Thoth

Metroid Prime 3 does not use Friend Codes. All WiiConnect24 enabled games use your existing list of Wii system friends.

Lost Levels is also, apparently, only available until the end of this month, and Picross was not translated. This all has something to do with the Hanabi Festival (Flower Day) in Europe (????) Edit: Okay, the deal with this is that Europe is getting Japanese games, some never released outside of Japan. Sin & Punishment, is in fact, one of these games, and is going to be releasd two weeks from today. In other VC news, Hudson has just announced TurboDuo and TurboGrafx CD games will appear on the VC starting next month. Ys Book 1 & 2 and Chou Aniki are the first two planned games. Price is set at 800 Points.

It appears that the Neo Geo games that were scheduled for release on Japan's VC have been delayed, which would explain why we haven't seen them in the US or in PAL regions. Edit: SNK just put out an official press release. The first three games are Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, and World Heroes. 900 Points for each is confirmed.

I feel like I can enjoy the game even more if the difficulty were increased; I played it originally on Medium.

I want to replay it on Hard, and I usually don't replay too many games.

No Neo Geo games on VC today. We get NES Play Action Football, Neutopia 2, and Sonic 3.

Pacman is such a waste of money. Can't get physically involved... I dunno what the point is there.

Wow, didn't even know Jimmy Rave was here, teaming with Hoyt.

Sin & Punishment, a game that recently came out on the Japanese VC, has been rated by the OFLC (The Australian ESRB). This basically means that a game that was never released outside of Japan, even though it was fully localized, is seeing the light of day. With a PAL release imminent, the odds of it coming out in the US have increased dramatically. No Neo Geo games came out in the PAL Regions though, instead, this week was five Genesis (Mega Drive) games for them. Whether we'll get Neo Geo games this Monday is unknown, but I doubt it.

All the Mario Kart stuff that ONM posted just got retracted saying "We were reporting rumor." Of course, I'm willing to bet they posted fact before it was okay.

If the AI has any adaptable qualities (A good example of this is F.E.A.R. or Halo), its reliance on CPU power grows dramatically. On top of that, AI routines cannot use graphics hardware for acceleration, as graphics hardware is strictly limited to matrix manipulation. Perfect example: Pop open UT 2004, and start a botmatch. Depending on the machine, each bot reduces the frames per second by 1.

Nothing. But we're making the assumption that the AI will be such that the Wii won't have the processing power to handle the AI as it appears on the PS3/360. That's a pretty big assumption though. If your going by the trailer, all I saw was a guy surrounded by alot of "zombies" behaving in the same manner as they did in re4. For all we know he allowed than much people gang up on him to give of the impression that you're constantly in trouble. Same thing could be done in certain areas of RE4. I know it's wrong to jump to conclusions. But sometimes it's tough to be a Wii owner; it's easy to assume the worst. Metroid and Strikers were nice additions to my library, though, and the upcoming releases look pretty good.

Online Wii games can be split into three categories: Games That Use WiiConnect24 - Use the list of registered Wii friends on your Wii friends system list. These games don't have competitive multiplayer per se, but feature some kind of online interactivity. There are three games that use this so far: Elebits Big Brain Academy Metroid Prime 3 Games That Use WiFiConnection With Friend Codes - These games have their own separate lists of friends. Friends are registered on a per-game basis using 12-digit friend codes. These games support competitive multiplayer. The two games that use this so far: Pokemon Battle Revolution Mario Strikers Charged Other - There are games that support online play without friend codes. The game that uses this so far: Madden 08 There are other games coming out, like FIFA, Batallion Wars, Dewy's Adventure, and Medal of Honor, that have confirmed online features in those categories, but those six are it so far.

Nothing. But we're making the assumption that the AI will be such that the Wii won't have the processing power to handle the AI as it appears on the PS3/360.

Nintendo's online play has generally been lag-free when I played it, and I have to admit they NAILED Custom Robo. Absolutely wonderful online experience there. Mario Strikers is enjoyable online, nothing to complain. If all you care about is playing games online against random people, the Wii/DS is just fine. Playing against people you know is tough, because you can't add people you enjoyed playing against as friends* *except in Metroid Hunters and Custom Robo for DS, and in that you add them as rivals, in which you can see them online and challenge them, but you're not allowed to communicate with them. But as far as I can tell, even the PS3 is better than the Wii, and the PS3's online is free.

I want it. [email protected]

You're missing the point. If you owned a 360 and a Wii, and a game came out for both systems, say, RE5, or Smackdown VS Raw 2008, do you buy the 360 version, or the Wii version?

I know it hasn't been announced yet, but I think it's likely that it'll happen. They've said in interviews that they haven't decided on it yet, since a number of things would have to be changed and/or altered since RE5 is being built from the ground up for the more powerful 360 and PS3 systems. They've said that they'd watch the numbers of the Wii version of RE4, and that next RE game for the Wii, and then make their decision at that time. Add that to the fact that it's recently been said that the numbers for the Wii version of RE4 have far exceeded expectations (well on the way to a million copies sold), then we might be getting somewhere. If not the RE5 that we see on the 360 and PS3, there will be something along the same lines on the Wii eventually. There has to be - RE4 is selling far too well for them not to do something for Wii owners. I agree that Capcom will release some kind of port of RE5. Too much money not to happen. But ask yourself this: Would you buy the Wii version of Smackdown vs Raw '08, knowing that the Wii version has been simplified from the PS3/Xbox 360 versions? (At the very least, you cannot run in any direction you want)

There is no Wii version of RE5, and there probably won't be one.

Yes, Neo Geo games are, in fact, confirmed for American release, as spoken by Ben Herman, president of SNK Playmore USA. The original release date was "This Summer", but as we approach the end of "This summer", we haven't seen anything yet. (Keep in mind the things that Ben Herman says tend to be completely full of shit, however Neo Geo games in America are a done deal) For what it's worth, there are no issues with translation and localization for Neo Geo Games. The English and Japanese versions are included on the same cartridge, and all you need to switch between them is a dip switch setting (or a 1 byte change in the emulator). Any Neo Geo game that launches in Japan is therefore ready for American release. (Regardless, a game still has to pass Nintendo's testing, and, say, if there's a word in the English version of a game that Nintendo doesn't like, back it goes) As far as the 900 points thing, it's true that prices in Japan differ (Link to the Past is 900, not 800, Ocarina of Time is 1200, not 1000), but 900 points is in line with predictions and words from Ben Herman himself that the cost would be between an SNES game and an N64 game.

Neo Geo games release on the Virtual Console in Japan on September 11. The first three are Fatal Fury, World Heroes, and Magician Lord. Neo Geo games are 900 Points each. In Japan, the VC updaes on Tuesdays. Whether this means we'll see Neo Geo games on Monday the 10th is up in the air, but rest assured they will be 900 points.

Thanks for the tip; it might make my life (in that game) less frustrating.

Well, I do use a ton of items. But I never grinded. I just got to the second planet, and the monsters are having their way with me. Should I have grinded more on Juraika?

The one complaint I have about Rogue Galaxy is that my teammates are very good at dying. I don't change battle strategy often, if that matters. So I don't know if it's because the game sucks, or I suck.

You, Wii Number Thread, now.