PETA-- who apparently never played Super Mario Bros. 3-- has come to the conclusion through the new Super Mario 3D Land for the 3DS that Mario is a animal-hating fascist bastard.

Their new flash game, which is played from the perspective of what looks like that one guy kicking the smaller ball-shaped guy around on Death Mountain in Link to the Past's Dark World, tells the story of how Mario is a complete shithead who skins animals in 2D and apparently flies off with their skin.

Again, bear in mind: the Tanooki Suit evolved from the NES game we all know and love, Mario 3, which came out over twenty years ago. Apparently PETA didn't get the memo.

I have nothing else to say other than some input from my wife: where does the Frog Suit come in on this? What about all the frogs who Mario skins brutally, yanked violently from their quiet ponds by this vicious plumber? Think about that one.

Minecraft is a game. If you've played Terraria, it might seem awfully familiar, or vice versa. You build stuff. You have fun. There are zombies (there are always zombies, these days). It is available on Mac and PC for fifteen U.S. dollars.

However, when attempting to describe to co-workers, be prepared for subtle nuances in conversational changes that may disturb or ruin your build-up of the end result description.

Example:

"Hey, I play Minecraft. It's a fun game."

"What's it like?"

"Well, you dig stuff... and can build whatever you want..."

"Like The Sims?"

"Well... kind of.... except you make a character, and get equipment..."

"Like Runescape?"

"Well... kind of..."

"I like World of Warcraft."


At this point, you have failed. Display the trailer for the game and expect luke warm results. Maybe praise it's finer points while avoiding any similarities to... well, anything.

Here's an example of proper sentence structure (NOTE: This has never been actually tested in the field, proceed with extreme caution when using):

"There's this game I play that has a lot of stuff in it and you run around and there are enemies that explode and your house will blow up and it's fun. Please try it and I will be happy."

Another example, this time targeting the 18-25 male demographic:

"YO WASSUP DOGG!? XBOX IS LIKE WIGGITY WHACK! PLAY MINECRAFT!"

Explore other avenues of conversation when necessary.

Those of you who know me know how ridiculous my love for The King of Fighters series is - for those that don't - lets just say I own every entry in the mainline series on one console or another (and in KoF 97's case I own it three times, including on the actual Neo-Geo hardware).

I was exceptionally happy with King of Fighters XII a few years ago, but my one major dislike was that it was another dream match - at last though, I can see the finale to the Ash Crimson arc!

Whats more, Atlus is translating this game - meaning we might actually get some quality dialogue in the US version for once. If that wasn't enough, those of us who pre order get a sexy 4 disc soundtrack CD set with KoF music from throughout the series. I couldn't be happier. When capcom gives us a rehash of MvC3 the same year it came out with minor tweaks, SNK a few years later gives us a substantiatative entry in the series. Is it any wonder I love SNK so much? :D

and of course, here's the requisite trailer:

In what could best be described as... well, really dumb, Square has announced that the newest game in the classic Dragon Quest series, slated for the Wii, will be a pay-to-play MMO. Nevermind the fact that at this point getting a good release on the Wii in the U.S. is like asking for a blowjob from Grace Park while eating a Hot Pocket surfing Netflix-- not that we would know anything about that-- the game will also be updated and re-released on the Wii U.

This also follows Capcom's recent decision to cancel fan favorite Mega Man Legends 3. Let's not touch that one.

Frankly, I'm totally confused by the decision-making process, here. The Wii is not exactly the best online gaming platform. Pay-to-play MMOs have been biting the dust-- or going the free-to-play/microtransaction route-- for the last couple years, unable to compete with the addiction monster that is World of Warcraft. Sure, DQX will do well in Japan, but in North America it will bomb before it even begins.

The biggest problem, however, is how this will effect the series historically. With the Final Fantasy series, we now have two games that, someday, will only survive by sheer fanbase and private servers (XI and XIV, for those keeping track).

As I've said before, this is incredibly stupid. My kids, someday, will have one hell of a time understanding that mess, and why the only way you can play a very certain two in an otherwise incredible series is by joining up with a hodge-podge of about a couple hundred folks that still enjoy playing an old online game.

Dragon Quest was always different, though. Simple, concise, classic gameplay that set the mold of almost every RPG we enjoy today. It's a formula that's rarely changed, only slightly improving here and there over the years-- and that's fine. We loved it for that.

Dragon Quest X was one of the few on my radar I was genuinely excited about. Now, it marks a semi-interesting point in history (instead) where I just stopped caring, and I-IX will be remembered as the "classic" Dragon Quest games. Thanks to GameLife for the news.

Mr. Sanchez joins me again, playing Angry Birds as I make comments like he's playing Golf or something.

Somehow, Pueto thought Lego Universe had just came out. Somehow, so did I. Somehow, we both became very excited by this. Let's pretend it didn't come out last October.

From Dust, a damn good little God game that reminds me a lot of Black and White meets Pikmin with some seriously detailed geography effects. It also comes from Ubisoft, who loves to hamper their software with shitty DRM. We try to get it working for the show, and Pueto's computer somehow succeeds at dumb-fucking it's way through things as we succeed. It's a hollow victory. DRM shouldn't even exist like this.

Something I've been meaning to get off the ground for nearly a year now, Sanshiro Shrine has finally turned web 2.0 and has a podcast! With talking! And videogames! And everything!

In this first episode, Pueto and I play Black Ops and discuss some assorted anniversaries (Zelda and the SNES, respectively).

In the future, I'd like to figure out how to RSS everything, since that seems to be the stylish way of doing these things.

Steamworth: SEGA
Steamworth: making cool games you can't play
Steamworth: to this day