And since it's easy to use, it's quickly become one of those items that triggers a crazy dash-towards-the-item-before-anybody-else-gets it feeling I previously reserved for smash balls and hammers. Most importantly of all, however, is that the runescape game continues to be fun even if you don't end up being the one who grabs it. Ending up in its sights adds a momentary challenge to the already shaky ground of any great Smash match. In Mario Kart, on the other hand, seeing a blue shell creep up on you usually just leads to you throwing your arms up in exasperation. Unless you have a boost or super horn handy. But how often does that actually happen?Items don't get much attention from the Smash community, since they're left out of the competitive runescape game entirely. Nintendo considers them so essential to Mario Kart, meanwhile, that the developers have repeatedly denied fans' requests to make a no items mode for that runescape game. It will be interesting to see how the latter runescape game will handle the blue shell going forward, now that the company has given it a surprisingly new life in the former. At the very least, I hope that Mario Kart will take some inspiration from Smash Bros. items and consider how it might make being on the receiving end of a lightning strike or blue shell shot as much fun as it is to be the one giving it. Plus, who knows—there's always hope for a better battle mode in Mario Kart 8. Fingers crossed. It’s frankly ridiculous how close some runescape games are to finished when they are cancelled - or, conversely, how vaporous they can be when they’re first shown. At trade shows, you see maybe 50 runescape games in the space of 4 or 5 days, and a small proportion of them fade into the background and are never heard from again. Sometimes you see something at runescape gamescom or E3, forget about it for years, and then suddenly think “Hey, whatever happened RS 3 Gold to that?"Over the decade I’ve been doing this job, I’ve seen plenty of total vapourware: runescape games that never got anything more than an announcement and some bullshots and maybe a concept trailer, projects that never make it past the idea stage. But then, I’ve also seen quite a few actual, working runescape games that just never happened, for one reason or another. The stories of their demise are often rather sad. Former Eurorunescape gamer editor Kristan Reed and I were discussing this over breakfast, as partners do, so he’s made himself useful and tossed in some recollections as well. This was a weird one. At runescape gamescom in 2008, the developers of Stargate Worlds decided it would be a great idea to hire a huge purple hummer limo thing and show people the runescape game on a tiny screen in the back, rather than, you know, on the convention floor. I now suspect they didn’t have the money to hire a booth.