3DS, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Bleszinski talks at GDC

We're guessing Satoru Iwata will talk about the 3DS during his Game Developers Conference keynote. But it's even safer to assume that Nintendo's Hideki Konno will mention the system during his newly-announced GDC talk, called "The Development Process of the Nintendo 3DS". Konno works as producer for Nintendo hardware, and is also producing Nintendogs + Cats, so he should have at least a passing familiarity with the hardware.

A third high-profile Nintendo talk has also been announced: Nintendo's Kensuke Tanabe and Retro Studios' Michael Kelbaugh and Bryan Walker will present "We Hate You: Why Donkey Kong Country Returns was So Hard". Okay, it's actually called "Donkey Kong: Swinging Across Oceans" and it's about developing the game across continents.

GDC also announced one more marquee presentation: Cliff Bleszinski's "Industry Lessons Learned and Applying Them to the Road Ahead", a wide-ranging talk about "Bleszinski's thoughts on AAA gaming, social gaming, and the connected future" as well as the importance of PR and marketing to game design.

Reader Comments (15)

Not gonna lie.. I thought this meant "Donkey Kong on 3DS".. :sadface:

@xTetheredWingsX

I too quickly misinterpreted the first few words of the title and went, "clicky clickly clicky" before it really processed.

@xTetheredWingsX I Thought so to :~/

@xTetheredWingsX

DAMN YOU COMMAS!

@xTetheredWingsX

Yep. I actually was kind of excited. Seems like a perfect match, really.

Also, I don't understand why people like to say it was hard. Like, painfully difficult.

They give you infinite lives, basically, and checkpoints. If they didn't have the checkpoints, sure it would be harder, but seriously now. Even the bonus levels were manageable. If the entire game was like the bonus levels, I could understand it being unforgivably difficult. But it just isn't so if you are familiar whatsoever with platforming games...

@ReginaldFish

Just because Rare makes one game that is out of their realm, you automatically assume they aren't as good as they were before. Rare never discloses their titles. For all we know, they could be working on 10 new titles. Don't be so quick to judge

I'm at the final boss in DKCR - well, probably not the *final* final boss, since there is obviously some secret stuff I have yet to unlock - and I must say, DKCR is amazing. It isn't perfect, but for a series renewal transported to a different studio entirely almost a decade later, it is about as good as it could have ever been.

Unlikely as it may be, it'd be great if a sequel or 3DS spinoff was announced at this talk.

@darkinchworm Over a decade later, I mean

@darkinchworm

Agreed. I'm a huge fan of the original DKC trilogy, and I loved DKCR. It was just as good but in a different way.

@darkinchworm Yeah they could call the portable Spin off "Donkey Kong Land Returns."

@Prboi

Unless you took an extended vacation to Mars between 2002 and now, there are actually plenty of games that prove Rare isn't as good as it used to be... you know, like every game they made during that time.

DKCR needs to have another game on 3DS. Handhelds are perfect for platformers due to the short 5 -10 min set up of many levels, and if they could do similar to NSMB then would be excellent game.

@mrmobius
Considering the new control methods and 3d (which is supposed to help with 3d platformers) I'd rather see a new DK64 style game on the 3DS.

Donkey Kong's difficulty went on kind of a bell-curve i felt. Ease you into it, kick you in the sack repeatedly by the time you get to the Cave, but by the time you've done the Cave you can do anything else the game throws at you.

@Mr Khan I feel about the same way... if you can tolerate all the swear-inducing the cave brings about, the rest of the game is not any more difficult than that.

But oh, there is still plenty of swearing to be had.

3DS, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Bleszinski talks at GDC

Reader Comments (15)

Posted: Jan 18th 2011 2:37PM xTetheredWingsX said

Posted: Jan 18th 2011 2:42PM Poor Tom said

Posted: Jan 18th 2011 2:42PM JnRx said

Posted: Jan 18th 2011 3:16PM Anticrawl said

Posted: Jan 18th 2011 5:15PM Mmmmz said

Posted: Jan 18th 2011 2:47PM Prboi said

Posted: Jan 18th 2011 2:58PM darkinchworm said

Posted: Jan 18th 2011 2:59PM darkinchworm said

Posted: Jan 18th 2011 3:32PM camronm21 said

Posted: Jan 18th 2011 10:59PM maemikemae said

Posted: Jan 18th 2011 3:10PM The Joy of Painting w Bob Ross said

Posted: Jan 18th 2011 4:00PM mrmobius said

Posted: Jan 18th 2011 4:18PM KaBob799 said

Posted: Jan 18th 2011 6:30PM Mr Khan said

Posted: Jan 18th 2011 10:06PM darkinchworm said

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