spizzamarozzi

I love the Ace Attorney serie but I'm not going to get SoJ now - I'm sure Capcom will put it on sale this Xmas (they always do). The most interesting thing seems to be Steel Empire for €9.99. Also, if the price is correct, Zombie Defence may be the week's bargain (regular price is €7.99 - for €2 it's not a bad deal).
As for the Sega Classics in 3D...I hope they'll come out with a retail compilation of those, so no buy.
So, probably nothing for me this week but I'll probably get a Teyon game before the sale expires...it depends what PSN offers this Wednesday.

I think there was some kind of race in the 90s to have your commercials tell as little as possible about the product you were selling. Anybody remembers the PSX ad by the guy who made Aphex Twin's music videos?! Man that girl had a weird...accent!!
And yet those commercials were really memorable in their own way they were. I don't think I remember any post-2000 commercial but the stuff from the 90s I remember pretty well. I can even remember the day Bonehead left Oasis. To me the 90s ended that day in October 1999.

@JHDK you reminded me of "It's Saturday night, I have no date, a 2 liter bottle of Shasta and my all-Rush mixtape". Cheers for the laffs.

@DiscoGentleman I lost my cool only halfway into the discussion, and at that point I was already told I was wrong on every level, I was told "I was the problem" and to "take a step back and do something else"; plus the thread, which took me a while to write, had been already locked, unlocked and moved to a less popular section for no reason.
Personally I found it very irritating.
I also found frustrating that people dissed the point as some sort of Nazi cersorship on inferior products while in actuality I just wanted NL to call out bad practices so people know what they are buying, like this article is doing.
I'm obviously not proud of the way I have acted in that single instance but come on, you can't really blame me.
Furthermore, the thread has been locked again because - I don't know, but it was. And that, once more, is really frustrating.

Earlier this week I started a thread suggesting NintendoLife to stop reviewing this kind of games UNLESS they started to provide proper critique, which includes pointing out bad practices (by no means "illegal" - just bad) and a bit of investigative journalism.
Of course most people thought it a Nazi idea from outer space and the topic was first locked, then re-opened and moved, then locked again simply because another user prompted the moderator to do so.
It's nice to see an article where at least the issue of working ethics is brought to people's attention.
Considering NintendoLife probably thought it was a worthwhile point to make, I wonder why people got so defensive of the status quo and why we weren't able to have a civilized conversation about it.

Sorry Liam, I know you're getting a lot of flank for your scores as of late, but awarding a 5 minute game a 4 is absolutely mental and an insult to all the games that at least try to offer the minimum amount of content.
Professionally, you shouldn't even be rating a 5 minute game. Or you should give it the lowest score available, so to discourage developers to release games in such state.
That you are giving it a 4 (in your scoring policy, "Poor" - just a step away from "Average") is unheard of.
I really don't want to diss anybody's work, not yours at least, but this eShop rating system madness has to stop somewhere before the readers get hopelessly confused as to what is worth their time and money.

ps. you can buy a 1.75L bottle of coke for £1.39 and it'll take you a lot more to finish it than to finish this game. This must be the first example of a videogame that has shorter longevity of supermarket food in the same price range.

@OorWullie or, ye wait for ages then one comes right when you light a Nibelsnarf.
Good week but just the Chain Blaster demo for me. I'm on a €20 a month budget this year and Sony has decided to give away a ton of old arcade games on PSN, so I already know where my money is going this September.
I'll probably get Axiom Verge as part of the Humble Bundle next year for 0,0002 thousandths of a zimbabwean cent.

It was great to see Super Mario, PacMan, Doraemon, Captain Tsubasa and Hello Kitty. At first I thought "WTF are they really putting videogames and cartoons in an Olympic promo?!" then I realized these characters are part of their culture and arguably the single thing they are most popular for abroad.
That's the same reasoning behind Armani designing Italy's tracksuits - it's something that the world knows us for, so we kinda have to show it off.
Regardless of videogames, the next Olympics are going to be brilliant. Japan is really investing in them and I'm sure they'll put on a great show. Yesterday's closing ceremony is going to be hard to beat though. They put on a carnival inside the Maracanà - everybody was dancing - athletes, volunteers, audience and Olympics committees. Unheard of. It was ace.

This website has become totally unreliable for eShop reviews.
Why don't you pack your bags and open an astrology website? These reviews are getting as accurate as the horoscope!
And there's zero senso of consistency in the scores - 5s are handed out to obnoxious two quid games and 5s and 6s are given to legitimately good titles...

The only negatives mentioned seem to be "lack of Pro Controller support" (hardly anything people care about unless coop is available) and "frustrating difficulty" , a parameter so subjective and so overused in reviews that the more I read it, the more it sounds an empty word...

Great week!! New indie games, including the very attractive Poncho, new VC titles and some discounts I haven't seen before (Oddworld is sooo tempting...).
For now, I'm going to get just The Fall...the Oddworld sale lasts for two full weeks, so there's time...let's see what's in the pipeline next Monday.
I wanted to get a Dreamcast game this month but they have become literally unapproachable with these stupid current prices, so I might get an eShop game instead.

@Phil_Kavadias As much as I think Nintendo's prices are moronic and they are nothing more than a collective of idiots who would do anything in order to get your money...if the prices of entertainment products were really based on man hours, the whole system would collaps overnight. GTA5 took 5 years of development but still was sold in stores for the same price as Dark Souls, which took one third of that time.

Videogames have a set price - man hours or budget are irrelevant. When the audience buys them, they agree with that set price.
Furthermore, Wii games are still available to buy in most stores - if Nintendo devalued their products by offering them for the same price of NES roms, people would go "Wait a second, I spent 20 quid six months ago for something that was worth a fiver?!"

If people stopped buying these overpriced .isos instead of acting like crack addicts, prices would drop in a heartbeat.

Very depressing week - the WiiU discounts are mostly for 4 year old games!!

he's a world-renowned athlete - he could probably afford to pay four grands upfront. But they probably won't event ask for money - this is good advertising...

It sounds like there's plenty of interesting concepts at work here, especially for a 3-quid game. "Buddy & Me: Dream Edition", a game that tries to do absolutely nothing and manages to do exactly that (nothing) was given a 5 too. I think you could have been more generous with the rating because it's rare to see an indie game using the GamePad so extensively. I know we don't reward people for "trying", but this game seems a million times better thought out than stuff like Splashy Duck, Peg Solitary, Avoider, Tabletop Gallery & in general all the trite crap that takes 2 days to make and scores a 5 on this website...

First NES Remix 1 and 2, then Teslagrad, Shovel Knight and now these. It's cool to have them in a physical edition but they are basically telling me NOT to buy popular downloadable games at launch because they'll eventually get released physically at some point.
Meh. What kind of strategies does this company utilizes, it's beyond me.

Next proper Metroid? NX. Project Cars? NX. Binding of Isaac Rebirth? NX. RIVE? NX.
If developers keep on relying on NX (a console of which nobody knows anything about yet) or throwing it in simply as an excuse not to release games on WiiU, the NX will be buried by the weigth of the expectations and, mathematically, disappoint,
I like Two Tribes and I thought RIVE was an exceptional game, but I'm not going to fork out €350+ for a new console - the last one I bought isn't even 4 years old yet...
It feels weird that some of you people are actually happy that games are being postponed to the new console...like one day you'll wake up and magically find the NX under the xmas tree without you having to spend a cent...I'm actually pissed of I'm "forced" to buy a new console...

I think I'm going to get Beatbuddy - it's the first time it's been on sale since it's release one year ago and it looks pretty good...

I think this game was delayed because when Nicalis stepped in it catched some bad bug. Something like, the bad videogame AIDS or something.

I think I can sum up this news in just one word: Nicalis.

I think this is a load of mashed potato honestly. The bundle was so successful because owners of Nintendo consoles hardly see huge discounts, ever. And if Nintendo is so awesome, why it is always other companies' games that have to be discounted?!

it's getting so annoying to see the RCMADIAX games and the bad EnjoyUp games being discounted every other week. What is the bloody point of releasing crap games and have them in perpetual discount?! Just cut the price permanently...
Ah yeah - I get it - if you discount them week after week, at least they show up in the dedicated "discount" page, while if you just cut the price, they get lost in a myriad of better games...

Well, "only one playable game" doesn't mean that they are going to show only one game - they are probably going to show a lot more - just not in playable form. But I feel they'll focus a lot on mobile and possibly 3DS. If this year is all about Zelda...what if they announce a new Zelda on 3DS with a companion mobile app?! That's a possibility. They are really milking this Zelda cow as of late. Wouldn't be surprised if 2 years from now we all get the zelda-nausea, like it happened with 2D Super Mario Bros recently.
Nintendo is known for producing aces from the sleeve in the darkest of times...I wouldn't be surprised if this year's E3 were a massive success.

I remember Spector blatantly lying during a gameplay demonstration of Epic Mickey. The host was playing the game and run into two NPCs and asked "Do we talk to them" and he goes "It's up to you, this game is based on choices like all my games etc etc" like he's some kind of aristotelian guru - turns out they weren't NPCs, they were just two terracotta statues.
Don't get me wrong, I like the guy but he's been around for 30 years and for half of that he's been basically repeating how great and how groundbreaking Deus EX was like a broken record. He sounds like those old musicians who keep referring back to that bunch of good songs they wrote in the 60s.

FAST Racing Neo and Life of Pixel for me. I have the feeling that if Shin'en puts up a demo - like they usually do - FRN might become the best selling post-launch eShop game. I certainly wish it does because it deserves it. Having the game coming out in different regions the same day will definitely improve the sales.

It's great news - a superpopular 3rd party game coming to WiiU. You people should be happy instead of complaining for the price or the timing or whatever. It certainly makes the WiiU more attractive to potential buyers.

This is one of those "instant buy" games, just to repay Shin'en of all the effort they seem to have put into making this game a special experience exclusive to WiiU. I'm sure it will sell well - the game looks spectacular and they did a good job advertising it anywhere they could.
I just hope the press will cooperate and understands this is not a cheap version of F-Zero just to pass the time waiting for Nintendo to make the real one, but a legitimate game with a ton of work behind it.

I think the Nintendo audience has proven, with games like Affordable Space Adventures and Shovel Knight, that the price doesn't really matter if a game is very good and if it's advertised well. I enjoyed Steamworld Dig but I would have payed more for more content. Heist sounds fairly priced for what it offers. I just wish it'll come out on WiiU soon.

Yes it's been a pretty sad 8th generation for Nintendo. Basically, almost every 3D Zelda has been remastered for a system or the other (I bet Skyward Sword is next at E3 2016), which is a bad sign, as in "Capcom bad".
The 3DS is pathetically relying on trite RPGs, variations of RPGs and Fire Emblems to survive, which is shocking considering its predecessor, the DS, was known for the incredible variety of unorthodox games and off-beat experiences, none of which was offered on 3DS.
Nintendo's best game this year so far was a tool to make levels for an old game. And the (hopefully) real game of the year, XCX, won't even be developed in-house!
The rest of WiiU games was hit and miss. Splatoon is cool, fine, but Captain Toad, Yoshi's Wolly World, Fatal Frame, Kirby, Mario Tennis...that's stuff Nintendo should do with their eyes closed, and while maybe decent games, they are certainly not worth the 40 to 60 bucks a piece (they are the kind of games that is a pleasure to buy for $10 a few years after the console dies, but they are absolutely not something you can really get excited for).
Nintendo's contribution to their own WiiU eShop has been almost non-existent, which just three games (I think) released in three years, but all three based, if not made of, on their old games.
I could understand that a lot of the resources have been moved to the NX and its games, but it looks to me like the company has shut off the engine and it's been flying with the auto-pilot.
This might be due to Iwata's illness and consequential lack of direction during the years 2013-2015, but I think it's more due to the fact that sales have been irreparably low for a few years now and Nintendo has found itself losing money in every department.
Luckly there have been indies. If it wasn't for indies, Nintendo would have been in a much deeper hole.

This might be for legal reasons aswell. It's never a good idea to use work from somebody you have just sacked if you can easily re-do it. The guy might sue you for...whatever reason, like using stuff without permission.

@Balki I'm not saying Affordable Space Adventures isn't worth the 20 bucks. I'm saying I can't afford it at the moment. If I had a better job, no house taxes and no car insurance, I would have bought it already.

We've entered a new age of lunaticism: people criticizing other people because they don't spend enough on games.

I'll probably go for Affordable Space Adventures, although the price is still steep for a game at a discount. It's not a bad week but I'm sure getting tired of these 20% and 25% discounts, especially when on PSN you usually see 50% to 80%.
Roving Rogue, I would have bought for half its price, but at just €2 off I almost feel like I'm not getting any discount at all.

@FX102A I think the best lunatics are still in the US Weekly Download section. They beat our euro-lunatics by a wide margin.
Every week is just "RIP NoA" "NoA doesn't want my money" and "Where's Metroid Zero Mission?!". It takes some skill to write the same thing every Thursday for four or five years. They are pros.

I wish I lived in Burundi. They may have famine but at least they are safe from RCMADIAX games.

Curiously the game is made in Europe but only has a US release date!
The latest two Giana Sisters games were both atrocious though - the DS one was bland and primitive and the WiiU one was just badly designed.
Not sure what people at NintendoLife were smoking when they gave them a 9 and an 8...

My levels are here:
https://www.nintendolife.com/super-mario-maker/users/spizzamarozzi

Baku Baku was a proper puzzle game so I wish them well, even if it's a...japanese game being developed by a portuguese studio asking for money in swiss francs (?). Shame it needs nearly double the amount of money to get to WiiU though!

Beside ALBW and Nintendogs, all the other games were sold by major retailers at some point for €14 or less already so uh...errrr....

Another cretinous clickbait article. First, when Star Fox was announced at E3 this year, the reaction was tepid by both the audience and the press. Then, when the press got to try the game, the reactions - again - were mixed, if not negative. Now that it has been delayed to fix what people obviously didn't like when they tried it at E3 - it's a cataclysm all of a sudden.
Let's be honest - how many consoles could a game like Star Fox shift that Splatoon and Mario Maker couldn?! What kind of mass market appeal can Star Fox really have?! It's a game in the style of 15 years ago from a series people hardly remember anymore.

@XyVoX it's rubbish, even at £2.69 you'd be paying it 2 quid more than it's worth.

@ThomasBW84 cheers for the quick reply. So it's a multiple-runs kind of game - not entirely bad considering the randomly generated levels.

@ThomasBW84 Thomas, this looks interesting, but what's the average length of the game?! Are we in the 5 to 10 hours, 10 to 15 hours or 15+ hours category?!

I'm going to get Super Mario Maker at the retail, plus the two AiRace games on 3DS. They could use some help in the WiiU discount category though - haven't see a decent sale since June.
The Swindle looks super interesting, but if I had to get a new game I'd probably go with Runbow, because I still have the E3 small price-cut. If someone tells me that The Swindle has as much content as Curve's previous game Stealth Bastard 2 though, I would get that in a heartbeat.
Star Sky looks like "I wanna be Limbo" game #365, therefore - no thanks.

This is an incredibly interesting article. The history of LCD-games is often treated like it's worthless but it's not. There is a book on the Nintendo Game & Watch line, and Kerry - I think you should write a proper book about the non-G&W material you can find, because this is history that will eventually get lost because emulation can't preserve it.
As games with extremely simple functions are getting more and more popular (mobile phones etc), it's great to see the great deal of creativity that went into these games and how they basically helped in shaping the industry as it is now. And look at them - they are ADORABLE. I'd kill babies for that Bubble Bobble thing!! It looks like a mini Orange amp - it's just irresistible.

So no goodbye coin?! Are you sure this is pitched as the last reward?!
It doesn't say anything of the sort in the Italian Nintendo Club.

What's wrong with Atlus? Citizens of Earth was already discounted only 45 days ago, but at the price of €6.99...

Very strong line up - especially Fast Racing Neo and Rive - Nintendo is doing an excellent job with indies.

He might have a point - it wouldn't be the first example of game "misunderstood" by the press - from Giga Wing to Wonderful 101. I haven't played the game so it could be anything - it could be journalists being a collective of hacks, who knows.
But just as the press has the right to say everything they want about the game, the person who actually made it at least has a shot at defending his product if he thinks it's been misunderstood.

@Damo I'm not too fond of the way you're trying to convince people that you are right and Itagaki is wrong. I mean, this is something entirely between Itagaki and the press, and we (the general audience) haven't played the game, so can't really side with any of the two factions. You seem to be taking it too personally - as Itagaki is...

And just when you think the "gravity switch" trend has finally and definitely come to an end, here comes an old game with...gravity switches.

@Inkling dude you've said you have a game coming out so many times that it's totally lost all meaning...

I still can't believe how many people think indies are not worth their time and money. This is absolutely false. Stuff like Cave Story, Stealth Inc., Shovel Knight, Guacamelee etc is miles better than most games you end up paying 60 bucks.
Taking risks doesn't mean you have to get every stupid 2 dollar puzzle game that gets released. Guess it means being open minded towards gaming experiences that you might not be entirely familiar with.
And yet when given the choice, the average Nintendo fan seems to stick with the 20 years old overpriced .rom he already knows inside out, or with the overrated piece of plastic that does absolutely nothing but sits on the shelf and looks pretty.