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Bonk takes Revenge on the Dragon's Curse, and 3 more coming to VC
Hudson Soft is giving Wii owners its second dose of Bonk with Bonk's Revenge. The Turbo-Grafx 16 platformer is due sometime next month on the Virtual Console, according to the publisher's official list. Also on the list for next month are Dragon's Curse, Bravoman, Battle Lode Runner and Shockman. Bravoman stands as only the second TurboGrafx-16 game from Namco Bandai, and only the fourth title not distributed by Hudson Soft.The first title to be released, Dragon's Curse, is scheduled for next Monday, April 2. All titles will be priced the usual 600 Wii Points for purchase. Also known for next month are three from Sega, including a 2-dimensional Virtua Fighter 2. No word on what classic titles, if any, Nintendo will release in April.
Five TG-16 games coming to VC next month
Not to be outdone by Capcom's Virtual Console plans revealed earlier this week, Hudson has announced five TurboGrafx-16 games coming to the the North American shopping channel this April: Battle Lode Runner, Bonk's Revenge, Bravoman, Dragon's Curse, and Shockman.Bonk's Revenge builds upon the original adventure's headbutting formula, adding more complex levels and tightened graphics. Battle Lode Runner gets a similar visual upgrade from its Commodore 64 trappings, and it even features multiplayer action.Dragon's Curse, or Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap in Japan, should be available to purchase by next Monday. Players will be able to take on the forms and powers of five different creatures in this side-scrolling RPG, questing to regain their original human body. Bravoman and Shockman sound like Mega Man spin-offs, and you wouldn't be too far off with that assumption! They're both action-platformers overloaded with robots and larger-than-life bosses.All five of the Virtual Console games will be priced at 600 Wii points.
Wii Warm Up: Virtual Console on HDTV
Of the download services for the new consoles, Nintendo's Virtual Console provides the most faithful representation of older games. ToeJam & Earl on the Wii looks like ToeJam & Earl on the Genesis-- no borders, no filters, no "enhancements." We appreciate Nintendo's decision not to try to improve on the resolution or anything, since we see the VC as a form of preservation.It is especially maddening, then, to hear that VC games default to widescreen when played on HDTV's. This seems to fly in the face of what the VC is about. We're sure some of you are HDTV owners, and we want to know: does this bother you as much in practice as it bothers us in theory (no HDTV here)? Or have you gotten used to switching the aspect ratio every time you want to play Vigilante? Or ... are you playing in a non-archival resolution? Don't tell us if you are. We don't think we could take it.[Thanks for the idea, RD!]
Radio Allergy delayed to March
Bad news for both of the people that preordered this one. O3 have delayed the US release of Milestone's shmup Radio Allergy until March 30th. The game, known as Radilgy in Japan, was released on the Gamecube in May of last year. We understand the delay-- shooting games have so much text to translate. Or maybe they didn't want to bring the game out in the midst of a busy Gamecube release season. Also (and this is what makes this news item explicitly appropriate for Wii Fanboy) O3 have deployed the "Rhythm Tengoku trick" in marketing their game-- there's a little "Wii Compatible" icon on the box. They might as well use every tactic they can think of; we get the feeling that selling a shmup for the Gamecube in 2007 is harder than, well, a certain kind of frantic videogame that is notorious for difficulty.We'd actually like to see the "Wii Compatible" tactic used by other developers to sell localized versions of obscure titles from the Gamecube back catalog at budget prices, but we think it would take a more popular game to start a trend. What do you think?
TG-16 games hit the Wii
We were a little concerned when the Wii's Virtual Console launched this Sunday without any downloadable TurboGrafx-16 games, despite a promise from a Nintendo press release that Bomberman '93 would be one of the games that was "ready to play on launch day." Were there problems finalizing the Wii's TG-16 emulator? Licensing issues still to be worked out with HudsonSoft? A general feeling that players didn't care about the little known system?Well, it seems our rhetorical hand-wringing was a little premature, because as of today Bomberman '93 and Bonk's Adventure are both downloadable from the Wii Shop Channel for 600 Wii points ($6). A post from Hudson staffer John on the Hudson Entertainment forums suggests the games were indeed playable on dev kits by launch day, but might have been delayed due to a hitch in the certification process for the TG-16 games. Whatever the reason, we're just glad the problems have been worked out and we can now play around with the original headbanger to our heart's content.
Hudson contemplates new Bonk game on the Wii?
Over at the official Hudson forums, the above image was posted by a Hudson employee while posing the question of whether this was a "taste of things to come?" or not. The poster, one Dementia, seems to enjoy torturing loyal Hudson fans, dangling the smallest morsel of delicious meat above their cramped cage, just out of their malnourished hand's reach. Shame on you Dementia... Instead of torturing everyone with what could be, why not just find the proper outlet to announce something for you? [Via N-Sider]
Out with the old rumors, in with the new
Just after these things were all taken care of, here we go again with more completely unsubstantiated rumors. Found on a gaming forum (always a reliable source of information) the post goes on to say that an old "college roommate" hooked him up with some key details to the future of the Xbox 360. They are: "Sometime around november 2006, MS is launching a complete media service on the marketplace. This will range from 99 cent songs, to 3.99 streaming movies." "AT next E3, MS will announce a parternship with Blizzard that will bring World of Warcraft exclusively to 360." "Halo 3 will be out before X'mas 2006. Exact words were Quarter 4 of 2006." " There will be over 50 Sega dremcast games on the xbox live arcade within 2 years. Launched a handfull at a time, he said the first game will be Bonks adverture, which should be out in September 2006." In a word: bullspit. The horrible grammar and spelling are enough to clue you in to the fact that this couldn't have been written by a college graduate (at least not an English-speaking one). Second big clue is that the seminal platformer, Bonk's Adventure, was not only not a Dreamcast game, but it wasn't even a Sega Genesis game. It was a Turbo-Grafx title! Some simple Google-action should have cleared that up. Regardless of the veracity of the claims, do you think Microsoft should be exploring these options? I think WoW on the 360 would definitely be a killer-app. [Thanks, The_Solidshadow]
