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This week’s WiiWare release is a “twist” on a classic. “Magnetica Twist” adds a few new elements to the DS game that was released a few years ago, including Mii support and motion controls. Check out the first ‘120 Seconds‘ of gameplay and see if you think I should have tried the game on hard.
(Videos not viewable by users logging in from Canada or the U.K.)
Released earlier this week as the sole WiiWare title, “Gyrostarr” offers a fast-paced take on the on-rails shooter genre. Confined to a half-tube, the enemies come at you head-on, and you need to take them out and power up your ship before the end of each course. While it may appear to be similar to “Amplitude,” and “N2O: Nitrous Oxide,” the gameplay and mechanics are a bit different (including motion controls), plus the “Gyrostarr” ship has a grappling hook.
Take a look at the first ‘120 Seconds’ of gameplay and judge for yourself.
(Videos not viewable by users logging in from Canada or the U.K.)
One week after Nintendo made public the usage stats for its downloadable Wii games in the U.S., I’ve been able to crunch some numbers to learn just how fervently — or not — gamers are embracing the WiiWare service.
Think “Dr. Mario” crushed all? Hoping that “Lost Winds” did well? Read on for my findings.
One of this week’s WiiWare releases, “Block Breaker Deluxe” is not your dad’s “Arkanoid” rip-off. Based off the cell phone game of the same name, “Block Breaker” adapts the left and right paddle shifting controls surprisingly well to the Wiimote, and adds the ability to “catch” your items with the pointer.
Check out the first “120 Seconds” of “Block Breaker Deluxe,” where I blow through the first three levels. (And I’d appreciate it if you could overlook how I lost a ball very quickly at the beginning of the second level. Thanks.)
(Videos not viewable by users logging in from Canada or the U.K.)
Revisiting an old classic is nothing new for Nintendo. In fact, Dr. Mario has seen a re-release in some capacity on almost all of their platforms. Last week’s WiiWare update brought “Dr. Mario Online RX” to the Wii with a (mostly) new look, feel, and most importantly, online play.
Above we have a look at the first ‘120 Seconds’ of “Dr. Mario Online RX“’s motion-controlled “Virus Buster” mode, and after the jump we have a look at the more traditional “Classic” mode from the game.
(Videos not viewable by users logging in from Canada or the U.K.) Read more…
This week’s WiiWare offerings may not have been as plentiful as last week, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t any fun. Konami’s “Critter Round-Up” was the only Western-developed game to be released when WiiWare launched in Japan a few months back, and it was one of the two Stateside releases this week. The goal is to section off each different kind of animal into their own fenced in area.
Fans of the classic game “Qix” finally have a worthy update to a well tested formula, with some farm animals as an added bonus.
(Videos not viewable by users logging in from Canada or the U.K.)
Forget the long lines of people waiting for “Wii Fit.” At the Nintendo World Store in New York City this afternoon, I witnessed one of the last things any passersby would expect to see…
A watermelon-eating competition.
Who could eat the most slices in six minutes?
In celebration for next month’s “Major League Eating: The Game” WiiWare title, Mastiff Games held a watermelon-eating contest between two real-life competitive eaters featured in the game.
So why make Major League Eating into a game? “We wanted to do a sport that had never been done before, and that was Major League Eating,” said Mastiff head Bill Swartz. “Since no one has done an eating game since ‘Pac Man,‘ and since no one has used the Wii controller as an eating device, that was an added bonus.”
The event was a showdown between the new Sushi-eating world champ, Tim “Eater X” Janus, who is ranked fourth internationally, and his roommate, “Crazy Legs” Conti, ranked 11th in the world. I was told that Crazy Legs is known as the “Evil Knievel of the Alimentary Canal,” and has eaten his way out of a 96-cubic foot sarcophagus of popcorn.
This was to be an epic contest, and the Multiplayer blog would record it in text and photos for posterity. A watermelon-eating champ would be crowned…
(See all the watermelon-eating pictures below.)
Since the last entry, I…
*Played a ridiculous amount of games.
*At Friday’s PlayStation event alone I played “Resistance 2,” “Killzone 2,” “Little Big Planet,” “SOCOM: Confrontation,” “Linger In Shadows,” “PixelJunk Eden,” “MotorStorm: Pacific Rim,” “Siren: Blood Curse,” and “Buzz” for PS3 and PSP. I’ll write blog posts about many of those games throughout the week, but I should record here that two games brought me back for a second-helping: “Linger” and “Eden.” The first one because I wanted to understand it more. The second because it’s the most fun I had with a co-op game this year.
*Also played some “Secret Agent Clank” on the flight home.
Then, over the weekend, I binged. Scary details follow…
The first week of our “120 Seconds” experiment is coming to a close. While we were intrigued by the first minutes of “LostWinds,” today we have an example of a game whose early moments may not be the best representation of just how intense it later becomes in a matter of a few levels…
“Defend Your Castle” was released earlier this week in the initial batch of WiiWare titles for the rock-bottom price of five dollars. While the actual gameplay may be a bit on the shallow side, you can never really underestimate just how fun the repetitive motion of flicking away little button head figures can be until you give it a chance.
Earlier this week, the first WiiWare titles were released. Six entirely new games are now available for download via the Wii Shop Channel. Even though there was a decent assortment, one title bubbled up to the top of gamers’ must-have list — namely, “LostWinds.”
It’s a beautiful looking game that made unique use of the Wii’s motion controls; “LostWinds” proved that the WiiWare service has a lot of potential. See for yourself by taking a look at the first 120 seconds of the game.
If you’re not busy at pre-E3 festivities, you’re probably playing a lot of WiiWare.
Which means some other games are getting the shaft — even some Wii games. While I’m thinking about trying “We Ski” (whose cover art I loved by the way), my colleague Jason Cipriano doesn’t even want to go down that slippery slope (sorry):
JasonCipriano: I’m too big a fan of “SSX” (prior to the last two releases) to offer up my downhill love anywhere else
TraceyJohn: there are racing modes in “WeSki”
JasonCipriano: yeah, there are
JasonCipriano: But they don’t appear to be even remotely close to “SSX” and all its glory
TraceyJohn: Would you like an “SSX” with the board?
JasonCipriano: If they are making “Skate” with the board, “SSX” seems like a natural next step.
JasonCipriano: I’d have to play it first, but I fear it could very easily suffer from the same problem as the Wheel
JasonCipriano: where it doesn’t offer the same level of precision that I’m used to.
JasonCipriano: So we’ve digressed to the point where we are talking about not playing games that may or may not exist.
Read on to see what else will get ignored this week with all the WiiWare madness… Read more…
Nintendo forced me to make a few hard decisions yesterday.
I had to decide what games would make the cut on my Wii.
See, I’m a frequent Virtual Console buyer with an almost full system memory, and with the introduction of the new WiiWare service, I had to figure out just how I could download just two of the newly released titles. Surprisingly, it took almost an hour.
First I had to get onto the Wii Shop and see how many free blocks of memory I needed tin order to download “LostWinds” and “Defend Your Castle.” They’re 259 and 121 respectively, totaling 380 free memory blocks. My Wii only had 27 free since last week’s “Nintendo Channel” download, which I had to make space for by removing the “Check Mii Out Channel” (clearing up 123 blocks).
My options were slim since I really wanted to avoid removing any of my VC games, but I also had to make room for these new WiiWare games.
So some tough decisions had to be made, and I learned some interesting things about my Wii along the way…
