Konami's classic Castlevania: Symphony of the Night originally for the Sony PlayStation is packed with all kind of small details and nice touches that are very easy to miss if you're blasting through the game at top speed.  Take some time to explore the haunted castle and really soak in the atmosphere.  VGJUNK has a list of little moments and quirky additions in Symphony that you may have missed if you weren't paying attention.  For instance, are you familiar with the list of field notes for each monster you'll find in the castle?

As is customary amongst lords of the night, Dracula's castle is packed with a menagerie of monstrous creatures including, but not limited to: bats, larger bats, skeletons, larger skeletons, ninja skeletons, demonic puppets from Hell, Great Old Ones, angry tables and, in the Sega Saturn version, something called the Human Face Tree, which is even creepier than it sounds. Once you've killed a monster, its information is added to the game's bestiary for you to peruse at your leisure, and I suggest that you do so because Symphony of the Night's monster list is an absolute joy to read.

Just take a moment to bask in the glorious phrase "specially trained war-goose." Not one of your regular war geese, oh no, it's one that been specially trained. Nothing but the best for Dracula's castle. It makes sense that a goose would be chosen for this military role, because geese are the most naturally aggressive and remorseless birds on the Earth.

Symphony and its sequels are full of these kinds of things, although you can tell that this game was especially crafted with love, creativity, and care.  This is a game where a vampire flicks peanuts into his mouth to restore health, where skeletons run away in delight when you slay their slavedriver master, and there's an optional shoe item that makes Alucard one pixel taller as its sole function.  Keep an eye out when you're stabbing demons and jumping across platforms.  You just might be entertained in the middle of all of that entertainment.  It's an absolute creative crime that Konami no longer makes games like this one.

Increasingly tight-lipped Nintendo announced this morning that its upcoming new console (still codenamed NX) is set to release globally in March 2017.  Fans hoping to learn more about it at E3 2016 in June will be disappointed to learn that the company has no plans to show any NX hardware or games at the event and is instead focusing their energy on showcasing the new Legend of Zelda title which is now also due to be released in March 2017 for both Wii U and NX.  Moreover, the Wii U version of Zelda is the only Nintendo game set to be playable at E3.  Chris Kohler at Wired explains.

You might think this is a pretty big kick in the pants for Wii U’s holiday season, and you’d be right. Legend of Zelda wasn’t just Nintendo’s tentpole release for Christmas, it was the whole damn tent. As of now, the only Wii U game scheduled for the latter half of the year is Paper Mario: Color Splash.

While it's disappointing that we'll have to wait a while longer for information about the NX, the Internet has already turned to predicting gloom and doom for Nintendo because of the 2017 date.  Can't we just skip the complaining?  If you're upset about this news, then there must be other games you want to play that you haven't found the time to enjoy yet.  As for me, I'm still working on Assassin's Creed Syndicate, then I want to play the new Ratchet & Clank before getting into the Wii U version of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.  I want to replay Ghostbusters: The Video Game with my girlfriend before the new film releases in July.  I still need to finish Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam before I can think about Paper Mario: Color Splash.  Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is due out very soon.  I have plenty of media to fill my free time and I'm sure you do as well.  Nintendo will show its cards when it's ready. We don't need all the negativity. You will survive without a new Legend of Zelda in your hands this year. 

Id Software's revolutionary Doom was ported to many platforms during its initial run and even now ends up on all kinds of out of the way platforms, but the story of the 3DO version of the iconic shooter is truly a special one. Typically people in the video game business have some idea of what they are doing, but the leadership at the now-defunct Art Data Interactive was in over its head from the start when it licensed the rights to bring Doom to the platform in 1996. Rebecca Heineman was brought in to pick up the pieces. This is her story (the Doom part begins about halfway down the page).

There was a company called Art Data Interactive. The CEO was a guy who was just a member of a church somewhere in Southern California. Somehow he was able to convince his friends at the church and other friends that 3DO is the wave of the future and that he needs their money to go ahead and form a game company. "Get in on this."

He raises $100,000. He then starts making this game. A Battle Chess ripoff.

And he feels the way he wants to do it is he wants to film all the people dressed up as chess pieces and that's what he's going to put on the game board.

The guy has no clue at all of game development. Nothing.

I'm especially amused that a church paid to produce a version of the violent Doom considering that churches were hotbeds of anti-video game sentiment in the 1990s.  Heineman goes on to share my favorite part of this misadventure in which the CEO believed that adding new weapons to a video game was as simple as importing a drawing of the weapons into some magic development tool that cranks out finished video games.

Sega may be best known for its home consoles Genesis and Dreamcast, but there's much more to the company's hardware history.  From its earliest creations to its unrealized post-Dreamcast plans, the passionate engineers at Sega in its heyday were driven to create the best.  Over at Shmuplations you'll find a translated interview from 1998 with Hideki Sato in which he outlines Sega hardware from the SG-1000 and its upgrades to the “INTELLIGENT TERMINAL HIGH GRADE MULTIPURPOSE USE” of the Genesis to the unrealized Sega Jupiter console and beyond.  It's interesting stuff and a unique look behind the curtain.  Here's a bit of Sato discussing Sega's 16-bit Mega Modem add-on:

The Mega Modem was our response to the recent developments in networking technology. At the time, PC networking was just starting to gather popularity. The baud rate then was 1200 bps. We used that rate for competitive baseball, mahjong, and similar games, but the level of technology made it rough. Moreover, we made very little money off the Mega Modem, so even at Sega, hardly anyone understood it. But from that experience we learned that networking capabilities had a lot of potential, and we resolved to include them in our next console. Sega was an “arcade game culture” company, you see, so we were always quick to get back on our feet. (laughs) In the arcade industry, just sitting back and waiting for the technology to ripen was never an option.

It's bittersweet to see Sato looking ahead to Sega's plans for beyond the Dreamcast that were never realized such as faster modems and wireless controllers.  Engineering the Dreamcast's dial-up modem as an upgradable component drove up the cost of the console, but the machine didn't last long enough in the market to see the benefit of that design decision.  For better or for worse, the future of the gaming business was tied up in the sleek image that the Sony PlayStation 2 was set to deliver.  While the PS2 would eventually support networking capabilities and modern consoles include built-in Wi-Fi, the Dreamcast's modular modem was ahead of its time in a way that, at the time, just didn't matter to the marketplace.

Zen Studios continues to acquire some amazing licenses for use in its pinball tables.  Following on from FOX's Family Guy and American Dad comes a trio of tables based on the Alien franchise.  Relive the excitement of Aliens, run in fear from Alien Isolation, and get caught in the crossfire of Aliens vs Predator. Combined as the Aliens vs Pinball pack, the new tables arrive for Microsoft Xbox One, Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 4, PS3, PS Vita, Steam, Windows 10, Mac, iOS, Android, and Amazon Fire on April 26.  In the meantime, you can check out the Alien pinball action in this video in which I run through the three tables and explore them.  These aren't amazing scores as I'm only just learning the ins and outs of the tables, but it'll show you a little of what to expect. Thanks to Zen Studios for providing early access to the tables.

Nintendo's first mobile app, Miitomo, is among us now on your iOS or Android device of choice, so on this episode of the Power Button podcast, Blake Grundman and I discuss our experience with the interrogative social app and ponder which Nintendo franchises lend themselves well to the mobile gaming experience.  You're not going to see Pokémon Red for $1 on the App Store, but maybe you'll find games starring King Dedede, Captain Olimar, or Little Mac someday.  Join us for an hour of playing with mobile power.  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.

My girlfriend loves cats and she loves video games, so when I was offered a free copy of the cat rampage action PC title Catlateral Damage which was recently released for the Sony PlayStation 4, I thought to myself, "Ooh, she's going to love this."  And sure enough, she did.  We've spent some time plowing through the living rooms, laundry rooms, and dinosaur museums of Catlateral Damage, playing the role of an housecat who vows to make those humans suffer.  Check out these videos of the game in action as I swipe and shove everything not nailed down onto the floor in pursuit of points and unlockables.

It's always a terrible shame when a video game development studio goes under, and while companies such as Lionhead and Sega Technical Institute may be gone, they are not forgotten.  On this episode of the Power Button podcast, Blake Grundman and I remember some of our favorite shuttered studios and pay tribute to some of the industry's best, worst, or most memorable releases from studios that are no longer with us.  We have an hour of fond remembrances for you.  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.

Nintendo's anticipated Miitomo app for iOS and Android has launched, bringing the fun of question and answers, costumes, and pachinko mini-games to your social network of choice.  Also included is the ability to take those lovable Mii avatars and insert them into photos with a variety of poses and expressions.  Naturally, I've been having fun with this feature by inserting my Mii into favorite video games, movies, and television.  It's good silly fun and more enjoyable than I'd expected.  So, in the interest of sharing, I'm happy to show off some of my favorites.

You are like the buzzing of flies to me! #Miitomo #Miifoto https://t.co/gYu3LREMVl pic.twitter.com/8B3NamGNKb

— Matthew Green (@PressTheButtons) April 3, 2016

#Miitomo #Miifoto Nice shot, Doc! https://t.co/GoVUReRwp6 pic.twitter.com/wjkIwIqwoG

— Matthew Green (@PressTheButtons) April 3, 2016