Yes, "
History of Nintendo" books are great for putting things in perspective. Catalog with pictures is only in the middle, regular text with stories resumes after a while.
Yokoi stands out even more in in second, Game and Watch, volume. Stuff he did and invented may as well changed not just Nintendo or videogames but entire electronic industry.
I also recommend reading to
Game and Watch: Iwata Asks for more fascinating stories about GnW.
As far as i can tell from
Rayman Challenge App (didn't do challenges on actual full game yet) noone is cheating. You have to "break" Rayman's weird jumping physics system and abuse it's pecularities in a very specific ways to reach this kind of times. Rayman's physics, once you start to delve into it like this, gets really, really weird and "wonky" doesn't even begin to describe it.
You learn a lot by simply observing ghosts. You can watch youtube videos and that might help somewhat, but running along with a ghost and seeing how well he does comparable to you is a much better learning tool.
Having not played
Link Between World, your description that puzzles are reduced to the most simple ones sounds amazing and exactly what i wanted.
About people who have 0 experience in Zelda games and start playing it. Of course these people are going to misunderstand things about the game! When you call their performance "depressing"... THAT is depressing.
Zelda games just got way up it's own ass by now. And your reaction is also a schoolbook case of a
fanbase getting up into it's own ass and looking down at puny mortals who *gasp!* -- has never played a Zelda game!
Unintuitive puzzles and misunderstandings exactly like what you described is why each Zelda game i played so far have taken me at the very least three months to finish. Because i face some BS puzzle like that and give up. For a few weeks, or month or even a year.
I finished Link's Awakening last month. It took me about 2.5+ years. I am not in a hurry to start yet another slow-burner like that.
I am playing
Assassin's Creed III on Wii U right now and i have no idea how anyone can call it a comparable port. Unless PC version also becomes a slideshow at times. I am not a framerate person and honestly can't see the difference between 30fps and 60fps to save my life but when game becomes so stuttery you can't counter effectively during intense battles (like in tea party mission when there are huge crowds around you and a few dozens soldiers attacking) even i start complaining.
It's kinda weird when people say that they like or hate this guy or that guy from Assassin's game. Like some people hate Desmond. Why? Who knows, they just do. Is that his looks? Are people that shallow? But all of them look nearly identical, why do you dislike Desmond and like Ezio?..
Probably the only time where Ezio had a really a good character moment was in Revelations of all games where he sang
those great songs as a minstrel. Aside from that -- he's your regular game protagonist #43242 -- his family, his revenge, his love, in a world, whatever...
Very much looking forward to IV on Wii U and hopefully it's not as much a slideshow as III is.
On
Steambox. I have gaming PC and i really don't understand why would i need yet another box if i already can play anything on what i have. That controller is intriguing though.