Nintendo just dropped one of the most impressive Nintendo Direct's today answering the question of what's coming next to the Switch. Animal Crossing, Luigi's Mansion 3, Yoshi's Crafted World, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles port, Final Fantasy XII remaster, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy IX, and X/X-2, Katamari Damacy Reroll, Civilization VI as well as New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe which is New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe making one of the stinger console lineups moving into 2019.

Nintendo also dropped more details on the first batch of games to come bundled with it's online service such as Baseball, Balloon Fight, Dr. Mario, Donkey Kong, Double Dragon, Excitebike, Ghosts 'N Goblins, Gradius, Ice Climber, Ice Hockey, The Legend of Zelda, Mario Bros., Pro Wrestling, River City Ransom, Soccer, Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Tecmo Bowl, Tennis & Yoshi's Cookie. Travis and Tim should be pretty stoked to be able to have Ice Climber so easily accessible anywhere they go, I know I will. Seriously though, it's a great list of games and looks to add some missing games from the NES Classic something that people can't seem to get enough of. Nintendo's Virtual Console might be dead but adding free games atop the online service is really awesome. I'm curious if these games will rotate out for new ones of if the library will just become massive over time making the Nintendo Online subscription even more compelling?

Infinity War was a huge event this year and many of it's iconic scenes will have a huge influence on action cinema for the next couple years. One such scene is the Avengers fighting Thanos and someone recreated those scenes in a 16-bit art style. Looking like it came right off the shelf at Toys R Us in the 90's this video first shows off the fight itself then side by side to what played in the Infinity War film.

Like many PC games, The Witness sits in my Steam backlog begging to be played. It's a beautiful exploration based puzzle game that was one of the top rated indie games of 2016. One downside to the documentary is that it contains a ton of game spoilers. That said, if spoilers don't matter to you or you've already played the game you really should watch this documentary. It's a great focus piece on the game and Jonathan Blow is a game designer I respect and is always fun to listen to.

In 2015 Viz Media reissued The Legend of Zelda Link To the Past comic series that originally ran in Nintendo Power starting in January 1992 for 12 issues. A couple years ago I found it at a store for $20 and picked it up because I remember reading a few episodes in Nintendo Power magazines and quite enjoyed the story and art. I've never read it start to finish and recently sat down and read through the whole thing.

Nintendo Power Magazines were aimed at kids and these comics are too. It's fun reading them now but I never noticed how strange Link acts. I always thought the comics were fun adventure stories but the story is played mostly straight and Link brings all of the comic relief. His facial expressions, way of speaking and how he approaches his quest are very quirky and in re-reading the comics it plays as fun but sometimes breaks the tone of the story.

Shotaro Ishinomori was the artist & writer on the Link to the Past comics and he tells a simple story that follows the game while doing something a bit different. Each beat that the story borrows from the game isn't quite the same and while many bosses are lifted the game whole cloth some, like a giant spider are entirely unique. Shotaro created the original character Roam for the comic that is another knight from Hyrule that competes with Link to kill Ganon. The Link and Roam story receives an interesting end I won't spoil but I felt it didn't quite add much to the story.

The Link to the Past reissue is a highlight from the SNES era but after reading it I didn't feel it quite hit the incredible heights of the Link to the Past game. That's a hard mark to hit for arguably on the best games of all time but if you are a huge Link to the Past fan this is something you should read. The art is incredible and if you are a collector of video game books this will be a fun addition to your collection.

Cygnus Destroyer takes Duke Nukem Forever to court and the results of the trial might shock you! Or it might turn out the way you'd expect from this notorious game in the Duke franchise. I always root for the underdog and Duke Nukem Forever is seen as a terrible game after it launched and it seems this video doesn't help it much. That said, if you want to know why this game is seen the way it is, Cygnus lays it out well and i've always wanted to play it as it's in my Steam back catalog but after watching this I'm having second thoughts.

"If you’re eager to get your hands on Mega Man 11, you won’t have to wait much longer; a downloadable demo is available starting today, September 6th, for Nintendo Switch! The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One demos will also be available starting tomorrow, September 7th. Explore Block Man’s stage with Rush by your side, and check out three different difficulties that are sure to appeal to everyone from 8-bit veterans to brand new players. Read on for more info about the Mega Man 11 Demo, including a special challenge for all demo players. Plus, catch up on the newest Robot Master for Mega Man 11: Bounce Man!"

This seemed like awesome news and to my Switch owning friends I'm curious what you think of it? How's the first level play? Is Mega Man 11 a game you're gonna pick up at launch now?

http://www.capcom-unity.com/capkel/blog/2018/09/06/bust-block-man-in-the-mega-man-11-demo

I've shared a few AwesomeFaceProd Zelda videos before and thought his latest was worth sharing too. He's continuing his console wars series where he focuses on the shifts in gaming and how Zelda fit in to it all. In this episode he wraps up the Nintendo and moves in the Super Nintendo era cataloging each Zelda game to come out for that system. It's a fun look at the system, Link to the Past and the Zelda title that only was released in Japan Zelda Ancient Stone Tablets.

If you didn't know, Nintendo is licensing some Wii games for release in China by Nvidia on it's Nvidia Shield system. Essentially these are emulation/rebuilds of the games running on modern hardware you can download to play on the Shield in China only. DigitalFoundry has been downloading these games and running them through the paces and it seems like Twilight Princess is a bit more than just a Wii port. It does show that these games run incredibly well on the Shield paving the way for a possible re-release on the Switch as both systems share very similar hardware.

I'd love to see a bunch of Wii games get ported to the Switch, what about you?

Game demos used to be a staple of gaming but in recent years are few and far between. Some live on mostly as console downloads and seem to have nearly evaporated on PC. Ben Paddon of PortsCenter takes a look at why and it seems to be because game demos ... don't really sell games. Still it's fun to look back at what game demos were and some good examples of modern titles that did well with releasing a demo.

I always get a sense of satisfaction when I beat a game for the first time and today was such a day in that I finished Candy Box. If you didn't know, we launched a Games BBS on Cheerful Ghost and Candy Box was one of the first wave of games to launch on it. It was one of the original games in the web clicker genre and it proved that you can do really creatively simple things in JavaScript. If you haven't played Candy Box I recommend trying it out, it really is just a couple clicks away => "Games / Candy Box."

That said, you start the game by collecting candy one piece at a time. The only controls you start with are the ability to eat the candy or throw it. If you amass enough candy other things happen and those things make the game something special. My on critique of Candy Box is that the ending isn't as good as the first half. It's such a well paced game in the early parts but to the end it's quite grindy and not as much fun. I sort of put in the time over a series of weeks to complete it because I really wanted to, not because it was a lot of fun.

I'm really happy the developer of Candy Box aniwey decided to release the game as Open Source. That makes it possible to include it to run on Cheerful Ghost and allows anyone the ability to read the code, learn from it and make a game just like it.

If you haven't tried it I seriously recommend it and Travis tells me that Candy Box 2 is WAY better and I can't wait to dig in and eat more candy.