As we do at the end of every year, it's time for us to spend an episode of the podcast looking back at the biggest gaming news of the year.  We're joined by our old friend Ross Polly for this one, too.  2015 brought us the hideous treatment of Hideo Kojima, Destiny's ongoing changes, Club Nintendo closing up shop, lots of fan service, the death of Nintendo's Satoru Iwata, Microsoft adding Xbox 360 compatibility to the Xbox One, Nintendo announcing its NX and mobile app projects exist, and much more.  Close out the year in style!  Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton.

The Mushroom Kingdom is known for its varying environments; one world you're in a grassy field, then a desert, then tropical waterway, and so on.  Eventually Mario and friends wind up in a snowy winter wonderland which brings us to this arrangement of the iconic Super Mario Bros. overworld theme mixed with Christmas chimes and sleigh bells.  It's from Nintendo's NES Remix 2 for the Wii U and 3DS and, despite its catchy beat, only appears in one particular remixed Super Mario level.  Check it out and add it to your holiday playlist today for something different than big buttery standards from Holiday Inn and the endless replays of Mariah Carey's greatest Christmas hits.

I honestly didn't expect it to happen, but Nintendo is preparing to release Super Mario Advance 4 (the Game Boy Advance version of the Super NES Super Mario All-Stars port of Super Mario Bros. 3 for the Nintendo Entertainment System) for the Wii U with the lost e-Reader levels intact and included.  As you may recall, SMA4 featured support for the failed peripheral that added new levels to the game which included features from past Super Mario games such as Super Mario World's cape and Super Mario Bros. 2's pluckable vegetables.  These levels have been hard to find for years (and weren't exactly easy to play when they were new thanks to the convoluted setup required to scan e-Reader cards into SMA4), but soon you'll be able to experience them for yourself with ease for the reasonable entry fee of a Virtual Console download.  It's coming to Japan for sure, but will other territories see it?  USgamer explains what this means:

But will Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros 3 come to North America with all that e-Reader goodness intact? It seems like a sure bet. Nintendo hasn't failed to release any of the Super Mario Advance games to English-speaking audiences yet, and picking through the North American release specifically to remove e-Reader stuff seems like a costly and effort-filled way to cheese off a fanbase for no discernable reason.

I didn't expect Nintendo to do the legwork required to add this content to the game, and while I'd have passed on buying the basic version of SMA4, I will absolutely buy the expanded version with e-Reader content included.  Fans have already recreated this material in Super Mario Maker, but here's a chance to play it as it was meant to be experienced.  Provided, of course, that it comes west.  While it may seem like a slam dunk for Nintendo of America to launch it, David Oxford at Poison Mushroom points out how the company isn't afraid to release lesser versions of games when better versions exist in the vault:

I’m worried that while we may get Super Mario Advance 4 here, we may only end up seeing that third of the total content included. It wouldn’t be the first time Nintendo has held back on such things — the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console, for instance, only features the colorless non-Super Game Boy version of Donkey Kong. And Balloon Kid was only released here in its colorless Game Boy iteration, while Japan was able to enjoy the Game Boy Color version from the previous Japan-only release of Balloon Fight GB. If they won’t release a game about balloons of all things in color, I don’t know what to tell you.

Here's hoping we get the good stuff soon.  I'll keep rebuying these old games provided that they get better and better.

Special Christmas encore of our popular holiday episode! It's the holiday season which means that it's the perfect time for us to dedicate an episode of Power Button discussing video games that include Christmas elements such as music remixes, holiday weapons, festive missions, and appearances from Santa Claus himself.  There's some deep cuts mixed in here with the mainstream titles; we cover everything from Christmas trees in Sonic Adventure's Station Square to the special Christmas cheat code in Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie's Double Trouble to Banjo-Kazooie's Freezeezy Peak to the special holiday demo of Jazz Jackrabbit to Sega's limited edition Christmas NiGHTS to the hard-to-find Daze Before Christmas from Sunsoft.  Settle in with some egg nog and spend eighty minutes with us this holiday season.  We also sidequest off into NES Remix, adorable amiibo, and much more.  Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night    Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton.

As Star Wars: The Force Awakens prepares to launch into theaters this week, we're joined by guest Ryan Olsen to discuss our favorite games from the Star Wars universe.  Super Star Wars, Shadows of the Empire, The Force Unleashed, and Battlefront take the stage among others.  I have a good feeling about this.  Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton.

Naughty Dog's Uncharted series has gone to many places on Earth, but the final frontier remains untouched. It's time for Nathan Drake to go to space, and while it may sound positively outlandish for a franchise that has invoked all kinds of supernatural legends and myths, the development team actually did consider it as revealed in this interview at Kotaku.

Jokingly, I added that I suppose this means we’ll never see the natural next evolution of Uncharted’s pulp adventuring: Uncharted Goes To Space. Cogburn replied that Naughty Dog actually had considered it.

“We’ve definitely had brainstorms on that idea,” he said, “but no.”

Still, we can dream. And so can Cogburn.

“I can already see the scene,” he said, chuckling. “Elena says, ‘Where do we go now, Drake?’ And Drake’s like, ‘THE MOON.’ And then Sully’s in the background saying, ‘You’re goddamned right we’re going to the moon, kid.’”

So while there's apparently no place for the moon in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, I'm not giving up the dream just yet.  There's single-player downloadable content planned for the upcoming Sony PlayStation 4 game and, last I read, Naughty Dog doesn't know what that content will be yet.  Here's an idea: the goddamned moon!  Let Naughty Dog get every last crazy space idea out of their systems in a DLC expansion.  It doesn't have to be as large as a full Uncharted game with all the committed resources that requires, and you know that everyone would pay fifteen dollars or so to see Nathan Drake on the moon.  Make it happen, Naughty Dog!  Let's go to the moon!

The average size of your average AAA+ open world video game continues to grow larger and larger as time goes by and hardware capabilities advance.  Yesterday's explorable island fifty square miles in size seems downright quaint compared to today's landforms several hundred miles in size.  Is there such a thing as too big when it comes to adventuring?  On this episode of Power Button, Blake Grundman and I discuss the intimidating size and scope of games such as Just Cause 3, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Fallout 4, and many more.  Is there a point where so much is too much?  Let's find out together.  Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton.

Capcom's classic series of Mega Man titles has inspired plenty of musicians over the years, but we always hear the same songs from the games remixed over and over.  Yes, the first Dr. Wily stage theme from Mega Man 2 is great stuff, but there's lots of other tracks that deserve some attention.  Consider this medley of Dr. Wily boss themes spanning Mega Man 3, Mega Man 4, and Mega Man 6 from the Rockman 25th Anniversary Rock Arrange Version album.  The word "epic" is thrown around so much on the Internet that it's meaning has been diluted by overuse, but this remix qualifies for a legitimate use of the word.  Featuring an ominous choir, rocking electric guitar, and a hard driving bass line, this track is better than I ever imagined its source material to be.  Crank it up, charge your Mega Buster, and blast some robot chassis!