Looking forward to Shantae: Risky's Revenge, Promotional e-mails from Wayforward

Some time ago I joined this mailing list from Wayforward Technologies that promised to give details about their upcoming Shantae: Risky's Revenge for DSiWare. Over the past week or two I've gotten three of them.

 Here's the first one with an American release date of 4th of October 2010 (which of course to us Irish looks like the 10th of April but isn't!). It got RMC at Gonintendo.com really excited. I want it to be released on the European DSiWare too! Make it happen Wayforward!

 Here's the second one. It offers a free prize to people who have purchased Wayforward's previous game Mighty Flip Champs on DSiWare. Wonder what it is? Well Wayforward, bring Shantae to Europe and let us find out! You've already released Mighty Flip Champs here so there you go! Half the battle won!

 Here's the third one. It's a fun thing done for free out of love which is a twitter account set up with each little entry covering bit by bit of Shantae's first adventure for the Game Boy Colour. Well... by love I mean good PR but done in a way that seems like it's done out of love and doesn't hurt or inconvenience anybody.

Please bring the game to Europe guys!!!

Gonintendo podcast episode 267

I really enjoyed this episode. This time more of the crew were back. The lady's name is Momma Brain and there's another guy named Deux alongside the regular guys. The guess the music feature is back which is always brilliant and RMC is very very excited about the new Shantae game that's coming to DSiWare. I hope he won't be disappointed! Speaking of which I must play the first Shantae on the Game Boy Colour for myself!

Looking forward to Donkey Kong Country Returns, watching new trailer with Rambi

Nintendo's show at E3 this year was REALLY entertaining! There were many things announced but nothing got me more excited than the reveal of Donkey Kong Country Returns! I absolutely adore the SNES trilogy, the third being my favourite, but I love all three of them like no other. Naturally I'm following the hype up to its release in Ireland, which is currently for the 3rd of December this year.

One of the latest bits of hype is the trailer showing Rambi the Rhino. Never doubted that he'd be coming back! I wonder if the other animal buddies will come back too? I always thought it was really clever naming the swordfish "Enguarde"!

Anyway, check out the Rambi trailer and let's all get excited for the game's release together!

Email: Free Ticket from Nintendo to Chessington World of Adventures

Club Nintendo of Europe e-mailed me, thanking me for being a fan of the Wii(something I always appreciate!) and offered me the chance to register for a free ticket to Chessington World of Adventures. The occasion is to celebrate the launch of a new game called Wii Party.

It's a wonderful offer but I'm afraid it doesn't really apply to me!(I preferred the time when I was given a download ticket for NES Metroid for being one of the first of so many to register Metroid Prime Trilogy) So anyone else who's a member of Club Nintendo in Europe, check your e-mail if you haven't done so already.

Where to find Fragile Dreams in Cork

Some people I know have been having trouble finding Fragile Dreams in Cork. If you're having the same trouble I'll tell you what I tell everyone else: HMV has it for EUR17.99. At the time of writing there's only like 2 copies there now so hurry. They keep the games upstairs nowadays too.

Cave Story still not out in Ireland for Wiiware yet but now announced for DSiWare also

I loved Cave Story when I played it. It's a freeware PC game that everyone loved so much and admired its creator so much they actually wanted to pay for it, so the creator got together with Nicalis to make it available to buy on the American Wiiware, which is kind of like an example of shareware working really well.


The thing is though that its still not out on WiiWare yet over here and we've been waiting well over a year for it. I'm not against buying it on DSiWare but I demand the chance to buy it on WiiWare! At least when they announced this the creators reconfirmed it was definitely coming to the European WiiWare. It even has a PEGI rating so we're still holding strong, waiting patiently and watching those weekly shop channel updates.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World movie

What an amazing film. It's just packed with references to video game conventions and I enjoyed it so much I went to see it twice. It's coming to the end of its cinema run here in Ireland and it's gotten a good response from many people I know who've seen it. Even the film critic Mark Kermode liked it, comparing it to George Lucas' Howard the Duck, which he also liked, outlining what both films have in common.

Many local bookshops to me now have shelves near the front of their stores with the graphic novels the movie is based on for sale. I've seen some people buying a few volumes of them at a time. That shows the whole thing is doing well enough over here. I heard it wasn't that well received by audiences in America, which is a shame because it really is a fun movie to watch. If you haven't seen it yet check it out!

Is the SNES Wii classic controller worth it? Regional SNES controller differences.

In a previous post I talked about how Nintendo of Europe made a SNES controller available that connects to the Wii remote like a classic controller. I'd quite like one myself and I think it's cool how it's made to look like the European SNES controller. What's the difference between a SNES controller sold in Ireland from one sold in America you might ask? Well I'll talk about some of the differences here for those not in the know:

Firstly here's the controller from the Japanese release of the SNES, the Super Famicom. Now when you compare it to....

...the American SNES controller you'll notice a couple of tiny differences. The name of course is different and the buttons are two different shades of purple. The X and Y buttons also have little grooves on them which is pretty interesting. Now for the one sold in Ireland and the rest of Europe:

Which is almost exactly like the Japanese one apart from the name of course. What's worthy of note is that the SNES classic controller for Wii that's available from Nintendo of Europe's site looks exactly like this. So although the difference is mostly cosmetic this might help influence your decision of what version of this special classic controller for the Wii to get.

NGamer issue 54

I love getting NGamer magazine. They can be pretty funny and they're very good for import reviews as well, sometimes being the first to review games at all. I also love the way the cover doesn't have any obnoxious taglines(although the disposable bag it always comes in always has plenty, as if they understand that those lines are worthless in the long run and should be treated as rubbish). This month's cover features Professor Layton and has a review for the game inside. It scored 88 and it has a release date of 22nd of October. There's also a gigantic Professor Layton poster with it. I've never played the series before. I wonder if I ought to get into it.

Another thing that came free with this month's issue is this:

An accessory for the Wii remote that gives it handles. To be honest it's a good idea to give the classic controller handles but not the Wii remote, which doesn't even fit properly into it. It's definitely not worth 7 pounds that's for sure.

This issue also has a review of Last Window! Thankfully Matthew Castle wrote a normal one this time(His Hotel Dusk review was a bit crazy) and he scored it 84. It's a good read!

Listening to podcasts: Gonintendo Podcast Webisode 266

I've been trying to get into listening to the gonintendo.com podcasts lately as it's one of my favourite blogs to visit. There's a great liveliness to it and they really get into reading out press releases and such which can be entertaining.

I enjoy it but am getting to know who's who in the show very slowly as there's usually a lot of them on the show and I'm trying my best to tell them apart. This time there was just RMC(Rawmeatcowboy) and Kirby so now I now know those guys a little better. They weren't used to having such a small number at once but they got through it well I thought.

I missed the guess the game music feature they usually seem to have. I'm going to try my best to listen to it regularly from now on and comment on the goings on here.

SNES controller attachment for the Wii remote now available from Club Nintendo Europe

A European SNES controller you can plug into the Wii remote! How nice! If you really wanted to get this it's been made available recently via Nintendo of Europe's Club Nintendo site and costs 7000 stars which you can acquire by registering enough European Nintendo products. It's been available in Japan for a long while but now is our chance in Ireland to officially get one.

Metroid: Other M The Movie

This is actually what you first see when you decide to just watch the game being played in theatre mode.

The whole thing is just like a modern day action movie - lots of shaky camera, quick cuts and loads of zoom in shots. There's a lot of deadpan voice acting with standard sci-fi dialogue. I'm not really the biggest fan of sci-fi so I didn't really enjoy it.

It may be a little too sci-fi actually. Metroid was always more about weird alien jungle-like labyrinths than it was about serious sci-fi stuff. Then again, sci-fi is the closest thing one could probably come to describe the whole Metroid series even though it doesn't really fit the description that well. It's a bit of a dilemma, especially if you were trying to realise it cinematically.

Should Nintendo produce something like this again? I'd like to see if they could improve upon it. I can imagine Metroid having some cinematic potential but I'm thinking of something more along the lines of that movie WALL-E. A producer of "cinematic Metroid" could definitely learn a few things from that film.

Watching video games as movies

A couple of weeks ago Metroid: Other M was released over here in Ireland. I heard somewhere that if you complete the game you unlock a theatre mode where you can watch all the game's cut scenes together like a movie.

From what I've played of the game so far I'm definitely more interested in the cut scenes rather than the game itself so what I'm going to do is download a save that has theatre mode unlocked and watch the whole thing from start to finish. I'll blog about it in a future entry.

This isn't the first time a game has done this. The European version of Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence has a third disc where you can watch the whole game as a three and a half hour movie(Metroid: Other M's movie is said to be about two hours). In the instruction manual Hideo Kojima had a special message talking about watching the game as a movie:

Metal Gear Solid has become something you can experience more than just one way. I'm not sure how selling games as something you can "watch" instead of play would work but quite a lot of video game fans do it already with the likes of watching "Let's Play" video walkthroughs on Youtube.

So why are we watching games being played instead of actually playing them? Well, one thing for sure is that watching gameplay footage helps give us an impression of what a game is mainly like before buying it, installing it, loading it and sitting through its lengthy prologue. Modern game releases take a lot of effort to get into.

I suppose the best way I can sum this up for now is that although the final impressions always come from playing the game itself, watching the game being played can really help you to assess if a game is worth going to all that trouble.

Last Window: The Secret of Cape West for Nintendo DS out today in Ireland.

Well here it is at last, Kyle Hyde's new adventure. I bought it earlier today. Haven't started playing it yet but I'm looking forward to it.

I like to look inside a game's manual and read a message of thanks for buying it :) Nintendo's usually good for doing this. This game is compatible with the Rumble Pak as well so I'll see if I can get one of those so I can try it out.

Here's something interesting. One of the instruction manual pages is stuck to another by a perforated edge. Remove it and you can look at some hints for the game. It all feels very top secret!

Last Window Buzz

Tomorrow Last Window for the DS will be released here in Ireland and the rest of Europe. I'm really looking forward to it. It's the sequel to Hotel Dusk, a game I thoroughly enjoyed on long journeys. It was less of a game and more of a really good read - kind of like those Ace Attorney games where you're reading text most of the time and getting clues to advance the plot and having interesting exchanges with other characters. This will be more of the same but with some little changes probably. It'll be good to play as the gruff but likeable Kyle Hyde again!

Pity though it hasn't been announced for release in America. The same thing happened with Another Code R on the Wii. I guess it really is true what they say though that adventure games of this type are much more popular in Europe. Since it isn't happening over there for now there will be relatively little buzz online about it.

Having said that let's look at what buzz is there for the game: Nintendo has a tv advert and an official gamesite for it and cubed3.com has a review for it too where they rated it 9/10. I haven't seen any adverts or display cases for it in shops.

About this blog

Hello there and welcome. Call me Lucas - a name I chose from the character of the same name from Nintendo's Mother series. This blog is done my by me, an Irish Nintendo Fan for every other video game fan that may have an interest in what goes on in such a person's video game playing hobby. I live in Cork, Ireland and I focus on Nintendo related matters that affect me and possibly other fans in this region. I will try the best I can to post new entries daily for the next couple of weeks to see if I can pull something like this off.