We here, at Critical Damage, would just like to remind you that we are awesome.

Kensuke Tanabe shares this question posed by Miyamoto during the development of Paper Mario Sticker Star:

Aside from wanting us to change the atmosphere a lot, there were two main things that Miyamoto-san said from the start of the project—”It’s fine without a story, so do we really need one?” and “As much as possible, complete it with only characters from the Super Mario world.

With regard to the story, we did a survey over the Super Paper Mario game in Club Nintendo, and not even 1% said the story was interesting. A lot of people said that the Flip move for switching between the 3D and 2D dimensions was fun.

I wrote all the Wii Mini rumors off initially because it makes absolutely no sense to confuse consumers with new Wii hardware so soon after the launch of the Wii U. But this is Nintendo after all, and here we are.

In some ways I admire Triforce — he’s an entrepreneur and gives back the the gaming community. Sometimes, I want to introduce him to a therapist. At least he’s honest about his fandom, I suppose. Nontheless, here’s a writeup about him by Polygon.

That 4 title attach rate estimate is starting to look a little less unrealistic…

Ray Barnholt for 1Up has a good list of some Wii games you may have overlooked. I don’t quite agree with the inclusion of GTI club, but the remaining 5 games are all great picks. Especially MLB Power Pros, my all-time favorite Baseball game.

Kirk Hiner for TechnologyTell decided he doesn’t care for Sonic & All-Stars Racing 2 for the dumbest reasons ever and then wrote an article about it.

Just watch it.

Looks like it won’t be so hard for indie game developers to find money after all.

Mike Rose of Gamasutra:

The Montreal-based Execution Labs has raised $1.4 million through venture capital funding, and is headed up by Jason Della Rocca, a former director of the International Game Developers Association, Alexandre Pelletier-Normand, most recently head of deployment at Gameloft, and Keith Katz, previously VP of monetization at OpenFeint.

The start-up is offering what it describes as a “first-of-its-kind hybrid game incubator and go-to-market accelerator,” as it looks to make the process of funding and creating games much more manageable for indie teams.

In this interview by Polygon, Jeremiah Slaczka takes readers through 5th Cell’s game development process and discusses the challenges of designing a launch title. Scribblenauts Unlimited may be one of the most exciting games for the Wii U.

Wesley Fenlon:

For 5th Cell, this is new. Though the studio has been developing games for nearly 10 years, Scribblenauts Unlimited represents a trio of intimidating milestones. It’s the first launch title 5th Cell has created, meaning it’s the first time it’s dealt with the headaches and unknowns of pre-release hardware. It’s 5th Cell’s first major console release, in fact: the developer has never shipped a game on a disc. Scariest of all, Scribblenauts Unlimited isn’t just a Wii U game — it’s launching simultaneously on Wii U and 3DS and hitting PC a mere week later.

Listening to Creative Director Jeremiah Slaczka describe the development process, though, those milestones sound more exciting than frightening. And if the Wii U hadn’t come along, Scribblenauts Unlimited may have been a dramatically different game. If it existed at all.

Mizuki of Nintendo:

So we came to think that it might be better for Nintendo itself to provide a service that would be more fun to use.

Tamoor Hussain for CVG UK takes us for a stroll down memory lane listing some of the most troll-iest video game ads ever. It’s no surprise that most of the ads are from 90s era Sega, but it’s still worth a click for the nostalgia. Astonishingly, those obnoxious 90s Crash Bandicoot ads don’t make the cut.

I want to play this game.

Good on 343 Industries. I’d like to see more developers take a stand like this.

Far less annoying than what the UK got, but I don’t think it does a good enough job of telling ma and pa that this is a brand new console and not just an accessory to the Wii.