Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
VISUALSHOCK! SPEEDSHOCK! SOUNDSHOCK! NOW IS TIME TO THE 68000 HEART ON FIRE! So says the title screen in Treasure's Alien Soldier, and they're right-- given the intensity of Alien Soldier, the Mega Drive's 68000 heart seems likely to overheat. But Japanese gamers will be playing the game on Wiis this week, which, we hear, are considerably more powerful than the Sega Mega Drive.
Alien Soldier is a sort of evolution of the gameplay found in Gunstar Heroes-- more weapons and customization, more moves, more bosses (the bosses are, in fact, the focus of the game, with simple, short levels between them), and more brutal difficulty. We're really hoping that this Japanese release leads to an eventual American release, because we're Treasure fanatics and the game never came out over here (except on the Sega Channel).
NOW IS TIME TO THE LIST OF JAPAN VIRTUAL CONSOLE RELEASES!
In the showdown of Wii Mysterious Dungeon games, Chocobo's Dungeon has one major advantage over Shiren the Wanderer 3: the awwwwww factor. The adorableness of the Chocobo protagonist and pretty much everything else in the game may help sway roguelike fans who are on the fence about which title to buy.
As if the game didn't already overload on the cute, these new screenshots reveal a new character named Dungeon Hero X. Where did he come from? Is he friend, enemy, or both? No one knows (although we doubt he's firing the "Mog Beam" at the poor Chocobo out of friendship). It is a mystery of the Mystery Dungeon. A cute mystery.
Before TGS, we learned that D3 Publisher would be expanding their Simple series to the Wii, with the first two titles being Everybody's Kart Raceand Everybody's Bass Fishing Tournament. But after the first two entries in the series, D3's already got four more titles lined up, not including Oneechanbara R, which comes from a series that used to be in the Simple category.
The next four games are, in order of Simple series number, THE Party Casino, THE Shooting Action, THE Block Kuzushi, and THE Wai Wai Combat. A Block Kuzushi game actually came out in the U.S. for the DS, under the name Break 'em All, so there may be a possibility of a similar release on the Wii.
If Data Design Interactive can get away with PS2 shovelware on the Wii, then we don't see why D3 can't make some original budget software and market it worldwide. We've always wanted to see the Simple brand in the U.S. There's something refreshingly honest about making the "budget-ness" of a game apparent right away.
It's Sunday, and you know what that means -- a new edition of Promotional Consideration! Well, that's what it would mean were this post on DS Fanboy, but since the sign we're featuring is for a Virtual Console title, this will have to be a Promotional Consideration article only in spirit.
We haven't come across many Virtual Console advertisements in the states; in fact, we haven't come across any at all. We're reminded of this travesty every morning when we see the lines of blood soaked through VC fanatic JC Fletcher's shirt, traces of his nightly self-flagellation rituals wherein he begs his retro-video-gaming gods to deliver us more ads for classic titles.
The Gradius/Nemesis sign pictured above was found at the Musashi-Urawa train station in Saitama, Japan late last May. When was the last time you saw an ad for a shoot-em-up displayed in a public space? As much as we'd love to see Virtual Console advertisements and posters of enlarged screenshots from 2D games brought over to the US, especially for JC's sake, we doubt that Nintendo of America will ever follow suit.
We never learned how to play Shanghai, despite having countless opportunities to play it on consoles. We've played it before, but those sessions mostly consisted of messing around with the tiles for thirty seconds and not getting it. Wii players will soon have the opportunity not to know what's going on, because Success is working on a Wii version of the mah-jongg game. It'll feature four player modes for both time- and score-based competitions.
Most importantly, you'll be able to pick up the little tiles with the Wiimote. Is that idea strangely appealing to anyone else? We're simple folks.
To commemorate the British release of MySims, EA commissioned some apparently famous fashion designers to come up with some crazy junk as part of the MySims Capsule Collection. The four items are all intended to serve dual purposes, and embody "the core attributes of the game - Self Expression, Customisation, Creativity and Collectability."
The item descriptions should give you all the information you need to make informed decisions about whether or not you want these items. For example, the House of Holland MySims Pouch Tee is a t-shirt with a pouch for a DS. It also uses a big-slogan style that you may remember from "FRANKIE SAY RELAX" or Wham!'s "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" video. Also, two of the four items are Wiimote bags.Bags-- for your Wiimote.
Remember George of the Jungle? You know, the cartoon from the '60s, from the same people that made the Rocky & Bullwinkle Show? It got made into a movie in ... oh, man, that was eleven years ago? Well, maybe the character has maintained an enduring appeal in Europe. Apparently he's coming back with a new animated series, and Ignition Entertainment is already showing off the new tie-in game for Europe.
It makes slightly more sense that there's a new cartoon to promote, instead of just being a case of some random old cartoon getting a new video game. According to the press release, this game is among the "first releases from the global George of the Jungle™ licensed product programme." So look forward to more! Of this!
Famitsu has put up the first screenshots we've seen for Major Dream, Takara Tomy's recently announced Wii game for the baseballanime, and ... They look exactly like how you'd expect a low-budget anime sports title to look like. What's up with the crotch pinstripes in the above image? His outfit resembles a wacky line graph more than it does a baseball uniform. Even with the game's Eyeshield 21 similarities, all the motion blur in the world couldn't distract us from that mess of stripes.
Nintendo 64 racing fans will recognize Takara's Choro Q series as Penny Racers.Conspiracy Games localized a few other games in the series under the Road Trip banner, which somebody might have seen at some point. But everyone, no doubt, will recognize the cars: squatty caricatures of real vehicles with a slot in the back for an exciting penny, which causes the cars to freak out and spin around.
There aren't so many pennies or freakouts in the video game version, just driving tiny cars around ineveryday environments. We hate to call forth the angry "GRAPHICS DON'T MATTER" comments, but without playing the new Wii game, all we have to go on is graphics, and it doesn't really look like much has changed since 1998. We're not saying the game won't be fun-- just putting our two cents in.
It's a common complaint, but Japan gets so much cooler boxart for games (except for Sonic 3.) This boxart for what we know as Streets of Rage 3 is beautifully painted and would make a great poster for an action movie. Our boxart would make a great nothing for nothing. And the name: Streets of Rage is generic as can be, but Bare Knuckle totally implies tough people fighting with their fists-- which is exactly what is happening in this game.
The other stuff out this week in Japan is Esper Dream, a Famicom Disk System action-RPG that uses the same color scheme for its characters as The Goonies II, and Genpei Toumaden, an awkward-looking Turbografx-16 action game that we'll be getting soon as Samurai Ghost.
Esper Dream (Famicom Disk System, 1 player, 600 Wii Points)
We're taking this story with a grain of salt and a tall glass of milk. According to a press release from Data Design Interactive, two of their four budget Wii titles "already sold out within 3 days of release." Which two games sold out was not specified, but the four released were Ninjabread Man, Billy the Wizard, Anubis II, and Rock & Roll Adventure.
We're going to assume that Ninjabread Man was one of the sellouts, because we kind of want to buy it. The identity of the other one pretty much doesn't matter. But this development leads to two obvious questions:
Why would people who know better (this stuff was already released on PS2) go in for the same kind of punishment again?
How many copies of each game were in the shipment? Four? Five?
Nice to have evidence that third party games can sell on the Wii, we suppose. [Via NeoGAF]
Japan gets wall-to-wall awesome this month on the Virtual Console. In total, twenty games are scheduled for release, including some really good ones. The first PC Engine CD games are on the list, including Ys I & II and the extraordinarily manly shooter Cho Aniki. Three Neo Geo games make their appearance, as well-- including Samurai Shodown. The classic Treasure game Alien Soldier will be available for download.
But by far the best news for October is a little Famicom game by the name of Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari, known in the U.S. as River City Ransom. Simply put, this is one of the best games ever made, and our lives are improved just by thinking about it.River City Ransom could be available on our own Virtual Console soon; what a lovely thought. What a beautiful world!
Nintendo's site lists the publisher as Arc System Works; it would appear that, since ASW is also publishing the DS Super Dodge Ballgame, they now own the Kunio license.
Nodame Cantabile on DS was an Ouendan-alike in which you conducted classical music by tapping the screen. The Wii version, called Nodame Cantabile: Dream Orchestra seems to expand on that premise by allowing players to not only conduct, but play multiple instruments as well.
We can't exactly tell how the Wii version works-- whether you point at the little note icons before pressing a button, or if the game takes button presses only, but Bandai Namco promises a simple control scheme in the interest of attracting new gamers. We'd kind of like to swing the Wiimote like a baton, but we aren't sure if that'll happen.
Of particular interest to us is the four-player mode, in which each player can use a different instrument and play one of the game's 50+ compositions together. We call triangle!
The first Swing Golf Pangya (as Super Swing Golfwas known in Japan) featured costumes that made your golfer look like Tecmo characters Kasumi or Ayane from the Dead or Alive series, or Ryu Hayabusa from both DOA and his own Ninja Gaiden series. For the sequel, Tecmo apparently wanted to make available the most Tecmo-y costume possible, and chose a recognizable uniform from a game that is not only well-known and well-regarded, but has Tecmo in the title. And, since it would be extraordinarily hard to swing a club dressed up like a Tecmo Stacker, they chose Tecmo Bowl.
We're looking forward to future Rygar and (especially) Mighty Bomb Jack costumes, ourselves. There'd be no question about whether or not we'd be interested in a game that let you play golf in red tights and a horned helmet.
Australia has more than the Hanabi Festival to cheer about, when it comes to the Virtual Console. Like Japan and, reportedly, the U.S., Australia's download service will be home to Neo Geo games. The likely first candidate, as revealed by the OFLC ratings board, is Art of Fighting.
We best know Art of Fighting from its weird zooming camera that makes the sprites look absolutely massive, and from being the origin game for many future King of Fighters characters including Robert Garcia, Ryo Sakazaki, King, and others.
Even if Art of Fighting isn't your favorite Neo Geo game, it is a Neo Geo game, and is therefore great news for Australian fighting fans.
