Carbon Chemist

Tag: nintendo

  • ‘Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door’ Sets the Standard for Classic Game Remakes

    ‘Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door’ Sets the Standard for Classic Game Remakes

    [ad_1]

    In the original, Mario and his friends are flat planes with black outlines, to give the impression they’re drawings, rather than computer graphics. While that design is still present in the remake, you can also see a faint hint of a white highlight around the edges of the character model, much like you’d see on actual paper cutouts. It’s subtle, but pervasive, and it contributes to the sense that these models really were cut out by hand.

    Every piece of the world has this kind of attention to detail. When you first enter Rogueport, there’s a platform in the main square with a noose on it. In the original, the wooden steps are straight, flat, and everything is at a right angle. It’s fine for a background element, and the flat noose cutout sways in the wind, so the effect works.

    In the remake, however, the steps are a little crooked and janky. The side pieces of the steps look bent, like a child accidentally forced it too hard while slotting in the step pieces. It’s standing, but only barely. A mild gust of wind might blow the whole thing over. It might seem unimportant, but details like this make it easy to get drawn into Paper Mario‘s world.

    This is one situation where the improved graphics of a more modern console augmented the design choices from the original game. Switch graphics might mean Mario and his pals can look more realistic, but in this case that just means they look more handmade, like a paper craft model of the Mario from Super Mario 64.

    The rich detail the remake adds—with more complex models, better lighting and reflection systems, and higher resolution textures—makes the illusion so much more immersive and delightful. It’s apparent in every new setting how much effort was put into recreating every aspect of the game.

    Quality of Life Upgrades

    Faithful recreation isn’t always the most ideal way to approach a remake, and thankfully Nintendo agrees. This new version if The Thousand-Year Door comes with a few features that aren’t present in the original, but would’ve been welcome additions.

    The most useful of these, in my opinion, is the Partner Ring. In the original game, you had to open up a menu to swap between different members of your party. It wasn’t difficult per se, but it was tedious. In the remake, you can hold L and tilt the control stick to rapidly swap partners. It’s a shortcut that doesn’t fundamentally alter the game, but is a welcome convenience.

    Similarly, there’s a new option when you fail a battle. Previously, if you lost a fight, you would have to reload from the last time you saved, which could sometimes be annoyingly far from where you were. In the remake, when you lose, you’ll see a new “Try again” option that will bring you back on the most recent section of the map, cutting down on huge amounts of tedious backtracking.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • It’s Possible to Hack ‘Tetris’ From Inside the Game Itself

    It’s Possible to Hack ‘Tetris’ From Inside the Game Itself

    [ad_1]

    Earlier this year, we shared the story of how a classic NES Tetris player hit the game’s “kill screen” for the first time, activating a crash after an incredible 40-minute, 1,511-line performance. Now, some players are using that kill screen—and some complicated memory manipulation it enables—to code new behaviors into versions of Tetris running on unmodified hardware and cartridges.

    We’ve covered similar “arbitrary code execution” glitches in games like Super Mario World, Paper Mario, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in the past. And the basic method for introducing outside code into NES Tetris has been publicly theorized since at least 2021 when players were investigating the game’s decompiled code. (HydrantDude, who has gone deep on Tetris crashes in the past, also says the community has long had a privately known method for how to take full control of Tetris‘ RAM.)

    But a recent video from Displaced Gamers takes the idea from private theory to public execution, going into painstaking detail on how to get NES Tetris to start reading the game’s high-score tables as machine code instructions.

    Fun With Controller Ports

    Taking over a copy of NES Tetris is possible mostly due to the specific way the game crashes. Without going into too much detail, a crash in NES Tetris happens when the game’s score handler takes too long to calculate a new score between frames, which can happen after level 155. When this delay occurs, a portion of the control code gets interrupted by the new frame-writing routine, causing it to jump to an unintended portion of the game’s RAM to look for the next instruction.

    Usually, this unexpected interrupt leads the code to jump to address the very beginning of RAM, where garbage data gets read as code and often leads to a quick crash. But players can manipulate this jump thanks to a little-known vagary in how Tetris handles potential inputs when running on the Japanese version of the console, the Famicom.

    Unlike the American Nintendo Entertainment System, the Japanese Famicom featured two controllers hardwired to the unit. Players who wanted to use third-party controllers could plug them in through an expansion port on the front of the system. The Tetris game code reads the inputs from this “extra” controller port, which can include two additional standard NES controllers through the use of an adapter (this is true even though the Famicom got a completely different version of Tetris from Bullet-Proof Software).

    As it happens, the area of RAM that Tetris uses to process this extra controller input is also used for the memory location of that jump routine we discussed earlier. Thus, when that jump routine gets interrupted by a crash, that RAM will be holding data representing the buttons being pushed on those controllers. This gives players a potential way to control precisely where the game code goes after the crash is triggered.

    Coding in the High-Score Table

    For Displaced Gamers’ jump-control method, the player has to hold down “up” on the third controller and right, left, and down on the fourth controller (that latter combination requires some controller fiddling to allow for simultaneous left and right directional input). Doing so sends the jump code to an area of RAM that holds the names and scores for the game’s high-score listing, giving an even larger surface of RAM that can be manipulated directly by the player.

    By putting “(G” in the targeted portion of the B-Type high-score table, we can force the game to jump to another area of the high-score table, where it will start reading the names and scores sequentially as what Displaced Gamers calls “bare metal” code, with the letters and numbers representing opcodes for the NES CPU.

    Unfortunately, there are only 43 possible symbols that can be used in the name entry area and 10 different digits that can be part of a high score. That means only a small portion of the NES’s available opcode instructions can be “coded” into the high-score table using the available attack surface.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Decades of Garry’s Mod Nintendo Uploads Are Disappearing

    Decades of Garry’s Mod Nintendo Uploads Are Disappearing

    [ad_1]

    For the last few months, Nintendo-related content has been disappearing from Garry’s Mod, the physics-based sandbox game and modding platform beloved by Steam players.

    The source of the takedown requests presents a worst-case scenario for the community; rather than coming from copyright trolls, the takedowns are coming from Nintendo itself, according to creator Facepunch Studios’ Garry Newman. “I have been assured that the takedowns have been verified by Nintendo as legit,” Newman wrote on X, adding that removals will continue as planned. “Sorry.”

    Facepunch has its work cutout for it. “We have 20 years of uploads to go through,” the studio wrote on the game’s Steam page. “If you want to help us by deleting your Nintendo related uploads and never uploading them again, that would help us a lot.”

    Neither Nintendo nor Newman responded to a request for comment.

    Nintendo’s aggressive copyright protection is well documented and widely known. The company goes after emulator creators, homebrew tools, fan-made games, parodies, and more; even major mod platforms avoid hosting content they fear could attract a Nintendo copyright claim. Facepunch says the request to remove these items is “fair enough.”

    “This is Nintendo’s content and what they allow and don’t allow is up to them,” the developer wrote in its announcement. “They don’t want you playing with that stuff in Garry’s Mod—that’s their decision, we have to respect that and take down as much as we can.”

    Within the Garry’s Mod community, some users are scrambling to archive whatever they can.

    Since news that Nintendo is behind the takedowns broke, new addons are appearing in the store: content like stickers reading “Fuck Nintendo,” or reskins for dumpsters brainind them “Nintendo Office.” It is unclear if these new additions will also be removed.



    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • The 6 Best Handheld Gaming Consoles (2024): Switch, Steam Deck, and More

    The 6 Best Handheld Gaming Consoles (2024): Switch, Steam Deck, and More

    [ad_1]

    It feels like a distant memory by now, but right before the Nintendo Switch launched in 2017, it seemed like portable gaming was on its last life. Mobile games had gobbled up huge portions of the market, and most modern games required a lot of power to run on devices like the Nintendo 3DS. Fast-forward to today, and there are more ways to take your games outside the living room than ever.

    This is a bit of an odd category because, to be quite frank, many of the devices currently on the market aren’t very good. Valve’s Steam Deck kicked off a wave of manufacturers looking to compete with the Nintendo Switch, but many of their offerings are rushed, buggy, or just not a great way to play games. A few have risen to the challenge, and I’m comfortable saying that there are finally some good options to choose from. I’ve spent hundreds of hours testing as many gaming handhelds as I could get my grubby hands on—these are the best.

    Be sure to check out our other gaming buying guides, including the Best Retro Gaming Consoles, Best Mobile Game Controllers, Best Steam Deck Accessories, Best Switch Accessories, and Best Gaming Laptops.

    Updated April 2024: Added new info on how to choose the right gaming handheld for you, and info about Asus Rog Ally software updates. We’ve also added new photos.

    Special offer for Gear readers: Get WIRED for just $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com, full Gear coverage, and subscriber-only newsletters. Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.

    What to Look For in a Gaming Handheld

    The Switch may have set a new standard for portable gaming, but in the time since, the category has gotten increasingly complex. New platforms, new control schemes, and a range of battery life that runs the gamut from several hours to “don’t stray too far from a charger.” With that in mind, here are a few factors to keep in mind when deciding which one is right for you:

    • Platform: The Switch runs games that were designed (or at least adapted) for the Switch. Easy enough. Other handhelds can be a bit more complicated. On the Steam Deck, for example, Valve uses custom software and the Proton compatibility layer to make games run and play well on a handheld. Some handhelds just run Windows directly (which has its drawbacks). Make sure to see what games you want to play are available on which platform and how well they run before you buy.
    • Picture: If you’re gonna stare at your gaming handheld all day, it may as well have a great display. Many devices, like the Switch and the Steam Deck, have OLED variants with incredibly crisp, vibrant displays. However, better doesn’t always mean, er, better. Screens with higher resolutions and faster refresh rates can also drain more battery.
    • Power: Speaking of battery life, that’s one area where gaming handhelds can vary wildly. Some devices, like the Switch and the Steam Deck, are optimized as much as they can be for battery consumption. Still, running graphics-heavy games like Tears of the Kingdom will always use more battery than simpler games like Stardew Valley. On handhelds that run less optimized operating systems like Windows, battery can drain even faster. If you plan to use a lot of heavy battery-draining features or games, then you might want to pick up a portable charger.
    • Performance: The Switch notoriously runs on an underpowered processor compared to its competitors. Yet, its games make the most of it by being optimized for the hardware they run on. When it comes to games that were designed for Windows (whether they run on the Steam Deck, or Windows handhelds directly), they can require a lot more power to get the same kind of performance. Faster, more powerful processors can mean you’ll get a more fluid gaming experience. But, once again, keep in mind that faster processors use up more battery, so be sure to balance performance with power drain.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Delta Is an iOS Game Boy Emulator That (Likely) Won’t Get Taken Down

    Delta Is an iOS Game Boy Emulator That (Likely) Won’t Get Taken Down

    [ad_1]

    Video game emulators are having a tough time. Back in March it was Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu, which got shut down following a lawsuit from Nintendo. Pizza Emulators, another Nintendo emulator, disappeared around the same time. Then, over the weekend, after Apple updated its restrictions on retro game emulators to allow them in the App Store, a Game Boy Advance app called iGBA became a fast favorite. iGBA didn’t make it through Monday.

    The emulator that iGBA resembled, though, is now available on the app store: Delta, a free, upgraded version of an emulator designed specifically for iOS that supports games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and DS, making games created for those systems playable on iPhone screens. The emulator is “focused on providing a polished, easy-to-use emulation experience, with iOS-specific features like AirPlay,” says its creator, Riley Testut. It supports a variety of controllers, including Nintendo Switch Pro controllers, Joy-Cons, Nintendo Switch Online controllers, and PS5 and Xbox Series X.

    Apple loosened its App Store restrictions to allow retro game emulators onto its store earlier this month. The main stipulation in its rule change was that the emulation apps comply with “all applicable laws.” (Nintendo has a history of cracking down on sites that traffic in ROMs, which are playable software versions of its hardware game cartridges.) Apple also expressly forbids “copycats” in its store. “Don’t simply copy the latest popular app on the App Store, or make some minor changes to another app’s name or UI and pass it off as your own,” its guidelines read. In the case of iGBA, it itself was a version of another developer’s work.

    Testut, a USC student and app developer, tells WIRED he first learned of iGBA’s existence on Discord, where Patreon supporters were talking about it Saturday night. He quickly recognized his handiwork in the emulator listed on the App Store. “Not only were the controller skins and UI identical, but the app’s internal name was literally ‘GBA4iOS.app.’”

    Online, Testut expressed shock and disappointment that iGBA had made it onto Apple’s platform before his own project. “I’m pissed that Apple took the time to change the App Store rules to allow emulators, and then approved a knock-off of my own app” even though he’d been trying to launch an update of GBA4iOS called Delta ”since March 5,” he wrote on Threads.

    Testut says that the developer responsible for iGBA emailed him “and personally apologized for the mess …They didn’t expect this all to happen so quickly,” Testut says.

    Apple declined to comment.

    As the game industry grapples with saving older titles at risk of disappearing forever, emulators like Testut’s are likely to be more in demand all the time. “We’ve seen repeatedly that IP owners are resistant to (consistently) porting old titles to newer hardware, preventing later generations from playing them,” Testut says. “Emulators ensure that old games can still be replayed decades later, similar to playing old audio recordings.”

    Even industry leaders believe emulation could be the answer to the preservation problems in gaming. “My hope (and I think I have to present it that way as of now) is as an industry we’d work on legal emulation that allowed modern hardware to run any (within reason) older executable allowing someone to play any game,” Xbox head Phil Spencer told Axios in 2021. Microsoft has since set up an internal team focused on preservation of Xbox games.

    Apple has already opened the door for emulators on its app store; iGBA has proven that there’s a very eager market waiting. Delta—as long as it stays in Apple’s good graces—might finally be it.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • How ‘Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley’ Hit Its Anti-Authoritarian Stride

    How ‘Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley’ Hit Its Anti-Authoritarian Stride

    [ad_1]

    Snufkin said ACAB. OK, not literally “all cops are bastards.” Rather, the hero of Hyper Games’ Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley says things like, “If you remove all the signs in a park, the police officers leave.” Still, the message remains—and it’s getting noticed. Ever since the game hit Steam and Nintendo Switch, it has been pulling in devotees thanks to Snufkin’s proactive objections to finding his beloved Moominvalley overpoliced, reviving some of the 80-year-old franchise’s long-held philosophies for fans eager to share them on social media.

    A family-friendly cozy game set in the world of legendary Finnish cartoonist Tove Jansson, Melody follows Snufkin’s iconic return to Moominvalley after a winter spent wandering the world. Moomintroll has disappeared; ever the optimist, he’d tried reasoning with the police, resulting in his indefinite arrest. Snufkin’s main objective is to undermine the Park Keeper, a haughty hemulen who wants to fill the valley with monoculture lawns, manicured hedge mazes, caged animals, a river-destroying dam, and an ocean of signs dictating how nature must be enjoyed.

    Snufkin’s response to all this is to absolutely kick shit, laying waste to signage, evading the police, and dismantling fences, forcibly rewilding the degenerative parks with direct action.

    Following the game’s March 7 release, players picked up on these themes almost immediately. In their review, Vulture called Snufkin “an adorable ecoterrorist” with “‘no gods, no masters’ energy.” On platforms like X, fans have celebrated his jovial fondness for criminality; on Reddit, his more explicit anarchist philosophy.

    Make no mistake, these themes have been prevalent in Jansson’s work for years. Snufkin has been thumbing his nose at the Park Keeper since the 1950s, and people were making TikToks about his response to overpolicing back in 2021, too. Seeing these ideas in what is essentially a children’s game on the Switch, though, has brought them to light in a new way.

    Not that this was exactly Hyper Games’ intent. When asked, Are Sundnes, the company’s cofounder and CEO, is not keen to enthuse upon a radical political agenda at the heart of the game. The game’s direction involved a conversation with the franchise’s rights holders, “Moomin Characters Ltd,” an organization chaired by Tove’s niece, Sophia Jansson, that oversees new Moomin content.

    “It’s been very important for both them and us not to have us invent too many new things,” Sundnes says. “In one of the books Snufkin does remove park signs setting rules, and burns them all in a big fire, then electrocutes the Park Keeper with Hattifatteners … Even though Tove Jansson never wrote this exact story, I think it’s one that could have taken place in the canon of the Moomins.”

    Generally, Sundnes says, Moomin characters don’t really take political stands on real-world issues—they’re not even aware of them. So, “we never set out to make any kind of political or environmentally themed game really,” he says. “All of those elements came from focusing on Snufkin’s character and Tove Jansson’s stories.”

    While the police have been depicted as ineffectual, overenthusiastic, unnecessary, and antagonistic several times across the canon of the Moomin franchise, they are suitably well meaning for the genre, and have even resolved situations on occasion, albeit in part unknowingly.



    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • 33 Best Nintendo Switch Games for Every Player (2024)

    33 Best Nintendo Switch Games for Every Player (2024)

    [ad_1]

    The Switch is one of Nintendo’s most successful and influential systems ever. There’s something unique about carrying a home console-quality gaming device everywhere you go. Figuring out what to play, though—that’s getting harder every year, as the roster of first-party and indie games grows deeper and deeper.

    Thankfully, WIRED has plenty of opinionated Nintendo fans on staff, and we’ve put our heads together to compile a list of the best Switch games. We’ve listed the digital version for most of them here, so make sure you get a spacious microSD card to store all your game files. (We recommend this one.) Be sure to also read up on our Switch Tips and Secrets, Favorite Switch Accessories, and Switch Bundle Deals. And if you upgraded to an OLED Switch, here’s how to transfer all of your data.

    Updated April 2024: We’ve added Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Super Mario Party, Mario Party Superstars, and Bayonetta 3, and removed older games.

    Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you’d like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Is a Nintendo Switch Worth Buying Right Now? (2024)

    Is a Nintendo Switch Worth Buying Right Now? (2024)

    [ad_1]

    With that in mind, there are a few nuggets that might be certain. The next console is likely to remain a hybrid home and portable console—reporting from VGC indicates this is the case, and it’s a natural progression given Nintendo’s recent trajectory. After the company has sold more than 132 million portable consoles, it’s unlikely to revert to a system that can’t leave your TV’s side.

    Other reports suggest the next console might have a slightly larger screen, use an LCD panel (as opposed to OLED, found on the more recent Switch refresh), and presumably have more powerful processors. But specs are specs. They can tell you only so much about how a console works or feels in person.

    We don’t know whether the new console will be backward compatible with old games. Nintendo has only occasionally supported the previous generation of games on its newer consoles. Until we know for sure, it’s hard to say whether it’s worth waiting for the new console. If it can’t play most of the games available on the Switch, then it’s not a question of whether to wait, but which games you want to play. Since the Switch already takes the cake for the longest gap between prior Nintendo consoles, it’s a safe bet that developer kits are already in developers’ hands to prepare games for the new console.

    2025 Might Be the Year

    It’s unlikely the next Nintendo console will arrive in 2024. Multiple outlets, including VGC, Eurogamer, and Bloomberg, have reported that Nintendo has delayed the Switch’s successor to the first quarter of 2025. Additional reporting by Japanese outlet Nikkei (via VGC) further corroborated this information, citing that the delay is intended to shore up supply to reduce scalping and device shortages.

    We might still find out more about the Switch’s successor in the coming months. Previous reports suggested that Nintendo was originally aiming for a holiday 2024 release. The original Switch was announced in October 2016 and released in March 2017, about five months apart. If Nintendo plans to launch its next console in the first quarter of 2025, we may get an official announcement this fall.

    Nintendo tends to use less powerful, more outdated hardware compared to Xbox and PlayStation consoles—though it pulls off some incredible feats with it—so it’s natural to be eager for the next model when the current one is looking so long in the tooth. Nevertheless, the Switch will be Nintendo’s primary console at least for another year. And even after that, it’s still a great console that will be able to play some truly excellent games for a long time.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • 24 Best Nintendo Switch Accessories (2024): Docks, Cases, Headsets, and More

    24 Best Nintendo Switch Accessories (2024): Docks, Cases, Headsets, and More

    [ad_1]

    The Nintendo Switch has incredible staying power for a console that’s now seven years old and has only had a moderate update to its screen and kickstand after all that time. Unlike the homebound PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, the Switch is portable, personal, and packed with exclusive and indie titles. Because you can play the Switch at home or on the road, you might need batteries, protective cases, and other accessories you’re not used to buying for a console.

    The Switch OLED is a fine improvement over the original, and the accessories on this list should work with the OLED version unless otherwise noted in the text or buy links, though we have not tested them all on it. Some are suitable for Nintendo’s Switch Lite, the Switch’s mobile-only sibling that cannot dock to a TV. Be sure to check our roundup of the Best Switch Games and our Switch tips and tricks to get the most out of your system.

    Updated March 2024: We’ve added the HyperX ChargePlay Quad 2, Monoprice portable battery bank, Joy-Con bundle, and eXtremeRate DIY replacement shell.

    Special offer for Gear readers: Get WIRED for just $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com, full Gear coverage, and subscriber-only newsletters. Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • ‘Super Mario Bros. Wonder’ Almost Had a Live-Action Mario

    ‘Super Mario Bros. Wonder’ Almost Had a Live-Action Mario

    [ad_1]

    Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s titular flowers can make the game Get Weird, whether it’s by changing the game’s stage or turning Mario into something slightly terrifying. One prototype idea in particular, however, would have temporarily turned the game into a live-action one.

    During the development process of Wonder, the game’s team had an unprecedented amount of time to prototype its most important feature, Wonder Flowers. “At first, there were no rules on what constitutes a good Wonder effect vs. a not-so-good Wonder effect,” director Shiro Mouri said at the Game Developers Conference this week. Some were pretty simple, such as the first-year Nintendo employee who simply wrote “A Wonder Quiz Starts” on a sticky note with nothing else (that later became the game’s trivia flower). Others were more complicated and ambitious, but ultimately didn’t work with the game.

    Like, for example, sound director Koji Kondo’s idea for a Wonder Flower that would have turned Mario into a live-action version of himself—a regular guy who would hum the background music and make the game’s sound effects himself.

    “As an idea, it’s very funny,” Mouri said. But ultimately the idea was rejected because it was hard to see the connection between pre-Wonder flower effects, and during the live-action Wonder effect. It was also “hard to imagine the gameplay changing much by having Mario turn into a live-action version of himself,” Mouri said.

    As humorous as it would have been, it also might not have gone over well with players. Long-term Nintendo fans likely still remember the ill-fated 1993 live-action movie Super Mario Bros. movie, featuring Bob Hoskins as Mario. No offense to Hoskins, but the movie was a dud (even he thought so), and cemented the idea that maybe the overalls’d plumber is better when he’s animated. (See also: The Super Mario Bros. Movie.)

    Wonder Flowers, though, ended up being Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s secret weapon. Still, for every great idea, there were many left in the discard pile. More than half of the Wonder Flower prototypes didn’t make it into the final game, Mouri said, including one that turned Mario’s head into a giant block that enemies have to eat. (Developers felt Mario’s head was so large there was no strategy to avoiding enemies and the mechanic turned the game into a mad dash to the end.)

    Live-action Mario didn’t get totally scrapped, though. The team liked the idea so much they modified it to create the game’s final badge: Sound Off?, which replaces the game’s usual sound effects with an acapella version. (Think: A person saying “boing” when Mario jumps, rather than the usual sound.) “It was such an interesting idea it would have been ‘mottonai’ (a waste) to not use it,” Mouri said. The voice players hear when they use that badge? That would be Kondo, of course.

    [ad_2]

    Source link