OMG Nintendo

I like to think that every gamer, on some level, has a soft spot for Mario. Ranging from his early appearances in Donkey Kong and Mario Bros to recent efforts like Super Mario Galaxy, a new Mario game almost always promises some amazing new way of thinking about the basics of playing video games. All Mario ever has to do is travel from Point A to Point B, but this task tends to become increasingly demented as a game wears on. 

Summer! 

Yesterday, the original Game Boy celebrated its 20th anniversary. The Game Boy is a lot more than just an irrelevant old hunk of wires and plastic, though: it's possibly the second-most important system Nintendo ever invented. In a lot of ways, the Game Boy pioneered a lot of today's most famous Nintendo-isms, things a  modern gamer could easily take for granted.

With twenty years of Game Boy behind us, though, now's a good time to sit back and remember all the things that the Game Boy gave us Nintendo gamers: the highs, the lows, the frustrations. It's a little shocking now to think of all the great games and franchises that wouldn't exist without the Game Boy, even if very few modern gamers are going back to the old spinach-screened wonder to enjoy them.

Speaking of great big long lists of games, the folks at Guinness recently compiled a list of the "most influential games of all time." A lot of Nintendo stuff tops the list, including Super Mario Kart at #1 and Tetris at #2... but a few notable games like Super Mario Bros. 3 are completely absent, and the order from "most" to least" influential is eyebrow-raising at points.

I'm dropping the entire list behind the cut with the Nintendo-centric entries in bold. I'm really curious to see what my Nintendo-biased readers think of the list-- specifically, how it omitted a lot of Nintendo games that I'm sure we'd consider pretty important.

Retro Game Challenge is a seriously awesome game. Anyone with the least bit of interest in the glory days of NES gaming in the 80's should really go out and snag a copy. From start to finish it's a really well-done product that deserves your support as much (or more!) than any other game that's ever sponsored this site.

In Retro Game Challenge, you've been sent back in time to the 80's, where you play video games alongside some kid named Arino who isn't very good at them. You were sent back in time by the god-like Game Master Arino, a vengeful presence inside your DS that is the result of Arino's ever-frustrated desire to master all games.

The video games you must play to escape the 80s in Retro Game Challenge aren't games that ever existed, nor are they off-brand clones of existing games. They're all cleverly constructed, superbly playable games that evoke 80s greats without being too similar to them. There are eight games in total included in Retro Game Challenge, and below is my ranking of the bestest five.

Has it been over a year already? Have I already made 1000 posts at omgNintendo? It seems I have! That means it's time to party, retro-style.

1000 is often a very special number in video games, at least of the variety that keep track of any kind of points. 1000 points usually represents a ton of damage, gobs of experience, a massive boost to your high score... whatever the game, getting a thousand points is usually a sign that you've just done something totally awesome.

For my 1000th post, I decided I need to celebrate some of my favorite things in video games (Nintendo and otherwise) that are worth that magic number, 1000 points. There's definitely some other stuff worth that magic 1000 number in other games, but these are my personal favorites.

Read on, and then let me know about your favorite 1000 points in the comments!

The folks at Disney Interactive really want to give a lucky omgNintendo reader a free copy of Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals. Who am I to argue?

If you want to enter the Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals contest, just leave a comment at this very blog post that begins with "The best thing about Spectrobes is..." Then write whatever you want! Everyone who enters has a chance to win no matter what, but people who write something awesome have slightly more of a chance to win, let's say.

Contest entries will be accepted until Midnight, October 16th. Winners will be announced ASAP after that, with winning comments featured in the post! One first place winner wins a copy of Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals for Nintendo DS and a Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals poster, while two runners-up will receive Spectrobes: Beyond the Portal posters.

IMPORTANT: If you want to win, make sure your mailing address information is either included in your GamePro.com user profile, or a valid e-mail address is provided so I can contact you and receive it privately.

There's a lot of talk about story and plot in video games these days, which frankly baffles me. I mean, I like RPGs, but I still can't conceive of playing a video game just for the story. Video games, to me, are primarily about character and setting. Your characters in games are primarily vectors for letting you do things and making you care about the game's action. Setting is always going to be intimately tied to gameplay, as it represents the sum total of what a game makes possible for you to do.

Nintendo, as a developer, has a good grasp on the importance of setting. I can't think of too many Nintendo games that are primarily memorable for their narratives, but there are a lot of levels and areas in Nintendo games that left huge impressions on me. Sometimes an area has a cool gimmick, flashy art design, or manages to pose an exceptional challenge. Here's a list of the ten greatest Nintendo levels (or areas) that I've ever had the pleasure of playing through. Go play them yourself if you haven't, and hopefully you'll find something truly memorable in them, too.

Some characters work, and some don't. When a character that doesn't work keeps hanging around a story, and especially a video game, you have a recipe for frustration. Game characters can go bad in a lot of ways, ranging from poorly balanced enemies to flat-out irritating concepts. Here's a rogue's gallery of the eight worst, most annoying game characters ever to cross Nintendo hardware. These are guys who ruined good games or turned great games into exercises in controller-breaking frustration. I hate them to degrees not comprehensible by mortal man.