Unfortunately, the truth about Ike is that he was a progressive Republican. He's not progressive in the tactics of today's progressives that attack private companies for not putting gay marriage into their products, but the guy is quoted as saying that the Republican Party needs to be progressive or else. The federal government grew to spending 70% of its budget on the military! Granted, under Eisenhower, the budget was at least balanced most of the time.

Wait, what's this? Wrong Ike?

Oh noooo!

We got reports of a storm coming in!

HURRICANE IKE?

Dual Destinies Content Ratings Worldwide

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - How to convince people you don't have to be 17 for it.

Let's skip ahead to the (hopefully near) future: Nintendo succumbs to pressure and common-sense and changes their eShop policy to no longer lock people out of purchasing digital download titles based on ESRB rating if their parents approve of their child playing the game. (We're not at that future yet, so keep up that pressure!) What if you're having a conversation with mom and dad and they don't think you're mature enough to handle games like Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies?

KoopaTV is here to help. Most of our audience is American, so that means you're stuck with having to deal with the M (17) standard. I've said sometimes that this campaign is a uniquely American one: We're specifically targeting Nintendo of America, because every country has their own eShop standards and different ratings boards.

Here are the ratings for Dual Destinies around the world:

• America (ESRB): M (17) for "Blood, Violence, Suggestive Themes, Language". 
• Australia (ACB): PG (15) for "Mild violence and themes".
• Japan (CERO): C (15)
• Europe, Canada, Israel (PEGI): 16 for "Realistic looking violence".
• Germany (USK): 12

America has the highest... and it goes lower from there. Note that over at the USK, the other Ace Attorney games were rated... 0. 0 years old.

Choice: Texas Is Now Playable!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - And has been for a few days to a week.

There was other, more important news to cover so far this week on KoopaTV. So finally, this article appears that I alluded to on Friday. The IndieGoGo-funded game that I've written about in two other articles so far, Choice: Texas, is now playable. As of publishing, you can play Latrice's story, and you can play as Leah's story. According to this fancy media kit I downloaded, 

"The game is set for release as a free-to-play web game. It is a collaborative development project by game studies scholar and historian Carly Kocurek and writer and activist Allyson Whipple, and it features original illustrations by artist Grace Jennings. Choice: Texas was funded through IndieGoGo and is built using Twine."

To see what it looks like, I've played Latrice's story twice. I won't write my review until all five stories are available to play.

Here's what the game looks like. It's literally just text and dialogue trees.

In the meantime, consider this a preview. I don't know. The game is supposed to be released "Spring 2014", and this is still Spring. Can you consider an unfinished product released, though? (I guess big game companies already do...)

Error 20110: Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service discontinued!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - And Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection is now over.

As proof you shouldn't go to KoopaTV as your only source of information, we purposefully never talked about the announcement that Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection would be shut down today, something we knew would happen for months. Why? Well, it didn't fit the narrative.

The screen you get from Super Smash Bros. Brawl nowadays.

Now that it's finally over, we'd like to clear up any misconceptions you may have. The full list of games affected (apparently 408 in number) is here. Nintendo-published ones are here. Nintendo would like to stress the following:

"Only online features for games using the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service are impacted. Other online functionality on Wii and Nintendo DS, such as access to the Wii Shop Channel, the Nintendo DSi Shop and video-on-demand services, are not affected at this time. Online play for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS games will be unaffected (aside from the Wii mode on Wii U and Nintendo DS games played on Nintendo 3DS family systems)."

John Oliver Disgusts The World

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Or at least me.

I'm not going to embed this video because it's repulsive to look at. But here's a link to it. (Similar to how KoopaTV's sister station, Best of Cain, didn't show the image of those kissing NFL dudes.) John Oliver is one of those liberal comedians, laughing it up at HBO. He's trying to be the next Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert, from what I can tell. Probably because he came from Jon Stewart's Daily Show. 

Basically it's a bunch of Nintendo characters kissing one another in the lips. (That plumber and Link; Zelda and Peach; Yoshi and Toad; and... King Dad and Donkey Kong?!) And not just kissing... it goes into more intimate detail than that, too. The kind of detail we don't want to expose our children to in an E-rated affair.

KoopaTV contributor Rawk on Donkey Kong fan-forum DKVine made a thread a week ago about #Kongquality. Like many things we do, it was a joke. Unfortunately, Mr. Oliver appears to have taken it seriously.

Glorious Leader! Kim Jong Un Enters The Battle!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Well, I guess it's not the worst idea KoopaTV has ever covered.

North Korea is not finished being a topic of discussion on KoopaTV. Last week they attacked KoopaTV and American hero George Zimmerman, and now this week their Dear Leader, Barack Hussein Obama Kim Jong Un is going to star in his own videogame! It's the type of thing you'd expect us to make, but we're into making games like Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!! instead, along with revealing George Zimmerman to be in Super Smash Bros. 4. Contrary to the title of this article, this has nothing to do with that game, but a different one.

The game, Glorious Leader!, is a side-scrolling shooter in the realm of the Contra series. It'll be available via mobile and PC, from the guys at Moneyhorse LLC. No one has ever heard of them, and this seems to be their first ever project. Their Facebook page has no introduction to themselves, just articles pointing out all their publicity.

A Meta-Review of IGN's Rating System

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Senseless bashing of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn.

Let's do something a bit different today. Today, we're going to review a review, and a review process. What are we talking about? This Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn review from the folks over at IGN. At KoopaTV, one thing we're very much aware of is the lack of journalistic integrity in today's gaming media. Naturally, we're spotless ourselves.

This review, by now ex-IGN guy Mark Bozon, is the foremost example in my mind of shoddy journalism that exists by a mainstream videogame publication. There is nothing worse than this shitty excuse of a review. I think we can learn a lot from dissecting it. It may be almost seven years old now, but it's the low-point in videogame journalism and probably responsible for some people not buying this Intelligent Systems game, one of the best games on the Wii!

The NPD Group's Methods Are Offensive

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I'm disappointed in NPD Group's methodology.

Since we somehow went a whole year on KoopaTV without talking about The NPD Group, they're the guys who publish sales data on a lot of industries in the USA, including the videogame industry. It's how we know what goes on every month. They also do some marketing research.

One such bit of marketing research is a new report stating that there are 34 million "core" gamers who play an average of 22 hours a week playing videogames, and 74% prefer physical distribution over digital. A "core" gamer is defined as:

These 34 million core gamers, defined for this report as those individuals who play video games five or more hours a week on a PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC, or Mac, and who play Action, Adventure, Fighting, Flight, Massively Multi-Player, Racing, Real Time Strategy, Role-Playing, Shooter, or Sport genres on any of those devices. 

Reject The Wrecked Decrepit Kinect

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA -  That doesn't actually rhyme.

Apparently, Microsoft is desperate. Why, they're still selling less Xbox Ones than Wii Us, which is a complete failure! Sony got past that point a while ago with the PlayStation 4. So what's up? Why, could it be that Kinect thing that spies on you? The always-online requirements? But those aren't actually a problem anymore, right? (Or are they?)

Well, if the problems DO stem from the Kinect, then good news for everyone: Microsoft is offering, as of around E3 time, an Xbox One for sale WITHOUT the formerly mandatory Kinect add-on! For $400 instead of $500. (Reminder: You can get a Nintendo Wii U bundle for $330 starting May 30, and that's a much better purchase. It comes with all sorts of things instead of making its selling point that it's NOT coming with something!)

KoopaTV: One Year Of Laughter and Truth

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - With calls for our heads along the way.

The time is now: Today is the one-year anniversary of KoopaTV being formed! See for yourself. May 12, 2013 is now May 12, 2014. We're proud to announce some proprietary information for you all: KoopaTV has amassed over 50,000 page views between May 2013 and May 2014. That means we've not only pissed off a lot of people along the way, but we probably got some happy readers, too. Right?

The Homodachi Tale: GLAAD Vs. Nintendo

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The gay mafia murder machine went after Nintendo.

KoopaTV has spent the past... well it's been nearly two weeks since our last article on Tomodachi Life and the gay agenda's assault on Nintendo, trolling these #Miiquality people on Twitter. Oh, uh, we've been doing other things too. Like all the articles we've written in May. Including an important phone interview. I think we gave Twitter the wrong impression that all we do as an organization is piss off gay people, which is completely inaccurate. Check out KoopaTV in general, man. We're a legitimate site covering all sorts of stuff.

Anyway, with that said, Tyeforce seemingly took our advice. He didn't let that YouTube takedown stop him. Oh no, he went to the Associated Press and got every outlet out there to cover Tomodachi Life. Now if you try to do a web search to figure out information about the game, all you get is this "Miiquality" shit with clickbait titles about how Nintendo "bans gay marriage". All I want to do is find information about the game and it's been completely demonized!

At first, Nintendo said:

"Nintendo never intended to make any form of social commentary with the launch of Tomodachi Life. The relationship options in the game represent a playful alternate world rather than a real-life simulation. We hope that all of our fans will see that Tomodachi Life was intended to be a whimsical and quirky game, and that we were absolutely not trying to provide social commentary. We have heard and thoughtfully considered all the responses. We will continue to listen and think about the feedback. We're using this as an opportunity to better understand our consumers and their expectations of us at all levels of the organization."

Now they said, as of today, on their own site as a press release,

"We apologize for disappointing many people by failing to include same-sex relationships in Tomodachi Life. Unfortunately, it is not possible for us to change this game’s design, and such a significant development change can’t be accomplished with a post-ship patch. At Nintendo, dedication has always meant going beyond the games to promote a sense of community, and to share a spirit of fun and joy. We are committed to advancing our longtime company values of fun and entertainment for everyone. We pledge that if we create a next installment in the Tomodachi series, we will strive to design a game-play experience from the ground up that is more inclusive, and better represents all players."

New Kickstarter: Luna's Tale From Maestro Interactive Games

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - We usually don't promote campaigns like this. But we like these guys.

Remember my article on Percy's Predicament? That Wii U indie game that got trashed for looking like a Nintendo 64 game? And I made a spirited defense of it? Maestro Interactive Games is still in business, now conducting a Kickstarter campaign! Their newest game? Luna's Tale: Curse of the Forgotten Doll! (Click here for the campaign.)

Go support it. Oh, I'm sure you want more reasons than my endorsement. Well, sure. It's coming out on all the now-current gen consoles plus your PC. And Mac! Of course, and most importantly, that includes the Wii U!

They Are The Alpha And The Omega

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Bow down before them! ...Meh.

I think you're all excited Pokémon fans. A bit too excited. Well, The Pokémon Company International has announced remakes of Pokémon Ruby and Pokémon Sapphire with some Greek letters in there too: Pokémon Omega Ruby (OR) and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire (AS). Here's a "trailer". As an aside, the official site got redesigned again to accommodate this trailer.

Notice Groudon and Kyogre look kind of funky. Also notice how it's playable in 2D, with "some areas also playable in 3D". So that's just like Pokémon X and Y, so if you weren't like me and happy about that decision, then too bad, no eye-popping overworld for you. I like my eyes in my head myself. Launches worldwide November 2014!

George Zimmerman Versus North Korea

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - KoopaTV? More like ZimmermanTV!

I could write about legitimate stories or causes, but let's write about George Zimmerman again. That's more fun.

After George Zimmerman visited Japan to talk with Masahiro Sakurai for the necessary paperwork to be in Super Smash Bros. 4, the evil guys at neighbouring North Korea must've taken notice. George Zimmerman is not just America's best entertainer, but he's also world-famous. Masahiro Sakurai is also Japan's best entertainer. It was a spectacular meeting. North Korea really has no sense of entertainment besides failed nuclear missile tests, throwing people to packs of hungry dogs, and hanging out with Dennis Rodman. So they're jealous of the successes of others.

They're so jealous, that they are portraying the George Zimmerman verdict as just one way on how the USA engages in human rights abuses. This is, of course, coming from the North Korea. We'll go over what they say just because they kind of remind me of KoopaTV in terms of being outrageous for attention. Just a smidgen.

A New EA PR Person; Another Madden Curse Movie Inquiry

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The first Madden Curse movie inquiry of 2014!

I vowed to get an answer to this question in 2014: "What has happened to EA's 'Madden Curse' movie?" EA has repeatedly refused to provide an answer to this. However, a new EA SPORTS PR rep has emerged, because Ritu Sidhu was not good enough. Her name is Angela Souvannara. Here's her Twitter. Unlike Elizabeth Brett, she seems to still be alive... despite attempts to change that.

I literally cannot breathe.
— Angela Souvannara (@angela__sou) January 7, 2014

How to Buy Dual Destinies Underaged and More

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Phone interviews are a thing.

You may recall I sent an e-mail to Nintendo earlier about their eShop policy. After the campaign post with all of the organization and links and stuff, I sent another one! The following is the reply from April 20:

KoopaTV's April Analysis

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - We're going to start repeating months now after this.

KoopaTV started on May 12, 2013. It is now the first of May 2014. We're approaching one year. So how was our last new month, April? Well, pretty good.

KoopaTV continued its coverage of the videogame world, especially in the pissing-people-off department. We also had a lot of live reactions. You can see that in my top five recommended articles for the month. As I always say, every article on the site is worth reading!

1. What Nintendo's eShop ESRB Lock-Out Policy Affects
2. Gay Life Isn't Tomodachi Life
3. What do Pac-Man and Hillary Clinton Have In Common?
4. Super Smash Bros. - George Zimmerman Makes His Stand!
5. Don't Drown Out The Ideas!

This was also the month where the list of tabs at the top of every page extended to two lines with KoopaTV now getting ads, and us listing our campaigns we're involved with. Also, I got banned from Miiverse, but as of publishing I am now unbanned. So you don't really have to look at me using KoopaTV as my own personal blog. Since it isn't. We have a purpose, as you can see from those recommended articles!

Where to from here? Oh, you'll like it. Let's leave it at that.

Ludwig's NNID is PrinceOfKoopas, and NOW you can Follow him on Miiverse. Help spread the word about KoopaTV! Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell your frenemies!


The recap article preceding April's is... March's! Here it is!
The recap article after April is for May. I bet if you click this, you'll find it.
There is a very glowy 2015 version of this article for April 2015.

Give KoopaTV Your Requests!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - For your greater participation.
Not that we're out of ideas or anything, but I recently read a report that we should implement a requests section on KoopaTV. So here it is.

Have any ideas for new articles, investigations, features to implement, or stuff to do? We're servicing you, so if you would like anything on our part, just tell us here in the comments section. You may also e-mail an author via the Contact Us page if you don't want the rest of the world to know of your request.

Request anything about anything. Preferably game-related in some way, given the nature of the site. Creative requests are cool too. Particularly if they're exciting, although what excites us might be different from what excites a "normal" person. Restrictions basically include that if it involves spending money, we won't do it unless we would spend that money anyway, or you give us that money. So no reviewing the latest PlayStation 4 game none of us have. We would be happy to live-react to its cutscenes, though!

Ludwig also absolutely hates giving any legitimacy to rumours, so he will decline anything that involves reacting to one. KoopaTV will not do any request that involves doing something illegal. Read here for more information on things KoopaTV won't write about.

We're like your intellectual mercenaries. Except we don't get paid by you. Unless you want to pay us. That'd be cool. Intellectual in the sense that if we don't already have an opinion on something, we'll be glad to research it and get an opinion.

Check the comments section to see which articles exist because of requests.

This page has the most number of comments of any page on the site, so as a result, the comments section now has two pages.

Click here for Page 1 (comments 1–200)
Click here for Page 2 (comments 201–present)

AS OF 2022, WE HAVE RETIRED THIS REQUESTS PAGE AND BROUGHT IT TO A NEW, CLEANER REQUESTS PAGE. Access the 2022 requests page here. We have turned off comments on this page as a result.


Feel free to request something from a specific staff member, and remember the best place to do it is in the comments section of this article! Although we look at the comments to every article on the site equally.


Writing requests is a rewarded activity through the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program!