My fondest memories of my childhood aren't playing Contra or Street Fighter, but games like Chip N' Dale and Duck Tales.

The Wii U's game category has been much slower than others, but I feel like every single game Nintendo proper releases is pure gold, and there's plenty of 3rd-party games that have seen hundreds of hours of family gameplay (Rayman Legends).

Anyways, I hope this release brings about a new generation of Really Hard Mario levels!

Nintendo took a really popular (and good) genre, the team based shooter, and made it perfectly family friendly. Easy to understand, lots of fun, no exploding heads, no dismemberments, nothing objectionable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fur_Fighters

I just don't want to have yet another console to worry about hooking up. So I'm waiting until I'm ready to retire my current Xbox 360 and PS3 (and with upcoming Dark Souls 2 DLC, that's going to be probably another half year at least).

That said, I'm probably going to be forced to pick up a PS4 to play Bloodborne when it launches (supposedly a sort of spiritual successor to Demon's Souls).

That said, there's just no way to enjoy all the best games by restricting yourself to only a PC. It sucks, but it's how it is right now.

Something like this might help: http://www.monoprice.com/Product?p_id=6259

I've never enjoyed fps, although I happen to work in the tools team for one of the most popular fps's out there.

I grew up on turn based fantasy gaming and still do that (highly recommend Dragon Fantasy Book I & II, also Palm Kingdoms).

Here's a video of one of one of the difficult levels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teAqRZX4hbY

I actually threw up my hands when I saw not only that the player had to throw a baby Yoshi up in the air to eat an enemy, but that the designer of the level expected this! Same when I realized that the the length of an area was tuned so that it was juuuuuust smaller than the amount of time Yoshi held a shell in his mouth before swallowing.

Ditto for Zelda, those two are my favorite games but I can only play the same game so much.

edit: a couple of replies made me realize that I was off the mark slightly with my comment. I should have focused on how their attempts to support user made content have seemed to run into their legal department's over the top desire to "defend" their character IP.

and even to the more recent Wario-Ware games where you can make your own mini-games.

No idea why they used a dog icon in the corner. IIRC that was the undo button in Mario Paint. http://e3.nintendo.com/_ui/images/games/wiiu/mario-maker/scr... Maybe it's a pun in Japanese?

I'm a bit disappointed that they apparently didn't put in the music editor.

> No idea why they used a dog icon in the corner.

Perhaps him sneezing is related somehow? "Blowing away changes"…

Edit: Or the similarity between Inu (Dog) and Undo?

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=mii+celebrities&tbm=isch

Also, Nintendo has said that they won't be allowing you to see customized Miis when fighting other people online in SSB unless they're a friend of yours, probably to prevent copyright (and objectionable content) issues.

https://store.nintendo.com/ng3/us/po/browse/productDetailCol...

It also comes with a 3 year warranty and a free copy of Nintendo Land. If you get Mario Kart 8 before the end of July, you can get a free game with it. In total, it's about $250 for a console still early in its cycle and 3 good games. It's a great deal.

I've checked their german store and there doesn't seem to be a similar offering for refurbs here - or is there?

Advice appreciated, coz at $200 it'd be a steal...

Little Big Planet is 2D platformer released in 2008 whose maps were designed built in house through their own level editor. They provided a (Stephen Fry narrated, dear lord) interactive tutorial and a complete system to share levels and play with your friends.

There _were_ some performance issues with some of the more complicated levels and the PS3's limited RAM maintaining a big ole physics engine.

But since this is just Mario, level complexity shouldn't be a problem. Still, I don't know if Mario provides enough variety to remain interesting for years.

THEN AGAIN - there is a kid born every day who's never played a Mario game before, maybe things should stay simple.

Is that just post production, or do they actually allow the editor to define a set of moves and abstract over time, a la Brett Victor?

http://www.smwiki.net/wiki/Lunar_Magic

I wonder how Mario Maker will compare in functionality and ease of use.

Lovers of the series and fans of the genre can agree that a side scroller's music makes the whole game's flow fit together. An avant garde remix of Mario's theme would be the perfect accompaniment to some of the experimental levels people will create.

*Game Genie? Emulated ROM?

The bounding box for the flag top is pretty tall, so I had to get a lot of air in order to clear it.

There are some places in The Lost Levels where you're meant to be able to jump over it. I believe that one had a warp pipe that took you BACK in the game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMCfqjRheY8