Congratulations on 3 years!

I don't know if you'd be willing to share any of this information, but I'd be interested in reading an article--or series of articles?--about the growth of the website.  Challenges with design, direction, finding a unique voice in the gaming media, etc.  Any mistakes you made when starting out that you wish you could have avoided?  Anything you did 3 years ago that you can point to today and say "we wouldn't be here right now if we didn't do this ..."?

You mention that the site's received over 250K unique visitors.  Can you share anything about how that's grown/contracted over time?  Have there been any particular articles that went viral and caused a short-term, massive increase in readership?

I remember that when you left NWR one of your goals was to make money from this site.  Do you?  Can you talk at all about what happened with Neal?  :)

Not sure if you have any desire to discuss these things on the site--after all, they're not directly related to video games--but I think it could be a facinating retrospective at a start-up website that has grown over the past 3 years.

Also, I want to state that it's a complete sham that there's only been 52 entries in the Tour de 64.  Moppy needs to step up her game!  I'm never going to get to read her thoughts on War Gods at this rate.

"Also, Super Mario 64 DS's "touchscreen analogue stick" was meant for the thumb pad which came with the original DS model but not the Lite or DSi. Unless you had one, the touchscreen option was worthless."

Let's not kid ourselves--the touchscreen option was worthless even with the thumb pad.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the circle pad won't add analog controls to DS games. Mario 64 DS won't play the same as on the N64 or Wii.

Does anyone who comment here NOT work at PixlBit? (Besides me.)

I bought this game last year--Karlie at NWR bought it from Amazon UK and shipped it to me here in the USA. Total cost was $25 so you didn't pay too much for it.

The game definitely has its quirks but it's a lot of fun overall. It seems very familiar but completely different at the same time. The closest Zelda game it resembles is probably Minish Cap.

Unfortunately, there are certain aspects of the game that make it practically unplayable without some outside assistance. As you pointed out, Rupees play a huge part of the game--they act as Tingle's life, you need them to open up new levels and progress through the game, buy items (a lot of items) and most NPCs won't even talk to you if you don't folk over some cash. The infuriating part is prices are never marked and you're expected to negotiate the price of everything. You don't know if you need to give an NPC 100 Rupees or 10,000 Rupees to get him to speak with you. If you pay too much, you wasted your Rupees. If you offer too little--even if it's just by a single Rupee--you wasted your Rupees since the NPC will take your money but not give you anything in return and you'll still need to give him the full amount next attempt. The's a fair bit of grinding for money in the game and if you're not careful you can increase that tenfold by not spending your money wisely.

You're going to want to use a walkthrough to alleviate these problems. I recommend one (or both) of these:

http://www.importgamers.com/tingle/

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Freshly-Picked_Tingle's_Rosy_Rupeeland

As long as you skip the walkthrough section and just stick with the ancillary topics you'll be in good shape.

Congratulations!

Maybe I just don't know enough about babies, but you waited 2 weeks to give him a bath? Wasn't the after-birth starting to funk up the place?

There is no letter U in the word COLOR. You are not British.

Oh great--let's rehash the same discussion we had when Majora's Mask almost won NWR's game of the decade poll. :p

Oh bullshit. Nick changed his "Our Take" blurb to make me look like an idiot instead of an asshole. It used to say "seems like a really good fit for a downloadable title".

The game's downloadable on WiiWare, too, chief. ;)

Play the game how you want; no gimmick required.

If the game's broken and you can beat every challenge using a limited number of words then you need to tell us that. However, if the game is fun enough that you want to use unique entries to solve different puzzles then by all means do that.

Like you, I loved the idea of the first game but hated the execution. So far, the reviews I've read make it seem like a lot of the problems have been fixed, but I'll wait to read your review.

Is it possible to aim your shots in table tennis? For example, if you swing a little early will the ball go towards one end of the table and if you swing a little late it will go towards the other?

I was never able to reliably aim in Wii Sports tennis but I got quite good at aiming in Resort's table tennis.

My interest in Fling Smash just increased ten fold.

You just happened to pick one of the few Friday evenings I'll be available. Maybe I'll grace you with my presence. :)

Glad to see PlayBit return. I always thought it was one of the truly unique things you do that most other sites don't.

FYI, Bomberman first appeared on the MSX, not the NES.

I actually own this game. I have box, instruction manual, even the Nintendo Power inserts. I'll give you a good price for it, Nick. :)

BTW, this game sucks. Between this, War Gods and Mortal Kombat Trilogy I own a lot of shitty N64 fighting games. Amazing, really, considering I don't even like the genre.

I've been aware of this game's existence for nearly a decade and all this time I thought consisted of racing insects. Consider my mind officially blown.

I wish I got paid in Tank Bucks.

I don't doubt the problems you had; I was just saying I was lucky enough not to experience them.

I think the game got good review scores because it starts off great--you're constantly getting new power-ups that change the way you play the game and you're running into new planets all the time that--once beaten--give you new and better ships. You're constantly seeing new block types and enemies and everything seems fresh.

However, after a few hours everything starts to get spaced out (pun intended) and you'll spend a half hour flying through empty space trying to find the next item (which is usually not better than anything you currently have). By this point you've also seen all the obstacles in the game so there's nothing new to discover.

Most people who are going to review a DSiWare game aren't going to play far enough into it to get to the drop-off point. It's also quite likely they won't run into the technical issues that you did after only a couple hours.

I played AlphaBounce for at least 20 hours and never had my game freeze up like you described. I'll admit that it did freeze on me a couple times, but I could always restart my system by holding down the Power Button for a couple seconds.

The game is extremely addicting, and if you're the slightest bit OCD there's enough in this game to keep you occupied for eons. :)

Easily my favorite part of the game is the weird Engrish definitions and stories that appear on the loading screens. They're laughably bad sometimes, but after reading hundreds of them they begin to form a cohesive universe that, while isn't particularly well-crafted or even interesting, gives you something to do during the too long loading screens.

Glad I didn't drop any cash on this port. I suppose it's time to pick up the VC release.

Me, too. I look forward to reading about it in November 2011.

I voted for Bateman because season 1 of Arrested Development still rocks.

Is this great?

EDIT: Oh yeah! It's great!

You've never played Asteroids? o_O