George Zimmerman Didn't Really Throw a Wine Bottle

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - And he's not getting charged. George Zimmerman rides again!

Last month, we gave hugely concerning news: George Zimmerman got arrested within the first two weeks of 2015! He was supposed to be in court on February 17, and you better believe that we were going to cover it.

HOWEVER, it turns out there were other plans in store for this American hero. Namely, the prosecution is dropping all charges against George Zimmerman! The Orlando Sentinel reports,

"But this morning the State Attorney's Office reported that the woman, Zimmerman's roommate and dental hygienist, 28-year-old Brittany Brunelle, had recanted her story and refused to cooperate. As a consequence, it is dropping the case."

The Orlando Sentinel adds this very important bit:

"When they issued a subpoena, she did appear with her attorney and either told them or handed them a statement saying that Zimmerman had not thrown a bottle at her and that she never feared him, the statement said."

DID I CALL THAT OR WHAT? KoopaTV, January 12:

"The unidentified girlfriend told the police about it when she was undergoing a traffic stop. Perhaps she made up the story so she wouldn't get a traffic ticket?" (Emphasis added)

An OBJECTION! To NeoGAF's Racketeering

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The nerve of breaking the law using a law-based franchise!

Apparently, people walk around with the NeoGAF logo on their shirt. They buy such shirts from places like here with designs like this:

Look familiar? OBJECTION!

According to Spreadshirt's copyright section,

"These users agree when they create these designs that they have all necessary legal rights to do so. In order to be scalable, a majority of this process must be done automatically. This means that Spreadshirt cannot ensure that 100% of shop owners actually have these legal rights."

We wanted to let the real copyright holders over at Capcom know what was going on.

Splatoon Splattering On APEX 2015!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Hype weekend.

This weekend is APEX 2015, which as KoopaTV already covered, will be the biggest Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. For Wii U tournament ever. And that Nintendo is sponsoring it. But did you know that Nintendo's sponsorship means other goodies besides money and marketing, like... Splatoon?

Splatoon at what is supposed to be a competitive fighting game tournament? I'll take it.

It's true that this is the E3 2014 demo, which Nintendo showed... a lot during E3 2014. Every day, though we only got our live reactions to it on KoopaTV the first time. It's clear that based on the last time we saw Splatoon, the game has a lot more content than just that E3 2014 demo. So while it's awesome we get to see Splatoon again, it's a bummer that all that awesome new stuff we saw won't be seen in a non-trailer setting.

...But wait, there's more?

The Beta of Early Access Betas

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Sending free hard drives out to folks!

Way back in April 2007, right when Valve's Steam was just becoming popular, Konami had this idea for Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Chōzetsu Hakkutsu ONLINE, translated to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Superior Excavation Online according to Wikipedia. They had a beta for users to join. It was some sort of online game based off of the popular anime, Gurren Lagann.

Something about this logo has to do with excavating.

From what I can tell, they limited the closed registration to the first 3,000 people with "Konami IDs" and there was something about digging and cards and characters.

I have no idea who this is or what they're saying. See why we need a Japanese Marketing Manager?

Unfortunately, they ended the Beta pretty quickly and never finished it because there was a critical error when you installed it for Windows users, which would probably be the only users. It basically ruined your computer forever and you had to re-install your operating system. Konami, as compensation, sent out 500GB external hard drives to everyone who participated. (If I got one of those, I'd be fine with digital distribution on Wii U!)

Refill Your Need For Speed With Micro-Transactions!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - With Need For Speed: No Limits. With a sub-title like that, this article writes itself.

Electronic Arts isn't really reaching new lows, they're just redefining what it means to be low.

KoopaTV's disdain and contempt for everything related to Electronic Arts isn't going to stop just because we finally got to the bottom of the "Madden Curse" movie scandal. It turns out that EA can be very despicable with their business model as well.

According to "Android Police", who is apparently the source for the story — you should be able to identify that as a site I've never been to before, so if this is a hoax then it's going to our bad sources list —  EA is going to be charging to fill up your gas tank for their mobile release, Need For Speed: No Limits. Believe it or not, EA has a mobile division they're trying to make into a big thing, so as someone who despises both EA and mobile, sure I'll take opportunities to bash both in the same article!

...Just in case you missed it in that paragraph of extraneous information: Your in-game gas tank for your in-game car is finite, and to replenish it you will either have to wait for your car to magically replenish itself, or you can pay REAL MONEY to go to the gas station in-game.

This comes at a time period where we've had falling gas prices at the pump in America for the past several months (no thanks to the Obama administration), so EA is presumably enacting this as a time where filling up your gas tank is a lot more fun than, say, a few years ago.

We last looked at this chart almost a year ago, in March 2014. And my, have things dropped since.

How much will pumping your virtual gas tank cost? $2? So it's a one-gallon tank? What a terrible fuel economy. As for the in-game economy, there are apparently multiple currencies that are standard with free-2-play models that I don't really want to discuss because we don't know enough specifics, and I suspect you don't care about them.

Japan Vs. ISIS: Humour Versus Terrorism!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Alternatively, peace versus Islam. And OUR contributions to the war at the end.

If you missed the casual reference of it by President Barack Hussein Obama on Tuesday, the Islamic State (otherwise known as ISIL or ISIS) has abducted two Japanese citizens, Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa for $200 million ransom. They had 72 hours to pay the ransom, and that passed as of today, with no money dished out. The hostages' fates are unknown as of publishing.

Apparently Yukawa got kidnapped a bit ago, while Goto went to rescue him. As you can tell, that rescue mission failed. People in Japan apparently don't really care about them and think they deserve it for going to Syria, with the exception of Goto's mother who is grieving over it. What the Japanese seem more concerned about is the fact that ISIS is now taking action against the Japanese. Apparently, they previously thought the "global war on terror" was really just a Western thing, and that ISIS's hatred for people only really manifested itself for Westerners.

Nope! Radical Islamists hate EVERYONE. Without exception. They even hate other Muslims. So that's why Japan has launched a war against ISIS!

It's just a war of another kind. A war of... humour? Introducing the hashtag, #ISISクソコラグランプリ! Put in English, it's basically a collection of crappy pictures mocking ISIS.

This guy is doing my analysis for me.

Sounds a bit less impressive than what Japan's neighbour did last time someone pissed them off, though. ...And that someone ended up being Japanese in the end, too.

When Kickstarters Get Kicked In The Ass (Part 2)

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Raise your hand if you're NOT surprised. *raises*

Gotta put my hand down so I can write the rest of this article.

...'kay, all set. So, Moneyhorse LLC's Kickstarter for Glorious Leader!, which we wrote about right after it started, has been CANCELED! For those who aren't aware, this is a Contra-like 16-bit game featuring a playable Kim Jong Un, North Korean dictator.

This is the face of their Kickstarter page.

Yet, the entire history of us covering Glorious Leader! has been with a ton of doubt on whether or not the game would ever be done. The game idea got revived after its initial media glory, bolstered by the North Korea hacks on Sony.

So, why did they end the Kickstarter campaign, and what went wrong with it? Find out.

The Facts of Club Nintendo Closing

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - If you're gonna be sad, be sad for the right reasons.

As you have no doubt heard (well, maybe I have a little doubt), Nintendo's relatively long-running loyalty/rewards program, Club Nintendo, is ending July 1, 2015. Key facts:

• Newly (as in, as of yesterday) released games don't have Club Nintendo codes anymore.
• You have until March 31 to register all your codes. Accounts cannot be created after this date.
• You must redeem all your Club Nintendo coins by July 1, 2:59 AM EST. 
• All Club Nintendo codes must be redeemed by July 31, 2015.

We would like to remind you, if these dates sound familiar, that they are shared with the Digital Deluxe Promotion timeline. For that, you have until March 31 to receive your codes, and June 30 (otherwise known as July 1, 2:59 AM EST) to redeem the codes. This means there is a whole month between redeeming Club Nintendo codes and Digital Deluxe Promotion codes, apparently!

Important information greets you.

Also, the rewards page states, "Dozens of downloadable games and a limited quantity of exclusive reward items will be added to the rewards catalog in February." In other words, don't redeem all your coins just yet.

KoopaTV Live Reactions: SOTU 2015

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - State of the Union 2015. Plus Joni Ernst's Republican response.

As part of KoopaTV's continuing commitment to keep American politicians accountable, we have live-reacted to President Barack Hussein Obama's State of the Union 2015! Also, Senator Joni Ernst gave the Republican response.

I'm Nintendork 13 13, Rawk is himself, Kamek is Ultralink1, and Vortex is that msn e-mail.

Obama censorship.

Eric Holder giving a hug.

Defend Anita Sarkeesian: The Advertisement Video

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Share it around and play Defend Anita Sarkeesian!

Have a happy Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day! KoopaTV has something to share with you:

It's the Defend Anita Sarkeesian advertisement video! Feel inspired to play it? Play it on KoopaTV, here!

Also, it looks like we're finally gaining traction with being recognised by #GamerGate and Bendilin himself. Great! This new advertisement video should help with that.

According to #GamerGate, it's a sign of weakness to make a sequel that is much better than the original.

What's next for KoopaTV? Who knows. But in the meantime, Follow Ludwig on Miiverse at NNID PrinceOfKoopas. Why not? His YouTube channel is also PrinceOfKoopas.


Last year, KoopaTV actually posted stuff about racism for Martin Luther King Jr. day, relating to one of KoopaTV's other games, Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!!. 
Listen to the advertised credits music in its entirety here!

A Review Of Choice: Texas — Should You Choose It?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It's a "very serious game", so I'll write a very serious review.

Choice: Texas is an "indie" game that has gotten a lot of press on KoopaTV; more than some MAJOR console games have. (This will now be the sixth article dedicated to it.) This month, we were finally able to announce that it is fully playable after more than a year of development. As such, this Best PC Game Of 2014 nominee will be the first PC game reviewed by KoopaTV! Congrats to the developers.

As a bonus, I'll even try not to let my personal biases about abortion and the developers themselves (or their biases against KoopaTV, such as blocking our Twitter account) get in the way of the review. Enjoy.

The game's logo, which omits the colon in the name.

You can read my preview of the game's first playable forme back in May here.

Play the game at: http://playchoicetexas.com/ 

amiibo Attacks on Canon

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - These figures are everywhere except stores, apparently.

Yesterday's Nintendo Direct was absolutely littered with amiibo. Let's recap:

1. Kirby & The Rainbow Curse functionality with Kirby, Meta Knight, and King Dedede. Change Kirby's abilities in-game and make him look different.
2. Eleven new amiibo (Wave 3 of Super Smash Bros.) hitting store shelves in February. King Dedede, Rosalina & Luma, King Bowser, Sonic, Mega Man, Toon Link, Sheik, Ike, Shulk, Lucario, and Meta Knight.
3. Wave 4 Super Smash Bros. amiibo announced... six! Robin, Lucina, Pac-Man, Wario, Ness, and Charizard. These are for a nebulous "Spring". (Apparently, Wario and Pac-Man are in May, while the others are for March.)
4. Super Mario Bros. series amiibo for March 20. These are Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Yoshi, and Toad. These have a red base and are interchangeable, gameplay-wise, with their respective Super Smash Bros. counterparts. They have different art. Toad is exclusive to this series.
5. Mario Party 10 has a special amiibo mode with compatible (read-write) amiibo being Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Yoshi, Toad, Wario, Donkey Kong, and Rosalina & Luma. This Party mode has your amiibo jump around the board and do stuff, and there are different boards depending on what amiibo you use. You can use any other amiibo for some random bonuses, too. Mario Party 10 is packaged with a Mario amiibo from the Super Mario Bros. series.
6. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is receiving a patch to allow use of the Toad amiibo. There is a pixel Toad hidden in levels after usage.
7. Code Name S.T.E.A.M. uses the Fire Emblem character amiibo in-game: Marth, Ike, Lucina, and Robin. They join your roster and fight with you.
8. More Marth amiibo are coming "later this year" in America.
9. ACE COMBAT ASSAULT HORIZON LEGACY + from Bandai Namco has amiibo-unlockable aircraft skins. Shown were Mario, Bowser, Fox, and Link.

It turns out that the real theme of the Direct was pretty much "We are expanding amiibo even more, and it's definitely worth getting a New 3DS, which has built-in NFC."

KoopaTV's Nintendo Direct January 14, 2015 Live Reactions

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - We rated it Splatoon/10.

It is the first Nintendo Direct of 2015, and also the first KoopaTV Reaction Log of 2015, as well. For those who haven't joined us for one of these before, KoopaTV periodically live-reacts to important events within our [Koopa Keep] AIM Blast chat room, such as every Nintendo Direct. You are invited to watch the event and read our comments as the event happens! (Time-stamps are provided to assist you, of course.)

I'm Nintendork 13 13, by the way. Rawk is himself. That's all you get.

There is also this Bandai Namco dude who wears sunglasses indoors. Guess it is pretty bright outside.

Nintendo Sponsors APEX 2015; Becomes Largest Melee and Smash 4 Tournament Ever

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - So about Super Smash Bros. Melee dying...

According to the APEX 2015 registration website, the registered member totals are as follows (as of publishing):

Super Smash Bros. Melee 1v1 Total: 1025
Super Smash Bros. Brawl 1v1 Total: 174
Super Smash Bros. 4 1v1 Total: 828
Super Smash Bros. 64 1v1 Total: 188
Pokémon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire VGC total: 83
Ultra Street Fighter IV 1v1 Total: 101
Guilty Gear Xrd 1v1 Total: 50
Killer Instinct 1v1 Total: 24
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 1v1 Total: 39

For those who don't know what the APEX tournament is, it started as a dedicated Super Smash Bros. tournament that expanded to include other games. Obviously from what you can see from those numbers, it still has a very strong Smash Bros. bent. As you can imagine, those are huge numbers. You can thank some of those numbers, no doubt, to the high pot bonuses. You can also thank Nintendo for officially sponsoring it.

This is, of course, after Nintendo sponsored another fighting game tournament, EVO 2014. This is continuing Nintendo's stance of approving of the competitive Super Smash Bros. community.

So is all swell in the world of competitive players?

2015 Starts Dim for the 'Zim

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Welcome to ZimmermanTV, home of Zimmerman Kart.

It's a new year, and George Zimmerman is still here. The last time we saw him and didn't just make a passing reference, Super Smash Bros. For 3DS just came out and George Zimmerman's civil rights lawsuit was called off by the Justice Department. Well, I guess that might be inaccurate information, or perhaps it doesn't even matter.

What difference, at this point, does it make?

George Zimmerman got arrested. ...Again. On aggravated assault for throwing a wine bottle at a girlfriend. ...A different girlfriend. Who is different from his ex-wife. His lawyer, Don West (the same Don West from his trial), said,

"It's clear he hasn't been very lucky with the ladies the last few months."

To be fair, the dude is able to get girlfriends. That's a lot more than some of us can claim. If you're a woman and you're reading this, would you want to date Zimmerman? (Ignore that he's 31 now if that's too old for you.) Stick with nice guys! (Which also wouldn't include us, I guess.)

Zimmerman was in court on January 10, and the wine bottle-throwing incident happened on January 5th. The unidentified girlfriend told the police about it when she was undergoing a traffic stop. Perhaps she made up the story so she wouldn't get a traffic ticket?

George Zimmerman entering passenger-side into the Zimmobile. Different than the car used in his road rage incident.

Rush Limbaugh: Videogamers Are the Least Successful Among Us

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Can't agree with you on everything, buddy.

Rush Limbaugh is a cool guy. He's totally a blowhard and the definitive right-wing radio talkshow host. According to Al Sharpton, he's the leader of the Republican Party. If that's the case, then we might run into some issues. 

Oh, full disclosure: The only radio host I listen to regularly is Herman Cain. However, just for this article, which I wrote back in early 2014, I've listened to almost 6 months worth of Rush Limbaugh's 3-hour program at 12 PM EST every day. I wanted to make sure I was educated on what I was writing about before I published it. It turns out Mr. Limbaugh has the same "you have to read several articles/tune into the show many times before you get it" type thing KoopaTV does! Did you know he has children's books?

"Some people don't play video games. [...] Those people get ahead of the others." - Rush Limbaugh in January, 2014

Puzzle & Dragons on Nintendo: Quite Puzzling Indeed

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - What is this game doing here?

Have you ever played Puzzle & Dragons on a mobile device before? If the answer is no, or you're like us and have never heard of this game before, it's apparently super-popular in Japan. As in, 40 million downloads worldwide with most of them being in Japan, thanks to its free-to-play set-up (the money comes from micro-transactions). It's some sort of puzzler (Bejeweled) RPG from GungHo Online Interactive that is pretty much exclusive to smartphones, but there was a 3DS spin-off called Puzzle & Dragons Z that is priced like normal games are. Apparently that game is stuck in Japan though, with people crying out for it to be localised like people do with Mother 3 or Ace Attorney Investigations 2. Still, the mobile version is available in America, although it's apparently not able to catch the same popularity as the Japanese version.

Why do we care about this at all? Well, today there is an announcement that they're teaming up with Nintendo to release Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition for April 29, 2015 in Japan. Now before we freak out about that plumber deceptively trying to lure you into free-to-play, it appears as if it will cost money up-front.

This says the price is 4,000 yen for both physical and download, excluding tax.

Koopasentai

By RAWKHAWK2010 - Also, I'm back.

KoopaTV finally has its own advertisement video. Watch it below.

As the video implies, I'm back as a full-time staff member of KoopaTV! I would like to take the Best Non-Ludwig KoopaTV Poster award for myself, now.

Koopasentai!

Update 11/29/2016: The video content for this article has been mysteriously deleted and thus appropriately substituted. Please understand.
Update 7/14/2017:  Koopasentai is BACK! Now literally completely different, with actual aesthetic flair and no regard for chronologics.

That "Future KoopaTV Staff Member" could be you. Check out the KoopaTV Jobs page for more information.

KoopaTV needed a new video, especially since Koopasentai is filled with that .blogspot.com stuff. So we made one. And it's much more listenable.

Rawk leaves again.
Rawk made another -sentai video, this time featuring five Toads that look a lot like our staff...
Rawk rage-deleted his YouTube in November 2016 and Koopasentai 1.0 was one of the few vids not backed up.
The NEW Koopasentai takes inspiration from KoopaTV Adventures.

Choice Texas: Now Fully Playable!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It actually came out in one piece.

For all of the times I declared Choice: Texas to be aborted and their Indiegogo campaign contributors screwed, they came through right before 2014 ended and released the entire game. That's all five women's stories! But not just the women... but also the stories of the babies they are pregnant with, and sometimes the fathers of those babies, and even their families.

Five stories all with several different endings!

You can now play all five in any order.

For those of you who don't know about Choice: Texas (which was nominated for Best PC Game of 2014) and haven't followed the four articles I've written about it (which were nominated for best article series of 2014), you can... read the description on their site (also replicated in the screenshot above). That's also where you can play, of course.

But in my own words, it's a series of narrative trees about amalgamations of Texas women having kids that they did not plan for. You get to choose what the women do (assuming the option was written for it) and they all have varying circumstances to make things interesting.

KoopaTV 2014 GOTY Awards!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Game of THAT Year for 2014... and other awards!

On Friday, KoopaTV laid out our nominations for the 2014 Game of THAT Year award, along with other categories like Best KoopaTV Article, Best OST, and Worst KoopaTV Comment.

Over the weekend, our staff had intense debates on who should win, with some categories getting much more intense than others. And we couldn't "SETTLE IT IN SMASH" either. ...Well, I guess if we did, that would just mean everything I personally wanted to win would win. It's no secret I'm the best on the staff at Super Smash Bros., after all.

Speaking of which, did Super Smash Bros. For 3DS or Super Smash Bros. For Wii U win anything? You'll have to read on and find out, because you may be surprised.

KoopaTV's 2014 GOTY Nominations!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - And other categories.

These were decided and talked about in our [Koopa Keep] AOL Instant Messenger Blast. Behold!

...Yeah, sorry for the déjà vu from last year. This time, we have different categories since, you know, the year is different than 2013! It's 2014! (To be eligible, these have to be a thing from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2014.)

And just so you remember, that stands for "Game of THAT Year". That's the KoopaTV touch.

You might think the last category, "Worst KoopaTV Comment"  is really "Best KoopaTV Comment" if the goal is to make you laugh hysterically...

A picture to make this sharable. Our articles haven't had pictures in 'em for a few days...

KoopaTV's December 2014 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Solving problems with just one word.

Now with the word "review" in the title, people won't be confused as to the nature of this series of articles, right? ...Or should it be "Newsletter Review"? Well, I'm not reviewing newsletters here, I'm writing one!

While this newsletter may not be jam-packed, KoopaTV's December 2014 sure was! As promised or implied, it was one article after another of amazing stuff. You know, like last year.

And even if you just read KoopaTV for the amusing behind-the-scenes goings-on between our staff, there was stuff for you this month, with more than one staff shake-up!

So as usual, here are my top five recommended articles from that month, in chronological order. One of them shouldn't surprise you:

1. Taking Down Sarkeesian's Victim Culture Once And For All!
2. Microsoft and Sony's Racial Obsessions
3. Madden Curse Movie: CANCELED!?
4. North Korean antics leave Sony out in the cold this Christmas
5. Play DEFEND ANITA SARKEESIAN right here!

As usual, we got more and more great stuff comin' up in the pipeline, or at least in my head. But first, we got Game of THAT Year to take care of, startin' tomorrow. So be around for that, okay?

By the way, every article on the site is worth reading. All nearly 450 of 'em. This being the first for 2015!

I sort of doubt that Defend Anita Sarkeesian will take up as much resources to promote and be a big thing like Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!!, since Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!! was considered critical to the KoopaTV message and Defend Anita Sarkeesian isn't. (After all, it wasn't even our idea.)

We don't have any ideas for 2015's KoopaTV game... although you wouldn't see it until after the second half of 2015, right?


KoopaTV thrives only when you help share it around, so do your part!


For last month's review, click here.
For next month's review, and the first one of 2015, click here.
For the review of December 2013, click here.
How about the last of 2015, December? Click here.