Review NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits (WiiWare)
Will you be a kindred spirit with NyxQuest or a mortal enemy?
News Miyamoto Borking Super Mario Galaxy 2's Story
Doesn't want it to weigh down the game's fun feeling.
News - 2009, Week 25
Sunday21st Jun 2009
Review Grand Slam Tennis (Wii)
It's got the courts, it's got the players and it's got MotionPlus support. Does Grand Slam Tennis provide the definitive Wii tennis experience?
It's here, people. After months of feverish anticipation, Wii MotionPlus is upon us. Finally, Wii owners the world over will have access to the kind of precise, fluid and nuanced motion controls that...
News Monster Hunter 3 Gets Seriously... Cute?!
Claymation shows softer side of lethal Wyverns
It may be one of the most anticipated hardcore releases for Wii this year, but Monster Hunter 3 (Tri~) isn't afraid to show its sillier side, with the latest video from Capcom introducing would-be Hunters to their new best friend - Chacha (yes, really.) The short claymation video shows the little...
Competitions Follow nintendolife on Twitter
Tell us a joke and be in for a chance to win 2000 Nintendo points.
Here’s an easy competition for all you crazy kids who are down with Twitter. Simply follow nintendolife and tweet us with a funny joke using no more than 140 characters. The tweet which makes us chuckle the most will win the prize – it couldn’t be simpler! We promise to follow...
News First PAL Screenshots of LIT
Check out the new and improved PAL version of LIT.
With the upcoming European release of WayForward's WiiWare title LIT, we thought it might be time to show off a few of the PAL exclusive screenshots of the game - two in particular that show off one of the main changes fans of the game have been clamoring for since the US release. As you can see in...
Saturday20th Jun 2009
Review NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits (WiiWare)
Will you be a kindred spirit with NyxQuest or a mortal enemy?
WiiWare has introduced us to a lot of talented developers who seem to have sprung out of nowhere. Think of the likes of Gaijin Games with their Bit.Trip series, Ronimo Games with Swords & Soldiers, and of course 2D Boy with the sublime World of Goo. From the moment that NyxQuest:...
Friday19th Jun 2009
Review Princess Maker - Legend of Another World (Super Nintendo)
Overall, a pretty regal experience.
The Princess Maker series by Akai/Gainax isn't all that well known in the West – which is hardly surprising. Besides one failed translation project by SoftEgg in 1993, the franchise has never reached Western shores, and while the game may be considered by some as catering to a niche market, it is in fact a...
Bplus talk about their upcoming WiiWare retrorama!
We've recently seen quite a bit of new information being released regarding Bplus' upcoming WiiWare release Bit Boy!!, but there were still a lot of unanswered questions floating around that needed some answers. We recently caught up with Bernd Geiblinger, Art Director at Bplus, and he was kind...
News Reggie Wants Your Dream Nintendo Franchise/Developer Pairings
Quick, spam Nintendo with F-Zero requests!
So that Team Ninja/Metroid unveil at E3 was a huge surprise, right? Nintendo hasn't been too shy about letting other developers take on their classic franchises in recent years, with Capcom getting a couple cracks at portable Zelda, Namco doing Star Fox and SEGA cooking up F-Zero, not to mention the rumored...
News Drawn to Life Brushes Onto Wii
Can we expect a Wii Palette accessory?
The original Drawn to Life games were developed by DS mainstays 5th Cell, and although they're currently busy devouring the whole world's written texts, that doesn't mean the series is going to be erased. Publishers THQ have recently unveiled a sequel, handled by Planet Moon, is heading to the Wii and DS before...
News Flipper Coming to DSiWare
GoodbyeGalaxyGames announce their destructive DSiWare title.
We've just received word that GoodbyeGalaxyGames are bringing their Flipper title to Nintendo's DSiWare service. The game is built around destruction, and as you can see from the screenshots below, the game has a very old-school, pixelated look to it. You can check out the official press...
Nintendo Download 23-24 June 2009 (Japan)
A feast of DSiWare titles to end the drought, an anticipated WiiWare title from Hudson and *two* arcade classics next week!
Well, after weeks without a new DSiWare release in Japan the storm gates have been opened and next Wednesday is serving up a bumper crop of titles for the portable download service. Chuugakku Kihon Hana Tango Word Puzzle...
News Factor 5 Being Sued By Ex-Employees
Lawsuit reveals a Rogue Squadron Wii game was in the works.
A few months back San-Rafael-based Factor 5 (the studio behind the popular Star Wars: Rogue Squadron series) was declared bankrupt with between $1 million to $10 million in unpaid debts. In addition to this, the company was also faced with 69 claims for unpaid wages totaling more than...
Feature Frontier Boss: Wii Reviewers Are The Problem
Says writers are appealing to their own audience, not a game's intended crowd.
The issue of review scores for casual games rumbles on. David Braben, head honcho of Frontier Developments, the folks behind the critically acclaimed WiiWare title Lost Winds, doesn't find it wise to discount Metacritic scores for Wii, unlike a certain Mr. Moore recently...
News BioWare Interested In Wii Development
CEO finds the prospect "intriguing."
With an install base of 50 million people world-wise, the Wii has become an increasingly difficult market for developers to ignore. Elder Scrolls and Fallout 3 devs Bethesda Softworks recently declared their interest in a game for Ninty's machine, and now another big dev is eyeing the potential money train...
Thursday18th Jun 2009
Review Virtua Tennis 2009 (Wii)
The new world number one
The first question you might ask when playing Virtua Tennis 2009 is “why has it taken so long to make a great tennis game on Wii?”. Ever since we saw the first videos all those years ago it seemed the console was destined to become better than the real thing when it comes to sports, yet it’s taken years for anyone to...
News Harold Ramis Glad He Turned Down Mario Movie
Ghostbusters star almost ruined his career with unwanted live-action film
Hollywood writer-director (and sometimes actor) Harold Ramis has enjoyed a particularly successful career; not only did he land the role of paranormal investigator Dr. Egon Spengler in the hit '80s flick Ghostbusters (which he also co-wrote), he has directed such classics as...
News Phazon Suit Samus Figurine Lights Up Your Life
Hand-painted figurines getting a limited run.
Looking for what is possibly the coolest Metroid nightlight ever forged by the hands of man? First 4 Figures would like your attention for a moment. Pulling inspiration from the latter act of Metroid Prime, the elaborate figurine company's latest concoction is a hand-painted Phazon Suit Samus, standing...
News Official Nostalgia Trailer Released
Ignition Entertainment shows off their epic air-based RPG for Nintendo DS.
Ignition Entertainment has just sent us the first official gameplay trailer for their upcoming air-based RPG Nostalgia coming to Nintendo DS this fall. The trailer shows the game and its main characters in action and shows off some of the game's amazing air-to-air battles...
Nintendo Download Icarian, Let's Catch and Brain Training (EU)
One anticipated title is accompanied by two... not so anticipated ones.
This week finally sees the release of much-hyped title Icarian: Kindred Spirits. It's accompanied by a not-so-great second WiiWare game, and a solitary DSiWare release. That's right - Virtual Console misses out again! Icarian: Kindred Spirits has been hotly anticipated for quite...
News Little King's Story's Inspirations Revealed
Game designer speaks of Animal Crossing and lots of drinking
We're huge fans of Little King's Story here at NintendoLife, partly because of its phenomenally addictive gameplay but also its bizarre vision of the world and the citizens and enemies that inhabit it. When the game's designer Yoshiro Kimura spoke to N-Sider recently about his inspiration...
Wednesday17th Jun 2009
Review Mario Calculator (DSiWare)
Even with the Mario theme, this calculator application still doesn't add up.
First there was the Animal Crossing Calculator and now Nintendo brings us the Mario Calculator for fans of the famous Italian plumber. While the functionality of the actual application is basically identical to that of the Animal Crossing Calculator (well duh, it's a...
News Nintendo Crafts Extravaganza!
Necklaces, keyrings, dolls, Lego and... wine charms?!
Let's face it - over the years, Mario has been pretty well merchandised. Chances are if you can buy it, you can buy it with Mario's grinning face on it. Even so, there's a booming trade developing of unique, hand-crafted Nintendo items available online that span all kinds of items you'd never...
News Top 20 DSiWare Games in USA (17th June)
It's Wednesday and time for our DSiWare Top 20!
It's time to take a look at the most popular DSiWare titles available on the DSi Shop. If you're feeling adventurous you can even take a look for yourself by simply logging on to the DSi Shop, heading into the DSiWare section and then viewing by "Popular Games". It's that easy! We compile...
News UK Games Rating System To Get Simpler
PEGI to become the standard in Great Britain
For those of you unlucky enough to live outside of these sceptered isles, you may be confused by the two game classifications systems currently in place. Well, you can count your lucky stars, as the British Government has announced that PEGI - that's Pan-European Game Information, folks - is to become the...
Industry bigwigs all agree: review scores are immaterial on Wii
The Wii's well into its life cycle now, but it seems some people in the industry are still cottoning onto what makes a Wii game sell like there's no tomorrow - the magic word of "marketing". Speaking to Eurogamer recently, one undisclosed "high profile member of an...
News Top 20 WiiWare Games in USA (17th June)
It's Wednesday again and time for the WiiWare Top 20!
It's time to take a look at the most popular WiiWare titles available on the Wii Shop Channel. If you're feeling adventurous you can even take a look for yourself by simply logging on to your Wii Shop Channel, heading into the WiiWare section and then viewing "Popular Games". It's that...
News GameCenter CX To Hold 24-Hour Gaming Marathon
Show taking fan requests.
Shinya Arino, star of Japanese TV show GameCenter CX (which served as the source material for the stellar Retro Game Challenge), is no stranger to long and torturous gaming sessions. Good thing then, because he's got another one coming up! A really long one. According to the show's official blog (via Kotaku
News 5 Spots Party Coming to WiiWare
Spot the difference in this WiiWare puzzler.
Cosmonaut Games has just announced that they are bringing a game called 5 Spots Party to Nintendo's WiiWare service. The basic premise of the game is spotting differences between various photos. You've likely seen these challenges in various magazines over the years, but this time the game can even be...
News Conduit Release Date Slips in EU
Expected 10 July.
The Conduit, everyone's favourite fantastic-looking first-person shooter featuring the All-Seeing Eye, was due to be released next Friday, completing a triumvirate of top Sega titles within the next ten days with Virtua Tennis 2009, Let's Tap, but sadly it's just been pushed back until Friday, July 10th. Apparently the delay is due...
News Mario Moves Into The Storage Business
Koopa, Goomba and Super Mushroom want to help out.
Even though everybody complains about the price of plumbers these days, Mario obviously isn't raking enough in from the old pipes and taps, so he's expanding into storage - USB storage, to be precise. Talented etsy.com member sgedra has recently put together these super-cool and very charming Mario...
News Marvelous Sad Over Poor Sales
Overseas price cuts hitting Japanese publisher hard; company "feels like crying."
Fact: The world economy is in dire straits. Do you have any money? I don't have any money. Marvelous Entertainment, publishers of the upcoming Little King's Story and Muramasa: The Demon Blade as well as the Harvest Moon series, No More Heroes and Rune Factory...
News Scribblenauts Required Dedicated "Reading Team"
Five guys spent six months doing nothing but reading.
Those vaunted 10,000 conjurable in-game items in Scribblenauts had to come from somewhere, but we had always assumed they came from the fevered minds of the development team, bouncing ideas off each other and being all "creative". As it turns out, the truth is far less interesting...
Tuesday16th Jun 2009
News Luigi WAS in Super Mario 64
For a bit.
Shigeru Miyamoto's been harping on about a multiplayer Mario for ages, but in a recent interview with Wired.com he revealed there was planned to be two-player support for Super Mario 64, but that it was scrapped. Miyamoto: With Mario 64, we had an experiment that took advantage of the idea of the screen growing larger and smaller...
A waste of time
We've already seen Animal Crossing Clock released on the DSiWare service, so a Mario Clock was a foregone conclusion. Not much has changed really; Nintendo has basically taken the very same clock functions available in the Animal Crossing Clock application and tossed in a Super Mario Bros. theme over the whole thing. While the entire...
Feature Tending and Feeding Your Japanese Wii
If you're considering getting a Japanese Wii, here's some tips and suggestions on getting the most out of it.
Ever since the Japanese took over the home video game console market in the mid-80s there's been a major gulf between game releases in the consoles' country of origin and nations importing them, either because Japanese publishers lacked...
Let's not...
When Prope revealed Let's Tap to the world everyone though it would be yet another gimmicky Wii motion-based mini-game collection -- which it was, although a pretty good one. After that turned out surprisingly well, expectations of Let's Catch were a bit mixed: playing catch on your Wii sounds a bit goofy, but could it be a hidden gem...
Review Eduardo the Samurai Toaster (WiiWare)
Let there be toast!
One of the benefits of digital media distribution is the chance developers get to stretch their limbs and explore some creative paths often overlooked or avoided. Step in Eduardo The Samurai Toaster, a game with a concept very much out of the ordinary. It’s in good company though, as Wiiware has certainly had its share of...
Review Galactic Pinball (Virtual Boy)
That Virtual kid sure plays a mean pinball!
Launch the ball on to the table and use flippers to stop it falling out of the playing area, smacking it around the table over ramps and against targets to get points. That’s how pinball works in amusement arcades and it’s how it’s worked for the many computer and video game versions released over...
News Is Super Monkey Ball about to step onto your Balance Board?
New trademark application in the US suggests so.
There are some combinations in the world that just seem natural: fish and chips, ham and eggs, plumbers and magical kingdoms. Chief amongst all these blessed unions is that of monkeys and balls, but even that holiest of pairings could get even better if the newly-uncovered trademark application for...
News Japan Gets Wii Movie Rental Service
Stream Tom Cruise into your living room.
Video services are breaking through on consoles in the West: Netflix is up and running on Xbox 360 in the US, with SkyTV coming soon for the UK, and Sony has their own iTunes-like video store. Nintendo? Not so much over here, but in the company's homeland it's a totally different story. In addition to the...
News Dragon Master Gameplay Video
Check out the upcoming dragon-flying WiiWare title in action!
You might remember that we recently did an in-depth news story on Dragon Master Spell Caster and now the developers have been kind enough to send us over a video showing the game in action. As you can see from the video, there seems to be a bit of a Panzer Dragoon influence at times,...
News Chronos Twins DX Coming to WiiWare
EnjoyUp announces their brand new WiiWare title.
From the makers of Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ, comes a brand new WiiWare title called Chronos Twins DX. You might remember a European release of Chronos Twins on the Nintendo DS back in 2007. How exactly this game ties in, we're not quite sure of yet. While we have very little information on...
News Miyamoto: You Need A Controller For True Immersion
Mario's dad isn't sure Project Natal is a step forward
Microsoft is pretty smug with itself right now. Project Natal has gone down a storm at E3 and the company clearly sees it as the 'next step' in motion control; holding controllers in your hand is so last year, dude. However, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto isn't so sure and insists that for true...
Monday15th Jun 2009
News Miyamoto Borking Super Mario Galaxy 2's Story
Doesn't want it to weigh down the game's fun feeling.
Traditionally, the core Mario games have never been heavy on story. The Princess gets herself into Bowser's clutches somehow, collect stars, yada yada yada. It's a classic formula, and one that series creator Shigeru Miyamoto finds to be good enough to get the game going. During E3, Wired caught...
Nintendo Download Toasters, Rainbows, Catching, Calculators, Clocks and Harriers (US)
A whopping six games this week.
WiiWare seems to be the main focus this week, with a whole three new games for it. DSiWare gets two more non-games, while VC has to do with just one game. On WiiWare, you can get Eduardo the Samurai Toaster, from Semnat Studios. This promising game was first announced at the start of the year and looks to be quite...
News Aliens: Colonial Marines For DS: Not 'Game Over' After All
Work is continuing, according to Gearbox's Randy Pitchford
A short while ago, we reported that a trailer for what appeared to be an DS-based Aliens game had been leaked onto the net, and that developer WayForward was involved. The video was posted on YouTube with text suggesting that the game itself had been canned due to financial difficulties. The...
News Wii Treatment for Parkinson's Trialled
The health benefits of games like Wii Fit have been the topic for debate, but use in physical therapy looks more and more viable.
A researcher at the Medical College of Georgia in the United States has recently released initial results of trials using Wii Sports in physical therapy sessions with sufferers of Parkinson's disease (a degenerative...
News Molyneux: Nintendo Made Rare Too Secretive
Lionhead boss intends to give the UK developer an "identity"
Lionhead boss and newly appointed creative director of Microsoft Europe Peter Molyneux has been speaking exclusively to Gamesindustry.biz about his role in assisting Microsoft's internal development teams - with Rare being one of them. Molyneux - who founded legendary UK software house...
News Icarian: Kindred Spirits flies onto WiiWare this Friday
If you live in Europe of course!
The good people at Over The Top Games have informed us that their WiiWare debut, Icarian: Kindred Spirits will be released on Friday, 19th June in Europe. It’s only fair that we get it first as the developer is Spanish, of course. The game will cost 1000 Nintendo points, but from what we have seen and heard it...
News New Wii Zelda May Require MotionPlus To Function
So says Miyamoto
Nintendo game design legend Shigeru Miyamoto has revealed that the new Wii Zelda - which was announced at this year's E3 - is being built with the intention of exploiting the newly-released Wii MotionPlus accessory. For those of you that don't know, MotionPlus bolts onto the base of the Wii Remote and offers a more accurate...
