Apparently there’s some “Game Developers Conference” nonsense going on right now. Probably just a bunch of indie developers in somebody’s basement talking about why they’re not receiving the love!

But, one thing that seems to have come out of this conference is a fantastic new video of New Super Mario Bros, which is quite clearly going to be the best game in history. Click your face here to download it from 1UP.

It’s shakycam, so the sound is a little drowned out by the audience, but the video quality is excellent — it lasts for a whole three minutes, too. Did I mention that it looks bloody gorgeous?

I haven’t even got a DS yet, but seeing the likes of this, Super Princess Peach (which looks a lot like Yoshi’s Island) and the upcoming Zelda is more than enough to convince me that I need to purchase the DS Lite once it hits these white shores.

According to Joystiq, which is in turn referencing Cubed3, a sequel to Beyond Good and Evil is in the works.

Due for release in 2007 on all next-generation consoles, it will undoubtly continue directly where the original left off if this turns out to be true. As those who played it know, Beyond Good and Evil falls into the “one of the best games in history” category, alongside the likes of Grim Fandango, Monkey Island and various other classics.

Sadly, like many excellent games in recent years (such as Psychonauts), it failed to sell particularly well, thus calling off all immediate plans for the planned trilogy to continue — kind of like Advent Rising, except that was supposed to be a bit poo. Still, the creator has always said he’d be interested in doing a sequel, so maybe his work in delivering King Kong to the masses earned him this chance.

If you haven’t played Beyond Good and Evil yet, I’m going to say one thing: go out and do so or you will be missing out to a degree that I simply cannot put into words — seriously. Drop all preconceptions, and just go play it. I cannot stress this enough. It even still looks pretty, especially on the more powerful pair of machines.

Anyway, considering that the Revolution will also be with us before long, it looks like 2007 is going to be a very pleasant year for gaming. I’m not sure what PC titles are on the distant horizon, although I’m sure we can expect S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to end up slipping into there.

Update: Now at the end of 2007, it’s become pretty clear that this was just a false rumour. Hopefully nobody got too excited, and I guess we’ll just have to continue hoping that the trilogy one day gets its chance. I’m not holding much hope though, admittedly.

Update #2: Or perhaps not! See my new May 2008 post regarding Beyond Good and Evil 2.

Okay, this isn’t exactly new news or anything: It’s common knowledge that a 2D Worms game is being developed for the Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS, and that it won’t be a straight port. But, Jesus; I’ve just watched three short gameplay videos, and my mouth is open.

Worms basically speaks for itself as the best multiplayer game in history, so I won’t bore you with details on that. Instead, just grab the videos and behold a 2006 spin on 2D Worms:

• The Titanic
• Excellent music
• Look at the water!

At first I was a little put off by the Worms 3D worms basically being turned 2D, but then I have been looking at the old cutesy ones since around 1999; it’s definitely time for a bit of a change, and they’re still pretty ace. What really stands out, however, are the weapons, explosions and maps — just look at them!

I don’t like the PSP so I’ll never be buying this, but it fills me with joy to see Team 17 returning to their roots and also seemingly doing it rather well. The gameplay basically looks the same as in Worms Armageddon, although the weapon selection did look a little small, and they evidently held back on using anything particularly fancy for this demonstration.

Unfortunately, the DS version looks kind of poo alongside the spectacular, smooth visuals of the PSP version, and it has no multiplayer — I really hope that a PC version ultimately makes it out despite a port of this particular game being officially denied. Let me know if the video links collapse and I’ll mirror them.

My world was turned upside down the other day. You see, I am a life-long Nintendo fan. Both Super Mario World and its sequel, Yoshi’s Island, are amongst my all-time favourite games. Needless to say, I know my Yoshi. Or at least, so I thought.

In a random conversation, the topic of Nintendo came up. Somehow, this eventually turned into a brief discussion about Yoshi, and ultimately the person I was speaking with referenced the red thing on Yoshi’s back as a shell. “What?” I replied, completely dumbfounded by his statement.

“Of course it’s a shell, you fool. Look, it’s drawn exactly like the koopa shells,” he argued, bringing up multiple examples on Google Images. He was right. It really does look like a red shell, albeit without the engravements. But I’ve always assumed that it was a synthetic saddle, as that is in fact what it’s used for. So, what’s going on here? I’ve done a brief search and I can’t find anything definitively pointing towards it either being a shell or a saddle, although I’ve seen forum posts and such from both sides of the fence claiming that it is either one with evidence consisting of nothing more than a childhood full of assumptions.

If you’d like some reference pictures, check out a generic koopa here. For Yoshi pictures, click here, here and here.

I’m still convinced that it’s a saddle. It being a shell doesn’t really make a lot of sense; he’s not a koopa, nor could he fit in that thing even if he tried, and there’s nowhere for the bottom half of the shell to be. But then, it looks so rounded that it couldn’t possibly be a comfortable seat, and why is he born with it? Perhaps it was originally intended to be a seat in Super Mario World, but confusion later on down the line resulted in the artists assuming that it was a shell, thus explaining it getting much rounder in later renders/art.

Somebody reassure me that I have not lived an existence of lies.

Ah yes, it’s news stories like this that truly make me proud to be a part of this country. Basically, a hospital originally had a whole bunch of Playstations which, although are outdated, supposedly helped to ease the suffering of burn victims and such who obviously have to endure prolonged periods of unavoidable pain.

So, eager to do his part for the community spirit, some upstanding citizen strolled in and nicked all but one of them. Now, the remaining Playstation must be shared between over a dozen patients. Nice.

The hospital would like to get Playstation 2s to replace the aging Playstation selection and are doing the whole fundraising thing to work towards this. Fortunately, it looks like Jack Thompson’s arch nemesis Child’s Play (courtesy of Penny Arcade) is on the case, well known for dishing out the dosh to those in need and having raised over half a million dollars in 2005. At least, according to this comments area they are. It’d be a nice and appropriate happy ending if it came to fruition, that’s for sure.