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Poll Results: Poker best, Shrek worst of XBLA chopping block titles
Over the last few days, we asked you to pick the best and worst of the Xbox Live Arcade titles that are potentially up for delisting. We've now tallied the votes and the results are in:Best: Texas Hold 'Em (12.77%) Marathon: Durandal (12.48%) Contra (9.18%) Worst: Shrek N Roll (12.00%) Yie Ar Kung-Fu (8.37%) Screwjumper! (6.48%) You can view our picks for best and worst here. We want to make a special note regarding the Yaris game, which was not included because it would pass the delist hurdle of over 6% conversion rate (hint: it had no demo and was free; the devil is in the details). We don't know if Microsoft will be that stringent regarding its guidelines, but there is poetic justice in noting that the developer, comprised of former Blizzard North staffers, suspended operations in April.
Contra prompts military hearings
We usually have to suspend our disbelief when playing video games, but what if such insane situations were based on real events? Take, for example, Contra, a game in which two marines -- two -- must stop the Red Falcon invasion. Without shirts. Running with this idea, popular comic book blogger Chris Sims took it upon himself to record "The Contra Hearings". Not only does this hilarious take on Contra make us realize how ridiculous the game's scenario really is, but these faux hearings also remind us that the series is so awesomely badass. An excerpt: "SENATOR ARTHUR WEATHERTON (R, NM): With all due respect, Lieutenant, I fail to see how the failure to equip two Marines necessitates a Congressional investigation. Why haven't we heard from the rest of the soldiers involved in the operation? LT. RIZER: Because Lance and I were the total forces committed to the Red Falcon conflict, Senator. SEN. WEATHERTON: ... Oh. Carry on. LT. RIZER: Right. Now, I know that at the time of our deployment, resources were already committed to providing support for the Bionic Commando project, but sending two men to fight an entire army of technologically advanced aliens... I can't imagine that America needed to close the grapple-arm gap that badly. And our equipment was... well, it was sub-par." In case you didn't know, you can unlock the original NES game (and Super C) in Contra 4 for the DS -- which is perfect in its own right. So, we expect you to man up and buy it while it's on sale.
Contra 4 now owning faces for only $20
We understand that there might have been a number of reasons why you haven't picked up Contra 4 yet: you're not a fan of run-and-gun titles you can't handle tough games exploding bridges hindered you from getting to a game store it's too expensive! While there's not much we can to help you with the first three problems, we do have a solution for the fourth -- buy it from Amazon, where the game is now listed for only $19.99. Actually, this could also be a fix for that whole "exploding bridges" dilemma, too. Whoever delivers the game might not appreciate having to risk their life to drop off your package, but that's their problem, now.%Gallery-4738%See also: DS Fanboy Review: Contra 4[Via CAG]
Contra is awesome even when it's not quite Contra
If playing Contra III on the Virtual Console is too inauthentic an experience for you, then these versions of Contra would no doubt make you backflip to death. Youtube user iniche has compiled videos of Contra variants, from the official (Ocean Software's ports of Gryzor, a.k.a. Contra, for various underpowered European computers, like the Spectrum 128 version seen here) to the spectacularly unofficial (a Famicom remake of Contra III).Especially notable is a (sort of) original fake Contra game called Super Contra 8. That's, like, four more Contra than the last official Konami Contra game -- and it's super. [Via SelectButton]
DS releases for the week of March 10th
What a week for DS releases! Of course, in the shadow of a certain release on the Wii side of the Nintendo fence, a big week was probably necessary, but that doesn't make it any less exciting. Though there are only three DS titles scheduled for release, each one has something going for it. How often does that happen? Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates Insecticide Nanostray 2 In fact, there's a lot to look forward to all around the world. Europe's scoring Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker and Bomberman Land Touch! 2, among other titles, and Japan boasts our beloved Contra 4 (there, Dual Spirits), and the hilarious Duel Love. Surely you can find some time to tear yourself away from beatdowns for one of these.
Contra 4 sheds six dollars, shirts
Need an extra excuse to pick up 2007's manliest, exploding-est DS game? Amazon has posted a modest markdown for Contra 4, selling the run-and-gun game for a discounted $23.99. Women and men alike will flock to you when they see you're playing such a tough game, smitten with your virility. And, with six extra bucks in your pocket, you could probably take one of them out to dinner. Not to anywhere nice, like Ponderosa, but maybe Burger King. Afraid that all the action will be just too much for you or too difficult? Fear not! There's a little trick you can exploit to steal 99 extra mans. Unfortunately, pulling off the cheat might be harder than the actual game ...[Via CAG]
Japanese Contra 4 tones down boxart, numbers
var digg_url = 'http://www.digg.com/nintendo/Japanese_Contra_4_tones_down_boxart_numbers'; Perhaps to distract Japanese gamers from Contra 4's western origins, Konami has replaced the game's cover with art more fitting to the country's sensibilities. Manga-fied and emasculated, our two heroes are mere shadows of the beefy commandos seen on the North American box, the manliest art we've come across since Haggar piledrived a shark. Lance Bean, the former badass on the right, was once pictured hefting up a rocket launcher, sneering at enemy troops while taking aim at their crotches. Now he is shown staying his rifle, a contemplative -- some would even say mournful -- expression on his face.We've heard rumors of other wussifying changes to the actual game, but we've yet to confirm them: Virt's synth-metal soundtrack has been switched out with Air Supply's "All Out of Love" on infinite repeat Tapping in the Konami code halves your manhood and causes nearly all of your facial hair to instantly fall off, leaving behind a pencil moustache The final boss battle has been replaced with a cutscene in which you shake hands with the alien villain and agree to disagree One alteration that we are sure of is that Contra 4's title in Japan will be Contra: Dual Spirits, keeping in line with Contra 3's Japanese title, Contra Spirits. Konami plans to ship the run'n gun game to stores in Japan this March 13th. You can see the US cover and a somewhat bigger version of the Japanese packaging art past the break.
A DS sequel to Shantae rests in our hands
Remember Shantae? WayForward certainly does -- the Contra 4 developer spent two years producing the delightful Game Boy Color platformer, only to see it die a death at retail, its chances cruelly crushed by the increasing obsolescence of its host platform, as well as the rise of the newly released Game Boy Advance. Boasting an engrossing mix of Metroid-style puzzles and neat visual tricks, the game was an unsung gem that emphatically failed to register on the gaming public's radar.A sequel was planned for the Advance, only for the project to be inexplicably shelved with the game 50% complete, but WayForward hasn't forgotten about the series entirely. With the all-conquering Contra 4 now out on store shelves and begging to be bought, the developer has posted a poll on its site, asking whether or not we'd be interested in purchasing a Shantae follow-up, and what platform we'd like it to appear on.Hence, we implore all of you to hit the link below and get your vote on. If you're still wavering about giving thirty seconds of your time to one of the best DS-related causes we've heard of in ages, go past the break for footage of the canned GBA title.Then go and get your vote on.
Critics' top 10: 2007 vs. kittens
2007 is almost over, and the end of the year brings joyous tidings of List Season. It's the time for taking stock of the last 12 months of gaming, and trying to make sense of it by putting things in numerical order. Join DS Fanboy for our best-ofs, worst-ofs, and other categories-ofs. When determining the best games of the year, it's a good idea to go at it from different angles: by referencing our own history of reviews, obviously, but we must also look to the wider journalism community. Our reviews, while insightful and entertaining, were not comprehensive. We just didn't play everything. In addition, one reviewer's opinion is simply not sufficient data to make definitive conclusions, even if that one reviewer is me. So we turned to everyone else in aggregate to see what they thought of this year's releases. We've gathered the top 10 DS games of 2007 according to their Metacritic ranking. Keep in mind that many of these games tied in Metascore, meaning that if we were to rank the games, there would be fewer than ten positions. It's still sequential, but with a lot of tie scores. We then carefully applied science to these games in order to convert the Metacritic numbers into a rubric we feel more accurately conveys the quality of these games. Head past the post break for Metacritic's top ten DS games of 2007, graded on a scale from adorable kitten video to unbelievably adorable kitten video.
Virtually Overlooked: Contra Hard Corps
Welcome to our weekly feature, Virtually Overlooked, wherein we talk about games that aren't on the Virtual Console yet, but should be. Call it a retro-speculative.With Contra 4 kicking DS Lites' asses, Contra fans who inexplicably only own Wiis are probably feeling a bit neglected, with only Super C and Contra III: The Alien Wars to play. Oh, wait, those games are awesome. Well, nonetheless, we want to talk about Contra today, specifically the one Virtual Console-eligible Contra game that is not in the direct Contra series progression, and is thus most likely to be underappreciated in the post-Contra 4 world. Consider yourself a hero and jump over the exploding post break.
Five gifts that are Contra 4
Gaming sites are inundated with holiday gift guides at the end of the year, listing the best and most popular games that everyone pretty much already has (or knows about). Well, we're not going in for that this year. Our gift guide will help you find the best gifts in categories the other sites won't cover -- because we just made them up. All year, we held out vain hope that the American-developed DS Contra sequel wouldn't be terrible. We tried to put our memories of Appaloosa Interactive's two PlayStation failures out of our minds and have faith in WayForward. We did our best to believe that a new 2D Contra had the potential not to be a crushing disappointment. We were rewarded with one of the best games on the DS, and possibly the best game in the Contra series. It's hard to think of a better DS game than Konami's mind-blowingly manly Contra 4. So we didn't try. We've put together this guide to five of the best gifts you can give this holiday season, all of which are Contra 4. While it would most certainly be enough to list Contra 4 five times, we thought we would break it up by listing five different ways to package the gift of Contra.
DS Daily: Your greatest moment
In today's edition of DS Daily, we want you to brag. Brag like your life damn well depended on it. Tell us all about the achievements you're most proud of in your DS gaming career.Have you collected absolutely everything there is to collect for your museum in Animal Crossing: Wild World? Racked up three stars in every cup in Mario Kart DS? Completed all 40 of the challenges in Contra 4's granite-hard Challenge mode? Cast your modesty aside, dear reader, revel in your own gaming greatness, and share the DS-related achievements you're proudest of.(Note: We're only joking about the Contra one, incidentally -- that's just fricken' humanly impossible. OR IS IT?)
Gifts for us (or people like us)
Gaming sites are inundated with holiday gift guides at the end of the year, listing the best and most popular games that everyone pretty much already has (or knows about). Well, we're not going in for that this year. Our gift guide will help you find the best gifts in categories the other sites won't cover -- because we just made them up. Of course we recommend buying DS games and accessories for everyone on your shopping list -- whether they want them or not. But, ironically, the hardest people to give the gift of DS are the people who love the DS the most -- people who live the DS. In a word, us. Game bloggers. Well, not us specifically, but people like us who are far too enthusiastic about the Nintendo DS. We're so nuts about the DS that we devote most of our lives to talking about it. We know pretty much everything out there, and we spend entirely too much time building our collections. We're emblematic of exactly the kind of brutally insane people for whom it's nearly impossible to shop. That's why we've put together this handy guide to the kind of stuff we would love, but wouldn't necessarily think to buy ourselves. Not because we want you to buy gifts for us, although we certainly won't stop you if you think we deserve a little token of appreciation. See what we did there? We've given you the gift of an obvious opening through which to insult us! 'Tis the season!
Contra 4's 99-extra-lives cheat doesn't come easy
Has Contra 4's grueling difficulty kept you from even seeing its second stage? The Konami code, while useful, only upgrades your weapons instead of rewarding you with the extra mans you need to die-n-gun your way past enemies and their scattered shots. During the throes of one of his many deaths, GameFAQs poster Empty2002120141 stumbled upon a neat, albeit elaborate, trick for getting 99 free lives in Contra 4. First, you'll need to make sure you currently have zero lives. Next, you have to die at either the exact moment or right after you kill something that pushes your score up high enough to get an extra life. Those who've pulled off the trick suggest trying it with the first level's mini-boss. This should work across all three difficulty modes!We're not sure if WayForward programmed this as an intentional cheat or if it's actually a game glitch, but it sure sounds helpful (if you can actually execute the maneuver). [Via GameFAQs]
More Contra 4 footage to nudge you in the right direction
The "right direction" being your nearest games emporium to pick up Contra 4. If you missed the perfect score we awarded to Konami's brilliant shooter earlier today, or just need a little more gentle encouragement, we'd advise watching these videos of the title in action. Both the first and second stages (the latter of which had this writer tied in knots for close to an hour) are featured here in their entirety, including the frankly nasty boss at the end of the Laboratory stage. Take your ripped physique past the post break for a second video.
DS Fanboy Review: Contra 4
The first time I played Contra 4, I died within a few seconds, having ignored the bullet that sneak-attacked my ankle. I remarked at the accuracy of the death sound and at the humorous Duke Nukem-style taunt that my dude issued afterward, and tried again. The same result. During that first session, I lost all of my lives before the halfway point of the first level. You have probably read about Contra 4's difficulty in previews. If you thought that those writers were inflating the game's difficulty because of suboptimal trade-show settings or lack of familiarity with Contra, allow me to disabuse you of that notion. If anything, they have undersold the game's difficulty. Contra 4 is hard. It's probably the hardest Contra game ever made. After that first trip through ... part of the first level, I tried again and made it through more of the first level. Then I made it to the boss before losing all my lives. I found that I could get a little further. As I replayed the levels, a combination of memory and improved response time had me sailing through the early levels like a badass. I was very rapidly getting better at the game, and, because it's so frenetic and twitchy, being demonstrably better at it made me feel awesome. %Gallery-4738%
WRUP: Grab some baby oil edition
Why would you need the baby oil? To grease up that buff chest of yours, of course! As you navigate many a hostile environment, keep your hands clenched tight around your trusty gun. Oh, gun ... how you never let us down, keep us safe at night. This is our gun, there are many like it, but this one is ours. There were some other interesting releases this week, but for us, none ranks higher than Contra 4. But, maybe you're of the mind that you'd rather play something else? We can't possibly understand why, but we'll promise to try, if you let us. So, what are you playing?
Band's name gives them 30 lives
We don't know what exactly possessed Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start to name themselves after Konami's famous code, but we're sure that it helps people remember their band name. It also helps bloggers looking for any excuse to write about Contra. We expected their music to be mostly chiptunes and 8-bit homages -- or, given the manliness of the Contra series and the Contra 4 website, something in the same vein as Team America's "America, F*** Yeah" (NSFW) -- but their songs lean more towards indie rock. There's a stack of downloadable MP3s available for you to sample at the band's site, and they're actually quite listenable!We've pasted a music video from one of UUDDLRLRBAS's tracks off their Worst Band Name Ever album past the post break for you. While the song won't make beating Contra/Gradius/Jackal any easier, it's not bad!
Show and Tell: Contra goes with everything
Here it is -- the proof we've been waiting for, folks. It's now a fact: everything goes better with Contra ... even Perler bead crafts. One reader, whom we shall call Cyborgface, sent us in this great Flickr set with some artistic takes on one of our favorite franchises, and of course, we couldn't resist showing them off. Check past the break for another peek, and head over to the set to see them all for yourself!So what do you have to show off? From crafts to cakes to collections ... whatever you've got, if it has a little Nintendo flavor, we want to see it. Just take some pictures (or copy your web album links) and send them to showmeit [at] dsfanboy [dot] com. We'll take care of the rest.
Contra 4 owns your face even more with its official site
Rather than throw together the usual, predictable site for Contra 4, Konami and WayForward pulled out all the stops and packed the official page with everything fans could ever ask for -- ridiculous explosions with every clicked link, remixed music from Virt, and hilarious descriptions for different game elements. Check out the text for random lackey Dirk McShooter:"Dirk thought he was the luckiest alien humanoid around when he saw the job posting: good pay, benefits, free trip to Earth, stand in place, decent aim preferred. In the moments since the shirtless super-commando opened fire, he's begun questioning that decision."You'll also find five wicked wallpapers, seven video clips for the different weapons, and twenty new screenshots at the site. Contra 4 kicks down the door and guns down your family this November 13th, the same week Super Mario Galaxy hits stores. Make sure to mark that date on your calendar; it's an important one.
