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VC Tuesday: Pop-up Ping-pong
The Virtual Console releases are pretty slim this week in Japan, but still just unlikely enough to show up outside of Japan to make them super interesting. First, Smash Ping Pong, a Nintendo-published Famicom Disk System version of the arcade Konami's Ping Pong. There's something hilarious about playing retro sports games, with their archaic button controls, on the Wii. Maybe it's just us.The other game is one of the many entries in Falcom's Dragon Slayer series, Legend of Xanadu. It's a "ram into enemies" action-RPG like Ys -- and a side-scrolling RPG like Ys III. Smash Ping Pong (Famicom Disk System, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points) Kaze no Densetsu Xanadu (PC Engine CD-ROM, 1 player, 800 Wii Points) WiiWare in Japan, like in the US, has a sudoku game, though it is a different one. @Simple Series Vol. 2 THE Number Place Neo is part of the super-budget WiiWare version of D3's famous Simple series. Milestone, developers of shooters like Karous and Chaos Field, contribute a poker-based falling-block puzzle game. But the most exciting release is no doubt Kurohige Kiki Ippatsu Wii, Takara Tomy's adaptation of the Pop-up Pirate toy that Chris raved about. @Simple Series Vol. 2 THE Number Place Neo (1 player, 500 Wii Points) Kurohige Kiki Ippatsu Wii (1-4 players, 500 Wii Points) Pokers Wii (1-2 players, 500 Wii Points) %Gallery-37658%
iPhone game news from EA's press conference at E3
I'm at E3 in Los Angeles all week for TUAW's sister site Joystiq, and this afternoon we got to see the Electronic Arts press conference at the Orpheum Theater. Among bigger EA games like Spore and Dead Space, Travis Boatman (who has graced these pages before talking about mobile games on the iPhone) of EA's mobile games division came out on stage to talk about iPhone gaming. He said that obviously there is "a lot of interest" around mobile gaming lately, especially around the iPhone, and that EA is committed to capitalizing on that interest.They premiered three games in the App Store at launch (Sudoku, Tetris, and Scrabble), and Boatman pointed out that they've tried to innovate in all three -- Tetris features a unique piece-drawing system, and Spore (full name: Spore Origins, a mini version of the bacteria stage of the game, complete with a creature creator) will use the accelerometer to control its creatures. Additionally, EA wants WiFi to be a big part of their games on the iPhone -- they're planning on releasing a patch to the Scrabble game that will allow people to play together online.Finally, Boatman hinted that they were aiming to do a lot more with the iPhone's processing power -- they plan ports of Tiger Woods and Need for Speed on the iPhone. As Mac gaming fans, EA isn't exactly our favorite game developer, but getting big developers behind real innovation on the iPhone will help lift the tides of the software in the App Store.
InsanelyGreat iPhone apps
Magnetism Studios, the guys behind Insanely Great Tees, have just launched four iPhone apps, which they are dubbing "Magnet Apps."Two of the apps are $4.99 and two are $2.99.Here are the details:Tile Sudoku ($4.99)Sudoku is a popular puzzle game choice for iPhone devs, but Tile Sudoku has a neat little twist. Instead of selecting a number from a list, you drag numbered tiles to the correct space on the Sudoku grid. If you make a mistake, you can move the tile to the correct space or back to the tile bar. I haven't used any of the Sudoku iPhone apps yet (I have played some of the web-based versions), but this seems to make a lot of ergonomic sense.You can buy it from the App Store here.Mr. Shuffle ($2.99)It's Mr. Potato Head on the iPhone! Mr. Shuffle lets you create funny faces out of cartoon parts. You can then add speech bubbles or captions to customize the images further. While all that is cool, the most fun part is probably the feature that lets you add elements to pictures you take of your friends from the iPhone camera. You can buy it from the App Store here.City Transit ($2.99)Everytime I visit New York City, I dread having to carry around a transit map guide like a tourist. And even then, you never really know where the closest station is to your location or if there has been some sort of service change. City Transit aims to change all that. For $2.99, you get officially licensed MTA subway maps, a GPS-based station finder to find the nearest station (and it is integrated with Maps so you can get walking directions too) and service advisories from the MTA website, so that you know can quickly out about any line changes.Magnetism has designed City Transit to have an expandable architecture and in the future you should be able to download maps for buses and commuter rail lines. This really looks like the perfect app for anyone who commutes to NYC.You can buy it from the App Store here.File Magnet ($4.99)File Magnet, which right now will only work in conjunction with Macs running Leopard, is a way to transfer files to and from your Mac from your iPhone or iPod Touch over Wi-Fi and then view them. It supports PDF, DOC, TXT, RTF, RTFD, HTML, PNG, TIF, JPEG. GIF and iPhone compatible movies and audio files. Support for Excel and iWork files is coming soon. So instead of having to e-mail yourself PDF files, you can just load the File Magnet Uploader on your Mac and send it directly to your iPhone. It does require Wi-Fi to transfer files back and forth, and is not compatible with Windows.You can buy it from the App Store here.%Gallery-27397%
Ambrosia working on Mr. Sukdoku and Aki Mahjong Mobile for the App Store
touchArcade has a quick look up at Ambrosia's new version of the old Sudoku game for the iPhone, coming soo to an App Store near you. It looks like Sudoku to us -- there's numbers, squares, and entering one in the other with the touchscreen to fill out the puzzle. Yup, seems like if you want to play Sudoku, you'll be able to do it. Not a lot of extra flair, especially for $10 (there is a free version already on the web), but we'd guess it's not really needed in this case.And Ambrosia is also working on a version of Mahjong, called Aki Mahjong Mobile for the iPhone. They don't have video of that that we've seen, but work, they say, is progressing steadily towards an App Store launch.In terms of innovation, there's not a lot to find in these two games but every new game platform needs a few standbys to fill out the library (we'll almost certainly see Pac Man and Frogger clones in the App Store at launch, not to mention that we'll have to see a good poker game as well), and it looks like Ambrosia's ready to fill the quota for these two traditional games.
Mytopia reinvents Yahoo! Games for the MySpace generation
Are casual, social games the wave of the future? In years to come, will we lovers of the swinging sword, the flashing fireball and the gigantic gun be left reminiscing about the "good old days" as we sign on for another evening of massively multiplayer bingo? The makers of Mytopia took a look into their crystal ball, saw the success of MySpace and Facebook and casual-game havens like Popcap, Yahoo! and Neopets and said, "These great tastes... would taste great together!"Thus was born Mytopia, a Flash-based virtual world where you can create your own super-deformed avatar (like Wii's Miis) and play popular board and card games with people from around the world, build friends lists, send email, and gamble away virtual money challenging other players to backgammon, chess, Sudoku and several other similar games. It works not only as a standalone web site, but also as an application you can install in Facebook, MySpace or Bebo. No matter how you arrive in Mytopia, though, you'll be able to play with everyone else -- there's only one game world shared by all.Mytopia has a cheerful art style, bouncy music, and well-rendered board games. What it does not have, though, is bloody avatar fights in the Battledome. Come on. Even Neopets has that.[Via Techcrunch]
Compile Heart goes puzzle crazy
Japanese developer Compile Heart, which contains members of Compile (who developed Puyo Puyo and just about everything else we have loved) plans to release a three-part (so far) series of puzzle games for the DS, called the Puzzle Mate series. Crossword Mate features Japanese crosswords, Nanpure Mate is a "number place" (also known as sudoku) game, and Oekaki Mate is a picross collection. These, however, differ from other such products in one important way: the puzzles are large. All three collections feature larger playing fields than usual, which leads to things like the nightmarish multi-screen picross puzzle seen in the screenshot here.And speaking of nightmarish, coulrophobes will be terrified to see the mascot for this series, a clown drawn by Famitsu artist Susumu Matsushita.Read - Crossword MateRead - Nanpure MateRead - Oekaki Mate
Merscom to bring sudoku puzzles to XBLA
Sudoku is one of those cultural phenomena we just don't pretend to get. The seemingly innocuous brain teasers seemed to crop up overnight, reducing commuters the world over into savoring number crunchers. The casual puzzles have found a welcome home in books, newspapers, and even in video games, and publisher Merscom has now announced plans to bring the logic challenges to XBLA as well with Buku Sudoku.The game, a conversion of Merscom's PC title of the same name, will boast such enhancements as "a very fast entry method" using the Xbox 360's thumb sticks, as well as support for multiplayer over Xbox Live. Buku Sudoku will also sport HD resolution, which to be honest seems wasted on a game about filling out numbers on a grid. That said, if Xbox Live Arcade can manage to make hardcore gamers fall in love with UNO, don't be surprised if your Halo buddies have to cut out early in order to throw down with some serious number counting when Buku Sudoku is eventually released.
Fail at puzzles, show the world
TDK Core's DS Puzzler Nanpure Fan & Oekaki Logic Wi-Fi Taiou (DS Puzzler Sudoku and Picture Logic Wi-Fi Interaction) is a pretty simple game design: a bunch of sudoku and picross-type puzzles. And that's fine! People like picross and sudoku.But DS Puzzler goes beyond the normal self-motivated challenge of these puzzle games by including online rankings for both. We're familiar with this kind of thing in a picross setting, but we certainly wouldn't want anyone to see how, uh, great we are at sudoku. And we're pretty sure we'd embarrass ourselves with these more complicated, colorful picross puzzles too.
Big Bang releases web-based iPhone Sudoku
%Gallery-6940% A few weeks ago, PopCap released Bejeweled for iPhone. Today, Freeverse follows their lead, releasing iPhone Sudoku. The game brings the same great Big Bang interface you've come to expect and love. Sol is this game's host, with all his fire-filled glory. The game is relatively easy to play, although I find the buttons a little small in portrait mode and the screen needs continual scrolling in landscape mode. That aside, a big thank you to Freeverse/Big Bang for this nice gift.
Keepin' it real fake, part LXXII: Sudoku handheld resembles Sony Ericsson phone
It's one thing to long for Sudoku on your handset, but to pick up a Japanese look-a-like trinket that handles the former yet omits any calling abilities just seems silly. Nevertheless, this interesting handheld purportedly allows brainiacs to whittle the day away with Sudoku puzzles, and while it sure looks eerily similar to a-many of Sony Ericsson's mobiles, there's no reception onboard. Of course, it is only ¥980 ($8.54), so it's not like the manufacturer is really trying to dupe anybody -- right?[Via TokyoMango]
We have spontaneously decided that sudoku is awesome
We don't know what caused our feelings about sudoku to change from "meh" to total enthusiasm, but our change of heart coincided almost exactly with the first time we learned about a sudoku game on the NES. Weird how that works out, right?Only 90 grey-cartridge copies and five gold-cartridge copies of Al Bailey's homebrew NES Sudoku have been made, and all of the remaining copies will be at this weekend's Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, where we would also like to be. The single unsold gold cartridge is going to be auctioned for charity, to someone who has a lot more money for NES games than we do.[Via Siliconera]
DS releases for the week of July 23rd
This week sees the release of some interesting titles around the world, such as the latest in Pokémon for Europe, and Taiko Drum Master DS in Japan. American gamers get to contend with Dynasty Warriors DS. We know some of you are looking forward to it, and some ... well, aren't. But maybe it will surprise us! Chameleon: To Dye For! Dynasty Warriors DS: Fighter's Battle Ultimate Puzzle Games: Sudoku Edition Slide past the break to see what's happening in the rest of the world.
E307: Nintendo Crossword kind of announced
Nintendo never got around to announcing this new game at E3: a crossword game tentatively called Nintendo Crossword. For sudoku fans, a "crossword puzzle" is a grid puzzle much like sudoku, but with letters instead of numbers, and completely different rules in place of the sudoku rules.Nintendo's presentation is much more staid than that of its competition, New York Times Crosswords, passing over odd color schemes and Comic Sans-alikes for a traditional newspaper-like display. It's boxy, but good.%Gallery-4773%
WRUP: Sick of Sudoku edition
This week's releases might not be all that fabulous to those of us outside of Japan, but at least we're still getting something new to play. Even if it is just another Sudoku game. For us, it doesn't matter much, as our backlog just grows larger by the week, so we're already knee-deep in games that need to be played.What about you? What will you be playing?
DS releases for the week of July 2
You know what the DS needs? More sudoku. Because, y'know, there just can't possibly be enough. This week, there's also a new addition to shelves at stores everywhere that shipped too late to make last week's list: Agetec's Cookie & Cream. Platinum Sudoku Turn it Around Vegas Casino High 5! For this week's releases in the rest of the world, check after the jump. You might want to duck and cover -- the highly-anticipated Doki Doki Majo Shinpan is about to hit!
DS Fanboy Review: Brain Buster Puzzle Pak
Sometimes, a package doesn't really tell you what you need to know about a game -- and it can actually be misleading or off-putting. As tragic as the thought is, the box art for Brain Buster Puzzle Pak falls into that category. Up close, the art is rough, jagged, and looks like it might have been printed in someone's home office.So is the game also unfortunately bad? Not even a bit -- Agetec's Brain Buster Puzzle Pak lives up to its name and is packed, as promised, with an array of brain-busting puzzles. The puzzle standard, sudoku, is present, but BBPP brings in four other games as well, all presented by a professor who in no way resembles Dr. Kawashima. By that, we mean he actually has a body.
Father of Sudoku says Slitherlink is the next big thing
When asked by the BBC what the next big Sudoku-like craze will be, puzzle guru Maki Kaji (whose business card reads "Father of Sudoku") points to Slitherlink. The grid-based logic puzzle has all the ingredients of another hit -- easy to learn, straightforward gameplay, and simple rules. Even though it doesn't have the broad appeal of Sudoku, Kaji says it could easily earn the title "son of Sudoku".In Slitherlink you stare at a grid made up of dots and the numbers 0, 1, 2, and 3 scattered about. Your goal is to join the dots around the numbers using the same number of lines as the number they are next to. The line snakes around the grid like ... a snake. Hudson published Puzzle Series Vol. 5: Slitherlink in Japan earlier this year and the game has received high marks from reviewers, including a 10/10 from Eurogamer.It isn't known if Slitherlink DS will make its way out of Japan, but thanks to the world wide web and the humans that populate it, a Slitherlink-inspired game has been crafted in Flash, cleverly titled Slither Link.
Friday Video: Checking out Zendoku
It's no secret that we're fans of the kinda games that blend puzzles with ... non-puzzle stuff. The point is, we're all about putting a little action in the middle of our puzzles, so long as it doesn't slow down the act of puzzling. Pretty pictures, neat backgrounds, weird SRPG motifs ... we're okay with these elements. But we're not quite sure about Zendoku. While we're in favor of the idea, the execution leaves us a little, well, puzzled. In the short video after the jump, we get a chance to check out the mechanics in action, and it seems like everything just takes a long time -- and that takes away from our actual purpose in playing. Maybe it's just us, though. Give it a look and tell us what you think.
Nintendo Media Summit: Picross hands-on (DS)
Although Picross has been available for a while in Japan, the North American release is coming out on July 30th, and Nintendo had it on display at last week's Nintendo Media Summit. The premise behind Picross is kind of hard to explain, but I'll try anyway: It's a type of mathematical crossword puzzle with an image-based theme. It kind of feels like Minesweeper at times but kind of feels like Suduko at other times. As you can see from the screenshots below, you are given a grid with numbers on the outside edge. You have to figure out from the numbers what pattern of squares should be filled in on the grid, with mistakes costing you big penalties on your overall time score. Once you've completed the puzzle, you reveal a picture in the pattern on the grid. The larger the grid, the more complex the picture.You can also make your own puzzles easily; all you have to do is draw an image and the game will turn it into a puzzle for you. If you want more control, you can also create a puzzle by hand. You can even trade puzzles with friends over the wireless connection and Nintendo promises additional puzzles will be made available for download for free, which is always a nice plus.The game was a lot of fun and the ability to draw your own puzzles was a nice touch. Puzzle fans, look for this game when it comes out on July 30th.%Gallery-3413%
Give the Sudoku grid a new look
The Nintendo DS is rife with Sudoku releases, both commercial and unofficial. Dress them up with mini-cakes or martial arts if you want to, but it's getting harder and harder for these games to keep us interested with each passing week.Leave it to homebrew superstar Mollusk to add some life to the number puzzle. As its name implies, Skinz Sudoku allows you to customize almost every visual detail of its interface. Dropping a PNG template into the game's included PAFS.bat file spits out a unique Skinz Sudoku ROM with your graphics. Jump past the post break for some examples of the different themes.Think of the possibilities! Design your screens with lightning bolts! Replace all of the numbers with Pokémon heads! Scan in a photo of your secret crush with a word balloon that says, "I luv u! Plz date me!" Just don't let anyone catch you locking lips with your DS after staring into his or her eyes for too long. Seriously guys, that's weird.
