virtualconsolemonday
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Virtual Console breaks in Star Soldier spoof
Break it to Make it! Did you hear? This week's Virtual Console update includes a video game adaptation of 80s dance flick, Breakin'. Finally we can live out our closet fantasies of break dancing in the shoes of Kelly, Ozone and -- personal fave -- Turbo. Oh, wait, that's not what the game is about? Monday mornings are so cruel. Break In (TurboGrafx16, 1-4 players, 700 Wii Points): No, there's no fancy footwork here. Instead, Nintendo offers up this decidedly break dance-free game of pool. So, yeah, it's pool. Star Parodier (TurboGrafx16 CD-ROM, 1 player, 900 Wii Points): Well, at least this is something to get excited over. A parody of Hudson shooter Star Soldier, here you'll be able to fly about and shoot down colorful bad guys as Star Soldier's Paro Ceaser, iconic pyro Bomberman, or a giant flying PC Engine that shoots cards and discs at enemies. That almost makes up for this morning's dissapointment.
Virtual Console update adds speed and gore, lacks swords
There's something about this week's update to the Wii's Virtual Console that just seems off. Maybe it's the odd partnering of a blue marsupial and a lumber-swinging madman, or perhaps it's the noticeable absence of Samurai Shodown II, which SNK said last week would be among this morning's additions. While you work out some conspiracy theories, let's take a look at what new oldies are available. Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega Master System, 500 Wii Points): While Sega's 16-bit original has been available for download for a long while, Sonic's 8-bit port changes things up with a handful of new stages, gameplay differences, and cruddier graphics. Splatterhouse 2 (Sega Genesis, 800 Wii Points): There's many ways that we could spend our time waiting to slip on the Terror Mask and bash demons' brains out in Namco Bandai's Splatterhouse redux, but really, what better way is there than to play through the arcade original's 16-bit sequel? The only right answer here is none.
Virtual Console gets bad in Chase HQ, Art of Fighting 2
As Nintendo continues ride out the 'ebbs and flows' in its digital release schedule, we feel its our civic duty to warn you that today's Virtual Console offerings include references to drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. And bad guys, lots and lots of bad guys. Art of Fighting 2 (NeoGeo, 1-2 players, 900 Wii Points): The second in SNK's Art of Fighting triple threat sees chronic bad guy Geese Howard, years before antagonizing those Fatal Fury chaps, printing up fliers for a 'King of Fighters' tourney of his own. Chase H.Q. (TurboGrafx16, 1 player, 600 Wii Points): In Taito's arcade racer, your car is your fist as you do your best Miami Vice impression behind the wheel of a Porsche 928 and run the criminal element out of town -- and into the highway barrier.
Gley Lancer, Super Fantasy Zone shoot up Virtual Console
As the haze begins to lift from last week's media circus, we hope you're in the mood to play games from your favorite genre. As long as that includes obscure 16-bit shooters, as this week's Virtual Console additions include a pair of Genesis-era side-scrolling shmups designed to keep you flying horizontally and mashing the fire button all night long. Super Fantasy Zone (Genesis, 1 player, 900 Wii Points): The lesser-known follow up to Sega's Master System original, this shooter will have you scrolling sideways as you shoot down bad guys and collect cold coins in ultra-colorful fashion. Gley Lancer (Genesis, 1 player, 900 Wii Points): It's the year 2025, the Earth is at odds with an alien race, and the hope for humanity rests on the shoulders of a 16-year old girl named Lucia. Just be home before midnight, young lady.
Donkey Kong, Ninja Commando toss things at Virtual Console
Things may (or may not) include beehives, shurikens, mysterious yellow substances and utterly uncomfortable stares. This week's Virtual Console additions, while being pleasant diversions, seem largely intent on teaching you how to disperse dangerous items and substances, often to the detriment of the people in your way. Donkey Kong 3 (NES, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points): Shoot Miyamoto's remarkably famous monkey and woman-stealing pseudo ass, Donkey Kong, in the crotch. Does that punishment seem appropriate for the crime? Ninja Commando (NeoGeo, 1-2 players, 900 Wii Points): You've just traveled to lovely and moderately sunny feudal Japan, and your first response is to annihilate everything. Obviously.
Virtual Console crowns the King of the Monsters
Nintendo's love affair with the Neo Geo continues this week, giving players who have not yet shelled out for one of SNK's numerous other arcade collections yet another outlet to spend their hard-earned dollars, or rather, points. King of the Monsters (Neo Geo, 1-2 players, 900 Wii Points): While already available on the Wii already as part of SNK Arcade Classics Volume 1, it's good to know that despite all of the problems in the world, there are still some disagreements between a giant lizard and an overgrown beetle than can be settled as part of a midtown battle royal. SNK's arcade original King of the Monsters allows players to choose from six different giant creatures and then grapple with the others in order to decide the fate of the city, as long as that fate ends in total devastation.
SNK beats down Virtual Console with Fatal Fury 2
With Neo Geo games popping up virtually on the Wii, not to mention in more compilations than we can count without taking off our socks and shoes, we've begun looking at the cartridges gathering dust on our shelf and wondering if selling all that plasma to pay for SNK's console back in the early 90s was worth it after all. That said, if you didn't get your fill with Samurai Shodown earlier this month, perhaps this week will scratch your itch. • Fatal Fury 2 (Neo Geo, 1-2 players, 900 Wii Points): Today's release gives us yet another title in our Neo Geo collection to throw up on eBay. This second installment in SNK's 2D fighting game series lifts the original's pitiful three-character roster to eight, and when first released in arcades in 1992, it also marked a welcome, if obvious attempt to ride on the back on Capcom's Street Fighter 2 hadoken-embroidered coattails.
Virtual Console picks Burning Fight with Alex Kidd
With the United States swept up in political debate and the world's reliance on oil becoming increasingly problematic, we welcome the Virtual Console's desire to take us back to a simpler and easier time. A time when sprites were celebrated, power-ups were plentiful and men were all called "Ryu." A time when every problem could be solved by the calculated and swift application of a fist. Punching time. Alex Kidd in Miracle World (Master System, 1 player, 500 Wii Points): Alex Kidd will stop at nothing to rescue his brother. Leaping across deadly chasms, punching through solid rock and murdering birds with his bare hands -- he's a monster! We can't really identify with that, but don't let that stop you. "Please buy the things that you like." Burning Fight (Neo Geo, 1-2 players, 900 Wii Points): Predominantly pugilistic protagonists patrol parks and pound on pesky perpetrators in this post-90s punk-bashing punchfest. POW!
Virtual Console gets cut in a Samurai Shodown
The latest update to the Wii's Virtual Console gives those of you with Wii arcade sticks on your shelf a sense of purpose, as well as an excuse to dust them off for a bit of classic arcade fighting, Neo Geo-style. Samurai Shodown (Neo Geo, 1-2 players, 900 Wii Points): Once all the rage in arcade parlors when first released in 1993, this first in the still-ongoing fighting game series lets players duke it out using 12 different weapon (and sometimes animal)-wielding fighters. While a bit archaic by today's standards, the game still beats the pants off many contemporary fighters. Plus where else can you see a kabuki performer throw down against a green hunchback doing his best Freddy Krueger impression?
Dig Dug and ... other game come to Virtual Console
Just when you think you've got Nintendo all figured out, along comes a morning like today. We receive our Wii-kly Update (their name, not ours) and we quickly skip to the new Virtual Console offerings: Dig Dug (NES, 1 player, 600 Wii Points): Become Dig Dug, the champion of love and justice, as you drill up, down, left and right, defeating any enemies in your path. Avoid the persistent Pooka and the deep-dwelling but whimsical Fygar as you defeat all the enemies in order to clear each stage. Defeat enemies by hitting them with the harpoon and pumping air into them, or by dropping rocks on them from above. "Oh," we think, "how nice. Dig Dug. Nothing revolutionary, but it's good to see it." Then, our eyes scan further and we land on this: Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa (NES, 1 player, 600 Wii Points): Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa is an action game released in 1988, but it was never available outside of Japan. Players take on the role of baby Upa, a prince of the Akuyo kingdom. Upa must defeat the enemies he meets along the way by inflating them. Upa can then use these floating enemies to his advantage by bouncing off of or riding on top of them. The prince must also avoid deadly thorns and pits while keeping an eye out for helpful items such as milk (to restore health) and bells (for temporary invincibility) if he hopes to succeed. ...What? A royal, demon-inflating baby? How is that even a paragraph? (Oh, and P.S., he inflates enemies by hitting them with a rattle.) It's like someone put the most insane words they could think of in a refrigerator and set a nuclear bomb off next to it. We love you, Nintendo, but, in the parlance of our times, you so crazy.
Virtual Console engages in Ninja Combat
Pfft, forget about all that "Ninja Guy Dan Too" rubbish you've heard about on the other consoles. If you want some frenetic action of a HI-YA! caliber, you'd best switch on the Wii and download a game from a time when ninjas still roamed the Earth. Ninja Combat (NeoGeo, 1-2 players, 900 Wii Points): As evident in the above video, "Ninja Combat" is quite the efficient and appropriate title. Can your ninja combatant wield a deadly sword? Yup! Is he capable of performing dizzying acrobatic maneuvers and mercilessly slaughtering innocent, roller-coasting bystanders? Certainly! Can he skilfully utilize magic and projectile weapons to defeat his enemies? Shuriken!
Metal Slug makes City Connection on Virtual Console
The Virtual Console provides some intriguing social commentary on tourism this week, with two games allowing us to travel the world and make a mess of it while we're at it. Metal Slug (NeoGeo, 1-2 players, 900 Wii Points): Honestly, we shouldn't even have to expend a bullet point on this game. You know what Metal Slug is all about. Dash through some jungles, some mountains, some ruins (they're all to East, just so you know) and shoot everything that isn't part of the background. Everything. City Connection (NES, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points): Travel through cities like New York and London, while marveling at the engineering incompetence that spawned multiple levels of dead-end roads floating in the sky. Driving up and down them is apparently illegal too, so be sure to bump off those pesky police vehicles.
Skykid swoops onto Virtual Console
Returning from a brief, WiiWare-induced hiatus, the Wii's Virtual Console service offers but a single new old title for your enjoyment this week. Skykid (NES, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points): Join Red Baron of Bird Land as he makes the skies friendlier in this side-scrolling shooter. Enemies must be shot down, bombs must be dropped and the loop must be looped if you hope to survive your airborne jaunt. And try not to screw up the landing! And that's it. Move along to the next post, folks.
WiiWare live, no Virtual Console update this week
We know there's little chance that the Nintendo faithful among you haven't already circled May 12 on your calendar with your Nintendo World Championships 1990 commemorative Sharpie, but just in case, let us remind you that the WiiWare service is now live. If you can't hop on and browse at the moment, we've taken the liberty of posting the list of initial offerings after the jump.In more disappointing news, Nintendo is letting WiiWare get all the spotlight this week and refraining from new Virtual Console releases. If you're truly broken up, just pretend that two games were released that you really don't care about. Considering what the line-up's been lately, you should be in pretty good practice.
Pokmon Puzzle League, Renegade on Virtual Console today
Do you know what we really, truly and utterly despise about Pokémon games? It's the fact that every time something Pokémon related pops out of Nintendo's red-and-white capsule, we have to go hunting for that "é." You know, the one with the thingy on top. That's a period of 45 minutes we could spend being super effective and writing about this week's Virtual Console releases. Pokémon Puzzle League (N64, 1-2 players, 1000 Wii Points): Pit those encapsulated creatures against one another in a battle of manic block rearrangement! Way to go! Renegade (NES, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points): Clean up your city by punching and jump-kicking every thug, gangster, villain, lowlife, miscreant and suspicious loiterer you can find. So, pretty much everyone in the game then.
Double Dragon punches its way onto Virtual Console
We can't even pretend that we're really excited about this week's Virtual Console release, Double Dragon, or that we didn't play it a year ago in a sexy high-res remake on XBLA for the exact same price (500 points/$5). We love us some side-scrolling and punching, but even we have limits.But maybe you've never heard of the legend of Billy Lee and his decision to risk his kidnapped girlfriend's safety in order to keep his karate secrets to himself. If so, feel free to buy away, if only to more fully appreciate the roots of the beat-em-up genre.
Phantasy Star III pays a River City Ransom on Virtual Console
That landfill of crappy Virtual Console titles has just been given a swift kick-punch of revitalization. Not only that, but we've got a second helping of Phantasy Star for you to digest. River City Ransom (NES,1-2 players, 500 Wii Points): Save your girlfriend from such heinous foes as "The Generic Dudes" and "The Frat Guys." This beat-em-up was obviously ahead of its time in poignant social commentary and butt-kicking awesomeness. Phantasy Star III Generations of Doom (Sega Genesis, 1 player, 800 Wii Points): Having already given us Phantasy Star II, Sega decided to move forward and continue the series, while still forgetting to back up and bring the original Phantasy Star to Virtual Console. It's pretty much exactly like River City Ransom in that way that it's nothing like RCR. Videos of the titles after the break.
Mega Turrican enters Fantasy Zone on Virtual Console
This week, Nintendo reckons we're all in the mood to engage in some "perilous, heart-pumping adventures" on Virtual Console. That suits us just fine, as moments when we're not in that sort of mood are few and far between. Why bother getting out of bed if you don't intend to blast some robots to smithereens? Mega Turrican (Genesis, 1 player, 800 Wii Points): Leap into an assault suit with one Bren McGuire, a man tasked with foiling the nefarious "Machine." Kick-ass side-scrolling shooter, or layered commentary on industrial action? Either way, it has a terrific soundtrack. Fantasy Zone (Master System, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points): Pilot the Opa-Opa spaceship and lay siege to a remarkably gaudy environment, taking care to upgrade your ship and destroy any sinister blocks of wood.
Bases Loaded with Yoshi's Cookie on Virtual Console
Do you remember when the Wii's Virtual Console service was more classic library and less classless landfill? This week's dump sees players scrounging for a sports title and shelling out dough for a cookie-themed puzzler. Yoshi's Cookie (NES, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points): Help Mario align matching types of baked goods in this puzzle game with a cruel reward -- successful maneuvers make the cookies disappear! Bases Loaded (NES, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points): Swing away with "one of the most popular baseball games on the NES." So, yeah. It's baseball. Do you really need an elucidating paragraph on that? (Oh, alright.)
Wonder Boy, Cruis'n USA speed onto Virtual Console
Okay, we've figured it out! The tenuous link between today's Virtual Console releases is none other than the ability to travel through exotic locales at high speed, be it on a skateboard rolling through lush jungles or an offensively colored car hurtling through, er, Iowa. Cruis'n USA (Nintendo 64, 1-2 players, 1000 Wii Points): Hop into your virtually indestructible vehicle and commence your cruise through the N64's best approximation of the USA. We're not sure how you manage to survive the nightmarish elevator music nor the sudden, neck-snapping stop at the finish line, but at least you can look forward to a digitized woman waggling a trophy in your face. Wonder Boy (Master System, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points): You, Tom-Tom. Girlfriend, Tanya. Must save Tanya. Fling hammers. Murder snails. Ride skateboard. Wonder why girlfriend has such modern name.
