The Day Wii Parted

And so, the day has come: the Wii Shop Channel has been closed down by Nintendo.

I suppose the real feat here is that something has latest well over a decade in an industry that tends to move at a lightening fast pace. But such wording does describe a problem that is growing within the gaming industry: Things are moving so quickly that it is difficult to keep up. Subsequently, far too often many older games are being forgotten.

Whilst I've spoken about the sorry state of gaming preservation, I do have some anger directed at Nintendo for their cavalier approach to their history. Whereas the likes of Steam and GoG have their games available forever, Nintendo would rather have their games being made difficult to get a hold of let alone play. It is indeed frustrating that many classics are going unplayed and many aspiring game developers are unable to learn from the pioneers who came before them.

Still, the Wii Shop Channel was, for me, the singular reason i got a Wii. The means to play all those historical classics, that passed me the first time around, was a delight to behold. And it's the same reason why I still hang onto my Wii - and, with all my downloads from the Wii Shop Channel safe on a SD card, I certainly see myself continue to use it in the future. 

Rest In Peace you glorious thing you.

Noseblud

In recent months I played a lot of Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings.
And during the Attila campaign i came across this:

Somehow the anime geek in me will never find this not funny.

Face Facts

Well Red Dead Redemption 2 has been out for a while now.
Thus the excitement and anticipation in the lead-up to it's release now seems a distant memory. ]
I suppsoe that's to be expected with any game relased, but there's something i wnat answered.

Has anyone correctly identified the characters in the promo art?

 Original image located here. Accessed 21st January 2018

I remember this being a big deal, with people trying to match names to the faces (I tried it myself) but now we've had the time to get to know these characters, with recognizing famailiar faces and being introduced to new ones. So has anyone put names to the faces?

No Tickets to Paradise

During the holiday period, i came across something that made me irate:

Original video located here. Accessed 18th January 2019

Admittedly, Nintendo's lawsuit against various ROM sites (including Emuparadise) is news to me. Somehow, I have not been keeping abreast with the emulation front since I've been playing old games that have been easily accessible (via Virtual Console, Steam, and GoG).

I am however disgusted with this hostility towards emulation. For me, emulation is providing a vital service in preserving old games and making them readily available - even in the face of companies who are doing nothing of the sort and subsequently getting irate and bringing in the lawyers.

Little counter-productive don't cha think?

No doubt this fracas will result in some bad PR for Nintendo. And may make the topic of emulation a greater talking point than previously. So it would be interesting to see what will happen in the aftermath of this.....

Return of the Dragon

Happy New Year!

So here we are: Another year, and another series of posts to fill up a blog that flat out refuses to die. 

So to kick things off for 2019, this was something that caught my eye during the holiday period: Panzer Dragoon 1 and 2 will be getting a remake.  

This is good news for me. Whilst it does present hope that the fabled Saga may be following suite (admittedly however slim), the real treat is that Sega have made a big step in acknowledging their post-Megadrive history and are making some of their lesser-known/overlooked classics in a new light. I heard rumours that Sega were considering dusting off some old IP and here, we have some proof to back it up

So, there's some hope for 2019. So lets see if that potential is met....

That was the year it was: 2018

And so another year comes to an end. And with the end of the year, Game Tumor goes into hibernation and I am liberated from the pressures of coming up with more posts for this corner of cyberspace (at least until next year....).

So what has 2018 has to show for itself? Well I had the pleasure of casting more games from my Hall of Shame: Homeworld and God of Thunder were both beaten at long last, Trails in the Sky SC was finally concluded and Oxenfree turned out a massive delight; I finally entered the current console generation with the purchase of an Xbox One; mini retro consoles are proving to be a huge success; and Blizzard has made a major mistep that has thrown the internet into all sorts of chaos.

But whatever.
You may have noticed that this post marks the 900th post to this blog. Yeah, I can hardly believe it myself. So after nine years and 900 posts this blog is still going.
It just refuses to die!
One would think that I would eventually run out of things to say (especially considering that I'm shooting out fewer posts annually than previously) but apparently not. One would think that, seeing as this blog has lasted longer than the usual internet time span, that it's time has well and truly gone but no. I suppose as the wonderful world of gaming keeps trucking on, i will have things to say. And as long as I keep having games left unplayed, this blog will keep on going.

So here's the future and I hope to speak you all again when the curtain rises on 2019.

This was a triumph

Here's something that caught me completely by surprise. Someone redid Portal as a C64 game!:

Original video located here. Accessed 9th November 2018

I tend to view demakes with a conflicting eye: On one hand it's impressive that someone went to so much trouble but on the other hand I am left wondering what the point of it all was.

But who am I kidding? This is nothing short of impressive. It's astonishing that someone managed to get something of this quality out of an ancient hardware. Okay sure the ratio of time spent in the rooms to the time spent listening to GlaDOS' dialogue is off but I still take my aht off to the man who came up with this.