For this week’s Link Scoop, it’s Only Video Games Edition. I’d like to curate you a fantastic selection of some of the best writing on video games I’ve found in recent months. Also some odd curios.
I’ll start off with a bang in this Only Video Games Edition of Link Scoop:
Bowser’s (Dead (?)) Wife
The lore, the mystery, the intrigue… I actually was completely unaware of the Flurrie fan theory until now. Weird for someone whose entire livelihood was once staked on trawling the Mario Wiki to find material for jokes. If I knew, I absolutely would have included it.
I love lore in franchises where there definitely shouldn’t be any!!
Speaking of…
A Map of the Mario Universe
Enough said.
Dude Preserving Super Mario Toys
Preservation of “disposable art” is a real big thing for me. Promotional stuff is always overlooked–posters, commercials, tie-in flash games, etc. But those people who obsessively recorded VHS tapes, who saved terabytes of random crap on their hard drives… They often end up being heroes. So, kudos to this guy who has digitally preserved old toys by 3d scanning them.
Speaking of preservation…
Video Mods (2003)
Daytime Cable TV was a wild, weird place in the mid 2000s. Officially licensed machinima music videos is one part of that. Watch them all here.
Do Minimaps ruin games?
Is it accessibility, or a sign of poor game design, or something else entirely?
Pac-Man and Pac-Man Plus, reviewed in lovingly excessive detail
I’ve linked Indie Gamer Chick a few times in these Link Scoops and that’s because the reviews are always so well-written. Who in the world thought Pac-Man of all things had so much more to say about it?
Meme
The Secret Scientific Lore of Bokoblin Vision
I love it. All shitposts should be like this.
Won’t someone please finish decompiling Banjo-Kazooie?
Please, I just want to have the source code of Banjo-Kazooie so someone can take it and make the Sega 32X port we always needed.
Sega sponsors an LGBTQ+ soccer team!
(and not a single person commented on it, as of this writing… how sad)
“Trust me, my dad works at Nintendo.”
I was so, so, so angry when Smash 4 leaked early. I had gone into so much preparation to avoid any and all spoilers–I wanted to discover the brand-new fighters on my own by playing the game, and I even went off of most social media to avoid the reviews. Then it leaked way earlier than I expected, and I saw most of the hidden fighters too early. I think Dark Pit was the only character I hadn’t seen already when I finally unlocked them all.
Nintendo keeps hiding its studios in marketing… Why?
This is fodder for me to go on a nice little 900 word ramble about in a future blog post. As a teen I loved researching all the various studios within or surrounding Nintendo and seeing the kinds of games they made. But recently, Nintendo’s obscuring their work more and more, and I don’t like it, not one bit.
And for the Only Video Games Edition finale…
I’m so happy for this human. I wish I had been there.
Thanks for enjoying this Link Scoop. I hope I can assemble these more regularly. Like once a week on a specific day would be nice.
