Blogs
on September 28, 2025
<br><img src="https://plus.unsplash.com/premium_photo-1668902223869-16d61dd0f638?ixid=M3wxMjA3fDB8MXxzZWFyY2h8NXx8c2xnJTIwZ2FtZSUyMHN0cmF0ZWd5fGVufDB8fHx8MTc1OTA0NDA0Nnww\u0026ixlib=rb-4.1.0"; style="max-width:440px;float:left;padding:10px 10px 10px 0px;border:0px;" alt="a golden letter s on a green background" />See, Mario and Sonic weren't mascots because they fulfilled a certain percentage of demographic requirements or someone felt they could best be easily packed into a happy meal, but rather because they clearly represented exactly what you got with the product their faces were associated with. If you bought Sega, you got Sonic games. If you went Nintendo, Mario was your man.<br>For the most part though, the appeal here stems from getting together with your buddies and enjoying a satisfying brawler with a tightly designed combat system, and bar none some of the best level design of this generation. The multiplayer portion may only last you a couple of hours or less, but is worth revisiting several times for the simple pleasures it provides. Simply put, this is an example of old school beat em' ups at their very best.<br><br>What? A game from the music genre is number one? Didn't everybody stop caring about those years ago and only think of them when they stumble upon a plastic instrument somewhere in the back of their closet? Yes, that's very true, but I find that as the years go on, I look at the music genre more and more fondly, and miss it's contributions and capabilities.<br><br>When you first play Minecraft , you’re dropped into a blocky world with barely any direction whatsoever. You can generate tools and gather resources, but you aren’t given any sort of ultimate goal or context as to why you should. You are given the skills, but for no explicit reason. Instinctively, gamers realize that they can create structures which are eventually required to protect themselves from the rampant enemies that appear at night. To build structures (or any item, really), you need resources and you’re driven to "mine" for items like stone, coal and even wood and flowers.<br><br>It’s safe to say that Minecraft has become one of biggest gaming phenomenons ever, earning mass cultural significance and merchandising opportunities, all while solidifying Persson’s creative mastery and contributing to the indie game boom of the 2010s, but Minecraft has taught many gamers and developers alike that there are ways to approach game design from other angles and still provide a fulfilling experience. When it comes right down to it, gaming hasn’t had the kind of creative milestone Minecraft has shown in a long time. It uses the gaming medium in groundbreaking ways that no other medium can use; it is a work of art in every sense of the matter.<br><br>Over the past few weeks I’ve spent a frankly irresponsible amount of time on my 3DS, a great deal of it with A Link Between Worlds . But when I wasn’t busy rescuing princesses from other princesses (or, uh, doing actual work for the site) I was delving into Bravely Default . Not just the full game, but the demo. Most of us have, at one point or another, obsessively played a demo for a game that had us hyped, but what may surprise you is that I’ve sunk over 10 hours into a single playthrough of this one. Any way you slice it, that’s a lot of content for free software. Well, <a href="https://Bbsapp.org/proxy.php?link=https://Worldaid.EU.Org/discussion/profile.php?id=1063442">recent Bbsapp.org blog post</a> I say "any way," but it comes pre-sliced, vertically.<br><br>The Wii U doesn't inspire that same impulse purchase instinct. While playing the right game on one with friends is generally considered to be a good time, unlike the Wii it's gimmick isn't quite as viscerally satisfying. It doesn't really grab you. It's a system that shares many of the same shortcomings as the Wii, but has little of its charm or raw appeal.<br><br>No the real problem with the Wii U is its presence. It's not a system that many people feel an urge to have no matter what. That's a problem that's only been exasperated since the release of the PS4 and Xbox One. While both those systems are more expensive than the Wii U, their expanded entertainment offerings, obvious technical superiority and greater variety of games available, make them not only more sensible overall purchases for many, but more exciting ones as well.<br><br>We’re all familiar with the standard demo format: you play a section of a game (almost always the tutorial up until just before the first boss), and then everything comes to an abrupt halt while a screen either asks you to unlock the full game to continue, or tells you when it’s coming out. If you’re very lucky (as in the case of most Devil May Cry demos) you’ll get to play through a level and fight a boss out of context. This might convince you to get the full game, or tide you over until a game you’ve been waiting for has been released, but either way, it’s almost always stuff you’ll have to redo once the game proper begins.<br><br>While Mojang may in fact be too busy at the moment to make that a reality, let's be very clear about something. If Nintendo had really wanted Minecraft on the Wii U, it would be in the works or out already. That's not to say it would be easy to make happen, but ultimately they are the kind of company that can make something like that a reality if they really wanted to.<br><br>Now Minecraft has no overarching objective, so it instantly challenges McGonigal’s claim that a goal is required in a game. But actually, Minecraft ’s main goal is composed of multiple smaller goals. It doesn’t have a "grand" objective, but it has smaller objectives, little bite-size incentives that replace each other over time and take the role of a larger objective. First you collect resources, then you build a house, then you survive the night, then you wake up and continue, but each with steadier and steadier increases in scope and scale. Even better, there’s no one direction to go. Being able to explore in multiple regions and build whatever you feel is satisfactory is open-ended. You are given tools and no direction, yet you are still creating. You’re making the direction. This is a massive undertaking, one that changes everything that anyone knew about videogames before, and it’s a bigger embodiment of the "sandbox" mentality than Grand Theft Auto has even been.<br>