The Nintendo Basement – Australia's primary source for quality Nintendo news and reviews

What do you get when you mash games, music, TV and writing talents into one? You get pure awesome, and a lady with all that and more is none other than the lovely Maude Garrett. You may know her from her various appearances on Nickelodeon programs such as Sarvo (where she was co-host with Kyle Linahan), and Camp Orange (another successful Nickelodeon kids reality TV show). Along the ride she’s also collected a whole host of awards for her work, with more to surely be coming her way in the future.

Recently TNB had the opportunity to have a chat to Maude, and here’s how it went down!

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When Nintendo first announced the New Play Control! (NPC) series many fans were shocked, and at the same time somewhat pleased, to hear that Nintendo would be re-releasing a bunch of GameCube games for the Wii. The selling point of these remakes, or ‘Wii-makes’ as the Australian/New Zealand Official Nintendo Magazine described them, was that they would feature graphical improvements, 16:9 widescreen support and reconfigured Wii Remote controls.

Roughly one year since the announcement of the NPC series, six games, including the two Metroid Prime titles, have washed up on Australian shores, but the question (that technically is two questions) is: was Nintendo’s NPC series actually worthwhile, and did it live up to people’s expectations (assuming that it had expectations to live up to)?

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Recently, Matt (PrattP) got in contact with me and told me that it was my turn to go out into the field. So without any questions, (of which there were a few! – Ed.) I put on my adventure cap, got changed out of my three-month old unwashed clothes and stepped out into the bright sunlight.

Soon after my talk with Matt (and questioning myself about where I was going), I found myself inside the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre at Gen Con Oz. I didn’t know entirely what Gen Con Oz was about at that point in time, but I quickly found out that it was all about games. To be more precise, it was all about computer games, console games, board games, card games, role play games and miniature war games. Continue Reading…

As I arrived at the Adelaide Convention Centre on the 25th of July to attend AVCon, (Adelaide’s Anime and Videogames Convention) I felt a bit nervous as I instantly noticed a group of cosplayers, including Cloud Strife and Sora of Kingdom Hearts fame. This got me worried that the whole event was probably not for me, but thankfully I persisted on and had a fun day filled with weird anime, awesome games and all types of weird and wacky cosplayers. Continue Reading…

Myself (Quatters) and Maxi were fortunate enough to be invited to the THQ Post E3 game preview night which gave us a good chance to play some unreleased games announced at E3 and have a chat with a few THQ guys. The first game we got our hands on was Marvel Super Hero Squad for Wii.

Essentially, there’s two parts to the game. The first is the story mode, where you follow one Marvel character’s story, with a friend joining in too. The game does seem to have rather simplistic controls, but is a lot of fun. It reminded me personally of the recent Lego games.

The other mode is free-for-all battle, meaning anyone who loves Smash Bros. would almost definitely have fun with this too. Rather than being based on a 2D fighting arena, it’s now in full 3D, so there’s a lot of running around and dodging. Also, you don’t have to knock enemies off the arena, (everyone has a health bar) but knocking them off does provide an easy win. On top of that, there’s lots of items floating around and each character feels quite different to play with. All your favourite characters are there too: Spiderman, Wolverine, The Hulk and even some rarer characters like Thor. Continue Reading…

Welcome to TNB’s extra special E3 wrap up! I am your host, Mr_M, henceforth to be known as ‘The Other Other M’!

Alex: I’m Quatters, hereafter known as Alex.

Matt: And I’m PrattP, finishing out the three amigos. I’ll be referred to as Matt further on!

The Other Other M: Gentlemen, let me explain the rules: the game we’re playing today, inspired by various sporting talk shows, is known as ‘Good Call, Bad Call’. The rules are simple: one person makes a statement regarding Nintendo’s E3 show. The other two people must declare it a ‘good call’ or a ‘bad call’ and explain why. This should hopefully result in an E3 wrap up that’s actually fun for us to write (and you to read)!

Matt: Rules understood!

The Other Other M: Okay, if we’re ready, I will begin with a question regarding Nintendo’s biggest franchise! New Super Mario Bros for the Wii, unlike the DS version, WILL be a true classic! Good call, or bad call? Continue Reading…

I just have to start off and say that due to the fact we are not real journalists, we forgot to bring a camera to this event!

So tonight Maxi and I attended the Sims 3 Launch Party at the Crystal Palace at Luna Park. However, it was quite different from a regular game launch. In fact, there was very little to do with the game itself, it was mainly a fashion show!

This wasn’t too bad. While The Sims games are fun, I was never the biggest fan, and I must confess, I got addicted to Make Me A Supermodel last year so all went well. Continue Reading…

This year the Big N has revealed one new device and a number of upcoming titles for both the Wii and DS.

Click on through for a summary, transcript and show floor pictures of all the happenings in the E3 09 Nintendo Press Conference! Continue Reading…