Nintendo's Eiji Aonuma took to YouTube today to show off some of Link's new abilities in the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for the Nintendo Switch.  Following on from Link's skills in Breath of the Wild, Link will now spend more time crafting weapons and vehicles thanks to his new power to combine objects.  Fuse a weak tree branch with a standard boulder, for instance, and wield a mighty makeshift hammer.  Combine logs with some wind emitters to create a basic boat.  The whole thing has a very Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts vehicle creation vibe, but I trust Nintendo to do a better job with this gimmick.  For those who dreaded climbing mountains in the previous game, Link can use his new Ascend power to skyrocket up through ceilings, allowing him to bypass climbing and just zip to the top of any surface provided he can get underneath it.

There's going to be so much to see and do in this sequel.  Moreover, I can already hear the game hackers and modders out there gearing up to try and import Breath of the Wild's maps into Tears of the Kingdom's engine to attempt to mash these new powers into the previous game where they don't belong.  That's a project for another day though.  For now, let's continue to look forward to Tears when it launches in May 2023.

Nintendo is taking both the Wii U and 3DS eShops offline today, ending the ability to purchase content from those digital storefronts.  It's always sad to see a digital shop go, but Nintendo delisting content in this manner always seems to hurt a little more because we never know if some of it will be back.  Sure, Super Mario Bros. 3 isn't going anywhere; in fact, it's already possible to play three different versions of it on the Nintendo Switch provided you pay the subscription fee instead of a one-time purchase price.  Other games from the company's more experimental whims such as Rusty's Real Deal Baseball, Nintendo Badge Arcade, Pushmo, and Boxboy! may or may not resurface one day.  Virtual Console games such as Bionic Commando and the Mega Man Game Boy titles may or may not be relicensed for the Switch.  We're surely not going to see the 3D conversions of famous games such as Kirby's Adventure or Sonic the Hedgehog 2 again.  I don't even know where to begin with how this impacts the classic Pokémon games and Pokémon Bank.  And all of that is just on the 3DS eShop! 

We all make snap judgments from time to time, and sometimes those quick decisions take us in the wrong direction.  On this week's podcast, we're discussing games that we immediately dismissed for one reason or another and then later tried only to discover that they are actually fantastic.  Would you believe that we initially passed on such classics as Mega Man, BioShock, and Sly Cooper?  There's plenty more where those came from in this supersized episode. Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, Amazon Music Podcasts, and Google Podcasts, 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. We also have a tip jar if you'd like to kick a dollar or two of support our way. 

With the new Super Mario Bros. film from Nintendo and Universal on the horizon, it's the season for looking back at the original Super Mario Bros. film from 1993 starring Bob Hoskins that bombed at the box office and has been held up for decades as a terrible film.  The thing is, watching it as an adult with fresh eyes, it's not so bad.  Yes, it has problems and is very far from a faithful adaptation of the source material, but there's some fun stuff going on in it, and Joe Ramoni at Hats Off Entertainment is going to tell us why.  His latest look back at cult classic media focuses on the movie, outlines how it went wrong, and clues us in to the good parts still in the film and the good parts that were cut during editing.  Ramoni says in the video that the movie isn't currently streaming anywhere, but that's not quite true.  RiffTrax Friends has it with the riffing commentary baked right in.As I've said before, I saw the film on opening night when I was in the sixth grade with a group of my school pals, and while it wasn't the best movie ever, I had a good time with it and even now is a fun memory. 

I know that watching Family Guy has fallen out of the zeitgeist, but you're missing out on some prime Millennial-targeted humor if you're skipping it.  On this past Sunday's new episode, "Single White Dad", Peter Griffin gets his old Nintendo Entertainment System out of storage to share "the best video game of all time", Donkey Kong, with his son.  Chris is not impressed with it though, asking about the missing microtransactions that will slowly bankrupt the family and the lack of children screaming racist taunts into his earpiece.  This leads to some classic Griffin family hijinks when the two team up to build a live action Donkey Kong level on their house.  Oh, that Peter!  When will he learn?

Nintendo dusted off the megaphone earlier this month and announced a lot of new games and remasters, so this week on the podcast we're finally getting around to discussing it all.  From Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe to the shadow dropped Metroid Prime Remastered to the collection of Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games, there's something new/old for everyone. Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, Amazon Music Podcasts, and Google Podcasts, 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. We also have a tip jar if you'd like to kick a dollar or two of support our way. 

As I said on our most recent podcast in which we tore into the re-release of GoldenEye 007 on Nintendo Switch and the Microsoft Xbox platform, replaying the classic Nintendo 64 game has sent me down the rabbit hole on all things GoldenEye.  I rewatched the movie, listened to the soundtrack, watched making-of videos both deep dive and high level, and much more, so I knew I had to put the best of these things together here to share. It's a collection of retrospective videos, re-orchestrated music, technical breakdowns, and alternate versions. Enjoy!

The first video above is a post-mortem of the game's development presented by Director Martin Hollis in which he spends an hour on a deep dive of the game's inception, initial planning, development, testing, and release. There's some fun stories in there including how the game was initially reported to be a Super NES title, how the game was too ambitious for its own good, its Virtua Cop origins, and a last-ditch attempt to fix a critical bug during lot check. The second is a short documentary produced but cut from the original release of the Rare Replay compilation, but was leaked online some time ago after GoldenEye was cut from that package. It's only appropriate that it lives on now that the game has been included after all these years.

Nintendo, Microsoft, EON Productions, and who knows who else finally made a deal to bring the 1997 shooter GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 back for a re-release on Nintendo Switch and the modern Microsoft Xbox platform.  On this week's podcast, we're shooting in and out through post-Cold War Russia to explore which version of the game plays better today, which cheats are still available to the skilled player, how much fun we're still having with this game more than twenty-years later, and so much more.  Join us for 0075 minutes of discussion.  Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, Amazon Music Podcasts, and Google Podcasts, 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. We also have a tip jar if you'd like to kick a dollar or two of support our way. 

Pedro Pascal is earning accolades for his performance in HBO's The Last of Us based on the Sony PlayStation games from Naughty Dog, but Saturday Night Live has a sneak peek at HBO's next project for Pascal, and wow it's an unexpected departure.  I know the idea of a gritty Mario adventure is an old joke at this point.  It's been the subject of Internet humor for decades and Nintendo itself approved the idea for the 1993 Bob Hoskins / John Leguizamo film Super Mario Bros., but to see this much time spent on something so detailed on mainstream television is just another indicator how video games have truly arrived in pop culture beyond our gaming community bubble.

After teasing the release late last year, Nintendo is ready to put the classic shooter GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 on its Switch Online service.  Releasing Friday, January 27, 2023 the famous game will return for old fans to enjoy and new audiences to discover.  As a new trailer from Nintendo points out (and someone had a lot of fun making that trailer, I bet), widescreen mode is enabled on this release and you'll be able to enjoy online multiplayer through the NSO N64 app.  Remember that if you're new to GoldenEye or just can't get your old muscle memory moving again, dip into the game's options to test out the multiple control options.  There's a control scheme for everyone including some that require two controllers with one in each hand.  I rented GoldenEye many times in the late 1990s and it was a favorite when friends came over, but I never owned a copy of my own.  I look forward to finally having all the time in the world to fully explore the single player missions and take on friends online in multiplayer.  No items, Fox only, Final Destination!  No, wait, that's not right...

Meanwhile, the game is also coming to Xbox One and Xbox Series S / X consoles the same day with local multiplayer, achievements, additional control options, and widescreen 4K resolution. It's available free to anyone who owns Rare Replay and will also be featured on Xbox Game Pass. Enjoy this one, gang. Heaven and Earth had to move to get it back out there.