Thoughts on horror games and Cult County by Renegade Kid

You learn something new every day: today I learned that Renegade Kid, an independent game development studio, was responsible for two critically successful horror games on the Nintendo DS: Dementium: The Ward and Dementium II. I knew of those games, but I didn't connect the studio responsible for Mutant Mudds with them. If you want, check out my shining review for Mutant Mudds on the 3DS right here. It's not even a remotely horrific game, unless a high level of difficulty is horrific for you (it borders on horrific for me).

Renegade Kid recently launched a Kickstarter campaign aimed at funding a new survival horror game, Cult County, for a slew of home systems, including the Wii U. I have backed the project because I want to see as great a variety of games as possible release for the Wii U. In truth, however, I won't be playing the final product.

Have you ever noticed that I don't play or talk about horror games much here on my blog? Maybe not, but it's true: I simply don't play them. The most horrifying games I've ever played are Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Fans of the horror genre probably don't consider Metroid to be scary at all, just atmospheric. But I can't handle much more. I'll happily play just about any other genre of video game. I just hope you can forgive me for that, and realize that everyone has a genre they avoid or won't even touch! Now you know mine. What's yours?

Thought of the Day - YouTube ads ruin a perfectly good playlist of retro Nintendo music

There is a distinct charm to retro video game music. I'm talking 8- and 16-bit generation music. There's nothing quite like submersing yourself in chiptunes from NES and SNES games for a while. I would describe the sensation as almost surreal, in fact. Which is why I started to compile a playlist on YouTube with only the best NES and SNES music I can think of on it.

So far I've only got eight tracks on there, but that is certainly enough to get started, and all 8 of them can only be described as the best of the best.

The effect of listening to a bunch of retro music, one song after another, is rather spoiled by YouTube ads that might play before the actual videos. It's a delicate effect, after all. As much as I wish it were not so, ads have so pervaded our media, they simply cannot be avoided anymore. Which brings me to why Nintendo should release its soundtracks on iTunes and Amazon here in the West...

But that's a thought for another day.

Kickstarter project 'NES' seeks to jazz up classic Nintendo tunes

Kickstarter, a site where just about any type of project can seek to be "crowd funded," seemed to come out of nowhere, for me anyway. It has, however, become an integral part of gaming culture, as many indie developers have successfully funded their games through the service. Through all of this, I haven't actively participated on Kickstarter...until now, that is.

I have now backed a whopping two projects on Kickstarter! The second, and most recent, is 'NES' by Richie Palys, an ambitious and promising musical tribute to NES games. According to the project's Kickstarter page, "The album is going to be in the genre of jazz with a heavy emphasis on synth and production." Palys promises it'll be an enticing mix of jazz and the retro 8-bit sounds we all recognize and love.

It'll be a real loss to the Nintendo fanbase if this project fails to come to fruition, so click on over and pledge your support now!

April GBA releases on Wii U bring retro joy

April is set to be packed with GameBoy Advance releases...for the Wii U virtual console. We've known about GBA games heading to Wii U for a while, but now we have some solid games, release dates, and prices. They are as follows:

April 3
Advance Wars ($7.99)
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga ($7.99)
Metroid Fusion ($7.99)

April 10
Kirby & The Amazing Mirror ($6.99)
Warioware, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! ($6.99)

April 17
F-Zero: Maximum Velocity ($6.99)
Golden Sun ($7.99)

April 24
Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island ($7.99)

If you still have an Ambassador 3DS system, you likely already own many of these games (Metroid Fusion, Kirby, Warioware, F-Zero, and Yoshi's Island, to be exact), but there are a couple to keep your eyes on: Advance Wars is a great turn-based strategy game (supposedly: I never played it, but I would love to), Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is one of the best RPGs to grace the GBA, and Golden Sun (which I have played) is a beautiful throwback to SNES RPGs.

Considering used GBA games go anywhere from $10 to $20, the pricing on these games is not half bad. What are your thoughts?

Nintendo Wishlist Vol. 1 - Simian Dreams

Welcome to the first edition of Nintendo Wishlist!

As big a Nintendo fan as I am, I still wish for certain things from the company, particularly at this controversial time. This is not your typical wishlist: most wishlists are filled with things that are already available and desired by the wishlist's creator. This is a wishlist of things I wish Nintendo would do, games I wish it would announce, and so on.

In my first Nintendo Wishlist, I feel I'm asking for a few things that should be well within Nintendo's ability to deliver. Let's take a look, shall we:

• Donkey Kong Country 1, 2, and 3 announced, and then released as soon as possible, for the Wii U virtual console

When I transferred data from my Wii to my Wii U, I had to redownload all of my numerous virtual console and WiiWare games. It wasn't too much of a hassle: virtual console games in particular took very little time to redownload. However, probably a week later, I went to play Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, only to find that it wasn't there. I thought maybe I missed it as I went through the list of games to redownload. Regrettably, that was not the case. The Donkey Kong Country games are no longer available on the Wii Shop Channel. Therefore, the games (which I did pay for, Nintendo, thank you very much) are no longer available for me to play.

Releasing the Donkey Kong Country games on the Wii U eShop would allow me to purchase them at a discount ($1.50) and make them playable in GamePad-only mode. It might also just make me want to forgive Nintendo for this grievous error. But the likelihood of that happening dwindles by the day. This will probably be a sore spot in my relationship with Nintendo for the rest of my life.