Wii

[AndrewTS 0]

Thoth: The wording your post is rather confusing, but I assume you meant to say that Neo Geo games are official for North American VC, and those titles are the first three.

 

As seen here: http://www.snkplaymoreusa.com/pr-9-12-2007.php

 

Although--meh. The PS2 AoF and Fatal Fury 1-3 comps are 15 bucks on PS2. Hurry up with Magician Lord!

 

The bad thing about Virtual Console is that it's discouraging compilations, which are typically great values plus they also don't take up space in my console memory. At least we got the Metal Slug compilation.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

I want some 3 Count Bout action.

[dubq 0]

^^^ YES!

[Sideburnious 0]

Wii Europe VC games are fresh off the press are: Super Mario Bros (2 japan) The lost levels [NES]; Neutopia II [turbografix]; & Mario's Super Picross. [snes]

 

The interesting thing about it is that the two "never before release outside of japan" (Lost Levels, Picross) both have yellow circles on the right hand side of the game title, which I'm guessing at the moment is to represent the fact that they are "totally new". I guess also to reflect this they are both an extra 100 points each with Lost levels being 600 & Picross being 900.

[Thoth 0]

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.

[AndrewTS 0]

VC games for North America today:

Yoshi's Story (Nintendo 64, 1 player, 1,000 Wii Points)

Super Thunder Blade (Sega Genesis, 1 player, 800 Wii Points)

World Class Baseball (TurboGrafx16, 1-2 players, 600 Wii Points)

 

I guess this makes Super Thunder Blade the "winner." Do *NOT* get Yoshi's Story unless you know exactly what you're getting into. It's quite terrible.

[Guest Smues]

I never got all the Yoshi's Story hate. I found it fairly enjoyable, other than that hidious song at the end of the levels. (or maybe it was the end of the game, I can't remember)

[dubq 0]

Was Pro Wrestling ever released on the VC? I can't remember off the top of my head and can't seem to find a list of the games (that's not blocked from work, that is).

[Thoth 0]

I absolutely loathed Yoshi's Story. Man, I woke up hoping the US would get in on the Hanabi festival action. What a disappointment.

 

I also didn't realize Dewy's Adventure came out this week. Totally Gameflyed.

[SamoaRowe 0]

Yoshi's Story for the N64 is definitely not worth downloading. The graphics are a bit fun to look at, and that's where the positive ends.

[AndrewTS 0]

Yoshi Story is every bit as pointless, derivative, tedious and soulless as the gaming press says Donkey Kong Country is.

 

Even the press release can't make it seem fun.

 

Yoshi’s Story™ (Nintendo 64, 1 player, rated E for Everyone, 1,000 Wii Points): The evil Baby Bowser has cast a spell turning Yoshi’s Island™ into a picture book. Worse yet, the Super Happy Tree has been stolen, making the island dark and gloomy. Players must take control of six Yoshis, each a different color, and travel through six pages (worlds) of platforming adventure to recover the tree and return the island to normal. Featuring huge character models and bright, vibrant colors, the game’s various environments (such as woods, caves, mountains and oceans) come alive in a uniquely gorgeous 2½-D look. Eat fruit, avoid enemies and obstacles, and throw eggs from the Yoshis’ never-ending supply in your quest to stop Baby Bowser’s plan from succeeding. If you’re good enough, you can aim for higher scores by being picky about the fruit you eat. And who knows, you might even find the mysterious black and white Yoshis.

 

PICKY EATING, what a brilliant game mechanic that was. They left out about the sniffing skill...which requires being in the right spot, holding "Up" I believe, until your Yoshi shrieks. Every FEW STEPS is a possible new location for a fruit.

 

You can play through different levels depending in on...your score, or something...each time, so you can experience different lousy level designs each time before getting the "end" of the game to hear the diabeetus-causing Yoshis song.

 

I never got all the Yoshi's Story hate. I found it fairly enjoyable, other than that hidious song at the end of the levels. (or maybe it was the end of the game, I can't remember)

 

End of the game, I believe. But NOBODY forgets the Yoshi song. It's like some unholy mixture of Teletubbies and Barney.

 

And the reason everyone hates Yoshi's Story is that Yoshi's Island is one of the best games ever made, and Yoshi's Story is garbage. Garbage baked into a cake and covered with sweet icing. It looks innocuous, it looks sweet, it has a pedigree that tells you it has to be great, but it isn't. It's just a total kick in the balls. I've seen people trying to justify it in that it was "meant for young kids," which is utterly laughable.

[LJSexay 0]

That's probably the best way to phrase the madness that is Yoshi's Story, Andrew. I never found the damn secret Yoshis either, I kinda lost my patience.

[Matt Young 0]

I loved Yoshi's Story. I played through and beat it when my cousin rented it, and then I went out and paid $60 to buy a new copy. I completed every level multiple times and got the black and white Yoshis.

 

Also, when getting drunk at a hotel early this year, my friend Katrina and I burst into the Yoshi song at the mere mention of the game. It is played, to clarify, at the title screen and after every level.

 

The page turned, and the Yoshis grew happier...

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

TRU has accessories B1 G1 1/2 off and Im trying to see what exactly constitues accessories, since Im thinking if the points cards are, that I might get two so I can start getting some VC games cheaply.

 

Edit: It does. 4000 points for $30 instead of $40

 

All games are B2G1F but I dont think there are 3 games that I want at the moment enough to put out $100 for.

[LJSexay 0]

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1570214/2...920/index.jhtml

 

interesting article on the process of making Metroid Prime 3, and how it pertains to the Wii's "between XBox and Xbox360" capabilities. Excerpt:

 

If the Wii controller posed one formidable challenge, it's reasonable to assume that the system's graphical prowess, reputedly not far from the original Xbox's, would frustrate a Retro team known for pushing game visuals. "The Wii is a fairly decently powerful game system as far as polygons go," art director Todd Keller said, refraining from making any serious complaints. "We don't have a lot of depth with shader stuff, but we can make really good color palettes." Keller, who has been overseeing art in the "Prime" series, said the system can graphically surpass the achievements of "Prime 3," noting "you can definitely do more stuff that will be way beyond that." But he also shared a philosophy about game graphics that suggests there's plenty of ways to impress players' eyes that don't involve pushing tech. Instead, he talks about pushing talent to some interesting extremes.

 

"We'll do crazy stuff," Keller said. "You can ask any artist here what the first 'Prime' was about and they'll say cracks. All we did was put thousands of cracks everywhere. For some reason at the time I was real big into cracks and everything had to be beveled. Every crack was custom. There is not one crack that was copied around. I made them chop up everything. We chopped up every stone that was unique on the game. Every pebble." So what is "Prime 3" about? "Texture detail." Keller said that in the Wii game, every texture — the flat pieces of art that coat every side of every figure, object and piece of terrain in any 3-D game — was handmade, ideally at 512 pixels wide, double the resolution of textures in the two earlier "Prime" games.

 

Not only is he proud of the level of detail his art team achieved, but the amount of variety in the game. Consider the mushrooms that appear in the "Prime 3" jungle planet. "All those mushrooms in the Bryyo world — those big, spiky mushrooms — those aren't really copied around at all," Keller said. "They're kind of made new each time, just because we didn't want the mushrooms to be similar. We would take all the vertices and move them different places or extrude, pull out new polygons to make the mushrooms fit into the hill differently. When we get closer to [the toxic energy called] Phazon they are a little more corrupted."

 

I thought this was worth sharing. What do you guys think, are they talking out of their asses, or does the Wii hold more power than anyone has given it credit for?

[AlexPuma 0]

The Wii is way more powerful than people think. Sure the 360 is ages ahead of the Wii in raw power, but in time, the Wii will be showing some impressive games I'm certain. MP3 still looks a bit like the first two Metroid Primes but with less graphic restrictions, so I think games far more impressive than MP3 technically are in store for us.

[AndrewTS 0]

I'd like to hear their explanation for the door lag being the worst it's ever been in the series.

[World's Worst Man 0]

The Wii specs are pretty brutal, I'm not sure people are really under-selling its power. Expecting the graphics to improve over time is natural - developers will become more familiar with the hardware the more experience they have with it. But that also applies to the PS3 and 360, so it's not like the Wii is going to get any closer. That's fine though, the Wii is what it is.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

I'd like to hear their explanation for the door lag being the worst it's ever been in the series.

 

The levels are larger and have more detail, or at least thats what I figured.

 

 

[AndrewTS 0]

I'd like to hear their explanation for the door lag being the worst it's ever been in the series.

 

The levels are larger and have more detail, or at least thats what I figured.

 

I don't mean the *obvious* reason, I mean how they'd spin it to make it seem like it isn't a serious deficiency of the hardware.

 

All the talk about "innovative control schemes" and "offering an experience the other consoles can't provide" is all well and good until the Wii is gasping and wheezing to support a game that looks like nothing more than a gussied-up last-gen title.

 

Thankfully, we have next-gen consoles to support games like that.

[AlexPuma 0]

Its simple. Metroid Prime 3 is on a DVD. Metroid Prime 1 & 2 were on those tiny 1.5 gig mini-discs. That is also why the GameCube was faster with barely no loading times in comparison to Xbox 1 games. Full-sized DVDs take longer to load data from.

[LJSexay 0]

I hadn't really considered that.

[AndrewTS 0]

I hadn't really considered that.

 

You don't have to, because it's wrong.

 

The Wii discs are not DVDs, but Wii Optical Discs. It and Gamecube discs use the exact same technology. It's similar to a DVD, but the format is designed to provide faster loading speeds. This extends to the Wii discs, and has nothing to do with the size of the actual disc. The Wii discs are basically just larger, but provide the same benefits.

[LJSexay 0]

thanks for posting that, that was pretty freakin' insightful. I didn't know wii discs can hold up to 8+ gigs, that's really cool for someone like me who stuck with his Gamecube.

[luke-o 0]

Does anyone know if I can buy Wii points online using a debit card? I know you can with a credit card but I don't trust myself with one of those.

[SamoaRowe 0]

I've used my debit card to buy Wii points, but mine has a Visa logo on it.

[AlexPuma 0]

Its perfectly fine to use a Debit card to buy Wii Points. As long as it has a Visa or MasterCard logo on it.

[Thoth 0]

Because they don't take... American Express.

 

Visa. It's everywhere you want to be.

 

I think that was their motto for a while.

[EricMM 0]

@ balking at door load times.

[Thoth 0]

One word review of Dewy's Adventure:

 

Sucks.