Tiny Cartridge’s favorite tiny cartridges of ‘11 

Now that 2011 is a couple weeks behind us and most other sites have published their “best games of the year” articles, we can put out the true list — real talk, the only one that matters: our favorite tiny cartridges of 2011!

Despite predictions of handheld gaming’s death, this was an exciting year for portable fans: we saw two new platforms launched (3DS, eShop), plenty of free digital releases, and developers showing what the DS is capable by putting out some of the finest releases for the system.

To prove how great last year was for tiny cartridges, here are ten of them (well, some aren’t technically tiny carts) from 2011 that you absolutely should have played.

Read More →

tags / gaming / nintendo 3ds / 3ds / nintendo ds / ds / meta / 2011 / ec

Cave Story + contest winners!

We recently asked our readers to “describe Balrog” for a chance to win a Mac App Store copy of Cave Story +. We got tons of fun responses, because you’re all brilliant, but in the end we did the terrible duty of reducing the list down to five winners, to whom we’ve handed out the codes. Huzzah, etc. Here’s who we picked:

• Axel described Balrog as “an Altoids tin who only comes in one flavor: bumbling.”
• wuuds said “Balrog is the craziest enemy I’ve ever fought. I mean the guy wears suspenders over his eyes… WITHOUT PANTS! I still have nightmares…”
• Blue gave us the paradox of Balrog: A bar of soap that’ll make your hands dirty.  A lunchbox that’ll leave you hungry.  A briefcase that’ll get you fired.  A suitcase that’ll leave you shivering in the cold.  A hollow brick that’ll cause your house to tumble.  A broken drive that you decided to for some unfathomable reason to pop into your OS.  What did it say? Well, what did you expect?”
• Zachaeus Medneslon said, enigmatically, “A commentary on modern man.”
• How does Chris Kraft know? “Balrog pees sitting down and poops standing up.”

Congrats to the five of you, thanks to Nicalis for the generous offer of prizes, and “stay tuned” or whatever you do to a website for more opportunities to win this game!

Preorder: Cave Story 3D

Find: Nintendo DS/3DS release dates, discounts, & more 

See also: More Cave Story posts

[Image by Karukan]

tags / meta / contest / cave story / jc / gaming

Tiny Cartridge turns three!

Tiny Cartridge is growing up! Today is the third anniversary of when we decided to supplement our blogging jobs with blogging hobbies, and start posting random DS and import posts, and embarrassing Cutman videos to the weird site you see before you.

Although it might seem at times that we don’t do much outside of putting up our 3-5 posts every day, we actually accomplished a lot this year! We appeared in an EGM article, participated in the Retronauts podcast, provided live moral support during an Adventure Island session, kicked off DS Dates, popped up in an awesome indie game or two, looked at a donkey, and took part in the illustrious My Famicase exhibit with an awesome cart we designed with Ashley Davis. And of course we covered the hell out of the newly launched Nintendo 3DS.

We have a crazy giveaway planned for this birthday, but since we’re running our Bit.Trip Saga / Complete contest soon, you’ll have to wait a few weeks for that.

We’re still going to to get free stuff in your hands, though! Come celebrate with us in the comments by telling us what you love (or hate) about Tiny Cartridge, and we’ll hand out a few goodies and games to the best b-day wishes.

Buy: Nintendo 3DS (Flame Red, Black, & Blue)

Find: Nintendo DS/3DS release dates, discounts, & more

tags / meta / birthday / gaming / tiny / ec / jc

Tiny PlayStation Vita coverage?

While we’ve kept our focus on the 3DS, DS, and legacy Nintendo handhelds for the past 2+ years, we’ve dabbled in posts about games for Wii, PSP, PC, and other platforms. It’s our site, so JC and I cover pretty much whatever we want — Splash Woman hentai, Gun O’Clock, whatevs.

Now, Sony is preparing a new portable with promising features and games (Dragon’s Crown, Gravity), so we’re wondering how you, our readers, would feel if we added PlayStation Vita coverage to our repertoire? After all, unlike the PSP, this new system uses tiny carts/cards!

This isn’t something we’ve committed to, as we haven’t thought about the logistics or whether either of us have enough time in our days to make Vita a part of our lives. We want to first get an idea of what you think. Is it the worst idea ever? Or about as terrible as our usual ideas?

Preorder: PlayStation Vita

See also: More PSP posts

tags / ps vita / gaming / meta / ec