If you're a Wii owner looking for a relaxing experience, this week's download is enough to send you into nirvana, with massages and fish-staring ahoy. DSi owners receive some rather more cerebral offerings, with chess, puzzles, music and even a learning game. No Virtual Console title this week, sadly – the wait for Ufouria: The Saga and Aero the Acrobat 2, among others, continues.
WiiWare
My Aquarium 2 (500pts, Hudson) – Fresh from our revelation of the official website earlier, My Aquarium 2 emerges from the briny depths of Nintendo's WiiWare approval system to bring yet more aquatic action to the Wii. With brand new species and features, as well as the ability to transfer certain fish from its predecessor, My Aquarium 2 will no doubt float to the top of the WiiWare sales charts in no time. We'll have a full review soon, but in the meantime, check out our My Aquarium review to see if this kind of thing is worth raiding your treasure chest for.
Enjoy Your Massage! (500pts, Microforum) – You thought WiiWare couldn't get any juicier after Sexy Poker, but here comes a parade of anime ladies ready to let you press squares on their backs in a pre-determined order. Our upcoming review will let you know if this is worth your points or just a load of shiatsu.
DSiWare
TURN: The Lost Artifact (800pts, Creative Patterns) – A puzzle game that asks you to rotate the room to solve a series of mindbenders, we'll see if this is intriguing enough to enter the DSiWare puzzle pantheon in our upcoming review.
Absolute Chess (200pts, Tasuke) – Following the release of its disappointing Absolute Brickbuster, Tasuke is taking on another much-loved pastime: chess. With a challenge mode, learning aids including showing available moves and DS Download Play, read our upcoming review to see if this is checkmate or a rooking disaster.
Did It Myself ABC123 (200pts, Powerhead Games) – The last thing most people expected from the creators of Glow Artisan was a release aimed at pre-school children, but that's exactly what this is. Full of the things that kids love – apart from screaming and soiling themselves – this could be a worthwhile buy for DSi-owning 2-year olds or their parents. Find out in our review later this week.
Rhythm Core Alpha (500pts, SoftEgg Enterprises) – A live music performance tool, Rhythm Core Alpha may not be the most beautiful-looking DSiWare title (no, really) but hopefully it'll deliver in the sonic department. You'll know for sure later on this week.
Here's the press release for your digestion and subsequent comments:
NINTENDO DOWNLOAD: NEW GAME DOWNLOADS TAKE PLAYERS UNDER THE SEA AND OVER THE TOP
Aug. 9, 2010
As always, Monday is an especially fun day for Wii™ and Nintendo DSi™ owners, kicking off the week with a wide variety of new downloadable games. On the WiiWare™ service, My Aquarium 2 offers a fresh selection of virtual deep-sea creatures to arrange and admire. Also, things are a bit topsy-turvy on the Nintendo DSiWare™ service as TURN: The Lost Artifact invites players to meddle with the forces of gravity in fascinating ways. A total of six new games are now available for download, giving Nintendo fans easy access to yet another slew of extraordinary gaming experiences.
WiiWare
My Aquarium 2
Publisher: Hudson Entertainment
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 500 Wii Points™
Description: My Aquarium 2, the sequel to the hit WiiWare title My Aquarium, is here. This time, the theme is the mysterious deep sea. With a single Wii Remote™ controller, you can raise fascinating creatures of all shapes and sizes, including deep-sea fish and glowing jellyfish. As with the original My Aquarium, you can customize your aquarium, by choosing which fish to include and where to place various decorations. You can also choose from a variety of colored lights to illuminate your aquarium. In time, your fish might breed to give you a whole new school. Create your very own aquarium for endless hours of relaxing fun and entertainment. This sequel features a larger selection of fish and objects than the original. You can also link up to the Forecast Channel to have your aquarium's appearance reflect the actual weather, or send your aquariums to registered friends via WiiConnect24™. Additional content will be available for purchase at a later date. Dive in and see all the wonderful creatures of the deep blue sea!
Enjoy your massage!
Publisher: Microforum
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) - Mild Suggestive Themes
Price: 500 Wii Points
Description: Congratulations! You have just been hired as an apprentice masseur at Giselle's beauty farm, one of the most famous in the city. Learn new relaxing massage combinations and use them on your stressed customers. As an apprentice, you'll have to do your best. If your client gets angry, no one will save you from losing your job, but if you prove capable, you might even become the director of the whole beauty farm. So, what are you waiting for? Six clients are waiting for your help!Nintendo DSiWare
TURN: The Lost Artifact
Publisher: Creative Patterns
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) - Mild Cartoon Violence
Price: 800 Nintendo DSi Points™
Description: TURN: The Lost Artifact is an adventure puzzler with fun, intuitive game play. Kurt and Camila are explorers on a mysterious journey to find a lost artifact. You guide them through rooms filled with various dangers, from enemies to rolling boulders. Your main power is the ability to rotate the rooms 90 degrees to the left or to the right. Mastering the law of gravity is essential to your success. Everything and everyone in the room is subjected to gravity and falls when you turn the room. Watch your head! Featuring three worlds with nine levels of about 10 rooms each, the game promises a whole lot of brain-twisting fun on your Nintendo DSi system.
Rhythm Core Alpha
Publisher: SoftEgg
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 500 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: Make music with your Nintendo DSi system! Rhythm Core Alpha is an advanced music creation system, designed for creating and performing live music in front of an audience. Rhythm Core Alpha makes it easy to build drum and instrument loops, and then allows you to play solos over them using the stylus. It automatically detects the key and scale of the music you have created and allows you to change chords at the press of a button. All notes in the solo match the selected key and scale, so you can never hit a wrong note. Rhythm Core Alpha also includes a powerful pattern mode that allows you to set up chord changes and arrange your sequenced parts, enabling you to build a whole song or make sections that you can play back as you desire. Hundreds of adjustable drum and instrument sounds are included. You can edit while the song is playing, so you really can build the song in front of an audience.Absolute Chess
Publisher: Tasuke
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: This easy-to-understand chess game explains everything from basic rules to aggressive strategies. There are two modes of play. In Free Play, you can play against a number of preset characters, ranging from a young kid to a grouchy old man. The Challenge mode gives players multiple levels and missions to complete. Player support features include a function to indicate possible moves for the player and the opponent, as well as the ability to undo your previous move. You can also enjoy matches with friends via DS Download Play.
Did It Myself ABC123
Publisher: Powerhead Games
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: EC (Early Childhood)
Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: Did It Myself ABC123 is packed with different activities to stimulate your young child's brain, including counting, colors, letters, drawing and music. The target age range is roughly 2 to 3, but kids aged 1 through 5 should be able to enjoy Did It Myself ABC123. There are options for parents to adjust the counting range, the amount of games to play in "shuffle" mode, and the overall game speed. "Slow" and "medium" are recommended for younger kids, while older kids may enjoy "fast" and "ridiculous."
Comments 65
Very meh... At least it's a smidge better than last week's terrible update.
Pfft.
The TURN game looks promising. After checking the internets, it is on the iTunes French marketplace and not available til now in the States. I will download it today and give it a good going over and post on the DSiware board my impressions.
TURN may be decent, but probably not worthy of 800 points.
another sucky update
ugh..... srsly, one word to make the entire dsiware thing worth it: SHANTAE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Looks pretty suckish for the US this week.
WiiWare keeps finding ways to be lame. Nobody wants to give a massage, they want to receive one so why would anyone want to play a game like that?
Meh again...
"Enjoy Your Massage!".....? WiiWare has hit a new low.
Could be worse. Could be "Enjoy Your Sexy Massage"...
Pathetic.....
... AND will you people stop creating Turk Chess Simulators.... Do we really want Skynet?
I think I'm going to be sick.
Wow! It looks like Chess is HOT this season.
@5: my words exactly
:cries:
Why do I bother checking every week? Perhaps being bored, but this is atrocious.
So now we have THREE aquarium games???
inb4mastergraveheartcomplainsofnoshantae
On topic: eh, the week could be worse. I don't think developers care much for wiiware anymore anyway. Time to bring out a new platform Nintendo.
My gosh..... this is how the shovelware developers are using WiiWare? As a savior from going full-retail to save some cash? Pathetic.
Of course, Europe gets all the VC goodies and we in NA are left in the dark.
Of course, counting the minutes until MasterGraveheart says a peep about Shantae.
@Slapshot
Bonus points for a Terminator reference!
Regarding the update, we've gotten one VC game out of the past 5 weeks? Sad.
Wiiware also sucks again, I see.
Nooooo! I gots'ta have my Aero the Acrobat 2!!!
WOW!!! What a totally useless week, again!!! Nice to know, that there is nothing to wait for here in EU, if even US is this bad...well at least we still have Cave Story coming, but after that, we are going to starve.
What is it with WiiWare and games with water in them!? And seriously, who in the right mind is going to download a game called Enjoy Your Massage!? Excuse me while I brush my teeth to get the bad taste out of my mouth....
Nothing for me this week.
Finally! A game that lets me recreate scenes from Finding Nemo! I probably won't get it, but that's the first thing I thought of.
Bring on all of the bad updates you want, Nintendo. the 23rd will remedy that... :3
Is Puzzle Agent ever coming out on WiiWare? I was hoping it'd be more timely than the Tales of Monkey Island games, but it seems to be even worse.
LOL @ all the hilarious comments above-- that's the only thing good about a bad release week
Beh on this weeks downloads, I was hoping for MyDiary sigh
Oh well... back to SMG2.
Relaxing, my ass! It's Wii updates like this that actually frustrate me more. Another aquarium simulator and a "massage" game? Come on!
@ the fox... hoping the right person sees that and gets inspired to get started on The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 3 Dumb wish i know lol.
I'm slightly interested in Absolute Chess. I've been wanting to learn how to play chess.
I don't care about this update. I was never looking FORWARD to this update. Nor am I looking forward to anything next week.
Rytmik comes out the week after that, and I have to say that there's nothing else I'm looking forward to at the moment.
So yeah, these terrible updates aren't bothering me so much.
I can't wait for the next chapter of Enjoy Your Massage. It's Called; "Enjoy Your Massage 2: Happy Endings"!
It's Dory and Nemo from Finding Nemo! That's the first thing that came to mind when I saw the screenshot.
And again, no Shantae... headdesk
Is Nintendo seriously trying to make enemies?
2 virtual console-free weeks in a row?
They're just asking for trouble.
@13 Only if there is a DSiWare Terminator game
@37 I hope when it releases its the worst game ever.
Fish and massages? Yup, it's definitely casual Monday alright.
@DAaaman64: Many of us would gladly take utter tripe instead of nothing at all at this point, myself included. One release in the past five weeks is simply pathetic no matter how you look at it.
Has Nintendo completely abandoned the Virtual Console?
All I see are sub-par Wiiware and DSIware releases.
Last thing I bought on VC was Wild Guns.
Nintendo still has a whole Library of N64 games to go through.
We could use some more Neo-Geo
Forget Neo Geo. N64, VCA and C64 support are way more pressing.
We get a massage and not a new VC game?!
@KnucklesSonic8 I shall not forget Neo Geo until Blazing Star hits VC
Cruse you Reggie!!!!!!!!
sigh...that's 4 weeks now. There's still some VC games I can get, but there's still some more I want on there...
Very meh week.
I agree this week has yet again nothing for me
@33: Ditto! Not sure I wanna spend my np's on it with Rytmik only 2 weeks out though.
@slapshot
RE: Sarah Connor ... we can dream my friend, we can dream. Damn that show rocked.
Weak update this week (heh), but i'm not surprised with it being the ending days of summer and Ninty being such that they think gamers actually go outside in the nice weather. =)
Another sad week.....
This Week in (random record stops)
wow, This week's update sucks
well that sequel seems too fishy
No VC?! Not again. And I was wanting Ufouria, too!
This is pathetic. The VC hardly gets updated anymore and every week it's useless game after useless game on WiiWare and DSiWare. Either actually put some effort into this or don't do anything at all. I don't follow the Japanese or European updates but I can't imagine their branches fail harder at this than NoA.
@the shpydar: Not only is that assumption insane, it's also completely irrelevent since the weather has been anything BUT nice this summer (in Maryland, anyway). I work outside now as it is...there's no WAY I'm wasting my recreational time out there, too!
@Gamer83: NOJ doesn't, I know that. NOE gets a weird mix that winds up kind of hard to directly compare to NOA, IMO.
I watched the TURN: The Lost Artifact info video on the Nintendo Channel, and it looks pretty darned good! Of course, I've always been a fan of physical-space-type puzzlers, having grown up with ThinkFun, formerly Binary Arts.
Still waiting for a review just to be sure, though.
man more OK games wheres the WOW kind of games
I don't think this massage game will have a happy ending
This is beautiful, just beautiful. Somebody should turn it into a painting. It'd be one big empty space titled "Nintendo's Promise".
I'm at the point now when I check the update expect to be disapointed. I am just about every week and am sick of this no VC crap. Nintendo you better start shaping up.
No VC.... No surprise, unfortunately
VC is dead. Time to dust off the old console and pull those ancient but oh so wonderful game carts out of the closet.
Oh, and this massage stuff...
Gimme a break: That's what girl/boy-friends, spouses, significant others, etc are for. Aslo giving/recieving a real massage is a whole lot more rewarding, too!
I'm really looking forward to downloading TURN.
Well now that we have a whole more week to wait for what might be a VC game...
Does anyone know if there's a good Wiiware game?
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