I originally discovered The Nintendo Basement through another local Nintendo website known as Aussie-Nintendo. From what I remember, PrattP was plugging TNB on the A-N forums and, not being able to help myself at the time, I came across to the site and sussed things out. Eventually I worked out Matt was in touch with a few Hyper Magazine writers, and had had an article published in Hyper himself. I found this highly impressive and thought TNB had a lot of potential if this was the man running the show. So before you know it, I had emailed him and the next thing I knew I was a regular news poster on the site. During my time as a writer here, I became more and more attached to TNB’s charming little community, and I decided to stay on and support the site to the best of my ability. As a result, The Nintendo Basement has been a huge part of my life for the past 3 or so years. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing for, and being a part of, the wonderful community here.

I’d like to thank all of the fantastic TNB members for supporting the site over the past four years and most of all I’d like to thank PrattP for making it all happen and giving me the opportunity to be a part of this brilliant Nintendo site.

For anyone who would like to keep in contact, you can find me on Twitter (@kksl1der) and generally just hanging out on various Australian video game fan sites. Outside of TNB, the main website I regularly use is Aussie-Nintendo. Lately I’ve also been engaging in a few Pokémon-related discussions over at the brilliant website, PokemonAus. Oh, and don’t forget Pixel Hunt either, they’re always a good read. Otherwise, feel free to contact me over TNB forums. They’ll remain open for a quite a while I believe.

As for where I’m headed next, I’m not entirely sure. I’ll definitely continue to hang out on A-N etc as I just mentioned, but in terms of the next site I’ll be writing for/if I’ll be writing for another site, well, it’s all still up in the air. I’ve had a few offers so far so I’ll see where they go. I’ve promised myself that I will return though in some form beyond TNB and Twitter, and when I do, I’ll let you all know.

So yeah, this is it. Me signing off from TNB, I never could predict how it’d happen… Anyway, before I start getting emotional about it, I’d like to once again thank everyone at TNB for being so awesome and sign off from my duties with a brief line from my favourite Australian author, Matthew Reilly. He’s a writer who’s inspired me to keep pushing myself on and on over the years.

Never underestimate the power of your encouragement.

kksl1der out

Nintendo Australia plan to offer an exclusive Nintendo 3DS Ambassador Program to consumers who have purchased the 3DS at the original launch price. The program will enable those particular 3DS owners to download 10 NES games and 10 Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games for free from the Nintendo eShop.

These free games are available to anyone who owns a 3DS system and uses a wireless broadband Internet signal to connect to the Nintendo eShop at least once before the price drop on 12 August. These users will automatically be registered in the Nintendo 3DS Ambassador program.

The program contains two elements:

1. Starting 1 September, Nintendo 3DS Ambassadors will be able to download 10 NES Virtual Console games at no charge and before they are available in the Nintendo eShop to the general public. These games, including Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong Jr., Balloon Fight, Ice Climber and The Legend of Zelda, are slated to become paid downloadable games, but Ambassadors get them early for free. Once the paid versions of the games are posted to the Nintendo eShop later in the year, the updated versions will be available to Ambassadors for download at no cost.

2. By the end of 2011, Nintendo will provide Ambassadors with 10 Game Boy Advance Virtual Console games. These include games like Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Metroid Fusion, WarioWare Inc.: Minigame Mania and Mario vs. Donkey Kong. These games will be available exclusively to Ambassadors, and Nintendo currently has no plans to make these 10 games available to the general public on the Nintendo 3DS in the future.

The 3DS will cost $343.99 in New Zealand from 12 August onwards.

This Mario-themed Picross title released on the Game Boy in 1995 featured Mario as an archaeologist.

The title was a collection of nonogram logic puzzles and involved players chiselling away marked squares on a grid to create a pattern or picture.

Australian 3DS owners can now download this classic Game Boy title for just $6.00.

Apart from Mario’s Picross, Nintendo has also uploaded the Zelda 25^th Anniversary E3 2011 Orchestral performance and a collection of Kirby videos.

There is a 1 minute video of the Kirby TV Channel now available on the Nintendo Wii along with the E3 2011 trailers of Kirby Mass Attack (DS) and Kirby Wii.

The Game & Watch library for DSiWare has now also been tagged on the main menu of the Nintendo eshop.

Currently there are 9 Game & Watch titles available on the eShop for $3.00 each.

They are, Mario’s Cement Factory, Vermin, Ball, Chef, Donkey Kong Jr, Flagman, Helmet, Judge and Manhole.

This week’s third party offering is the DSiWare game Airport Mania: NSF for $3.00.

The Nintendo Video service is a 3DS application which allows users to view video content in 3D.

The content available within the application has already been confirmed as region specific.

Japanese 3DS owners have been enjoying the Nintendo Video service for several weeks now, viewing programs such as Idoling Sumo 3DS and Magic Class 3D.

It is expected the German version of the channel will feature short documentaries about nature, travel and more.

The rest of Europe can expect to see exclusive shorts of Shaun the Sheep and eventually content from Sky and Eurosport.

As Nintendo Europe is in charge of the Aussie eShop it is likely the channel will also be released in Australia and New Zealand on the same date.

Australians can possibly expect to see Oscar’s Oasis, which is currently broadcast on Disney Channel Australia.

Update -  14 July 2011: The Nintendo Video service is now available. For more information click here.

If you head over to the Nintendo eShop, you’ll be able to download Mario, Kid Icarus and more in full 3D for free.

If this is the first time your 3DS has been online, you’ll need to perform a system update before the Nintendo eShop and 3D game trailers can be accessed.

The E3 3DS game trailers on offer are:

• Mario Kart
• Resident Evil Revelations
• Star Fox 64 3D
• Super Mario
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
• Animal Crossing
• Kid Icarus: Uprising
• Luigi’s Mansion 2
• Metal Gear Solid 3D: Snake Eater
• Paper Mario

These trailers will be available for a limited time only, so check them out while you can.

If you don’t own a 3DS then you can view the trailers in standard form by clicking on the links in the above list.

Those who meet the requirements will have from 30 June until 31 July 2011  to register their copy of the game on Club Nintendo and claim the free soundtrack.

Only 1 copy of the CD is allowed per person (account) and once again the offer is only valid to Australian and New Zealand residents who register a locally released copy of the game. This special offer is likely to begin sometime after 30 June.

A note inside of the Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D game manual states, “Saved data on this software cannot be reset”. In other words, every save action within the game is permanent.

What this basically means is buying a second hand copy of Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D is pretty much pointless. Everything within a pre-owned copy of the game could already be unlocked leaving the new owner with nothing else to do but beat the previous owner’s high scores.

In the past, fans of the Street Fighter and Resident Evil series have had problems with how Capcom handles their save files. Many of their titles have been known to lock themselves to an individual system rather than a unique user ID.   

This feature has most-likely been added to cut down the sales of pre-owned Capcom games.

In other news, if you haven’t already heard, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D is now available in Australia from EB Games for $55. And just to make things clear, there are no disadvantages of owning a brand new copy of this 3DS title.

UPDATE – 29 June 2011: Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D will be removed from sale in EB due to its permanent save file. More updates on the situation soon.

UPDATE 2 - 29 June 2011: EB Games is no longer selling Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D. The game was originally due out on the 30th of June.

A Twitter user known as Superannuation spotted four URL registrations logged by Activision last week and posted the links on his account.

Observers of the domain names believe GoldenEye Reloaded could be a HD re-release of last year’s GoldenEye 007 and even wilder guesses are pointing at a new Bond game or true remake of the classic Nintendo 64 title for the 3DS.

During an investor call back in May, Activision announced they would be releasing a new Bond game at some point throughout 2011.

This was followed by the 007 logo being flashed during Sony’s E3 slideshow presentation and more rumours of Raven Software being the developer of the new Bond game.

Keep an eye on TNB as the story unfolds.

STL Ocarina, the maker of the ocarina included in EB’s pre-order bundle, is selling the New 12 Hole Plastic Zelda Tenor Ocarina in C Major for US$27.99.

The plastic ocarina is described as being specifically made for Zelda fans and promises durability and a beautiful tone. In terms of size, it is 6.5 inches and 16.5 cm long with a pitch of A4 to F6 including sharps and flats. Anyone who orders this ocarina will also receive a free instruction booklet and neck strap.

So, there you have it. If you missed out on EB’s Ocarina Edition due to the Australian release date of OoT3D being broken then head over to the STL website now and order the Zelda Tenor Ocarina.

Consumers have reported obtaining both the limited edition and regular version of Oot3D from video game retailers such as EB, Game and JB Hi-Fi by asking for it at the counter.

It has also been confirmed the registration codes for Club Nintendo that come with Ocarina of Time 3D will not work at this point in time because Nintendo is yet to upload the title to their Club Nintendo database.

It is likely they will allow those who bought a copy of the game early to register them on the official release date, June 30.

Below are photos of my copy of the Ocarina Edition from EB Games along with the receipt:

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