The 2016 Olympics in Rio were marred by all kinds of controversy, from pools that allegedly had dangerous levels of toxicity to Ryan Lochte's fictional account of being robbed at gunpoint. But the closing ceremonies were a good reminder of why the Olympics are so cool. And one of the highlights was the "passing of the torch" from Rio to Tokyo, the host of the 2020 Olympics.
After a montage of Japanese athletes flipping, kicking and jumping over the architecture of downtown Tokyo, Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made quite the grand entrance: through a giant green warp pipe dressed as Mario. Might the mustachioed plumber make an appearance in the next summer games?
Once every four years, we're treated to arguably the most spectacular world event: the Summer Olympics. This year was filled with unease, as up until days beforehand (and even quite possibly currently), infrastructure had not been entirely built, the Olympic Village was not the paradise athletes expected, and things like mosquitoes and toxic water levels threatened to ensure that nobody would have a good time.
That may still turn out to be the case, but luckily, there's an alternative that's a lot safer and still plenty of fun: Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
I've never played any of the previous installments in the series, but Nintendo was nice enough to send me a complimentary version of this one to check out. It's jam-packed with 14 different events (17 if you count some of the "doubles" matches that...well, double up on an existing one), with characters all throughout the Mario and Sonic universes available at your disposal.
The game opens with a montage of different events, but once you can control your character you have the option to do a series of either solo or multiplayer events. You'll have to channel your inner T-Pain here: "All I Do Is Win," because you'll need to take home first place in five events before you can actually qualify for the Games themselves.
Image: Nintendo
Luckily, that's not difficult to do at all. The majority of the games against the computer allow a bit of leeway–for example, in the BMX race, I slipped on two consecutive oil slicks and fell far into last place, but still had plenty of time to come back and take home an easy victory.
Anytime you win an event in any capacity, you'll take home coins and rings. Earn enough and you can get new outfits for your character, which ups your abilities. You're also able to earn flags and tips by talking to other Miis running around on the main beach. While this collection goal can be a bit tedious, each Mii offers a fun fact about their country. Not everyone knows the Ivory Coast is the world leader in chocolate production, for instance, so it's a cool way to try and educate gamers of all ages that, hey, there's a great big world out there, let's try and enjoy it.
Once you qualify for the Olympics, a monument with some Toads pops up. Chatting with Toad allows you to compete in different tournaments against other players. Again, winning here earns you more coins and rings, and you can improve your Mii. That's important, because during the Olympic events, you can't use any characters from the Mario and Sonic franchises; you have to use your Mii. The difficulty ramps up a bit here–it's not nearly as easy to coast to gold after gold, though the challenge isn't going to make you throw your controller out the window.
Image: Nintendo
As for the games themselves, a screen appears the first time you do the event, providing instructions on how to emerge victorious. A few times I found myself not really understanding what to do as I began, but once things got rolling it's pretty intuitive. On-screen button commands also appear on the screen in case you've forgotten what you're supposed to be doing.
As with any kind of party game like this, certain events are a lot more fun than others. I'm a big fan of the longer events–the BMX and Equestrian ones give you some wiggle room to be creative–and the Archery event, which featured different targets popping up and moving around, was also very fun. Who knew a giant tie-sporting ape had such precision bow and arrow skills?
Overall, Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games isn't going to revolutionize gaming, but it's not setting out to do that. For a good way to celebrate the Olympics and have some fun building up your Mii, it's worth checking out, especially if you have family or friends to participate with. The online capabilities are nice, but it's so much more satisfying defeating someone in the same room.
(Review copy provided by Golin)
Platform: Nintendo Wii U and Nintendo 3DS (this review is for the Wii U version)
Sometimes life throws a question at us, and it's our duty to do our best to answer it. The Late Show recently stumbled upon such a question: which of the following can be completed in the shortest amount of time? – beating Super Mario Bros. 3, running a 4x400 relay, or cooking and eating a hot pocket. Stephen Colbert aims to find that out, with a little guest help from Ian Eagle, competitive speed-runner Mitch Fowler, and the Columbia men's relay team. Enjoy.
There are good ideas in life, and then there are great ideas. This one falls under the ladder.
Chubbies Shorts has recreated the popular Nintendo 64 video game GoldenEye, only this version features real life people, and takes place on Alcatraz. Apparently all you need is a couple of Nerf guns and some GoPros. Enjoy.
Jordan Spieth is one of the top golfers in the game today, so it's nice to see that even the superstars can have their bad moments. Earlier this month, Spieth blew a five-shot lead on the back nine to lose the Masters to Danny Willett. The biggest part of his meltdown happened on the 12th hole, in which he quadrupled-bogeyed after hitting the ball into the water twice.
The folks from The Kicker have done what they do best–turn the event into an old school video game. Channeling their inner Nintendo Golf, the team recreated Spieth's collapse, complete with wacky sound effects and delightful animations. Enjoy!
Super Smash Bros. is one of the most recognizable and popular franchises in Nintendo history. However, and this seems to be a lingering problem, the computer is very, very stupid. One gamer, realizing this, played through Smash 4 as Luigi, facing nine different downloadable content (DLC) characters. Luigi ends up victorious, but perhaps more spectacularly, he didn't move once. If only real fighting was this easy, we'd have a lot of great pay-per-view bouts.
Super Mario Bros. is a wonderful game, and cake is delightful. Pair the two together, and you can't go wrong. Check out the above video to see how a sibling duo designed a cake and created a stop motion video recreating the first level of Super Mario Bros.
Perhaps more interesting is the behind the scenes video, which shows how everything came together. Pretty fascinating stuff, and maybe it'll teach you how to make a stop motion video yourself!
If you did just about anything today, from going online to talking to a stranger, you probably learned it was "Back to the Future Day." In the sequel Back to the Future II, Marty McFly and Doc Brown travel to the future, which was set for October 21, 2015. This means that after today, this entire movie is set in the past. That's kind of depressing.
Anyway, there's a scene where Marty goes to play an arcade game called Wild Gunman. He completely owns it, and now you can, too! Without fanfare, Nintendo's European division released a port of the game on Wii U. It's not quite the same thing as an arcade machine, but it'll do the nostalgia job quite nicely. And if you need some motivation, here's Marty kickin' butt in the movie:
Smosh TV is back with another Honest Game Trailer, this time to the tune of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. And I certainly agree: the music is the best part of that game. Now let's go do some kickflips. Enjoy!
The answer may, in fact, shock you. Or probably not. It's a whole lot of butt kicking, that's what happens. In this video for Batman™: Arkham Knight, directed by Saturday Night Live’s Taran Killam and narrated by Jonathan Banks, celebrity gamers get a first look at the soon-to-be-released game. Neil Patrick Harris, Wiz Khalifa, Blake Anderson, Minka Kelly, Kumail Nanjiani, Breckin Meyer, Joe Manganiello, iJustine, Troy Baker and Kevin Conroy all get their chance to “Be the Batman” and take on the threats of Gotham City. And they do with varying levels of success, but for the most part, this looks like a very fun game where you can do some wonderful carnage to Batman's enemies. And you certainly don't want to be an enemy of The Batman...or of any of these celebrities posing as The Batman.
Nintendo fans that are already tired of Mario Kart 8--or have already beaten it all--get ready to celebrate. The video game company released a trailer for a 200cc version of the game. That's faster than ever before, and should spruce up the Wii U's kart offering. Now if I could just stop getting hit by those blue shells...
Even if you've barely played Super Mario 64, that iconic first level of Bomb-omb Battlefield should be etched in your memory. And now, nearly 20 years later, a fan named Erik Ross has recreated the level. Of course, it can only be played on Unity and is missing a few of the major things from the original game--the red coins, the Chain Chomp, the King Bomb-omb. But it's still pretty cool to see Mario with updated graphics. Mama mia.
Starting tomorrow, aspiring artists can enter a Pokemon Art Academy competition using the Pokemon Art Academy games on the 3DS family of systems. The game offers 40 lessons on how to paint, sketch and draw popular Pokemon. And through March 29, they can share their digital masterpieces via Miiverse, which allows them to showcase their talents as graduates of Pokemon Art Academy. There'll be six winners in total, to be announced in May. The prize is pretty cool, too: 100 cards featuring his or her winning image. Not a bad collectible!
There are two different contests to enter, Dress-Up Pikachu or Your Favorite Pokemon. Here's the official way to make sure your drawing counts, coming from Nintendo itself:
How to Enter the Pokémon Art Academy Competition
- Create and save an image in Pokémon Art Academy using Free Paint mode.
- Select the “Share” option from Pokémon Art Academy’s main menu and connect to Miiverse.
- Select the “Post to Competition” option and select “I Agree” if you agree to the Official Rules.
-
Highlight the category you’d like to enter (Dress-Up Pikachu or Your
Favorite Pokémon) and then choose “Select Competition”. Only the first
post you make will be recognized as your entry.
- Slide over the image and select it and then choose “Share Selected”.
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Enter a title to accompany your artwork in the comment field and then
select “Post”. The image will be posted to Miiverse and entered into the
competition.
- The only way to enter the competition directly is from the Pokémon Art Academy game, available exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS family of systems.
NO
PURCHASE NECESSARY. Void where prohibited. Must be a legal resident of
the United States (including D.C.), Canada or Mexico. 6 prizes total,
ARV $40 each. Additional terms and conditions apply. For a full set of
rules visit: www.pokemon.com/artrules. Sponsors: The Pokémon Company International, Inc. and Nintendo of America Inc.
Paul Rudd might still be a Nintendo fan, for all I know. But in the early 90s, he appeared in this old commercial for the SNES. Pretty great awed acting, I must say.
Yes, of course we love our Olympic games. Especially when they're reminiscent of Super Nintendo. Check out this really cool video by animating studio Flikli, which showcases all of the favorites in glorious 8-bit...well, glory. You've got gymnastics, basketball, pole vaulting...so many good ones. Really well done.
