News EU VC Update - International Karate +
It seems this week is some sort of "arcade week" in Europe, as there are three new games which all have distinct arcadey gameplay. If you don't like karate, painting roads or golf, then this week is not for you!
International Karate + is the extremely popular sequel to the original International Karate. Aside from allowing up to 3 fighters...
News Retro Styled Castlevania Coming To WiiWare?
In an interview with Wired, the current Castlevania series producer, Koji Igarashi (who you might know as the man who nearly always wears a black cowboy hat and carries around a whip) was asked what he thinks about Mega Man 9. He responded as follows:
I'm watching that very closely to see how it does. Myself, I'm a big retro gaming fan, so if it is...
Feature Top 10 Puzzlers We Want To Come To The Virtual Console
Puzzling
Following the series of Top 10 lists we've already done, we've made a selection of puzzle games we would like to see! It should be noted that there's a bunch of great puzzlers already on VC - The likes of Puyo Puyo, Adventures of Lolo, Wrecking Crew, Solomon's Key and Pokémon Puzzle League are all top-notch and very much worth a purchase...
News New Wii Channel for Japan - Print Your Photos!
Japan gets a new Wii channel out of the blue today - What seems to translate as the "Digital Camera Print Channel" allows you to insert the SD card of your digital camera and select photos to print out!
From what we can make out from the Japanese press release (Or the badly translated Babelfish version), there's three things you can order:...
News ESRB Update: Sonic the Hedgehog on Master System
If you've been keeping up with the news you might remember that "Sonic the Hedgehog" was recently added to the OFLC listings a second time. We speculated that this could be the Master System version of the game, but now the ESRB has confirmed that that is indeed the case.
The ESRB has been quite specific, calling the game "Sonic the...
News USA VC Update: Super Fantasy Zone and Gley Lancer
If you're desperately hoping for another TurboGrafx-16 game to be released soon, you might've noticed that Hudson's site listed Star Parodier and Break In to be released today. Sadly this is not the case, as in a strange twist of fate two different games have been released instead. Both of them are shooters, both of them are on the Genesis, both of them are imports, and both of them were already released in Europe quite a while ago.
Super Fantasy Zone is the last game in the Fantasy Zone series. It is quite...
Review Pirates: The Key of Dreams (WiiWare)
Is this pirate based game worth your pieces of eight or should it walk the plank?
Pirates: The Key of Dreams was originally meant to be released as one of the launch titles in Europe. For whatever reason, this failed to happen, but two months it has finally come out and perhaps lost some of its thunder. Interestingly it is a prequel to an upcoming...
News EU WiiWare Update: Pirates and SPOGS Racing
It's WiiWare week for Europe again, and this time there are once again two new games available. Although you might as well say it's just one, as one of them was already released in the US and was found to be rather shockingly bad.
The "new" game of the bunch is Pirates: The Key of Dreams, in which you can play as a pirate, sailing the...
News Pilot the Vic Viper Once More in Gradius Rebirth
WiiWare, much like Virtual Console, is turning into a heaven for shoot 'em up fans. Konami today announced that it's going to resurrect the Gradius franchise on the service with Gradius Rebirth (A fitting name)!
Last seen in 2004 on the PlayStation 2, Gradius really needs no introduction to most gamers, as it's one of the most popular shoot 'em up...
News US VC Releases - 14th July - Donkey Kong 3
Some people seemed to think that Nintendo would release a big-name title this week on the Virtual Console because of E3 (We ask: Why?). While you are getting a "big-name" title, it's probably not one of the ones you were hoping for.
Donkey Kong 3 is the final entry in the Donkey Kong arcade series, and if you ask us, also the weakest. The...
News EU VC Releases - 11th July - Neo Geo Duo
If you were expecting five games spanning a variety of systems today you're unfortunately out of luck. Nintendo has decided to instead give us only two games (Basically meaning we waited two weeks to get just two games), and they're both on the Neo Geo. Just like 2 and 4 weeks ago, there's no new WiiWare games.
Ninja Commando, not to be confused...
News Defend Your Castle On Its Way To Europe Soon
Defend Your Castle has been out for a while in North America, since the launch of WiiWare, in fact! The game, which is based on the popular online flash game of the same name, is the cheapest WiiWare game, though that doesn't mean it's bad - On the contrary, it's actually rather addictive as our Defend Your Castle review testifies.
Obviously some...
News Four More Virtual Console Games for South Korea
There still seems to be no real pattern to South Korea's Virtual Console releases. Upcoming games are added to Nintendo of South Korea's VC page occassionally but the actual release dates aren't really consistent.
That said, on the 25th of June, South Korea got F-Zero and Star Fox 64. Next week, on the 15th of July, Koreans can look forward to Super...
News US VC Release - 7th July - King of the Monsters
The pattern which was seemingly established the past weeks has already been broken - The US only gets one new VC game this week again.
King of the Monsters is a wrestling game for the Neo Geo in which you control giant monsters (Obviously inspired by King Kong and such) as they battle to the death on top of cities. Unlike most fighting games you can...
News EU WiiWare Update: My Pokémon Ranch and Pop
Continuing the trend of alternating VC and WiiWare weeks, this week, there are two new WiiWare games available in Europe.
Undoubtedly, My Pokémon Ranch will get more attention than the other title today. However, we wonder if this is fair at all, because in our opinion Ranch is rather disappointing. If you're an avid Pokémon player you will...
News Mega Man 9 Screenshot Blowout
As the news of Mega Man 9 has now hit the streets, Capcom has seen fit to supply gaming sites with the same images they gave to the various magazines that reported on the game. While this means there aren't new screens, it does mean you can now view them at a larger size, and devoid of lighting problems due to whatever device people scanned the magazines with.
The screens have been added to the Mega Man 9 game page. According to an interview Ga...
News More Mega Man 9 WiiWare News In The Latest Famitsu
Some people were still a bit unsure about Mega Man 9's existence, despite having seen the Nintendo Power having screenshots. If you were one of those people who still had doubt, you can drop it all now - The latest issue of Japanese magazine Famitsu features a section about Mega Man 9 as well.
The game's Japanese title appears to be Rockman 9:...
News Maboshi: The Three Shape Arcade - WiiWare OFLC rated
A strange new OFLC rating popped up today - Maboshi: The Three Shape Arcade was no title we had ever heard of before! However, doing some searching, we came to the conclusion that this had to be the WiiWare title Katachi no Game: Maru Bou Shikaku (Game of Shapes: Ball, Stick, Square), which was announced for Japan a few months ago but has not been released so far.
We're still not quite sure what the game is about - It seems like some sort of puzzle/action game, and judging from the Japanese title, it heavily involves the shapes of balls, sticks and squares. At least now we know it's coming to Europe an...
News Sonic on the Master System coming to Virtual Console?
If you don't know much about Sega and checked out the OFLC earlier today, you might have scratched your head wondering why Sonic the Hedgehog was rated again, after all, the Mega Drive version is already out on Virtual Console.
The interesting thing you might not know, however, is that there are three other games which are all also called Sonic the...
News US VC Release - 30th June - Fatal Fury 2
While Europe seems to be alternating five and zero Virtual Console game weeks, the US seems to have a pattern as well now. That pattern seems to be two VC games one week, then one the next, two after that, etc.
As last week the US got two games, that means this week there's just one. It's Fatal Fury 2 for the Neo Geo. The Fatal Fury series is rather...
News Drake's Ratings Roundup - June 2008
As we don't usually create a news article for each new game that gets a rating, we thought it would be a good idea to do a monthly roundup listing each game rated by every ratings board to keep you up to date.
Here is a quick explanation of the different rating boards which we track: ESRB rated: The ESRB stands for Entertainment Software Rating...
News Japanese Virtual Console list - July 2008
As it's the last Friday of the month once again, Nintendo of Japan has revealed their Virtual Console plans for the next month. There are some notable games here, including (finally) Donkey Kong 3, the first Space Harrier, another Fire Emblem, and Shining Force II.
The full list is as follows: Famicom: Dig Dug (July 1st) Chack'n Pop Donkey Kong...
News Hudson's Adventure Island Could Be Revived On WiiWare
It seems that Hudson is in the early stages of creating a new Adventure Island game. Takahashi Meijin, who you might know as the real-life Master Higgins, said in a recent interview that the game would probably be for WiiWare, and will most likely not use forced motion control, as that would take away from the game's simple gameplay.
As it has been...
News EU VC Releases - 27th June - Super Fantasy Zone
After this week, it is rather safe to assume that Nintendo of Europe is indeed following a pattern. There's 5 new VC games to pick from, and like two weeks ago, no WiiWare games.
The top pick might be argued about, but if you ask us, it's Super Fantasy Zone for the Mega Drive. The game plays pretty much exactly the same as the original Fantasy Zone...
