Dcubed

Yup. NSMB DS and SM64DS are officially as harrowing as the likes of Slender: The Arrival, every single Ace Attorney game except for Dual Destinies, every non-Mercury Steam Castlevania game, the Monster Hunter series, Xenoblade, Xenosaga, almost every Final Fantasy game, every Fire Emblem, Flower Sun and Rain, every Street Fighter game and every Tales of game It's also just one notch below Bayonetta 2 I can't help but feel that PEGI's priorities might be just slightly askew here...

Suppose with 2015 gone, it's time I got my diary up to date! (Even if it's a bit late... don't hate, it's not up for debate!) First off the bat is Captain Toad Treasure Tracker! (speaking of late...) What a gem of a game! Brilliantly simple in concept and execution. It takes the basic concept that was grounded in Super Mario 3D World and runs with it at the speed of Toad. Over 70 levels, with each introducing new gameplay mechanics and ideas along the way and in true EAD Tokyo fashion, no mechanic or idea outstays its welcome. Deceptively simple looking, this game is actually pretty challenging and really requires you to master the use of camera controls (some levels going so far as near enough requiring you to make use of the good ol' Monster Hunter Claw to triumph over them!) Makes great use of the Gamepad's two screens in select levels as well, with the player tasked to keep track of both screens at once to keep an eye out for that glint in their eye. What else don't you already know? It's a classic, bursting with content and replay value and it's a First Party Nintendo game; of course it's a must play! Oh and yes...

Here are my results. Note that these lists do not include anything I spent less than 30 mins on, nor does it count games that I used for various tests with my capture device and AV Receiver (if it did, you could stack up well over 8 hours on Xenoblade, since I used that a lot for test purposes!). It also does not count internet browser use (which would come out on top by a landslide as I use my Wii U's internet browser a lot for running Youtube vids in the background while doing other stuff) So without further adieu... Wii U: Total Number of Hours spent playing on Wii U (not counting insignificant time spent on games and Internet Browser/App use): 597.7 hours 3DS: Steps: 1,318,239 Playtime: 106 titles/386:59 I've played more than I thought I had this year! Super Mario Maker really makes up the bulk of it on Wii U though; I got really stuck into that one! Such a great feeling making something that people seem to really enjoy! Hilarious to think that I've spent more time playing Mario Party Advance than I have playing Mario Tennis Ultra Smash, says it all really If you're wondering why my Kirby totals don't add up to over 24 hours (because of the Kirby Charity Marathon I ran), it's because we ended up using other consoles to capture footage other than Wii U for a large chunk of the various games played (which obviously wouldn't be counted here). Also played a surprising amount of Balloon Fight across both platforms! What can I say? It's a great game! : peace: Woah! I had no idea that you were playing it for THAT long! I mean, I know it's slow but DAHYM!!!

I have to say that the film does hold up well on a second viewing (went to see it again a few days ago). The sheer amount of plot convinience still peeves me something fierce, but it's still a very fun watch. I'm still not a fan of the lightning fast pace of the movie, but it flows well and the script/acting/dialogue is really so very on point! It's great! Yeah it's basically a remake of A New Hope with some choice bits from ESB and ROTJ sprinkled in for good measure, but it's still good on its own merits. Still feels like a fan movie (which makes sense, considering that it basically is), but it's a very good one. Hope that Episode 8 actually takes its time to explain things better and establish more of the worlds/characters/lore before diving into the action though. It can stand to slow down a bit now that we have the ball rolling I reckon!

Sorry about everything that has gone wrong for you and your loved ones @Animal. The strike of tonight's bell hearalds a whole new dawn though. I'm sure that 2016 will fare much better for you and the ones you care about

That is BOSS! Consider the album bought! Rather nice of them! Do they regularly send you swag?

Guys, if any of you are considering getting the three Umihara Kawase games from PC, you had better hurry up; because they just got delisted from Steam! https://www.humblebundle.com/store/search/search/kawase Humble Bundle are still selling Steam keys (and yes they are redeemable and the games are still redownloadable; I just bought the original and Shun just now) I wasn't expecting them to go down so soon! Agatsuma are being liquidated but still! Bloody hell, that happened fast and sudden! Don't sleep on them! Get them while you still can if you even remotely like odd ball/high skill 2D platformers!

So what did you guys nab out of the Xmas sale? (ends today BTW, so get in now if you're still interested in anything!) My haul is listed below...

Monster Hunter's grind isn't really done in the same way as, say, Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest grind though. It's entirely optional and the game is perfectly beatable without it getting the most powerful weapons or grinding to level up (in fact, it has no RPG mechanics like levelling up or experience points at all!) That's why it's fine the way it currently is. You could say it's as grind heavy as you want it to be. You can have the satisfaction of gathering the materials you need to finally make that one weapon you've been pining for, or if you just want to carry on and progress without powering yourself up, that's absolutely possible as well (and that too has a strong feeling of satisfaction as you overcome the odds that you've stacked against yourself!)

You can't see the difference with Wave Race 64!? How can the PAL version be even remotely acceptable to you!? It's garbage!! For those of you who've never played the NTSC version, this Wii U VC release is gonna feel like a whole new game to you!

Wave Race 64 in particular is going to be a massive upgrade going from 50hz to 60hz. It makes a tremendous difference with this game. You guys are in for a treat! The PAL version is notorious for being one of the shoddiest PAL conversions ever done for a Nintendo game. It's so slow that they actually had to cut out parts of the intro for the music to sync properly! Really, you guys don't know what you're missing! Yes they do, on every previously released game that was also on the Wii VC, without exception.

All I need to hear. Good job NOE

You need to learn to just ignore those people :p It's a no-brainer. From the very beginning when I saw the game, I said that this is exactly the way it was going to work. It's the only realistic way it can work (each player is supposed to have their own private perspective). You can't do that with splitscreen!

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1162682 Confirmation of local play. As I suspected, one player plays on the TV and the other plays on the Gamepad with their own, private, seperate perspective. Just like the arcade cabinet

I'm pretty sure that it only lists the last four numbers of your card if you have it stored on there, but it does list your name and address, so anyone could've taken a look at those details...

Yeah, seems to be down for good now. It took them a whole hour!! Unbelievable! This is far worse than the PSN hack! How the hell could something like this happen!?

This is outrageous!! Why the hell haven't Valve shut down the whole thing yet!? The fuck are they doing!?!?!? And once again, this is why I always tell people never store your card details online. EVER! I always manually input my card details/PayPal details in manually every-single-time on every single online service/store for this very reason!

Here's my haul this year! Merry Xmas to you lot!

Wow! That's cool! Nice to see that they're giving out Mew! (I wonder how it actually works ingame...) Edit: Oh never mind... ... question asked, question answered. You do it oldschool style!

Seems that the update that was previously only announced for Japan has indeed been released worldwide! http://www.gonintendo.com/stories/249275-puzzle-dragons-z-puzzle-dragons-super-mario-bros-edition-u It's available now

Xenoblade is one where I never actually felt a need to grind. I always seemed to be at a high enough level all throughout (it helps that you do no damage at all if you're too low, so it encourages you to keep yourself up to spec by doing side quests - which have had all the grind sucked out of them thanks to the streamlined way you can do them while just exploring the world, without needing to go out of your way or return back to the NPC who gave it to you ). Same with the Mario RPGs and Chrono Trigger for that matter. Skies of Arcadia as well doesn't require grinding (not even for the optional stuff) and neither do the likes of Golden Sun and The World Ends With You. There's quite a few RPGs out there that are well balanced in that regard. The Final Fantasies are generally not amongst them though. FF7 was pretty well balanced, but FF1-3 are certainly not. FF4 is... Until right at the very end where you suddenly have a massive difficulty spike (and the DS one is just total BS all throughout). FF6 requires a bit of grinding as well, especially when your party gets split up in the second half. FF8... is pure grinding hell and FF9 & 10 suffer from a bit of the grind as well. FF11 and 14 are nothing but grinding by their nature and FF12 also suffers from it. FF13 :p

Best bit is that you know that a Grumpig one is coming up eventually. So I'm sure that won't be the only time you cave

Grinding is the sign of a poorly designed game. Quite simply, it's there to waste your time and quite frankly, I think it's a bit disrespectful to the player who bought your game. I mean, it's ok if it's for something optional (and yes I do include Monster Hunter in the optional category since it's absolutely possible to progress without getting that fancy armour or weapon you lust over), but not if it's required to progress in the main game. Nothing turns me off a game faster than a long, slog of a grind.

Yeah, they really need a Strange tag for your ones!

Well that's why you set the tags manually on the website... And then set it so that nobody else can edit them other than you I set all of mine to Speedrun (except for the Bonus levels, which are mostly Gimmick with a couple of Puzzle tags for some of them - also 3-3 was set as Puzzle; though of course it's also designed for Speed Running and the Staff Ghost on that one proves it ) My difficulty curve looks pretty nice as well (except for the Bonus levels of course; though I'm surprised that Bonus 1 is listed as Expert and not Super Expert!) I need to get back into making more levels. Hopefully I'll get some time in the new year...