Cheap Nintendo Games, Lightly Used

https://www.humblebundle.com/friends-of-nintendo-3ds-wiiu

For those of you who have current Nintendo consoles (3DS or Wii U), Humble's got a bundle starting at $1. The new Shantae is in there!

No Episodes

Due to standardized testing and work being super busy, there will be no episode of Last Time on Video Games for the week of March 10, and there's unlikely to be one March 17 either.  Trust me, you're better off that way, Bayou Billy would totally ruin your St. Patrick's Day.  We should be back to our regular release schedule after that.

Host Change!

Hey, Internet!  We're currently hosted through GoDaddy.  The bad news is that GoDaddy sucks.  The good news is that our account is expiring and I've got a much better hosting service lined up.  However, I need to migrate stuff, so the site and downloads may not work quite right over the coming weekend, so watch out for that.

Mutants playing football?

Ok so in the before times when the retro games this podcast plays were just games I owned a Sega Genesis. Well actually I still have the thing. But I digress. On this console were a pair of games that were outlandish and due to that were just plain fun. These games have alas been neglected up until this point. These games were Mutant League Hockey and Mutant League Football. I actually owned the hockey game and I had bunches of fun playing against my brother. We tended to split games; I'd win on points scored but he'd kill all my guys. Again why exactly am I mentioning this? Well the guy who made the originals on that venerable genesis is trying to remake the game now that the trademark has been something or other. I'm not a legal person. If you want in on a football game that doesn't take itself in any way seriously that includes field hazards such as holes in the field or landmines they've started a Kickstarter at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mendheim/mutant-football-league?ref=live. Help them get it going and perhaps we can see a game fill the niche of over the top sports games again.

PSA: Zelda on the 3DS

So, Ed told me about this just a minute ago.  Apparently, if you own a 3DS, each of the two games in the Oracle series are only $5 right now.  Oracle of Ages and Oracle of seasons were GBC games that linked to each other via password or cable, and were generally awesome.  It's a steal at $10 for the series.

If you own a Wii U

So while I don't normally like to advertise for any particular company, especially not on a blog that's supposed to contain thought provoking and well written content, I am a bit of a Nintendo Fanboy. I early adopted a Wii U, and honestly I can't recommend you do the same if you have a working Wii. The library just isn't there yet, and while the touch pad is great and Nintendo Land is a lot of fun, it's not quite worth the cost of the console yet.

 That said, the Virtual Console for the Wii U is amazing and the library is rapidly growing. At least for the time being, they're also doing Steam style sales with old game, rotating out about once a week. I've taken advantage of lots of these, but if you own a Wii U, there are two you need to look into right now.

 First, Super Metroid is only $0.30. For the price of a stick of bubblegum you can get one of the best Super Nintendo games of all time. It's not worth rushing out and grabbing a Wii U for it granted, but if you have one or are getting one soon, it's a steal even if you don't play the game for years. The deal is good until 6/11/13 so there's plenty of time to capitalize.

Second is one that feels a little vindicating to me. Mega Man X, a game I've been waiting for just hit the Wii Virtual console. Until 6/6/13, anyone who buys or owns Ghosts 'n Goblins on the VC gets Mega Man X for half off. If you bought the game on our behalf especially, take advantage of this, Mega Man X is a serious contender for the best videogames of all time, and is worth the hell of Ghosts 'n Goblins.

I'm super excited guys, a crappy day just got amazing for me thanks to idle curiosity about current details, and I hope you guys can take advantage too. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog/podcast.

This is a Title

I've been really enjoying the games from the 26th Ludum Dare.  For those of you who don't know, the Ludum Dare is an event that happens every so often organized by indie game developers.  The concept is that you have 4 days, usually over a weekend, to develop and submit a short game with that event's theme.  This event's theme is minimalism.  The games have really simple concepts in keeping with this theme, but I've already seen some really fun stuff come of it. 

Take Rock Bottom, a game about jumping off of stuff to kill yourself so you can jump higher.  It starts out simple, but the last level is really fun to work out the order of platforms to die from.  I just played a game about running called RUNNERIST.  I've played a lot like it, and wasn't really expecting to enjoy it.  However, it managed to suck at least 20 minutes from me.  The simple obstacles, wonderfully contrasting colors, enjoyable music, and slight variations in the jumping noise, along with the hilarious failure animation, really hooked me.  I almost had to physically tear myself away from the screen. 

There's something compelling about the power of a simple Flash game.  For those of you who don't know, Newgrounds is a great place for such things.  If you want to see what people have been sending over there for this Ludum Dare, check out the collection.