minigames
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505 Games did it, Mum!
European budget publisher 505 Games announced a new title for the children. Because the children are a very profitable demographic our future! The game is called I Did It Mum! and comes in boys' or girls' versions. Both versions are jam-packed with educational minigames like "Toy Train" and "Drive the Car." And both versions are totally for preschoolers, so you have an excuse not to be interested in the thing yourself. But if you have kids, this may be perfect "Playing DS Games Training" to help them get ready for other training games.[Via Joystiq]
Furu Furu Park making a surprise trip to the US
Furu Furu Park, Taito's self-referential minigame collection, is coming to the US courtesy of Majesco. Normally, we're all GRR TOO MANY MINIGAMES. But this one's got Arkanoid bits in it, so it gets a pass.In other words, Taito has figured out the winning formula for making us care about a minigame collection: well-designed gameplay making it look like old games. It may even be fun, with games like Super Karate (in which you waggle karate moves), Safe Cracker (The Wiimote becomes your, uh, combination lock dial!) and Bubble Bobble (which is Bubble Bobble!) Man, that version of Bubble Bobble looks sharp.
Cha-Ching! WarioWare: Smooth Moves for $25
This item has been going in and out stock all morning, so it will require a bit of patience and providence to take advantage of this one-day deal at Amazon. If you don't mind spending the rest of your day watching the product page, however, WarioWare: Smooth Moves could be yours for only $25 (s/h included), half of its regular price! Just think of it as another minigame -- every click on your browser's reload button is another opportunity for you to win! Bwahahaha! [Thanks, Adam!]
New Ring of Fates video: Jumpin' Yuke Flash
Square Enix is keeping up its media push for Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates with yet another video, adding onto its bombardment of scans and screenshots to draw in anyone who hasn't already decided to pick up the game's special-edition DS Lite bundle. This week's clip features Alhanarlem, one of the main characters from the ARPG's spellcasting tribe of Yukes, leaping from platform to platform in what looks like a competitive minigame in which players race through a stage to find a hidden blue switch. Power-ups are scattered around the field, but their effects aren't revealed until they're grabbed. Vault past the post break for the embedded movie.
More Wiimote extensions for the imagination-impaired
We can only guess that these people think that you are playing Cooking Mama every day, or that there will be many, many sequels -- otherwise, we'd have to call them a little late to the party. And really, were they even invited? We can understand swords and shields. We can even get behind rackets and bats, though they're a little silly. But ... a frying pan? Spatula? Did someone kill off imagination without sending us a memo? [Via DCEmu]
Tamagotchi: Party On! for $18
Reviews for Tamagotchi: Party On! haven't been favorable, but if you've ever wanted to compete against your friends in an election for the Sparkling President of Tamagotchi planet, have we got a deal for you! Amazon is selling Namco Bandai's minigame collection at a bargain price of $17.99, shipping them out for free with orders totaling over $25, as usual. The deal ends today, and we don't expect the game to stay in stock for long, so snatch up a copy now, while you can![Via CAG]
Analyst: Cooking Mama spices up Majesco's forecast
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter said that publisher Majesco is "close to returning to profitability" and predicts the Cooking Mama series has earned sales of $15 million this quarter. That figure, according to Gamasutra, is above the $13 million consensus estimate for quarterly sales. "We are increasingly positive on shares now that the company has been able to stabilize revenues in the $12 – 13 million quarterly range," he said, "and believe that Majesco can break even at $65 million in annual revenues." Majesco had at one point hit the proverbial rock bottom, spurred by dismal sales of Advent Rising and Joystiq favorite Psychonauts. The publisher is moving into the black through its sales of budget titles (six DS, one Wii and one Xbox 360 titles are coming this quarter), and we fully expect them to keep with what works. Folks who were hoping for a high-budget Cooking Mama Xtreme Beach Cookoff will probably have to wait for at least a few years of profitability.
Kabu Trader Shun's minigame and big trailer
Half adventure game, half stock trading battles, Kabu Trader Shun hits Japanese stores later this week. Looking to promote its release, Capcom posted a Flash minigame complementing the Phoenix-Wright-styled title. Players can live out the after-hours-lounge experience of a stock trader, text messaging a needy girlfriend while trying to keep the boss' drink filled at the same time. It's a simple, fast-clicking diversion, but seeing the creative steps companies are taking to advertise their games is always interesting.We happened to also spot a lengthy trailer during our stay at Kabu Trader Shun's official site, though we can't guarantee its freshness. Clocking in at just over two-and-a-half minutes, the video introduces the game's characters, trade battles, and adventuring sequences. Head past the post break for the movie.
Happy funtime Memorial Day video: Rejected Wii Play minigames
A caution to our readers: anyone with a conscience or refined sense of humor may want to stay far away from the above video, which features a host of "rejected" Wii Play minigames to hilarious effect. It even includes Ribbon Dancing Revolution, which we called back in August of '06. The excellent reproduction of the Mii's simplistic style is alone worth the price of admission, so go ahead, click on the play button.We're not watching.[via GoNintendo]
NMS: Big Brain Academy hands-on
Our friends over at Joystiq have already started enacting nefarious plans against us, planned with their newly enlarged brains. The tiny-brains at Wii Fanboy don't stand a chance against the bigness of their horrible brains. How did Joystiq get such big old brains? They got a hands-on preview of Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree. And even with their freakishly enlarged brains, they were positive about the game. It contains a series of minigames, each designed to improve one mental ability (Identify, Memorize, Analyze, Compute and Visualize) as well as presumably being fun. In addition to 8-player games at home, you can trade student profiles online to compete with your friends. Check out the screenshots in our People on the Couch Gallery! %Gallery-3434%
More Rabbid stuff
First came the pictures, now come the words. Rayman: Raving Rabbids 2 has released more information in three days than Nintendo has, ever, on some of their games announced years ago. They could learn a thing or two.First up are some hands-on impressions of the title, courtesy of IGN. The game almost essentially ditches the concept of playing as Rayman (he's in disguise as a rabbid) so that the game can focus on the carrot-loving crazies. More minigames have had competitive modes added (very few had this option in the original), and the game will allow you to customize your rabbid with a whole slew of ridiculous accessories. Awesome.We also thought it would be worth mentioning that this time, Raving Rabbids 2 is completely exclusive to Nintendo platforms, the Wii and the DS. The whole insane minigame thing loses 68.3% of its appeal without the Wiimote anyway, so this makes perfect sense.BAHHHHHHHH!
Carnival Games officially announced
Global Star Software's Carnival Games, previously discovered via Gamefly listing, has been confirmed as a real game. It's pretty much what we thought it was going to be: a collection of midway-style (not Midway-style; no Kombat here) minigames for the family. Carnival Games, developed by Cat Daddy Software (Deal or No Deal PC) will feature over 25 minigames including Milk Can Toss, Dunk Tank, and Test of Strength. In keeping with the carnival theme, players will be able to win 250 prizes in-game, including goldfish and stuffed animals. There's a really goofy people-in-front-of-the-couch gameplay trailer at the official site, if you can't wrap your mind around the idea of minigames on the Wii.
Step right up for Carnival Games: more minigames for the Wii
If you're anything like us, one of your chief complaints of Nintendo's waggle-enabled phenom isn't the dearth of games that really push the control mechanism in new directions, it's the lack of minigame compilations! Sure, the system comes with Wii Sports, Ubisoft gave us Rayman Raving Rabids, Nintendo brought us WarioWare: Smooth Moves and Wii Play, EA's got EA Playground, Nintendo still has Mario Party 8, and now Take-Two is sending us down the midway with Carnival Games. Sure, that sounds like a lot for a system that's only six months old.But we can't help ourselves. The thought of playing "25 of the most popular games seen in midways and boardwalks throughout the world, including Clown Splash, Milk Can Toss, Nerves of Steel, Lucky Cups, Hoops, Day at the Races and the crowd-favorite Dunk Tank" has us all worked up. Announced at the Nintendo Media Summit, happening right now in Seattle, Carnival Games is due this summer for the reasonable price of $40. C'mon fella, it's just $40! Don't you wanna win a bear? Lookit' that, guy won't spend a couple bucks to win his special friend a teddy bear. I'll give ya 25 games for the price of one, just for you fella.
Raving Rabbids Redux
Not the official name, of course, but damn if we shouldn't take up careers in marketing. Rayman Raving Rabbids, a game noted for being rather dichotomous in quality, will be receiving the sequel treatment on both the Wii and the DS.Alas, the style of the game seems to be untouched: perform in various minigames and encounter some marginally bearable screaming lagomorphs en route. We're hoping that with familiarity comes refinement: this may be the first direct sequel of a game released for the Wii, and thus familiarity with programming the motion controls may bring a more natural and elegant experience. If not, Ubisoft, prepare to get market slapped, because we're kind of getting sick of minigames.[Thanks, Squishey!]
In the Flash: Four Second Firestorm
Every week on In the Flash we sit down with the creator of a free online game to unravel their secret plans of world domination ... and to talk about their game: It's a coffee buzz without the coffee. No no, wait! It's a sugar high without the sugar! Even better, it's the rush of adrenaline you get if a two-ton vehicle pinned you to the ground and you had to lift it with your bare hands. Except Four Second Firestorm does it without the loss of blood! Firestorm is the third in a series of frantic micro-game collections from jmtb02 Studios. Similar to Nintendo's Wario Ware titles, you have a few seconds to figure out and win each mini-game before you're thrown into the next. Over 170 of these tiny diversions will flash before your eyes in what feels like an exercise in trying to not have a seizure.We sat down with John Cooney, the creator of the Four Second series, to ask just what was on his mind when he decided to unleash these games.
EA reveals completely original idea: sports-based minigames
Tell us if you think this sounds like a good idea for a Wii game: a collection of easy-to-play minigames based on casual sports! EA Playground is EA's attempt to fill the only hole in the Wii's lineup that absolutely doesn't exist. At least it features different sports than Wii Sports: tetherball, RC racing, and dodgeball, that we know of.EA is emphasizing "local multiplayer parties" for this title (by not putting it online, probably) and a "storyline" based on collecting stickers for your sticker book. Also it has graphics, basically. Things appear onscreen. The attractiveness or visual quality of those things are for you to decide. EA Playground will also be appearing on DS, with its own exclusive minigames.[Via Joystiq]
Get a degree in knowing how to play Big Brain Academy
We haven't read any research on the particular brain-embiggening properties of Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree, and we're also quite certain that playing it won't result in an actual degree conferral (which is too bad, because we could use some more of those!) Whatever health or brain-bigness benefits it may have, the game certainly looks cute and fun. Siliconera has posted some impressions of the Japanese version, with plenty of screenshots and explanation of the various minigames involved. We suggest you check it out and dramatically increase the size of the area of your brain that holds Big Brain Academy gameplay details!
Pogo Island's redeemable qualities
Pogo Island isn't a particularly terrible game; there just hasn't been much we've heard about it worth discussing. Electronic Arts developed the puzzle collection as a handheld supplement to its popular casual gaming site, Pogo. Marked at full price though, it's hard to justify buying a title that's essentially a round up of the five most popular games EA already offers for free online.Even with that in mind, Pogo Island isn't completely without merit. As GameSetWatch pointed out to us, playing the game earns you tokens which can later be uploaded to your Pogo account online. Trading in any tokens you acquire from either Pogo.com or Pogo Island buys you a ticket for the site's daily prize drawings (Up to $1000!).Why don't more DS titles have connectivity like this? Wouldn't it be great if you could exchange all those Star coins you collected in New Super Mario Bros. for a free copy of the Super Mario Bros. 3 DVD? Or if discounts were offered at an online pet shop when Nintendogs notices that you've been taking good care of your puppy? Features like this won't automatically turn a mediocre game into a great one, but it's an easy way to add to its worth.
Cooking Mama cooking tips and infomercial
It's no secret that many players found the Cooking Mama: Cook Off controls just a little frustrating. Instead of being a game that could highlight the further potential of the Wiimote, what we ended up getting at a whopping $50 price tag (for what really should have been a budget title) was a game which highlighted Wiimote issues. Some who don't fear the Nintendo Defense Force might even have defined these issues as "problems." This made Mama angry and you wouldn't like Mama when she's angry. So, Majesco came out with some tips on how to improve your Cooking Mama: Cook Off experience: For rolling truffles, place the Wii Remote flat in the palm of your hand, as if it's the truffle. Once in your hand, roll the Wii Remote in your hand as if it's the truffle. For egg cracking, hold the Wii Remote up in the air vertically and bring it down as if there is an invisible bowl in front of you. To grind meat, hold the Wii Remote horizontally in your hand and make the crank motion as if there is a meat grinder in front of you. For stirring, hold the Wii Remote upside down and stir as if it's a spoon. To flip items in the frying pan, flick your wrist as you would with a real pan. Three flips consecutively will earn you bonus points. Cracking 3 eggs with only one initial attempt will earn you bonus points. In certain recipes, you can turn the heat up or down on the stove before the direction reaches the line. After the break we have an "infomercial" perfect for late-night viewing. We don't even feel the need to say anything about it, but the simple fact that we put it after the break probably tells you something ... watch if you dare.
Majesco turns Mawasunda!! around toward the US
Majesco announced yesterday that they're localizing Taito's Mawasunda!! as Turn it Around. The game collects 24 minigames that all make use of a turntable on the touch screen. Many of the games are based on classic Taito games like Bubble Bobble and Cameltry.Yeah, we know, it's more minigames. But most minigames aren't derived from Arkanoid or Elevator Action. The Taito pedigree makes this game worth a spin for us. Plus the spinning mechanic recalls Wario Ware: Twisted, which is a generally good sign.
