Nintendo has released an overview video for Super Mario Maker, the toolkit for creating, sharing, and playing remixed 2D Mario levels that is coming to Wii U on September 11, 2015. The video nicely sums up all the main features of Nintendo’s unique, upcoming game.
Super Mario Maker gives you a level-design toolkit stocked with all of the familiar elements that have accrued over three decades of Mario games, such as pipes, blocks, goombas, and coins. Shaking elements with the stylus as you place them switches them to a variant, such as from a green-shelled koopa to red, or from a note block to a music block that makes a sound that, when hit, corresponds to its height (reminiscent of the music composition in Mario Paint for the SNES).
These can all be combined in unexpected ways, such as by sticking enemies in question mark blocks, or by making cannons that shoot coins instead of Bullet Bills. A big part of the game’s initial fun will be exploring these combinations and encountering old friends in new contexts.
The demo we played around with at E3 offered only a limited selection of elements to play with, but the final game promises many more. In order to avoid presenting players with an overwhelming slate of options all at once, Super Mario Maker doles them out over time. The video explains that using the editor for at least five minutes unlocks a new selection of elements that will become available on the following day. The options are spread out over nine days, giving you plenty of time to assimilate them. The empty space at the bottom is a custom palette, so you can have your favorite elements readily accessible.
In addition to gameplay elements, the editor also allows players to insert sound effects that are triggered on particular tiles. Some of these include animations, such as fireworks. Players can also record their own sound effects. The example provided is a “Happy Birthday!” message, but expect lots of farts as well. And unless someone is going to be diligently vetting every shared level, this seems like an area where Nintendo could end up in hot water with parents if Mario suddenly starts cursing at their children.
The video also offers some details on how actually playing the game, rather than just creating levels, will be structured. In order to share a level with the world, you must first be able to beat it yourself, ensuring that it is at least theoretically possible to beat every level posted. The 100 Mario Challenge gives you 100 lives to beat a selection of levels taken from the community. If that sounds a little overwhelming, there is also a 10 Mario version of the challenge.
Super Mario Maker arrives exclusively on Wii U on September 11, 2015.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.