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First thing’s first: The NHL Draft Lottery wasn’t fixed.

The horrific looks that hung on the faces of Gary Bettman and Bill Daly told us everything, after it was revealed that the League’s next can’t-miss superstar will be crushed under an avalanche of poor management, apathy for the market and sub-zero temperatures for the next 15 years. 

Which is to say that Edmonton was, without much debate, the last place the NHL wanted Connor McDavid.

But just because the lottery wasn’t fixed doesn’t mean it was pulled off without a flaw, which brings us to a Reddit user’s conspiracy theory that the NHL botched its own lottery rules.

Before we get into the “conspiracy,” such as it is, please take about nine minutes to watch the meticulous explanation of the lottery’s rules and execution of the lottery itself in this video the NHL released.

It might be the most unintentionally hilarious thing the League’s put out since The Guardians Project, as charisma machine Gary Bettman does everything he can to lend transparency to every facet of the lottery process. So of course something happened to make some fans question the credibility of the lottery:

OK, here’s how the theory goes, via “McDavid2015,” whom we’re going to go ahead and guess might be a Buffalo Sabres fan:

- There’s a dude in charge of turning on the machine, hitting the vacuum/blower button and then hitting the button that sucks one ball up the tube.

- He’s told explicitly to hit that third button once every 10 seconds for reasons that we’re sure have something to do with the integrity of the draft.

- (As an aside, he looks like the kind of guy who gets blamed for screwing up something royally at the office, but who is generally well-liked for being a nice guy who brings Irish soda bread in on St. Patrick’s Day every year.)

- On the first ball, the lottery guy pushes the red button, and it emits a distinct sound: The button is pressed, and then clicks back into place.

- Inexplicably, it appears he hits the button a second time a split second later, as it emits the same sound.

- The No. 5 ball is sucked up into the tube. The No. 11 ball is right behind it, having been pushed into the tube by the second click of the button, before falling back to the tube.

- YOU HAD ONE JOB.

- He then selects Nos. 14, 6 and 1, and the combination gives the Edmonton Oilers the top pick. Each time, those are the only balls that go up the tube. Each time, the button click doesn’t sound like the initial “two clicks” from him. 

The winning team had the No. 11 ball been counted (5-11-14-6)?

The Buffalo Sabres!

Skate in the crease! Double-clicked McDavid Lottery buttons! This franchise is cursed.

Honestly, we’re certain that every lottery ever held ever that involves these machines has but one standard: It’s the ball the emerges from the top of the tube that counts. How many Mega Millions drawings have you seen where multiple balls are sucked up into the tube, but only the one drawn out by the lovely model counts?

So while much like Connor McDavid himself, we would do anything in our power to take the top pick away from the Edmonton Oilers, this “conspiracy theory” or ineptitude isn’t enough to have forced a redraw.

But, seriously, NHL: If you have another one of these draft lotteries whose integrity can’t be maligned in any way, perhaps bring in a pro at meticulously pushing a button next time?

 

 

 

Google has released a new keyboard for Android devices that's not really a keyboard at all. The Handwriting Input app instead translates the scrawl from a finger or stylus into text—or emoji. 

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Nintendo has confirmed the full list of tracks, characters, and vehicles that will be included in the next round of Mario Kart 8 DLC.

A total of eight new tracks will be launching in Mario Kart 8’s upcoming DLC pack, which includes four retro tracks and four new tracks. Retro tracks include Baby Park from Mario Kart: Double Dash, Koopa City from Mario Kart 7, and Ribbon Road and Cheese Land from Mario Kart: Super Circuit. As for the new tracks, expect to race across an Animal Crossing track, F-Zero’s Big Blue, Super Bell Subway, and Wild Woods.

Mario Kart 8’s upcoming DLC will also allow players to race as Villager, Isabelle, and Dry Bowser and four new vehicles: Bone Rattler, City Tripper, Streetle, and P-Wing.

The upcoming DLC is expected to be released on April 23 and will also introduce a new 200cc class, which we’re sure will cause a lot of off-road racing to occur due to its enhanced speeds.

Nintendo has been doing a great job with supplying fresh, new content for Mario Kart 8 players. The first piece of DLC released back on November 13 along with amiibo support and this month’s second piece of DLC appears to be just as good as that one. We can’t wait to see what else Nintendo has planned for additional DLC.

One of the surprise announcements of last week’s Nintendo Direct was news about upcoming DLC for Mario Kart 8. We’ve known for a while now that characters from Animal Crossing are going to make their appearance in the series, but the real surprise of this DLC patch is the addition of the 200cc class, for even faster races that rely on skill and precision in addition to speed, speed, speed.

Check out the comparison that Nintendo UK has filmed above, showcasing both a 200cc and a 150cc race on the track, Piranha Plant Pipeway. You can see the extra speed from 200cc really makes it so you’ll need to be familiar with the tracks in order to remain competitive.

The DLC for Mario Kart 8 will be available on April 23.

The latest Yoshi game, Yoshi’s Wolly World, will be coming to the Wii U this year, and Nintendo just revealed the official Wii U box art for the game. And it’s very… woolly.

Yoshi’s Woolly World will be coming to the Wii U in Europe on June 26, while we in the US will have to wait until this Fall to play the game. Yoshi’s Woolly World is a side scroller and has some unique visuals, where everything in the game world is seemingly made out of cloth.

You can find a lengthy gameplay video below, showing what we can expect of Yoshi’s Woolly World. It looks quite enticing, with its cute and colorful visuals and the tried and tested Nintendo gameplay formula.

Last week we posted about DQ1HD and DQ2's milestone plan. Today let's supplement that with a sneak peek at some characters for Defender's Quest 2.

A while back we posted a little bit about Javir, Terevan and "New Guy" but let's add a few other characters to the mix. Today we're officially revealing the Weaselmancer and a preview of the rest of the cast.

SPOILERS???

I wouldn't consider the material in this post any more spoiler-ific than what you'd find in an old-school instruction manual, but if you want to know absolutely nothing about Defender's Quest 2 before release, feel free to skip this post.

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Anyways, here's the Weaselmancer:

Explore Everywhere. Fight everything that moves. Steal everything that doesn't.

Age: 21
Height: 6'6" (198 cm)
Home: A weasel-filled cave

You know, a lot of people would consider being trapped in a cave-in with nothing but ferrets for company for a year and a half to be a negative experience, but Cleverness is a positive kind of person. How many people get the opportunity to experience all the health benefits of the cave lichen and dead bat diet? Or learn to talk with weasels? Or train weasels into a vicious, organized army capable of conquering a vast subterranean empire? Or feel the feeble social constructs of your upbringing slip away as you begin to adopt the values and practices of the culture around you? Or sit on a throne made of the pelts of conquered creatures as Ferret Warlord Goddess, master of all you can see (which is like, 35 feet, since you're in a cave, but still) as your weasel captains lavish you with the shiniest objects and tastiest morsels – you, their Queen and God?! Who would ever return from THIS?

What's that? A rescue party?

…Well I'm sure the whole reintegration-into-society thing will go off without a hitch.

In battle she uses her army of ferrets to help friends and harass foes. Outside of battle, she uses them to harass everyone.

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Next, here's a sneak preview of all 14 Defender's Quest 2 hero characters (well, maybe 13, as Javir and Bitey the turtle-tank kind of count as one character in battle). Remember, in DQ2 there will be no "generic" soliders like in DQ1, but there will be trained monsters that certain characters can summon that will sort of take their place.

Please note that this art is very much work in progress and quite likely to change before final release. Colors and details especially.

One thing we've tried to do is create several distinct cultures, something we'll talk about at length in future posts. The first four characters are "domed city dwellers", the next four are "miners", followed by three "sky islanders", and the last two are "rogue scavengers."

The character classes from left to right are: Capsule beast and Pilot (the "mcguffin" that replaces Azra), Fighter, Duelist, Beast Master, Weaselmancer, Guard Herald, Demolisher, Champion, Sky Whaler, Archer, Healer, Gunner, and Hermit. Big thanks to artists Blake Reynolds, Vladimir Gerasimov, and Kiryl Kahan for the awesome animations.

Here's Javir, Terevan, and "new guy" from the previous post, in animated form:

And here's a few gifs of some of the other characters we'll talk about in upcoming posts:

As always, you can pre-order Defender's Quest 2 here. Every pre-order comes with a FREE copy of Defender's Quest 1, which is available right now, and will be receiving a free HD upgrade in the coming months (as soon as the DQ2 engine is done).

In 2013, Nintendo released a set of Wii Remote controllers that were themed to look like the Mario Bros. official colors. They also released a Princess Peach and Yoshi remotes later on to go with the set. They weren’t finished however, as NintenDaan has just shared a new video on his YouTube channel where he unboxes two new remotes for that series that are exclusive to Japan right now.

Both Toad and Bowser have gotten their own styled Wii Remotes, as you can see the Toad remote features a red, white, and blue color scheme to match his general appearance, while the Bowser remote is green and yellow with accents of red for his hair. The remotes look pretty nifty, but there’s no telling if they’ll ever be available outside of Japan. Toad and Bowser aren’t exactly the most popular characters when compared to Mario & Luigi and retail shelf space for products in the United States is much more limited than that in Japan.

Either way, these are a pretty nifty way to complete your Wii Remote character-themed collection, though why anyone would need six Wii Remotes is beyond me.

Team is transformed from stale to intriguing in one bold deal.

The Note made two moves to bolster defense, picking up Arizona's Michalek (for prospect Letunov) and Pittsburgh's Bortuzzo (for Ian Cole). Blues also added veteran forward Olli Jokinen.

Japan is gearing up to receive Mario Party 10 on March 12, a week before it releases to the rest of the world on March 20. Nintendo of Japan uploaded the above five minute teaser trailer to give us a better look at all the new boards, as well as the GamePad exclusive Bowser mode that is a brand new addition for this iteration of Mario Party.

Also included is a look at Amiibo party mode and remember, the Super Mario collection of amiibos are officially launching alongside Mario Party 10, and remember, there’s a special Mario Party 10 bundle that includes the Mario amiibo for this collection. The game launches on March 20 in the rest of the world for $50.

Will you be picking this up once it hits next month?

Fans of the widely-used Weather Underground app have cause to celebrate with today's release of the full-featured Storm app. The initial iOS release is downloadable free for iPhone and iPad through the App Store. Produced in a collaboration between WU and Intellicast, Storm builds on the usefulness and clean design of the main WU app, and the data and forecasting strengths of the two partners, to provide an array of new features designed with storm trackers and weat...<br /><a href="http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2919">Read More</a>

It's bizarre that Kirby and the Rainbow Curse even exists. As a sequel to Kirby: Canvas Curse, it borrows wholesale the mechanics of a game that successfully showed off the unique capabilities of the DS. In the decade that's passed, though, Kirby has moved on to more traditional platformers, and the weird experiment that was Canvas Curse seemed forgotten. Reviving it on the Wii U appears to be a natural fit in many ways, but it fails to define the system like its predecessor. In fact, in one significant way, it illustrates a drawback of the Wii U. 

Who Needs a TV?

Namely, there's simply no reason to ever play single-player on your TV screen. The gameplay is Canvas Curse through and through--you navigate a balled-up Kirby through stages by drawing paths and platforms for him to roll and bounce along, planning your own hills and loops for him to gain momentum as necessary. It's a tactile experience, and in its day it really illustrated how touch devices could be used to make complex, core-focused games. But now that means your eyes will be glued to the GamePad, making the television a useless appendage. It's essentially a portable game released on a console.

A second player can join as Waddle Dee using the Wii remote, so the TV does come in handy for a second player. Given that even the multiplayer screen notes that the second player can quit at any time, though, it's pretty clear that Rainbow Curse was designed primarily as a single-player experience. 

Adorable Artistry

It's really too bad there's so little reason to use the TV, though, because the visuals are absolutely gorgeous. Nintendo has made a point of showing how its console can do more with less, and it's been doubly keen on using Kirby to experiment with different styles--from the painterly backgrounds of Canvas Curse to the wool-craft of Epic Yarn. Rainbow Curse fashions itself after modeling clay, and it may be the best look yet. Everything from the backgrounds to the enemies are crafted with rich textures and irregular shapes to pull off the effect. The cutscenes, few as they may be, even use jerky animations as if it were a stop-motion art project.

Those scenes tell a simple, storybook fable about two friends, Claycia and Elline, who used to craft and paint clay worlds together. Something drove Claycia mad, and she stole all the color from Kirby's world to make seven new worlds. Elline, a spritely little paintbrush, recruits Kirby to bring back the colors and help her friend. It's cute, and gives a nice world-building rationale behind the rainbow paths you draw for Kirby to roll along. You aren't really controlling Kirby, you're controlling Elline. 

As much as it borrows from Canvas Curse, though, it does build on that basic idea. In some of the stages, the game finds really inventive ways to use the path-drawing gameplay to solve puzzles and defeat enemies. On the whole it will feel very familiar to those who played Canvas Curse, and the first few worlds are a breeze. The difficulty quickly ramps up, though, to the point that its childlike art style hides some fiendish stage design. Particularly in the last few worlds, I found myself memorizing exactly where and when to swipe to make a new platform to get past the tricky obstacles. I'm not exactly proud of using profanity while playing a game so clearly aimed at children, but there it is.

The ordinary drawing stages are broken up by occasional transformation segments, in which Elline uses her powers to turn Kirby into a submarine, tank, or rocket ship. While these aren't quite as smooth as the easy intuitiveness of drawing a path for Kirby to follow, I never felt disappointed to run into them. They largely still use the drawing mechanics, but instead of drawing a direct path for Kirby, the lines would be used to steer projectiles or tilt the rocket just-so. It's just another way that Rainbow Curse iterates and improves on the foundation set by Canvas Curse.

Rainbow Curse is a little on the short side, but that also means it doesn't overstay its welcome. At seven worlds consisting of four stages apiece, it can be finished relatively quickly. It feels like a nicely complete package regardless, especially when you factor in challenge stages, collectibles like Elline's diary, and the multitude of hard-to-reach treasure chests.

Clay for Keeps

Ten years ago, Canvas Curse helped Nintendo explain its handheld oddity better than any press presentation or Q&A session ever could. The gameplay was so intuitive, so immediately familiar and smartly designed, that it went a long way toward convincing me that a touch interface could do more than simple mobile experiences. A decade later, those mechanics work just as well wrapped in a beautiful new presentation, but by its very nature, it feels more at home on a handheld. Just in this case, it's a handheld system that's tethered to your living room console.

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This review is based on a Wii U retail copy provided by the publisher. Kirby and the Rainbow Curse will be available in retail stores and on the Nintendo eShop on February 20, for $39.99. The game is rated E.

Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken, which opened originally in Mason, TN, under another name, and is known throughout the South for its secret recipe chicken, is expanding to Maplewood. David Schlafly, owner of the building at 7434 Manchester Road told 40 South News by email Wednesday that Gus’s signed a lease Saturday, and is expecting […]

She said she didn't realize she'd won until seeing the winning numbers on TV on Tuesday.

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System: 3DS | Price: $2.99 | Genre: Puzzle | Release Date: February 5th, 2015
By: Micheal

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There's something very pleasing about the rustle of paper in Kami. You tap on a colored square and all the squares around it fold in on themselves, changing to the color you've selected. Sometimes I just tap the squares to hear the sound, all thoughts of solving the puzzle abandoned.

That excellent sound design extends to the simple Japanese refrains that play over your puzzling. It turns what could have been a generic puzzler into something more evocative, and makes you want to keep playing this simple, elegant game.

The aim of Kami is to turn all the slices of paper on a screen the same color. You've got three or four colors to choose from, and it's up to you which of them ends up dominating. You tap a color on the bottom of the screen, then tap a square to turn all adjacent squares of the same color into the selected hue.

Most of the levels take no more than five moves to complete, and there's usually a simple solution that presents itself after a couple of minutes. All of the puzzles have perfect solutions, though, which are far more difficult to work out - especially in the later levels.

Completing a level is a pretty simple affair, then, but completing them all in as few moves as possible is a much stiffer challenge. The satisfaction of watching those last squares flip into place is hard to match.

As a package Kami feels fresh and unique. Its puzzles are as well-designed as its look, and every tap and paper rustle feels solid. This is a game that gives you space to breathe, never harrying with time limits or catastrophes.

The sedate nature of Kami belies the tricky puzzler that lies beneath that paper-smooth exterior, but there's a solid core of difficulty here that's not to be sniffed at. It won't have you tearing your hair out, but it might have you scratching your head.

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Conclusion

If you're looking for a puzzle game that lets you take your time, and features some of the loveliest rustling on the eShop, then Kami is definitely worth a look.

After an 18-month closure, Penguin & Puffin coast will reopen on March 5. 

System: Wii U | Price: $14.99 | Genre: RPG | Release Date: January 20th, 2015

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[Note this is the review of the Wii U version. AJ has decided to review the 3DS one, which will be up in a few days. The versions are pretty similar though so this should mostly apply to that one too.]

Citizens of Earth, which was developed by Atlus, is an Earthbound inspired RPG. In it you play as the newly elected Vice President of Earth, fresh off your first day off work and ready for a vacation in your home town. This was a very tough game for me to review. One one hand this is a hilarious, charming game that evokes nostalgia not only for Earthbound, but 90's era games in general. On the other hand Citizens of Earth has a lot of issues holding it back.

The game starts off with you leaving your house, ready to go back to the Capital building for work. There are lots of protesters outside, led by losing presidential candidate. Sensing danger you take your brother and mom with you. Pretty quickly you will realize there's some strange stuff going on. Many people seem extra aggressive and attacking at random, while strange things attack you such as evil toasters and telefawns. It all seems to be centered around the coffee franchise Moonbucks, which you get to investigate early in the game.

Yep, that's a Telefawn.

You can have three people in your team, which doesn't include the Vice President, as he won't do any of the fighting. He delegates it to other people, as a good executive office holder does.  As with most RPGs the fighting is turn based. Each of your party members will have energy orbs. Weaker moves will charge up the orbs and stronger moves (or healing moves) will take energy. The energy stays the same after battle, so if you've charged everything during a battle, you can use it the next battle if you want. The system is definitely different, but you get used to it pretty quickly. I wasn't sure about it at first, but I ended up liking it.

A huge aspect of the game is recruiting people. There are 40 different people to recruit and they all have there own special abilities and fighting styles. Some of them you recruit just through the story and some you really have to work for. Many of these recruitments involve completing a collection mission for them, or playing a minigame. Sometimes you just have to encounter a person in the right place. You'll often find these people in multiple places and they'll tell you you should talk to them in some other place.

Story checks out.

Finding allies will make the game a lot easier and you can even take shortcuts or alternative paths. Some partners will be able to chop down plants in the way, lift heavy objects, change the time of day or weather. Some will allow you to sail the ocean, drive to places or fly to them. There's even one who will change the game's difficulty whenever you want. In battle everyone has there own fighting style, some are good fighters, good healers, have great special moves and some are well rounded. There are even elements to fighting such as fire, yelling, grass and more. Each enemy will be weak to some and strong to others.

You can even find items to enhance or change characters skills. The items can only be used for a certain person, so if you find an item that's for the scientist, you can't equip it to anyone but the scientist. There are a few shops and recruits who can order stuff but there aren't any weapons or anything in the game. Just the equip-able items that modify something and you can only equip one per person. The constantly finding better weapons and armor is something I've always enjoyed in RPG's and this game doesn't really have that. For some this may be good though as it simplifies things.

One of the people you can recruit

You don't even have to recruit most people. I've only collected about a third of the recruitments. I've also used the three first people you collect for fighting the entire game. The brother, mom and baker are a pretty good team and I got used to them. Some people though will like to change it up. The annoying part though is that only the characters who fight level up. So switching to a good, but low level, character can be a bit tricky in some areas.

Now I'll have to get into some of the issues with the game. The worst is the freezing. Numerous people (mainly for the Wii U version) have reported crashing, often throughout the game. Luckily the game does autosave so progress isn't completely ruined but obviously this is a problem. In the 12 hours I've played I only had one crash, but the Wii U did lock up on me a few times when exiting the game.

This scene might be odd in some games

The second biggest issue is the loading times. Some of them are quite long and they come up often. Every time you go into a building or move into a different screen the game has to load. This discourages exploration as I don't want to check out another screen because I'll have to go through a long loading screen and then another one if I come back. Hopefully this will be sped up through a patch at some point, but for now it sucks. Pretty much the only good thing about it, is that it gives you time to stare off into the distance and contemplate your life.

Balance is also kind of screwed up. At the very beginning of the game combat is pretty tough and I was always in danger. As I got further in the game though things got really easy. Often I would go into a new area and kill an enemy in one hit. Even boss battles only take a couple of turns. Clearly this aspect of the game wasn't tested very well. Some of it may be due to multiple characters being at completely different levels. This seems like it could be corrected where everybody levels up whether you use them or not. There is the mascot guy that can change the difficulty, allowing you to balance the game manually, but this shouldn't have been a problem in the first place.

The game is quite big with lots of areas, unfortunately navigation is pretty difficult. You can pause the game to bring up a map of the immediate are you are in, but the map is usually so zoomed out you can't see much, and there's no way to zoom in. You also can't see a map of the entire world, only the area you are in. 

"Toupee Eagles" are my favorites

So if you are told to go to some place far away you really can't check your map to find out where to go, you just have to find it on your own. One of the missions told me to go to Camp Koo-Koo, but I had no idea where it was and no way to find. I just had to wander around the various locations looking for a path I hadn't taken. It was something that was made even more annoying by the constantly loading of all the screens in between.

There are markers on the map but they don't really do a good job directing you to far off places. And while you are driving, flying or sailing you can't check the map at all.  When driving it's not a huge deal as you can just stop the car and get out to check the map (you'd then have to go into the menu and call the car again to continue driving) but for sailing you can only stop sailing at docks. Basically making you steer blind.

Despite all these issues I still loved Citizens of Earth. The humor and story and amazing, while most of the dialog has voice overs. If you liked the humor of Earthbound you'll like it here. You don't quite get attached to the characters as you did in Earthbound but they are pretty likeable. The Vice President isn't too bright and he's lazy and egotistical, but he is still a likeable good guy. 

There are some pretty diverse areas, like small towns, cities, beaches, jungles, camps, hippie filled canyons and more. It's a really fun world, with lots to explore and do. The graphics and sound are also excellent. The game's cartoony and colorful look is crisp in HD and still looks great on the gamepad. Every character is pretty interesting to look at and as mentioned earlier the voices are really good. Music is great too, something that was also inspired by Earthbound and very 90's sounding.

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Conclusion

Somehow despite some very big issues, Citizens of Earth is still a great. Anyone who is into humor or RPG's will find enjoyment out of this game. I found some quests confusing and frustrating, but for the most part I had a smile on my face the entire time. It's unfortunate that the game wasn't fully debugged or this would have easily been one of the best games on the eShop and would have gotten an even higher score. I hope most of the game's problems are fixed soon, but until then a game that would have been perfect is just merely great.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and TT Games announced two of its upcoming Lego titles last week: Lego Marvel Avengers and Lego Jurassic World. Both titles will be releasing later this year, and today, the first teaser trailer for Lego Jurassic World has been released.

Jurassic World will feature the three previously released Jurassic Park films as well as the upcoming Jurassic World feature film. The game will allow players to experience unforgettable scenes and action sequences from the Jurassic Park films, which will allow them to play through key moments as well as the opportunity to explore the grounds of Isla Nublar and Isla Soma.

Lego Jurassic World tasks players with collection precious amber, which, as we know, contains dinosaur DNA. In the game, you’ll be able to create and customize species of dinos. You’ll also be able to play as Lego dinosaurs, including dinosaurs from the Jurassic Park series and the upcoming Jurassic World film.

Lego Jurassic World is expected to be released in June 2015 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC, Wii U, and Nintendo 3DS.

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That's significantly higher than pre-recession levels.

Ostriches are weird creatures. For starters, they're birds, but they're frickin' massive, weighing as much as two humans and standing at least a foot taller. Second, they're one of the very few land creatures that exclusively walk on two legs. Naturally, this makes them the perfect subject for an online co-op exploration game!

Ostrich Island from MeDungeon sits on the fence between a serious game and a let's-just-run-around casual game. The central idea is you and your friend play as an ostrich running around lush tropical islands. There are sights to see, items to collect and things to discover, and you can jump, kick and peck your way around it all. There are some light RPG elements and unlockables to keep you hunting, but apart from that, it's all about the ostrich life.

Each island you explore is filled with secrets with the only limitation being the constantly rising water level. Ostriches aren't penguins, you know. The game focuses on that lovely co-op experience of "hey, I see a secret, let's spend the next 20 minutes trying to get it!". Simple, but remarkably effective. And go ahead, try not to giggle as you hobble around the island on your wobbly ostrich legs.

Ostrich Island is currently available for PC via Steam. It supports two player online co-op and even has a handy two pack for a nice discount.

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Despite its early reputation as an innovator in video games, Nintendo has become something of a stick in the mud to those who are familiar with modern gaming. Many people see their policies on DLC and mobile games as relics from an era when those things were impossible to provide due to lack of infrastructure. Now with mobile devices in nearly every person’s pocket and internet connections in every household, most mainstream gamers think of Nintendo as a gaming dinosaur that refuses to adapt to changes brought on by new technology.

In a recent interview with Dromble, former Nintendo excecutive Dan Adelman discusses why Nintendo is seen as slow to change its stance on modern gaming by the rest of the world. Namely, the reason Nintendo finds it hard to adjust to new ways of interacting with customers and conducting business seems to be at the executive level. Adelman stated that in that corporate climate, even Mr. Iwata is hesitant to make decisions that will radically change the way Nintendo has done business in the past.

“They’re very traditional, and very focused on hierarchy and group decision making,” Adelman said of the company’s structure.

Unfortunately, that creates a culture where everyone is an advisor and no one is a decision maker – but almost everyone has veto power. Even Mr. Iwata is often loathe to make a decision that will alienate one of the executives in Japan.

This adherence to corporate structure where every executive has the power to say no to any presentation leads to several hoops that need to be jumped through for any project to get the green light. As you can imagine, for Westerners who want to interact with Nintendo products at a meaningful level, this can mean multiple presentations at different levels that all have a chance to fail.

“All of this is not necessarily a bad thing, though it can be very inefficient and time consuming,” Adelman said.

The biggest risk is that at any step in that process, if someone flat out says no, the proposal is as good as dead. So in general, bolder ideas don’t get through the process unless they originate at the top.

Adelman further elaborates on the executives currently occupying Nintendo’s board of directors and says their successes in the past have likely blinded them to the way that the gaming industry operates today. According to him, risk-taking is not rewarded among the leadership of Nintendo, and ideas are quickly veto’d simply on the basis of the executives not understanding how they work.

The most senior executives at the company cut their teeth during NES and Super NES days and do not really understand modern gaming, so adopting things like online gaming, account systems, friends lists, as well as understanding the rise of PC gaming has been very slow,” Adelman explained.

Ideas often get shut down prematurely just because some people with the power to veto an idea simply don’t understand it. There is very little reason to try and push these ideas. Risk taking is generally not really rewarded. Long-term loyalty is ultimately what gets rewarded, so the easiest path is simply to stay the course.

It’s interesting to hear someone speak so frankly about the top brass of Nintendo and confirm things that the community has felt true since the dawn of the original Wii. What do you think of this reveal? Are you happy with the way Nintendo has developed their console business, or would you like to see more flexibility for modern ideas from them?

I’ll have a quick look at Cat Goes Fishing, I thought to myself, pleased by its silly name. It’s been a few hours since. I’m forcing myself to stop playing to write this, because it’s plainly ludicrous that I’m so, er, hooked. A game in which a cat goes fishing. But a hugely charming one, and surprisingly involved. It’s Ridiculous Fishing with the “ridiculous” replaced by “serene”. Here’s wot I think:

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While Nintendo introduced the Amiibo with Super Smash Bros on the Wii U, it’s not the only game that supports the NFC-enabled figurines. There are plenty of other Nintendo games out there that support Amiibo, including last year’s best seller Mario Kart 8 and the recently released Captain Toad.

However, not all games support all Amiibo figures. Twitter user MoldyClay 64 has created and impressive Ammibo compatibility chart, which shows you what games support what figurines.

The chart lists the games that so far support Amiibo, including Super Smash Bros (which supports pretty much all of them), Mario Kart 8, Hyrule Warriors, and others. Check out the full chart below.