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The Switch Gets Native Video Recording

In the latest update for the Switch Nintendo added the ability to natively record in game 30 second video clips. This is a nice feature to share brief moments of games you play with friends but doesn't seem like a full solution for people that do game streaming. Still, I bet this will cover most peoples usecases for sharing fun moments with friends on Twitter or Facebook!

"Nintendo Switch system version 4.0.0 or later allows you to capture and share up to 30 seconds of gameplay on select games to your Facebook page and Twitter feed with the push of a button!"

https://www.nintendo.com/switch/system-update/

Next Up On The Nintendo Classic: Castlevania!

jdodson gives this an astounding "Must Play" on the Ghost Scale

This achieves something special, and it would be a shame to miss it.

jdodson gives this a "Must Play" on the Ghost Scale

This achieves something special, and it would be a shame to miss it.

After recently completing Metroid and Mega Man 2 I decided to start playing Castlevania. One big motivation for picking up the Nintendo Classic was to finally add a bunch of games to my collection to play and Castlevania was one of those games. Castlevania has been a game on my bucket list and it's good to finally get around to playing it.

"Nintendo hard" came to mind immediately as I started playing Castlevania. The first few levels aren't too difficult but once you move on the difficulty ramps up and it doesn't seem to stop. Like with Mega Man 2 or Metroid if you spend some time to learn the game, you can get better a bit at a time. If you look at how long these... Read All After recently completing Metroid and Mega Man 2 I decided to start playing Castlevania. One big motivation for picking up the Nintendo Classic was to finally add a bunch of games to my collection to play and Castlevania was one of those games. Castlevania has been a game on my bucket list and it's good to finally get around to playing it.

"Nintendo hard" came to mind immediately as I started playing Castlevania. The first few levels aren't too difficult but once you move on the difficulty ramps up and it doesn't seem to stop. Like with Mega Man 2 or Metroid if you spend some time to learn the game, you can get better a bit at a time. If you look at how long these original Nintendo games are from start to finish(if you were practiced at them) they only contain a handful of hours of gameplay and because of this developers made them hard. So the average time that players beat Castlevania might be 3 hours but if you add up the amount of times you have to play the game to do that, it could take you upwards of 20 or more. So if you're not into playing the same levels over and over again then these old games might not seem like very much fun.

If I had one complaint of Castlevania it's that the platforming is often strange or a bit too unforgiving. For instance if you jump on a moving platform and you don't jump dead in the middle sometimes you can fall through it. This means that I am really careful jumping on moving platforms but it's something the original Super Mario Brothers could do well so i'm wondering what happened here? There are other instances that are just as odd but I have a few gameplay workarounds that seem to be fine they just took some figuring out.

One really nice feature of Castlevania is that the game doesn't penalize death as much as it could. Firstly you get unlimited continues which helps because Castlevania has no saved game feature and you die a lot. Castlevania is also fairly liberal with your whip upgrades often giving you them all in the very early parts of each stage making you get the most powerful main weapon rather quickly after you die. This is a huge improvement over other games like Altered Beast or Gradius that punish you way more for dying. One other fun aspect of Castlevania is the secondary items. Each one is pretty unique and useful in most situations. It's fun to consider how Castlevania influenced modern games such as Shovel Knight as many of the Castlevania items have direct Shovel Knight equals.

All that said, Castlevania is an incredible platformer and it's no wonder this kind of game spawned the incredibly popular Metroidvania genre. Even though Castlevania is difficult it never feels too punishing just that I have yet to figure something out or time a jump or attack properly. I'm looking forward to continuing my playthrough and I can't wait to take a crack at killing Dracula when his times comes!

Games Are Still Being Made On The Original NES? Metal Jesus & John Riggs Talk About New NES Homebrew Carts.

Metal Jesus and John Riggs cover a ton of NES Homebrew carts in this pretty great video. As I enjoy dark humor I thought Super Russian Roulette looked fun.

Not covered in this video are other NES Cart repros and i'm really been wanting to pickup Wisdom Tree's new NES cart pressing of all thier original NES games such as Sunday Funday, Exodus, Joshua, King of Kings, Bible Buffet and Spiritual Warfare. As a kid my parents bought me these bible games and even though i'm not religious now I look at all Wisdom Tree games with affection. I mean, some of them aren't great but I stand by Spiritual Warfare as the best NES Zelda clone ever made on the actual NES.

... Read All

Watch The Whole 2017 Nintendo World Championship Now!

Clocking in at a little under 5 hours, the Nintendo World Championship stream is a marathon session that the hardcore Nintendo lovers should watch. Featuring matches of Metroid: Samus Returns, Balloon Fight, Mario Kart 7, Donkey Kong Country Returns and Splatoon this Championship is a good mix of current Nintendo titles. It's a fun stream and the announcers do a good job of keeping things interesting.

Humble Bundle Was Acquired By IGN

"Announcing our biggest bundle ever: Humble Bundle is proudly joining the IGN family! We will continue to bring you all of our humble products, but with more resources and help from IGN.

We chose IGN because they really understand our vision, share our passion for games, and believe in our mission to promote awesome digital content while helping charity. I can’t think of a better partner than IGN to help Humble Bundle continue our quest.

We will be working harder than ever to bring you the best gaming bundles, book bundles, and store sales, while nurturing the Humble Monthly and our new publishing initiative. We will keep our own office, culture, and amazing team with... Read All

Travis Admin wrote on 10/14/2017 at 04:52am

This is... hmm...

I'm cautiously optimistic here. IF IGN stays hands-off with them and lets them keep doing their thing, then it's a win for everyone. If not... eeehhhhhhh...

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/16/2017 at 03:50am

I've been thinking more about this and I think IGN is buying The Humble Bundle for a play at the digital store games selling market.

My thought is that since The Humble Bundle has so many gamer accounts and "mindshare" and they have the Humble Store + Humble Monthly that IGN will double down on the digital store aspect and eventually they will rebrand the property as "Humble" or "The Humble Store" or something like that. They will keep the Humble Bundle but eventually the focus will be on the store part and the monthly games service that might eventually operate a bit more like Netflix. Not that you'd stop getting game keys, but they are already putting certain games in the monthly you will always get access to regardless of the month you start your subscription.

I sort of see this acquisition in the same way "Good old Games" eventually rebranded to GOG.com that is now a DRM free game store. Eventually Humble will release a service client that works outside the browser and even sell movies and such becoming a larger digital store. It will still keep the DRM free part where it can because that sets it apart from Steam, EA or UPlay.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 10/16/2017 at 09:33pm

How much does Humble donate? I sure hope IGN keeps the donation portion in place.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/16/2017 at 11:30pm

The Humble Store does 10%, but on the bundles you can choose how to spread it.

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Sega Genesis Flashback HD Coming November

AtGames, the current keeper of the Sega Brand and games is releasing a new console next month that aims squarely at the success of the NES & SNES Classic called the Sega Genesis Flashback HD. Sporting an 85 game lineup, 720p HD, wireless controllers and the ability to play Sega Genesis games and use your old controllers it's a pretty interesting prospect. It's just that... well... it's not reviewing very well.

Kotaku gave the system and resounding "meh" while Kotaku basically think's it's terrible. How is it actually? I'm not sure, but it's a compelling system with actual Sega Genesis playback and the 85 included games is a compelling prospect. I think i'm going to... Read All

Portcenter Looks Back At Final Fantasy VI

Ben Paddon is back with another episode of Ports Center looking at what I consider to be the highlight of the series, Final Fantasy VI. He concludes that the best port of the game is the GBA version, which I agree with him on except the music. Most things on the GBA version are superior including the graphics, translation as well as the addition of extra dungeons and items but the music isn't as good as the Super Nintendo version due to the limitations of the GBA sound hardware. One fix for this is to play the FFVI GBA version with a SNES Music ROM Hack, which i've done and it significantly improves things.

Final Fantasy III is included on the SNES Classic and that's a... Read All

This The Donkey Kong Country Promo VHS Tape Is Totally X-TREME!

Somehow I got this tape in sent to me in the 90's and I loved it. It really got me excited about Donkey Kong Country and as such the hype was so real I bought it. After I played and beat the game about a zillion times I came back to watch the tape and it never really hit me the same way after playing the game. As time passed I ditched the tape, which in hindsight wasn't a great idea but my young self didn't really realize that kind of thing might be useful to keep around someday. Nor that i'd be collecting VHS tapes 20 years later.

The Donkey Kong country tape video embedded above is 17 minutes of 90's Nintendo at the height of it's power and majesty. The video is... Read All

DF Retro Analyzes Each Doom Console Port From The Worst To The Best!

Makes sense that DF Retro's longest episode to date covers Doom, one of the most important games ever made. In this nearly hour long opus DF Retro talks about each Doom console port and how they nearly all relate to each other. He also talks about the Doom console ports history, limitations and playability.

"id software’s Doom played a key part in gaming’s transition from two to three dimensions, and its legacy of technical innovation continues to this day. On this episode of DF Retro, John explores its origins on the PC before comparing and contrasting this against every official console conversion. There's a lot of ground to cover so buckle up for the longest episode... Read All

Lose Your Life To The Latest Humble Endless RPG-Lands Bundle

Do you have a hole in your gaming life that needs to be filled with Borderlands? Do you love endless RPG's and want something else to play? Humble Bundle has just the thing for you in the new Humble Endless RPG-Lands Bundle featuring: $1 Tier (Borderlands. The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut, Wurm Unlimited), $4.97 Tier (Borderlands 2, Endless Legend - Classic Edition & Guild of Dungeoneering) & $10 Tier (Borderlands the Pre-Sequel). And for a couple bucks more you can get both Van Helsing game Soundtracks, which is a nice bonus.

I can't say enough great things about Borderlands beyond the reality that I keep coming back to play these games over... Read All