Dcubed

At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being a PS6 launch title. Insane how long this game is taking to be made. Crazy mismanagement.

That’s really interesting info about F1 Racing Championship. Bet that’d ruffle a few collector’s feathers! Also… yeah.. WCW Backstage Assault has the unenviable position of coming out after No Mercy. Woof!

As amazing as that moment was? I think the single best Worlds upset moment was in the Seniors 2019 Final where Ko Tsukide busted out his legendary Togedamaru… That Eject Button play!! The stuff of legends!

What a jump this game was from Mario Party 2! The increase in item slots from 1 to 3 completely changed the game, fixing numerous issues with one fell swoop (no longer were Skeleton Keys completely useless, while Plunder Chests stopped completely shutting down the item game entierly), while greatly expanding the strategic possiblities available to its players. While this is technically the third game in the series, in reality, it's actually only the second game; as it was the first time that Hudson got to make a full-blown sequel that wasn't built directly on a 64DD expansion pack. As such, we got a completely fresh slate of minigames and modes, all new types of board game gameplay in the form of Duel Mode (please bring this back!) and all new types of minigames (such as the dreaded Game Guy). The boards are also feature more elaborate and intricate events this time around, introducing the Action Time system that would go on to become a series standard. Essentially these are little QTE style mini games that allow you to choose a path on the board if you succeed/fail and give you the chance to screw over your opponents in the process. There's also lots of events that change the direction of travel and open/close specific areas of the board in general; meaning that you need to carefully consider what events to trigger and when in order to give yourself the advantage while throwing middle fingers at your enemies. It's evil and brilliant in equal measure. This is my personal favourite Mario Party, and the Reverse Mushroom is a big reason why. An item so utterly insane that it never came back; clearly the series designers realised that it was simply just too powerful, but man! The plays you can make with it are just utterly mindblowing! Timestamped for your viewing pleasure (If the timestamp doesn't work, go to 18:09) Mario Party 3 is just the full package. Excellent board design, amazing items, fantastic minigames, brilliant sub modes and divine music. It's the apex of the series on the N64.

Also worth noting that the higher unlockable difficulties (Hard and Super Hard) are not just simple damage multipliers, but actually offer significant level design changes; as the locations of the chests are shuffled around. They're almost like remixes of the main game, well worth a repeat playthrough or two!

Oh! Nice that they're bringing back Snake VS Monkey. Wonder if they'll also bring back the original MGS Online mode too...

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/iron-galaxy-lays-off-66-developers-in-last-resort-lifesaving-effort Damn, that’s rough… Would’ve figured that they’d be a shoe-in to be an art-asset support studio for Metroid Prime 4 and that’d keep them going; but I guess not?

Looks like they’re not doing any upresing of any of the games in the collection, so they maintain their original 480p resolution. That’s a bit disappointing. DC games look pretty great when upressed.

Star Fox Adventures suffers from some severe design issues, pertaining to some iffy level and quest design; as well as a restrictive and very basic combat system (very much Mash-A-To-Win) and locomotion gameplay. From what I’ve played and seen of Dinosaur Planet, it was originally planned to be a much more interesting and complex game than it eventually became. Whenever you see interviews about this game, an overarching theme emerges about the game being rushed out the door in time for the impending Microsoft buyout. You can certainly see that a LOT of stuff ended up being cut, likely due to time constraints. But I can’t help but feel that Dinosaur Planet was always kind of doomed to suffer this fate. Had it stayed on the N64, it would’ve inevitably have had to be rushed out the door before the console was replaced by the GameCube, and had it been moved? It would’ve been rushed due to the Microsoft buyout. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I think the most shocking revelation about this game’s development from the leak was that the transition to becoming a Starfox spinoff actually happened well before the game was moved to GameCube. I had never imagined that the decision was already made that early on! It changes a lot of the narrative around the game’s development. The need to rush through development ended up having little to do with Nintendo’s decision to make it a Starfox tie-in, and everything to do with the Microsoft buyout. I never believed the idea that the game’s core issues stemmed from the Starfox characters being shoved into the game, and it turns out that I was right! That decision was made long before the game had to be retooled for the next console, so it never resulted in the staff having to throw out their work on the GameCube as many suspected. Ultimately, the decision to move it over to the GameCube was probably the right call, as it simply would’ve come out way too late in the console’s life (the console was dead and buried in all regions come January 2001, which essentially sealed CBFD’s fate). It’s just such a shame that the game turned out the way it did, ultimately ending up as a bit of a sour note to end Rare’s Nintendo console history on. Dinosaur Planet remains a tantalising prospect then, as you can feel all the potential in the world with this prototype; tragically unrealised. I’m still hoping that the other N64 Rare Holy Grail prototypes eventually emerge. Would be SO excited to see Twelve Tales and the various Project Dream/Banjo Kazooie prototypes get leaked some day!

Interesting that they are announcing the exact day/time so far in advance, but there aren’t many days it could’ve been; given that the Switch 2 Experience tour is happening shortly after.

IT IS DONE!!!! BLACK DECK GOLD STAKE HAS BEEN DEFEATED!!! After so many months of on-off attempts, so many failed runs... I, by some miracle, managed to get a Polychrome Photocard in my first shop, and then got a Foil Hanging Chad in my first Buffoon Pack. If there was any time I was ever going to get The Run, this was it. It was now or never... There was many a narrow scrape. The Wall came early on in Ante 3, followed shortly by The Ox... Thankfully I lucked onto a Negative Business Card early on that allowed my to get my e-con back online not long afterwards (and with running a predominantly Face Card Two Pair set? That thing triggered very quickly with Hanging Chad retriggering the face cards Coming towards the end, the pit in my stomach grew ever larger, as I came to the Final Boss Blind. I still couldn't find anything worth replacing my Clever Joker for, and I was worried that my setup wouldn't be able to finish the job. What if I came up against Violet Vessel or Crimson Heart? I'd probably be buggered! But to my amazement came Verdant Leaf! And I had just the perfect card I could afford to sell! Victory was mine at long last!! At last! The torture is over! Perhaps it's finally time to check out some of the challenges? If I can do Black Deck Gold Stake, surely I can do Jokerless at this point?

Neat 5!

Neat 2!

Neat!

I already use Steam Deck like a console when it’s docked to my telly and Steam OS works very well. I don’t really have a need for another standalone “Steam Console”, but I would certainly be up for a Steam Deck 2 with a greater focus on Docked use (making Steam OS automatically enable higher resolutions when Docked, instead of making the user manually enable higher resolutions, would be a great next step!).