Nintendo E3 2009 checklist:
Are we missing something? Head past the break to find out!
Continue reading E3 2009 highlights: The Nintendo roundup
E3 2009 highlights: The Nintendo roundup originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
“For the casual gamer, we say this like it’s strange, but casual gamers go to horror movies,” he explained. “There’s a reason that we all started playing survival horror — it was new and different and, ‘Oh, it’s like scary movie that I play.’” According to Hulett the game’s control system, which thrusts the Wiimote into the role of a flashlight, is intuitive enough to accomodate … your mom. “I’ve had my mom try it out and she only plays Animal Crossing, but she can walk around as Harry Mason and run from creatures. It’s really easy to pick up and play. If there’s a casual gamer who enjoys going to the movies and seeing The Ring, they can go to the store afterward and buy Silent Hill and have a horror experience at home.”
Well, as long as they don’t pick up The Room. That’s a different kind of horror experience at home.
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is … mom-friendly? originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 06 Jun 2009 02:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Filed under: News
The distributor of Capcom, Konami, Midway, and (arguably less relevantly for Wii owners) Bethesda games in Australia has officially gone into receivership.
According to this page at the Australian Securities and Investments Commission website, Red Ant has been crushed underfoot by the giant, hulking boot that is the ongoing global economic crisis.
Sad news indeed, and a development that casts doubt over the speedy arrival of future Aussie releases from the aforementioned companies, unless somebody else steps in. It’s not as though Australian gamers have it easy to begin with!
Gallery: Dead Rising: Chop ‘Til You Drop
Capcom’s Aussie distributor going under originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
| Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments |
| |
Filed under: Virtual Console, Wii Warm Up
We got release dates for various Sega games (and a Japanese release date for Muramasa), WiiWare announcements, news of available Rock Band DLC, and more this week, and yet, for us, the best news all week was about something old: the release of Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. And now that all three NES Castlevanias (not counting stuff like Konami Wai Wai World or Boku Dracula-kun) are out and you guys bought them all (you bought them all, right?), we can ask you to pick a favorite. Yeah, we’re asking you the same thing in the contest post, but that’s of all time, and we’d like to exclude the Metroidvanias from consideration.
Is it the straightforward, brutally punishing action of Castlevania? The light platforming and completely obtuse puzzle-solving of Simon’s Quest? The varying locations and playable characters of Dracula’s Curse? Or do you just like whipping Medusa heads in general?
Wii Warm Up: Dracula’s Choice originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Sat, 17 Jan 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
| Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments |
| |
A list of ‘retailer info’ containing release dates for upcoming games popped up on NeoGAF. Judging by the use of the German title for Broken Sword, we decided to try Amazon.de to check these dates against their database, and they match. These dates might be placeholders, and they might be subject to change, or our PALs might have an awesome March to look forward to!
Tenchu: Shadow Assassins might actually come out in Europe in the same month as North Americans get to play it: Amazon says it’ll be out February 26, alongside Castlevania Judgment. Broken Sword: Director’s Cut is listed for March 26, while Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers (retitled, as is the Xbox game, Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Killers) is expected March 18 — a slight delay from the official date.
[Via NeoGAF]
Rumor: Tenchu 4, Broken Sword, Onechanbara, more dated for Europe originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
| Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments |
| |
Keen ESRB-spotter Spencer at Siliconera has located a welcome addition to the ESRB’s database: Gradius ReBirth. While Japan has been pew pewing itself silly since early September, this is the first solid sign that the 1000 Point WiiWare game will be leaving its native country.
Input the code and shoot the core down the break for footage of the first two stages.
Gallery: Gradius ReBirth
Gradius ReBirth: U.S. to destroy the core soon originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
| Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments |
| |
Filed under: News, Virtual Console
Evidently, Konami ill needs logic or sequential order when releasing Castlevania games on the Virtual Console — which is probably why Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse has only just been rated by Australian regulators at the OFLC.
The game, a former star of Virtually Overlooked no less (if you can hear celebratory gunshots being fired into the air, that’ll be Alisha), now looks like a certainty to join Castlevania, Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, and Super Castlevania IV on the download service. If you read this, you’ll be reminded of why that’s very special, fist pump-worthy news indeed.
But enough talk. Have at you!
[Via Go Nintendo]
| Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments |
| |
Filed under: News
As part of a ton of Castlevania Judgment coverage, IGN interviewed the man in charge of the franchise, Koji “IGA” Igarashi. You can probably guess the content of the first question.
IGA explained what possessed him to make a 3D fighter with some fairly smart reasoning: people want to swing the Wiimote to whip, and he decided it would be best to implement those kinds of mechanics in a shorter-session game. “… I realized, with the 3D action style, I would be able to incorporate intervals so that players can rest and this would allow players to enjoy the swinging action of the Wii Remote.” IGA also mentioned that part of the Elebits/Dewy team is working on Judgment, which should at least ensure lovely visuals.
IGN’s hands-on with the game gave us a bit of morning light to vanquish the horrible night of our skepticism, describing Judgment as more of a Power Stone free-roaming vs. action game than a traditional Tekken or Virtua Fighter-like game.
Gallery: Castlevania Judgment
| Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments |
| |
Filed under: Features
Our overlords at Joystiq recently got their hands on some titles Wii lovers care about, taking the time to write up their impressions as is their job. And, we’d be neglecting in our job if we didn’t do our best to present you with anything and everything Wii-related out there on these great big internets. So, if you’ve yet to check out their coverage on these Wii titles, then be sure to hit up the links below.
Gallery: MADWORLD
| Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments |
| |
The days they are a-changin’. It looks like Metal Gear Solid 4 will have to sell over 1 million copies on it’s first day(!) in order for Konami to make back the sky high development costs of the sure-to-be system-seller. This is all due to it only being available on one platform, the Playstation 3.
It used to be that video game developers could bank on a system exclusive to ramp up sales numbers for that title, but no longer. In this day and age it can take years and millions upon millions of dollars with huge development teams just to pump out one “next-gen” quality video game title (particularly on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360), and a new Reuters article explores whether or not Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots may indeed be the last great console exclusive (although maybe they are forgetting about a little game called Final Fantasy XIII).
As has been widely reported, virtually all Sony’s once-exclusive juggernauts like Devil May Cry 4, Virtua Fighter 5, Grand Theft Auto 4, Assassin’s Creed, and Mercenaries 2 have gone multiplatform with all of them releasing on Microsoft’s competing console as well as Sony’s.
“We understand publishers are needing to recoup their investment,” said Peter Dille, senior vice president of marketing for Sony. “From our perspective, as long as the games aren’t going exclusive to other platforms, PS3 gamers are not actually losing anything.”
To compete Sony has majorly ramped up production with it’s own internal studios and is now creating no less than 15 Playstation titles, which is more than Microsoft and Nintendo combined (according to them anyway) with 15 exclusives hitting the PS3 between September 2007 and April 2008.
And now 3rd parties are needed to move massive amounts of copies in the first DAY just to stay afloat.
Which is a high order for Metal Gear Solid 4 considering that PS3 sales have been sluggish when compared to the Xbox 360 (7.2 million units sold) and Wii (5.2 million sold). The PS3 has sold only 2 million to this point according to NPD research and a year after it’s release only two PS3 titles have reached the one million mark in sales
So with production costs being anywhere from $10 to $50 million for top titles, that means publishers are virtually required to go multiplatform to make back all that money spent.
“You might be able to weather one title coming in at 500,000 in sales,” said Pidgeon. “But two or three failures like that and even big publishers are going to be hurting.”