Category: Nintendo

The Nintendo 3DS: A 12-Year Retrospective

3D Stereoscopy has experienced something of a recurring fad since its discovery, beginning with stereoscopic photograph viewers, all the way back in the mid-1800s. 3D films first rose to prominence in the 1950s, before mostly dying out and then enjoying a somewhat brief resurgence in the 1980s, and then again from the late (20)00s to early '10s. That most recent period of renewed interest in 3D films also gave rise to some new 3D technologies and devices as well, including televisions and, perhaps most notably, the Nintendo 3DS

For decades, Nintendo had invested in and experimented with various types of 3D tech, including their infamously ill-conceived Virtual Boy system, which they released to the public in the mid-90s (before quickly cancelling it within a year's time) Despite their failures with that much-maligned gaming device, Nintendo eventually opted to try one more time, with the successor to their wildly successful DS portable. In order to avoid one of the most common complaints associated with the vast majority of stereoscopic displays (the need for glasses), as well as to try and avoid any more disastrous product failures, Nintendo wisely invested in a somewhat novel approach for what would become their 3DS system. By utilizing a parallax barrier inside the screen of the 3DS, Nintendo was successfully able to generate 3D images completely free of the usual glasses requirement.

Despite this groundbreaking approach to 3D gaming, the 3DS, not unlike its earlier 3D predecessor, got off to a pretty slow start sales-wise (though not nearly to the extent of the Virtual Boy). Luckily for Nintendo, they were able to mostly turn things around with an early price cut and the announcement of incoming downloadable NES and Game Boy Advance classics for the system, some of which were made available at no cost to early adopters. The 3DS eventually went on to become a moderate success for Nintendo, selling more consoles than the GameCube and the N64 combined (though still only managing to move about half as many the record-holding original DS system). As would be expected of just about any Nintendo device, particularly one with such unique stereoscopic 3D capabilities, the 3DS boasted some pretty uniquely excellent games to match. Here are 12 of the very best titles that the 3DS had to offer.

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an opening image that features a cartoon picture of greywolfe, the text "greywolfe's lair" and an image of a calendar

Greywolfe’s 15 Games To Look Forward to in 2020.

Warning! There are MANY LINKS ahead. They will open in separate pages.

Well, it’s certainly been a while, hasn’t it? The last post I made here was several years ago now, and that’s pretty bad. It means I haven’t been writing about games and gaming and movies and music and all that nonsense for two [and a bit] years!

We-ll, it’s time to rectify that.

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Twinstiq Staff Picks for their Top Games of 2018

Hey everybody it's me, Scrooloose and the rest of us here at Twinstiq. How's it going? Good? You want a soda? No? Would you settle for a slap-dash list of games we liked from last year (and some prior) written in no particular order, some ranked and some not, hastily put together and edited in collaboration over the last few days with no real format? Yeah, we thought you'd like that. Read more

The Sole Reason Why Consoles are Garbage

While you read this, try to remember that you are a consumer of goods and not a member of a blue or green team okay? Giant corporations like Microsoft and Sony are not your friends, and they market themselves to make you feel defensive when people like me criticize what they do.   Don’t. They do not care about you, just your money. And I’m here to explain with one, and just one, simple reason why all Modern Consoles are absolute trash compared to PCs. And even compared to mobile phones... Read more

Yono and the Celestial Elephants: Review

As you play and as the world is revealed to you, you will discover that there’s a lot of depth to the plot – if not the characters – and that there’s a whole host of philosophical conundrums beating, like a steady counter-rhythm to the playful platforming.

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I Finally Played Darksiders: Warmastered Edition – A Review From Scroo

Way back in 2010 Vigil released Darksiders, a game that followed a Metroidvania style of play. I remember very clearly being totally enthralled by the atmosphere then and guys, it's still awesome. Stay with me and I'll tell you what I thought about this newest remaster from developers, Vigil Games and Kaiko and publisher, THQNordic. Read more

Darksiders Warmastered Edition: Coming [Not Quite as] Soon – Update

Update

Alright so I guess I'm late to the party here but after much anticipation of the Warmastered Edition's release date tomorrow (the 25th of October) it turns out there's been a delay.

According to THQ Nordic, they'll be pushing back the release until November 29th for PC and November 22nd for console. Unfortunately there were no reasons given for the push back but it looks like we'll have to wait another month to jump back into War's Story.

My original article can still be read below, and you can bet that I'm still excited for this one.


Original Article Oct. 13th

You guys know I really like Darksiders from my review of Darksiders 2: Dethinitive Edition that I did did a few months back right? Well, not terribly long ago Nordic Games also announced the remaster of the original Darksiders called the Darksiders: Warmastered Edition, and it's live on October 25th.

I'll certainly be picking this one up. Darksiders was a killer title when it came out and it was one of the first games I got when I built my PC back in 2011. I'm really excited for this one especially if it's anywhere near as good as the last remaster Nordic did for the series.

The Warmastered Edition will be available for PS4 and Xbox One, boasting 1080p at 60 fps. There will also be a Wii U version that will be capped at 30 fps. For those of us who flex our PC muscles, we'll get up to 4k resolution and lots of additional video and control options. All versions of the game will be treated to improved textures and post processing as well as better shadows etc. There won't be any new content but it should still be vastly improved over the original Darksiders, and that's ok with me -I'm very important.

We'll get all the improvements and badassery one would expect from a current gen remaster for the so good price of $20. I can't wait to see how it is and write extensively about it in one of my all too long reviews that I occasionally bore you all with. Of course the rumor mill is still churning with speculation that these remasters are in fact a test for the audience reception of a possible Darksiders 3. One can only hope.

What Were You Playing 20 Years Ago?

Lately I've been seeing a lot articles on the good ol' interwebs about certain iconic PC titles that will be turning 20 this year. That got me thinking: I've been a gamer for a pretty long time now. What was I playing some 20 years back? What were some of the other guys from Twinstiq playing then? So I'm going to talk briefly about a couple of titles that really cemented me into the PC gamer category, And we'll hear from a few of the crew about what they had going on from that era as well. Join me in my and a few of the crew's ramblings below. Read more