Paul Drury on the making of Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64, the game that everyone had.
A key part of that appeal was the infamous Licence to Kill. GoldenEye was a first-person shooter of course, but the decision to recognise body-specific hits introduced a new subtlety to the genre. Shoot a guard in the leg and he reacts differently to if you blasted him in the chest.
I was never terrifically good at first person shooters. Goldeneye was no different, I routinely had my ass handed to me by my little brother. That’s not to say I didn’t have fun playing the game. I loved the proximity mines, one of my few ways to achieve victory; pepper a map and hide in a corner. And there was that ridiculous laser watch.
Chris Covell posted images and translations of Stars of Famicom Games, a children’s book showing how Nintendo games were made, from start to finish. The book focused on the making of Super Mario Bros. 3, and includes shots of Miyamoto, developers and artists. He also posted scans from a book about Dragon Quest VI.
A list of Super Nintendo games that pushed the limits in terms of what the system was capable of. I remember Donkey Kong Country and Super Mario RPG being two later generation games that wowed me.
Infinite Super Mario AI one of the submissions for the Mario AI competition has been released under a WTFPL license. Make sure to check out the videos.
Tetris celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary this week. I remember long family roadtrips and playing Tetris against my brothers using two original gameboys that were tethered together. During my student days, there were also many evenings devoted to heads-up Tetris 2 with friends on a crusty old SNES.
