Dazza

@Tsuchinoko The ironic thing is that Sean is an American. Perhaps he's lived here in the UK for too long now?

Nice work James, was a fine listen as always.

This looks like just my cup of tea, consider me sold!

Thanks for the speedy review Jon

Wow what a week! Something for everyone surely?

MAARRRRCCCHHHHHH!!!1

@Prosody wash your mouth out with soap and water young man!

Nice preview Damo. What a lovely bit of kit.

@Starwolf_UK - This review was proofed by James this morning. Myself and Damien looked at it before it was published too. We're happy with what Spencer wrote and think that the low score is justified. The review speaks clearly for itself. We didn't feel that it read like a rambling rant when we read it.

If you don't agree with Spencer, that's fine. Like he said it's just his opinion. IGN seem to agree!

I did download the VC version, there aren't any differences from the original. It never had licensed characters like Revenge of Shinobi so that's not the issue.

The German rating boards may have had issues with the perceived violence in a ninja game. That's all I can think of really.

@outrun2sp - I think I would agree with your ordering there. Shinobi 3 is my favourite because it's so fast paced, but Shadow Dancer is a lot better for quick pick up and play.

Revenge is probably the most creative, but I don't think the controls to be as fluent. At the end of the day all the games are great and worth a look in my opinion. They don't make em like this anymore!

Finally, Shadow Dancer! About bloody time

@Odnetnin Ah yes, indeed I did. Funnily enough that is the only DSiWare review I have done. Maybe that's why I like it so much. Precipice is the US title, it's the same game

@Odnetnin I haven't had a chance to listen yet... what did Jimmy say about moi?

Well it can't be any worse than the official Mario Bros. movie can it? LOL

I've really been enjoying this, it's a great bargain for just 500 points. The concept of just pressing one button at the correct time is extremely simple, but the game's humour just cracks me up. It encourages you to hit the sweet spot just to see all the funny stuff.

Great review as always Sean, you totally nailed this one

@theblackdragon @tokengirl Haha don't you guys know that the screenshots are generated randomly?

I expect you're talking about love dog?

This looks like a good purchase if you're in the market for a pet sim (which I'm not!). I expect Gameloft will be doing a few more variations on this throughout the year.

Nice work on your first Nintendo Life review Rebecca. Very well written

Tomena Sanner looks great but I feel really shafted that we missed out on Castlevania Rebirth. There's really no excuse for not letting PAL gamers start out the new year with Super Mario Kart either arrggghhhh!

It's a shame that Belmont can't do the old whip tickle technique from CV4. That's my favourite way to defeat a troublesome skeleton!

Fang-tastic review Corbie! I shall be picking this up ASAP when our friend Belmont whips his way to Europe

@Gabbo - That's a good observation. I wonder what became of Collin. I never heard from him after his debut! Oh well, I'm glad that you and Corbie have stuck around for so long

Thanks for bringing all this chiptune goodness our way Mr Panda. As always, it was a fantastic listen!

Telltale just emailed me to say that they are getting far more requests than they imagined so they might need to pull this offer soon! Better get in there FAST!

As great as it is that Sega did a Shinobi parody, this just isn't all that much fun. Nice review Kelvin, spot on!

@Chunky Sean is the new Chicken Brutus

I demand that every American download Shinobi today!

I remember the looks I got at work when I imported Shikigami II on the cube... it came with a toy figure of a cat in the box. It did not help to convince my Xbox loving work colleagues that the cube wasn't a kiddies console! haha

Great game though, I will have to invest in this sometime soon. I love this sort of thing. Nice review Sean.

The title of the game is about the only good thing about this... totally outclassed by the likes of Final Fight and Streets of Rage sadly. Great review Corbie!

Wow this is a bit of a turn-up for the books! Well done JV Games, so long as your next game isn't WD-40: The Revenge then all is forgiven

Great work Jonny boy, this is a mighty fine listen indeed. I can't wait for your next episode

I wonder what the Kotaku comments board will have to say about this? In their Frankenreview many readers thought Nlife was a soft touch

What great news to wake up to, it's great that the mighty Nintendo finally saw sense and are putting this up on VC, even if it is 3 years late!

Great review Corbie, it looks like you really got a kick out of this!

For my part I was a little worried that the single player game would be a little sparse given the emphasis on multi-player this time. I'm glad to hear that this is not the case. Good old Nintendo, I should have known they would not let me down

Just 9000, that's insane! No wonder most devs play it safe with endless low budget party games on the Wii

@Sean We'd have asked Corbie to do this, but as the homepage feed shows - he has been very busy!!

Nice review, I think I'll pick this up when it hits Euroland

Wow that was the best one yet, I enjoyed it from start to finish. A really nice mix of staff contributions and developer interviews. Lovely stuff

Great review Corbinator! I used to love this in the arcades. I fondly remember the two punch bags which determined the power of your punches and kicks.

I agree however, this game does not stand the test of time. It's just painful to play now. Still it's a great slice of gaming history, the first time we met Ryu, Ken and Sagat!

The muffled speech is legendary too!

Considering all the crap on the shelves in the Wii section at GAME you would think this would sit proudly in the top spot for a few weeks. I guess this tells us a lot about the average Wii consumer on the street. Blah

This looks insane, it's a day one purchase from me - along with Muscle March of course. WiiWare keeps delivering the surprises eh?

Nice first impressions James, I have to say this does sound lovely. I can't wait to get my hands on it now.

Preorder GET!

Now if only we could get a schedule for downloadable games!

Releasing this info before Xmas is madness. What are Nintendo thinking?

I'd much rather a brand new handheld from Ninty now. Not another DS reboot. Where's my portable Gamecube with analog nub and widescreen?

Pit Fighter yay! Get the power pill

This is the sort of thing I always hoped Nintendo would treat us to on WiiWare. Brilliant news, I've always been a big fan of the original game.

I am pretty excited about this game. Bonk has always been my favourite Hudson franchise so I hope this does the series justice. I am not convinced by the graphical style yet, but I am sure that will change when I see the game in motion. The gameplay tweaks sound cool.

Great interview Corbs

@chunky_droid I do apoligise, the Glitter joke was in poor taste haha

@deggs It's hard to compare this game with the Mega Drive Shinobi games really. They were designed for the home gaming market, they are easier, have energy bars, take much longer to complete, not really focussed on high-scores. More platforming action too.

So both this and Revenge are great, but in their own ways. Which is better really depends on your preference.

@pixelman You can put in as many virtual coins as you like to buy 'continues' so you don't have to start the game from scratch again when you lose all your lives.

It still doesn't make the game a pushover though, because when you die you go back to the start of the level, you don't respawn!

What a great Nintendo Life debut, I tried out the 360 demo of this and enjoyed it. After reading your review I think I will probably pick up the Wii version when the price drops a bit. Looks like a winner.

Yay Shinobi VCA finally! Watch out for Dazza's review coming up this weekend

Oh yus, this is brilliant news. Since reading Sean's preview I have been hankering to play this slice of Japanese madness!

Code Monkeys are from Dewsbury, my old stomping ground. As such I wish them every success with this endeavour.

I love the history page on their website. These guys have been around for a long, long time!

Great write-up James. I'll look forward to checking this one out!

Great review Corbie, I am glad to see that this game lived up to expectations. I am a big fan of the NES original, who could have asked for a better tribute than this?

I just live the graphical style, it's so lush. I haven't bought a lot of Wii games lately but this will surely be on my preorder list.

Bumped for the Thursday night visitors!