Not much to say here, but this is awesome:

http://www.destructoid.com/this-super-mario-world-orchestral-arrangement-is-glorious-261567.phtml

Video Games Live is getting interest in their Kickstarter by sharing this truly amazing rendition of music from Super Mario World.

The question mark in the title isn't a typo. Gridiron Thunder has successfully completed its Kickstarter campaign with just over $170,000. And only 183 backers. That makes the average donation around $935.00, the highest average ever, and raises some serious questions about the campaign.

This was done by a few early donations of over $10,000, and it could all be legit and on the up-and-up, but this does come in the wake of another Ouya Kickstarter campaign, Elementary, My Dear Holmes, getting canceled due to donations from suspicious accounts.

The kicktraq is interesting. Just look at all those massive spikes:
http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/1997247042/gridiron-thunder-awesome-indie-football-game-for-o/#chart-daily

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I'm hoping there's nothing shady going on here, I'm not sure the Ouya's reputation could handle it.

UPDATED: The lead on Elementary, My Dear Holmes, has put out a statement about this whole situation. He himself reported his own project to Kickstarter due to the strange pledges he was receiving. He reported a lot of first-time contributors pledging a high dollar amount. The fact that he reported this himself says a lot for Victory Square Games, and I wish them good fortune with the game. He added that he has suspicions about what was going on, but didn't care to share them.

http://victorysquaregames.com/elementary-my-dear-holmes

Sony has announced that it's taking the Vita to your living room.

That tiny little device costs $99, connects to your TV, uses a Dualshock 3 or 4 controller, and plays Vita games on the big screen.

Full press release here: http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/release/pdf/130909c_e.pdf

Destructiod's coverage: http://www.destructoid.com/ps-vita-tv-announced-261515.phtml

More pics:
http://i.imgur.com/Ei75p8R.png
http://i.imgur.com/DUGVcHM.png

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In addition, a new slimmer model of the Vita is in the works, which is lighter, has better battery life, and comes in 6 colors.

http://www.destructoid.com/new-slim-ps-vita-model-pch-2000-announced-in-japan-261504.phtml.

We got a new shower curtain to replace the periodic table one that was getting a little nasty.

MINOR PORTAL 2 SPOILERS:

If you've played Portal 2, you may remember that Aperture got their start making shower curtains, and accidentally discovered the portal technology when trying to design a more efficient shower curtain.

This one, unfortunately, does not have portal technology.

By which I mean, yeah, he kinda is. Not that this is a bad thing!

Keiji Inafune is turning to Kickstarter to make, essentially, a Mega Man game that got cut while he was at Capcom, but now that he's no longer there he doesn't have access to the characters anymore. This is a game he's been wanting to make for a while now, and it's a game I want to play.

All the stuff you're used to from Mega Man games is present. You'll fight your way through bosses, and steal their powers to take on the other bosses. The screenshots and concept art look quite nice, and with Inafune at the helm, I'm not worried about quality.

Check out the Kickstarter here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mightyno9/mighty-no-9

I'd been considering Edge of Space for a while now, but this makes me want to check it out even more.

Premiering at PAX, some new content from Terraria will be hitting Edge of Space. The Skeletron boss, reimagined as Omegatron, will be coming in an update.

Those of you going to PAX (ahem, jdodson, scrypt), you have to play this and tell us how it looks!

It doesn't "officially" go live until tomorrow-- you can't find it by searching in the App Store on your iDevice right now, but you can download it now in iTunes and sync it up that way.

EDIT: No need to do this now, it's officially out!

Happy digging, fighting, and exploring!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/terraria/id640364616?mt=8

To their credit, at some point they saw how terrible this was and took it down, but nothing is ever lost on the internet. A mirror cropped up pretty quickly.

I don't like being negative, there's far too much of it out there, but I felt this deserved to be mentioned. Whoever is in charge of marketing at Ouya let this out.

I've been making it a point lately to play things I wouldn't otherwise play. You may have noticed my "Is it really that bad?" series, which is far from over, but in addition to playing games that were widely panned I wanted to push my boundaries and play genres I don't normally like (or at least, don't think I like).

For years I've just cast aside the military shooter genre. I've seen them covered to death all over the web, commercials, magazines, etc, but they never really interested me.

A week or so ago, I saw a deal for Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for $7, and I realized that I already had a free copy of Battlefield 3 from some Origin promotion months ago, so I paid that $7 and got both games downloading. I was going to see if I was right about this once and for all.

Going into things, I had some preconceived notions about the two series, and the genre in general. It seems every winter we get a new Call of Duty game, and everyone who doesn't play every single one (and some who do) make fun of the constant releases. The Battlefield series is much more varied. It has about as many titles, but nowhere near as many in the main series (three so far) and things like the Bad Company series change the gameplay significantly. Mostly, I just figured it was more of the same either way you went. Just bro-games that wouldn't appeal to me.

COD4 has an interesting premise, taking you through many different POV characters as you flesh out the story. The graphics for the time were amazing, and the voice work is good convincing, but not memorable. You can definitely "feel" the weight of the guns, and the mechanics are smooth and definitely praiseworthy, but sometimes they just aren't intuitive. Nothing major, but it's there. One thing I loved is that in your first real mission, you're going through a training course with cardboard cutouts and plywood walls, and based on your performance it recommends a difficulty level. I love in-canon explanations for menu options. I played some single-player until I felt I'd gotten way past the point of getting my bearings, and then popped into multiplayer for a bit where I was kindly handed my own ass, over and over. I switched servers and was doing much better for a while, then a couple more people joined and I was getting creamed again. It seemed impossible. I'm not sure what the servers are like these days, but I suspected some kind of botting/hacking was going on.

Battlefield 3 has a much more focused story, told through Sgt. Blackburn while he's getting interrogated. The gameplay is damn good here. It has a few years on COD4, so I realize it isn't exactly a fair comparison, but I was in love with the mechanics. The graphics are stellar, and the voice acting is memorably good. The sound design in general is worth mentioning. I was impressed with how well it affected the setting. The foley seemed realistic to me, but I've only shot a gun a handful of times, and never military-grade rifles. Again, I popped into multiplayer for a bit, and while I wasn't doing well, it at least seemed like what was happening to me was possible for a human to do.

So all told, I don't think I was fair with my preconceptions. In COD4, the elements were all there, but it just didn't grab me. Again, I'm judging a game that has had 5 games to improve since, so I'm perfectly willing to be convinced to try it if any of you have experience with them (I'm looking at you, scrypt). I don't like how Activision milks the series, but that's kinda what they do. The oversaturation of Guitar Hero kinda killed the whole genre.

Battlefield 3, on the other hand, actually pulled me in, for a lot of reasons. The story seemed far more compelling to me, the controls didn't seem to get in my way as much and seemed tighter overall, the pacing was perfect, and I actually feel compelled to keep playing. And EA seems to be a bit more reasonable with releases, not milking it for all it's worth. Battlefield 3 came out in 2011, and they've been supporting it well ever since. DICE, the development studio behind the series, is also responsible for Mirror's Edge (and the upcoming sequel, which I can't wait for), as well as the new Star Wars: Battlefront games coming our way soon. Having seen what they can do with assault rifles, I can't wait to see what they can do with blasters.

So yeah, if you've felt like I did, give it a shot. The Humble Origin Bundle is still going, and you can get BF3 along with a slew of other games for really cheap.

I never owned the original Duck Tales NES game, but I used to rent it pretty often. Most Fridays my mom and I would head to the local video store, where we would get a couple of movies and a game. Duck Tales became my fallback game. If I couldn't find something I was interested in, at least there was Duck Tales. It's not like that was a consolation prize, either. I was always excited to get it home and play it again.

So when I heard that Capcom was remastering this game, getting in the voice actors from the series, but keeping the core mechanics, I was thrilled.

The nine-year-old me loves this game. The nine-year-old me is wondering why I bothered going to work this week when I could have been playing more Duck Tales. Nostalgia just drips from Capcom's reimagining. It's all the fun I had as a kid, with a shiny coat of paint.

The thirty-one-year-old me notices things that aren't stellar. Sometimes there are weird control issues where your down-thrust attack will just stop mid-air, leaving you open to unexpected damage. This only happened to me a few times, but reading around it seems to be a common complaint.

Some of the controls don't hold up with an analog stick (and lets be honest, the d-pad on the 360 controller is even worse). This may explain a bit of what was going on with the down-thrust attack, and also leads to some really frustrating deaths later in the game when you have to hold left and jump to get to another chain, then hold up again to catch the next one.

The three hours it takes to beat the game leave a little to be desired, though to be fair there are many reasons to run through it multiple times, not least of all the pure fun.

The visual overhaul and the voice acting are astounding. It feels just like playing an episode of the show-- awesome, but with a downside. The humor they put into the script works for the audience of the original series, but kinda falls flat for a more adult audience. That said, it's incredibly true-to-form, and who's playing this game for plot, anyway?

The updated music is awesome but I do love the ability to swap between the new music and the classic chiptune music. It just feels more right with the old music. Again, nostalgia.

You have multiple difficulty modes, neither of which is a good fit for me. WayForward stretched the levels out a bit, which means dying can be quite demoralizing without checkpoints. The "Easy" difficulty level gives you checkpoints, infinite lives, and only takes off half a heart each hit, arguably making it too easy. That said, some of the difficult platforming sections were still just as difficult, and pulling off trick jumps to get treasure is just as satisfying.

There's lots to love here, with a few missteps. Thirty-one-year-old me wishes some things had been different, but nine-year-old doesn't care about any of that and just wants to play more. Listen to him.