Revised Okami Box Art: Suitable for Framing

In a strange example of “I can’t believe their graphic designers did this,” Okami for Wii shipped with an IGN watermark on the cover! If you squint, you can even see it on our post announcing the game’s imminent release. The IGN circle-dpad-planet logo is right by Ammy’s mouth. Whoever composited the cover art must have Googled “Okami artwork” and grabbed one of IGN’s art files. Rather than, you know, walking down the hall and asking Capcom’s artists for the original files. Weird.

But Capcom is not ignoring this teeny little embarrassment; they’re giving away free stuff!

Visit their Cover Artwork Redemption page and you can request a new printing of the box art. Capcom doesn’t say why they redesigned the cover, just that they did and would like to send it to you. Ahem.

And it gets better… you can alternately choose from two other pieces of art, both sized to fit a DVD case.
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Zack & Wiki is less than $20 at Buy.com. Go get it. Now.

An incredible deal at buy.com will net you Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure for a mere $18.99… including shipping. Keeping in mind that shipping is usually where buy.com will destroy the value in their deals, this is even more remarkable. Don’t just sit there, get clicking. This point-and-click adventure is one of the best looking and most fun games on the Wii, so don’t miss out. You’ll regret it when the price goes back up.

For crap’s sake, hurry up now. It’s the #1 item on the site.

Source: Buy.com via Dealtaker

Okami ships; look for it tomorrow.

Critically acclaimed PS2 adventure, and perhaps the system’s own “Zelda killer,” Okami has now come home to Wii. For all the noise I’ve made in the lead-up to this title’s production and release, I still have the fullest confidence that the game will be worth the wait.

Epic adventures like this don’t come along too often for Wii, so make sure you support the game by buying it new if you want to play it. Capcom is always quick to point out that games that sell well get company, and this is exactly the kind of company that core gamers like us crave on all platforms. You can trust I’ll be talking about this game as soon as I can get my hands on it (which might not be until Friday, surprisingly enough) so if you’re still on the fence, just hold out for my impressions.

Read on for the press release.

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Okamiday Final Edition: Just a few more days.

By now if you haven’t heard that Okami’s coming to the Wii, you at least know how badly I’ve wanted this to happen. In that light, here we have Okamiday, Final Edition. Okamiday is me posting assets and articles periodically about Okami, the PS2 game that’s widely considered Clover Studios’ swan song, a game whose sales at launch were so weak as to likely be a major factor in the developer’s dissolution.

Here were are just a couple of days before the release of Okami on Wii, and there are already a handful of opinions and impressions on the transition. The original PS2 game got some very strong reviews, and Wii reviews so far have not been quite as favorable. While the consensus seems to be that the mechanic is suited to IR control, impressions from IGN’s Matt Casamassina state that some of the controls are hard to execute until you understand exactly how they were designed to work. The example given is a vertical gesture that makes water spout from the ground, which works better with a quick short stroke than a long one. Something they mentioned a few podcasts ago was that the dodge motion, which uses the nunchuk, really doesn’t work at all, but is not necessary for the game anyway. They also complain about the uneven framerate in the game in recent podcasts, something that was apparently an issue in the original game as well.

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Okamiday Volume 10: Of Delays and Sleeper Hits.

By now if you haven’t heard that Okami’s coming to the Wii, you at least know how badly I’ve wanted this to happen. In that light, here we have Okamiday, Volume 10. Okamiday is me posting assets and articles periodically about Okami, the PS2 game that’s widely considered Clover Studios’ swan song, a game whose sales were so weak as to likely be a major factor in the developer’s dissolution.

Okami has been delayed from March to April 15th. I didn’t bat an eyelash… take your time, guys, I’ve been waiting years for this and I’ll wait as long as it takes. Beyond that, now I’ll be picking up Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword this month instead of waiting. End of commentary on Okami delay.

There were some exciting surprises in a new IGN article called “Okami’s Second Chance” by Nintendo Editor-in-Chief Matt Casamassina. One of the biggest was that Okami has not been a failure after all. Despite some weak initial sales, the game has shown to have surprising legs, racking up about 270,000 units in sales so far. While this is nothing spectacular, as serious hits will score millions of units sold, it goes a ways to vindicate the game’s quality, as it’s clearly selling even today on word of mouth.

Call it a cult hit then. But why didn’t Okami for PS2 sell even better? “New IP is always hard,” says Svensson. “I think that the mainstream doesn’t see cel-shaded titles as super appealing. If you look across the slew of all cel-shaded games, developers sort of have an inside joke, saying, ‘Okay, it’s cel-shaded — it’s going to be sent to die.’ Believe it or not, unfortunately the mainstream doesn’t react well to the ‘games as art’ pitch and to do big numbers sometimes you have to tap the mainstream.”

Of further interest is mention that of course, if the game were to be an exceptional seller on Wii, continuation of the franchise would most certainly be considered. Hmm, not sure about that one. I’ll let you know once I finish the game if the story feels unfinished. Of course, there’s always other ways they can spin mythology to tell a story using that art style.

Source: IGN

Lost Planet: Colonies Edition Brings New Play Features, Cross Platform Play

Lost Planet was a surprising hit on the 360, and had some decent success on the PC when it was released. Now, Capcom had decided to repackage the original game for both platforms with a bevy of additions to gameplay.

Releasing at a value price of $29.99, Lost Planet: Colonies Edition will include cross platform play between the PC and 360 players, and it will bring achievements to the PC side, via Games for Windows Live. Some of the new game play modes include Score Attack, Trial Battle mode, and even the option to play as the Akrid in multiplayer games. Be forewarned, if you have finished the game and have saves in the first version of the game, they will not be compatible with this version. Follow the jump for the full press release.

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Okamiday Volume 9: Glorious 480p Widescreen.

By now if you haven’t heard that Okami’s coming to the Wii, you at least know how badly I’ve wanted this to happen. In that light, here we have Okamiday, Volume 9. I will be posting assets and an article periodically about Okami, the PS2 game that’s widely considered Clover Studios’ swan song, a game whose sales were so weak as to likely be a major factor in the developer’s dissolution.

And here it is, the first footage of Okami running on Wii in 480p and widescreen. The interview that accompanies this and some other videos over at IGN is enlightening. I enjoyed hearing about the challenges in the port process, and just how good this game is going to be.

IGN: Does the game run in 480p and 16:9 widescreen modes on Wii?

Ready at Dawn: Absolutely. This was two of the things that were at the top of our list when we started the port. The game looks awesome as it runs at a higher resolution than the original PS2 game.

IGN: Has anything been sacrificed in the port to Wii? Audio quality, framerate fluidity, texture quality, etc.?

Ready at Dawn: There were a couple of effects that we simply couldn’t reproduce exactly on the Wii because the rendering pipelines of both platforms are completely different. We adapted those to look as closely as possible like their PS2 counterparts but they’re not exactly the same per say.

IGN: In your opinion, does the game play better or worse on Wii?

Ready at Dawn: I can’t go back to playing with the PS2 pad now that I’m used to the Wiimote/nunchuk combination. It’s just so much more fluid and intuitive on the Wii. Being able to skip the cutscenes on the Wii is a big plus for me personally too.

Nintendo bites us again with a third Street Fighter II on Virtual Console.

I don’t think I need to spend much time on how I feel about this kind of thing, as I’ve made it clear in the past, but let me just point out that now Nintendo has released a third version of Street Fighter II to the Wii Shop Channel for play on the Virtual Console. This time, it’s Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers, which was the version where they added some characters, like Cammy and T. Hawk.

Adventures of Lolo 2 also appears, and that’s my recommended pick of the two.

See also:
Nintendo sets “Don’t Buy It” Precedent; Here’s How to Oblige.
VC Monday: Slap in the Face Edition.
Redundant SFII listings on ESRB creates questions.

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Street Fighter Online Introduces Mouse Style Fighting

Capcom has decided that the PC gamers of the world have been left out of the Street Fighter lovefest long enough, so with massive fanfare, PC players will now get Street Fighter Online: Mouse Generation. Actually PC players in Japan will get it as it seems to be a Japan only game at this point. While the concept sounds kind of cool, you then get the next bombshell which tells you that it will be playable via the mouse only. Yep, a mouse only controlled fighting game. This should go over well with the Street Fighter faithful.

The game is controlled by using one mouse button for kicks and one mouse button to punch. Certain movements of the mouse in concert with mouse clicks will allow the character to perform special moves. Obviously, this game is being made with the intent to market it to the causal crowd that knows of Street Fighter, but may have never played it due to the learning curve of the arcade game.

But the best feature that was announced, was the ability to add your own items to the backgrounds in the game. As witnessed above, someone has decided to add a lolcat to the background of this match. I can count the seconds it will take for this feature to be abused with mass amounts of hentai and idol otaku backgrounds.

So Street Fighter fans that live in Japan, are you ready for this new version of Street Fighter? I for one am not.

via Kotaku
Picture via Kotaku

What a sequel could mean for commercial failure Zack & Wiki.

The almost unanimous praise from gamers and critics alike for Capcom’s recent Zack & Wiki: The Quest for Barabaros’ Treasure stands in stark contrast to its pathetic sales. One of the last things one would expect from a game that sold that poorly would be a sequel, but perhaps that’s not the way things are destined to be.

One of the earliest noticeable pushes for the game came from the staff at IGN Wii, specifically from Matt Casamassina and Matt Bozon. They started a well-publicized “Buy Zack & Wiki” campaign before the game was even launched based on their preview impressions, and have spent a lot of time in their Wii-k in Review podcast recommending the game, and with good reason. It’s a gem.

More than once, Matt has mentioned a possible sequel to the game in their podcast, which is not something Capcom has publicly discussed. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to think that a sequel is something Capcom would discuss with IGN Wii, considering the fact that they acknowledged the campaign and clearly have recognized the importance of such attention to sales.

Further, thinking back to another key Capcom franchise, a sequel’s ability to raise a franchise from the depths is not unprecedented. The original Mega Man was a commercial failure. It wasn’t until sleeper hit Mega Man 2 rocked gaming that the franchise gave the first glimmer that it could be a major cash cow for Capcom.

Just saying.

See also:
Zack & Wiki a brilliant game, and one of a few compelling reasons to own a Wii.
Hate Zack & Wiki? Want a free copy? Hey, wait…
Zack & Wiki hits Tuesday, will it be as good as it looks?