xdaniel

It's... pretty great. The demo has one stage (Battlefield), plus one variation of that, as well as five characters (Mario, Link, Pikachu, Mega Man, Villager); the other stages and characters are visible but cannot be selected. There's two modes, a single-player 2 minute battle, and also local multiplayer, which I cannot try due to a lack of another 3DS/not knowing someone else with the demo. The game does run at 60 FPS, even with four characters in battle, and even with 3D turned on (unlike ex. Pokemon X/Y, which stuttered noticeably in battles with 3D on). As for gameplay, it plays like Smash Bros. is supposed to play. Well, that's coming from a casual Smash player, as opposed to a tournament-level one, so I couldn't tell how exactly the mechanics differ from SSB, Melee or Brawl. The screen size is obviously smaller than those of the home console games, which gets pretty noticable when it zooms out a bit too far, ex. when a big assist trophy (ex. Andross) is activated, but I think it's fine otherwise. Character-wise, I've only played as Mega Man so far, I think, who's a bit different from other characters. Basically, he appears to have fewer punches and kicks, and relies more on his usual weaponry - his basic attack is the Mega Buster, dash attack is the Top Spin, forward smash is a Charged Shot, which can be charged by holding the A button down, etc. Took some time to get used to after playing a lot of Link, Samus and Pikachu in SSB and Brawl. Overall, the demo itself is kinda limited - I would've liked one more stage, or switching between stock and timed battles - but should still be a good indicator of how good the final game is gonna be. Or rather, how the final game "is", considering it's been out in Japan for a day or two. Anyway, I really like it, it's fun to play, even on a handheld - a regular, non-XL 3DS in my case -, and it sold me on getting the final game at launch. Won't be preordering it or anything, I don't think, but I'll pick it up as soon as I can ^^

Thanks to a generous person on Twitter...

More than 11 years later, and Metroid Prime still gathers new fans. The signs of a great game and someone with great taste in games? Also, some random semi-recent pick-ups from me: Rollercoaster Tycoon 1-3, Beyond Good & Evil, The Settlers II: Gold Edition (via GOG.com) Borderlands 2, Ikaruga (via Steam)

Yep, that's Winamp, has still been in development (like, kinda, sorta, anyway?) until recently. AOL had wanted to finally shut it down, but then Winamp, and whatever else of Nullsoft there still was, was sold to another company, and they apparently want to restart development... or something like that. Don't really know the details. I'm mainly sticking with it - and the Winamp 2.x-style classic skin even! - because it simply does what I want it to do, and I don't feel like hunting down another player like it. Same reason I'm still sticking to ex. 2001's Paint Shop Pro 7 for image editing, and until just before this Windows reinstall, MS Office 2003. I switched to OpenOffice 4 now, at least

A fresh Windows 7 install, on a new SSD no less! ...because two of my three HDDs are on the way out, and the ancient, now-replaced 200GB one with the OS is in worse shape -.-

ANN: Yen Press' Light Novel Imprint Adds Log Horizon, No Game No Life, Devil is a Part-timer! So. Much. Awesome! ...it just sucks that it's March/April 2015 for their first volumes, that's still so far away...