It’s Monday night, and we all know what that means! More joy and goodness delivered straight to your Nintendo Wii entertainment system, courtesy of the young sprightly elves who handle WiiWare and their older, more jaded Virtual Console counterparts. Despite the Virtual Console’s strong showing this week with Mega Man 3 for the NES (500 points), the game that introduced us to Proto Man, Rush, and the electric slide, WiiWare comes out on top this Monday for the simple fact that it has a game that allows you to serve pizza to ninjas.
It’s a banner week in Nintendo downloadables, with two releases that are so exciting they could only be accompanied by one of Nintendo’s little Art Style WiiWare Titles. Poor little Art Style: Rotohex (600 points) is fixing to be completely overshadowed by the third episode of Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People, Baddest of the Bands (1,000 points), in which our titular hero attempts to completely dominate the “Battle Royale of the Bands” with his signature style and dashing good looks.
We’ve had some pretty major Weekly Wii updates over the past few months, so it’s about time we take it down a notch and give our Wii points a little rest, isn’t it? Today sees the release of two WiiWare titles and two Virtual Console classics that we could really give or take. I suppose the multiplayer online of Tetris Party for WiiWare (1200 points) is somewhat exciting, as is the prospect of somehow controlling Tetris with your Wii Balance Board, but nothing we’re in a hurry to check out. Digital Leisure brings us The Incredible Maze (500 points), another Balance Board compatible title that has you navigating…incredible mazes. Okay!
Great news! Shining Force II for the Genesis (800 points) has made the leap from last week’s Euro Virtual Console releases to this week’s North American ones, but where’s Earthworm Jim? They left together…what happened? Knocked out of the air over the Atlantic by an errant golf ball, no doubt. Stealing EWJ’s spot this week is Mario Golf, one of those rare Nintendo 64 releases for the VC (1,000 points), which is nice and all, but I’d still prefer Earthworm platforming. Oh well, maybe next week?
As it generally goes when there’s high profile Wii release such as Mario Kart, the Virtual Console is keeping a low profile this week, releasing only one game on the Wii Shop Channel for your classic gaming enjoyment. At least they aren’t skimping out on quality as well as quality, as this week’s release is none other than Double Dragon, the story of two brothers’ fight to rescue one girlfriend from a shadowy organisation hell-bent on learning the secrets of their martial arts. We are introduced to Billy and Jimmy Lee, as well as Billy’s girlfriend Marion, who gets shot to death in Double Dragon II, making the tragedy of the first game all the more poignant. Double Dragon for the NES (500 points) will be available today for those of you requiring a tiny break from all that furious karting.
Shortly available on the Wii Virtual Console, two classic games from ages past about saving worlds and kicking arse. Girlfriends always be getting kidnapped, yo, and such is the case in River City Ransom (NES, 500 points), the beat-em-up RPG hybrid that sees Ryan off on a quest to rescue his girlfriend from the sinister Slick, with his friend Player Two Alex along for the ride. Then we have the game I was sincerely hoping for after last week’s Euro update, Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom for the Sega Genesis (800 points).
This time around it’s a choose your own adventure of sorts, as you guide three generations via an innovative mate-picking mechanic that makes replaying the game nearly mandatory. Who you choose to marry decides who you’ll be playing in the next generation, and ultimately which ending you’ll receive when all is said and done. Love it or hate it, it’s a damn fine piece of RPG history. If I had any time to actually play games this week, this would be the one. A very good week for the Virtual Console.
A nifty little update for the European Wii Virtual Console comes in the form of Sega’s Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom for the Genesis. Considered by many to be the weakest in the original Phantasy Star series, the game spans three generations of characters, with the player getting to decide how each plays out by making marriage decisions for the party members in each successive generation. Criticized for bland combat and a storyline that conflicts with Phantasy Star II, Phantasy Star III is the game most likely to cause knock-down, drag out fights among Phantasy Star fans, as those who love it love it to death and those who hate it hate it with a passion. Me? I enjoyed the hell out of it myself, despite its many problems, and consider it a fine addition to the Euro VC at 800 points. Hopefully this will make it to North America shortly.
Football season is upon us and with Tecmo Bowl already out for the Wii Virtual Console, there’s only one NES pigskin game worthy of a commemorative rerelease. This morning sees NES Play Action Football (500 points) take the field. Sporting 10 real teams with real players, it is one of the most technologically advanced NES games out there, as well as being one of the few to use voice clips. For those of you who would rather be a ball than play with one, spin up Sonic the Hedgehog 3 for the Genesis (800 points) and relive Sonic’s first meeting with Knuckles the Enchilada Echidna. Finally we have more TurboGrafx16 Zelda-ripoff goodness with Neutopia II (600 points), which puts you in the role of the son of the main character from the ‘original’ Neutopia which was released on the VC two weeks ago. Apparently you did a half-assed job of killing Dirth the first time and now your child has to deal with it. Good job, slacker. If you had just played more football as a kid this never would have happened. More »
Dammit, I was trying to enjoy my Labor Day off but Nintendo had to drag me back with a special quadruple VC Update. I’ll be quick, as I have a lot of nothing to get done today and an increasingly small amount of time to do it in. On the NES side of things we have Adventure Island and Donkey Kong Jr. Math (500 points each), a classic side-scrolling platformer and a baby monkey themed learning tool respectively. Were I Nintendo I would have patted myself on the back and stopped right there, but no, they had to bring us the adventures of an elf named Nigel with Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole for the Genesis (800 points), sort of a isometric Tomb Raider only with a more feminine main character. Finally we have Bonk 3: Bonk’s Big Adventure for the TurboGrafx16 (600 points), which adds an all-new two-player mode to the classic Bonk formula. There you go. Four titles guaranteed to make me have to get up off my ass and write a post on my day off. Go Nintendo! More »
As of this writing I’ve not seen hide nor hair of Nintendo’s weekly Virtual Console update press release, so I got up off my ass, walked into the living room and then got back on my ass to see for myself what had been updated, and it isn’t a bad selection this week. Kicking it off we have Breath of Fire II for the Super Nintendo (800 points), one of my favourite games from the SNES era of RPGs. I’d daresay a true classic. Next we have Ghouls ‘n Ghosts for the Genesis (800 points), the sequel to Ghosts ‘n Goblins an prequel to Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts. Finally we have Super C for the NES (500 points). The sequel to Contra, Super C sees Mad Dog and Scorpion fighting against their former comrades in arms, now possessed by aliens and transformed into horrifying creatures by…you know what? You run, you shoot stuff. It’s Contra, before it got kinda crappy. Love on it. There you have it – three excellent titles and not one crappy TurboGrafx 16 title. The PR guys must have been so shocked they forgot to send the release! More »
