It’s started. Admittedly only in Japan so far, but the first shots have been fired from the mighty Nintendo PR cannon, hoping to bludgeon audiences into submission and ensure that Wii Music is the fourth-quarter’s biggest-seller (with the possible exception of Animal Crossing: City Folk, natch).
Head on over to the Japanese Wii.com site and you’ll see a couple of short videos - one demonstrating a virtual marimba, and the other showing how you play guitar with just a remote and nunchuk. The freeform play sounds a lot more impressive than that E3 demo, and I’m getting a sneaky feeling in my waters that this might wind up being bigger than I originally thought - at least in Japan.
October 16th is the date our eastern brethren get their hands on Wii Music. We’ll likely hear a European release date at some point next week, so I’m told.
This week’s Japanese hardware sales figures have been released, and despite a general drop in sales for pretty much all consoles, it’s good to see the DS back on top, outselling the PSP by 9,000 units (56,000 to 47,000). Wii was once again in third, sinking slightly to 35,000 consoles sold, with PS3 and Xbox 360 way back on 9,000 units and 3,500 units respectively.
It’s traditionally a slow time for hardware sales, but things should pick up in the coming months - Wii Music will be a big seller in October, while the DS will get a huge boost from Pokemon Platinum in two weeks’ time.ÂÂ
It’s fortunate that the Aquanaut’s Holiday series has been around for a little while, because otherwise Nintendo’s lawyers would almost certainly be on the phone to Sony’s lot, with the above footage looking rather familiar to fans of what’s officially Wii’s Fourth Most Underrated Game, Endless Ocean (or Forever Blue in Japan).
No word on a western release for this HD-ed up underwater adventure, so it looks as if European fans of the life aquatic will have to stick with Wii if they want to get their virtual scuba on.
The problem with gashapon (both when you’re using a real-life machine, or ordering toys from import sites like Play-Asia) is that the results are entirely random. Which means duplicates. After ordering six more Mario Kart keychains from the site, I now have three which I already own, and a Mario Kart Wii remote projector which is also a copy (it’s Peach, if you’re interested). See above for details.
Anyway, I’ve decided to give these away. All you have to do is be the first person to comment on this post, and you’ll win these (and any other small items I deem worthy of chucking into a Jiffy envelope and sending out).
Perhaps ‘bit-part’ is a bad choice of phrase, actually.
My Japanese copy of Captain Rainbow arrived through the post today, but far more interesting than that is the current controversy raging over its depiction of Nintendo non-favourite Birdo.
Chris Kohler, over at Game | Life, has detailed Birdo’s chequered history - after starting out life as an apparent male character (who liked to pretend he was a girl by putting a bow in his hair) in Super Mario Bros. 2, evidently Nintendo decided this was perhaps a little odd for its family-friendly image and so decided Birdo was a girl - the Mario sports games refer to him/her as such.
But Captain Rainbow has confused the issue once more, by setting its protagonist a task whereby he has to ‘prove’ Birdo is female (after he is arrested exiting a female public toilet, of course) by producing evidence. The item he finds - in Birdo’s bed, no less - appears only as a question mark, but apparently is a not-so-subtle reference to…a vibrator.
Ick factor? Huge. It’s making me cringe just writing about it.
The prize for Most Bizarre Story of the Day has to go to this pearler from ace news site Videogaming247.com.
Despite struggling to make it to Europe, DS puzzle hero Professor Layton has been influencing the minds of top developers, with Ubisoft Montreal’s Patrick Redding explaining how the fantastic DS adventure has impacted upon Far Cry 2’s narrative design. “We kind of took a page from Professor Layton’s game on DS, to give the player a recap in text of what he’s been up to up to this point†admitted Redding.
Of course, many players of Far Cry 2 won’t spot the theft, because Ubi’s Africa-set shooter looks likely to hit UK shelves well before Level 5’s portable brain-teaser, which still doesn’t have a concrete release date, some seven months after its US debut. D’oh!
Plenty of games get underrated, but (seemingly) Wii games seem to suffer worst of all. Clearly, this is partly down to Wii’s disruptive controls, which can instantly split the core gamer audience down the middle, while the new gamers the console is attracting revel in the physical nature of the movement-based manouevres.
Yet Wii games are often considered as ‘lesser’ titles for other reasons - you can see the credits before too long on one or two games on this list, but in each case the game offers excellent replay value.
For whatever reason, the following five titles haven’t earned the scores they deserve - I’ve listed them alongside their Metacritic average so you can see just how hard done to they were. Hit the jump to see the list, and let me know your thoughts in the comments thread below.
Sadly, it’s not Braid or Galaga Legions, but the forthcoming Pirates Vs. Ninjas Dodgeball - a multiplayer-focused action sports game, which sets teams of the stealthy killers against the pillaging thieves, with zombies and robots thrown in for good measure. So it could just as easily have been Robots Vs. Zombies Dodgeball, which might just be an even better title.
The Wii game isn’t merely a direct port, though - developer GameCock has added a challenge mode, and a brand new story to play through, with the choice of a host of control schemes, some presumably including motion-based dodgeball hurling.
No word on a pricepoint as yet, but it’ll be arriving sometime this winter.
A slow week in the land of the rising sun, with one almost guaranteed success not quite reaching the heights it should have. Level 5’s Inazuma Eleven was never going to do the numbers of the Professor Layton games (from the same publisher) but it’s still disappointing to see a interesting potential new RPG franchise struggle despite an excellent pedigree.
Elsewhere, Rhythm Tengoku passed half a million sales, but dropped down to second position, with the latest in the hugely popular Winning Eleven series (Pro Evolution Soccer in the west) hitting top spot. The run down can be found after the jump.
Typical. You spend a substantial amount of time working on a lengthy post about Nintendo’s move away from its traditional fanbase, and then a rumour emerges that one of its most core-focused titles may possibly hit Europe later this year.
Disaster: Day of Crisis was thought to be in development limbo, but hopes were raised of a PAL release when the Australian certification board awarded it a Mature rating recently. But according to a rumour coming from the gossip haven that is NeoGAF, the game may be set for an October 24th release.
What’s particularly interesting about this is that Nintendo had promised no further game announcements for 2008 at E3, but then again that may have just meant North America. Or could it be that Disaster is the new Doshin The Giant, and won’t ever make it to US shores? And - if that is the case - why?
Nintendo UK has suggested its forthcoming release list is coming “soon”. So hopefully we’ll all know the answer before long.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Loading ...