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NintendoWare Weekly: Just Jam, Qix, Fortified Zone
The 3DS Virtual Console is slowly acquiring new Game Boy games, with two (essentially) third-party games added to the eShop this week. Qix is a Nintendo-published handheld version of Taito's weird arcade classic, which has players drawing rectangular lines to fill space while avoiding abstract enemies. And Jaleco's Fortified Zone is a top-down action game, sort of like the NES Metal Gears (without all the cowering). WiiWare's single release is Just Jam, a game about making music by arranging samples with a simple-looking interface.
Million Ton Barabara getting localized as Patchwork Heroes
Fans of Qix, airships, and systematically disassembling airships in a Qix-like fashion, rejoice! Sony announced that it will bring Million Ton Barabara, from Acquire, the developer behind the ostentatiously named Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman: What Did I Do to Deserve This, to Europe and the U.S. under the moniker Patchwork Heroes. The title might have lost a bit of catchiness in translation, but at least we'll now be able to read what the game's adorable characters are saying. PlayStation.Blog has a bit of information about the game for folks who didn't follow its Japanese iteration. Basically, you and your team are tasked with carving chunks off of a massive, flying warship while avoiding the vehicle's turrets and other defense systems. You can get a sliver of gameplay in the Japanese trailer posted after the jump, along with the greatest theme song ever. Hopefully, that won't get left out of the localization.
X3F TV -- XBLA in Brief: Qix++
Taito's unleashed a new puzzle game on Xbox Live Arcade this week: Qix++ for $10 (800). The demo version of the game only offers two levels to try out, but the full game sports 16 different stages and a multiplayer mode. So, without further ado, check out the video above to see what the game is all about. Shortcut: Download the trial version of Qix++ [Via Xbox.com]
This Wednesday: XBLA gets its Qix ++ [update: screens]
Update: We've unearthed some screens of the PSP version, courtesy of Game Watch. There may be some difference between it and the XBLA version, but they'll probably look pretty similar. Peruse them in the gallery below. Microsoft's Major Nelson has announced that Qix ++ is headed to Xbox Live Arcade this week. Apart from the price (800 / $10), that's really all we know. The "++" in the title might be a clue, though, given that Jeff "Why'd you buy Frogger" Minter seems to have an affinity for throwing plus signs at the end of retro game titles. It's also worth noting that Minter worked on the XBLA version of Space Invaders Extreme which, like Qix, is a Taito (via Square Enix) game. For now, with no assets of the game available, you'll have to settle for a video of the original Qix posted after the break. In other news, the Xbox Live Deal of the Week is Rock Band DLC, specifically No Doubt's The Singles 1992-2003 album. The DLC has been discounted from 1600 ($20) to 1200 ($15). Shortcut: Download The Singles 1992-2003 [Xbox.com] %Gallery-79762%
Retro-inspired Cubixx kicks off on PSP Minis
We want to be more upset at Laughing Jackal's wholesale appropriation of the Qix concept -- even going so far as to use a similar title -- for its PSP Minis game, Cubixx. But the fact is that Qix is awesome, whether Taito is making it or not, and it's relatively unexplored compared to other arcade classics like Pac-Man. And Cubixx does add an interesting wrinkle to the Qix gameplay: a cube, in which you attempt to draw lines to cover the area of all six faces. Cubixx will be released in Europe on Thursday 3rd December at a £2.49 price point. See some footage on the other side of the post break.
Virtually Overlooked: Cacoma Knight in Bizyland
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.Puzzle Quest has taught us that mixing up unexpected genres and settings can make stale-as-hell gameplay seem fresh, interesting, and awesome. Wrapping up a pick-up-and-play game (like Bejeweled) in a narrative frame (like that one game I made in RPG Maker, I think I called it -- okay, never mind, I didn't make an RPG Maker game but you can imagine a funny one here) gives players a reason to continue playing the game even when it's not immediately satisfying.Seta's Cacoma Knight in Bizyland is an attempt to perform this kind of ... contextualization with the classic arcade game Qix. The results are enjoyably nonsensical. Almost -- but not quite -- as enjoyable as the word "Bizyland." Why couldn't Bizyland have been the setting for a bunch of games like Oddworld?
