MetaFilter posts tagged with nintendo

Play 5,000+ classic video games in your browser

Rhaomi — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:12:22 -0800

TheSmartAss.info's suite of Java emulators allows smooth, in-browser playback of literally thousands of old-school video games: 517 Atari titles, 148 for DOS, 636 Game Boy games (and 410 for Game Boy Color), 2,019 (!) NES titles, 238 GameGear games, 802 Sega Genesis titles, and 284 for the Sega Master System. Highlights include Space Invaders, Frogger, Galaga, Pitfall!, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, SimCity, Zero Wing, Duke Nukem, Sonic the Hedgehog, Aladdin, Earthworm Jim, Pokemon, and Metal Gear Solid. Use the search function to find your favorites! You can also register an account to save games on emulators that support it. Make sure to check the purple bar below each game for control info and links to alternate emulators in case the default one is buggy or slow.

Dodongo dislikes wasted blocks

BlackLeotardFront — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:04:27 -0800

In a revelation that, to some, is on the order of realizing there is (or isn't) a god, it turns out that all the dungeons in The Legend of Zelda were part of the same enormous map. This seems to have some sort of transcendental importance that I can't quite put my finger on. Actually, they are part of two non-overlapping maps, each measuring 16x8 rooms, as described in this breakdown of the storage method. No map has been made of the second quest, but you can see how they fit together from the maps on this page (i.e. the yin and yang of levels 7 and 8). Interestingly, Half-Life fits together remarkably well in this manner. It is whispered that A Link To The Past does this with its dungeons as well but as they are divided into floors it is more difficult to check. Smaller backup image in case MIT goes down. Content and extra links via Reddit.

Do The Mario!

The Whelk — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 13:24:42 -0800

Hey Paisanos! It's the Super Mario Brother's Super Show! Hosted by Captain Lou Albano ( previously ) as Mario and Danny Wells as Lugi, the show boasted an unusual list of guest stars including Elvira, Magic Johnson, Erine Hudson, Moon Zappa, Regina Williams (with Capt. Lou in drag) , and in a meta-twist, Cyndi Lauper trying to find Captain Lou himself. Extra SMBSS Goodness The First Episode of the Legend of Zelda cartoon (1 2) The First episode of Captain N: The Game Master ( 1 2 3)

The Expurgation of Maniac Mansion

Pope Guilty — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:27:26 -0800

Douglas Crockford, who oversaw the porting of Maniac Mansion to the NES, would like for you to know how the game changed in the porting process and why.

JNES

chunking express — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:40:30 -0800

JNES is a Javascript Nintendo Emulator. It works shockingly well.

Kind of Bloop

felix betachat — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:05:48 -0800

Thank you Miles, but your apotheosis is in another castle. MetaFilter's own waxpancake commissioned an 8-bit homage to the greatest album ever made. [previously]

Music To Hack To

kableh — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:41:03 -0800

"In a hotel room in Florida during the summer of 2008, we were given an exciting preview of a "Nintendo Mixtape" by burgeoning rap group, No Question? As we listened, we felt like Mario must have felt during his first ingestion of a fire flower. In other words, we knew immediately that this was some good shiz." I wasn't able to dig up much more info on this group other than their MySpace page. See also the relevant Twitter feed. There's more information available at www.nintendomixtape.com, including credits. [via Reddit]

Video Game Marathons for Charity

Otis — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:09:43 -0800

The 2009 Super Mario Marathon will kick off this Friday as three gamers from Lafayette, Indiana jump their way through 25 years of Mario games to benefit the Child's Play Charity. The marathon will be broadcast live online and you can track their level progress at the site. Viewers of the event will have the opportunity to win some Mario-themed prizes. If old-school RPGs are more your thing, the Final Fantasy Marathon, also live online, also with prizes, will be kicking off July 17 to benefit ACT Today.

He'd rather have a buffalo take a diarrhea dump in his ear

Christ, what an asshole — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:55:04 -0800

(NSFW) The Angry Video Game Nerd (taking a cue from seanbaby's lead) has been producing video reviews of some of the most notoriously awful NES games, from Top Gun to Bible Games. (Can't miss: The Power Glove.) Not content to go after one system, he's upgraded his range to take on other colossal failures like the Atari Jaguar, Superman 64, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (the movie). His newest series of videos, You Know What's Bullshit?, takes on everyday nuances like DVD box sets. He may be vulgar and his vignettes silly, but damn straight he's got a point. Enjoy all his archived videos here, spanning five years of obscenity-laced love/hate for his greatest passions.

It's-a-them!

EatTheWeak — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:47:35 -0800

45 pictures of Mario & Luigi!

"It's a Secret to Everybody"

empath — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 19:26:00 -0800

"It's a secret to everybody" -- an unbelievably comprehensive blog post about the etymologies of the names of famous (and not-so-famous) video game characters.

Nintendo Demo Mode: Optional Walkthroughs on the Wii

filthy light thief — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:31:08 -0800

At this year's E3, Shigeru Miyamoto told Kotaku (video interview included) and USA Today that the "Kind Code" patent (noticed back in January 2009, and well summarized on Kotaku) will be implemented in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. The tentatively named "Demo Mode" was discussed by developers and received early approval from a teacher. With this new, slightly more solid information, feelings are mixed. As noted in Red Herring,

The actual patent that was filed offered three modes to demo play (then referred to as the “kind code”): a video of gameplay that does not interrupt the action on screen; a full automatically controlled walkthrough that players could jump into at any time; and a DVD-esque scene selection mode that would allow players to choose where to start. The patent also notes that if players jumps ahead with the full video walkthrough, they will not be able to save their progress.

"This will please you with a depth that might surprise you!"

Servo5678 — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:16:43 -0800

Wait, what are they talking about? Childish fun with edits and unnecessary censorship at Nintendo's 2009 E3 Media Briefing [SLYT].

Hope you can do a high kick.

Defenestrator — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:09:42 -0800

Drive a race car, beat someone up, and try on a dress - all from your living room and without any controllers. Microsoft's new "Natal". [video] At this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo Sony announced its new advanced motion sensing controller for the PS3 in an attempt to move in on and improve features that Nintendo has used with the Wii to establish a hefty lead in gaming console sales. Nintendo had the same idea. However, Microsoft takes it to the next level with the Natal, and according to one source, it actually works. Some predictions for the future.

Thread and pixels

mippy — Fri, 22 May 2009 04:11:08 -0800

Lots of video game cross stitch designs.

X-Rayed X-Boxes (And Other Video Game Consoles)

Effigy2000 — Sat, 02 May 2009 18:28:39 -0800

Reinier van der Ende, an x-ray technician at the largest hospital in the northern part of the Netherlands, decided to combine his work with one of his hobbies and proceeded to x-ray his collection of video game consoles, peripherals and game cartridges. Here are the fruits of his labour. There's also an x-ray of an X-Box 360 that dosen't appear to be part of the main set (it's part of this subset). No indications of whether its red-ringed or not, though. [via]

Vintage Game Club plays Chrono Trigger

grobstein — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:53:20 -0800

Good morning, Crono! (Cf.) Starting this Friday, the Vintage Game Club will play through the RPG classic Chrono Trigger, a game beloved and praised but perhaps not well understood. The discussion is beginning here (little substance so far). (Chrono Trigger was published for SNES and Playstation, and is available in a new Nintendo DS port.) The Vintage Game Club is an online discussion group dedicated to playing through and understanding true classics of video games. It is a project of Professor Michael Abbott (great glossy-style profile) and Metafilter's own danb (and some other dudes). Chrono Trigger is the VGC's fifth game. You can find archived discussions for the first four on the forums:

Beyond Good and Evil (warning game has deceptive title)
Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey
Deus Ex (these discussions are really interesting; see e.g.)
Grim Fandango

Modern video games covers as classic books

ColdChef — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:13:30 -0800

Modern video game covers reimagined as Classic Books.

Yes, they really are bird-people

cthuljew — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 13:39:31 -0800

Have you ever wondered how Samus got all her powers? I mean, really, how does a simple back-planet girl learn to use this mysterious Chozo technology?

In case you didn't already think Nintendo games were real life.

Rudy Gerner — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:45:06 -0800

Wonderful Nintendo art! A deviantArt user has taken action shots from NES games and placed them in real world scenes. Just a few: SMB 3, Streetfighter, and Excitebike. But be sure to check out the whole gallery.

Online Game Manuals (for free!)

Effigy2000 — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:24:11 -0800

Bought a video game second hand and found it doesn’t have a manual? Or have you been thinking about that great manual that came with that copy of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past you owned years ago and wouldn't mind taking a look through it again? Well, help is at hand! Vimm offers you heaps of free pdf manuals from retro systems as old as the Atari 2600 and as recent as the N64! Meanwhile Meekeo does much the same, although it mostly looks after current generation systems (including the PC) only. Finally, if you own a Nintendo Wii, DS, Gamecube or Gameboy Advance, Nintendo is offering up full colour pdfs of games they publish(ed) for these systems, as well as manuals for some of their older games.

Keeping the rest of your hands busy

mippy — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 02:59:22 -0800

So you've spent the holidays playing games, but now you have to be back at work. How to get your gaming fix during commutes and lunch-hours, whilst keeping up with that resolution to Learn Something New this year? Well, you could make a Sack-Boy. You can keep your portable games device warm with a Zelda cosy. You can knit up a Pacman scarf or a Space Invaders bag or socks if you're feeling retro. Or you can make a pocket ninja, an invincibility star to get you through the afternoon, a maqgnetic Katamari ball to spring-clean that desk, or a friendly companion cube. (and if you're too cack-handed to knit, you can sew a friendly cube with the pattern here and tutorial here!)

Paper. Rock. Scissors.

Bageena — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:23:58 -0800

In 1986, most gamers who were lucky enough to own a new video game system at home were playing the original Nintendo. It's launch in 1985, a year before the Sega Master System was launched in the states, allowed it plenty of time become the most popular console in the market, and the game Super Mario Bros. quickly became the best-selling video game of all time (a title it continues to hold, having sold over 40 million copies to date). However, even though Nintendo commanded 95% of the North American video game market at the time and the CEO of Sega made little effort to promote and market it, some people still bought and gave the Sega Master System a chance. Perhaps it was the 3-D glasses or it's unique ability to read multiple media inputs... or perhaps that the original version of the system had a secret game built right into it (and it was unbeatable!). Although the system was an underdog, it underwent several redesigns and mascot changes, ranging from Alex Kidd to, finally, Sonic in the end. When the system was redesigned around 1990, Sega finally tried to market it aggressively, but it was too late. By 1992, sales were nearly non-existent in North America (although it should be noted the console was very popular in Europe and several other countries where Nintendo did not sell consoles). Which is all too bad, because there were many brilliant, brilliant games for the SMS. For those of us lucky enough to have owned a SMS, we can delight in the nostalgia brought about by the mere mention of games such as Zillion, Alex the Kid in Miracle World, Choplifter, Ys, After Burner, Altered Beast, Phantasy Star, Hang On/Safari Hunt, and Shinobi.

Nintendo Comics System

Effigy2000 — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 21:48:34 -0800

Nintendo Comics System. Full colour scans of most of the Super Mario Brothers comics that many Nintendo fans, such as myself, read back during the 90s. Oh, as well as Legend of Zelda, Punch Out!!, Metroid and Captain N: The Game Master. Further reading, if you dare.

Megaman the Movie

Caduceus — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 22:49:19 -0800

Speaking of robots, here is a trailer for Megaman the Movie, a low budget live action adaptation of the classic NES game. [sort of previously] (Warning, the last link is experiencing bandwidth spikes, so may be down.) Slightly higher def trailer here.