An Analysis of Michael "Colin Blue Moon" Bloomberg's Presidential Failure

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - How Colin of Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising was amazing, but Mike Bloomberg of the 2019–2020 presidential primaries was a failure.

With Election Day happening early next week and the next President of the United States will either continue to be President Donald John Trump or be Democrat challenger Joe Biden, I think it's time to go back around nine months when a number of outlets were afraid (or maybe happy) that billionaire Michael Bloomberg would be the Democrat Party's presidential nominee and all of a sudden, it's time to take him seriously.

The gist would be that Mike Bloomberg, whom no one actually likes as a person, would flood the United States with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of advertisements for him, and in states that his opponents would be cash-strapped to actually compete in. Thus, voters would be hearing all Bloomberg, all the time. In the end, when he did drop out, half of the billion dollars in spending was done by just the Bloomberg campaign. He equaled all of the other campaigns combined. To this day, his campaign has still “out-raised” (by virtue of his own money) the presidential campaigns of the two people actually nominated by their party.

What did he get in return for that ridiculous amount of cash? He didn't get first or even second place in any state or territory besides American Samoa, which basically no one competed in. (KoopaTV darling Tulsi Gabbard got two out of its six delegates just because she was born there—those were the only delegates she got before dropping out. Mike Bloomberg got the other four.) In the end, it was a monumental waste of $500 million with perhaps the worst return on investment in history.

Why did this go so wrong? Perhaps it will be helpful to compare Bloomberg being the commander of his campaign with Colin, a commander of the Blue Moon nation in the Advance Wars series that is known for being one of the best commanding officers in the series. All of Colin's units have 10% weaker firepower compared to normal... but he more than makes up for it by being able to buy units at 80% of their regular price. It turns out that Colin Blue Moon and Mike Bloomberg have a lot in common, but also have very different strategies:

Billy Mitchell vs. Twin Galaxies—Anti-SLAPP slapped down, moves to a trial!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I'll explain what that means, of course.

You might not think this matters, but I find it fascinating and it's videogame-related, so a recap: In 2018, it was alleged that legendary eSports pioneer and all-American hot sauce mogul Billy Mitchell is a fraud and his high scores in Donkey Kong are illegitimate lies. His records were stripped from the Guinness World Records book and gaming scoreboard Twin Galaxies. Earlier in 2020, Guinness restored the records upon Billy Mitchell presenting some evidence that he's not a fraud, but Twin Galaxies stood firm. Thus, Billy Mitchell sued Twin Galaxies for defamation, and both sides went off to court.

Skip ahead to this month. Twin Galaxies has alleged that Billy Mitchell's lawsuit is a SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation), which is basically saying that Billy Mitchell is using his accumulated wealth and access to lawyers to bully Twin Galaxies into doing the wrong thing (restore Billy Mitchell's allegedly fraudulent records) and ruin the free speech rights of Twin Galaxies, since Twin Galaxies lacks the financial advantages that Billy Mitchell has.

Twin Galaxies countered with an anti-SLAPP motion (or Special Motion to Strike), which tries to have the court dismiss Billy Mitchell's defamation lawsuit and end things without a trial. In order for this to succeed, Twin Galaxies had to demonstrate that Billy Mitchell has no merit to his lawsuit, that it violated Twin Galaxies constitutional rights, and the lawsuit would have no chance of winning if it did go to a trial. The free speech violated is the idea that Billy Mitchell is chilling the speech of people publicly debating videogame scores, which is taking place on a very long series of threads on multiple forums. If Billy Mitchell is able to sue you for defamation, you'll be less likely to want to investigate these things.

Billy Mitchell defeated the anti-SLAPP motion. A trial will happen... but the outcome of that is unknown. Here's what Billy Mitchell has to say, and then read on for my thoughts, backed up by actually reading what the court said:

Today, the Los Angeles Superior Court ruled on Twin Galaxies’ anti-SLAPP motion against my lawsuit.

I beat them. Here’s my statement: pic.twitter.com/XTEHXdw0bD

— Billy Mitchell (@BillyPacman) October 28, 2020

Delights on the Nintendo Direct Mini: Partner Showcase | October 2020

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - This is obviously the best one yet. (And the last one of 2020.)

Today, Nintendo put out a new Nintendo Direct Mini: Partner Showcase, denoted as October 2020. It's lengthy and filled with new information:

I can (and if I didn't have other things to publish this week and next, would) write entire articles about many individual portions of this presentation, but... I gotta condense this.

No More Heroes 3 and HD Remasters of the first two No More Heroes

After Travis Touchdown got turned into a Mii Fighter costume at the beginning of the month, things haven't been looking good for No More Heroes. There was a very expected but still sad-faced delay of No More Heroes 3 to 2021 (which didn't get a new release date, by the way, but Nintendo.com to this day claims it'll release in 2020). Quite frankly, there wasn't much information about No More Heroes 3 in this other than that it looks like a return to form (with extra story stakes), but the real news drop was that No More Heroes and No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle—originally released on the Wii—are now available on the Nintendo Switch. Normally, they'll be $20 each, but they're temporarily 10% off! They're described as HD remasters. While I've doubted these would exist, they do, so... You should buy them if you've never played them before. I endorse them. They're much better action titles than what I'll talk about in two sections.

What Makes One Super? The Predators and the Mario Bros.

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The definition of super... and the threat it poses.

There has been a reoccurring theme of Republican incumbent President Donald John Trump bringing up Democrat challenger Joe Biden's record on race relations and statements on black people (often overlooking Vice President Joe Biden's former boss... President Barack Hussein Obama, whom is half-black), repeatedly claiming that Joe Biden has called black people “superpredators.”

Let's get the facts straight, and then talk about how it matters and how it applies to a far more interesting topic to me (and probably to you, if you expect discussion about videogames on this website). Here's Joe Biden in 1993, warning about predators on the streets:

Meanwhile, here's President Donald John Trump's former presidential foe, Hillary Clinton, in 1996, warning about superpredators:

Joe Biden never said superpredator. He said predator. Hillary Clinton was the one who said superpredator a few years after he did. Therefore, President Donald John Trump is factually incorrect to say Joe Biden said superpredator. With all of that said, and pardon me for using another phrase from Hillary Clinton (albeit decades later), what difference, at this point, does it make? Both of them used the same “dogwhistling” language, talking about young dudes in gangs who have no “conscience” and have only antisocial behaviour that need to be brought “to heel” by more having more cops on the streets. (We know from statistics that this disproportionately ended up affecting and describing black people, and was zealously enforced in some states, like California under top cop Kamala Harris.)

But I do think there is a difference between predator and superpredator, as I alluded to in my write-up of last week's presidential debate: You can observe the difference when comparing it to the difference between the Mario Bros. and the Super Mario Bros., which I'm about to do:

$310 in (total) Prizes for Mario Tennis Aces North American Open November 2020

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Achieving victory through tennis.

Today Nintendo and Battlefy announced the next and third edition of their Mario Tennis Aces tournament series: the Mario Tennis Aces North American Open November 2020, taking place on November 14. Register here.

I'm getting real sick of these Mario-infested logos.

The rules are the same as the September 2020 (the second one) and July 2020 (the first one): Competitors are put into a big single-elimination one-set-is-best-of-three-games, with each game being first-to-seven-points. Legal stages being all four Marina Stadiums, chosen at random. All characters allowed, with standard gameplay (with the metre mechanic) on.

What makes this tournament interesting, besides the inherent appeal of Mario Tennis Aces, is the prize structure:

2020 Presidential Debates: Trump vs. Biden, Night 2

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - If only this had happened weeks ago!

A quick review: Election Day in the United States is about 10 to 11 days away. The candidates are Republican and incumbent President Donald John Trump, Democrat (and former Vice President and Senator) Joe Biden, and Libertarian Jo Jorgensen. KoopaTV endorses President Donald John Trump, but it hardly matters because tens of millions of Americans have already voted, prior to our endorsement, due to a nationwide rapid expansion of mail-in/absentee voting. Likewise, that means last night's presidential debate can't change the minds of large swathes of the electorate, since they've already voted. That's a shame, because the first presidential debate—which still happened after “early voting” began—was a disaster and a waste of time. Then there was the vice-presidential debate, which Mike Pence clearly won, although voters aren't considering the vice presidents in their decision-making process as much as they should. (By the way, the Libertarian Party was rudely not invited to any of these.)

Then the President got the Chinese Communist Party Virus, which took what would've been the second debate out of circulation until he could recover. That left last night as the second and final debate, and here it is with a full embed. Quite frankly, I'd recommend watching the whole thing, since it was the best one all year and arguably since 2016. It was entertaining, substantive, and both candidates exhibited basic standards of civilised behaviour thanks to microphone muting abilities from moderator Kristen Welker of NBC:

The debate was divided into six uneven sections, so for the rest of this article I'm going to give my thoughts on each of those sections, along with some selective fact-checking and biting commentary.

Three reasons why Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light coming to Nintendo Switch isn't great...

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - And dispelling the one reason why people do think it's great.

Today, Nintendo of America had big news. In fact, it was big AND had a lot of suspense. So much mystery... they put question marks in their announcement trailer:

They had to make it a mystery, because otherwise no one would watch it if they really knew what was going on. Nintendo is bringing the original Famicom title of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light to the Nintendo Switch... in English! With all of the mystery, you'd think it'd be Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem, which Americans were just begging for a month ago because Japan got it as part of their Nintendo Switch Online subscription. By the way, that game is both a remake of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light AND a sequel.

A lot of very ignorant people think this is great news, but I'm going to explain why it's not with three reasons, plus addressing one reason why people think it's good news. Speaking as a Fire Emblem long-time fan.

Why Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light isn't a good game

Kirby Fighters 2 – Free Demo Available Now!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Oh, the full game came out a month ago.

Since I never wrote an article acknowledging the existence of Kirby Fighters 2, I've felt sort of bad. But a whole month has gone by. Fortunately, Nintendo is giving me a second chance, because today they released a demo of it. Here's a quick announcement video:

The demo locks you into using only four playable characters (Sword Kirby, Bomb Kirby, Staff Kirby, and stand-out factored Bandana Waddle Dee) but isn't shy about exposing you to the more full roster if you get the full game for $20. You can play the first chapter of the story mode (which is four fights plus a boss fight), and... you can play local multiplayer or online multiplayer (with randoms or friends in 2 vs. 2s), but not versus CPUs of your choice. Training mode is also available, but only with those four characters. Please consult training mode to learn each character's controls prior to playing multiplayer.

Additional fighters are locked behind higher Fighters Ranks (same with the real game)... but the demo keeps you at Fighters Rank 1.

The Wagadu Chronicles: Afrofantasy MMO on Kickstarter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I came for the cow-petting, but there's a very ambitious project here that deserves our attention.

There was a Kickstarter game project that opened a month ago (and has 9 to 10 days remaining... but is already fully funded): The Wagadu Chronicles, designed for PC and Mac. It's an ambitious game from founded-in-2019 German indie company Twin Drums, which describes itself as “borne out of the desire to place diversity, and especially blackness and queerness, at the center.” Those aren't words typically embraced on KoopaTV, and I personally tend to balk at the notion that diversity based on characteristics like race or sexuality inherently buffs group/company output.

The Wagadu Chronicles isn't just a normal Player vs. Environment (PvE) massively multiplayer online game—it's also a tabletop roleplaying game (or called pen and paper). (Compatible with Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition.) They say it's “built exclusively for roleplayers” and the first “online game 100% tailored to role-players, from lore to mechanics” in the Dungeons and Dragons sense, not a Western RPG or Japanese RPG videogame sense, even if they're inspired by Dungeons and Dragons. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, that's quite a feat.

Instead of different Tolkien-style races, there are different human lineages based on different African areas (Africa is a very, very diverse and large continent) that are documented in a massive lore book, and Twin Drums states there will be even more lore updates to come. The tabletop experience is “interlinked” and “feeds into and supports the video game” according to the developer. That actually, and ironically, runs into some identity issues.

Splatfest Repeat: Trick or Treat? Now During Halloween!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Candy, man. Plus, a rant on the trickery of Daylight Saving Time.

I am fairly well-known for despising Halloween. Do a search on KoopaTV about that and take your pick of anti-Halloween article. But you know what I do like? Candy. So between tricking and treating on Halloween, I prefer the treats. Why go around collecting candy from other people when you can just buy your own (of your own choice) and enjoy it, without the hassle of having to handle awful candy others give? That's the subject of the Splatfest rerun that will occur during Halloween this year:

The dialogue (and free gear via Switch News in Inkopolis Square, which does nothing if you already have it) is a replica of 2018's.

I already wrote extensively about Trick vs. Treat back when this Splatfest happened in 2018. My views have not changed—I still support Team Treat. Team Treat won back then, by the way. While Trick had greater popularity (56.85% of Splatoon 2 players were on Team Trick), Team Treat won the two wins-based categories, though Splatfest Battle Normal was very close (Team Treat scraped by with a 50.11%–49.89% victory in that category). Call it a sugar high or whatever you want, those who treat themselves do better than those who trick.