Always wear a helmet. That's the message Bayonetta and Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya has for his Twitter followers.
In a recent tweet, Kamiya said that he found himself with time on his hands and that he wanted to write about a motorcycle accident he had while he was developing Devil May Cry. The famous designer went on for dozens of tweets about his accident.
From the sounds of it, Kamiya is lucky to be alive and may very well have died had he not worn his helmet. "My face was scratching on the ground, but since I was wearing a helmet I could see the asphalt whizzing past my face." He continued, "It's always important to wear your helmet. The relative value of looking cool in a half-cap only seems like a good trade-off to a middle-schooler."
Before being honored with an Academy Fellowship award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts last month, beloved Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto sat down for a lengthy chat with Eurogamer. The topics of discussion ranged from Super Mario Galaxy 2's difficulty to Miyamoto's early days at Nintendo, but a single theme seemed to resonate throughout the interview: a desire to make simple, fun games that anyone can enjoy.
When it comes to Miyamoto's approach to game design, the Mario creator recalled a formative conversation with the late Gunpei Yokoi, designer of the Game Boy and producer on the first Metroid. "You have thought about that too much, you have worried about that too much. Why don't you stop -- you cannot make any further steps as you are right now," Yokoi warned Miyamoto, explaining how over-thinking things can interfere with the game design process.
Among the many lessons Miyamoto picked up from Yokoi: "People can do something very simple, but simple things piled up: That's where new play can be born."
Nintendo recently put out the Metroid Prime Trilogy for the Wii -- a three-pack of some of Nintendo's most adult games, and likely one of the best gaming values this side of the Orange Box. But now fans have noticed that the Trilogy version of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption isn't quite how they remember it; GoNintendo reports that Nintendo may have chosen to censor certain aspects of Metroid Prime 3.
Specifically, GoNintendo cites a YouTube video of a cutscene from Corruption, during which the Admiral Dane character originally says, "Damn! They're targeting the planetary-defense system," only to be replaced in Metroid Prime Trilogy with a re-dubbed, "No! They're targeting the planetary-defense system."
It's not exactly clear why Nintendo would make such minor changes to the dialog in Corruption -- or if they altered any other parts of the game, for that matter. All three Metroid Prime games sported Teen ratings from the ESRB back when they were released, and so does this new compilation. Is a single instance of a relatively mild swear word really worth correcting?
Imagine the sort of mental fortitude it would take to play through each of the seven main Mario games -- Super Mario Bros., SMB2, SMB3, Super Mario World, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy -- with no breaks, and not just to the end, but also until achieving 100 percent completion of every title. We imagine you'd have to be a little insane to attempt it, which the men behind this Mario Marathon may be. But they're also generous, as the whole ordeal is being held to raise money for Penny Arcade's annual Child's Play charity.
The players include Brian "Shirt Guy" Brinegar, John "Couch Guy" Groth, and Chris "Slouch Guy" Deckard (nicknames are their own), and a live stream of the event can be seen at their website (if indeed watching some guys playing through various Mario games is your idea of a good time). But that website is also where you go to make a donation, and so far they've raised a remarkable $16,306, all of which will go to the Child's Play charity to benefit children hospitals around the world.
It looks like they're well on pace to reaching their donation goals for each challenge, with the ultimate goal being $98,304. The challenges include beating each game, then completing 100 percent in each game -- meaning completing every level and obtaining every star, including replaying Super Mario Galaxy as Luigi as well. They've already been at it for over two days, and as of this writing, they're still only making their way to completing Super Mario 64 with 100 percent.
We spoke with No More Heroes creator Goichi Suda (a.k.a. Suda 51) early on at the Nordic Game Conference in Malmö, Sweden, but when it came time for his scheduled presentation, titled "The Birth of No More Heroes," we made sure to be in attendance. Luckily, it didn't disappoint, as Suda delivered a multimedia presentation of the many diverse films that inspired some of his games -- most notably last year's No More Heroes.
Suda started by noting a couple of key films that inspired previous works. His 1999 import-only PSone adventure, The Silver Case (currently being remade for the DS), was inspired by Nouvelle Vague, a 1990 French film directed by Jean-Luc Godard about a female hitchhiker taken in by a rich man. He later took inspiration from the 1973 Japanese yakuza film Battles without Honor or Humanity: Hiroshima Deathmatch for one of his best-known titles, 2005's Killer 7.
Those who like fun might remember a PS2/Xbox/GameCube shooter called Metal Arms: Glitch in the System. It was an impressive debut from then-startup developer Swingin' Ape Studios, but it didn't sell very well, and when Blizzard ended up purchasing Swingin' Ape a couple of years later, it seemed like we'd seen the end of the Metal Arms franchise.
As it turns out, that might not be true. Don't get your hopes up too high, because it still looks like an extreme long shot, but in an interview with 1UP earlier this week, former Swingin' Ape head (and current president of Specular Interactive, a new developer working on a Hydro Thunder spiritual sequel called H2Overdrive) mentioned that he was interested in acquiring the rights to the series and would "absolutely" be interested in making a sequel if he had the opportunity.
So it's about as far as these things can be from being confirmed, but fun to think about!
