Mailbag Deadline Incoming!

The deadline for ScrewAttack G1's to submit questions for the upcoming Game OverThinker Mailbag Episode will be Saturday night, June 30th. If you are (or plan to become) a G1 and haven't asked your question yet, you may do so in the comments on THIS video.

For more information, refer to said video below:

"Carmen Sandiego" Heading To The Big Screen

Vintage PC Edutainment game fans (that surely must exist, yes?); you may finally be getting a Hollywood blockbuster to call your own: Walden Media (the folks behind the "Narnia" movies) has comissioned a screenplay for a feature film adaptation of "Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?"

Jennifer Lopez is one of the project's producers, and has been developing it as a potential star-vehicle for herself - the title character is a master-thief of (presumably) Latin/Spanish descent who prefers to pilfer items of historical/geographic significance. In the games, players took on the role of Interpol experts who had to use their knowledge of geography to suss out clues and chase Carmen and her associates around the world.

Outside of "The Oregon Trail," WITWICS? is probably the most successful/well-known franchise in the "edutainment" genre; and in it's heyday inspired tie-in books, school materials, museum/zoo events, merchandise and even an animated Fox TV series - however, it's probably best remembered by Gen-Xers for the uniquely-bizzare kiddie game show that aired on PBS...

Special Announcement

A brief announcement about the immediate-future of "The Game OverThinker."



Remember, The Episode 72 "MAILBAG" show is only open to questions from ScrewAttack G1's posted to THIS VIDEO. Thank you.

Passage

A few hours ago, Evangeline Chipman - my last surviving grandparent and one of the strongest best people I'll ever know - passed away after having been in ill health for some time.

I'm not interested in getting into any more details than that. I share only because - while it's my intention to not interupt the workflow of my sites and projects (if anything, I really need the focusing-effect of work-to-be-done right now) - I can't say what sort of things arrangements and obligations will do to my schedules and output. So, if this blog or other venues seem to be either less active or less "upbeat" than usual, I ask your patience and understanding as to why that probably is.

This is going to be a very difficult period for me and for my family, and your support and understanding is deeply appreciated.

More Of This

With appologies for not covering this sooner, things have been a bit wiggy around here as of late.

Anita Sarkeesian, video-producer for FeministFrequency, has set up a Kickstarter for a proposed video project called "Tropes vs. Women In Video Games;" which sounds like exactly the kind of gaming commentary we need more of whether you agree with her conclusions or not. I encourage everyone to take a look and consider kicking in.



Oh, and the people who've been pulling THIS shit? You are a disgrace to "gamers" worldwide. Shame on all of you.

Happy Bob Is Happy

Two new full-blown 2D Mario sidescrollers. In the same year. One on console. One portable.
Everything else in the universe seems to be determined to kick my ass lately, but at least I'll have this. Eventually. That's something.



Two small criticisms, regarding "New Super Mario Bros. U." Firstly, while I kinda like that we're getting back to the "name the sequel after the new platform" title-scheme... if they end up wanting to make a second one during the WiiU's lifespan (it was somewhat unexpected that NSMBWii wound up becoming such a monster smash, remember) they'll have to confront the prospect of web-wide comedy-gasm resulting from putting "U2" in the title of their game. Secondly... egh, the two generic Toads again. Look, I get it - if you use Peach and Daisy you've either got boys fighting over who "has to be" The Girl or girls being forced to be The Girl even if they'd rather not, fine. That's a societal problem, not a Nintendo problem. But there HAS to be a better solution.

On the plus side: Flying Squirrel Suit? Awesome. Return of Baby Yoshi? Awesome. "Starry Night"-homage backdrop (maybe more Yoshi's Island-style painter-graphics to come?) Awesome. Giant Land? Awesome. NSMBWii proved that 2D platforming could still move units and likely turned a whole new generation on to the genre, so making another one of these was a no-brainer. Hope I have as much fun as I did with the last one (which was a lot.)



Confession: I wasn't in love with the original "New Super Mario Bros." on the DS. It was good, don't get me wrong, I guess I was just expecting something akin to an SMB4 as opposed to a more polished SMB1. Good, just didn't blow my mind like I'd hoped it would. I thought NSMBWii was the superior game of the two, but "New Super Mario Bros. 2" looks like an improvement in it's own right.

The return of Raccoon Mario is a big draw, obviously - though seeing Reznor (the Triceratops minibosses from Super Mario World) come back makes me smile. The trailer also gives a good look at a new (unnamed?) power-up: A flower that turns you gold (?) and whose projectiles turn bricks into coins. Midas Mario?

"Wreck It Ralph" = "Toy Story" for video-games

"Wreck-It Ralph" was already on my most-anticipated movies of the year list. At 2:47 of this trailer, it became #1. I won't be more psyched for a movie this year...



This may not be a Pixar movie, but it has that "feel." I'm tearing up, just a little, on reflex.

The pitch: Ralph is the villain of a "Donkey Kong" expy who wants to try out being the good guy, so he departs to try his hand in the new worlds of other games; two of which - representing Kart Racers and FPS, respectively - are glimpsed in the trailer. GREAT premise, and Jane Lynch as the Marcus/Samus hybrid is inspired casting.

I'm actually kind of amazed Nintendo signed-off on what looks like a couple of cameos - aren't they supposed to be REALLY hard to work with on that stuff?