Consider Enrolling in the Big Brain Academy!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Tuition-free, so it satisfies Bernie Sanders. There's a mandatory student activities fee of $6.99, though.

Today's Wii U Virtual Console releases include the Nintendo DS Touch Generations title Big Brain Academy. Not everyone is enthusiastic about it.

...In fact, only one guy is. (No, it wasn't free in Europe.)

People point to other countries' Virtual Console services. Yes, Europe just got Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team and Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team on the Wii U Virtual Console this week. Amazing games — the first ones in the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series — and if you live in Europe, own a Wii U, and have never played either before, you really need to pick one of them up.

However, Big Brain Academy is still pretty good, and a lot better than some of what the DS Virtual Console has gotten before. I know. I own it on the DS. It's really fun. The title music even got remixed for Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and brought back for Super Smash Bros. For Wii U.

IS Defense: Machine Gunning ISIS Invaders to Europe

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It might come to a PC near you.

While KoopaTV would've loved to have made a videogame based on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, we chose to focus our 2015 efforts on another endeavour. Fortunately for the gaming world, Hatred developer Destructive Creations is filling the void with IS Defense. It's on Steam Greenlight right now, as of Tuesday! The basis is that it's 2020, and the Islamic State went way past just Iraq and Syria and established a caliphate on the whole of Northern Africa and the Middle East.

Now they're gunning for Europe. And hopefully you'll outgun these Jihadists, because you're playing as a NATO machine gunner whose task is to kill as many as these radical Islamic terrorists as you can before you die. NATO exists to support you, though in a somewhat limited capacity of airstrikes and other things. The game also includes ranking up and skill-trees, with dynamic difficulty. Here's the trailer:

It's not really my type of game in terms of gameplay, but I'd like for it to pass the Greenlight process. I do believe it's sort of generic (though apparently fans of the turret-shooting genre say there's not enough games in it) but is getting attention thanks to its focus on the Islamic State (you can bet that's the only reason I'm writing about it)

There's some interesting assumed mythos involved here, coinciding with breaking news from today!

Eiji Aonuma Versus Developer Ideologies

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - But I LIKE using games for propaganda!

KoopaTV sometimes pretends that The Legend of Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma doesn't exist. If you search him up, we basically never mention him. His only real reference was with regards to his video message that The Legend of Zelda on Wii U would be delayed. He's probably the most low-key guy at Nintendo in proportion to his influence and position.

In an interview with Aonuma and the British gaming magazine GamesMaster, Aonuma stated,

“I haven’t and won’t be trying to put any message or meaning into the [Zelda] games. [...] Occasionally I receive messages from fans telling me how playing Zelda games has changed their lives. While of course this makes me incredibly happy to hear, I feel a great sense of responsibility as well, so part of me feels that developers putting their own ideologies in games is kind of scary.”

Of course, developers put their own ideologies into games all the time. It's become the norm at this point. Whether it be the ideology that abortion clinics should be plentiful and easy-to-access, the ideology that gun ownership among females should go up, or the ideology that Ron Paul is awesome, there is literally an entire sub-industry within gaming (“serious games”) that tries to persuade people of whatever message the developer/developer's client is pushing.

Were We Right About the Miiverse Summer Redesign?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I wrote what the ramifications would be. Did those play out over time?

On July 29th, 2015, I published Ramifications of Miiverse Redesign Summer 2015. It was a great, detailed article outlining each of the changes that happened with Nintendo's summer 2015 Miiverse redesign that dramatically affected Miiverse, and presented my thoughts about how each of those changes would change Miiverse usage and activity. It was published the day the redesign took into effect.

It's been over half a year since the redesign, although the banner proclaiming that the redesign occurred remained at the top of several Miiverse pages for months after the redesign. (It's finally gone.) It's time to see if I was right, and if there were any other smaller updates since the major redesign. (Spoilers: There were. Several. They fixed things.)

Cybersecurity Concerns: Paranoia or Serious Threat?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I want to just withdraw in my shell and stay there.

Recently, I was almost a victim of a malicious malware attack attempt because of my position as the owner of KoopaTV. Or maybe I actually am a victim of it and I lead my self into a false sense of security.

This kind of thing is extremely common on the Internet. The Internet is crawling with bad stuff that can do real harm to your computer and your life. Viruses, malware, spyware, phishing, worms, bots, injection attacks, a long list of funky sounding names. You think Zika virus is bad? You kind of have to be in a crappy area and doing some funky things to get it. You can be browsing an innocent website and suddenly bad things will just happen automatically without your input or knowledge.

Websites can suffer this even without the owners knowing, so for all I know, KoopaTV is getting lower views than usual because people are being redirected to some weird bad site because of a security exploit. Hope not.

Humourously, this has been happening to one of the worst Nintendo forums in the world, NSider2, for years now. From what I can tell, it's STILL happening, probably because its head admin is a guy who only cares about himself and has no regard for other people. And I might've just screwed myself by checking.

Bayonetta Helping Her Sales

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Makes sense to me.

Yesterday, you could begin playing as Bayonetta and Corrin in Super Smash Bros. 4. We all know that Corrin literally exists to promote Fire Emblem: Fates, coming out this February 19 in North America in multiple versions like a Pokémon game. While Bayonetta is in because people voted for her (pushed mostly by Europe), don't think for a moment that Nintendo ain't taking advantage of her existence for advertisement!

'cause, you know what also is coming out February 19? Bayonetta 2! Re-released.

All by itself.

 
Remember that before, in North America, Bayonetta 2 was only released as a bundle with Bayonetta the first. Presumably because the first Bayonetta was never released on a Nintendo system, and they didn't want people to be left out since Bayonetta 2 is a sequel.

Give a Warm Welcome to Bayonetta! (Oh, there's some Corrin kid too)

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Well, Bayonetta deserves a HAWT welcome. Which she is able to give herself by virtue of her very presence.

In the middle of December, Masahiro Sakurai told us who the last DLC characters would be. We have Smash Ballot winner (though, it was through more dubious means than Hillary Clinton getting more votes than Bernie Sanders in the Iowa Caucus) Bayonetta from the critically-acclaimed Bayonetta, and some advertisement Fire Emblem crap named Corrin. Sakurai mentioned that they're targeting February 2016 for both Bayonetta and Corrin.

Well, it's now February 2016, and it so happens that Sakurai met his target at the BEGINNING of the month, rather than the end of it. This is much more timely than saying Super Smash Bros. For 3DS would come out in the summer and having it come out in October and pretending he didn't miss his own deadline or anything. He must be really eager to work on whatever it is he actually wants to work on.

Bayonetta and Corrin should be available for purchase from the Nintendo eShop for both Super Smash Bros. For 3DS and Super Smash Bros. For Wii U as of when you read this, on a worldwide basis.

Bayonetta is so welcoming!

 

I'll let you know my full thoughts on Bayonetta and Corrin's inclusions in a later article, along with the other DLC characters. Because a request told me to, and I rather like that request. I just need time. In the meantime, let me give a quick thought or two.

Some February 2, 2016 Nintendo Financials

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - We don't have anything else to talk about the day before Super Smash Bros. 4 DLC.

The big news, of course, were the results of the Iowa Caucus. But I think I promised as late as yesterday night that KoopaTV would cool on the obviously politically-oriented articles, so what is there to talk about in the videogame world?

Oh, looks like Nintendo released some financial statements about what happened between April and December 2015 today. Here are the CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS. Plus, SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION. I love supplements. ...Though I'm using a different meaning of the word in a context that only I and a few other dozen people get, and none of those other people read KoopaTV.

The first thing I try to pay special attention to when Nintendo reveals the best-selling Wii U software is to check if they have Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze on the list. You need to be a million-seller to get on the list! And... is it there? ...Nope.

Where is the justice in a world where Mario Party 10 makes the list but Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze doesn't?

That list is almost like the list of Republican candidates by vote-count in the Iowa Caucus... Erm... sorry. No more politics tangents for the rest of the article until the footer. I promise.

KoopaTV's January 2016 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - That 2016 looks pretty shiny, doesn't it?

KoopaTV said good-bye to 2015, and we didn't even bother to do New Years Resolutions in the transition to 2016. No time for that! We're forging our paths forward!

Yeah, not really sure what to add, so let's get to some lists. First up: Top five recommended articles from January 2016 to read! In chronological order.

Top Five Recommended Articles

1. I'd Rather Live in the Past Than the Future
2. Life Lessons From the Rand Direct January 2016
3. Let Sakurai Work On What He Wants
4. Ted Cruz's Candy Crush Craziness Disqualifies Candidacy
5. The State of the Videogame Industry if Hillary Clinton Had Her Way

Every article is worth reading though. January had lots of fun, quirky, informative articles.

Now, let's look at the standings for the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program! 

The State of the Videogame Industry if Hillary Clinton Had Her Way

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Warning: It's a dystopian future. Don't let it become a reality.

I'm sure that Hillary Rodham Clinton would love to be the next president of the United States of America, and in her dreams she would want a position much stronger than the president. One-woman ruler of the country. And if you're so foolish enough to allow that to happen, then you will be rewarding extremist anti-videogame, anti-creativity, and anti-freedom behaviour on her part. If videogame company executives or any self-professed gamers vote for her, then they either have short memories or they're not “real” gamers. This is a litmus test for your gaming credibility.

Hillary Clinton notoriously CREATED the Family Entertainment Protection Act while she was a United States Senator from New York at the end of 2005 as a response to the (inaccessible in-game) Rockstar Hot Coffee mod discovered in the code of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. What this means is that she wanted (and likely still does) the government's hands in the regulation of the videogame industry for the purposes of “protecting children.” I briefly mentioned Hillary Clinton and the Family Entertainment Protection Act in a great article a year ago, but this was a super-important moment in our industry's history — so it deserves more than just a cameo/tangent in another article.

There were five parts to this act (which didn't get out of committee — so there wasn't a vote on it) that I'll briefly summarise. Then I'll tell you what it would've done if it passed as-is: