Episode 471: Nintendo’s Lawyers

July 13, 2017July 13, 2017| Jonah FalconJonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 10:15 pm
Categories:

Nintendo is the main focus of this week’s episode, but we can’t discuss the company too much or they’ll sic their lawyers on the podcast. Other than that, there’s plenty of safe things to discuss.

This week’s episode includes:

  • Evil Genius 2 in development at Rebellion
  • Nobody can find the source code for Icewind Dale II
  • Breath of the Wild players will learn more about Zelda in The Champions’ Ballad DLC
  • Where are all the Nintendo Switch game ports?

Also, learn about who won the contest, which was decided by the roll of a die.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

No New DS Redesign Until Sales FadeNo New DS Redesign Until Sales Fade

If you’re looking to see what the next greatest DS hand-held will look like, plan to wait until Nintendo starts to see declining sales trends for their current DS hardware. Sensible from Nintendo’s standpoint, but a major bummer for those hand-held gamers who want to see something new and cool out of the Nintendo camp.

While the DS sells great, many of us tech fans would love to see what a new generation of DS would look like. Perhaps something closer to the iPod touch in screen size and touch-abilities with real WiFi capabilities connecting to the Internet? Wouldn’t it be neat if they added GPS location and tilt abilities much akin to the iPhone or iPod Touch?

Personally, I envision a system where you are in total control of your character from leaning, to sliding, to moving your fingers around the screen and communicating over the Internet sharing high scores, drop-in drop-out multiplayer titles with complete voice communications.

Alas, Nintendo tends to gimp most of their hardware from hot innovation such as Internet communication, much like the Wii. While Nintendo has the next-generation capabilities now for Internet communication they’ve constantly opted to have a more useless version of connectivity to “protect the consumer.”

We need a DS store, much like the Xbox Live Marketplace for downloading DS casual games, considering DS game size is much smaller than a PC, PS3 or Xbox 360 title. We need a smaller form factor mimicking the iPod in thickness and durability with a larger screen or unfolding dual screen to double the size of an iPod style play area.

Hardware innovation seems to be more acceptable to Sony and their PSP product while Nintendo always opts for something more simple. Unfortunately, the PSP cannot compete against the DS which will leave them in the lead with very little desire to re-up their hardware with new capabilities and sexy new designs.

Oddly enough, the DS is the perfect device for the mass market which means they’re not going to be forced to innovate beyond its current capabilities for now. Apparently people don’t desire huge leaps in technology, screen size and speed, or we’d would probably see a decline or dis-interest in the DS hardware, thus forcing Nintendo to re-innovate and evolve.

The day will come, but probably not for a long time.

Read MoreRead More

Gaming Flashback: River Raid (Atari 2600)Gaming Flashback: River Raid (Atari 2600)

One of the first games I was introduced to on the 2600 was River Raid, back in 1982. I remember it vividly, as I was at my cousin David’s house, who was older than me, and he’d “baby sit” me so the adults could have some adult time hanging out in the dining room. We’d sit in the family room playing 2600, mainly River Raid.

This is an Activision game, and was later ported to Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit, C64, ColecoVision, IBM PCjr, Intellivision, ZX Spectrum, and MSX. The player controls an airplane in a top-down view over a river and gets points for shooting down enemy planes, helicopters, ships and balloons (for versions after the Atari 2600). By flying over fuel-stations, the plane’s tank can be refilled. The player can shift side to side and change the speed of the plane. Sections of the river are marked by bridges.

The game was highly acclaimed for its ability to stuff tons of map into small amounts of space. The map was huge and it fit on the disk because it’s randomly generated using a common starting seed, basically, imagine some of the Diablo dungeons…they’re randomly generated but the starting seed which starts the random process is also ‘random.’ (probably based on clock time which isn’t too uncommon). Atari, rather than try to make a random level each time used the level random generator to build a procedural based level rather than drawing it and saving it into the cart. GENIUS.

A more highly randomized number generation system was used for enemy AI to make the game less predictable.

Germany consider this game harmful to children, indexing it on their list of games “harmful for children” along with the game Speed Racer. It remained on their list until 2002 (since 1984) when developers petitioned it off the list before the PS2 launch of Activision Anthology (otherwise they’d not be able to put it in the game)

Some of the Germany reasons: Minors are intended to delve into the role of an uncompromising fighter and agent of annihilation (…). It provides children with a paramilitaristic education (…). With older minors, playing leads (…) to physical cramps, anger, aggressiveness, erratic thinking (…) and headaches (wikipedia)

All in all, a great game! To hear all the details on River Raid and our opinions, checkout TD Gaming Podcast Episode 78.

Read MoreRead More

Gaming Podcast: Monster MashGaming Podcast: Monster Mash

podcast-200x200This week we’re on vacation but Don is not, so he took the time to build out a cool mashup of some of the podcasts most memorable “moments.” Of course, most of them are the strangest bloopers and oddities that we had a couple lol’s re-listening to them. Consider this the greatest moments in the last sixty episodes wrapped up in a 4-minute time period. Holy crap.

Read MoreRead More