#nintendo software technology

[n64retro]

Pokémon Puzzle League Nintendo Software Technology Nintendo 64 2000

[jtgunner]

New let's play video is up on my YouTube channel! I'm back with more F-Zero 99 for the Nintendo Switch! I'm doing another Mini Prix, and I'm hoping to actually survive this one! But there's something interesting about my placements here…

WATCH IT HERE: https://youtu.be/a8Z4AD-aZJA

[posthumanwanderings]

1080° Avalanche (NST / Nintendo - GameCube - 2003)

[hardcore-gaming-101]

Metroid Prime Hunters

Back in the late 1990s, the Nintendo 64 was the console to have for multiplayer first-person shooters. Much of this had to do with the four controller ports built into every system, as well as the presence of games like GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark, and even a few lesser quality titles like Turok. Alas, Nintendo was never able to carry that momentum forward to the next generation on the GameCube, where its crown was quickly stolen by Microsoft’s Xbox and the immensely popular Halo. They tried again with Metroid, implementing a split-screen competitive multiplayer mode in Metroid Prime 2, but this failed to catch on.

Even though the GameCube generation ended up being a wash for competitive FPS games, the Nintendo DS was in the portable space where it didn’t have much competition. The Game Boy Advance had a few first-person shooters, like ports of Doom and Duke Nukem 3D, but these were mostly just novelties as opposed to games the audience took seriously. The DS meanwhile could handle 3D roughly on the level of the PlayStation and Nintendo 64, as well as wireless network transmissions, so it was more suitable for a multiplayer first-person shooter than its predecessor. And thus, Metroid Prime Hunters was born.

Read more...

[thevellaunderground]

The Musical Magic of Mario vs. Donkey Kong (2024)

1. The Remastered Soundtrack: A Nostalgic Journey The 2024 version of Mario vs. Donkey Kong features a remastered soundtrack that pays homage to the original NES theme songs. Dive into the melodic world of springy jazz, Latin percussion, and adrenaline-pumping boss-battle themes. Discuss how the music enhances the gaming experience and evokes nostalgia for long-time fans. 2. Composers Behind…

[lord-radish]

Tens of thousands of people have been fired in the tech sector in the last six months alone. With the economy the way it is, and with people who are already unable to get a job, I wonder how an extra 20,000+ jobseekers are going to have any luck finding work.

[shinigami-striker]

Next Month: Mario vs. DK (Switch) | Tuesday, 01.16.24

The upcoming 2024 remake of Mario vs. Donkey Kong on Nintendo Switch will release worldwide next month.

Pre-Order now!

Coming February 16, 2024.

[suchananewsblog]

'Super Mario Bros. Movie' trailer shows being a hero isn't all fun and games | CNN

‘Super Mario Bros. Movie’ trailer shows being a hero isn’t all fun and games | CNN

CNN  —  Mario learns that being a hero is a powerful gig within the new trailer for “Super Mario Bros. Movie.” The colourful preview, during which Mario (Chris Pratt) units off on an journey to defend Mushroom Kingdom in opposition to Bowser (Jack Black), options a take a look at some much-anticipated characters, together with Donkey Kong (voiced by Seth Rogan), Princess Peach (voiced by Anya…

[reportwire]

Indonesian Government Blocks Steam, Epic, Ubisoft & Nintendo

Indonesian Government Blocks Steam, Epic, Ubisoft & Nintendo

Over the weekend the Indonesian government began the task of blocking any website or service that had failed to register as part of new “internet control” laws. That ended up being a lot, including everything from Steam to the Epic Games Store to Nintendo Online to EA and Ubisoft’s platforms. Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (Kominfo) took the steps after the…

[n64retro]

Pokémon Puzzle League (Nintendo Software Technology, 2000) promotional game poster.

[jtgunner]

New let's play video is up on my YouTube channel! It's Grand Prix time in F-Zero 99 for the Nintendo Switch! This time it's the Knight League! The tracks are fairly easy, but the GP itself won't be! Can we make it until the end?

WATCH IT HERE: https://youtu.be/XcbBJO8QknY

[magz]

Citra, the emulator for Nintendo 3DS, is also shutting down operations alongside Yuzu, the emulator for Nintendo Switch.

This is a result of the settlement to the lawsuit Nintendo did against Yuzu, in claims of infringing on their copyright and DMCA, and "allowing piracy".

The Yuzu team (and Citra team) has agreed to their terms.

This is the statement on Citra emulator website citra-emu.org, quote:

"Hello yuz-ers and Citra fans: We write today to inform you that yuzu and yuzu’s support of Citra are being discontinued, effective immediately. yuzu and its team have always been against piracy. We started the projects in good faith, out of passion for Nintendo and its consoles and games, and were not intending to cause harm. But we see now that because our projects can circumvent Nintendo’s technological protection measures and allow users to play games outside of authorized hardware, they have led to extensive piracy. In particular, we have been deeply disappointed when users have used our software to leak game content prior to its release and ruin the experience for legitimate purchasers and fans. We have come to the decision that we cannot continue to allow this to occur. Piracy was never our intention, and we believe that piracy of video games and on video game consoles should end. Effective today, we will be pulling our code repositories offline, discontinuing our Patreon accounts and Discord servers, and, soon, shutting down our websites. We hope our actions will be a small step toward ending piracy of all creators’ works. Thank you for your years of support and for understanding our decision."

Other tweets with more information from someone that was in Citra discord

[gmlocg]

351.) Prince of Persia

Release: October 3rd, 1989 | GGF: Action, Platformer, Puzzle | Developer(s): Brøderbund Software, Inc., Arsys Software, Inc. | Publisher(s): Brøderbund Software, Inc., Softgold Computerspiele GmbH, Revelation Software, Domark Software Ltd., Riverhill Soft Inc., Ocean Software Ltd., Virgin Games, Inc., NCS Corporation, Victor Musical Industries, Inc., Turbo Technologies, Inc., Konami Industry Co., Ltd., Tengen Inc., Mindscape International Ltd., Tec Toy Indústria de Brinquedos S.A., Red Orb Entertainment, Ubisoft Entertainment SA | Platform(s): Apple II (1989), Amiga (1990), Amstrad CPC (1990), Atari ST (1990), DOS (1990), PC-98 (1990), SAM Coupe (1990), Sharp X86000 (1991), TurboGrafx CD (1991), FM Towns (1992), Game Boy (1992), Game Gear (1992), Macintosh (1992), NES (1992), SEGA CD (1992), SEGA Master System (1992), SNES (1992), Genesis (1993), Game Boy Color (1999), Mobile (2007), Xbox 360 (2007), PlayStation 3 (2008), BlackBerry (2009), iPad (2010), iPhone (2010), Android (2012), Nintendo 3DS (2012), Wii (2012)

[autolenaphilia]

Doom 3

Doom 3 from 2004 is maybe the least popular game in the entire Doom series. It doesn’t have the massive influence, popularity and strong modding community of Doom 1 and 2, nor the acclaim of the revival games that followed it in 2016 and 2020.

In fact it’s controversial, mainly because it is a change of pace from the first two games. You are still a Space marine fighting off an invasion from literal Hell, this time on Mars itself of Phobos. But instead of a run-and-gun action-packed game, Doom 3 is a slower-paced tense horror game, with monsters hiding in the dark, and a stamina mechanic incentivizing slow exploration. For critics, it’s the game that betrayed the series’s roots, and the 2016 game put the series back on track. It’s the mirror image of the fandom controversy over Resident Evil 4, where an exploration-based horror series changed tracks to become an action-focused shooter.

And just as I’m on the pro-RE4 side, I’m also on Doom 3s side. Doom 3 rules. It’s an excellent horror first person shooter. In fact I think most of the criticism is either wrong, or in fact a strength of the game. Despite its mixed reputation, it was a massive commercial and critical success at the time, and I think that reception was well-deserved.

Now Doom 3 is a different game from the first two Doom games, but that’s because it’s attempting to revive a series a full decade after the last main release of Doom II in 1994, and 7-8 years after the non-Id developed spin-off games Final Doom and Doom 64, and the former was basically a fanmade map pack for Doom II given official blessing and the other was a Nintendo 64 exclusive.

And in the meantime, the market for first-person shooters that Doom had createdhad changed completely, and in a more sophisticated direction. Already in 1994 there was System Shock, which had far more complex and intelligent storytelling than Doom, and on a technical levelactually was a full 3D game. It was two years before Id themselves would reach actual 3d with 1996’s Quake. And of course, in 1998 Half-Life was released, almost killing the “doom clone” type of FPS in a single stroke. It set a new benchmark for immersion, storytelling and technical accomplishment in the FPS genre.

So when Id Software started development on Doom 3, the question was how they could make a game that acknowledged and learned from the massive leap forwards in both technology and storytelling in the past decade, while still retaining a distinct identity? And Doom 3 tries, and mostly succeeds. It’s the Doom series trying to become more intelligent than its simplistic run-and-gun origins, and I like that.

Of course Doom 3 did its own technological leaps forward, it was a graphically advanced game for the time, and its engine Idtech4 a technical marvel. The game still looks good. The character animation however is rough, and pales compared to the excellent facial animations in Half-Life 2 released the same year, but again overall the game’s visuals hold up well. This is due to the excellent art design, which takes full advantage of the capabilities of engine. The game has this coherent aesthetic that continues classic Doom. The art design only grows better as the game goes on, as the the sterile mechanic sci-fi environments of the Mars base and the grotesque gothic and disturbingly fleshy Hell environments melt together during the invasion.

Storytelling-wise Doom 3does borrow both from Half-life and System Shock. The low-key actionless intro to the game has a similar feel to Half-life, where the Doom marine is reporting for duty at a research facility. Just like its inspiration, the game takes its time setting the scene before things go wrong, hell literally breaks loose and the action starts. And once you get into the game, you find the base runs teleportation experiments and its scientists have studied and toyed around with Hell before the game even started, just like how Black Mesa did with Xen in Half-life. Although the teleportation experiments gone wrong and leading to an invasion was a plot point that Half-life borrowed from the original Doom in the first place.

Still, I think Doom 3 use of its influences from Half-life. Mostly because its story has a very different feel. The game leans more on the horror aspect than Half-life does. Yet the game doesn’t take itself too seriously, you are fighting literal demons from Hell, and the human villain is a guy named Dr. Betruger (iterally Dr. Deceiver in german) who just reeks of evil. The game is horror, but it’s b-movie horror. And its fun.

There are also PDAs with audio logs lying around explaining the plot and lore of the game, just like in System Shock. The logs are of decent quality acting-and writing-wise. Id brought in an actual novelist named Matthew J. Costello to write the game’s script, he was also the writer behind The 7th Guest.And exploring the PDAs you find will get you keycodes for lockers containing health and ammo pickups, which is a neat feature rewarding exploration and attention. But the audiologs make me wish the game had subtitles, or clearer audio mixing, you can’t hear them once you get distracted by the demon fighting. It isn’t the best implementation of audio logs. The game overall has excellent sound design, despite voices being kinda lost in the mix. The noises in this games are properly unnerving, especially in darkness.

Another aspect that the game borrows from Half-life is linear game design. Doom 3 is maybe the example case of a “corridor shooter”, the game goes in a straight line from beginning to end, including a detour through Hell. The scares comes from scripted events, often from monster closets opening and releasing enemies triggered by your progress through the levels. And this is a frequent point of criticism. Yet as I said before, linear doesn’t mean bad. It’s tight, very well-paced game design, and works for the same reasons Half-life works. Doom 3 reminds me of Max Payne 2’s metafictional comment on its own linear game design. “A funhouse is a linear sequence of scares. Take it or leave it is the only choice given” And its even more applicable on Doom 3, it’s really is a linear sequence of scares, a funhouse, or a dark ride, and enjoyable as such. There is reason to prefer it to much of the level design in the first two Doom games, which was often relatively “open” but very labyrinthine. Those games could sometimes become confusing and frustrating keyhunts. While it was the Barons of Hell that looked like minotaurs, the gameplay was a minotaur-simulator at times.

Another common point of criticism is the darkness, and the flashlight mechanic. The levels of this game are infamously dark, often hiding monsters that can surprise you. You do have a flashlight with infinite battery, but you can’t hold it at the same time you hold a weapon. This is a constant source of tension, do you hold a gun to defend yourself, or do you use a flashlight to better find supplies and see the enemies? Yet many found the darkness frustrating. The game’s engine Idtech4 has truly impressive lighting for the time, and the game has been accused of being a glorified tech demo, with the excessive darkness meant to show the lighting effects off. One of the most popular mods at the time as a result was the “ducttape” mod, which enabled you to use the flashlight with a gun (presumably with the help of ducttape). And when the game was re-released in 2012 in the “BFG edition”, the mod’s idea was incorporated into the actual official game, and the separate flashlight was removed. The game was also given a lot more light as part of its remastering.

Yet this is kinda like modding Resident Evil 4 to make Leon able to aim/shoot and move at the same time. The flashlight mechanic in the original Doom 3 is not a mistake, but deliberate part of the game design to increase tension. The game is built around darkness to create a tense atmosphere. The game gives you plenty of ammo to fight off enemies, and you are meant to kill every enemy, but the darkness and the limitations of your flashlight still makes it scary, as they have the cover of darkness to their advantage. And it’s still not as frustrating as it might otherwise be. Many of the demonic enemies do give off light, especially during attacks, to guide the player during combat in the dark. You also have the excellent sound design to guide you.

The game’s combat overall is underrated, and has a lot of the classic Doom feel. You do have a sprint button, and are encouraged to use quick movements, because a lot of enemy attacks are slow enough to be dodged. It’s something alike to the fast moving Doom combat of old. The infamous shotgun of the game seems designed for this. Due to its ridiculous large spread of its pellets, it’s only effective at point blank range, so you are meant to run up to the enemy, dodge its attacks, and fire it. It still has bad RNG for its damage, but I get the point of it.

Now your stamina for sprinting is limited, which encourages you to save it for combat. So the exploration between combat encounters is meant to be at a slower walking pace. It’s a slower experience, meant to build tension for the next combat encounter. And it rewards exploration by giving you supplies. This exploration is then punctuated by the fast-paced combat. It’s a well-paced game, which deliberately tries to vary itself to not wear the player out on one thing.

And how the game tries to scare you is all in classic Doom. The dark areas, the monsters jumpscaring you from closets, and the weird noises from unseen enemies, it’s all there in Doom Iand II. This is how the game retains its identity as a Doom game. The returning enemies have been redesigned to fit the darker horror mood, but imps and zombified human soldiers fill basically the same function as in the first two games.

Doom 3 far from being a complete reversal of its predecessors is more a shift in emphasis. The horror elements were always there in Doom, they just wasn’t emphasized, partly out of technical limitations. And the action that Doom is known for is still there in 3, it’s just balanced more with the horror elements.

Doom 3 really works as a sequel. It takes inspiration from what happened in the genre while the series lay dormant, but it does so in a way that continues its roots. it is not just a good game, but a good Doom game.

Resurrection of Evil

The game got an expansion pack in 2005, Resurrection of Evil, developed by Nerve Software. It’s an excellent example of how good old-school expansion packs were, compared to modern DLC. RoE is more of the same for sure, it uses the same engine and basic gampelay and a lot of the assets from the original. And it’s short, it took me around 4 hours on a first playthough, while the base game took me 13 hours.

Yet it’s a fully-fledged if short game that tries to justify its own existence by adding new weapons, mechanics and enemies. There is an artifact that allows you to slow down time for some slow-motion action. The super shotgun from Doom II makes its return, allowing you to fire two shotgun shells at once for devastating firepower. There is even a rip-off of the gravity gun from Half-life 2.It’s fun, there is an ambition here that serves this expansion pack well.

Writer Matthew J. Costello returns and the expansion pack wraps up the dangling plot thread from the base game, so if you were put off by the base game’s cliffhanger, you’ll get your resolution here.

And the level design is if anything better than the base game. There is more classic Doom-style action (as signified by the return of the super shotgun), but also excellent use of darkness and slow exploration to build horror and tension.

It’s not sold separately from the base game on digital storefronts, so it’s well worth it to play it if you enjoy Doom 3.

Dhewm3

My recommendation for playing this game today is the Dhewm3 source port. It enables widescreen and EAX-like sound effects by default. The port was enabled by Id software wisely releasing the source code for Doom 3. It’s now an open source game, which is nice. And it’s available for all kinds of operating systems, including Linux. It’s even in the official Debian repos. There is an official 2012 re-release, the BFG edition mentioned earlier, I haven’t played it, but it seems to have nerfed the game in ways that I think misses the point of the original game. The Dhewm3 source port is the way to experience this game on a modern system that is still close to the original experience

[friendlybatteringram]

*GLaDOS voice* Aperture Science would like to remind you that the recent Nintendo Switch debut of the standard Aperture Science Enrichment Testing Software does not in any way make Aperture Science itself or any of its members, participants, or technologies a property of the clowns at Nintendo.

If anyone affiliated with our company ever sees Wheatley included in the next Super Smash Bros. roster, we reserve the legal right to turn the people responsible into biofuel for our latest ongoing experiments.

Thank you for your compliance. Or your biofuel.

[rileys-battlecats]

what kind of commercial would each micaclan cat star in?

Mudpaw is in one of those tupperware commercials where there's the "before" section in greyscale where the people open their cabinets and are swamped by a tidal wave of loose tupperware

Wrentail is in a car commercial, but specifically the kind that are like "come on down to Greg's Bodyshop for Great Deals this holiday season" and they're yelling the whole time for no reason and are unnecessarily aggressive in their sales tactics

Larkstar is in a completely silent ad with the product's description and price and a number to call displayed for about 30 seconds and then ending. she features in a still image to the side, using the featured product to demonstrate its use.

Foxjaw is also in a car commercial, but it's for a specific brand and it advertises itself as a very safe family car and has that tiny white text at the bottom saying that everything was filmed on a closed course

Owlpounce is in one of those commercials for tissues that advertises that they won't hurt your nose when you use a lot of them because of their special soft formula that soothes itchy noses or something

Whitepaw is in a commercial for a stain remover that is aiming at pet owners' love for their dogs/cats/hamsters/whatever as a selling point

Hawkpaw is doing one of those ads where she's selling a weird kitchen product that may or may not work but by golly do you wanna try it out for yourself (think of those commercials by that Vince Offer guy)

Puddlepaw is in an ad for running shoes that is short but to the point, with all the relevant information relayed quickly

Robinsong would be in a commercial for non-stick copper pans that advertises having "advanced technology" but they're really just. copper plated pans.

Gullytuft stars in a movie trailer for a dark and gritty retelling of a classic story, with a very dramatic soundtrack and hard-to-see visuals because the trailer is quite literally very dark

Sandleap is in a commercial for a nintendo game that's specifically aimed at kids yet somehow misses the mark and is too kiddy to appeal to the right age demographic

Laureltail stars in an ad for a clothing line that looks a bit odd and is definitely not functional for everyday use, yet is inexplicably appealing

Embertooth is in a commercial for an extremely over-priced gaming headset with fancy noise-canceling technology that takes itself too seriously

Pearfur is in one of those ads for software aimed at high school/college students to help them with their writing/grammar for essays and emails

Snaptail stars in one of those late night infomercials where it's extremely unclear what they're selling and it goes on and on and on and on and

Birchspeckle is in a commercial for an over the counter drug that has an incredibly long list of horrifying side effects and ends with "ask your doctor if Dextrophlybin is right for you" with uplifting music in the background