Nintendo – Page 11 – Tired Old Hack

WWE games by the numbers: a stat nerd’s paradise

Published on December 1, 2015December 1, 2015 by Chris Scullion6 Comments

I love wrestling games. All of them. Even the shite ones.

Wrestle War on the Mega Drive? Love it. WCW Backstage Assault on the PlayStation? Love it. World Wrestling Championship on PS2? Okay, not that one.

Of course, given my lifetime passion for WWE, it’s the games based on that particular promotion that I love the most. There isn’t a WWE (formerly WWF) game that I haven’t played.

Recently, WWE 2K16 was released. It’s the 57th WWE video game released, and if that stat excites you a little then grab some tissues, because that’s the tip of the iceberg.

Yes friends, I’m about to take you on a tour of WWE game history using nothing but stats and numbers. It’s going to be the nerdiest thing to happen to wrestling games since someone created Dragon Ball and Avengers characters in WWE 2K15. Continue reading “WWE games by the numbers: a stat nerd’s paradise” →

Retro Vault – Rescue: The Embassy Mission

Published on September 20, 2015 by Chris Scullion2 Comments

Retro Vault is my video series looking at vintage games from back in the day – both popular ones and those forgotten over time.

The video can be found below, but if you’re more of a reader I’ve provided a modified version of the script after the jump so you can read my thoughts in written form instead.

Continue reading “Retro Vault – Rescue: The Embassy Mission” →

Lego Dimensions FAQ and complete character / level pack release date checklist

Published on September 16, 2015January 8, 2017 by Chris Scullion24 Comments

UPDATE: Since I posted this article I’ve written up a massive guide in which I review every Lego Dimensions year 1 character. That’ll be far more useful to you than this article (which is now out of date), so you can find it by clicking here.

Lego Dimensions is out on 29 September (or 27 September if you live in Americaland). I first reported on it, all full of wonder and excitement, back in April, and since then it’s become much clearer exactly what the game consists of and which separate figures are being released.

That said, Warner has been announcing each new figure and licence in such a bitty, piecemeal fashion that it’s been pretty hard to keep track of absolutely everything due for release.

That’s where yer old man Scullion comes in. Here’s a complete list of everything planned for release for Lego Dimensions to date: what you get in each pack, when it’s released and how much it costs. Continue reading “Lego Dimensions FAQ and complete character / level pack release date checklist” →

The week in games: Kojima’s birthday, Jimmy Kimmel

Published on August 30, 2015August 30, 2015 by Chris Scullion1 Comment

Agent 47, the second movie based on the Hitman series of games, was released last week and currently has a score of 28 on Metacritic. Nonsensical, ill-thought-out and potentially financially devastating for people involved in it, Metacritic is a review aggregator that launched in 1999. Continue reading “The week in games: Kojima’s birthday, Jimmy Kimmel” →

The week in games: Jamie Lee Curtis, Five Nights At Freddy’s 4

Published on July 26, 2015August 30, 2015 by Chris Scullion6 Comments

Jamie Lee Curtis surprised gamers by revealing she’d gone to the Evo 2015 fighting game tournament dressed up as Vega. It turns out she was there with the rest of her family as a graduation treat for her son, who’s a massive fighting game fan, but she had decided to wear the Vega costume for anonymity. Apparently, her son didn’t want anyone to find out his mum was in Christmas With The Kranks. Continue reading “The week in games: Jamie Lee Curtis, Five Nights At Freddy’s 4” →

Satoru Iwata (1959-2015)

Published on July 13, 2015July 13, 2015 by Chris Scullion11 Comments

As I write this it’s after 1am and news has just broken that Satoru Iwata has passed away, so please forgive me if this isn’t articulate or is a little more rambling than usual.

Satoru Iwata was a man who embodied everything Nintendo stood for. He was a man who put fun before finances, entertainment before enterprise, smiles before sales.

Before he became the first President of Nintendo who wasn’t part of the Yamauchi family, Iwata was a programmer. He was a developer first and a businessman second.

It was this inherent love for gaming, this passion that he took with him right to the tragically early end of his life, that made Iwata the perfect man to lead Nintendo.

It’s no secret that Nintendo’s finances haven’t been great of late. But it’s a testament to Iwata that despite this he continued to receive sterling approval ratings from the company’s many shareholders. Continue reading “Satoru Iwata (1959-2015)” →

Hands-on with Nintendo’s E3 2015 games

Published on July 1, 2015July 1, 2015 by Chris Scullion6 Comments

This was on the wall outside the event. Nice work

It’s fair to say that Nintendo’s offering this E3 didn’t exactly blow the world away.

Sony cleverly stole the show with three “ah but” games – Shenmue III (“ah but it’s crowd-funded”), the Final Fantasy VII remake (“ah but it isn’t exclusive”) and The Last Guardian (“ah but we’ve known about this for years”) – while Microsoft went down the “well, we’ve got loads of stuff actually coming out this year” route.

Nintendo, however, had what felt like one of its trademark ‘stop-gap E3s’, where it presented a bunch of seemingly less impressive games to tide fans over until next year’s big reveals of Zelda Wii U and the new NX console.

That said, some ‘gamers’ went a little overboard in terms of criticising Nintendo’s E3 wares. From some saying it was a disgrace to others outright petitioning to cancel the development of one announced game, I’m struggling to think of a time I’ve felt so ashamed to be associated with other so-called gamers.

I’ve been gaming long enough to remember when people were up in arms about Nintendo turning Metroid into a first-person shooter, or turning Zelda cel-shaded. Fast forward more than a decade and, surprise surprise, Metroid Prime and Zelda: The Wind Waker are heralded by Nintendo fans – many of whom whined at the time – as classics.

To be clear, my point is not that Metroid Prime Federation Force will be considered a classic a decade from now. All I’m saying is you should never judge a game until you actually get the chance to play it. Which is why I headed over to Nintendo’s top-secret post-E3 event in London yesterday to go hands-on with ten of the Wii U and 3DS games shown off in LA a couple of weeks ago.

Here are my full, honest impressions of everything I played, in the order I played them. Continue reading “Hands-on with Nintendo’s E3 2015 games” →

Yoshi’s Woolly World amiibo costume gallery

Published on June 24, 2015 by Chris Scullion6 Comments

Yoshi’s Woolly World is out in Europe on Friday (Americans will have to wait until October for it). Now the review embargo‘s passed I can tell you it’s one of the most beautiful, charming games you’ll play this generation.

One of my favourite features in in the game is the ability to unlock unique costumes (well, wool patterns) for Yoshi by scanning amiibo figures on the Wii U GamePad at any time.

When you scan one, Yoshi’s wool colour changes so he looks like the character you scanned. This costume is then unlocked for good and selectable at any point (meaning you can scan a friend’s amiibo, as with the Mario Kart 8 costumes).

As someone who’s a bit of an amiibo addict, I’ve scanned every single one released in Europe to date, except for the Inkling Boy and Inkling Girl from Splatoon. Turns out they all work, except for the Pokemon ones (which I’d imagine is down to The Pokemon Company not wanting its characters involved in that way). Continue reading “Yoshi’s Woolly World amiibo costume gallery” →

Nintendo E3 2015 Digital Event: exclusive script leak

Published on June 12, 2015June 12, 2015 by Chris Scullion6 Comments

And so we come to the end of my week of exclusive E3 script leaks.

On Monday I brought you Sony’s entire E3 conference, exactly as it will play out.

Then, on Wednesday, I did the same with Microsoft’s E3 conference. Neither should surprise you now.

Finally though, to show no company is safe from my investigatory skills, here’s the script for Nintendo’s E3 2015 Digital Event, which will stream next Tuesday. Enjoy. Continue reading “Nintendo E3 2015 Digital Event: exclusive script leak” →

My first Miyamoto interview from 2007

Published on April 23, 2015April 23, 2015 by Chris Scullion3 Comments

I’ve interviewed a number of game developers and other personalities over the years. Of them all, two stand out as personal favourites: Suda 51 and Shigeru Miyamoto.

I’ll cover my first Suda 51 interview in a later article, but for now let me focus on Miyamoto.

Me and Miyamoto — Plot twist: I was wearing trousers, he wasn’t

If you’ve got any sort of gaming knowledge, you know that Miyamoto is, quite simply, the man. If you don’t have any sort of gaming knowledge, I think you’ve ended up here by mistake, probably because you were searching for “Emma Watson upskirt” and Google brought you here because of this sentence. In which case stick around, you sick bastard, you might learn something.

Miyamoto is the single most influential video game creator and developer of all time. People will argue with this. Those people are wrong. Don’t fight them, pity them.

I’ve actually interviewed Miyamoto twice, and both were special for different reasons. The second time was in person, and led to the photo you see above, so naturally it was special for that reason alone: a one-on-one chat with the man whose work shaped my childhood and, ultimately, my career and life. Continue reading “My first Miyamoto interview from 2007” →