Month: August 2018

Enlarge / It's-a-he, Wario. (credit: Nintendo)

Nintendo's WarioWare Gold launches this week, and if we're judging the game within a vacuum, it's pretty good. We've been micro-gaming with the WarioWare series for just a hair over 15 years (a squiggly, Wario mustache hair, for sure), and Gold lands as a "best-of" compilation—one that finally brings the franchise to the 3DS, no less.

But WWG is difficult to judge within a vacuum. The game's release date puts it in a rarified air among first-party Nintendo games: it arrives within a system's end-of-life window. In case you haven't noticed, the 3DS side of Nintendo has been tumbleweed city these days.

Corporate promises of continued support and new, limited-edition 3DS systems don't obscure what's left for the beloved handheld: a Luigi's Mansion port and Yokai Watch sequel by year's end, then a Mario & Luigi RPG port in 2019. Them's slim pickins. WWG is arguably the most interesting game left in that "farewell tour" selection.

The latest Ars Live episode. (video link)

"I came to this bar in a Lyft," Ars' Cyrus Farivar started. "Should I feel guilty about that?”

From there, UC Hastings labor law professor Veena Dubal certainly delivered.

Enlarge (credit: Rocket Lab/Aurich Lawson)

Welcome to Edition 1.11 of the Rocket Report! This week we have scads of news, including some rocket failures in America and big plans among Chinese rocket companies. Also, the Japanese space agency seems alarmed at the rise of reusable rockets and is now doing what it can to catch up to SpaceX.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Virgin reaches 52km in latest Unity flight. During the third powered flight of the VSS Unity vehicle, the spacecraft reached an altitude of 52km, just over halfway toward the Kármán line, which generally is regarded as the beginning of outer space. This is the first time that Virgin Galactic has flown into the mesosphere, Ars reports.