The FedEx man carried this beast in. It came complete with "Handle With Care" warnings painted on the side. A hammer was even needed to open the thing. A crowd gathered around as I was opening it. We were all wondering what game could possibly be involved in this latest PR ploy.

What's that looking up at me? It's one of 12 stuffed Squeeballs. If you want us to know what the heck a Squeeball is, I guess that's one way of doing it. They went to great lengths to get us to talk about the game here at NWR, and I guess, as of the posting of this blog entry, they got their wish.

A note suggested that the hat was not machine-washable, and that all dirt should be cleaned out with a wet rag. It is also, and this is strange, not meant to be worn as an actual hat. Screw that noise! I changed my T-shirt for these pictures, but you should know that the pants were already on.

Bigger screens of course! Do they realize this will actually make all of the games look worse? Without increasing both the resolution and horsepower, this new DS will likely feel like a downgrade. Yes, that statement includes a pretty big assumption. It's a safe one though. Assuming this new DS rumor is true at all, it's safe to say that if it did feature a significant performance hike, Nintendo wouldn't be quietly sneaking it out without a proper E3 unveil.

The rumors have been referencing two reasons for this new system: to compete with the better screens on the iPhone and PSP, and to make the system friendlier for older players. The first one is laughable. It's not going to compete with those screens. In fact, it's going to do just the opposite. It will emphasize the shortcomings of the DS screen even more. The reason people like the DS/DSi screens so much is because of their crispness and clarity. This has everything to do with the relative pixel size. The DS's pixels are already significantly larger than those of the iPhone. This rumored new unit will make that difference even greater! Check out the comparison image below. These images should be close to life size if your monitor is close to 72 DPI. Notice how the larger dimensions make the game feel more archaic?

The set of posters comes in a poster tube package as shown above. The three posters included in the set include a History of Link poster, a Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess poster, and a Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass poster. The posters are printed on high-quality paper featuring glossy artwork.

While they aren't in the pictures due to how the posters rolled up a little at the ends, the Twilight Princess and Phantom Hourglass posters have an ESRB logo with descriptors alongside a Club Nintendo stamp. Both of the posters are high-quality reproductions of promotional posters that are used by retailers, while the History of Link poster is a brand new piece that highlights the design evolution of the Link character over the years.

The story goes that when Nintendo was denied the rights to the Popeye franchise (a story I will tell soon) Shigeru Miyamoto was forced to create new characters in absence of the iconic cartoon characters. Popeye became the plucky plumber Mario, Olive Oyl became the damsel in distress, Pauline, and Brutus became the oafish bad guy Donkey Kong, a gorilla. The name was a parody of King Kong (another big part of Nintendo history, and another story to tell later), with Donkey representing the fact that he was as stubborn as a mule, and twice as dumb.

During my stint as "Interim Community Manager" (before I was "Staff", and well before I became "Features Editor") my primary responsibility was the community round-up.

The majority of the Community Round-Up feature were links and forum quotes. However, every week I had to create a topic of discussion for the forums. It was the part of the job that was the most difficult.

Being tasked with our new NWR Staff Round Table is pretty much the same thing. I come up with a topic, and then try to make sense of the responses. Just like before, that first part is always the trickiest.