Skullkids News

2008 Awards!

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:21:55 +0000

Woops, forgot about this site.

It's 2009! Which means I can do awards for 2008 stuff now.

Best Console That Collected Dust and then Got Sold on eBay - Nintendo Wii

Best Game About Post-Nuclear Shenanigans - Fallout 3

Best Expansion I Was Excited About for AGES and then Never Played - Wrath of the Lich King

Best Video of Guy Playing Awesome Drums to Mario 3 - This

Can't be arsed to do any more.

Come back next year when I might update again!

Mario RPG for Europe

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 07:54:19 +0000

Yep, only 147 months after the US release, Super Mario RPG finally shows its face in our fair region. I was terribly excited about this when I was 14, and the wait wasn't too bad. I mean, I've not died of old age! So well done Nintendo on another timely EU release.

It's 900 points on the Wii's Virtual Console, which is £6.30 in real money. Which isn't bad!

PART FOR NERDS ONLY BELOW

This marks the first chip-based game to hit the Virtual Console. The SA-1, in this case, which functioned as a faster CPU. Faster means from 3.58 MHz to a massive 10 MHz. It also featured memory mapping stuff, new DMA modes, built-in CIC lockout (for piracy!) and could do simple compression

WotLK Cinematic

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:44:52 +0000

A bit of wee just came out.

Odd Email

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:38:53 +0000

I was sent this email. I think it is Hylian.

YES, ZELDA, I WILL HELP YOU.

Major Idiots: Part One

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:55:23 +0000

Yeah I know, no Pokemon update on Saturday. That's because it would have been short to the point of being crap. Forgot to charge the camera, for one thing! And then there was no interaction on account of Darkrai being sent wirelessly automatically. Nice ice cream cart in Milton Keynes, mind.

Anyway! Welcome to the first of a new feature I call Major Idiots. In this, I point out the twats in the comment section of Major Nelson's news posts.

So without further ado, here's some highlights from This week on Arcade: Galaga Legions.

Matthew M G makes a valid point:

and BTW, Major--could we have someone look into getting Marvel vs. Capcom 2 on XBL as a downloadable Xbox Original?

Twat. Yes, I'm sure Larry will get right on that for you thanks for bringing it up here!

Anon 13, who decided to even hide his name because he's such a coward, brings up the following:

Can we plz get cheaper hdd's?

I'm pretty sure he's just JUICED LIKSPRUC and had forgotten to log in, who then posts immediately after:

How about a cheaper Hard drive!!

Just to drill the point home, he posts once more:

Cheaper hdd's plz?

I'm sure you convinced them, JUICED! CARNAGE RULES, another bellend who thinks the epitome of cool is to have their handle in caps, disagrees though:

Cheaper Hard drives??? Is a hundred bucks too much for you guys?

Yeah, fucking cheap losers.

Pika!

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 08:26:44 +0000

I've discovered a utility which makes the site infinitely funnier.

Click here to check it out.

Things

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:42:09 +0000

Things I am excited about right now:

Bionic Commando remake on XBLA tomorrow.
UK Darkrai Pokemon event on Saturday.
Too Human being nearly out.

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

Expect another update on Saturday detailing our wonderful adventure to catch a legendary Pokemon, cutting through paths of 12 year olds.

OverClocked ReMix Go Commercial

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:47:02 +0000

Wahey, OCR!

This news is so special to me that I felt it deserved a proper serious update. One with images and full sentences and everything.

Many videogame geeks, of which I am one, have a love of videogame music. It's something that people "outside" of the "industry" don't seem to understand, choosing to still only hear beeps and boops. Well fuck them, they can go back to watching Big Brother and discussing the Champion's League or whatever. For the rest of us, videogame music is something to be cherished. It can evoke emotion, trigger memories and just plain completely set the mood. There are many videogame music composers out there who just plain deserve praise and to list a handful of them here now would just be insulting to those I didn't list.

Then there are fans who have their own musical talents. There's only one possible outcome here, and that's "remixing". Oftentimes the term isn't entirely accurate as some people choose to simply update a song to modern audio standards while others choose to butcher it completely, but for the sake of arguement "remixing" is the term we use.

And to be honest, when it comes to remixing videogame music, there isn't a site with a bigger presence than OverClocked ReMix.

Boasting over 1700 songs at the time of writing, there's pretty much something here for everyone. And with a harsh panel of judges, you can usually be sure that what you download is at least half decent. It's quite possible a remixer may completely change the style of your favourite song and you might love it or hate, but usually they're at least technically accomplished.

Not too long after the site launched, they began getting industry recognition and a few big name videogame composers even submitted their own remixes, one of which I am actually listening to as I type this. Wonderful.

Eventually though, some bright sparks had the idea of remixing entire albums. They've covered Super Metroid, Donkey Kong Country, Sonic 2, Street Fighter II and more.

But it was the Street Fighter II one, Blood on the Asphalt, that caught attention.

Capcom, having listened to it and knowing that they were involved in a new version of Street Fighter II for XBLA and PSN in HD, had a brainwave. They contacted David Lloyd, the big cheese at OCR, and asked if they could use it.

How could you refuse that request?

In case you've had your head under the sand for the last few months, you should know by now that Street Fighter II HD is a remake of Super Street Fighter II Turbo with all new shiny HD graphics. A wonderful little team of people are drawing over every sprite to create new ones, like the fantastic Ken you can see below. The underlying game is essentially the same, it just looks a hell of a lot nicer. So it needs new music too, right?

Larry Oji, part of the OCR team, had this to say when he asked what to expect:

They can expect some really cool takes on these classic themes! All of the stage themes are instant classics, so the ReMixers didn’t want to mess with success, but you’re going to hear some excellent interpretations that sound completely at home in the Street Fighter universe. And we hope that when all is said and done, people get curious about the new music and head over to www.ocremix.org to learn more about the people who made it.

I for one am really looking forward to this now. I mean, a HD version of Street Fighter II is already pretty cool but being an OCR-related thing this is quite a big deal.

Here are some more shots of the game to keep you a little bit excited! Sorry they don't play music, which would be more relevent to this post, but you can always head over to the Blood on the Asphalt page to get a taster of what to expect.

Character select screen. Space for hidden folk there like the not-so-secret Akuma.

Ken vs Ryu.

Ken vs Ryu again. They sure do fight a lot.

Well bugger me.

Fat Princesses

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:47:54 +0000

Once again, my random browsing causes me pain.

So all those feminist pricks are up in arms about Fat Princess on the PS3. God knows why, I guess they've run out of things to moan about and this seemed as good as anything else.

So anyway, whilst browsing for Fat Princess images I came across a rather disturbing fan picture of Peach, Daisy and Birdo. If they were fat.

Here it is!

What the fuck? What. The. Fuck?

Apparently, "being fat" isn't enough of a gag for this guy, he's also got Daisy rubbing acid on Peach's back. Ha ha! Also Birdo seems to be thinking about Yoshilingus.

Says Nick P Marton, the artist of this piece:

I don't know how the beach came to mind, and really i'm kinda against purposeful tanning, but i thought this would be cute. My love's sister brought over Mario Kart Double Dash for the Gamecube, and i saw Princess Peach (who i STILL call Princess Toadstool, due to my upbringing) Princess Daisy and Birdo, and instantly knew i HAD to draw SOMEthing featuring them.

Well, there we go. Just one thing, Nick... WHY ARE THEY FAT?

Nick P. 'LimeGreenSquid' Marton is just some weirdo, nerdy-freaky, long-haired guy who likes drawing big, beautiful, natural women and their barefeet, as well as demons and cartoons and the like.

Oh.

Confused

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 09:33:58 +0000

Whilst browsing the internet for cute asian girls handling Nintendo stuff, I came across a somewhat confusing image. Someone has added speech to a picture of a Wii and its remote in an effort to be funny. Except I don't get the joke. Here is the image!

How is this funny? What's the gag? What form of comedy am I missing here?

Answers on a postcard.