The first review of EOII is in, and it’s a goodie. Lead reviewer Andrew Fitch rated it an A minus in US mag EGM, claiming it “manages to keep things fresh. Just when you think you have the answers, it changes the questions.”

Undoubtedly, this is good news, even if EGM’s other two reviewers weren’t quite as keen. The original got very mixed reviews upon release, and so a high score like this suggests that the tweaks to the game’s mechanics have worked out very well indeed.

If you fancy taking the plunge and having a go at the first game, Etrian Odyssey is out next Friday in the UK, courtesy of Nintendo, who is publishing the title in the absence of any other third-party picking it up. Not that it’s making a big deal out of it, mind - “the title isn’t a huge focus for us” said the big N when I enquired about a review copy. Bah.

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Rhythm Tengoku - the best rhythm-action game ever not to have Ouendan in its title - is heading to the DS, and (AND!) it’s looking like a whole new game, rather than the barely-changed remake I foolishly predicted a couple of days back. Whoops.

Blurry Flyer Man has been doing his bit again, leaking this fuzzy bit of promo material onto the interwebs, in order that we might get more excited about tiny screenshots in which we’ve no idea what’s going on. Apart from the fact that the DS is held on its side, a la Brain Training, and that the touchscreen seems to mostly be blank, just used to tap at the right time in accordance with what you see on the left. And there’s a table tennis minigame. And one which appears to be a bunch of deformed kids playing What Time Is It, Mr. Wolf?

Either way, it’s more Rhythm Tengoku, which has been clinically proven to be A Good Thing. Now let’s have a western release Nintendo, you lazy bastards.

Rhythm Tengoku Gold is out in Japanland on July 31st, for the bargain price of 3800 yen. Buy it, or weep forever at your own ineptitude.

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Yes, yes, okay, okay. It’s not a balance board game. My bad. Though I’m reliably informed that IS definitely happening. As is a game which has been widely touted almost since the Wii’s launch, and is the long-awaited return of a franchise which hasn’t been seen since the N64. But shhh, that’s a secret.

Anyway, I digress: this is about Wario Land Shake, a semi-traditional 2D platformer that’s appearing on Japanese Wiis on July 24th. 

It sounds as old-school as they come for the most part - it’s a side-scroller with twenty stages which is set in deserts, jungles and assorted other cliches. The remote is held in the NES position, with the d-pad and 1 and 2 buttons used to control everyone’s favourite avaricious buffoon.

The non-trad stuff - referenced by the ’shake’ of the title - sees the player shaking the remote vigorously to relieve enemies of their loot (wanking for coins!) while tilting the controller appears to guide an assortment of vehicles.

With the now defacto standard blurry promo flyer (see above) completely failing to reveal how good - or, indeed, bad - the graphics are, it’s hard to tell whether this might be a teensy bit overpriced as a full retail title. But I’m remaining fairly cautiously optimistic about this one. After all, if it brings us one step closer to New Super Mario World, then - whatever the quality of the finished product - it can surely only be a good thing.

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Well, the collision detection is awful. Though, admittedly, that’s a little unfair, given that collisions were very probably turned off to make the demo easier - certainly I’m not expecting to be able to ‘board straight through trees in the finished game. Otherwise, Shaun White Snowboarding was looking pretty damn good.

Running on the Assassin’s Creed engine on 360 and PS3, the Wii version was comparatively cartoony in style - a sensible approach that worked well, even if Shaun himself looked like some World of Warcraft mutant when facing the camera. It was an almost SSX Blur-esque visual approach, which - while not massively detailed - moved very smoothly throughout. The controls seemed to work brilliantly - using the board almost exclusively, with the remote purely used for menu selections and those all important air grabs, it functioned pretty much exactly as you might hope a snowboarding game would.

With the board turned ninety degrees, leaning forward and backwards turned Shaun in the appropriate direction, while pushing down with your front foot increased his speed, with your back foot used as a brake. Tricks were a little more complicated, though easily accessed with a bit of practice - crouch and straighten up quickly to make a leap from the various ramps, and twist or adjust your foot position (onscreen instructions gave you hints of how to do this) to pull off different spins and flips. A meter on the left showed your centre of balance, allowing you to land effectively by keeping as central as possible when about to hit the snowy ground.

It was only one brief run, and concerns remain over how it’ll work without the board, but this builds upon the snowboarding in Wii Fit superbly and truly looks like it’ll utilise the peripheral’s full potential. With a dedicated team working solely on the Wii version, this is one multiformat title that isn’t just your average port - a fact that was clearly evident from the demo. Good work, Ubi.

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Yes, it’s a game you can play with your backside. What next? Guffing into your DS mic? Yet despite sounding like the games industry’s finally succumbed to total lunacy, RRRTV’s arse-boarding works incredibly well.

The idea is that the Raving Rabbids (can we not just drop the Rayman part now?) have invaded your telly, and are taking over various TV shows. While we’re sure there’ll be some scabrous satire in there, the two levels I saw were pretty wide targets, with the balance board-enabled stage simply being a piss-take of winter sports in general. It sees your Rabbid riding an upside-down wildebeest - it’s called Beestie Boarding - down a rather steep hill. Sitting on the board, you lean left and right to turn in the appropriate direction, though if you’ve excellent gluteal muscle control (must be down to my shady past as a Ricky Martin impersonator) you’ll find that simple shifts of your butt-cheeks provide the kind of fine-tuning required to get the best times. Lean back at certain points and you can boost down the track, where the close control is even more important.

The other level on show was a rhythm-action stage which used the remote and nunchuk, as the demoers on the stand shook their funky stuff to Jungle Boogie (which is still in my head thanks to it being on repeat the whole day - God knows how it is for those who were showing it off). Rather than the simple controller-shaking of the original or the Rock Band-ultra-lite of the sequel, this displayed some simple stick models whose actions you needed to copy as they scrolled across the top of the screen. In truth you could probably get away with simple left-to-right and up-and-down shakes, but it’s all part of the fun to hold them above your head and step side-to-side, or wiggle your shoulders and stretch as you pull off that traditional Travolta-in-Saturday-Night-Fever pose. Questions remain about its accuracy, but is it fun? Hell, yes.

Only two levels then, but I came away thinking that this could be the best RRR yet. Apparently the full game uses the balance board “for 30% of the minigames”. That could potentially alienate some, but given how well Wii Fit is selling at the moment, we reckon most of its potential audience will be able to get the very most out of the game.

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…and boy, are my arms tired.

(That’s not actually strictly true - I got the Eurostar, but just imagine for a second that I flew, for the purposes of that rather lame joke.)

Anyway, by way of apology for the lack of posts today, I’ll bring you all the Nintendo-related news from Ubidays (including an arse-on with Rayman Raving Rabbids TV - you’ll see what I mean) tomorrow, and a boatload of other stuff besides.

Stay tuned!

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Typical. You wait ages for a decent bit of Nintendo news, and on the one day you’re away, it all starts to flood out. Grr.

Anyway, Fatal Frame 4 - a Wii exclusive horror game for those out of the loop - has been featured in the latest issue of Famitsu, with plenty of shots showing a game that looks, well, remarkably like the other Fatal Frame titles.

Known as Project Zero in the west (the third game - pictured above - is the scariest, in my opinion), it’s getting a July 31st release.

GoNintendo

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 So only the second-best rhythm-action game ever is set for a DS re-release (sort of). Amazing scenes, I’m sure you’ll agree.

As regular readers may remember, I rated Rhythm Tengoku as one of the best import games to get your sweaty, grime-ridden mitts on. Well, the chances of you doing that have been exponentially increased because Nintendo has announced it is releasing the beat-matching classic on DS - and at a knock-down price to boot!

In truth, that’s probably because it’ll likely be the exact same game but with stylus controls. But if it makes a western release all the more possible, then I’m all for it.

The Japanese site has this to say (with thanks to Google Translate): 

“Nintendo DS software, the rhythm of Heaven Gold July 31, 2008 (Thursday) to be released. TATCHIPEN HAJII screen in a timely manner or to touch it, and all kinds of new rhythm games. Game Boy Advance version of heaven, the same rhythm, rhythm anyone can easily enjoy the ride.

Detailed information, I’m not ready to conservation.”

Oh, so there WILL be new kinds of rhythm games? Awesome. So yeah, you now have precisely no excuse not to buy the damn thing.

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June and July is a good time to be a Nintendo gamer in Japan. Here’s what’s coming up for our eastern chums:

DS

• June 26 - Band Bros DX
• July 10 - Densetsu no Starfi
• July 31 - Rhythm Tengoku Gold
• Aug 7 - Fire Emblem

Wii

• June 19 - Super Mario Stadium Family Baseball
• July 24 - Wario Land Shake
• July 31 - Zero

Yes, Wario Land Shake. As in, Wario Ware Balance Board, which I predicted, oooh, years ago. And - gasp - Rhythm bloody Tengoku! If I hadn’t had to get up at 4.30 this morning I’d be hyperventilating with excitement. Still, it stopped me yawning for two minutes.

(Apologies for the lack of picture - I’m in Paris covering Ubidays at the moment. Expect a post when I get in tonight when I know more about what Nintendo related stuff I’m likely to see. Red Steel 2 and two Harvest Moon games are all I can remember from the list.)

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I believe the current internet parlance is “DO WANT”.

Yep, the clever folks at First 4 Figures have created this stunning model of Samus’ gunship, oddly branded as from Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Now that’s very specific - are there any major differences between the crafts in the three Prime games? If there were, I’m not sure I noticed them.

But that’s by the by. This is a cracking piece of craftsmanship and is available to pre-order from Play-Asia for a mere £127.06 at the current exchange rate. And it glows in the dark. Amazing.

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