Hey, check that out. A game that cost loads on eBay is at £3.49 on the WiiU virtual console!
…awesome! Continue reading
Gargoyles’ Quest 2 is released on WiiU Virtual Console!
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Tag Archives: Virtual Console
Virtual Console Games you Should already have (need) on your Wii: Part 3!
Here’s the final part of “What virtual console game you should have!”. So what will we have here then!?
Actraiser
Virtual Console Games you Should already have (need) on your Wii: Part 2!
Continuing from yesterday’s “Virtual console games you should already have!” Let me get to business with a few of these!
Splatter House
Virtual Console Games you Should already have (need) on your Wii: Part 1!
I’ve been on the Twitter-verse today talking to some gaming peeps when I came across @RetroHunter asking for what TurboGrafx 16 games to get. I ended up telling him that I know some great games because I got them from the Wii Virtual Console. Until I got this reply…
@greatbitblog I know, until recently I was caught in an Xbox coma. I’ve never even used the virtual console. Shhhh, don’t tell anyone!
— Ally Hogg (@TheRetroHunter) May 24, 2013
Return to the Review: Wii Classic Controller
I wrote this back in 2006 for NerdBlurb when the Wii was released. Bare in mind this was before the better Classic Controller Pro came out. It was just weird at the time that Nintendo forced the GameCube controller to have it’s buttons A to A, B to B, etc-etc, when they were in the position compared to a SNES controller. So having a Classic controller helped. Though it felt really weird to play with one for N64 games.
So… you’ve downloaded a few games onto your Wii, and you want to get playing, you could use a GameCube Controller. However you can buy a Wii Classic controller for £15/$20. So why should you buy it when you can use a GameCube controller?
First off, playing SNES games with the GCN controller is awkward, back then, the “B” button became the new “A” button to jump, and the new “Y” button became the new “B”. The thing is, Nintendo has been literal about what the buttons, so A on the GCN is A on the SNES pad, which mean if you’re playing Super Mario World, you’ll be spin jumping instead of normal jumping, plus have you ever tried pressing B and Y together on a GCN pad? It’s quite awkward to pull off unless you’re holding the controller in an odd way.
The Controller itself is very comfortable, think of it as a SNES pad, but a tad thicker. Just like the SNES pad, it features the Dpad, A, B, X and Y face buttons and the L and R buttons; however an additional Z buttons (ZL and ZR), two analogue sticks and a home button are available on the pad for N64 and Wii Home options. The L and R buttons are sprung just like the GCN pad’s triggers, including the digital click. This could be used for original download games for the Wii. There’s a button in between the ZL and ZR buttons that controls a sort of lock on the back of the pad; there are two slots that looks like something can be attached to the back of the Classic controller.
So, why should you buy a Wii Classic controller? Well it really depends on what games you’re going to get, the GCN pad feels OK for all the other consoles (NES, N64, MD/Gen and TG-16), and it’s just a pain for SNES games. I’d say buy it if you’re going to get a lot of SNES games from the Wii Shop, if not, you might not really need it. Otherwise it’s a very nice controller that guarantees to work on all VC games, although the GCN controller at the moment works on all VC games, Sega and Hudson have mentioned that the GCN may not work on up coming MegaDrive/Genesis and TurboGrafix-16 games.
Pros:
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Guarantees to work on all VC games.
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Comfortable.
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Button layout matches SNES pad.
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Wireless (connected to the Wii Remote).
Cons:
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Isn’t necessary for other VC games (NES, N64, MD/Gen and TG16).
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The two sticks a little too close to each other.
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Requires a Wii remote to work.
So… That was my review and analysis of the Wii Classic controller in 2006. As I said above, Nintendo later on would release the Classic controller Pro that would be bigger and a lot more comfortable than the original classic controller. Shame it didn’t come with rumble or made better for N64 games, but it was a good controller for virtual console, and Wii disc based games that used it. I’ll review the Classic Controller Pro later on…
Return to the Review: Sin and Punishment
Here’s a review I wrote way back for an old gaming blog I had back in 2007. It was a part of a series of games that were released to promote import games on the Wii virtual console, and us Brits had a chance to play the untouchable Nintendo 64 shooter, Sin and Punishment. Back in 2000, Nintendo of America were thinking of releasing this game to the west, but just as they were organising that, Nintendo of Japan were ready to announce the Game Boy Advance and Game Cube. So there wasn’t a point in localising the game as people were hyped for the new hardware. But I do remember seeing this game in the magazines and hoping to get a chance to play it. Well, in 2007 I did, on the Wii virtual console! A little costly for it’s 1200 Wii Points price, but without importing it and modifying a Nintendo 64 to play Japanese games, the price wasn’t going to cost my soul…
Sin and Punishment is one of those games that made N64 history in Japan, sitting next to Zelda Ocarina of Time, this Treasure classic was released in early 2000 in Japan with the intention to be released in the US and Europe, the problem was that by the time the game released in Japan, the Sega DreamCast was already released worldwide and the N64 was coming to an end. Even if the game was easy to localise, Treasure decided to cancel the International versions despite release the game in 2004 in China for the iQue (The Chinese N64). Due to its limited number of copies it’s one of the most sought-after N64 game for gamers, not just in Japan, but all around the world.
Nintendo began their first series of special Virtual Console games on the European Shop Channel calling it the “Hanabi Festival”, Hanabi meaning Fireworks in Japanese, started to introduce the Virtual Console’s first wave of Japanese import games made available for European Wii owners to buy and download. This included the Original Japanese Super Mario Bros 2, Ninja Jajamaru-Kun and Mario’s Super Picross. The last game in Nintendo’s Hanabi Event is the Legendary N64 game, Sin and Punishment, localised and with a 1200 Wii Point price tag (£8.40 GBP/ €12 EUR /$12 USD) making it the most expensive game on the European Shop channel so far. The price might be scary due to the fact that there are Xbox Live Arcade games cheaper then that, but this game is no simple port, Nintendo and Treasure worked on translating the Japanese text in the menus, options and title screen to make sure that you know what you’re doing. As for in-game, the game already has English voice-overs and the Japanese subtitles still exist.
Sin and Punishment takes place in a near future, 2007 to be exact, how uncanny that they release the game on the Virtual Console the same year that the game is in, heh. The world has been terrorised by an insect-like alien race named the “Ruffians”. The US Army have acquired Ruffian corpses and have been performing weird genetic experiments to make their Army stronger, to discover that the new Ruffian blood infused soldiers have turned into corrupt uncontrollable freaks that mutate into monsters. You play as one of two surviving rebels that want to bring back peace and order to the world, who have to fight against the US army that have been infused with Ruffian blood and prevent any more experiments, to discover that the Male lead protagonist, Saki, is in fact a Ruffian blood infused human and turns into a very powerful, 60 foot vertebrae Ruffian that the US Army has called “BEAST”. Playing as the Female protagonist, Airan, you go out to prevent the US Army to destroy the mutated Saki and turn him back into a human; however you end up being teleported from Japan to the USA and now you got to race to save Saki from being killed by the US Army.
The game play is pretty simple; it’s an on-rails shooter similar to the likes of StarFox64, Space Harrier and Panzer Dragoon. Except this time around you get the freedom to strafe left and right independently to avoid enemy fire with the D-Pad, whilst moving a cross-hair on the Screen with the analogue stick. The L button on the Classic Controller fires the gun, whilst the R button executes a jump. In close range of an enemy, the player’s gun turns into a light sabre and slashes the enemies, you can use this same move to deflect missiles, hurling them back towards the enemy. The A Button switches between two cross-hairs, a Manual mode, and a Lock-on mode. Manual mode allows you move the cross-hair with total freedom like in a typical shooting game, whilst the Lock-on mode will instantly lock the cross-hair onto the nearest enemy, however by doing this you sacrifice your fire power by 50 percent. The Issue that I have with these controls is Nintendo’s decision to put the fire button on the L Button rather then the R button. The reason why I’m saying this is because it makes sense that the hand you use to aim should be the same hand you use to fire. However in this case it’s flipped around and Jump button is on R instead, which makes the experience very weird. Originally on the Japanese N64 game, you would hold the N64 controller with your left hand on the D-pad with the right hand on the analogue stick, as the Z Trigger fires and the L Button is for Jump, which makes sense, but in this case, it’s quite weird that they swapped the buttons. There are other button layouts that you can try out, Such as using L and R to strafe rather then the D-pad, but this doesn’t really work very well for me, so I stick to the peculiar swapped button layout. If only Nintendo swapped those two buttons around to make it feel more like the actual N64 game, then it would make it a better experience for me, and I would be rating this game higher. Thing is, Nintendo in the past has fixed control problems in VC games before, so it’s very possible that there could be an update for this game soon that will swap these buttons around and will make the game a much better experience.
The Graphics in the game is very “blocky”, I mean fair enough, I can’t expect super quality poly-models on an N64 game, but it does make it feel that Zelda: Ocarina of Time have some poly-models that looks better on the eyes then this game. However the game does sport some really awesome camera techniques that I never thought was possible on the N64. In certain levels, the camera will pan and roll slightly depending on where the cross-hair in positioned on the screen, which gives the game an extra touch of polish. However the best is to come when you play in mid-air level riding on a levitating piece of metal; the whole environment will rock, roll and twist around giving the feel of some crazy mid-air flying, plus there’s a part where you’re practically hanging upside down and you actually feel like hanging upside down, something that I can honestly say, I haven’t ever felt in an N64 game before…
As for sound, it uses typical sound effects that you would find in an anime, even with the over exaggerated machine gun noises. The Voice acting isn’t too bad, but it’s still the typical kind of voice acting you’ll find in an anime, as if the whole game itself is meant to be an interactive anime. The background music consists of generic 80’s style rock music that’s kind of forgettable; however the first level music is only “semi-hummable”.
Overall, this game is still very good and it’s worth every penny, but as I said, the swapped buttons to me are a bit of a let down. I would prefer it if it had the button layout I want, or if Nintendo aloud me to map my own buttons. But the swapped buttons will definitely confuse you at first, here’s hoping that Nintendo will solve this problem with a Virtual Console Update.
Amendment: Even since 2007, they never did fix those weird controls. As I’ve mentioned to people before, I don’t really like playing Nintendo 64 games without an actual Nintendo 64 controller. Maybe I should invest in one of those controller adapters…
SO MUCH NEWS!
OK, I can’t understand how in one day SO MUCH HAPPENS IN THE GAMING WORLD! …I better report on it!
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| *Insert Inception “BOW” sound here* |
First off, details about the PlayStation4/Orbis came out today revealing some specifications and details about accounts and the next PlayStation controller.
Here were a few specs that were announced today…
- System Memory: 8GB
- Video Memory: 2.2 GB
- CPU: 4x Dual-Core AMD64 “Bulldozer” (so, 8x cores)
- GPU: AMD R10xx
- Ports: 4x USB 3.0, 2x Ethernet
- Drive: Blu-Ray
- HDD: 160GB
- Audio Output: HDMI & Optical, 2.0, 5.1 & 7.1 channels
OK… 8 Gigs of RAM, check, my PC has that, 2.2 gigs of Video memory, impressive, that’s twice as much memory than what’s on my PC’s graphics card. 8 core processor, wasn’t the “Cell processor” an 8 core anyway…?
…But here’s the interesting bit, the GPU is an AMD R10xx, there isn’t a lot said about this GPU, but from what I’ve read it appears that it can share GPU time from the main processor, and if requested, the CPU can get more time from the GPU. Meaning that load balancing between graphics and maths can be met even if More maths, or more graphics are required.
What’s this in layman terms? Well, it simply means that the machine could potentially do a lot more than what it says on paper. AMD created a CPU, called the APU, where cores could switch between a CPU, for maths, or a GPU, for graphics. But what the R10xx is either boost the CPU speed, for times when you need more processing power, but in turn, the CPU can assist the graphics card for when really intense graphics come in and the GPU alone might not be able to handle. This means that the hardware in the PS4/Orbis might have some potential to a great deal of stuff, even when it doesn’t look so great on paper.
Plus there’s news and rumours about what the next PlayStation controller might be like. What’s been speculated at the moment (yes it’s not quite official yet) is that it’ll have an Ouya style track pad in the middle of the controller, and that it will have a built in memory for user accounts, meaning that purchased games are not going to be tied down to a console, rather they’ll be tied to a controller. Meaning you can take your controller to your friend’s house and play your PSN purchases on his/her PS4/Orbis without account complications.
The Gadget Show announced details about the next XBox, and it’s just called “XBox”… Yeah, what’s what it says in the article. Let’s just hope we don’t confuse this new XBox with the original 2002 XBox… It’s been confirmed that the “New XBox” will run a system that’s based on Windows 8 (really now?) and uses an AMD 8 core processor (Oh really now! funny that, so is PS4!).
According to The Gadget Show, Microsoft’s Illumi Room technology, which was shown off at CES a week a go, will be used in the “New XBox”. Illumi Room is a technology where by using projectors, you can increase the size of the game screen to the whole room, or use more subtle effects such as red flashes when you get shot in a first person shooter.
The “New Xbox” (I’m getting sick of calling it that by the way), isn’t going to be the only piece of gaming hardware from the next generation Microsoft hardware. It’s been rumoured that Microsoft is building a gaming tablet called the “X Surface” in similar vein to the Microsoft Surface, will be another Windows 8 based tablet that works in conjunction with the “New XBox” either for media controls or Wii-U style game play.
…Seriously, I’m not getting a new XBox, Microsoft can suck Xbox Live, seriously…
So, the trifecta of gaming news ends with Nintendo, as they announce new games for the Wii-U on their latest Nintendo Direct that was broadcasted this morning.
Nintendo is celebrating the Famicom’s thirty year anniversary by releasing a Wii-U “Gamepad-i-fied” virtual console game each month for the dirt cheap price of 30 cents.
UPDATE: The 30 cents offer works as a 30 day rental, after 30 days, the game expires, you you have the choice of purchasing it or not. But users who own the Wii version of the virtual console game can purchase the GamePad-i-fied version at a discounted price of 99 cents.
Yes, it does mean that you’ll have to download a new version of a Virtual console game after buying so many for the Wii. But for 30 cents it’s not TOO bad, it’s just a shame that they can’t just upgrade all your Virtual console games to have GamePad support for 30 cents a game. Guess you can’t win all the time huh?
Each month, Nintendo will release a single Wii-U-i-fied virtual console game with GamePad support each month, starting with Balloon Fight for this month of January. Personally I’d rather see more games, but for 30 cents a game, maybe Nintendo is seeing the whole iOS/Android 99 cents games as being a big deal and wants to join the Apps bandwagon.
More details on Bayonetta 2 were announced, such as a peep at Bayonetta’s new clothes and guns. New locations such as a Cyberpunk world and a broken down cathedral. I loved the first game, and if there’s a game that might get me to buy a Wii-U it might very well be this one!
A Shin Megami Tensei – Fire Emblem crossover!? I so didn’t see this coming?! Not a lot of details about this one, though it would be interesting to see how they match these two franchises…
Titled “X”, this is Monolith Soft’s (the creators of XenoGears and XenoBlade) next game for the Wii-U. They haven’t announced if this is, or not a sequel to Xenoblade on the Wii. But looks at the game’s HUD and combat, it’s clearly a sequel, and I’m kind of excited for it!
Eiji Aonuma has announced that he’s working on a high definition version of Zelda Wind Waker for Wii-U. Adding a lot of detail with light and textures, and it looks very pretty! Mind you Wind Waker isn’t the best game in the Zelda franchise, but it isn’t the worst either. It’ll be nice if they add more content in this version such as new dungeons and temples, as Shigeru Miyamoto didn’t have a chance to truly finish working on Wind Waker.
Update: Here’s the full Nintendo Direct video that was broadcast this morning.
So yeah, lots of console news and talk today! So much in one day! It’s like super early E3! Hope you like what you’ve heard today. Write down any comments below and I might reply to them!