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Gold Box deals plus lots more Wii discounts at Amazon [update 7]
As promised, Amazon kicked off their all-Wii Gold Box deals last night, with $25.98 copies of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. The Gold Box deals so far include: $10 Namco Museum Remix (gone, but that's probably okay!) $40 Disney Sing It bundle with mic (expired, but that's probably okay!) $10 Trauma Center: New Blood (out of stock!) $20 We Ski (gone!) $35 Wario Land Shake It! (already claimed!) $50 DDR Hottest Party 2 bundle (expired) $30 High School Musical 3: Senior Year Dance The announced Gold Box deals aren't the only discounted Wii offerings at Amazon today. As part of their "15 Days, 15 Deals" promotion, they've marked down all kinds of Wii games and accessories to ridiculous prices. We've wanted to buy a Balance Board cover for a while, but held off out of an interest in not feeling stupid for paying twenty dollars for one. $2.98 sounds about right! The promotion also includes $40 Active Life: Outdoor Challenge, $20 We Love Golf, and discounts on the Wii Fit Energy Pack (see our impressions!), replacement Wii AC adapters, and maraca shells.And hey, while you're at Amazon, why not pick up today's MP3 Daily Deal, The Muppets' Green and Red Christmas, for 99 cents?
DS gifts on the cheap
GameDaily put up a helpful set of cheap DS gifts, from games to accessories, that can help to take the sting out of shopping this season ... if, that is, you can find any of 'em, and if you want 'em when you find 'em. Example: Namco Museum Remix is on there, as it's priced at a modest $19.99, but if it's anything like the Wii version, you might not want it. Of course, it did receive better scores than its console cousin, so it might be safe. But you also get gems like Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords and the Nerf DS armor, so can you really go wrong? There's a hidden bonus of saving money as well.
Wii Fanboy Review: Namco Museum Remix
Even while gawking at the bizarre screenshots of Namco Museum Remix, I secreted away a bit of genuine hope in my heart. I had more interest in this game than I dared tell anyone. More than any other game, I saw the potential in Namco Museum Remix to express the Wii's charm to the widest possible audience. A retrogaming minigame collection, in my mind, was the perfect second Wii game for casual gamers or parties, combining the gee-whiz factor of Wii motion controls with familiar, beloved games. The reborn classics would interest retrogamers and lapsed gamers who have missed out on the last few years of video games; the unmodified arcade games on the disc would allow them to reconnect with "traditional" gaming. It would combine the strengths of Wii Sports and the Virtual Console, using the relative simplicity of old games as a substitute for casual-focused design. Somehow this potential allowed me to react positively to a demo of the game.I'm pretty sure that I'm the only person who put so much hope into this game, which means that the reality of Namco Museum Remix hurts me more than it hurts anyone on Earth. The game, then, feels like a personal insult.
Wii Warm Up: Greatest hits
The Namco Museum Remix collection includes, in addition to wacky, waggly remakes of arcade classics like Galaga, authentic emulated classic games. Just a few days after the first Neo Geo game became available on the Virtual Console, SNK announced their intention to release King of Fighters and Samurai Shodown collections on disc.We don't mind buying collections on disc, since they're inevitably cheaper than buying even a few of the games separately on the Virtual Console. How do you feel, though? Do these collections make the Virtual Console redundant? Is there room for both? What are the advantages of one approach over another?
E307: Namco Museum Remix is still weird
CONFIRMED: Namco Museum Remix continues to be insane. Not that we expected them to, but Namco did not go back and change Galaga back to regular Galaga. We are still living in a world where a description of Galaga can include the phrase "Pac-Man rolls on a tube in outer space." This is the "new" Galaga in which, instead of shooting from a ship at the bottom of the screen, you shoot the alien ships by pointing and shooting at them with the Wiimote, shooting-gallery style, and you can also use the analog stick to make Pac-Man jump.Rally-X was still Rally-X, but with speed boosting, which seems like an okay addition. These were still the only two playable games, so we'll have to wait to see how Namco is ruining updating the rest of their classics.
Namco Museum Remix: Galaga, Rally-X details
Game|Life's Chris Kohler played the wacky reinterpretation of Galaga found on the new Namco Museum Remix, and somehow came out of it cogent enough to describe the surreal experience. Basically, Pac-Man is rolling down a slide in space, for some reason, and players have to protect him by shooting the Galaga ships that come down to attack him for some reason. You aim at the little ships with the Wiimote pointer. If Galaga '88 was Galactic Dancing, this is Galactic-- okay, we don't know what it is. We're still pretty confused about the whole idea. Kohler also played Rally-X, which was basically a 3D remake of the original arcade game (which itself is basically Pac-Man). While Galaga is rife with Wiimote integration, Rally-X is more staid and relies on the analog stick and shoulder buttons.
More fodder for the Katamari rumor fire
While there's still no official, announcement-style confirmation that Beautiful Katamari is coming to the Wii, we're tentatively jumping up and down with glee around the Wii Fanboy offices. The rumors have been glomming together into a beautiful, spherical whole, we're almost convinced that the King of All Cosmos will be decrying our lack of rolling skill this winter. Several sites are reporting that references to the Wii title are popping up everywhere -- most recently on GameFly, showing a release date in November. Blogosphere detectives also stumbled across a listing for Namco Museum Remix on the Wii, a title that seems somewhat superfluous considering we have the Virtual Console ... unless something special is done to update the collection. That's definitely something to watch.On the Katamari front, however, and we must stress this "however" quite strongly -- this latest "confirmation" could simply be a matter of GameFly picking up other rumors. We've seen retail slip-ups and placeholders spawn rumors before, and they often come to naught. But with so much buzz around it, we hope to hear something one way or another from Namco on the possibility of a Wii Katamari title. Creator Keita Takahashi hasn't hesitated to speak up before ... but perhaps the smashing success of the Wii has changed a few minds? We'll keep you posted.
