Most-Played Nintendo Games: 2011

One of the most awesome things about new Nintendo systems is the fact that it records how long you play every game on your system. With that in mind, every year we're going to give a rundown of our most-played games on the Wii and 3DS. Note: Some PAL games, such as Xenoblade Chronicles, will not appear in this list.
Wii:

MLB Power Pros 2008: 87:04
Super Mario Galaxy: 75:23
Super Smash Bros. Brawl: 64:08
Mario Kart Wii: 44:32
Wii Sports: 42:28
Beatles: Rock Band: 35:57
Rock Band 2: 30:01
Metroid Prime Trilogy: 27:47
Wii Fit Plus: 22:22
Little King's Story: 20:34

First of all, I'm super embarrassed that MLB Power Pros is up there as high as it is. I don't know what happened, I really don't. Also, if Xenoblade Chronicles would be counted in this number, it would probably be right above Wii Sports. My saved game is about 40 hours long, so there's that.

Downloadable Games:

Zelda: Ocarina of Time: 14:08
Secret of Mana: 12:12
Super Mario RPG: 11:55
Super Mario Bros. 3: 8:04
Super Mario World: 7:24
Cave Story: 6:40
Zelda: Link to the Past: 5:56
Dr. Mario Online RX: 5:37
Super Metroid: 5:30
Kirby's Adventure: 5:16

Super Nintendo games dominate this list. Also, for some reason Chrono Trigger doesn't tally up properly, but if it did, it would probably clock in right above Super Mario 3.

3DS:

Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D: 26:34
Super Mario 3D Land: 14:37
Ghost Recon Shadow Wars: 13:00
Mario Kart 7: 10:48
Professor Layton and the Last Specter: 10:45
Kirby Mass Attack: 10:12
Star Fox 64 3D: 5:06
Rayman 3D: 2:46
Super Street Fighter IV: 0:27

Some notes: I hate Street Fighter games. I hate hate hate them, but I got Street Fighter IV with the 3DS so I figured, "Why not try it? Maybe I haven't given them a fair shake." I still hate them. Can't put my finger on why, either.

Also, you may be asking, "Why only 9 games in this list? Well, that's all I've played on the 3DS this year. Next year should be a little nicer, I hope.

Downloadable Games:

Zelda: Link's Awakening DX: 8:13
AlphaBounce: 7:43
Donkey Kong: 5:17
Alleyway: 2:25
Super Mario Land: 2:03
Super Mario Land 2: 1:55
Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3: 1:48
3D Classics: Kirby's Adventure: 1:45
Dark Void Zero: 1:17
The Legend of Zelda: 1:08

You might be seeing AlphaBounce up there and wondering why I've played so long. I'll tell you why: There were no good games for a very long stretch and that's all I had to play. I'm not bitter, though. Not me.

Your Song For Today

William Shatner's rendition of "Common People." Enjoy.

Ranking Nintendo's Systems: Part 9

We continue our look at Nintendo's best and worst systems. Click to read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7 and part 8.

Super NES

History: The NES was a juggernaut, but toward the end of its lifespan it was vulnerable. New games were barely trickling out, and other hardware bypassed it. Sega's MegaDrive, or Genesis, marketed itself as the cooler alternative to Nintendo's fuddy-duddy NES, and they quickly started to take over in Europe.

What would Nintendo do? They couldn't stick with the NES forever, no matter how successful it was.

1991 saw the release of the Super Nintendo. Whereas the Sega Genesis could display 512 colors, the Super Nintendo could display 32,768. The Genesis had 136 KB of total memory, while the Super NES had 256 KB. The Genesis' audio had six channels, and the Super Nintendo had 8. This led to some of the richest sound and graphics of the generation.

Results: Nintendo won the battle once again, selling almost 50 million units compared to the MegaDrive/Genesis' 25 million.

That's not the only reason the Super NES was Nintendo's best system, though. In the past,
developers had used the NES as an experimental ground, learning what worked and what didn't in games. Now that they had several years of design under their belts and had made their mistakes, they were able to create masterpieces that still hold up remarkably well today.

With the Super NES, we were finally able to see what games could do, and it was glorious.

What Went Right: Nintendo was at the height of their powers during the Super NES years. They opened up with Super Mario World and never let up, with SimCity, F-Zero, Pilotwings, Zelda: A Link to the Past and Super Mario Kart coming one right after the other.

Third parties also made the Super Nintendo great. Street Fighter II, Super Castlevania IV, Contra 3, Secret of Mana and others launched almost immediately, with many, many more great games to follow. Even middling offerings showed promise, like The Lost Vikings and Joe & Mac.

Of special note were the offerings by Square. RPGs were popular in Japan, but were still very primitive during the NES years, with lackluster stories and little characterization. In essence, they were level-up simulators, with little depth. It wasn't until the Super Nintendo era that RPGs finally came in to their own, and Square was at the forefront of this new movement. Finally they could tell honest-to-goodness stories, and with the shackles off, games like Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger and others could spin amazing stories with deep characterization and amazing music that sticks in your head for years.

The graphics were also unparalled. When Donkey Kong Country was released, there was shock that such a detailed game was being released on a 16-bit system. It was that sort of thing that led Sega down the path of addons as they desperately tried to keep up with Nintendo, but they simply couldn't. The Super Nintendo, with transparent layers and seamless colors, just plain outclassed Sega's Genesis in every way.

The hardware was also solid. Super Nintendo consoles still work 20 years later, no matter what abuse they've dealt with. The gamepads hold up remarkably well, too, due to their ergonomic feel and having just enough buttons so as not to overwhelm new players.

We haven't even gotten to the murderer's row released by Nintendo in the system's waning days, with two excellent Donkey Kong Country games, a sequel/prequel to Super Mario World, Kirby Super Star, Super Mario RPG, and a raft of other games exploding onto the scene right before the system gave way to the Nintendo 64.

Plus, it had Super Metroid, only one of the best games of all time. Seriously, just about any game you're looking for was on the Super Nintendo.

What Went Wrong: There was no rating system in place during these years, which became a problem with the release of Mortal Kombat. Nintendo didn't want to release a violent game like Mortal Kombat with no rating or warning, since games were still primarily purchased by parents for children. To that end, all blood in the game was replaced with "sweat" and fatalities were removed. Sega came up with their own rating system, relieving them of responsibility. They released Mortal Kombat virtually intact with the inclusion of a "blood code" to unlock every fatality.

That sealed the deal for Nintendo's status as a "kiddie" company. As the advertising tagline went, Sega did what Nintendidn't, and that's an accusation that's dogged Nintendo for years. Even in 2010, it was major news when Nintendo released Zangeki no Reginleiv in Japan, since it was a game with honest-to-goodness blood.

Never mind that Nintendo had perfectly good reasons for not releasing Mortal Kombat intact, and when a rating system was adopted shortly thereafter, Nintendo indeed allowed Acclaim to release Mortal Kombat II whole. Nope, Nintendo is a kiddie company, and forever it shall stay in the eyes of many gamers.

The Super Nintendo's processor also wasn't quite as past as the Sega Genesis, clocking in at 3 Mhz instead of the Genesis' 7 Mhz. That affected sports games, primarily, meaning that faster sports games were on the Genesis. This hurt the SNES at the time, but in retrospect the only sports game anyone seems to remember is NHL '94, while the rest have become a blur.

Lessons Learned: Once again, Nintendo had it pounded into their head that their advantage lay not in the hardware they produced, but in the games they created. If they continued to release quality games at a good clip, no one could stop them.

However, they also got too big for their britches. As stated in the article about the Nintendo 64, instead of teaming up with Sony for the next step in gaming, they assumed they knew more than anyone else about consoles. They kept their heads firmly planted up their butts until it was almost too late.

Fortunately for all of us, Nintendo has realized their mistakes of the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube years, and the future appears bright. Here's to 100 more years, Nintendo.

Ranking Nintendo's Systems: Part 8

We continue our look at Nintendo's best and worst systems. Click to read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6 and part 7.


NES

History: Console gaming was on the ropes in 1985. The console crash of 1983 had almost taken out gaming as we know it. It was so bad that retailers didn't want to stock videogame systems anymore, lest they be stuck with inventory they couldn't move and couldn't send back due to the company folding.

Into this breach walked Nintendo. While we may look back at Nintendo's run of success in the last thirty years and view it as inevitable, it's hard to forget that there was no guarantee that they would be able to pull off a console. Nintendo had never made a home console, cutting its teeth on arcade machines and Game & Watch handhelds.

Would Nintendo be able to make a successful game console in a time when retailers didn't like them, consumers were sick of them, and the country was in a recession?

Results: The NES was an instant success, selling 60 million units. It revived the fortunes of the video game industry, released several classic video games, and became a staple of households all over.

They did this by basically tricking stores into selling it. Remember, after the crash of 1983, no one wanted to stock video game systems. Nintendo called their system the "Nintendo Entertainment System," downplaying its video game roots. The console was a "Control Deck," and the game pad was a "Control Pad." It shipped with a toy robot, so it would be confused for a toy.

The ploy worked as people bought the system for its toy roots, then realized that it was a pretty awesome video game system too. For many (including this writer) the NES was the first system they ever played.

What Went Right: Nintendo launched with one of the best launch games of all time in Super Mario Bros. Reading interviews about the making of Super Mario Bros., it's amazing to see how much thought was actually put in to things we take for granted. Nintendo knew they weren't just making an introduction to the NES, but also to video games as well.

Nintendo laid down the pattern for multiple franchises during this period with games like like The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Kid Icarus, Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Kirby's Adventure and Tetris. Once the NES became popular, other companies leaped into the fray and started pushing out games like Mega Man 1-5 (we won't talk about Mega Man 6), Metal Gear, Tecmo Bowl, Bases Loaded, Blades of Steel, Castlevania, Contra, Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior (released as Dragon Quest in Japan) and on and on.

Nintendo also pioneered the control pad. Most previous systems used wonky joysticks that could break, and some used weird remotes that needed plastic overlays over the keys. Nintendo laid down the template for the Control Pad that almost every single controller has followed.

While some houses might have had an Atari or a system like it, video game systems weren't a need until the NES. The NES made video games a part of the culture. It didn't take long until every video game system became a "Nintendo" to moms and clueless grandparents. The console industry revved up in 1985 and never looked back.

What Went Wrong: Look, let's be honest. We all love the NES. We do. We have fond memories of blowing on cartridges and renting games from the local video store, and the first time we played Super Mario Bros. We were entranced.

But it's time to face the facts: A lot of these games were only good because we didn't know any better.

We were mostly dumb kids who had never picked up a controller, so we would play literally any game just because it was a game. Kids are stupid like that, and game companies took advantage of that fact, pumping out poorly-made licensed games by the truckload.

Not only that, but a lot of the "great" games are horribly primitive by modern standards. Now, I know that's like judging cave paintings by the standards of the Renaissance, but we need to be honest here. For example, Final Fantasy is a boring grind-fest. It's monotonous battle after monotonous battle. Same with Dragon Quest. Metroid isn't very good. Ditto Kid Icarus. Metal Gear is laughably primitive ("I FEEL ASLEEP!").

There are several games that still hold up. Mario 3 works, as well as almost all of the Mega Man series. Tecmo Bowl holds up too. Of course, Super Mario Bros. is still one of the best gateway games of all time.

Still, if we're totally frank, we only liked the NES because it's inextricably linked to a time and place, memories of giant tube TVs, shag carpeting, sleepovers with your friends, poring over strategy guides, arguments on the playground about doing the hair-pull kick in Double Dragon, waiting for that issue of Nintendo Power to come in the mail, having your mom turn off the system so that you'll "go outside and get fresh air," and getting completely lost in a virtual world for the first time ever and realizing that you'd like to do this for the rest of your life.

Nintendo also had issues with the 72-pin connectors in the NES. How the cartridge system works is like this: A cartridge gets inserted into the connector. The pins on either side of the 72-pin connector separate slightly to allow the game in. When a game with a slightly larger size gets pushed in to the connector, that widens them ever so slightly, making it harder for them to snap back in place.

So which game had a slightly wider size? Only one of the most popular games for the system, Super Mario Bros. 2. That, in turn, led to the infamous "blinking NES syndrome," where your screen would blink blue and black instead of playing a game. And, no, no amount of blowing on the cartridge could help you.

Lessons Learned: First all, Nintendo found out that people would be playing their systems for a long, long time. To that end, future systems had to be durable, more durable than the NES. Every system that Nintendo released after the NES pretty much works as well today as it did when it launched. I've used a Super NES that I had to clean dried cat vomit off of, and it still powered up like a champ.

Most importantly, though, Nintendo's advantage during the NES years didn't come from superior hardware or sound. It came because Nintendo understood what people wanted to play. Their games were just plain better than everyone else's, and that's what made Nintendo into the juggernaut that they became.

They took that to heart. No matter how good your hardware is, it needs good games or else it won't sell. In the years since, Nintendo has hammered that home, which is what's made them the best and most consistent gaming company in the last 25 years.

GOG.com Replay: Arcanum: Of Magick and Steamworks Obscura

Each month, we'll review a game from GOG.com's copious collection of games and provide you with a rundown of how good it is. At the end, we'll tell you to "Buy It," "Ignore It," or "Think About It." This month's entry is Arcanum, developed by Troika and released by Sierra Entertainment.

What Is It?

Think of what would happen if the world of Lord of the Rings had an Industrial Revolution, and that's the setting of Arcanum in a nutshell. You're the sole survivor of a zeppelin crash, and an old man hands you a ring, asking you to bring it to "the boy." Thus begins a quest that will determine the fate of the land of Arcanum.

The Context:

Arcanum was one of the last great 2D isometric RPGs, coming after the Baldur's Gate and Fallout series, and it was made by some of the same people behind those classics: Troika Games, a group of ex-patriates from the famed Black Isle Studios.

Expectations were high, but by the time Arcanum was released in 2001, it already looked outdated. The graphics were worse than Baldur's Gate 2, released a few months prior. Game-stopping bugs were all over the place, demonstrating the (cough) attention to detail that Troika Games would demonstrate with further games. When Troika disbanded in 2005, the team (as well as their game-killing bugs) traveled to Obsidian Entertainment.

That's not to say it's a bad game, by any stretch of the imagination, just instantly dated. Most reviewers gave Arcanum a grade in the B-/C+ range, except for PC Gamer, which liked Arcanum so much that it called it its RPG of the year for 2001.

Other Games Released in 2001:

Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec
Max Payne
Grand Theft Auto III

What Holds Up:

Most RPGs will opt for bombastic themes that sound like an Rob Liefeld drawing looks. Arcanum took a different tack, using achingly beautiful music played by a string quartet. It was a brilliant choice that instantly separates Arcanum from other RPGs.

There's also a lot to do in the world. It's kind of like the Elder Scrolls games: If you stick to the main quest, you miss the coolest stuff. There are mysteries to unravel, cabins in the woods that harbor secrets, all sorts of cool stuff to find.

It’s also pretty cool deciding whether or not to make your character a magic user, a user of technology, or to straddle the line between the two. It’s a choice you don’t get to make in a lot of games.

What’s Doesn’t Hold Up:

Like we’ve said before, the graphics were bad even for 2001. It hasn’t gotten any better over the years. It’s like this: You can walk through the world endlessly, but a lot of it looks boring. It’s better to use an FAQ in order to find the cool stuff.

However, using an FAQ reveals Arcanum’s dirty secret: It’s horribly unbalanced. If you complete a few early quests, you’ll quickly find yourself outclassing every single enemy in the game, using the best equipment and having the strongest magic. I say “magic” because it doesn’t make any sense to use technology. The magic is so much stronger than the tech. It’s not even close.

And those bugs we talked about earlier? They almost kill the game. There’s a quest in one of the main cities where you kill rats in a building. As soon as combat begins, the game locks up endlessly. No one can make a move. You can’t drop out of the game. You have to end it manually by opening up Task Manager somehow.

In another case, I was dropped in to an arena and had to fight my out. Since my character was outrageously overpowered, I kept taking on bigger and bigger challenges. I had to save and quit for the day, so I saved and left the game. When I came back, the entire game had glitched. My save game was hopelessly ruined, and that was the last I could play of Arcanum unless I wanted to start from the beginning.

That doesn’t mean it’s hopeless. Modders have fixed most of the broken quests and have rebalanced Arcanum. In other words, vanilla Arcanum, while fun, is almost hopelessly flawed. Modded Arcanum, on the other hand, is definitely worth playing.

Final Verdict:

Vanilla Arcanum: Skip It
Modded Arcanum: Play It

The GBA Ambassador List Revealed?

We may have the full list of Ambassador Games! According this article from Kotaku, it appears that the GBA games are launching on December 16th, at least in Japan. Here's the possible (completely unconfirmed) list:


F-Zero Maximum Velocity
Super Mario Advance 3
The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Kirby and the Amazing Mirror
Mario Kart Advance
Mario vs. Donkey Kong
Metroid Fusion
Wario Land 4
Wario Ware, Inc. Mega Microgame$

First, let me say, I was wrong on my suggestions. I did say that Minish Cap would be there, so point for me. I was off on all my other calls, including Mario Advance 4 (super bummed about that), Golden Sun, Mario & Luigi, and WarioWare Twisted.

That being said, this isn't a bad group. A Fire Emblem game for free (albeit the inferior one of the two)? Score! Wario Land 4? Sweet! No Mario Pinball Land? Score!

In these ten games, there's over 100 hours of gameplay. No lie. And for free. I just hope that Nintendo has figured out an intelligent way for 3DS owners to download them instead of making us jump through hoops like last time.

Ranking Nintendo's Systems: Part 7

We continue our look at Nintendo's best and worst systems. Click to read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 and part 6.

Nintendo DS

History: All gamers wanted was a Game Boy Advance with better graphics.

That was the general consensus after the Nintendo DS was announced in 2004. Nintendo was shooting themselves in the foot bylaunching a system that wasn't as powerful as the upcoming Sony PSP. Besides, with two screens and a touchscreen, it looked absolutely ridiculous.

Nintendo even backed off carefully from the system, stating that it would be a "third pillar," not something that would entirely eclipse the Game Boy Advance. The internet responded with "Yeah, right," and continued deriding the DS for having a weird shape, for being underpowered, and for using a touchscreen, which no one ever asked for in the first place.

Results: The DS series was Nintendo's most successful system ever, pound for pound. From its launch in 2004, 149 million units have been sold. That's over 21 million units per year.

To put that in perspective, the Game Boy series, including the Advance, sold 199 million units from the launch of the original model in 1989 to the end of the Advance line in 2005, at a rate of 16 million units per year, give or take.

In fact, the touchscreen idea worked so well that it became the de facto standard for all handheld devices, including iOS and Android devices. Even the newest Sony portable will include one. Clearly, Nintendo knew what they were doing.

What Went Right: Nintendo knew there was a huge market out there for handheld gaming after seeing how quickly the market had grown since the launch of the Game Boy. The one market that hadn't been touched, though, were non-gamers.

It seemed silly. If someone doesn't like to play video games, why would you try and and sell them video games? However, Nintendo instead asked the question, "If someone doesn't like to play video games, why don't they?" After researching the question carefully, they released games like Brain Age, which went on to sell over 17 million units worldwide, and Nintendogs, which sold over 21 million copies worldwide.

Nintendo also laid down the template for how to make an engaging touchscreen game with Kirby: Canvas Curse, then launched Mario Kart DS and New Super Mario Bros. and made the DS a must-have.

Since the DS sold like crazy to non-gamers and gamers alike, other companies decided that it was now safe to create games for the system as well. That led to some of the best third-party support for a handheld ever. RPGs, a normally disregarded category among handhelds, called the DS their home. There were wildly ambitious RPGs, like the space opera Infinite Space. There were real-time strategy RPGs, like Knights in the Nightmare. There were puzzle RPGs, action RPGs, platformer RPGs, Rogue-like RPGs, any type of RPG you could ask for.

The DS ended up, all told, with one of the deepest libraries of any handheld gaming system, and frankly, one of the deepest libraries of any system ever. We're going to be seeing articles unpacking the many pleasures of the DS for years to come.

After a well-received redesign brought about the DS Lite, Nintendo made even more money. Battery life for the DS Lite was as good or better as the GBA. The screen was bigger and brighter. While Sony's supposedly superior PSP faltered and became a niche product, the DS continued to establish itself as the premier destination for all handheld gaming.

What Went Wrong: The original DS and the DS Lite were both painfully easy to pirate, and Nintendo had no way to stop it. They couldn't release a firmware update to combat the piracy, since the DS and Lite didn't have that capability. Developers put in code that would make pirated games lock up, but the pirates always found a way around it.

That almost killed the DS' library for a time. Developers got really concerned that their games weren't going to sell, and for good reason. That led some to take their talents to iOS and Android devices, others to create more complex lockout systems to try and disable pirated games.

Nintendo launched the DSi in an attempt to combat the growing problem of piracy and also to make an "App Store" of sorts for the DS. In both fields, they failed. The flashcarts continued being made, although this time for the DSi. DSiWare never took off due to a poorly organized online store and lackluster selections. (Who wants a Mario calculator? Anyone?)

Lessons Learned: Nintendo took to heart several of the criticisms of the DS. For one, they made piracy much more difficult with regular firmware updates that add substantial upgrades to the system.

For instance, one new update allows developers access to more system resources. Imagine if you've been building a flashcart for the old firmware. Now this new update comes along, which means that you may have to start all over from scratch in order to pirate any recent games. I'm sure that those who make flashcarts will find a way, but it's going to be a tough row to hoe.

Nintendo also learned from some of their mistakes with DSiWare. The new eShop for the 3DS is easier to use, allows people to rate games (along with showing how many ratings there are for any given game), has demos, decent games, and more.

However, Nintendo seemed to have forgotten a few lessons as well during the launch of the 3DS. It was priced too high. There were virtually no games to play. Still, in recent months they've recuperated and brought the 3DS closer to the principles laid down by the Game Boy Advance and DS.

Read This: African Americans and the Civil War

If the Civil War interests you, you should read this article by Ta-Nehisi Coates: Why do so few blacks study the Civil War? It's a really sobering article that reminds us why it was fought.

Amazing work, man.

Pujols to the Angels!

Wow! So the Cardinals have lost Albert Pujols to the Anaheim Angels!

So are they going to make an effort to sign Prince Fielder now? Who knows! I can't wait to see what happens!

I also can't stop using exclamation points!!!!!

Another Reminder Why Smartphones Aren't Going To Kill Other Handheld Gaming Devices

It's time for another segment in our ongoing series, "Why smartphone gaming isn't going to destroy standalone handheld gaming, part who-knows-what of infinity."

The story is that Rockstar Games decided to release Grand Theft Auto 3 for smartphones, including iOS and Android devices. However, ArsTechnica has a screenshot and a very good point:

Take a look at the screenshot included in this story. Just look at it. The virtual buttons added to touchscreen devices when traditional games are ported tend to be hard to use and easy to miss, and the mess that's on the screen in that shot makes it hard to get excited about this release. I know Apple isn't keen on releasing a physical controller for iOS devices, but c'mon guys, something has to be done.

I agree, the screenshot looks absolutely terrible. I can't imagine playing a game like this and having a good time.

So we have someone who makes this comment:

I would have to imagine this is unplayable using on screen controls. I can't play super mario brothers in an emulator using touch screen controls - this has to be ridiculous. And there are way to many overlays there, you are bound to screw up and hit the wrong one since the screens aren't very big (speaking from a phone perspective really).

Agreed. But then we have this opposing view:

The same argument is made every time a new console franchise is ported to smartphones. [...] The most telling aspects of media coverage such as this is that it it nearly always, if not always, conducted by non-iOS-focused tech sites. And the posters who chime in and agree are very often non-iOS or non-Android gamers.

He then proceeds to list a bunch of games that are great on iOS/Android.

OK, let's get this straight: No one is saying that touchscreen controls are bad. They work very well for a certain type of game. The games that the previous commenter mentions are games that transition very well to a click/drag interface.

However, most games simply do not. They don't. You can't bend them or stretch them to do so. In many ways, touchscreens simply cannot replicate the precision necessary for a fast platformer like, say, Super Mario 3D Land or a driving simulator like GTA, where one crash can mean death. It's not elitism or being a backward-looking fool. It's just a fact. Making this sort of straight port just hammers the point home. You simply can't take a game that uses a controller with four face buttons, four shoulder buttons, two control sticks and a D-pad and make that transition easily over to a touchscreen.

iOS/Android gaming is pretty cool, and it's amazing how quickly it's grown, but once again, standalone handheld gaming devices aren't going away for quite a while, and it's nice to have reminders every once in a while.

One Problem With Super Mario 3D Land

I'm pretty much done with Super Mario 3D Land. I have 297 Star Coins, I've gold-flagged most of the courses and have three stars by my save file. All in all, a pretty good effort.

So where does Super Mario 3D Land sit in comparison to other Mario games? Well, 3D Land is a combination of two things: Some of the best pure mechanics in a Mario game and some of the worst flow in a Mario game.

Each level by itself is a discrete accomplishment. Every level is incredibly fun, with depth and charm out the wazoo, along with great mechanics and tons of fun. The 3D effect makes it one of the best platformers ever from a pure gameplay standpoint.

However, the difference is that previous games had levels that felt like parts of a whole, as if all the levels in the game occupied the same universe. Even Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, with their wild, out-there locations felt like they all inhabited the same general areas, as if there was a common theme tying the levels together.

Super Mario 3D Land, by comparison, feels like a collection of levels with the only uniting factor being that they happen to be in 3D. It's almost like a Nintendo "best-of" compilation.

There's very little flow from level to level, especially in the Special Worlds. A snow world sits alongside one of Bowser's castles, alongside a desert level, alongside a level of blocks floating in midair. There's no feel that these levels are part of a larger world, since they really aren't. They're just levels without a theme.

I want to stress that this is not to be viewed as a harsh criticism by any means. Super Mario 3D Land is still one of the best handheld games ever made, perfect for playing in short bursts and yet deep enough to play for marathons. It's the best demonstration yet that the 3DS can provide something completely new and unique, and that gaming shouldn't be relegated to the 99-cent App Store bin.

Still, that lack of cohesiveness prevents Super Mario 3D Land from reaching some of the lofty heights of previous entries in the Mario universe, like Super Mario Galaxy. It's still pretty great, though.

Xenoblade Chronicles? USA Release?

Kotaku is reporting via NeoGAF that Nintendo might be releasing Xenoblade Chronicles stateside via a Gamestop exclusive!

It's about time. NoA updated their Facebook page with Xenoblade Chronicles screenshots too. Congrats, folks, especially you Project Rainfall guys. Take it all in.

Removing Joomla Footer Links

Informational article! Anyone who doesn't care about Joomla! should look away now.

I've been having an issue doing a Joomla! install. I found a very nice free template, but with one major problem. Buried in the bottom of the code was this chestnut, with the offending parties URLs replaced with 'zzzz'.

zzzz by Party Poker bonus

Now, I have no problem providing attribution to people for a job well done, but I absolutely refuse to serve as someone's SEO crutch. After removing the URLs, my site was replaced by this message:

"This free theme is released under creative commons license,therefore all links in the footer must remain intact. You have downloaded this theme for free and all we ask is one link back."

What to do? Personally, I feel that someone has lost their moral high ground when they're trying to con someone else in to advertising for their poker sites. I would love to provide attribution and credit where it's due, but I'm not going to provide you a link back to your crappy offshore gambling ring.

After experimentation, here's what I found as an answer. I'm sharing this to help people remove hazardous or harmful links that could hurt your site. Don't use it to strip attribution for someone's good work.

First, look in your root folder of the Joomla! template. I found a file called 'functions.php.' At the bottom of this file, I found a pile of gibberish that looked like this:

eval(str_rot13('shap
<<--snip-->>
onpx.\';qvr;}}purpx_sbbgre();'));function artxReplaceButtons($content)
    {
        $re = artxReplaceButtonsRegex();
    }

This is the garbled and encrypted text that's used as a check against the text and URL. You can tell it's evaluating ('eval') against the string ('str') that it goes ahead and defines with some encryption.

I removed those lines of code, saved my file and re-uploaded the template. Afterwards I was able to change whatever I needed to change without getting that popup.

I know there's a paucity of information online on how to fix this, so that might give you a push in the right direction. Please use it for good and not for evil.

Edit: Glad this has helped out so many people! I'm happy to be of service!

Criminally Overlooked Games: No One Lives Forever

Here's the real travesty in gaming right now: Companies are raking in money on Call of Duty derivatives, and first-person shooters are blowing up. Yet, with all that cash, no one attempts to do anything different.

In the late 90's/early 00's, the template for first-person shooters wasn't quite as well-defined as it is now, which led to some really cool experimentation. For example, in 1999, The Wheel Of Time was a first-person shooter with a female protagonist based off of a series of Robert Jordan books that used magic as ammo. Good luck sneaking that past Bobby Kotick now.

Part of this was because companies were afraid to make shooters after 1998's Half-Life out of fear that they would suffer in comparison. Everything about Half-Life was just plain better than any other FPS in existence up until that point: The AI, the graphics, the gameplay, the setpieces, everything. If you wanted to compete against Half-Life, you had to do your best not to draw direct comparisons to it.

This brings us to Monolith. Monolith made its name with games like Blood and Shogo: Mobile Armor Division. They had demonstrated a propensity for trying new things in shooters, but most of what they made up until 2001 had more potential than results.

Enter No One Lives Forever. Released in 2001, it was a shooter with a female protagonist set during the swinging go-go 60's that included stealth elements and a healthy dose of humor, along with a weak multiplayer element. In other words, it was everything that modern audiences don't want in a shooter, but it was still awesome nonetheless.

You play as Cate Archer, an agent of UNITY. She's the last spy standing after several colleagues turn up dead by the hands of a mysterious assassin with a glorious moustache. The assassin, Dmitri Volkov, is working for HARM. Who is behind HARM's nefarious plan? Will you need to leap out of an airplane and steal someone's parachute on the way down to find out? Will it require you to electrocute a large opera singer in full valkyrie regalia? Will you have to disable a rocket while the engineers bicker over the loudspeaker?

No One Lives Forever plays extremely well, with the controls being tight and entertaining. The AI is surprisingly good for a game in 2001, with enemies tipping over tables to create cover and doing their best not to charge your position randomly.

Here's something else that blew my mind back in the day: In the years before ragdoll physics, if an enemy died on an incline, their body laid flat on the incline/staircase, jutting out as if rigor mortis took hold suddenly. Sometimes their body parts would be stuck in the incline, too. It looked stupid, but it was surprisingly common.

No One Lives Forever solved this by determining whether or not the enemy died on top of an incline. If they did, the enemy would fall forward and roll down the stairs. Yes, it was a scripted enemy animation, but it went a long way to making the game seem more realistic.

Dynamic music was also pretty new to shooters. Since No One Lives Forever was a stealth/shooter hybrid, having either a constant stream of bombastic fighting music or constant stealth music wouldn't have worked. No One Lives Forever wasn't the first to change musical themes depending on what was happening in-game, but it certainly did a great job at it.

However, what really separates No One Lives Forever from other games is the humor. A few early stabs are a little lame, but when it gets rolling, it gets rolling.

Examples: If you shoot a monkey near the beginning of the game, your game ends with an explanation of "Unacceptable Simian Casualties!" During one area where you end up in a sewer, you'll see a sign bolted to the wall that says "Mandatory FPS Sewer." When you're given a knockout gas weapon, you're instructed to use it on a scientist who's been working too hard and refuses to go to sleep. You come across a man whispering sweet nothings to a goat. You run into a large, drunk man nursing a martini repeatedly throughout the course of the entire game, even on the moon.

That's the kind of game this is: It just plain doesn't care. Its only objective is to entertain you. That's it. If that means you're going to be treated to a sequence where you have to use really bad pick-up lines as codewords with fellow spies, so be it.

That's missing in modern shooters: A sense of fun. Underneath all the grit and grime of today's brown-colored shooters, there's no real sense of joy. I suppose people don't want that in a shooter anymore, but there's room for it, if it's done right.

Of course, all the humor in the world doesn't help if your game isn't very good. Fortunately, No One Lives Forever is incredibly fun to play, made some major leaps forward for shooters in general, has some extremely memorable sequences, tells a good story. It struggled at retail and is largely forgotten today, but it doesn't deserve to be. If you can find a copy, go ahead and play it. You'll see why No One Lives Forever is Criminally Overlooked.