Mailbag Deadline Incoming!

The deadline for ScrewAttack G1's to submit questions for the upcoming Game OverThinker Mailbag Episode will be Saturday night, June 30th. If you are (or plan to become) a G1 and haven't asked your question yet, you may do so in the comments on THIS video.

For more information, refer to said video below:

Read More

"Carmen Sandiego" Heading To The Big Screen

Vintage PC Edutainment game fans (that surely must exist, yes?); you may finally be getting a Hollywood blockbuster to call your own: Walden Media (the folks behind the "Narnia" movies) has comissioned a screenplay for a feature film adaptation of "Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?"

Jennifer Lopez is one of the project's producers, and has been developing it as a potential star-vehicle for herself - the title character is a master-thief of (presumably) Latin/Spanish descent who prefers to pilfer items of historical/geographic significance. In the games, players took on the role of Interpol experts who had to use their knowledge of geography to suss out clues and chase Carmen and her associates around the world.

Outside of "The Oregon Trail," WITWICS? is probably the most successful/well-known franchise in the "edutainment" genre; and in it's heyday inspired tie-in books, school materials, museum/zoo events, merchandise and even an animated Fox TV series - however, it's probably best remembered by Gen-Xers for the uniquely-bizzare kiddie game show that aired on PBS...

Read More

Special Announcement

A brief announcement about the immediate-future of "The Game OverThinker."



Remember, The Episode 72 "MAILBAG" show is only open to questions from ScrewAttack G1's posted to THIS VIDEO. Thank you.

Read More

Passage

A few hours ago, Evangeline Chipman - my last surviving grandparent and one of the strongest best people I'll ever know - passed away after having been in ill health for some time.

I'm not interested in getting into any more details than that. I share only because - while it's my intention to not interupt the workflow of my sites and projects (if anything, I really need the focusing-effect of work-to-be-done right now) - I can't say what sort of things arrangements and obligations will do to my schedules and output. So, if this blog or other venues seem to be either less active or less "upbeat" than usual, I ask your patience and understanding as to why that probably is.

This is going to be a very difficult period for me and for my family, and your support and understanding is deeply appreciated.

Read More

More Of This

With appologies for not covering this sooner, things have been a bit wiggy around here as of late.

Anita Sarkeesian, video-producer for FeministFrequency, has set up a Kickstarter for a proposed video project called "Tropes vs. Women In Video Games;" which sounds like exactly the kind of gaming commentary we need more of whether you agree with her conclusions or not. I encourage everyone to take a look and consider kicking in.



Oh, and the people who've been pulling THIS shit? You are a disgrace to "gamers" worldwide. Shame on all of you.

Read More

Happy Bob Is Happy

Two new full-blown 2D Mario sidescrollers. In the same year. One on console. One portable.
Everything else in the universe seems to be determined to kick my ass lately, but at least I'll have this. Eventually. That's something.



Two small criticisms, regarding "New Super Mario Bros. U." Firstly, while I kinda like that we're getting back to the "name the sequel after the new platform" title-scheme... if they end up wanting to make a second one during the WiiU's lifespan (it was somewhat unexpected that NSMBWii wound up becoming such a monster smash, remember) they'll have to confront the prospect of web-wide comedy-gasm resulting from putting "U2" in the title of their game. Secondly... egh, the two generic Toads again. Look, I get it - if you use Peach and Daisy you've either got boys fighting over who "has to be" The Girl or girls being forced to be The Girl even if they'd rather not, fine. That's a societal problem, not a Nintendo problem. But there HAS to be a better solution.

On the plus side: Flying Squirrel Suit? Awesome. Return of Baby Yoshi? Awesome. "Starry Night"-homage backdrop (maybe more Yoshi's Island-style painter-graphics to come?) Awesome. Giant Land? Awesome. NSMBWii proved that 2D platforming could still move units and likely turned a whole new generation on to the genre, so making another one of these was a no-brainer. Hope I have as much fun as I did with the last one (which was a lot.)



Confession: I wasn't in love with the original "New Super Mario Bros." on the DS. It was good, don't get me wrong, I guess I was just expecting something akin to an SMB4 as opposed to a more polished SMB1. Good, just didn't blow my mind like I'd hoped it would. I thought NSMBWii was the superior game of the two, but "New Super Mario Bros. 2" looks like an improvement in it's own right.

The return of Raccoon Mario is a big draw, obviously - though seeing Reznor (the Triceratops minibosses from Super Mario World) come back makes me smile. The trailer also gives a good look at a new (unnamed?) power-up: A flower that turns you gold (?) and whose projectiles turn bricks into coins. Midas Mario?

Read More

"Wreck It Ralph" = "Toy Story" for video-games

"Wreck-It Ralph" was already on my most-anticipated movies of the year list. At 2:47 of this trailer, it became #1. I won't be more psyched for a movie this year...



This may not be a Pixar movie, but it has that "feel." I'm tearing up, just a little, on reflex.

The pitch: Ralph is the villain of a "Donkey Kong" expy who wants to try out being the good guy, so he departs to try his hand in the new worlds of other games; two of which - representing Kart Racers and FPS, respectively - are glimpsed in the trailer. GREAT premise, and Jane Lynch as the Marcus/Samus hybrid is inspired casting.

I'm actually kind of amazed Nintendo signed-off on what looks like a couple of cameos - aren't they supposed to be REALLY hard to work with on that stuff?

Read More

Final Fantasy: Modern Warfare

Y'know what would help the moribund Final Fantasy franchise out? Relocating the action to a generic gray/brown desert/shantytown/psuedo-favela with stereotypical Middle Eastern Terrorists as baddies...



NOT for an actual game, thankfully, but rather a tech-demo for Squeenix's pretty amazing-looking new graphics engine. Still, I can't say it's not incredibly despressing to think about this particular aesthetic being picked up as "the way to go now" by Japanese developers. C'mon, guys... you're my last hope for this to NOT be the dominant setting/theme/palette for the entire fucking medium. You are NOT going to solve your own industry's stagnation problem by borrowing OUR industry's stagnation.

Also, jumping on the "generic-Muslim-looking-dudes-as-canon-fodder" bandwagon isn't helping ANYONE... though on the plus side maybe since it'll offer the chance to bag on a JRPG, perhaps this will cause Western Gaming to spontaneously realize that racism is a bad thing; much like how everyone was suddenly very concerned about the objectification of women in games once [REDACTED] gave them the opportunity to use it as a cudgle against The Wii?

Nah... thats just me talkin' crazy talk , right ;)

Read More

New Super Mario Bros. Wii U Revealed

Watch it HERE until I find an embeddable video. Standout reveals include a Flying Squirrel Suit, the return of Baby Yoshis and what looks like a new version of SMB3's Giant Land.

Okay, puppets - you know your roles. I wanna see a full-court show on this one. I wanna see bitching, I wanna see moaning, I wanna see faux eye-rolling, I wanna hear a billion different variations on "THIS ISN'T IMPORTANT! NOSTALGIA-BLIND FANBOYS ARE HOLDING THE WHOLE MEDIUM BACK!" ...oh, and someone please remember to pretend that being happy about a decades-old franchise making reference to it's past is "hypocrisy" if one has ever once taken issue with brand-new franchises barely changing from game-to-game.

We're all in this together, kiddos! Let's give the internet a show it won't forget!

Read More

I'd Buy It

Inspired by a Twitter exchange about whether or not the elephant-monster in the new "God of War" E3 trailer was supposed to be Ganesh, and the attendant prospect of Kratos engaging pantheon's of gods from still-active religions:

Read More

This Is The WiiU's "Hardcore" Controller

The big new shiny thing of the WiiU is it's tablet-controller (now officially christened "The WiiU Gamepad"), which combines a traditional dual-analog button scheme with a touchscreen that can "swap out" the monitor feed if someone else want to use the TV (and probably other stuff, too.)

Beyond that, all we'd heard about the system's interface was that you can bring your old Wii Remotes and peripherals to the party, too... but now we know that's not the only option. To the surprise of... well, few who follow this sort of thing (given how open Nintendo has been about getting 3rd parties back onto the reservation being a primary goal this gen) but to the relief of many - including me - as part of their pre-E3 video tease Nintendo revealed "The WiiU Pro" - which moves the Gamepad's button-layout (sans touchscreen) onto the framework of a more standard controller:

I've gotta say it: I'm glad to see this. I'm a bigger proponent of motion controls than a lot of people in games journalism, but it's true that it's not right for every situation and it's a wise decision on Nintendo's part to make the development of WiiU versions of multiplatform AAA titles as easy as possible on 3rd party developers. Now I'm hoping that the next reveal is "one of these AND the Gamepad are solid with the console."

Having dozens of different controller-types would've been a mistake for the original Wii in terms of confusing consumers, but if the idea now is that WiiU will use this or the Gamepad as it's primary interface with Remotes "from your old Wii" as an option it makes sense.

Now, then... who do I pay to mod one of these into black/gray/beige/red NES colors?

Read More

EPISODE 71: "Eulogii"

The new episode is now available for view by all audiences exclusively at ScrewAttack - more updates coming, but watch all the way to the end for information on the next "Mailbag" episode.

At this point, for some reason I can't embed the video. I'll fix that as soon as I'm able, but for now follow the link to ScrewAttack.

Read More

"Injustice" Is Probably Well Titled

I really, really liked NetherRealm's "Mortal Kombat" reboot, particularly on an aesthetic level - character animation wasn't so hot, but they NAILED the "dark-fantasy collage airbrushed on the side of some guy's van" art-style of oldschool MK games.

I have a feeling I'll be less enthused about their new DC Universe fighter, "Injustice: Gods Among Us," which appears to be ODing on awful 90s-style comic atmosphere and features character designs that suggest the art department was told: "Y'know how the New 52 looks have kind sucked for the most part? Well, we need them to suck MORE for this."

Read More