Quantity vs. Quality — Good vs. Evil

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Is there truly a trade-off between quality and quantity?

KoopaTV has a huge pro-Decepticon bias the slant of which has never been seen before since YoshiRider123 (aka "Chrom") forced Fire Emblem: Awakening to become the winner of KoopaTV's Game of THAT Year 2013. (By the way, I've actually started playing it as of the weekend, so I've done my 2015 New Years Resolution.) That's because, as we published on Thursday, we have an actual Decepticon on-staff.

Because of that, yours truly was a proud Decepticon in Saturday's Splatfest. I got a lot of my awesome Wii U friends to join Team Decepticon as well, and we all rejoiced. Look how fresh I was!

(Nevermind that I'm terrible with the Dynamo Roller, but it looks a lot more intimidating than the Splattershot Jr. for the photo-op.)

And as a result of my amazing efforts and teamwork, Team Decepticons destroyed Team Autobots. Vortexica is pleased and won't do a KoopaTV staffer mutiny. Thank G-d!

And with that, I'm 2-2.

The score was 42% of the population was on Team Decepticons with 58% on Team Autobots, but Team Decepticons had 56% of the individual Turf War wins to bring them the overall victory.

So let's think about that — the clearly evil team had more skilled members, but were outnumbered overall. And they still won.

How does that circumstance compare to other circumstances in the classic battle of good vs. evil and quantity vs. quality? Let's dig deeper.

Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot: Questions, Answers, and OBJECTION?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - We ask Nintendo.

There is a bit of confusion going around with regards to the "Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot", such as how many times you get to vote. Remember, it's still relevant, since you have until October 3. I myself haven't voted...until the end of this article.

So KoopaTV went to the Nintendo Web Form and asked the important questions regarding the ballot.

Keep in mind the intricate wording. Oh, and you can vote here.

At the time we asked, folks didn't know which characters could be nominated. And still no one knows the intricacies of the Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot... Is it FIFO, LIFO, or does it just cancel you altogether?

Splatoon's Next Splatfest is More than Meets the Eye!

By VORTEXICA - Inklings in disguise!

The folks at Nintendo of America have officially announced the theme of the next Splatoon Splatfest event for North America, and it's... Wait a second, what is this?!
 

.@Transformers is coming to #Splatfest! Battle as Team AUTOBOTS or Team DECEPTICONS for 24 hrs starting 8/28 9 PM PT! pic.twitter.com/jPw4TlAeQo

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) August 18, 2015

PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton Moving to Sundays Only

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It won't be one of those mega church shows, though.

We have a very important history with the Reverend Al Sharpton. Whether we trash him for race-baiting in the videogame industry, try to draft him for a celebrity boxing match with George Zimmerman, or make an amazing videogame (that you can play off your browser for free right here) that features his likeness, Al Sharpton is everywhere. We even endorse him as a source to get information, though some have theorised that we are only making a joke.

So we are taking the time out of our slow news week busy schedule to bring you the big news in Reverend Al's life: PoliticsNation will be dissolved from being Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at 6 PM Eastern for an hour to only being on at Sunday mornings at 8 AM for an hour starting October 4. Al Sharpton will reportedly then go preach to a church after the show airs. 'cause he's a reverend, right?

Al Sharpton is going to cut someone with that piece of paper. Note his cold face.

Al Sharpton doesn't take this as a demotion. In fact, he believes he will be the one setting the agenda for the day because 8 AM is before the other Sunday shows. So he's the first and premier figure in the weekend TV media landscape.

That got me thinking... should KoopaTV do the same thing?

Al Sharpton dons a pair of glasses to look smarter in front of his guest, who doesn't seem very happy.

MEGA YARN YOSHI is MEGA CUTE!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It's also mega-priced.

Looks like Nintendo launched a salvo of new announcement information yesterday. Check out the whole press release here. I guess launching massive press releases is the new replacement for Nintendo Directs in a world without Satoru Iwata?

The most significant thing of the press release? Well, who cares about all these game release dates... Let's talk about MEGA YARN YOSHI.

No, it's not a new game... it's an AMIIBO!

The one on the right is the MEGA YARN YOSHI. The others are the ordinary ones.
Courtesy of GameSpot, who probably took it from the Nintendo PR room.

 

Team Rocket Descends on Boston!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Trying to make double trouble. But they failed.

Last weekend were the 2015 Pokémon World Championships. Thousands of folks playing the Pokémon trading card game and the videogames competed to be named the best that no one ever was. (Except it's not really "no one" when the same thing happened last year, and the year before, and the year before...) Fortunately, they also competed for a lot of scholarship money, because The Pokémon Company International (TPCI) has a bias towards people being educated in college than just winning cash. Probably a legal thing.

Apparently, some competitors wanted to win through non-competitive, non-legal means. And I'd like to stress that because this article will be about an active investigation, everything that follows is an allegation and not a fact. Innocent until proven guilty!

So those competitors who allegedly wanted to win through non-competitive means were Kevin Norton (thinner guy, 18 years old) and James Stumbo (27 years old, and a pretty big dude). After fleeing Iowa from Donald Trump visiting the state's state fair, they both came to Boston to compete in the Pokémon World Championships that they were invited to. They were also packing some firearms, presumably because they thought that Donald Trump would grab their guns. Massachusetts was just the wrong place to flee to.

From the Boston Police Department.

Norton and Stumbo were allegedly Team Rocket members and were planning to take the competition by force, stating so on Facebook. They were stopped after concerned members of the Pokémon community reported them to TPCI, who reported that information to the Hynes Convention Center. Hynes talked to the Boston Police Department, and Norton and Stumbo were stopped at the door. Boston Police eventually obtained search warrants, and eventually arrested the duo for having firearms they didn't have licences to.

So what the hell were they thinking? Don't bring guns to a place crawling with Pokémon trainers!

The Reason Why Inklings Dissolve in Water — The EPA?!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Humanity ended from toxic waste — and the Inklings rose.

To give myself some credibility, I would like to hand it over to Squidwig for a bit.

Thanks, Ludwig! Squidwig here. People have been wondering: Why do Inklings from Nintendo's Splatoon just dissolve when they touch water? Is the water horribly corrosive to their existence? Or is it something else?

Why not just, you know, float in the water and not disintegrate?

...Yeah, I got it right the first time. The water isn't safe. Why not? Because of the actions of the Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA) of the United States, of course.

(Hey, heads-up. We might talk about some Splatoon story mode spoilers. If you already know the back-story or you don't care if someone tells you it, keep reading.)

Windows 10 and Tiny Galaxy: Yargh, Pirates!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Beware of pirates, but don't invade privacy.

We haven't discussed Microsoft's Windows 10 on KoopaTV, and perhaps we should since it has important implications for gaming and the Xbox One, what with Windows 10 and the Xbox One becoming integrated and everything.

What we have discussed in the past was the Xbox One's Trojan Horse attempt to track what was previously considered private. Microsoft does not have a good record with privacy, since they actively collaborate with the National Security Agency (NSA). That's pretty bad.

Well, while I still have the chance to upgrade to Windows 10 for free, I'll still stick with Windows 7.

They said Windows 8 was the best Windows yet, too.

I'm not totally convinced that Windows 10 would be a better experience. I mean, do I need a better experience? Isn't a lot of that experience determined by my hardware? What good will changing the OS be if my hardware is terrible? (And no, I'm not going to get new hardware as my computer serves my non-gaming uses just fine.)

Anyway, right now I dunno what Microsoft is collecting off my Windows 7, but I do know with Windows 10, they'll be automatically installing things that could break what they want under the guise of stopping piracy.

Nintendo TVii: One Generation Too Late

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - One of our competitors we regularly beat in ratings is gone.

The market for your viewing time is heavily saturated. At the top, the best TV around is only at KoopaTV. But below that we have our competitors like Mario Kart TV, F-Zero TV, and CainTV. There is also TV Tropes, but we partnered with 'em so they ain't really competition. And at the bottom of the totem pole was Nintendo TVii, a channel trying to be so hiip that they're spelling with two 'i's.

Nintendo TVii was discontinued August 11 (the 11 corresponds to the two 'i's) and a Wii U System Update (5.5.0 U) was pushed out to remove it from your Wii U in-game menus with nothing to replace it. What was Nintendo TVii? That question ended up being a hard one for Nintendo to answer.

Nintendo TVii was Reggie Fils-Aime's personal pet project for the Wii U's launch in North America, as explained by the only-ever Reggie Asks on the subject. Reggie saw himself as a media consumption mogul. As for TVii, you were supposed to use it to connect with your television subscription services such as your cable/satellite provider to find content you'd like, watch it, and engage with it.

This isn't Nintendo providing their own content to watch.
That was Nintendo Video, which had its own issues.

Basically, here's the value proposition as explained in Reggie Asks:

"Nintendo TVii addresses this changing landscape [of complicated and diverse methods of spectator entertainment] by bringing together everything you need – a personalized guide, a super remote, and a social TV experience – into one seamless application on the GamePad. This makes watching TV easier and fun."

There's a big problem, though: Their assumptions came out to be fundamentally incorrect.

The Battle Flag of George Zimmerman

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Preserving culture and fighting the media.

Readers of ZimmermanTV (that's KoopaTV when we've caught a cold) know that recently, George Zimmerman has been having trouble finding good people to associate with. He has a Mario-partying ex-girlfriend who thinks he's crazy. He has a truly crazy stalker who literally tried to kill him, and that particular guy is currently in the judicial system for that.

HOWEVER, he has finally found good company. Someone who is actually successful and owns a small business: Another gun store, the Florida Gun Supply. (We sorta hope that George Zimmerman won't have to physically guard this one.) It's Mr. Andy Hallinan. The two have made a "mini-documentary" together. You see, Mr. Hallinan doesn't want Radical Islam purchasing guns from him or participating in gun safety classes that he is making free for everyone else. In fact, he proclaimed he would deny service. So CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations; a well-known terrorism support group) sued Florida Gun Supply for illegal discrimination that violates Muslims' civil rights, or whatever.

So to support his friend, George Zimmerman is teaming up with Andy Hallinan to rescue America.

Capcom Avenue, Rainbow Road, and Sonic Drive-In

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Let's appreciate some cool places on Earth.

Did you know that there is a real Rainbow Road out there? I mean, I can visit Rainbow Road anytime I want, but y'all human readers don't have that luxury unless you're evil illegal alien invaders. And I don't mean the rainbow that briefly appeared over Nintendo's Japanese HQ after Satoru Iwata's death.

I mean Rainbow Road in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It looks like this:

30 Rainbow Road, or Sandia Resort & Casino.

Looks really amazing, right? You can probably golf-kart here, though not on the rainbow itself. It's also not the only game-world-on-Earth scenario. There's more!

Three Real Game Design Lessons: Super Mario Maker!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - All the realities of being a real company level designer, with limited financial risk!

Last time we checked how Super Mario Maker was doing, we saw that Nintendo teamed up with Facebook to have a two-day hackathon. There were many Facebook employees who entered, and they took it pretty seriously with team names and whiteboards and everything. Nintendo Minute remarked that Facebook's process (which was probably over-the-top) was reminiscent of how Shigeru Miyamoto designed the levels of Super Mario Bros. on graph paper.

"Ship Love", the winning level of the hackathon.

Well, if you really want to know about the levels the Facebook folk came up with, you can check out the Nintendo Minute video here. We have a more important video to embed.

Konami: Boobs or Bust?

By VORTEXICA - It's not what it sounds like.

The corporate boobs at Konami have no idea what they're doing. The company has aroused stiff criticism lately for cancelling Silent Hills (plus attempting to erase its P.T. demo from existence), implementing micro-transactions in the upcoming Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and continuing their history of driving away their core talent.

After all that, more Konami bashing must come across as beating a dead horse by now. But you know what I say?

Resident Evil 2 Remake — Double the Biohazards!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The only time people want more hazards in their life.

They have finally done it: Thousands upon thousands of people all of a sudden will now have a positive impression of Capcom. Why? 'cause of this:

Capcom has announced that Resident Evil 2 will now have a remake in HIGH-DEFINITION. This is after its original 1998-2000 release times on the PlayStation and Nintendo 64... and then inferior non-HD remakes/ports thereafter.

Yoshiaki Hirabyashi is the Phil Spencer of Capcom, down to concealing information on a hidden shirt.

Fans have been begging for Resident Evil 2 to be remade ever since Capcom showed 'em what good remakes could be about with the remake of the first Resident Evil many years ago. Capcom has been making/producing HD versions of their Resident Evil games since; including the original, Resident Evil Zero, and Resident Evil 4. But in the HD-remaking frenzy, apparently Capcom skipped 2 and 3 and people had gotten worried.

Dumping Mighty No. 9 for the Red Ashes

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Keiji Inafune isn't so great after all.

For years, Mega Man fans believed (and still do) that Capcom hates Mega Man and his "creator" Keiji Inafune, creating this image of Inafune as an untouchable amazing man. And... laughably, that's all crumbling. 

Keiji Inafune on top of a tower, untouchable from his adoring fans.

Keiji Inafune is supposed to be dedicated with his totally-not-Mega-Man-expy Mighty No. 9 game, a jump-and-shoot platformer that is absolutely nothing like Mega Man and stands on its two hypothetical feet without needing any kind of nepotistic star power or impressions that it's a spiritual revival of another, totally unrelated game franchise to do well.

Well, with that introduction out of the way, the game has been delayed from coming out next month (September 2015) to the nebulous "Q1 2016". This is after rumours came about that the game would be delayed but one of the Comcept guys said that rumour had no substance to it. The only people with no substance in this matter appear to be Comcept's employees.

Jareditton Presents: KoopaTV.org Music Video Reaction

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A super-scrumptious salute to a super-scrumptious song.

KoopaTV continues our celebration of our new domain name. Or, rather, we celebrate someone else's celebration.

You should remember Jareditton as that amazing guy on YouTube who Let's Played through Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!!. You can watch that entire thing here, and you should. This time, he amazingly reacts to our amazing music video:

If you can't view that for whatever reason or want to go directly to his YouTube video, click here. But now, just a small reaction to his reaction. (Okay, it ended up being detailed and also awesome. You better keep reading.)

KoopaTV Judges The Fox News Republican Top 10 Debate

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Now we have our favourite candidates up there.

We endured through Part 1 of the August 6 Fox News Republican Presidential debates here. You could consider that the "For Fun" or "Turf Wars" or "scrub court". Now we're going to "For Glory", "Ranked Battle", or "main court". In short, the Top 10 Republicans in polling that we delineated here.

I'd click that last link if I were you if you want to understand how we'll approach these debates and how we'll judge them. Without further ado, we've given this a lot of time and thought, so get ready.
 

I didn't get the chance to wash this suit since yesterday's article.

KoopaTV Judges The Fox News Republican Bottom 7 Debate

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Also known as the "earlier debate", the "losers' debate", the "5 PM debate", and "the Kid's Table".

We just all finished watching the first official Republican National Committee-sanctioned debate, featuring the bottom 7 candidates that America didn't find appealing enough to show in prime-time.

As we promised, we're going to now judge each of them. Get ready. 

Our facial expressions haven't changed a bit since yesterday night.

Your First Republican Debate Contest Contestants

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The Winners' Debate and the "Kiddie Table".

It is finally time: The official start of the Republican Party 2016 Presidential Primaries is finally at hand, hosted by our best pals at Fox News. Yes, tomorrow (as of publishing) August 6 is the day, and 5 PM Eastern and 9 PM Eastern are your times. 'cause there are actually two debates.

One debate is for the top ten, and the other debate is for the bottom seven. The top ten start at the later time 'cause there are more people likely to be watching.

We discussed Fox's requirements and debate structures when we proposed that the Republican Party ought to adopt Pokémon Diamond/Pearl's Super Contest format. They... ignored us, but they DID change their format since then. Now everyone gets to be in one of the debates, even those polling under 1%!

And we happen to now know who is going to be in which debate. Obviously we'll go ahead and SHARE THAT INFORMATION. 

The Lion, the Witch Hunt, and the War on Sabreman

By RAWKHAWK2010 - An eye for an eye leaves the whole Wurlde blind.

Today marks the beginning of a new era -- one where washed-up Rare characters far and wide will rise up from the ashes to reclaim their FORMER GLORY. I'm of course referring to the release of Rare Replay, the remastered compilation package featuring 30 games from Rare's 30-year-long tenure, all for $30. It's pretty much the greatest video game deal to ever happen (as reflected by the fact that it was the most pre-ordered game announced at E3 2015), which means games like Grabbed by the Ghoulies and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts might at last get the accolades they've deserved all along. And if Rare Replay establishes its contents well enough, perhaps even old-timers like Sabreman could come out of retirement.

Because for anyone who remembers the canceled Sabreman Stampede (formerly known as the also-canceled Donkey Kong Racing), our ol' pal Sabreman has some...unfinished business.

KoopaTV's July 2015 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Super-eventful month that was.

If you missed out on KoopaTV throughout the whole month of July, then you probably have no idea what's going on. The site has dramatically changed.

NEW DOMAIN NAME!

Obviously, now every instance of koopatv.blogspot.com has redirected to our new domain name, http://www.koopatv.org. Hope you noticed the new logo and domain name. Our Contacts page and other pages have also been updated with our new contact details, being our sexy e-mail forwarding. That logo is hopefully permanent until a temporary event pops up.

Cookies Consent!

We did add more white space between the top of the page and the logo because apparently there is some new European Union law requiring notification that we're eating your cookies. (Read more about our policy here.) If you're not in the European Union, then you don't have to worry about getting it.

Before we moved it down...

Perfect.

...As for our mobile users, well, you're probably screwed either way:

Just use the desktop version.

Anyway, that's not even all that's happened this month, so here's one of those rare newsletters with A PAGE BREAK!