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Arcade classic 'Donkey Kong' comes to the Nintendo Switch
Donkey Kong, the arcade trailblazer responsible for helping to catapult Nintendo into the spotlight, has been re-released on the Nintendo Switch. That's not all -- it will soon be accompanied by the lesser known Sky Skipper.
Donkey Kong DLC for ‘Mario + Rabbids’ arrives June 26th
Truly, we are living in the Golden Age of crossover content. At its E3 press conference on Monday, Ubisoft revealed more details about its upcoming Donkey Kong expansion for "Mario + Rabbids" which is slated for release on the Nintendo Switch later this month, June 26th specifically. The DLC is expected to include four new levels totaling an added 10 hours of gameplay.
What we're playing: 'Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze'
This month, Reviews Editor Jamie Rigg discovers one of Nintendo's many slept-on classics. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze came out back in 2014, but because the Wii U wasn't the most popular console around, it didn't exactly sell like hotcakes. Four years on, Nintendo has a hit console on its hands and is rereleasing Tropical Freeze for the Switch.
Billy 'King of Kong' Mitchell's 'Donkey Kong' scores were a lie
It's over. Billy Mitchell (above, left), the "King of Kong," has had his long-contested Donkey Kong high scores stripped from the Twin Galaxies leaderboards and the organization has notified Guinness World Records of its decision. More than that, all of his records have been removed from the forums and he's banned from TG's competitive leaderboards wholesale. TG ran an independent investigation, in addition to having "at least" two third-parties perform their own, with other experts weighing in on the dispute as well.
Video game records are broken. Can anyone fix them?
After a period of relative quiet, Twin Galaxies recently found itself thrust into the spotlight. The arbiter for video-game recordkeeping played an intrinsic role in disputing two long-standing achievements hosted on its forums: Todd Rogers' unbeatable Dragster time and Billy Mitchell's Donkey Kong high score. Both records have had their share of challenges over the decades, but before users on the TG forums raised their concerns the other week, nothing was done to officially dispute them. In 1982, Rogers sent Dragster developer Activision a letter saying he'd finished a race in 5.51-seconds -- without proof -- and in return, he received a certificate saying he held the record. For many, Mitchell is the "King of Kong" thanks to his appearance in a documentary by the same name. He has recorded higher scores since, but allegedly, Mitchell's 2010 best wasn't recorded on an actual Donkey Kong cabinet, but in MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator). (We reached out to Mitchell and Rogers for comment, but they haven't responded.) According to Jace Hall, TG's head custodian of records, it was only a matter of time before these disputes happened.
The ‘King of Kong’ could be stripped of his high score
Just days after video game high score champ Todd Rogers was stripped of his Dragster title for mathematically impossible times, the man who was the Donkey Kong king for almost 20 years has also come under scrutiny. Billy Mitchell's 2010 high score for Donkey Kong has been called into question on a Twin Galaxies dispute forum by Jeremy Young, the moderator of Donkey Kong Forum (DKF). Young has presented a wealth of evidence to show that Mitchell's performance was likely faked, and has thus removed the high score from DKF's leaderboard.
SNES Classic Edition review: Worth it for the games alone
The success of last year's NES Classic Edition clearly took Nintendo by surprise. The company was completely incapable of meeting demand, leaving many people unable to buy what became the must-have gift of the holiday season. Now Nintendo has given its SNES the Classic Edition treatment and promises it's going to build way more than it did last year. Having grown up with the SNES (OK, we had a Sega Genesis and my best friend had SNES), it's easy to assume that everyone knows what it is and why people are so excited that it's back. After dominating the 8-bit era with the NES, Nintendo came late to the party with its sequel. The SNES launched in '90 in Japan, '91 in the US and '92 in the UK. The Genesis had a two-year head start in almost every country, but Nintendo's second-generation home console was worth the wait. The SNES arrived with Super Mario World and F-Zero, among other titles. The former is regarded as one of the greatest games of all time while the latter had faux-3D graphics with fluidity and speed unseen on a console before. For the next five years or so, some special games graced the system: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario Kart, Metroid, Final Fantasy III, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Star Fox. I could go on, but essentially, short of Sonic and a few other Sega exclusives, Nintendo destroyed the competition in terms of quality, with dozens of games that have stood the test of time. That puts the SNES Classic in different territory than its predecessor, which, nostalgia aside, featured many games that, for obvious reasons, aren't up to modern standards. While I utterly adore Metroid, trying to introduce someone to the original today is tough. But nearly all the games Nintendo has included in its latest console are as enjoyable today as they were when they were first released.
Turn your smartphone into a Game Boy with Hyperkin’s Smartboy
The first of April has long been a day for practical jokes and silly pranks -- and there's no escape from April fools on the internet. Companies like ThinkGeek regularly announce fake products on April 1st, only to have customer demand push those jokes into production. It didn't take long for companies to start using the prankster's holiday as a soft test bed for silly ideas. That's how Hyperkin announced the SmartBoy -- a gamepad case that lets your smartphone play real Nintendo Game Boy cartridges. Two years later and Hyperkin's ridiculous April Fool's gag is actually a real product -- and, believe it or not, it's actually pretty cool.
The Video Game Hall of Fame basically inducted your childhood this year
The National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York announced the four titles it's inducting into the World Video Game Hall of Fame this year, and they're all pinnacles in the industry: Donkey Kong, Halo: Combat Evolved, Pokémon Red and Blue and Street Fighter II. But if you think they were all shoe-ins compared to the competition, prepare to get your nerd hackles raised. The games that didn't make the cut this year include Final Fantasy VII, Myst, Portal, Resident Evil and Microsoft Windows Solitaire.
'Donkey Kong 64' player finds rare collectible 17 years later
The 3D platformer Donkey Kong 64 was lauded for its expansive worlds and multitude of well-hidden collectibles when it launched on the Nintendo 64 in 1999. Like many games of the era, it has enjoyed a peculiar afterlife as speedrunners blitz through it in record time under various conditions, like picking up each of the 976 banana coins found within. Unfortunately, all those completionist runs now seem to be invalid: 17 years after the game came out, streamer Isotarge has found a 977th coin.
Miyamoto came up with 'Donkey Kong' ideas in the bathtub
In an interview posted on Nintendo's Japanese website, Shigeru Miyamoto reminisced about the time he spent developing the classic arcade title Donkey Kong. According to Wired writer Chris Kohler, who translated the whole thing, Miyamoto dropped some previously unknown tidbits about the game in the interview. And yes, that includes the part about conjuring up ideas and getting them in order while in the company-owned housing's communal bath.
Introducing the world's smallest way to play 'Donkey Kong'
Once upon a time, video games like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong were the absolute height of entertainment technology, imperfect pixels packed into six-foot-tall cabinets in arcades and pizza shops around the world. Now, those same games run on a machine that fits inside a teacup. Adafruit tinkerer Phillip Burgess created the world's smallest Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator cabinet using a Raspberry Pi Zero computer, 0.96 inch RGB OLED displays and an audio amplifier. It's fully playable and totally adorable.
Nintendo's NES retrospective book looks like a game cartridge
Nintendo's NES Classic Edition isn't the only nostalgia bomb the company is dropping this fall. Nope, Playing With Power: Nintendo NES Classics from strategy-guide publisher Prima Games is en route for this November as well. The hardcover boasts 320 pages of interviews from the NES era, bits of old-school advertising and "priceless excerpts from Nintendo Power magazine back issues." Oh hey, hand-drawn maps and character art are on tap as well. Here's to hoping some of those are from Howard and Nester artist Bill Mudron.
Nintendo's new NES commercial will toy with your nostalgia
Between the incredible popularity of Pokémon Go, game-themed sneakers and the NES Classic Mini console, Nintendo's nostalgia bombs show no signs of stopping. The gaming juggernaut is fueling that fire with a decidedly retro-style trailer for the new-old system, replete with the familiar "now you're playing with power" tagline from the '80s. It's a fun look at the analog past in our digital future. But upon closer inspection a few things pop out. For starters, folks who've played anything reissued via Virtual Console on Wii U or otherwise can attest that the games look dingy and dull.
'Super Smash Bros.' gets tournament modes and YouTube replays
Nintendo isn't done with the 3DS and Wii U versions of Super Smash Bros. just yet. The company has released an update today which adds tournament modes and the ability to post video replays to YouTube. Both features were teased just before E3, but we weren't expecting a slew of new character outfits and stages to go along with them. Nintendo is offering the Hyrule Castle and Peach's Castle arenas from the original Super Smash Bros. on N64, priced at $1.99 per platform or $2.99 across both. They're joined by a deluge of Mii fighter costumes, including King K. Rool from Donkey Kong, Chrom from Fire Emblem: Awakening and Lloyd Irving from Tales of Symphonia. All eight are available for $0.75 or $1.15 across both 3DS and Wii U. Alternatively, you can get everything as a bundle for $9.98 or $15.18 on both Nintendo systems. One last thing: there's a K.K. Slider Mii Fighter costume from Animal Crossing too. It's free to download and looks darn cute.
'Pixels' is somehow even worse than I thought it could be
When the first trailer for Pixels hit I was worried that the movie was going to be a "steaming pile of cinematic garbage." Now that I've actually seen the Adam Sandler and Kevin James vehicle, I can say that was still far too generous a prediction; it's actually much, much worse. Pixels' real villains aren't the admittedly gorgeous renderings of giant-sized Pac-Man and Donkey Kong hell-bent on destroying Earth -- they're the toxic tropes that Hollywood keeps perpetuating.
'Pixels' looks like another horrible video game movie
Pixels is a live-action movie about an alien-controlled cadre of classic video game characters wreaking havoc upon humanity by turning everything they touch into, well, pixels. It's based on the charming 2010 short by the same name that Sony thought would make a great feature-length movie starring Happy Gilmore (Adam Sandler) and Paul Blart (Kevin James). A mulleted Peter Dinklage is along for the ride too, in what looks like a less challenging role than his voice work in Destiny was. His character bears more than a passing resemblance to Dog the Bounty Hunter, because sure why not? At one point, Pac-Man's creator Toru Iwatani (played by Denis Akiyama) gets his hand chomped off by the big yellow guy himself. And just when I thought it couldn't get any more stupid, out came trite "homages" to iconic scenes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Independence Day. All this to say: The movie looks absolutely abhorrent.
Donkey Kong hack gives Pauline the central role, 32 years later (video)
Mario's quest to rescue Pauline in Donkey Kong is one of the most famous in video gaming -- and also a prominent reminder that women in games are often reduced to level objectives. Mike Mika's 3-year-old daughter wasn't happy with this lopsided state of affairs, which led Mike to redress the balance through a customized NES edition of the game. His version swaps the roles completely, giving Pauline full freedom of movement while Mario waits for her to come to his rescue. The tweak is a simple one, but it mends what many would say is a decades-old imbalance while giving Mike more than a few brownie points as a dad. Can we see an official port, please?
Mechanical Donkey Kong game tests your barrel-jumping skills, patience
We've seen quite a few NES mods in our day, but we can't say we've ever seen one hooked up to anything quite like this. Built by DIY-er Martin Raynsford, this contraption / work-of-art makes use of an Arduino (naturally) to relay signals from the NES controller to the Donkey Kong screen brought to life above, which was constructed with near pixel-perfect accuracy out of laser-cut parts. As Raynsford points out, though, things are still a bit limited in the game's V1 state. There isn't much of an actual "game," for starters -- just Mario stuck in the middle with a never-ending loop of barrels / ball bearings that you can jump over. A second version is planned with a greater degree of control, but we're guessing the video for it won't be quite as hypnotic as the one after the break.
Nintendo DSi XL bundles land on November 6th, just in time for the holidays
Looking to spring for a new handheld gaming system this Christmas? The Big N is doing its darndest to nudge you in that direction with a new spin on the Metallic Rose and Midnight Blue versions of the DSi XL. Both painted handhelds will be available in bundles alongside Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem!. These will set you back $170 a pop for each package deal, and you've got about a week to search the couch cushions for spare coin. You know, just in case the Mini-land ruckus can't wait for Santa's delivery.
