JC Fletcher
- http://www.nintendowiifanboy.com
THE ERA AND TIME OF THIS STORY IS UNKNOWN. AFTER THE MOTHERSHIP "ARKANOID" WAS DESTROYED, A SPACECRAFT "JC Fletcher" SCRAMBLED AWAY FROM IT. BUT ONLY TO BE TRAPPED IN SPACE WARPED BY SOMEONE......
Smile! You're on EA Sports All-Play
If you've got multiple EA Sports All-Play games, you may have noticed a commonality among the boxarts beyond the normally consistent design scheme: the cover athletes are all grinning. Well, except for this guy. It's not just because they've been paid several thousand dollars to have their photograph taken -- the smiles were a corporate mandate, from the mind of Peter Moore!Moore believed that a smiling athlete on the cover "embodies the experience" of All-Play. He explained to MTV Multiplayer's Tracey John: "If you played Madden on the Wii and you're playing with guys with the heads the size of five watermelons, it's hard not to smile. We wanted to be able to deliver that experience on the packaging."
Does that mean that playing an EA Sports game on another console is a grueling trial?
Tatsunoko vs. Calendar: Store Promotion of Heroes
The Bic Camera/Sofmap version of the calendar features a group portrait, the Geo version features Ryu and Ken the Eagle, and the Imagine version's cover features Doronjo and Morrigan. And the exclusive "JC" edition features these preview images printed out and stapled together with some calendar pages from Word.
Gallery: Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes
[Via Famitsu]
Bleach: Some People Fighting
We think we're going to have to start reading or watching Bleach so we know what's going on in Bleach Versus Crusade and the DS fighting games. Our interest in the DS games has been motivated mostly by love of developer Treasure, and that is certainly driving our desire to play the Wii game as well. But we can't help but think that it would be nice to know who all these people are and why they're fighting.Even as a context-free fighting game, however, we think Versus Crusade looks pretty nice. You can see for yourself in the latest batch of screens, originally posted on the official site, but visible in a much less annoying Flash interface on Wiiz.
New Square Enix studio means more WiiWare
Fans of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King and the of the idea of quicker, leaner, Square Enix games (the kind that don't get delayed for two years) may be happy to learn this: Square Enix's new California studio is focusing for now on original downloadable games."All formats – Xbox Live, WiiWare, PlayStation Network – are all viable formats for us," Square Enix US president John Yamamoto specified. As the team -- currently comprising three people -- grows, the focus will expand to middleware and to a wider variety of original games on all formats. The middleware research, as well as the connections with Western studios, should ensure that future Square Enix titles can be developed in a timely manner. For now, at least, we can hope for a second WiiWare game!
Virtually Overlooked: Prince of Persia
It's actually kind of insulting that we don't have a version of the classic Prince of Persia on the Wii. Ubisoft, who currently holds the rights to the series, went so far as to (hire Gameloft to) produce a high-definition 3D remake of the game for Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network, and we have nothing. There are at least five separate versions of the original Prince of Persia available on systems that the Virtual Console supports -- although there's probably a matter of permission from the original publishers and developers of those versions. We know that Ubisoft isn't against porting Prince of Persia games to the Wii, since one hundred percent of the currently available PoP games on the system are ports.
Fishing Master: World Teaser
If Animal Crossing: City Folk has whetted your appetite for motion-based fishing, Hudson would like to remind you that they have, like, a whole game coming out about just that. A second one, in fact! Fishing Master: World Tour has a bit more in-depth fishing, as you would expect, and interesting backdrops to stare at while you're failing to catch anything.
There's a longer trailer over at the official website, as well as video footage featuring each of the game's fishing venues. Keep practicing catching sea bass in Animal Crossing (or the first Fishing Master, we guess), and maybe you'll be able to hit the leaderboards when World Tour.
Another Vision of Klonoa: Door to Phantomile
But the real draw to this particular article isn't the repetition of top secret info. It's the fact that there are tons of new screens of the remake's third and fourth "visions," and they are as colorful and brilliant as every other Klonoa Wii screen. At this point, it doesn't matter if you've seen everything there is to see from the original, because you'll probably want to see it again.
Gallery: Klonoa: Door to Phantomile
A cheap way to get into multiplayer Guitar Heroics
If you purchase a copy of Guitar Hero III or Guitar Hero: Aerosmith ($35 each) and add two Frontman guitars ($20 each) to your cart, $20 will be knocked off your order. So you end up with a game and two guitars for just a little more than the normal cost of a retail game.
Tenchu 4: Surprise boxart attack
We don't know how long this preview boxart image for Tenchu 4 has been on Ubisoft's site. We suspect it hasn't been very long, because the name change (to Tenchu: Shadow Assassins) is a very recent development, showing up just last week on GameStop.com. The image is regrettably tiny, but detailed enough for us to see what's going on -- and what's going on is that Rikimaru is cutting the head off of whoever picks the game up off the shelf. We've enlarged the image a bit. It's not as beautiful as the Japanese box, but it does have a certain "video game ninja" quality about it.
We're not sure the name change was the way to go; while Shadow Assassins is both more descriptive and exciting than 4, if we were Ubisoft, we'd want to emphasize however we could that this game was somehow different from all the other non-numbered Tenchu games not made by Acquire.
If you're in a Tenchu mood, be sure to browse the official website. And if you're Australian and in a Tenchu mood, good news! The OFLC has rated the game for release.
One very worthwhile Cave Story screen
We have feared that the increased definition in the sprites and environments would change too much of Cave Story's unique look, but Pixel knows what he is doing. The new look is more detailed, but still retro -- it just looks like somebody sharpened the focus.
If you haven't tried Cave Story yet, don't worry about waiting for the WiiWare version. Play the freeware game now. You'll be ready to start again when the Wii game comes out.
We're not going to stop talking about Cave Story any time soon. You may as well read up on it and join the discussion!
Let's Tap with actors pretending to be a family
Although it doesn't take much to explain Prope's minimalist Let's Tap, Sega sent out this promotional video demonstrating its gameplay. This clip highlights the Rhythm Tapping, Tap Runner, and Visualizer modes, offering brief glimpses of other modes, including what appears to be a tapping-based shmup. For more Let's Tap
The overall message, delivered by a family playing together, is that it's quite possible for people of pretty much any age to enjoy Let's Tap together, which is, of course, the goal of many Wii games. Few other Wii games manage such a cool and futuristic look, or such a genuinely unique and interesting input method.
Apparently the family in the video enjoys Let's Tap so much that they purchased two copies, because the game only comes with two of those fancy boxes!
Alone in the Deal of the Day
Atari's latest attempt to restart the Alone in the Dark franchise may have been disappointing at $50, but we can't help but wonder how much less disappointing it is as a $10 game. The lowered expectations that come with the price may be just the thing! If you only had enough interest in the game to justify spending that amount, chances are you've rented it already. If not, today's Amazon Deal of the Day may interest you. For today only, they've dropped the price of the Wii (and PS2) Alone in the Dark to $9.98.If cheap Atlus games are your thing, and if you have yet to hear about this, Amazon also currently has a bunch of Atlus games on sale for $19.96, including Dokapon Kingdom, Trauma Center: New Blood, and Baroque on the Wii.
Variety spills Boom Blox 2 development
A sequel? From Electronic Arts? No way.In an otherwise pretty sad story about the closure of EA's shadowy, innovative Blueprint division, Variety mentioned that one of the titles being developed in the style of Blueprint (development distributed around the world, coordinated online) is a sequel to their wonderful puzzle-action game, Boom Blox. It's been mentioned before, but this is the first direct acknowledgement of work being done on a followup.
Even though the Blueprint project is no more, the idea of collaboration between remote studios continues to be embodied in the ongoing work being done on the sequel. ""Everybody is integrated, regardless of whether they're in the same physical location," a former Blueprint staffer told Variety. "It's truly the spirit of what Blueprint was going to be."
The EA corporate philosophy stuff is neat, but to focus on what's important: yes, more Blox will be Boomed in the indeterminate future.
[Via Nintendo Everything]
Cooking Mama vs. Regular Mama
We're so pleased to present this upbeat, non-disgusting trailer for Cooking Mama: World Kitchen. However, even this innocuous "As Seen on TV" style video is not without controversy: certain statements are made regarding your mama. Specifically, her ability to cook, contrasting with the abilities of the game's fake cartoon mama. The trailer disclaims these statements, but it's possible that by then the damage could already be done. Consider yourselves and your mamas warned.
Hopefully we can look past this shocking material and enjoy the gameplay footage and cute presentation. Because it is really cute, and it would be a shame if some kind of awful publicity marred such cuteness.
Mario Tennis: How to Play on Wii
We didn't really need help to figure out that Play on Wii Mario Tennis GC (or Mario Power Tennis, as Camelot's mascot tennis game is known over here) would use Wiimote motion controls, since that is, like one hundred percent of the point of the Play on Wii series (and Wii tennis games, for that matter). But we welcome solid information anyway, which Japanese online retailer Neowing has provided.According to the product description, Mario Tennis GC enables players to wave the Wii Remote to execute forehand and backhand shots and direct the ball toward the left or right side of the court. Motion will also determine the addition of topspin and slice spin. Buttons are still used to deploy each character's unique special moves.
If the (possible) second coming of Wii Sports tennis doesn't excite you, hang on to your GameCube version: Play on Wii Mario Tennis GC does not support GameCube controllers.
[Via Inside-Games]
