Entertainment

Nintendo’s latest video game hybrid console the Nintendo Switch is doing well, doing what it does. It’s not without a few design issues. Including the issue of the Joy-Cons de-syncing. As for the docking mechanism, effectively to charge the portable handheld and turn it into a more conventional home video game console with added HDMI and USB, it is quick and efficient. If not somewhat lacking in the potential nostalgia factor. Fortunately a tech-savvy someone has taken to YouTube, where Tettzan Zone has modified a Nintendo 64 to use instead of the usual Switch dock. USB ports now substitute in place of the controller ports. While the N64 mod, the Nintendo Switch 64 dock, doesn’t allow for the Joy-Cons to be attached to the Switch while docked, it may be a small trade-off for some big nostalgia.

It’s brusque, but the title is to the point and pretty much says it all. Following the death of Carrie Fisher, speculation has been rife about how, or what, Lucasfilm would do with Princess/General Leia Organa in Star Wars: Episode IX. One such option was to do a Rogue One, and recreate Leia as a wholly digital character with CGI. Much like they did with Grand Moff Tarkin, and to a lesser extent a younger Princess Leia. However, Lucasfilm has put such thoughts to rest with an official statement via the Star Wars website: We don’t normally respond to fan or press speculation, but there is a rumour circulating that we would like to address. We want to assure our fans that Lucasfilm has no plans to digitally recreate Carrie Fisher’s performance as Princess or General Leia Organa. Carrie Fisher was, is, and always will be a part of the ...

Epoch, genre, and control defining video game The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, is at last getting something it has long lacked: Full orchestral treatment of its music. Only it’s not happening in the game, but is being released as its own collectable vinyl record. And no, it does not feature Link singing on it. Composer Koji Kondo’s original score for the Ocarina of Time, has been re-recorded with the full 64-piece orchestra treatment. Cue nods to, and memories of the N64… The soundtrack record is being released by iam8bit, and should now be available for pre-order. The album comes in glorious gatefold form, an artwork and work of art collaboration by Ryan Brinkerhoff and the Materia Collective. Featuring the Triforce stamped in gold-foil and a die-cut ocarina window. As for the records themselves, they have been pressed on 180-gram heavyweight green and purple Rupee-coloured vinyl. A Q2 2017 ...

The first Star Wars anthology film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, set for a 16 December 2016 cinema release is a bit different from other Star Wars movies. And it’s not just that it won’t feature the space opera’s signature crawling introduction text at the start of the film. The movie is a one and done. There will be no sequel to it. No matter how well it performs at the box office. Of sorts, that is. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy told Empire Magazine that the studio has no plans to follow-up Rogue One with another movie featuring the adventures of Jyn Erso. Technically, according to the director Gareth Edwards, the sequel to Rogue One has already been made and directed by George Lucas. It’s the original Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) film. Although for some that may worryingly place Rogue One into prequel territory, George Lucas has ...

Similar to selfie sticks and the Ghostbusters reboot, it’s something few may want while everyone else is left to find the entertainment in it. It’s apparently the most unlikely of combinations: Tony Abbott and video games. Make that a parody video game about Tony Abbott called: Tony Abbott and the Quest for the Suppository of Wisdom Absorbing knowledge amidst crap in a private and somewhat personal way, the game draws its inspirational name from one of Australia’s former Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s greatest gaffes. Guided by the Tutorial Onion, the RPG sees Tony Abbott argue against a ‘journalist’. Basic attacks of arguing allow the battle to continue until someone’s willpower (WP) is reduced to zero. Tony has a few special attacks hidden in his budgie smugglers as well. Such as nodding silently. Which apparently confuses journalists. With some rather large ears and not one to table periodic elements, for fear ...

The Nintendo Switch is officially revealed as the previously codenamed Nintendo NX console. Nintendo’s newest console is due for a March 2017 release. As had been rumoured, the Nintendo Switch is something of a hybrid portable handheld device, which via the dock is also designed to connect to the television like a more traditional video game console. The dock is not the Nintendo Switch console, rather the dock is intended to make it near seamless to transition between playing on the big screen of the TV to the portable mode for the handheld console. It’s also used for charging the Switch console, which holds the LCD screen. Nintendo are yet to announce whether it will be a touchscreen. However, the company has confirmed that amiibos will work with the new Nintendo Switch and its games. Confirming a long-suspected feature of the new console, the Nintendo Switch will also utilise cartridges ...

Britain and Australia continue to share ties, but this time it’s through the bizarre ability of their new five pound and five dollar notes respectively to play music. In some regards money may make the world go round, though if a vinyl record also goes round, then the new Australian $5 note can be used to play it. Cris Kennedy of the National Film and Sound Archive, Australia (NFSA) explains that the musical phenomenon is due to the modified and sharper edges of the new five dollar note vibrating as it reads the grooves in the record. And to think that some people thought the ability to whistle with a gum leaf was the ultimate Australian musical lifestyle hack.

Said to be Hugh Jackman’s last stint as Wolverine before he hangs up the adamantium claws and mutton chops for good, details about the final solo film are emerging. Mainly from director James Mangold, who previously directed The Wolverine (2013). It’s known that the third solo Wolverine film will simply be called Logan. It’s also likely the film will be darker and feature more mature content, offering its fair share of violence and profanity as it goes for an R rating. What combination this is Fox playing to the so-called Deadpool effect, along with being truer to Wolverine’s character remains to be seen. Hopefully it comes complete with some of Wolverine’s berserker rages (the film could also draw inspiration from the historical berserker Norse warriors). Page two of our screenplay. pic.twitter.com/5X93NtWuVS — Mangold (@mang0ld) October 5, 2016 Logan will also feature the return of Professor X as portrayed by Patrick ...

“When I grow up, I want to be a dinosaur.” Seldom have young children spoken truer words, especially amongst the little boys. Then time moves on, and reality sets in. Excluding for Ken Ham and his followers, who believe that humans and dinosaurs literally lived together before a Flood of biblical proportions struck. For the rest of the folks in the world, dinosaurs may only be seen in things like books, movies and museums. But the undeniable fact remains: Dinosaurs were the best things before sliced bread. Since then, other impressive things have come to pass. Like YouTube: Entertainer, educator, and collector of fools. And so one young boy, now a grown man, finally gets to live out his childhood dream of being a Tyrannosaurus rex and sharing it with the world. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then impersonation is a shady form of comedy. A drama ...

Retro gaming fads come and go, and for video game companies re-releasing their back catalogue of classic games can be somewhat of a boon. Case in point, Nintendo. Not content with digital or physical game re-releases, the company is taking it a step further with the release of the NES Classic Edition later this year. The Nintendo Classic Mini comes with 30 classic NES games loaded on the mini console, and includes the option to view the games in their authentic and original 8-bit blocky pixelated glory. While Nintendo has apparently forever abandoned competing in the video game console arena purely based on computational power, at the time of its release the 16-bit SNES was an advanced piece of technology and generally more powerful than its 16-bit Sega competitor. What that has to do with miniaturising the NES is seemingly nothing, but for the fact that a tech-savvy Nintendo fan ...