Random Hoo Haasthe blog with the guff

History trembles with unbearable anger

Sunday, September 13, 2015 at 12:47 pm Comments Off on History trembles with unbearable anger

So, how about that F-Zero: Falcon Densetsu, huh? Its coverage finished on Random Action Hour way back in April, if you missed it! It got a hastily-made characters page and everything!
I got around six emails during that period about what people want to see on Random Action Hour, which was actually pretty nifty! It’s neat to see folks still expressing interest in the site, and I appreciate the interest, though covering F-Zero was exhausting enough; I forgot how time-consuming that stuff can be! There’s a couple of shows I’d like to cover on it sometime in the future, but I can’t imagine it’d be any time soon. I need a break.

And having essentially watched the series two and a half times by now, I need to get it off my chest: my big dumb opinions on F-Zero: The Legend of Falcon can be found beneath the cut!
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ONM Remembered – #317

Saturday, August 29, 2015 at 11:00 am Comments Off on ONM Remembered – #317

“You can have your cake and eat it with Mario Party. And you don’t even have to wait for yer birthday!”

from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 78 (March 1999)
(big ups to OldGameMags for the scans!)
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ONM Remembered – #310

Thursday, August 13, 2015 at 11:00 am Comments Off on ONM Remembered – #310

“Make your way to the end of this level and you’ll be horrendously beaten by a huge bloke with a frisbee. Makes you wonder whether it’s all really worth it…”

from 64 Magazine volume 9 (1998)
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ONM Remembered – #308

Saturday, August 8, 2015 at 11:00 am Comments (1)

“The adventure to help Princess Dazzle begins…”

from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 113 (February 2002)
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ONM Remembered – #284

Saturday, June 6, 2015 at 11:00 am Comments Off on ONM Remembered – #284

“The game looks very much like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, except all the interesting stuff’s been taken out and replaced by ants.”

from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 07 (September 2006)
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ONM Remembered – #252

Tuesday, March 24, 2015 at 11:00 am Comments Off on ONM Remembered – #252

“We’re building a machine with only one purpose – to play video games!”

from Nintendo Pro issue 33 (2000)
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ONM Remembered – #243

Tuesday, March 3, 2015 at 11:00 am Comments Off on ONM Remembered – #243

“Q: So did the disaster of the film have any psychological effect on your development?”

from Nintendo Pro issue 33 (2000)

The Nintendo 64 got a little weird at the end of its era. Okay, I’ve said it was weird at darn near every part of its life cycle, but you’d pick up the latest issue of ONM (or, in this case, the cheapest imitation the duty-free had on their shelves), leaf through the previews, and come across some games that just made you wonder… why? What audience was there for such a particular game, and what was the developers reasoning behind it? I mean, we had Donkey Kong 64 already, and Banjo-Tooie came out just a month after this in America. I think we were sorted for 3D platformers ’til the next generation, lads.

As light as it is on actual preview material (enjoy the blurry, context-free screenshots!), it does offer a neat little interview with Holly Hirzel, then-president of the Player 1 development studio, but has since made a name for herself in Microsoft’s Xbox Live department, which is a good step-up from duff bowling games. She mentions the challenge of Titus handing them the license out of nowhere, which I find amusing: both the possible (if unlikely) notion that Titus were still holding the Blues Brothers license since 1991, and the reality that developers must face of being handed a completely outrageous license and asked to make a game out of it. A Trading Places game, you say…?
It also amuses me to read an interview with a woman in games development that isn’t harassing her about her credentials, but instead “did you really like Blues Brothers 2000?”

ONM Remembered – #238

Thursday, February 19, 2015 at 11:00 am Comments Off on ONM Remembered – #238

“Juie the bionic beast takes on Retsu, super ninja.”

from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 69 (March 1998)
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ONM Remembered – #237

Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 11:00 am Comments Off on ONM Remembered – #237

“Imagine if you were ten and were asked to draw a sumo wrestler in 30 seconds using thick marker pens, it would look like the sumos in Oozumo.”

from N64 Pro issue 6 (April 1998)
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ONM Remembered – #217

Thursday, January 1, 2015 at 11:00 am Comments Off on ONM Remembered – #217

“Board stoopid”

from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 69 (June 1998)
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