Archive for the ‘Wii News’ Category:
When Good Games Go Bad: Animal Crossing edition
I’m still playing Animal Crossing: City Folk (or Let’s Go To The City, if you prefer) but boy is it testing my patience. Admittedly, my enthusiasm for the game waned some time ago, but my three-year-old son loves it, and so I keep visiting my village more out of duty to entertain him than because I really want to. Yesterday, something happened which nearly made me snap the disc in half.
As those of you who play the game regularly will know, yesterday an event took place named Festivale. This new event brought with it a brand new visitor to my village - Pavé the peacock. Speaking in broken English, he was a feisty little chap, singing and dancing away to a samba-style beat and requesting candy of various different flavours. I’d read in my father-in-law’s strategy guide that it might have been wise to stockpile some from Hallowe’en, but seeing as the game wasn’t released until November and I’ve not been cheating by messing around with the dates, that was impossible. I was therefore heartened to find, when speaking to one of my animal neighbours, that I could win candy from them by playing a game, but that if I lost, I’d have to give them 500 Bells. Thus began a long, expensive and arduous few hours which I will never, ever get back.
Japanese charts - week ending 15th February
Mario & Luigi RPG 3, as predicted, topped the charts, but there was a disconcerting lack of Wii games in the Japanese top ten this week, as Sony dominated the upper echelons of the chart.Though some were predicting even higher numbers for Mario & Luigi, just under 200,000 copies is by some distance the best first week for the handheld franchise. Indeed, it beat the first week sales of both Superstar Saga and Partners in Time combined. A localisation really can’t come soon enough (will it launch alongside the DSi in Europe perhaps?)
Elsewhere, the sole other Nintendo console representative was the DS version of Echoes of time, hanging in there with a small drop in sales this week to a still-healthy 20,000 units. The Wii take on the game is outside the top 30 despite a hefty price cut. Ouch.
Meanwhile, Street Fighter IV was the other dominant force, the exceptional revival of the 2D beat-em-up genre’s most famous series coming in at second on PS3 and 5th for the 360 iteration. Many Japanese stores reported selling out, which, assuming Capcom gets plenty of stock back in, could make it a contender for the top next week (though Xbox 360 exclusive RPG, Star Ocean 4, could yet have a say).
Little King’s Story hits Europe first in April
In a surprising move for a new Japanese IP, Rising Star Games today announced that strategy role-player Little King’s Story will launch in Europe before any other territory, hitting PAL shores on April 24th.The much-anticipated Wii title is a collaboration between some of Japanese gaming’s biggest names, who’ve individually worked on quality titles such as Harvest Moon, No More Heroes, Final Fantasy XII and Super Mario RPG. In other words, it’s a bit of a developer dream team.
It’s all about building a kingdom, which suggests hints of WiiWare title My Life as a King, yet this offers a more hands-on approach, with the Lilliputian monarch literally leading his followers as they attempt to expand the kingdom and ward off any unwanted intruders.
Dead Space Wii is a first-person on-rails shooter
In a decision which has immediately split the internet clean in two, EA’s Wii take on hi-def horror-actioner Dead Space - titled Dead Space: Extraction will be a first-person shooter on rails, a la House of the Dead: Overkill.
The sensible people like me think this is a good choice - the Wii’s a great console for arcade-like experiences, and it means it’s not just a watered-down, graphically-inferior version of a 360/PS3 game. Hello, Dead Rising: Chop ‘Til You Drop. Various others claim it’s a disaster, that rail shooters are [expletive deleted] and that EA deserves to rot in hell and that the Wii is rubbish and LOL.
While in one way it’s a shame we’re not getting a third-person adventure, Extraction would never have stood the comparison, especially considering how reliant its predecessor was on state-of-the-art graphics and sound design. Judging by the video above, the on-rails approach has allowed EA to really push the Wii, and create something which looks both great and pretty bloody scary.
Eduardo The Samurai Toaster Trailer
I had to watch this a few times, just to see if it was real. Thankfully, I wasn’t dreaming. This is a trailer for an upcoming WiiWare game, Eduardo The Samurai Toaster. I instantly fell for it.
Apparently the game is based around Eduardo, a name you usually don’t relate to when you’re talking about samurai. Then again, a toaster is the farthest thing from samurai as I could have decided upon. Judging by the gameplay shown off in the trailer, it could have been a shoe horn and I’d still be interested.
The action looks well animated, and very fast. The graphics look quite stylized, and really reminds me of the cut scenes from the World of Goo. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this one.
Onslaught: First WiiWare FPS Game
Onslaught, not to be confused with the villain from the awful Marvel storyline is a FPS being released by Hudson Entertainment. Like most FPS’s, Onslaught will take place in a sci-fi setting, with a group of marines sent to investigate the mystery behind a missing space colony.
The story might sound contrived, but there are plenty of features about Onslaught that set it apart. This game will be the ‘first’ ever FPS to be released on WiiWare. It will be interesting to see how Hudson is able to keep the game at a relatively decent file size, while offering a complete package. Onslaught will also offer some online co-op with 4 players able to play through together.
There haven’t been a whole lot of gameplay details announced yet, other than the Wii Remote used to aim your guns. With the nunchuk being used to throw grenades.
Texas Adopts ‘Video Games Day’
Everything is bigger in Texas, atleast if you talk to its citizens that is what they’ll tell you. The video game industry looks to be no exception to the rule, as it is thriving in the land of the cowboys.
Texas set aside February 3rd, as a celebration of what they call, Entertainment Software Day (Video Games Day). The reason is that the state has had a local economic boom due to the impact of the video game industry.
None of this is by accident, as some Texas state senators had enough savvy to recognize how large the video game industry has become. Of course, the industry needed a place to call home and due to some tax breaks, many found it in Texas.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up Comic Con Trailer
If the idea of the developers behind Super Smash Bros. working on a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fighting doesn’t excite you, then feel free to skip over this. If you’re like me, and giggled like a school girl after reading that sentence, then prepare to be excited.
There has been very few details released about the game, other than the name and this trailer. We do know that it will release Fall 2009, so hopefully some more details won’t be too far behind.
Top 5 WiiWare Games … So Far
There has been quite a bit of news regarding the world of WiiWare this week. There has been the release of the initial trailer for Eduardo: The Samurai Toaster. We also received confirmation of Hudson working on WiiWare’s first FPS title, Onslaught.
In light of all of this WiiWare news, I thought we would take a look at the best WiiWare games that have been released thus far. I reserve the right to bring this list back in the future, as more games are released. That is all, so now let’s get to it.
Interview With Eduardo: The Samurai Toaster Developer
The Eduardo: The Samurai Toaster trailer was released just a couple of days ago, and I’ve been enthralled since. I’m not quite sure what it is that has me so intrigued. Perhaps it’s that my favorite foods in the world (Pop-Tarts, and Eggo’s Waffles) are made in a toaster. Or if it’s the idea of using a toaster to pull off samurai moves that has me anxious. Whatever the reason, color me excited.
I then began to do some research for the game, visiting Semnat Studio’s site. Which lead to me contacting Semnat’s co-founder, and artist Daniel Coleman to try and learn some more about the game. He was kind enough to take some time and answer questions about the game, and give us a look behind the creation of it.