KoopaTV's December 2015 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Let's make sure we thoroughly talked about all that's left of 2015 before we move on.

Welcome to KoopaTV's newsletter, the last one to talk about 2015. I'm not going to cover the whole year here, just December 2015. What's the point of talking about the whole year? That's bound to just be an average, and regression to the mean will say it was a "meh" average year. Whatever. Smaller time periods are gonna be more interesting than that.

I will say, however, that 2015 was the first year for KoopaTV where we published an article every single weekday of the year. 

And you betcha that December 2015 was interesting. So we're gonna get headings again, yippee. I think we'll go in sort of an order of “things that happened” and progress to “what's happening now and what's coming up”. That sound good? Then get past the page break, read more, and here we go! Because we got things to address that you really want to know about covering every aspect of the site, with tons of features.

Play CAPTURE THE CONFEDERATE FLAG here!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - On your browser, for free, on KoopaTV! (Press-kit at the bottom, advertisement video even further below, game embed after page-break.)

You've waited a year since our last game, but the time for patience is finally over. You can at last enjoy yourselves by playing KoopaTV's third videogame! What a great way to close out 2015, and shame to all the other gaming sites that have already declared their game of the year for 2015. This may be the last game to be released in the year 2015 (and in some timezones we're in 2016 already), but at KoopaTV, we've intended it to be a contender for the best.

We would like to introduce you to Capture the Confederate Flag. This is a game thematically inspired by all of the confederate flag controversies earlier in 2015. It'd be cool if the game could release immediately during that fallout, but game development takes time and can't take advantage of current events.

We're aware that in the digital space, the Battle Flag of Northern Virginia is being censored from many gaming portals. We hope that won't happen to our game for its tasteful portrayal of Southern heritage.

Capture the Confederate Flag features characters and themes that avid KoopaTV fans may recognise, such as Robert E. Stoutland and Confederate Metagross. It also uses the Stars and Firebars sprite I made over two and a half years ago that I thought was clever enough to be its own article. (Though it wasn't the only article that day.) We've also seen one of the villains. So let's just embed the game already:

Suing Videogame Companies for Becoming Addicted?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - That's what one clearly irresponsible moron in Russia is doing right now!

Videogame addiction is a serious issue. It plagued Chad Joseph in hit KoopaTV game Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!! and it threatened to ruin my own life. Maybe it already has ruined my life and I just haven't come to grips with it. I thought that wait-to-play games could stop it, but if you end up being a cash whale then that's not helping. Now we're at the point where we're evolving in revenue models to pretty much be virtual casinos. Obviously, those are designed to get you addicted and lose your money for prizes of zero value. Sweet deal if you can manage it and rope kids in.

But this isn't a passive-aggressive attack on Nintendo. It's... some level of defence. I guess.

Turns out that in Russia, there is this moronic man who is suing Bethesda for 500,000 rubles (which is a little under $7,000) because Fallout 4 is too addictive. As a result of his addiction, he got fired from his job ('cause he was absentee) and divorced from his wife ('cause... who would want to be with a pitiful man who puts a videogame over their spouse?) and he's seeking vengeance. Apparently he just played it for three weeks straight and didn't eat OR sleep. Is he trying to put a third option in the Eating vs. Sleeping Splatfest, being "screw my biology I'll just play games day and night"?

The money is for emotional distress. But is Bethesda responsible for causing emotional distress? 

What's the deal with Undertale's popularity?

By LITTLE FRUINI - The reason lies in all the obsessed fanbases all over the web!

As those who follow KoopaTV already know, Undertale has been (actually, it IS) a virus for the Internet, whether you go on YouTube or Twitch and see streams and Let’s Plays for the game (something that is frowned upon here), or to the obvious Tumblr and Reddit populations and see players with their fan arts, findings, or post on their next target to invade. Most notably, the game has gone hoops under and over winning the respected title of GameFAQs’s Best Game Ever with an underwhelming victory. Underappreciated jokes aside, there is one thing to blame, and if you don’t know why, then I recommend you to read the subtitle.

That’s right: the fanbase. I’ll give Undertale the benefit of a doubt and say it really IS a good game, with its witty dialogue, music, and visuals (I haven’t played the game, so I may do it injustice), as everyone says. However, it’s a shame, because the game could be a cherished diamond shared and replicated by many. For lack of a better simile though, some just keep talking about how beautiful the diamond is and how they keep finding new things in it. For a comparison, some fanbases are tame, while others have this website that they all like to log on to, hang out, and talk about how valued a game is (EarthBound’s very own Starmen.net is a great example). And even if everyone approaches a game in a different direction, Undertale's fanbase is simply an entire different story.

For reference, let’s take the first battle that Undertale had in GameFAQ’s ‘Best Game Ever’. As you can see, these aren’t users natively from GameFAQs, they’re actually people from a rally, and if that wasn’t the case, then there shouldn’t be a spike in the charts!

 

Digitised Manuals Means Less People Read Them

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Putting the environment ahead of the player.

All of the videogame publishers (if you can find a counter-example go ahead) have gone ahead and eliminated physical instruction booklets. Now on all the big videogame consoles and handhelds, if you buy a new physical copy of a game, all you get is the card/disk and a health warning or something. You might also get an expired Pokémon Omega Ruby/Pokémon Alpha Sapphire Special Demo code and other advertisements. But nothing on the game you bought and how to play it.

Here's a statement from Microsoft as to why this is the case:

“As of 2012, Microsoft no longer includes printed manuals for most Xbox games. This change allows us to improve the environmental impact of our products and saves you the need to manage additional materials.” 

Meanwhile, a "JM Garcia" from Sony's PlayStation Blog has these contradictory quotes about the digitialisation of instruction manuals (while advertising the PlayStation's repository of digital manuals, Docs for PlayStation):

“If you’re like me, you don’t like having to search through a paper instruction manual [...] Docs launched alongside PS4 last November and it has replaced printed manuals for first-party PlayStation titles, as well as select third-party games.”

So because this random guy doesn't like using the table of contents in an instruction manual, they'll eliminate the option altogether and instead put that very same table of contents and structure in an exclusively digital format. ...Morons. Let's hear from someone else.

Don't Object This Christmas: Become an Ace Attorney on a Budget!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - If you want to buy yourself a Christmas gift, here's a great suggestion.

If you want to feel like a million bucks, you'll only have to spend $15 or $20! You can make better deals than Donald Trump this Christmas if you go to the Nintendo eShop on your Nintendo 3DS or Nintendo 2DS or New Nintendo 3DS or whatever and search "Ace Attorney". There, you'll see that CAPCOM's amazing Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney series is on sale until January 1, starting now! (Along with other Capcom games.)

You can get Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Dual Destinies for only $15. You can buy Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy for only $20.09. That's seven cents less than a cute $20.16 campaign contribution to your favourite presidential candidate.

You won't be able to vote for Phoenix Wright for president yet.
...I feel like if I had Santa Larry Butz here, he'd scare people away from buying the games.

If you like %s, here are some: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Dual Destinies is 50% off. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy is 33% off. I'm pretty positive that's the best sale for Dual Destinies ever, since it was only 44% off nine months ago. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy is at its lowest price since a month ago on Black Friday.

That's amazing. But to sweeten the deal...? 

The Turf WAR ON SQUIDMAS

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Have a great Squidmas! It's important we call it that.

NGYES! It's the night before Squidmas! It's the best day of the year. If you think us squids celebrate and party hard during Splatfests (and I hear Ludwig the Koopa keeps writing articles about that), you haven't seen anything yet for Squidmas.

So Squidwig is here to tell the great readers of KoopaTV (and you guys really are great people in accepting me as one of you) of a problem. Because it wouldn't be a KoopaTV article without a problem, right? What could possibly be problematic about the awesome holiday of Squidmas?

Squidmas is almost here! Like, tomorrow!

There's a war on Squidmas. Kids these days are more concerned about splatting one another than celebrating the holiday, which is supposed to be about peace and love. To the point that people are butchering the name to be "Splatmas"?!

Original post here.

(Favouritism Bracket) Ludwig's Best. Game. Ever. 2015 Votes

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A parallel universe where the only voter is Ludwig.

I think anyone paying attention has noticed that I'm really not happy about the final result about the GameFAQs Best. Game. Ever. 2015 contest. And believe me, I went and rallied for the result I wanted. And in a pretty despicable way at times.

Let's pretend that didn't happen. Let's go off of the games that I voted for back in Round 1 of the GameFAQs Best. Game. Ever. 2015 contest. Let's suppose that every game I said I'd support in Round 1 won! We'll call this "Ludwig's favouritism bracket". And I'm going to have this go over every round in the contest. Let's see this to its conclusion and settle it:

What videogame do I like the most? (...Assuming it's in the bracket. And it probably is.)

You're probably smart enough to get why I chose that picture to represent me for this premise.

Wait for the YEAR TO END! Game of the Year Awards

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - That's what we do.

Suddenly, when it looks good for them, people take garbage like The Game Awards seriously. Whether it be Nintendo themselves or fans, they now have ammunition like "Best Shooter of 2015!" when referring to Splatoon. That's the opinion of The Game Awards, which those same fans (rightfully) deride as a trashy outlet in other years. Just 'cause you agree with my opinion for a year doesn't mean you get promoted out of being trash.

To their credits, a lot of other outlets haven't announced their game of the year awards yet for 2015. We're still waiting for IGN, for example. Giant Bomb, too. On the other hand, Metacritic, that aggregate of reviewers' scores, went ahead and announced the best games of 2015. How can an aggregate do that when not every outlet has announced their own?

Splatfest: Naughty Villainy RISING!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Looks like the so-called good guys keep losin'.

I think it's about time to observe the beginning of a trend. Sure, we only have two data points and you need three to become a trend, but who knows if there ever will be a third data point. New content for Splatoon will stop come January 2016 (so really soon) according to an interview with some Splatoon developers done by Game Informer. However, producer Hisashi Nogami specifically points out that Splatfests will still continue after that point. Still, we can surmise that they won't go on forever, and for whatever reason Japan is now repeating their own Splatfests. Which is even worse than Europe just taking America's.

Anyway, what I'm talkin' 'bout is this: In the Team Autobots vs. Team Decepticons Splatfest (which KoopaTV was solidly on the side of Team Decepticons), Team Decepticons won easily.

Team Decepticons had 42% popularity, but had 56% of the wins.

Meanwhile, we just had the Naughty vs. Nice Splatfest, and I was solidly on Team Naughty. The results?