Have Your Cake And Play It Too

Sick of looking at video game-themed pastry that you can’t eat, well here’s another one for your ravenous gamer eyes. I’m not sure who the rightful owner is of this one, but I’m going to take an educated guess and say that he or she turned 25. Simply Googling “NES Cakes” resulted in more variations than I wanted to document, but here’s just a few cakes:

A bit messy but tasty looking cake on Gizmodo
No points for artistic ability, but for sheer size on Geekstir
Another on MyWii
A tiny and dark looking NES controller here (focus your attention on the cake)
A brown NES Controller (because it’s chocolate) here
Finally a more up to date controller for the Wii on Nintendo Wii Fanboy.

Make your own rhythm game levels with this PC-based Ouendan clone.

One of the best DS games available now has a homebrew Windows counterpart… Meet osu!, the Web 2.0 version of Ouendan / Elite Beat Agents. Here’s a video of osu! in action, featuring the delightful Haruhi song…

With a bit of work, you can create your own levels using your favorite songs and videos. Naturally, you can exchange levels with other osu! players. Browsing the download section, I see user-submitted “beatmaps” for songs from John Mayer, James Taylor, Weird Al Yankovic, They Might Be Giants… even other game series like id@lmaster, Pokemon, Taiko Drum Master and Smash Brawl. So it’s not all j-pop, although the osu! creators clearly seem to favor the Ouendan half of the East/West equation. (Me too!)

Dear Nintendo: approve this project immediately. Make this WiiWare.

New Wii Channel now available

So as we all know, the Nintendo Channel was announced last month with US due-date of mid-May. Well, we must have hit mid-May because waiting for me when I got home from work tonight was a new update and the ability to download the Nintendo Channel. So far my experience has mixed reviews. Read the rest of this entry »

Read-a-long with Nintendo Power (#229, June 2008)

That’s not Aerosmith: The Animated Series, that’s the latest Nintendo Power. Join Aeropause for this regular dissection of a twenty-year-old gaming staple… and read-a-long!

Issue #229, June 2008
featured games: Final Fantasy Tactics A2, Etrian Odyssey II, Wii Fit, Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2, FaceBreaker, Guitar Hero: On Tour, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, Rock Band, Samba de Amigo

Take a look at that cover. Wow. Did anybody else think that the hypnotically awful Revolution X would get a sequel? What a surprise! Talk about mining the archives; Revolution X came out fourteen years ago! That’s longer than the wait between Super Metroid and Metroid Prime, and Nintendo is still trying to convince gamers that Metroid is worth buying. I’m a little rusty on my Revolution X plot, but apparently it involved you rescuing members of some hair band called Aerosmith. Since so much time has passed, I’m guessing this Guitar Hero Aerosmith band is comprised of the sons and daughters of the original Revolution X Aerosmith. Nintendo Power’s cover feature is unclear on this point.

What the article does cover is four upcoming Wii/DS music games, all without ever mentioning the complete lack of DLC songs. Hilariously, the Rock Band article says “some compromises had to be made to bring Rock Band to Wii. For instance, there’s no create-a-character mode.” WTF? First of all, the Wii already has a create-a-character mode that third party games are stupid to ignore: the Mii system. But more importantly, who cares about the gimpy create-a-character mode in Rock Band? You have, like, a million shirts and only four faces. Whoop-ti-doo.

No no, the compromise that Rock Band Wii makes is penetrating and obvious: no downloadable songs.
Read the rest of this entry »

Read-a-long with Nintendo Power (#228, May 2008)

Another month, another last gasp of print media. Join Aeropause for this regular dissection of this twenty-year-old gaming staple… and read-a-long!

Issue #228, May 2008
featured games: Final Fantasy IV DS, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Time/Darkness, Boom Blox, Super Smash Bros Brawl, Summon Night: Twin Age, LEGO Indiana Jones, Bangai-O Spirits

Let’s get the shocker out of the way: Nintendo Power gave the long-awaited Okami port a mere 7.5. Some choice lines from the review… “The controls didn’t make the jump to Wii as well as they should have.” “…the game [has a tough] time recognizing your brush strokes.” “…if you swing too fast you won’t be able to attack at all.”

And the kicker: “Okami is a work of genius, but you should play the original game instead of the Wii version if you can.” Nintendo Power just recommended a PS2 game.

Read the rest of this entry »

The five Nintendo songs that should have been in Rock Band Wii.

After quite some time of keeping the secret, this week Harmonix announced the FIVE BONUS songs that will grace the Wii version of Rock Band. Since many previous Nintendo editions of multi-console games have arrived with fan-pleasing content (see such games as Soulcalibur 2, DDR Mario Mix and NBA Street V3), it was natural to speculate that Rock Band Wii would arrive with some kind of classic Nintendo music. But here’s what we’re getting:

• “Dirty Little Secret” - The All American Rejects
• “Don’t Look Back in Anger” - Oasis
• “Roam” - The B-52’s
• “Rockaway Beach” - The Ramones
• “Roxanne” - The Police

So yeah, five tracks already available on the Rock Band store for PS3 and 360. Some surprise.

This is fine, I suppose, but given that Rock Band Wii will have no online play and only a faint, faint hope of DLC songs… well, Wii owners will be forgiven for hoping for something a little nicer.

Like, say, five Wii-exclusive tracks culled from twenty years of Nintendo gaming? Here’s my nominations for the awesome Rock Band Wii that will never be…

Read the rest of this entry »

Nintendo Announces Kid Icarus for the Wii

Nintendo made a surprise announcement today. Hot on the heels of his appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Nintendo has announced that Pit will be starring in a solo adventure of his own titled Kid Icarus: Palutena’s Warning. Purists will be disappointed to find out that this new entry in the series leaves its 2D roots behind and will be a 3D first person adventure game in the vein of the more recent Metroid titles. In fact, the game will be headed up by none other than prime (pun intended) developer, Retro Studios. One can probably expect full Wiimote-based aiming, but no details are confirmed. No formal release date has been announced, but the game is expected to reach shelves this upcoming holiday season.

Read-a-long with Nintendo Power (#227, April 2008)

Pejoratively referred to as the “Party Press,” Nintendo Power has long seemed stuck on the rocky road to respectability. Can recent editorial changes transform the magazine? Join Aeropause for this regular dissection of this twenty-year-old gaming staple… and read-a-long!

Issue #227, April 2008
featured games: Mario Kart Wii, Deadly Creatures, The World Ends With You, Okami, We Love Golf, Super Smash Bros Brawl

The cover feature this month is ten pages on Mario Kart Wii (is that really going to be the final title?), although those ten pages are padded with plenty of screenshots and large character clip art. The question is, what did they reveal?

Read the rest of this entry »

Guitar Hero DS Attachment

With Guitar Hero on Tour coming to the DS this summer, one had to be happy and dismayed at the same time. On the good side, you would have Guitar Hero on the go, but you would lose out on having the guitar to play the game on. Well, a new peripheral is coming to the DS to play Guitar Hero, and the attachment is called Guitar Grip.

I have no clue what company is making this hulking plastic monstrosity, but if you want to let people know that you are rocking up a storm on Guitar Hero DS, this will surely do the trick. The device has four fret buttons and comes with a pick, that you strum on the guitar screen on the DS. It is a nice way to try and give players the Guitar Hero experience but this thing just seems very bulky. Look for it to hit shelves about the same time as Guitar Hero On Tour arrives fro the DS.

Check out more pictures and a promo video at videogameszone.de

Snaking not allowed in Mario Kart Wii; anybody sad?

This is already peppered across every game site in existence, so we might as well get our lumps in. The Official Nintendo Magazine (think UK’s Nintendo Power) has an review on the latest Mario Kart and mentions that snaking is not part of the game.

Ever since Mario Kart 64, kart players could gain a speed boost by going into a slide and then wiggling the analog stick back and forth. Although this was a perfectly acceptable strategy when drifting around curves, savvy players soon figured out that you could pull it off on straightaways as well. This became known as snaking because you’d see your opponent zig-zag down the track, leaving you in the dust like a sap. Many players - myself included - credit snaking as the reason why they bailed on Mario Kart DS’s online play. At least in MK64 and Mario Kart Double Dash, you could punch a snaking player in the arm.

It has been argued that snaking is simply a high-level technique and that players unable to pull off the extreme waggling are just not playing hard enough. No matter your opinion, Nintendo took it out (your boost level is now dependent on long you hold the drift)… so if you’re a Jerky Hawk Pro Snaker, you’ll have to stick to one of the older Kart games.

All I have to say is: Mario Kart Wii purchase confirmed!

via Kotaku via GoNintendo via Official Nintendo Magazine (UK)