So when a secret lays hidden for years, if not decades, the impact of the discovery feels so much stronger than simply Googling for cheat codes. Sometimes these Easter eggs are found by hackers obsessing over lines of video game code, others are discovered purely by accident, and still others were spilled by developers who simply couldn’t keep a secret any longer. Whatever the case, these secrets, codes, or glitches are a reminder that nothing stays hidden forever – sometimes it just takes fifteen years to find everything a game has to offer.

Final Fantasy 9’s Nero Family sidequest

In Japan, there are a series of strategy guides called Ultimania. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re some of the most exhaustive video game guides in the world, with rundowns of every quest and item, interviews with developers, and more. Naturally, Final Fantasy 9 got the Ultimania treatment in Japan. In America, we got… well, probably one of the worst strategy guides ever designed. Written by BradyGames, the “guide” was essentially a paid advertisement for Square’s PlayOnline service, forcing you to enter keywords on a website for tips on how to do basically anything in the game.

Because the BradyGames guide is one of the most worthless things ever printed on paper, the Nero Family sidequest (opens in new tab) effectively went undiscovered in the West for over a decade. It wasn’t until some GameFAQs posters (opens in new tab) noticed an incredibly convoluted quest in Ultimania that was never mentioned in the North American guide, and tested it out for themselves. Solving the quest is a lengthy, laborious process, requiring players to go to the Tantalus hideout on disc 4 to meet with members of the Nero family, complete an event or boss fight, head back to meet another member, then repeating the process several more times. Completing the quest will net you a Protect Ring – not a huge reward, but hey, sometimes going on a previously undiscovered journey is more valuable than the destination.

Play as Master Hand in Super Smash Bros. Melee

Super Smash Bros. Melee released in 2001 as a launch window title for the Nintendo GameCube, and it wasn’t until 2008 that someone discovered a mind-blowing secret – there was a way to actually play as Smash Bros.’ imposing final boss, Master Hand (opens in new tab). Of course, the reason why it took so long to figure out and replicate is because activating the trick requires a very specific and totally unnatural set of controller commands to be input very precisely. If you’ve done it right, you’ll have pulled off what’s known as the Name Entry glitch.

First, you need to plug a controller into port three of your GameCube. Then, you point your cursor over the name field on the character select screen and hold A and B. Release A while holding B, scroll down to the Name Entry field, and press A again while still holding B down. It’ll probably take more than a few tries, but if done properly, you’ll be able to play as Master Hand, complete with all of his powerful laser and grappling moves. Unfortunately, other players won’t actually be able to defeat you because Master Hand was never meant to be a playable character, and you run the risk of causing your game to freeze, but none of that matters when you’re flying around the screen as a giant glove.

Halo 3’s hidden birthday message

Bungie loves packing its games to the rafters with secrets and Easter eggs, and the studio isn’t afraid to get real weird with how it hides them. Case in point: one of Halo 3’s longest buried secrets was hidden right in front of players’ noses, and wasn’t found until 2014 – seven years after Halo 3’s release. The secret? A birthday message from a developer to his wife (opens in new tab).

The only way to find this secret is to boot up a copy of Halo 3 on December 25, head to the title screen, and hold down both thumbsticks. The main menu should dissolve and a large, translucent Halo ring will start to form in its place. If you look closely on the edge of the ring, you’ll see the words “Happy Birthday, Lauren!” appear in dark, blocky letters. While this appears to be the last secret hiding in Halo 3’s depths, there’s no real way of knowing – Bungie is intentionally keeping mum, preferring to leave any other potential mysteries lingering as a question mark on one of the most beloved first-person shooters ever made.

Mortal Kombat’s hidden diagnostic menus

The Mortal Kombat games were full of hidden characters, special fatalities, and so many other secrets that describing how to pull some of them off makes all those other weird video game urban legend cheats seem plausible. Like the one in MK2 that requires you to press down and start the moment a digitized image of the game’s sound designer appears and shouts “Toasty!” so you can fight a hidden character named Smoke – these games were filled with stuff like that.

One particular cheat remained so hidden that it took over twenty years to uncover, only being found after some adept hackers pored over the arcade cabinet code. They found that if you press the player one and two block buttons in a specific order on Mortal Kombat 1-3’s arcade cabinets (the order is different for each game), you’ll unlock a special diagnostic menu. Dubbed the EJB Menu (opens in new tab) after series creator Ed J. Boon, these screens allow players to instantly access every fighter’s ending, turn on free play, display the word ‘Hello’ on the screen, and more. 

Metroid’s “Everything” password (NARPASSWORD)

Veterans of the original Metroid on NES remember the struggle to collect everything in the game and finish it in enough time to see the best ending. Countless hours were logged by thousands of players, but all of that could have been avoided knowing what we know now: all this time there’s been a password that unlocks everything in the game right from the start.

Because of the fail-safe built into Metroids password system, it was near-impossible to know that NARPAS SWORD0 000000 000000 would be the savior to many Metroid fans desperate to see the final credits. Thanks to this wonderful thing we call the Internet, the beauty of NARPAS SWORD or NAR PASSWORD or however you interpret it can be shared among the masses, making one of the most difficult NES games ever made a little more manageable.

LMD in Donkey Kong for Atari

Perhaps the most well hidden Easter Egg appearing on this list, I’m not sure anyone would have even noticed the three letters that could appear on Donkey Kong’s title screen even if they met the parameters accidentally. Of course those parameters are ridiculous anyhow: set a specific high score, die by falling, set the difficulty to 4 back at the title screen, and let the intro loop play.

What was so secret that such a complex method of discovery was needed? What could possibly need to be hidden for 26 years before someone finally found it, and only then after the developer tipped us off to its existence in a blog post? The developer’s initials, LMD, which will appear at the bottom of the title screen. That’s it. I don’t mind the initials; if I had the chance to hide my initials in a game I’d totally do it, but the work it takes to see them is just crazy. No wonder it took 26 years.

Goldeneye 64’s Line Mode

For years Nintendo swore that the only cheats available in Goldeneye were those we had to unlock through playing the game. There were no button sequences to be found, Nintendo maintained, and any attempts to figure some out would be futile; that is, until players actually did find button sequences that unlocked a ton of cheats, including some not available via the normal unlocking method.

One of those cheats, line mode, is the only non-unlockable mode in the entire game and turns the entire game into the music video for Take On Me by A-Ha. It’s a nifty little mode that doesnt really add anything to the experience (except 80s flashbacks), but the fact that it exists at all after Nintendo’s insistence is amazing in itself.

Wesker’s Desk in Resident Evil 2

Who’s going to check the same location 50 times after the first time tells you there’s nothing useful there? Apparently someone somewhere did while playing Resident Evil 2, and thats how the discovery of Film D was made. What’s on the film that took 50 searches to dig out of Wesker’s desk? A photo of Rebecca Chambers after a pick-up game of basketball. What a treat.

We know that this hidden gem was officially revealed in a book called Research on BioHazard 2 Final Edition in Japan the same year RE2 launched, but we’d bet that North American players had no idea this existed until years had passed. If it weren’t for that book, I STILL don’t think we’d have found it today, almost 20 years after the game released.

Chris Houlihan room in Link to the Past

In case you’re unfamiliar, the Chris Houlihan room is a hidden area in Zelda: A Link to the Past named after a 1990 Nintendo Power contest winner. It’s basically a fail-safe that the game sends you to if the game is going to crash, but what seems like an inconsequential addition was once one of the Zelda franchise’s biggest mysteries.

Because the game launched back in the days before the Internet, no one even knew the room existed. The World Wide Web is what brought this place to light, only becoming widely known twelve years after the game initially launched in 1992. Anyone who stumbled upon it before that probably thought the game was haunted by someone named Chris and tried to perform an exorcism on the cartridge; or was that just me?

Wave Race Blue Storm’s jerkface announcer

Wave Race: Blue Storm for the GameCube hides a comical Easter egg where the announcer turns into a half-interested, overly-sarcastic jerk. Things you’ll hear him say include “you have chosen poorly” at the character select, “if you were any good, you’d get a turbo by hitting the gas when the light turns green at the start of a race”, and “you don’t have an inferiority complex; you’re just inferior” when he REALLY wants to be a jerk.

The game initially launched in 2001, but it took nine years and an intrepid NeoGAF forum member to discover this antagonistic announcer because of how well hidden he is. First, you have to change a display on the Audio Options menu to vertical fog, then put in a long code of button presses, THEN go back and start a race. Surprising as it may be, I totally understand how this guy could have stayed in the shadows: who would think that rising fog would lead to this jerk?

Deus Ex: Invisible War’s Flag-Flushing Disco

Deus Ex: Invisible War admittedly does not live up to the quality of the original game, but this Easter Egg is too good to pass up. In the final level, pick up a flag and take it to a toilet in the bathroom, then flush said toilet. You’ll suddenly be warped to a rip-roarin’ party at Club Vox with all of the major characters in the game getting down with their bad selves. For a game as serious as Deus Ex, this is quite the surprise.

This is another Easter Egg I’m surprised we ever found, because getting to the disco dance party takes some really weird steps. I’d bet that most people didn’t look at those flags in that bunker and think to themselves “You know what? I’m going to move that to the bathroom. That’ll show that dastardly UNATCO!” Whoever first discovered this, we’re glad you did: everyone should be invited to this party.

Marathon Infinity’s Hangar 96

The Marathon games on the PC and Macintosh are a great example of how Bungie got its start in making great shooters. While the games certainly laid the groundwork for the smash hit Halo series, they also showcased just how well Bungie could keep secrets within its games: they hid an entire multiplayer level within the game, where only the most tech-savvy players could find it.

With a lot of digging, someone finally figured out the key to unlocking the level: finding it centers around combining hexadecimal terms seen on terminals in-game, then turning the combined hex term into readable code and reintroducing it into the game’s files. I have no idea who would even think to try that, as some players (like me) just know how to hit the start button, but the idea of hiding a full map in a game’s code is astounding. 

Splinter Cell: Double Agent’s Seal Rescue

Throughout the original Xbox version of Splinter Cell: Double Agent’s co-op stages, there are a series of hidden side missions where you and a friend must rescue five seals from imprisonment. That doesn’t sound like anything too out of the ordinary, except I’m not talking about Navy SEALS; I’m talking about the ocean-dwelling, balance-balls-on-their-noses animals that clap their fins and make honking noises.

Four years after Double Agent’s release, two of the game’s developers posted a video revealing the hidden co-op side mission, where a team must find and rescue five baby seals using a variety of seemingly inconsequential items. (Here’s a video showing it off.) Without the reveal, these seals might have stayed hidden forever, but I’m glad that we could bring peace to the seal people of Splinter Cell.

The post 13 video game secrets that were almost never found appeared first on Game News.

Sometimes a change of pace is good. We may love a game to pixels and be happy to while away our days in its digital landscape, but once you start hitting 10, 20, 50-hour benchmarks, variety starts to become a necessity. It’s not hard to inject something different into the mix–some mini-games here, a couple of side missions there, maybe a boss or two with their own gimmick to nab our attention again. Come on devs, mix it up a little! Go crazy!

Well, okay, maybe not too crazy, because the more one thing differs from the game around it, the more likely it’s going to feel out of sync. That’s especially the case with boss battles that are so unique that it doesnt feel like they even belong in the same game anymore. Theres different and then theres straight-up mismatched, and if you push it to too faryou already did it, didn’t you? You did it eight different times. Aww, frick.

Navarro – Uncharted

Uncharted is, for the most part, pretty open-ended in terms of how you beat down the waves of enemies thrown at you. As long as you follow the don’t-get-dead rule, you can shoot/snipe/blow up mooks to your heart’s content. All that goes out the window when you go toe-to-toe with Navarro, the game’s devious final boss–and by toe-to-toe, I mean his gun to your face.

From the wide-open battlegrounds that fill the other 99% of this game, the final battle funnels Nathan Drake onto a heavily guarded tanker as he tries to stop Navarro from leaving the island laden with ancient cursed gold. The ensuing battle is comparatively claustrophobic, as Nathan is cooped into a small portion of the ship with only destructible boxes to hide behind. Regardless, its tolerable, and taking out the gun-toting maniacs that fill the ship is all a matter of skill. Then you get to the final-final encounter, disarmed and staring down the barrel of Navarro’s rage (and also his gun). Cue jumping between boxes and throwing perfectly timed punches, where even the slightest deviation from the developers’ plans ends in failure. Jeez, somebodys a control freak.

GLaDOS – Portal

A game-changer among first-person shooters, Portal broke the gun mold by focusing more on puzzle-solving and physics manipulation than killing. Excluding the disturbingly cute turrets, Chell doesn’t cause any sentient being harm during her excursion through Aperture Science. That is until GLaDOS tries to dispose of her still-living body, at which point the portal gun becomes a weapon of mass DOStruction.

Once Chell reaches GLaDOS’ secret lair, the object of the game goes from shooting yourself across rooms to shooting the AI with rockets, knocking off and incinerating pieces of hardware that contain her personality. However, a straight-up boss fight feels really out of step with what comes before, since Chell’s most violent act in the testing chambers is knocking over some egg-shaped bullet-douches. Plus, the fight is timed, so thoughtful pondering is right out while you try to deal with this brand-new kind of pressure. There are still puzzle-solving elements to it, since you have to figure out how to get each object from point A to point Burn, but in a lot of ways the change just doesn’t compute.

Fontaine – BioShock

The story of BioShock is, first and foremost, the story of Rapture. Discovering what led to the citys downfall creates its own natural sense of rising action, so no need for clunky trope signposts to get you through. Instead, things develop organically from Raptures shattered ruins, instilling a sense of melancholy when you finally leave it behind. Oh, but you have to beat this generic three-tiered boss before you go. Thats cool, right?

Compared to BioShock’s natural build-up, its conclusion suffers from final boss shoehorning with the fight against Fontaine. Before the encounter, Bioshock’s only “boss fights” are the optional, player-driven Big Daddies battles, and those don’t yank you out of the experience for a bland beatdown. Fontaine, however, is completely separate from the rest of the world, a level unto himself. All of a sudden you’re focused on a straightforward boss fight with no room for different choices or play styles, reducing the game to a pseudo-magical shootout. Compelled to take part in this forced charade? There’s a man vs. slave joke in there somewhere

Mz. Ruby – Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus

Sly Cooper is a man–er, mammal–of many talents. From sneaking to swiping to stealing the hearts of (literal) foxy ladies, there seems to be nothing Sly can’t do. Which is good, because in the middle of some plot-important sleuthing, he travels to the jungles of Haiti and must defeat the heinous reptilian mystic Mz. Ruby in a voodoo dance off. Oh lordy.

Mz. Ruby’s main method of attack is throwing objects conveniently shaped like Playstation buttons, which you have to match to keep Sly from getting knocked on his furry ass. Apparently this hurts our lady lizard somehow, because each time Sly passes one of her trials she loses a fat chunk of health. If it’s confusing how that’s supposed to work, its even more confusing how it’s supposed to fit in a game comprised of stealth mechanics and boss beat-ups. Thankfully, it doesn’t take much to bring Mz. Ruby down–you just need the power of dance.

Doppelganger – Prince of Persia

Unless youve had your head in the sand for the past ten years (and I mean, even if you have), youve probably heard of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. But did you know there was a Prince of Persia before that? No, its true! And it got quite a bit of attention in its day for having one of the most confusing bosses gaming had yet seen. A shadow version of the main character, the Prince’s doppleganger does everything exactly as you do, so it’s impossible to kill him without getting killed yourself. A difficult boss isn’t weird for Prince of Persia, but the answer to defeating him is about as out of place as a Swede acting as Iranian royalty. You do nothing.

In a move that was new for not only Prince of Persia, but gaming itself, the answer to defeating the doppelganger was to have the Prince sheath his sword and walk up to the shadowy other, joining with him in one form. This pacifistic solution bewildered many players back in the day, since there are no other circumstances where the Prince can lower his sword without being ruined by enemies.

Adel – Final Fantasy VIII

If there’s one thing Final Fantasy has taught me, it’s that the solution to everything is to beat the shit out of it. Childhood rival, vicious dictator, malevolent half-sword, half-clock god, the answer’s the same. Kick the ever-living bejesus out of it, and the universe will thank you. That’s why when I first played Final Fantasy VIII and got to the Adel fight–where you have to avoid hurting a friendly party member attached to the boss chest–my brain started to smoke.

Following a series of events infinitely too complicated and dumb to explain, monster sorceress Adel comes down from her space prison on a wave of sky-demons and absorbs leading lady Rinoa, forcing the party to fight Adel while not brutally killing their friend. That means all ranged attacks are out, as are summons, and for a game where summon-spamming is a perfectly legitimate strategy, that throws a wrench in the works. We can really only take so much insanity, Square-Enix–and we’re the folks who were fine with Quina.

Gruntilda – Banjo-Kazooie

Banjo-Kazooie is the kind of game that prides itself on being weird and non-traditional. I mean, there’s a sentient cheat code book! And garbage disposal whale-sharks! And you win the main character’s sister back during a game show! This quirky title plays by no rules but its own, and its rules are freaking weird. Well, except for the final boss. Yeah, that is weirdly normal.

Like Portal, Banjo-Kazooie is solidly about one thing through most of its run: hunting around while funny stuff happens, and probably saving your sister at some point. However, it turns into something else right before the credits roll. Banjo and Kazooie climb to the highest point of the game’s overworld and fight the kidnapping witch Gruntilda, at which point things play out like a pretty generic boss fight. Its disappointing when you look forward to more corny fun and get the same kind of final battle youd play in any other game. Well, at least they bring in colorful bird-lizard-creatures to assist, after you fill their statues with eggs. There’s that weirdness we know and love!

Strider battle – Half Life 2: Episode 2

I hate you so much, Magnusson. First you show up like I’m supposed to know who you are, then you won’t get over a twenty-year-old exploded casserole, and then you give me this thing. This ungainly ball I have to use against five-story-tall robots while their little underling friends try to turn me into mincemeat. Thanks for nothing, you jerk.

One of the most difficult fights in all of Half-Life 2, the strider battle that ends Episode 2 is made five times harder by the Magnusson Device–a magnetic ball you attach to striders, then shoot to blow it up. While the idea of one-shot-killing a strider is sick as hell, it’s less amazing in practice. The devices can only be found at far-between dispensaries, so God help you if your aim is bad. Then if you manage to attach it to a strider you better be ready with that shotgun, because if youre not fast enough itll deactivate and you have to start all ovER AGAIN GODDAMNDJSKLFJSDKLFDAFDSJKLFD. Since this is the only “boss fight” where you do anything like that, the minute-long practice session you get beforehand doesn’t help much. So yeah, fuck you Magnusson. I’m glad I ruined your lunch.

The post 8 boss fights that are way different from the rest of their games appeared first on Game News.

For all their character, though, none share Seven Stars’ flair for stretching the boundaries of Mario’s world. Putting art aside, no other Mario RPG nails the expert pacing of exploration, storytelling, and combat that makes Seven Stars still feel effortless after two decades.

From the moment Seven Stars starts, the game manages to both wholly capture the feeling of the Mario series while also feeling like this is a place where absolutely anything can happen. Mario rushes into Bowser’s castle to save Princess Toadstool–released in March ‘96, her highness was still six months away from being known as Peach outside of Japan–and the whole thing feels like a very literal interpretation of the game’s name. This is Super Mario Bros., the NES game from 1985, with Final Fantasy style turn-based combat. Then a skyscraper-sized sword with a smug, fanged face on the hilt smashes through the roof of Bowser’s joint and suddenly all the rules and expectations of what’s to come are smashed along with it.

Even by 1996, Mario was a character weighed down by perceived rules. Super Mario Bros 3 and World were vivid and imaginative games, no doubt, but they expanded on a base established in that defining NES original. Mario lives in a world where there are killer mushrooms and turtles working for a mohawked dragon man with antisocial tendencies and a penchant for blondes. These facts can be embellished on, but not done away with. Super Mario RPG treats Mario’s past as provincial; everything you’ve seen to date has been localized to just a chunk of the Mushroom Kingdom or Dinosaur Island or neighboring towns. It’s a big old world out there, full of huckster frog sages, cloud princes, and hilariously chubby tiger monsters that get extra licky when you fight them. There are rich beardoesobsessed with beetles living near towns whose sole business is mushroom-themed destination weddings.

While Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi: The Superstar Saga possess some of that diverse spirit in Super Mario RPG, they suffer somewhat from having to adhere to the rules established in their respective series and even in Super Mario RPG itself. The fourth wall-breaking humor that’s a trademark of all Mario role-playing games got its start back in the SNES original when Toad would run out to explain a little bit about jumping directly to the player. That’s no less delightful when it’s deployed in games like Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, but it’s also overly familiar.

So too is the perpetual need for a gimmick in each new entry; the perspective flipping of Super Paper Mario, the mapping of each brother to a specific button in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, or the sometimes tedious adhesive collection in Sticker Star. Super Mario RPG succeeded thanks to its inherent novelty–a role-playing game born out of the spare but iconic action of the platformers–but also its laser focus on a great story and great battles.

That’s not to indict the action in either of its successor series, but Super Mario RPG’s battle system is a perfect blend of visual humor, speed, and variety. The signature active turn-based combat started here and it was arguably perfect out the gate. Every weapon for each character requires you to time your button presses to get the maximum damage. Mallow’s Froggy Stick needs an extra button press precisely when he brings it down on some creepy shark pirate’s face. Bowser’s pet chain chomp will start chewing up that thieving purple alligator Croco the moment it hits him in his jaunty hat. Shifting between its five characters, all of them feel useful and specific. It’s hilarious seeing Toadstool wollop a goomba with an umbrella, then turn for a victory pose alongside Bowser and Mario.

The limited character selection in later games loses that pleasurable range, but that’s only half the problem. All but the easiest fights in Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi drag on for ages as they’re both naturally slower paced and overemphasize the active battles (do the Mario brothers’ jump attacks really seem cooler if there are 50 jumps in a row?). The audience participation aspect of fights in Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door are delightful, but having to sit through five full minutes of back and forth to kill just three basic goombas using just two characters dulls any humor and excitement there might be. Super Mario RPG keeps its battles cooking while also feeling just mechanically complex enough to satiate a veteran role-playing game fan.

That brisk pace keeps Super Mario RPG’s lovely adventure moving as well. One second you’re fighting a man-sized dagger named Mack the Knife outside Princess Toadstool’s castle and just a few minutes later you’re following a possessed wooden doll into the jungle to fight a crazy-eyed living bow. Never lingering too long on any dungeon or episode, Super Mario RPG’s laid out with maximum narrative economy and maximum character expression. Mallow’s journey to find his parents doesn’t come 30 hours after it’s introduced, giving you time to lose investment. The whole game takes just 20 or so hours to play through as opposed to nearly double that in most Paper Mario outings. Rather than drown the player in fight after fight, or repeating funny story beats until they lose their impact like in Thousand Year Door’s wrestling sidestory, Seven Stars never overstays its welcome.

So its structure remain and spirit remain sound on its 20th anniversary, but Super Mario RPG’s real ongoing success is that, for the right player, it’s just so damn easy to love. For me, the bulbous, almost Play-Doh-esque characters in their little pre-rendered diorama world feels just right. Mallow and Geno, the martini-swilling Valentina and her swole bird henchman, the endearingly indulgent members of Bowser’s displaced Koopa Troop; everyone you meet in the game is completely defined and impossible to forget. And Yoko Shimomura’s soundtrack? Right up there with her best work in Street Fighter 2 and Parasite Eve, but also of a piece with Koji Kondo’s immortal Mario themes. The game endures, and while many of the key creators that worked on it are still working on the Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi games, their debut remains un-bested by those follow ups. Happy 20th, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. May your reign continue unabated.

The post Super Mario RPG: Still the best Mario role-playing game after 20 years appeared first on Game News.

Screencheat, out this week on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, is designed precisely around this principle. You can’t see your enemies. You have to watch their screens.

Come meet the developer as we face off against director and artist Nicholas McDonnell of Samurai Punk live at 4:30PM ET/1:30PM PT/9:30PM GMT.

Dig the show? We air twice a week, so make sure to follow our Twitch channel! When are we live? Here’s our schedule:

Tuesday 4:30PM – 6PM ET/1:30PM – 3PM PT GamesRadar+ joins fascinating folks from every walk of life, playing their favorite games and other treasures from the history of gaming. This is you chance to chat with creators from the world of music, film, comics, and everything else under the sun.

Thursday 4:30PM – 6PM ET/1:30PM – 3PM PT Arthur C. Clarke said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Maybe that’s why video games seem so remarkable. We meet with the creators of the best games to demystify the process.

The post GR+ Live: Meet the maker of Screencheat as we try to destroy each other appeared first on Game News.

Today Bluth and Goldman joined us to discuss their years of collaboration and why now is the right time to transform Dragon’s Lair into a hand drawn movie for 2016.

Dig the show? We’re here four days a week, Monday through Thursday so make sure to follow our Twitch channel! When are we live? Here’s our schedule:

Tuesday 4:30PM – 6PM ET/1:30PM – 3PM PT GamesRadar+ joins fascinating folks from every walk of life, playing their favorite games and other treasures from the history of gaming. This is you chance to chat with creators from the world of music, film, comics, and everything else under the sun.

Thursday 4:30PM – 6PM ET/1:30PM – 3PM PT Arthur C. Clarke said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Maybe that’s why video games seem so remarkable. We meet with the creators of the best games to demystify the process.

The post GR+ Live: The making of Dragons Lair, An American Tail and more with Don Bluth appeared first on Game News.

That’s the thing about nostalgia: we tend to focus on the positives, remembering how things felt rather than how they were. Try to go back to an older game and you might struggle to reconcile your fondness for it with dated graphics, sound, or controls. Thankfully, a fresh coat of paint can sometimes bring back those feelings of awe, letting you experience those old feelings all over again.

Wilson writes that he was aiming to merge the game’s layout with realistic lighting and props taken from the film. I’d say he succeeded, but I might need a test run (or three, or five) to be sure …

Seen something newsworthy? Tell us!

Image Credit: Jude Wilson

The post GoldenEye 007 for N64 made in Unreal Engine 4 is what nostalgia looks like now appeared first on Game News.

For the old school console fan, 2015 is a paradise of fresh delights. Axiom Verge oozes that classic console feeling when it starts up on PlayStation 4. The grinding wub-wub-wub of the distortion field weapon and its glitchy effects warping the blocky environment seem like they were lifted right out of 1989. The same is true of The Adventures of Pip. Played on a Wii U, the hero’s transformation from single block into increasingly detailed pixel dudes is practically a greatest hits tour through the transitions in tech from Atari 2600 to NES to SNES. Odallus even has those fetching scan lines right on the screen to mimic sitting in front of a CRT television. “Wait a second,” mutters the console purist, gently setting down her Jaguar controller. “Odallus is a PC game!”

JoyMasher’s game only looks like a console game. Axiom Verve and Pip, despite being readily available on those slick little boxes with controllers that never need a keyboard and mouse to operate, also happen to be playable on PC. These games may have been made to ape the ticks and charms that made console games so distinct from their PC cousins in the past, but in 2015 there are almost no tactile differences between games built on any platform. If the specific pleasure of firing up and playing a console game is ubiquitous across all platforms, what defines console gaming now?

Understanding just how incredibly different console games were to one another in their heyday is difficult in an era when XCOM: Enemy Unknown runs as comfortably on a PC and iPad as it does on an Xbox 360. It wasn’t just that each machine had its own style of controller, either; even the noises they made were particular. Consider Sega and Nintendo’s 16-bit beasts. Genesis does indeed do what Nintendon’t but the reverse is equally true. Super Nintendo games used a custom built processor called the S-SMP to generate sound effects and music, resulting in tones with a characteristic warmth. Think about the smooth horn blats of the Super Mario World soundtrack (and the admittedly farty noise made when Mario enters a Koopa castle) for perfect examples of that machine’s audio identity. Sega’s Genesis used a stock sound processor, the Yamaha YM2612. While just as capable of making some bitchin’ tunes, the YM2612 produced a drier, almost acidic tone encapsulated by bruisers like the Streets of Rage 2 soundtrack. Compare the main theme of Chrono Trigger remixed using Genesis sounds compared to the SNES original.

The specificity of the hardware, like the SNES’ custom sound chip and the fact that consoles couldn’t be gradually augmented with more memory made game development on those consoles isolated, but also focused. PlayStation developers had an easier time making 3D games because that console’s processing power wasn’t awkwardly spread out across multiple processors like the Sega Saturn. For 2D games, though, Saturn trounced the PlayStation because of the lack of video RAM in Sony’s box. The differences between those two platforms made the same game feel different depending on where it showed up. Resident Evil’s Jill Valentine is jagged on PS1 but more detailed compared to the smooth, simple character model on Saturn.

Every console had its own quirks, its own identity as well as flow in its games that culminated not just in a house style but also a genuine hominess. Recognizing the instrumentation and sound libraries cohere across multiple Super Nintendo games like Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana let the console itself grow deep roots in a regular player. For any ravenous fans of Capcom’s arcade work in the mid-’90s, the Sega Saturn’s 2D capabilities made it the only place to translate those brief experiences into something lasting at home. Even machines like the Nintendo 64 whose technical abilities seemed like drawbacks on paper could become benefits as you became attached to its specific style. Did the muddy textures and hazy resolution of N64 games make them immortal works of graphical achievement? Hell no, but for the people that love that machine in its games, that smudgy look is representative of everything great about the console. Consoles could have a style that was also a soul.

Games the cross between console and PC today are actually very capable of mimicking the particulars of classic machines like Super Nintendo, but those artful flourishes aren’t a result of using locked-in hardware specifications. Axiom Verge, whether played on a PS4 or a PC, feels like a modern successor to Nintendo’s own Super Metroid, from the chunky biological art design to Tom Happ’s eerie sci-fi music. Rather than milking a specific sound out of a custom chip, though, the soundtrack was made using an old version of SoundForge and Sonar X2. The game itself was built using software called MonoGame. The result is classic console style but what’s ultimately a device-agnostic feel; Axiom Verge was built with those tools precisely so it wouldn’t be confined to a single platform like old console games.

What marks a console game today actually has nothing to do with what’s in the games, but the ecosystem that surrounds them. Each console environment gets its shape in multiple ways. One aspect is the online community. While cross-platform play between PC and console games like the kind Capcom’s building for Street Fighter V is becoming more common, the player pools on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live do remain largely closed and specific. Multiplayer communities, achievements, trophies, and just the simple notifications that someone you know has been playing the same things you have creates a sense of shared experience that gives that specific console a new feel and form.

While the technical proficiencies of the consoles don’t necessarily define their games anymore, what the makers of those consoles choose to fund and create also internally further shapes the culture of that machine. Nintendo and its fleet of mascots are the most obvious example. Modestly powered PCs could run games like Super Mario 3D World without much difficulty – Wii U uses a PowerPC processor not dissimilar to the PC-like Xbox 360 – but that game and others published by Nintendo share. Wii U games tend to be colorful and emphasize action over story; even games made by studios outside Nintendo’s offices like Bayonetta 2 share that spirit.

Less specific than Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft nonetheless have their own content cultures. Sony, for example, has been cultivating the same persona since it got in the game back in the ‘90s. Its publishing slate tends to mix blockbuster savvy with a flair for quiet, weird experimentation. That’s how you have Uncharted coming out of the same pool as Tokyo Jungle and The Puppeteer with a heavy emphasis on individual characters and largely single-player experiences. Microsoft on the other hand has always banked first on big, blockbuster style games that emphasize multiplayer. Halo, Gears of War, and the Driveatar-ridden roadways of modern Forza all have ample space to play by yourself, but they’re sold first as things to play with other people. (It’s hard to find an Xbox One tentpole that doesn’t have four-player co-op.)

For the old school fan, longing for those aesthetic quirks that made console gaming so distinct in the 20th and early 21st century, your options are limited. There’s always the hardcore homebrew scene, where people are even still cranking ZX Spectrum games alongside new NES and even SNES games. They can satisfy, but it’s no easy task to find homemade games that feel as polished as the classics. Games like Axiom and Odallus that pay homage to an era of more specific technology scratch part of the itch, but even games as precise as those aren’t wholly the real deal. Which is fine. It simply means that old console feeling is itself an antiquity, the soul of games as they were, not as they are.

The post That Console Feeling: What defines console gaming in 2015? appeared first on Game News.

The glitch in question was first observed on a casual stream of two players running through Tick Tock Clock; landing on the back of the little steps near the start of the stage unexpectedly warped one of the players upward, letting him skip a significant portion of the level. That’s valuable enough on its own for Mario 64 speedrunners, but since this one seems to be distinct from any other known glitches, it could be the key to discovering (and exploiting) more.

Unfortunately, you have to be able to reliably recreate a glitch before you can start studying it – and that’s where the bounty comes in. Speedrunner pannenkoek2012 has been unable to replicate it himself, so instead he’s pledged $1,000 to the first person who sends him the replay files his crack team of Mario 64 researchers will need to isolate and potentially expand upon the glitch. If you think you have the chops (and the patience) to claim the bounty, you’d better get to work.

Seen something newsworthy? Tell us!

The post You could get $1,000 for recreating this Mario 64 glitch appeared first on Game News.

Generally speaking, cheesing is seen as completing a challenge in an underhanded way that isn’t in the spirit of the game, like leading an ultra-powerful boss off a cliff or shooting from a convenient hidey-hole where no one can reach you. In many circles these techniques are poorly regarded – cheesing is often said in the same breath as glitching or exploits, which are really just technical synonyms for cheating. But I don’t see those things falling into the same category, because cheesing doesn’t alter the basic framework of the game by prodding at frayed code. Cheesing a game comes from studying its many details and eccentricities, and using what you find to confront challenges in unexpected ways.

Take, for example, horror-romance-puzzle game Catherine. In between navigating the throes of romantic entanglement, your job is to rearrange the building blocks of a tower so you can create a path to the top. One boss in the game has the ability to change the blocks ahead of you into traps like spikes and black holes. It’s an aggravating segment that you can fail with an errant twitch, unless you realize that you have the ability to undo your last block-pulling move, which also undoes the boss’s spell. You can then hop to the next level and pull out another block before he makes a move, bypassing his cheap tactic with a cheap tactic of your own.

That gets you to the top on your own terms, and it wasn’t by abusively duplicating items or manipulating some other mix-up in the code. By paying attention to how the ‘undo’ function affects the game in less obvious ways and making creative use of what you learn, you’re able to utilize a mechanic in a way you may never have thought of otherwise. It’s not the same as trying to beat a game out of contempt or superiority (opens in new tab). It’s a battle of the minds against a game you respect and love enough to learn it inside-out.

Of course, you have to be open to the idea of the game cheesing back – I had to bite my tongue when a massive, stampeding pig killed me through the floor in Bloodborne. But in the end that means you’re interacting with the game on an even deeper level, which just makes playing it more personal and fun. So next time you snipe Sekrion from above in Destiny (opens in new tab) or goad Ceaseless Discharge into a bottomless pit in Dark Souls, banish the word ‘cheating’ from your mind. It’s just you and the game, having a Gotcha moment.

The post Why I Love: Cheesing games appeared first on Game News.

What a contrast with all those locked doors inside. Super Mario 64 didn’t feature the first platform game hub level but certainly codified the form, since other aspects of its design meant the between-levels part of the game had to shoulder much more responsibility than before. A map screen is great when you’ve got the best part of 100 levels to lay out, but Super Mario 64 only had 15. They were bigger than anything players had ever seen, designed for repeat visits and full of diversions, but the game needed a different means of tying the courses together.

From a functional perspective, then, Princess Peach’s royal abode is pure padding – it takes Super Mario 64’s 15 stages and sprinkles them over four subdivided floors. Despite the gating it does so nonlinearly, a subtle clue that things had changed from the days when Mario’s adventures were nothing but an epic journey towards the right of the screen. This was a space to be explored, with multiple entrances, exits and rooms you were meant to return to. Still, it’s a relatively compact, tidy and efficient environment compared with the bloated hubs it would inspire: you could fit Peach’s Castle many times over into Donkey Kong 64’s DK Island or Banjo-Tooie’s sprawling Isle O’ Hags.

There was a weird, voyeuristic novelty in walking around the nearly abandoned dwelling. We’d visited the Mushroom Kingdom plenty of times, after all, but never been invited to potter about the royal residence before. So it was a surprise to discover Princess Peach was an avid art collector. Given Mario’s three-dimensional transition, there’s something wonderfully symbolic about jumping into 2D paintings that then reveal themselves to be 3D worlds; it’s easy to miss the simple trick they pull off. The painting gimmick doubles up as an economical piece of level design: Mario 64 doesn’t need to integrate its environments into its hub zone or provide plausible transitions between the hub and the courses – it just hangs them, like exhibits, on the wall. They’re still logically placed, though: the entrance to the watery Jolly Roger Bay awaits beside schools of fish in the coolly lit aquarium; Super Mario 64’s final courses – the vertiginous Tick Tock Clock and sky-high Rainbow Ride – await in the castle’s summits.

The strangest thing of all about Peach’s Castle, however, is that it feels like a real place, an actual home to contrast with all the themed gauntlets hidden inside it. Peach’s fondness for landscape paintings has an obvious design-related purpose, but there’s no denying that by modelling and filling her castle with such curios Nintendo had made the Mushroom Kingdom more grounded than ever before. The brightly coloured, prehistoric charms of Super Mario World’s Dinosaur Island had been reined in favour of a blander, fairytale aesthetic and a castle that, frankly, would slot neatly into Disneyland.

Meanwhile, the layout of the castle was oddly plausible – the courses might be stuffed with enemies and tricky platforming gauntlets, but Peach’s home was made up of nothing but long corridors and echoing rooms (there’s a Boo-infested courtyard, but this is the otherworldly exception to the rule). Even a puzzle in which Mario must ground-pound two pillars to drain the moat outside was unusual – it loosely paralleled finding alternate course exits in Super Mario World to unlock new levels of the map, but its focus on the castle’s mechanical workings was more akin to a Zelda temple than anything we’d seen in a Mario game.

A common criticism of Super Mario Sunshine is that the GameCube title’s preoccupation with turning Isle Delfino into a consistent, unified place held back its level design – a misstep that it took Galaxy’s abstract droplets of play to correct. If that’s true, then perhaps the first inklings of the impulse to make 3D spaces believable and consistent can be spotted here. As the Galaxy games managed to increasingly capture the purity of 2D Mario in 3D space, they whittled away at the hub until it was once again a map screen.

(opens in new tab)

(opens in new tab)

But they lost something in doing so. Before Peach’s Castle, games like Mario were all about the rush to the level exit, the leap to the flag. But 3D worlds dangled the possibility of more immersive spaces: places we could pause, dawdle in and explore. Peach’s Castle was one of the first. It showed us a Mario who existed beyond the end of the level, a Mario without any immediate task. A Mario free to spend afternoons outside, somersaulting from tree to tree.

Read more from Edge here. Or take advantage of our subscription offers for print and digital editions.

The post How Nintendos most famous castle changed Mario forever appeared first on Game News.