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Nintendo Wii
Rygar: Battle of Argus preview at GameTrailers
By Stephen Munn | October 5, 2008Tecmo’s enhanced Wiimake of the PS2 Rygar title, renamed Battle of Argus, caught my attention some time ago as a fan of the original version of the game from like what, twenty years ago? Just as we were starting to wonder where the game went, here it is.
Check out the newly-designed player character model, head below for footage of the original PS2 game when you’re done. It’s an interesting before-and-after.
Sin & Punishment 2 debut teaser at GameTrailers
By Stephen Munn | October 5, 2008I’ve been so busy doing “important” stuff for the past week that I’ve missed a lot of great things. Lucking, Fourhman was here to point out that Nintendo had announced Sin & Punishment 2. The trailer doesn’t mention Treasure, but there’s really no mistaking the style here. They made the original, and you can see their fingerprint all over this beauty as well. Unlike Fourhman, I do enjoy the surcharge-tastic import Sin & Punishment on Virtual Console, and I recall wishing the targeting reticle on there could be controlled by the Wii Remote. This looks like a wish granted. Now if only they could bundle the original on the disc with IR pointer functionality plugged in, we’ll be set.
Mega High! Mega Man 9 Impressions
By Stephen Munn | October 5, 2008
As a total Mega Man junkie, I practically peed myself at the news that Mega Man 9 was coming. Looking back at that news, it was nothing compared to the revelation that Mega Man 9 would be designed to look and feel as though it were running on an NES, so it wouldn’t look out of place when lined up with the first six games in the series. I never had any misgivings over this, as all my best Mega memories are of the eight-bit variety.
Let’s have a look at where the franchise has been lately. There are dozens of Mega Man games now covering just about every genre from sports to RPG, but most of these are trash. Here’s how to know whether the Mega Man game you’ve got is a good one. If it’s in the original series, that is to say Mega Man through Mega Man 8, it will range from fantastic to pretty good… in fact, it will pretty much range that way in order. If it’s a Mega Man X game, those allegedy topped out at about X4, after which the quality plummeted, but that didn’t stop me from buying them. The Mega Man Zero games numbered four, those were all fantastic. I’ve heard good things about Mega Man Legends, which has gone by different names on different platforms, but everything else should simply be ignored.
PlayNTrade lets you preorder old games… not just new ones
By Stephen Munn | October 3, 2008
A trip to my local PlayNTrade store this evening was pretty entertaining. After watching a woman and her daughter at odds over Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker vs Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and intervening in favor of Wind Waker, I asked a helpful staffer if they happened to have a copy of the PS1 classic Castlevania Chronicles. It turned out they didn’t, but he told me they could wish list the item, and give me a call when or if it ever materializes.
Wish list? I’m glad you asked. It seems you can go to PlayNTrade and ask for a game, and if they don’t have it, they’ll put you in the computer as a kind of preorder… for a game that’s only going to come in used. While it lacks the kind of punch that a preorder with a date attached to it boasts, it’s still something I’ve never seen before. Maybe this is how I should get that copy of Einhander I’ve been looking for.
Unfortunately, the price for Castlevania Chronicles in their computer right now stands at $42.99, which is just a little bit higher than I can find it online. That settled that deal for me, and I purchased a copy for $34.99 online. I promise a full review once I’ve tackled that disc.
By the way, if the Wind Waker girl is reading this, I need to clarify that Wind Waker isn’t exactly a sequel to Ocarina of Time, though it does make reference to the story of Ocarina in the beginning of the game. Majora’s Mask is the closest thing to a direct sequel there is to Ocarina, as it picks up right where that game leaves off. Phantom Hourglass, in turn, is a direct sequel to Wind Waker, so after you’re done with Wind Waker, and if you’ve got a DS, you’ll want to pick up Phantom Hourglass… assuming you’re a patient gamer.
Another surprise boss fight in Mario Kart Wii
By Joe Fourhman | October 3, 2008
The first Mario Kart Wii tournament for October is live, and, like the Topmen challenge from the summer, it’s a boss fight. This time against a giant Pokey in the Thwomp Desert level.
Nintendo has been steadfastly running “tournaments” twice a month, and nobody ever talks about them, like it’s some kind of Kart Fight Club. Sometimes they’re neato like this one, sometimes they’re regular and boring. But I still have to ask: when is Nintendo going to crow about this? Nobody knows this even happens unless you’re opted-in to the MKWii message board mailing list. Will Nintendo eventually push a patch that unlocks these tournaments as a series of offline challenges, so we can play our favorites over and over again? Are these tournaments even on the disk, or are they downloaded when we go to play them? Would it kill Nintendo to talk up the good features of their games?
*Sigh* More awesome giant Pokey pics after the jump.
Meet the new DS, and other gems from Nintendo’s media summit
By Joe Fourhman | October 2, 2008
Today’s Nintendo media summit confirmed a lot of rumors, revealed a lot of games, and kinda sorta addressed some key enduring issues. Here’s the greatest hits edition of today’s event, courtesy our pals at GoNintendo.com.
- The “new” DS is dubbed the DSi. The DSi contains two cameras, one between the leaves for when the DSi is open and one on the outside for a closed position. The GBA Slot is gone (but what about Mag Kid, Guitar Hero On Tour, and Pokemon Pal Park?) There’s an SD card slot for storing data. A DSiWare online store will debut with Brain Age games. Built-in Opera browser. Both screens are a wee bit larger than the current DS. The bad news: the US won’t get the DSi until sometime deep into 2009.
- Upcoming Wii update will allow purchase and download of WiiWare and Virtual Console titles directly to an SD card. But will such software be playable from the SD card?
- New Punch-Out!! coming to Wii. Get ready for teh waggle.
- Sin & Punishment 2 coming to Wii. I grabbed the Virtual Console version of the first one (an N64 game) and hated it.
- Wii Speak Channel coming November 16, to allow group voice chat (with representative animated Miis!) between Wiis. If you buy a Wii Speak but your friend does not, your friend will be able to download the Wii Speak Channel anyway for one-way audio chatting.
- Club Nintendo coming to the US. This has been a longstanding source of envy, as the Japanese Club Nintendo always gets seriously awesome free giveaways. I hope NOA will retroactively award credit, because my MyNintendo.com account has like 50 registered games.
Source: GoNintendo
AC/DC Stand Alone Track Pack Coming to Rock Band 2 via Walmart
By Joe Haygood | September 30, 2008
MTV Games and Harmonix have announced the November release of a new AC/DC Live stand-alone track pack for the PS3 and 360. The game will ship as a full playable game, but can be used with Rock Band and Rock Band 2. The cost of the pack will be $29.95 for PS2 and $39.98 for 360 and PS3. The track pack will be available worldwide.
While this news in and of itself is strange, the other shoe dropped when it was found out that this track pack is exclusive to Walmart only. That’s right boys and girls, you are only getting your AC/DC if you walk into the bastion of discount savings, Walmart. The retail chain is also going to set up temporary kiosks in Los Angeles and Manhattan, two locations where Walmart does not have any stores.
Check the jump for the full track list, which is posted over at Gamesblog.ugo.com.
via Gamasutra
Get ready to milk it up: Harvest Moon arrives on Wii
By Joe Fourhman | September 29, 2008
After some false starts, Natsume is reporting that Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility is finally on its way to retailers near you.
Tree of Tranquility “continues the ten-year anniversary celebration of the popular Harvest Moon franchise.” Which, as far as I can tell, has consisted of an official drawing contest on Natsume.com, and some highly un-publicized preorder bonuses with Amazon.com (you could get a nice cow plushie). Still, that’s not as bad as celebrating Sonic’s 15th birthday with Shadow the Hedgehog.
I’ve always wanted to get into one of the Harvest Moons, but just never made the leap. This Wii iteration worries me with the potential for abusive Remote tricks (fishing! digging! throwing! milking!), and early E3 2008 previews were not encouraging. Although this is the kind of series that you either love no matter what… or you’d never consider playing in the first place. It’s that polarizing.
Press release after the jump.
Modern retro re-envisionings are not for the faint of heart
By Stephen Munn | September 27, 2008
It’s been a long time since I broke my gamer rage over the head of Viewtiful Joe, and it seems the calming glow of endlessly continuing is starting to wear off. I’ve been tackling three games recently that have all given me the same familiar feeling. Frustration.
While Paul touched on this quite eloquently and accurately by sharing his experience of Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles, let me make it clear that the game is not for those who aren’t ready to return to 1986 and play through an experience not unlike the original Castlevania. This is a beautiful thing, but let’s look a little deeper. You’re not ten anymore, playing the game every day for hours after school and getting an entire summer off. The muscle memory that lets you beat Castlevania today doesn’t exist for Dracula X Chronicles. And finally, when you punch something at age 32, you’ll do a lot more damage.
The sensation is similar with Mega Man Powered Up, but somewhat less. At the default difficulty, Mega Man Powered Up is harder than the original Mega Man, with or without muscle memory. They’ve also mixed up the boss weapon weaknesses it seems. On easy difficulty, it’s a cakewalk. I close my eyes and shake at the thought of what the hard difficulty would be like. And on the subject of Mega Man is my third game right now, Mega Man 9. Mega Man 9 is really, really hard. The level designs are devious, evil, and unforgiving in a way the original games only alluded to. You’ll die in the same spot over and over and over again. You’ll make it to a boss for the first time on your last life with only a sliver of life left and they’ll kill you in a second. It will take six more tries before you can make it that far again. Are you ready for this? Are you, really?
Dracula X Chronicles is a gorgeous game to see and hear that will crush you again and again. Mega Man Powered Up is probably the most full-featured modern remake of a game I’ve ever seen, boasting difficulty options, a comprehensive level editor, playable boss characters, and a fleshed-out story… all of which was not seen in the original. Not one for purists perhaps, but it’s wonderful. Mega Man 9 is an achievement, a throwback, and a terrible, cruel joke all at once.
This, my friends, is gaming nirvana… within lies only the purest hell of games that were designed hard because long games didn’t fit on cartridges, and they didn’t want you to finish the game in an hour. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Insane fingernail lady stumps for Guinness World Records Wii game
By Joe Fourhman | September 26, 2008
Well guys, that’s it. I’m out. It’s back to books and exercise for me.
That’s a shot from a promo video for Guinness World Records: The Videogame, a minigame collection coming to Wii. And yes, she IS wearing the wriststrap, but I bet it took a team of professionals to get it on her.
Is this why Traveller’s Tales can’t iron out the gameplay issues plaguing the LEGO ___ series?!? Press release and a few non-fingernail screens after the jump.
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