Nintendo certainly is one of the most fascinating gaming companies around. It's always done a great job of appeal to families and kids over the years. Which makes us wonder what Nintendo would think of this children’s book found in a Japanese library recently, highlighting a day in the life of Nintendo's offices. Miyamoto smoking a cigarette? Sega games on the shelf? It's all here![nextpage]

Found and translated by Chris Covell, the book “The Stars of Famicom Games” details the days of Nintendo in the ripe year of 1989.  The book primarily focuses on the creation of one of their biggest games: Super Mario Bros. 3.

A young Miyamoto can be found in pictures surrounded by fun things in his book to spark his creativity. However, we found it odd that one of the images

After scouring the web for some of the best videogame art, I came across the deviantART account of "Orioto", whose art had great variety and was consistently gorgeous.  Though there were a lot of paintings of Mario and other Nintendo favorites, what I personally admired about this artist was his ability to do videogames outside of your average "8-bit fan art" range.[nextpage]

Through a combination of digital painting and airbrushing, Aguirre is able to create masterpieces that adhere to the classic look of retro videogames, while still adding some modern flavor.

Mario

R-Type

Kirby

Donkey Kong Country

Sonic

In addition to his videogame art, Aguirre also focuses on other characters, including Disney's Mickey and Donald Duck, and some...er...poison mushrooms. The two of them apparently

Fresh out of the E3 Nintendo press conference, I have a lot of things to take stock of. Nintendo did a fantastic job showing us tons of upcoming titles, all along side the announcement of the 3DS. New and exclusive games for almost every single one of their heavy hitting IPs, Nintendo truly showed that the Wii is not out of the race when it comes to making hardcore games. But the familiarity that makes us so comfortable with the expectation of high quality is hurting Nintendo more then helping. [nextpage]

Gameplay of Epic Mickey

 

The newest installment of the Super Mario Galaxy series has been getting astonishing reviews since even before its release on Sunday. With a Metascore of 98, it is currently the highest rated game of all-time with even hard-nosed reviewers like IGN giving it a perfect 10. With this much hype I was getting very excited to return to the Galaxy universe, but now having beaten the game there are some things that I need to set straight for the record. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is an amazing game, that part is true, but it's not THIS good. [nextpage]

Before I dive right in, I need you all to understand where I am coming from. I love this game. It's creative, endlessly fun, and improves on the first in many aspects. Hell, I am willing to ignore the 7 months

Sorry Marlon Brando, you've held the title admirably but according to the record keeping organization Mario is the new Godfather.  It seems to be a fitting title since he's one of the few video game characters to actually be Italian.  I mean it would just be hard to imagine Link being a Godfather...I doubt he's ever eaten a pizza in his life. [nextpage]

All joking aside, in order to prepare for Super Mario Galaxy 2's release The Guinness World Records chronicled all of the adventures the portly plumber has been on.  According to them Mario has been in the more video games than any other character in the history of the industry.  All told he's been in 207 distinct titles (this is including remakes/re-releases too).  With his first appearance in Donkey Kong in

It was (is) hard

Even years later, after some have been playing the game off and on for two decades, that one part in world 8-3 or something... where you have to make that long jump and hit that little piece of land and make another jump to the other end... GOD DAMMIT! I swear I had gray hairs at ten years old because of that. Some games require a tremendous amount of skill to pass certain areas. Games like this require luck, and if anyone tells you otherwise they have obviously never made it past world 8-2.

Bowser

Back before final bosses were feminine dudes with long hair and British accents, we had Bowser. The most bad ass turtle this side of mutant ninjas the world has ever seen. He has absolutely no redeemable qualities. He steals your chick, puts her on

Imagine living in a world where your favorite videogame characters co-exist. Sounds like a pretty cool scenario, until one starts to think about the implications, the biggest being an inflation of competition in the job market. Well, let's flash forward to the year 2099. Phenomenally, hundreds of videogame characters have spilled into common society. The good news is that you can now expand your facebook friend's list by adding your favorite characters. The bad news? They are taking over! Kinda. Here are 8 characters that found appropriate jobs in our society. [nextpage]

Predictable? Yes. Everyone knows Mario's background story of being a plumber. But, for someone of his aptitude, it only makes sense for him to take

Cosplays in the Super Mario universe are typically campy at best. While no characters in video games are more universally known and loved than from Nintendo's Mario Bros, to really make an "accurate" cosplay from the Mario games is a deceptively difficult feat. I mean seriously, who ACTUALLY looks anything like a Mario character, aside from maybe Ron Jeremy, and how would you make an "accurate" costume? With all this build up, naturally I'm preparing to eat my own words... Holy crap, check out this Mario Galaxy cosplay. [nextpage]

After reading Zylvin's sad but true article about lack of titles on the Wii, I decided Nintendo fans needed some hype for the release of Mario Galaxy 2 later this May! To build up the release date (May 23) this "Kartel Cosplay of the Week" is dedicated to none