3DS Update Introduces Themes

Colors, Characters, Games and more.

The update introduces Themes, including a Theme Shop, Miiverse and Nintendo Network ID support added, and changes to the Home Menu.

The themes available for free are Basic colors, such as Red, Blue, Yellow, Pink and Black.
But many more themes are available through the Theme Shop, from your favorite characters such as Mario, Luigi, Peach and Yoshi, other themes such as NES: Jumping Mario and Mighty Mushrooms, and some games like Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.
The paid themes include a theme song that plays as you are on your Home Screen. The cost varies depending on the Theme that you want, starting for free. The update is available to all 3DS, 3DS XL and 2DS systems right now and for the New 3DS and New 3DS XL once they come out.

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker Out This December

Coming to the US December 5th.

Nintendo of America has announced the release date though their official twitter account.
First introduced on Super Mario 3D World’s mini-levels, the gameplay of this game is a fresh take on platforming, from the franchise that probably does it best in the first place, and it’ll bring casual gamers with it’s charming presentation, and hardcore gamers with it’s progressively complex level design.
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is a title that at first raised many eyebrows when it was announced back on E3, but ever since it showed us it’s unique way of bringing puzzle and the interesting “jump-less” platforming together to bring a new gameplay mechanic has had us intrigued.

Additionally, it has been revealed that Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker will support Amiibo figures in 2015.

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Release Date Announced!

The All-Star Fighter will Come Out This November.

Nintendo has announced today though the official Super Smash Bros. website that the Wii U version of the upcoming title will be coming out November 21st of this year.
Plus details on a second wave of amiibo figures.
The news come from the official webpage of the series, with a mini site coming on the way, along with this news, Nintendo has announced

details of several bundles for the game, one of them being the one we discussed a few weeks ago when Amazon.com leaked details, and a new one where you get an amiibo of Mario, though the price is yet to be announced.

Not only this, but 6  amiibo figures have been announced for the second wave, the characters for the amiibos are: Diddy Kong, Zelda, Luigi, Captain Falcon, Pit and Little Mac.
The first wave of amiibo figures will come November 21st, same as the game. and the second wave will come this December.
Both waves will cost $12.99 USD each upon release.
Amiibos are said to be compatible with the existing title Mario Kart 8, and the upcoming titles Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Mario Party 10, Yoshi’s Woolly World, and of course, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS.

TVG Review: Super Smash Bros. for 3DS

Smashing!

The first handheld entry in the series is one of it’s biggest and brightest yet!
Masahiro Sakurai and Namco Bandai deliver a fantastic game on Nintendo’s handheld. With a massive character roster that’ll take you through an All-Star cast, sharp and beautiful graphics and gameplay that should fulfill newcommers and long-time fans’ expectations alike.

Modes 

The first mode in this game is “Smash” which is a free match, weather you choose to play alone against AI characters, or locally on a group with your friends, this mode is perfect to get you into the game and understand the basic concepts of this game before getting into the other modes. It’s important to note a new feature, in which all stages have an “Omega mode” which basically turns them into a Final Destination clone, making the stage into one big platform.
The game sees the return of Classic mode, where you are put in a number of themed battles until you reach the end and get the trophy of the character you selected, it isn’t too different from the past iterations, the main difference is that now you can choose from 2 or 3 alternatives of equivalent fights instead of being put right into one, making it feel much more like a personalized experience, another difference is that we no longer have target smash or any other type of minigame within the classic mode, but there are many other new modes and features in the game to replace this.
All-Star Mode also makes a return, this time a little different, now you’ll fight against all fighters in the game in batches of 4 or 5 fighters in order in which they were introduced to the world.
Adventure mode is missing from this game, the first time absent since it’s introduction is Super Smash Bros. Melee, however, now we have a new mode taking it’s place.
Smash Run is a new mode exclusive to the 3DS version of this game, it’s gonna be familiar to those who played Kirby: Air Ride, you first go into a big area full of enemies and obstacles where your main goal is to collect as many stat badges as possible, which’ll give you a certain stat, like more powerful special moves, speed, weight, among others. Then you go into an event that’ll make use of those stats, weather it’s your speed or strength, different matches will need a different skill. You can play this mode by yourself with AI players or locally with your friends.

Playable Characters

The roster of this game is the biggest the series has seen, and certainly one of the biggest video games have ever seen. With a 51-character final roster, all with unique special attacks and customization.
An interesting feature is the introduction of Miis, which unlike any other fighter, you can name, dress, stat change, and customize all their special moves to your liking.
However, now you can also customize a little the rest of the characters, with the introduction of stat modifiers and certain special moves.
The downside to this is that you have to unlock every single move for every single character, this can be tedious at times and take you a long while.

Internet

The internet connection for this game isn’t perfect, you can’t access any other system feature that uses internet, like Friends List or Miiverse, that while you can open it, you can’t search for people on the internet.
The only internet feature in this game is of course, fighting online, there are 2 modes, from which the rest spawn, the first is “with friends”, this feature allows you to play with your friends very similar to how you play locally with them, only though the internet, which does cause some lag every now and then, but it’s understandable seeing how this game just came out and the servers might be having some issues.
The other mode is to play “With Anyone”, from which you get “For Fun” and “For Glory”. For Fun in itself has two modes, “Smash” and “Team Smash” where up to four players fight trough any stage, in this mode all items are unlocked. For Glory is a lot different, you fight only on omega mode stages, and have no items, you have 3 modes,  “1-on-1”, “Smash” and “Team Smash”, all have the same restrictions.

Mini-games

While we don’t get Target Smash on Classic Mode, the game has Trophy Rush, Street Smash, Target Blast and the Return of Home-Run Contest and Multi-Man Smash.
Home-Run Constest is just like in the past, you select a character with which you’ll hit a sandbag with a bat and send it flying as far as you can.
Multi-Man Smash puts you on a fight against a certain amount of AI players or a time limit, 10-man, 100-man, 3-minute, Rival, Endless, and Cruel Smash are all featured and should bring a challenge to the more experienced fighters.
Target Blast puts you in a Angry Birds style mini-game where you’ll hit a bomb into a mountain of targets and blocks to see how much you can destroy.
From TVGamers, this game gets a:

9/10

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Bundle Details Revealed

Amazon.com’s listing shows details for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U

The Special Edition Bundle includes the game itself, a Special Edition Gamecube Controller, and the GC Controller Adapter.

The bundle is listed at $99.99 USD, which would save you about $10 USD compared to getting everything separately, the game itself is listed at $59.99 and the adapter and special edition controller are listed at $19.99 USD and $29.99 USD, respectively. These prices shouldn’t be too different in stores.
It is yet unkwown how much compatibility will the GC controllers and adapter will have outside Smash Bros., it was rumored a planed compatibility to titles like Mario Kart 8 but it is yet to be confirmed by Nintendo.
And in case you were wondering, all amiibo NFC figures are listed at $12.99 USD.
The release date to all these is listed December 31, 2014, which may or may not change as the date approaches, we’ll keep you posted,
What do you think of this bundle? is it worth the price? or is it not cheap enough for you to get it? Tell us what you think on the comments.

Super Smashing Sale – Week 4

Donkey Kong, Kirby, Pac-man, Pikmin, Star Fox and Animal Crossing, all on the Final Week!

Nintendo has released today the list of fighters featured on this week’s sale, the last Smashing Sale because of next week’s release of Super Smash Bros. for 3DS here on America.
The list of games goes as follows:
(All prices are on USD)

Donkey Kong

(Wii U) Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze from $49.99 to $29.99
(Wii U) Donkey Kong Jr. from $4.99 to $3.49
(3DS) Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D from $29.99 to $19.99
(3DS) Game & Watch: Donkey Kong from $1.99 to $1.49
(Wii U & 3DS) Donkey Kong from $4.99 to $3.49

Kirby

(3DS) Kirby’s Dream Land from $3.99 to $2.49
(3DS) Kirby’s Dream Land 2 from $3.99 to $2.49
(Wii U) Kirby’s Dream Land 3 from $7.99 to $4.99
(Wii U) Kirby & the Amazing Mirror from $6.99 to $4.99

Pac-man

(Wii U & 3DS) Pac-man and the Ghostly Adventures from $19.99 to $11.99

Pikmin

(Wii U) Pikmin 3 from $59.99 to $39.99

Star Fox

(3DS) Star Fox 64 3D from $39.99 to $29.99

Animal Crossing

(3DS) Animal Crossing: New Leaf from $29.99 to $19.99

What do you think of this week’s sale? is it what you expected? or did you expect other titles to be on the list? Please comment bellow.

To see the official list on Nintendo’s website, click here: http://www.nintendo.com/eshop/offers#week04

Nintendo Direct Australia – 24 September, 2014

NEW Nintendo 3DS coming to Australia and New Zealand November 21st

There’ll be 2 versions of this new console, the NEW Nintendo 3DS and the NEW Nintendo 3DS XL.
amiibo compatibility, better 3D, longer battery life, larger screens, and more!

Comparison to the 3DS and 3DS XL

 while the XL will have the same screen size as the existing one, the regular NEW 3DS will have an upper screen of 3.88 inches, and a lower screen of 3.33 inches, Nintendo explains that it is 1.2 times larger than the one found on the original 3DS.
Both New 3DS’s will come with better 3D that recognizes your eyes so it fixes it to your vewing, it’s sensible to light, so when it’s darker your screen will lower its brightness, on a bright room, it’ll get brighter. It also has faster loading time, such as when downloading games on the eShop.
Additionally, it’s been said that not only will it play existing 3DS games, there’ll be games exclusively made for it and also, games that’ll come out for the 3DS will have additional features such as better graphics and faster loading time.
It is worth mentioning that these improvements will not happen with existing 3DS titles.

New Features

Both consoles will be capable of reading your NFC amiibo figures, tough if you have the current 3DS, XL, or 2DS, an Add-On hardware will come out for existing 3DS consoles.

The regular New 3DS will have exchangeable cover plates which can be bought separately, but it is worth mentioning that the New 3DS XL does not support this feature.
Both consoles will feature 2 new additional shoulder buttons and a C-Stick, which functions as a second Analog Stick.
It was mentioned that neither system will come with an A/C charger, but all existing DSi and 3DS family chargers are compatible, plus, a new charging cradle was announced for $14.95 AUD

To see the Nintendo Direct from Nintendo of Australia’s Youtube Account, click here:
http://youtu.be/_uNYEo8YN3I

Nintendo 125th Anniversary

Happy Birthday Nintendo!

The Big N’s 125th Anniversary is no small feat for the gaming industry, granted, they’ve not always been about video games, but It’s interesting to note that they’ve always been on the entertainment market, whether we talk about their Hanafuda cards, toy lines, they’ve always been there in the industry.

Massive icons such as Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Metroid, Kirby, and specially Super Mario, who ranks among the most famous characters in the world, in some regions even more so than Mickey Mouse.
Among their most important names are Gunpei Yokoi, Fusajiro Yamauchi, and legendary Shigeru Miyamoto.
Here’s for many more years to come!

TVG Talk – Retro Games

The Rise of Retro Gaming

It’s no secret that retro games are “a thing” now, and that for many, if you’re not into the old classics, then you’re not a “true” gamer, but how have classic games found a spot in modern gaming?
Let’s not forget that a few years back, once the 32 and 64 bit era began, everybody was going 3D, and it was not always pretty, ideas that were great and worked in 2D, once changed into 3D it didn’t always work, of course, you have games like Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, where not only did they work but they changed their genre for years to come.
Then, during the Gamecube and PlayStation 2 era we had these “classic collection” games from famous franchises like Zelda or Megaman and nobody was buying them, collections now desired by collectors and gamers alike.
So how did we get from an era where old games were pretty much look down upon, to one where they are welcome? a generation where games like Earthbound and A Link to the Past sell even better than other games on the eShop? Not only that, but games like Sonic the Hedgehog 4 part 1 & 2, and the whole New Super Mario Bros. Series, that welcome and revisit those concepts and ideas in modern day graphics, and games like Megaman 9 and 10, and Shovel Knight, which mimic games from the 8-bit era can be not only critically-acclaimed, but also commercially successful?
It’ll probably sound funny, but I believe it’s because of the games. That’s right, it’s about gamers telling the industry “We don’t care about graphics and specs as much as we care about the gameplay” because let’s face it, those cutting edge graphics you see, will age, not always all that well, but a game with a fun gameplay has a better chance of survival over time.
What do you think of these classic titles returning to the masses? Do you believe that retro games like Megaman 9 and Shovel Knight have a future in the industry? Please tell us what you think in the comment section below.

Assassin’s Creed Unity Dead Kings DLC

Plus Other Season Pass Details

The Assassin’s Creed series is  no stranger to DLC, and AC: Unity is no exception, Ubisoft announced today a story DLC named Dead Kings,
The Season Pass will cost $29.99 and it will feature Dead King campaign, new weapons, gear and skills and the standalone 2,5D title Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China.

In addition to the before mentioned DLC, you will get 3 new missions, plus, the new weapons, gear and skills can be used in both Unity and Dead Kings.
This looks like a great deal for fans of the series, and as a pre-order bonus you will have the exclusive double-handed war axe. 
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