Archive for the ‘Wii’ Category


Here Comes Another Nintendo Direct [UPDATE]

Thursday, June 21st, 2012

[UPDATE: North America is getting a Nintendo Direct presentation too also starting at 10:00PM CST.  The Nintendo Direct page says that it will be regarding the Wii, DS, and 3DS (again, no Wii U).  You can check out the North American Nintendo Direct page here, and we’ll have a combined summary of both of the Nintendo Direct presentation go up tonight after they have aired.]

Nintendo is broadcasting another Nintendo Direct presentation starting today at 10:00PM CST.  Apparently it will focus primarily on the Wii (not the Wii U) and the 3DS, so no one knows quite what to expect accept for perhaps a few more details on the Kirby 20th Anniversary disc for the Wii and Animal Crossing on the 3DS.  It’s not the heavily anticipated announcement of Wii U release details, but we’ll be getting some kind of news from Nintendo tomorrow and we’ll have a summary of the salient points up as per usual shortly after it’s broadcast.  Bear in mind also that this is a Japanese Nintendo Direct and it may not have too much information that applies directly to the rest of the world.  Check in with us later tonight to find out what Nintendo has to say.

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Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two Impressions

Thursday, June 7th, 2012

We were able to have a decently long playtime with Epic Mickey 2 on the PS3 at E3 yesterday, and what we saw was fairly promising.  Using the Move controller, I ventured to tackle a boss battle in which I had to paint or thinner-ize various parts of a large robotic dragon while trying to avoid its fire-breathing and circular-saw covered tail.  As is to be expected, the jump from Wii controls to Move controls was indeed a smooth one as the game handled in much the same way as its predecessor.  It was certainly not the easiest boss battle I’ve ever tackled and I’ll even admit to having died once or twice.

As with any game running on the PS3, Epic Mickey 2 wasn’t without some aliasing, but I’m sure most people will take “some” aliasing on their HDTV instead of the giant aliased mess that is the Wii on modern TVs any day.  Aliasing aside, Epic Mickey 2 has graphically benefited from the jump to the HD consoles with higher resolution textures, Havok physics, and cleaner character models.  The gameplay, from what I saw, still involves 3D “hub” worlds connected by 2D platforming levels based on animated shorts and the like from Disney’s rich history.  The improved graphics help these platforming sections look even more like the segments on which they are based, but they may not be able to entirely help out the otherwise fairly average puzzle platforming mechanics.  I was not able to experience the co-op play offered in the game, which may be its saving grace, so you might want to hold out on passing judgement on the game completely until some co-op impressions come out too.

While the time that I had with Epic Mickey 2 was indeed fun, I have still yet to see anything that would bump this game up into the upper echelons of the various games coming out this fall.  Epic Mickey 2, unless some interesting aspects of the game are still kept secret, seems right now to be set to repeat the moderate success of its predecessor and become another slightly above average puzzle platformer appealing mostly to tweens and die-hard Disney fans.

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Wii U Final Version Controller Leak Analysis

Saturday, May 19th, 2012

Supposedly leaked by a TT Games (the makers of the LEGO games including the upcoming LEGO City Stories exclusive for the Wii U) employee, the Internet now has what may well be the first image of the final retail version of the Wii U controller.  As with the leaked 3DS dev kit board that we analyzed to great acclaim almost precisely two years ago, this single image has a ton of information that may be gleaned from it.  Read on for an in-depth analysis of what’s changed and what that tells us if this image is indeed genuine.

(more…)

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Nintendo Direct Feb. 22, 2012 Info

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

Nintendo’s latest streaming  “press conference” is now available for online viewing.  The rumours were mighty as usual, but also as usual, it was a rather low-key affair for Nintendo to announce minor things concerning upcoming games for the Wii and 3DS.

Here’s the info that can be gleaned from the North American Nintendo Direct episode:

– Dillon’s Rolling Western ugly-ish armadillo game for 3DS eShop launches today
– (I called it!) Kid Icarus localization team member interview
    – Weapon fusion
    – Increase difficulty, get better weapons
    – Comes with 6 AR cards and a 3DS stand for free
– (I also called it!!) Mario Tennis Open trailer
    – launches May 20th
    – Made by Camelot (makers of the great classic Mario Golf games)
    – 4 player multiplayer local and online
– Xenoblade artwork that won in the polls was announced
    – Comes out on April 6th
– The Last Story for Wii is being localized to be launched this year in North America
– Spirit Camera 3DS launched Friday, April 13th
– New trailers for aforementioned games can be viewed here or on the eShop

Even more information was released through the Japanese Nintendo Direct episode, including:

– Sega GameGear games are coming to the eShop in mid-March
– New Brain Training game is in the works for the 3DS with the working title “Devil Training”, as it is supposed to be much more difficult than its predecessors
– There is a game in the works for 3DS being made by Capcom, SEGA, Namco Bandai, and Banpresto together.  A teaser site for the game can be viewed here.
– DLC will be available for Monster Hunter 3G and Fire Emblem: Awakening.
   – First Fire Emblem DLC will cost money when it’s released, but then become free roughly 2 weeks later
– Kid Icarus: Uprising will feature daily SpotPass downloads and the ability to trade weapon parts with StreetPass

Overall, not a bad info haul, but it looks like Nintendo’s saving the big announcements for E3.  We’ll keep you posted should any more pertinent news arise.

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Nintendo Conference Incoming

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

Nintendo’s at it again with another out-of-the-blue press conference to be streamed via their Nintendo Direct website at 8 AM CST on Feb. 22nd.

The last North American Nintendo Direct conference was held on Oct. 21, 2011 and did little more than discuss Hulu Plus, the 3DS fall firmware update, and Super Mario 3D Land.  Rumours regarding the upcoming conference are naturally flying around, though.  Some favourite things that people are hoping for include the announcement of a 3DS with two circle pads built-in, a name change and/or more launch info for the Wii U (any news regarding the Wii U, really), and release date details for upcoming games that are currently floating about without them like Paper Mario 3DS, Luigi?s Mansion 2 and Dragon Quest X.  Here’s hoping that we’ll at least get some of that, but I think it will be something more along the lines of a new trailer for Mario Tennis 3DS and then an interview with some member of the team that made the upcoming Kid Icarus: Uprising game.  Time will tell, and then we’ll tell you, so stay tuned for more info when the press conference goes live tomorrow.

 

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The Most Expensive GIF(s) Ever [UPDATE]

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

 

[UPDATE 2: Things are generally working alright now on COD Elite, but everyone should take a lesson from this and remember that however many servers you have, you’ll always need more than twice as many. ^_^]

[UPDATE: Call of Duty Elite is still mostly down, but an update was posted that says that paying members will get an extra month of the service for free and the timeframe to register as a “founder” has been extended to the end of the month.  Also, now they’ve implemented a waiting system that makes you wait in line to access the website’s error page.  With this comes another GIF (!) so now users are getting twice the value for their money, huzzah!]

Behold the most expensive GIF available to gamers today.  Normally to see this you have to pay for a $50 membership or buy a $99 game bundle, but Game Usagi has managed to get a hold of it for you for free!

For those of us who have yet to get Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 (MW3), the prognosis for Beachhead’s premium stat-tracking and content delivery system Call of Duty Elite is rather bleak.  The website that costs essentially as much as a game for premium access has basically been entirely down since the game’s launch at 12:01 AM this morning.  When trying to access the site you just spent upwards of $50 for, all you currently see is a message saying that the site is down temporarily and the GIF that encompasses the whole of the website’s current features as shown above.

From my playing around in the game thus far, it’s been pretty good.  I’m still getting my mind around the several extra layers of complexity and leveling that they’ve added, but overall I think this will be a worthy game once people who fork over extra money get more than a 2-frame animated web image to look at.

The official word right now is that they’ve been receiving more registration requests than they could have imagined in their wildest dreams and that has apparently completely shut them down.  As we’re waiting with baited breath we have to wonder just how much money they were trying to save by skimping on the servers and hope that we get some kind of token apology for all of this when it’s over.

You can check the site’s status here or on their Twitter feed.

 

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3DS Conference News

Monday, September 12th, 2011

So, here’s what we learned from Nintendo’s 3DS conference this evening:

High Quality screens and videos can be viewed on the official site here: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/n10/conference2011/titlelist/

? Zelda: Skyward Sword (for Wii)
    ? raise the sword above your head to charge
    ? Boss Rush mode available after you beat the game
    ? 50+ hours to complete
    ? Nov. 23, 2o11 in Japan (Europe on 18th, NA on the 20th)
? Pink 3DS coming out for the ladies on Oct. 23rd in Japan
? Firmware update coming in November to the 3DS to:
    ? allow for 3D video recording
    ? revamp eShop, and Mii Plaza (new StreetPass games)
? Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary Edition. free on DSi and 3DS on Sept. 28th
? Ton of 3DS games announced/discussed:
    ? Mario Tennis 3DS in 2012
        ? optional gyroscopic controls
    ? Animal Crossing 3DS in 2012
        ? You’re the town’s mayor (didn’t mention if the old turtle mayor died or what)
        ? Will have SpotPass functionality
    ? Fire Emblem 3DS in 2012
        ? Features 2-player co-op
    ? Mario Kart 7 due out in Japan on December 1st, North America on December 4th.
        ? New fire flower item shown in use
        ? Lakitu is playable character
        ? Will feature first-person mode with gyroscopic controls too
    ? Super Mario 3D Land due out in NA on Nov. 13th
    ? Bravely Default: Flying Fairy – a new action RPG from Squeenix
        ? Akihiko Yoshida designed characters
    ? Culchobit – a low-res sprite-based online soccer game
    ? Culdcept 3DS
    ? Shinrei Camera from the Fatal Frame team
    ? Kid Icarus: Uprising delayed to Q1 2012
    ? Dynasty Warriors VS.
        ? 4-player
    ? SD Gundam G Genration 3D, due for Dec. 22nd in Japan
    ? Hatsune Miku game due in March 2012 in Japan
    ? Girls Mode fashion game
    ? Resident Evil Revelations in early 2012
    ? Ace Combat 3D Cross Rumble, due this Winter
    ? Tekken 3D Prime Ediiton, due this Winter
    ? Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, due this Winter
    ? Dragon Quest Rocket Slime 3 due on Nov. 2nd in Japan
    ? “Girl’s RPG” being developed by Level-5
    ? New Love Plus, December 8th in Japan
? Kid Icarus Uprising anime OVAs from Shaft, Studio 4C, and Production IG will be available for free worldwide on Nintendo Video
? Monster Hunter 3G will be released on Dec. 10th in Japan
? Monster Hunter 4 was previewed for the first time ever and will be coming to the 3DS

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