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NTT DoCoMo reveals fall 2008 lineup: Bold, E71, 20 others
Hot on the heels of RIM's BlackBerry Bold finally hitting AT&T sales channels comes word that Japan's NTT DoCoMo has also joined in to offer the handset. As the Asian carriers dump their cornucopia of fall 2008 mobiles onto the world, this particular one is serving up 22, all divided into the STYLE, PRIME, SMART and PRO series. Naturally, the latter category piques our interest the most, as it hosts the Bold, Nokia E71, HTC Touch Pro (HT-01A), HTC Touch Diamond (HT-02A) and Sharp's decidedly handsome SH-04A. Feel free to have a look at the entire family (and their respective launch dates) just below in the read link.
The road to corruption: Retro Studios and the making of Metroid Prime
As gamers, our focus is often on playing games and not the subtleties that go on behind the scenes. If we only knew about all those details, though, we might be shocked to find out how something like the Metroid Prime series almost never came to be.Retro Studios president and CEO Michael Kelbaugh recently talked about the Prime arc at the 2007 Montreal Games Summit. In the conference, he explained the pressures of having his (at that time) rookie studio pick up such an important franchise, and how Miyamoto was influential in taking the series from third person to first person.
Against all odds, Samus cosplay looks surprisingly good
In recent times, we've shone the Fanboy spotlight on cosplay experiments that have ranged from adorable to slightly surreal. This Samus number effortlessly trumps the lot, however.For starters, it's Samus. Samus cosplay is not a walk in the park, kids. We can only begin to imagine the sheer frustration involved in accurately recreating the Power Suit, with all of its peculiar angles and ridges (not to mention those awkward shoulder spheres). Which makes this effort, featuring Swedish student Jenni Källberg, all the more admirable.More pictures after the jump.
Revolutionary: Virtually Complete Collections
Every Tuesday, Mike Sylvester brings you REVOLUTIONARY, a look at the wide world of Wii possibilities. Today marks the long-awaited release of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and no doubt many of you have been refreshing yourself on the precursors in anticipation. If you've been visiting Wii Fanboy or perusing the Wii Shop (as you should be!) lately, you've surely noticed Nintendo's been running with the "Metroid Month" thing, and has released the cartridge-based console predecessors of today's big Wii release. With the Wii featuring being backward compatibility with Gamecube software, the sudden realization that I can have entire series of Nintendo's long-running franchises on one system has put me in a euphoric daze.
Nintendo's annual pre-E3 bummer
N'Gai Croal at Level Up picked up on a trend based on the pre-E3 output of the big game companies: they tend to get their bad news out of the way a week or two before the show. The resulting Level Up article highlights some of Nintendo's recent examples of this strategy, including the unfortunate news this week regarding Super Smash Bros. and Metroid Prime 3. Did anyone else think it was weird whenever a big announcement like this would come out before E3?It makes sense, though, to let us all exhaust ourselves talking about bad news before the show starts. Then we can start being impressed by the actual show content.One interesting note: this implies that Nintendo knew how their choice of console name was going to be received. We still have trouble with the name, and we're ... you know.
Metroid Prime 3 'details' from Play Magazine [update 1]
Play Magazine has evidently revealed some "details" about Metroid Prime 3: Corruption in their latest issue. And, by "details" we mostly mean "opinions." But those are worth hearing, too, right? Otherwise, nobody would read game blogs. Check out the link for the impressions; we've picked out some actual details to highlight here.There's stuff here to make Super Metroid fans' ears perk up: beam combinations and familiar creatures. Play also offers a single tidbit about controls: you switch visors by holding the minus button and moving the Wiimote in a particular direction. The more actual gameplay impressions we hear about this game, the more we believe it may actually come out. Or that it's a really great hoax.[Warning: spoilers can be found at the link.]
Rumor: Smash Bros and Metroid Prime press conference coming soon?
The clues are beginning to come together: there's a countdown on the official site of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and some rumblings of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption news coming around May 20th. In this month once reserved for the mighty E3, it's been quite some time since Nintendo has held a major press conference. Finally, good 'ol Matt has made it perfectly clear in a recent IGN Mailbag: he's on his way to Seattle next week for some mysterious reason, and it's not for Starbucks.About freakin' time, Nintendo. For a company still claiming that the big three will release in 2007, they've been awfully tight-lipped about the impending trio. We look forward to bringing you some surely awesome news coming next week ... uh, you know, assuming that this actually happens.
'The big three' ARE coming in 2007 (to Japan)
In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Nintendo confirmed that they do in fact plan to release Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3 Corruption, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl by the end of this year, as well as pretty much every Nintendo game announced for the Wii. This corroborates an IGN report to the same effect, and is also totally, totally rad. Here's the full list of Nintendo's planned 2007 releases. Donkey Kong Taru Jet Race is slated for June 28, and the rest are all "2007": Donkey Kong Taru Jet Race Wii Health Pack Disaster: Day of Crisis Mario Party 8 Project H.A.M.M.E.R. Wii Music Super Mario Galaxy Super Smash Bros. Brawl Battalion Wars II Forever Blue Mario Strikers Charged Metroid Prime 3: Corruption Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games Keep checking with us for news of the inevitable delays of about half of these. Seriously, that's a lot of first-party Nintendo games for just half a year or so. Aw, we just made ourselves sad with our own skepticism. Still, if half of this stuff does get released in Japan this year, it'll be great news and do a pretty good job of ending any drought that may or may not be happening.Update: fixed some italics and formatting.
Metroid Prime 3 not shipping before July
In a recent interview with Newsweek, Reggie Fils-Aime revealed that he likes ponies Metroid Prime 3: Corruption would not be shipping before July. This is hardly a surprise, as we expect Nintendo to hype the heck out of what will surely be the first killer-app FPS on the console, but we find it slightly disappointing nevertheless.More disturbing, however, is the concept of the "Big Three" (Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl) all supposedly being released in 2007. Realistically, one of these three will be pushed back (most likely Brawl, since Prime is extremely far into development and Shigeru Miyamoto recently reconfirmed a 2007 release for Galaxy), but with nothing coming before July, will Nintendo risk putting even two of its heavy hitters in close proximity to one another? Nintendo could get away with only one release, provided certain games are released as scheduled, but the prospects are disturbing.
The big three still on for 2007 [update 1]
According to IGN, "According to German magazine Gamefront, "According to a Japanese retail conference" (translated from German)"", Nintendo has released a list of first-party games tentatively scheduled for release in 2007. The full list can be found after the break, but it's quite notable to see that the big three of Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl are still scheduled to be released in 2007.Keep in mind, we still expect one of these games to be delayed into 2008, but the longer we go without hearing that news, the better. Also noted as that Disaster: Day of Crisis (recently screenshot-icized) is also slated for the Year of the Boar. Can it be true?[Update 1: Holy crap. Melee came out six years ago, Jason, get a grip.]
Metroid Prime 3 gets the preview treatment
You know, sometimes we feel like the luckiest bloggers in the world. Then we see the whip marks in the mirror and read about other people getting to playtest a preview build of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and it throws us into a maddening rage as we, in a Hulk-like trance, destroy everything in our path. Suddenly, our offices full of cobwebs, shackles and Hot Pockets are destroyed and we lay huddled in the corner, crying ourselves to sleep.Now that the introduction of horrible imagery is out of the way, what exactly did GamePro have to say about the game, what little of it they were able to play? Well, impressions were good, however they focus more on the control scheme of utilizing the Wiimote than anything else, speaking of using the Grappling Hook to rob enemy units of their shields.Other than that, GamePro really didn't have anything more to share, so hopefully they're saving all of the juicy information for a more adequately sized preview article.
Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption to be released in late '07?
Le sigh. There was a point, if we here at the Fanboy offices can remember correctly, that both Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption were both possible launch titles. Now, according to some whispers over at CVG, neither title will be released (along with the eternally delayed Zelda: Phantom Hourglass) until the holiday season of 2007.Patience is a good thing, and we're more than willing to wait until both of these quadruple-A titles are as shiny as can be. Still, unless Super Smash Bros: Brawl can make it out either in summer or even earlier (something we highly doubt), Nintendo is going to be going quite some time without a big first-party title. Memories of the typical Gamecube release schedule are coming to mind, but alas ... at least we've got the Virtual Console to keep us busy...[via Joystiq]
New Metroid Prime Hunters statue surfaces
Our last glimpse at First 4 Figurines' Metroid-based statues almost caused a heart attack in the DS Fanboy staff. Heck, even our first glimpse at their prototypes was the stuff that resulted in large puddles of drool collecting by our feet as we blankly stood forward, eyes bugging out from our skulls. Their latest figure, which depicts the Kriken Trace from Metroid Prime Hunters, is nothing short of fantastic.
MP3 vids: Samus blasting, ships blowing up
A delicious, full-course meal of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption videos has been served up by IGN. As one of our most anticipated launch titles games coming in 2007, we soak all things up Metroid Prime 3 related and absorb it into our bodies, using it to sustain our life force.These videos showcase not only some mouth-watering gameplay, but also a dazzling attention to detail in the graphics. The particle effects look better, textures look more crisp, and a cutscene of Samus floating out in space causes us to convulse in excitement. We really can't wait to get our hands on this game at launch in 2007.
Samus figurines drop jaws
Alex Davis over at First 4 Figurines recently wrote in to tell us that work on the first Samus figurines is nearly completed. In hopping over to his company's site to check out the figures, we were shocked to see just how amazing they looked. Featuring Samus in two distinct flavors (Gravity and Varia), these collectible statues are the type of decoration that proudly proclaims you prefer your women in ancient Chozo battle suits and sporting an arm cannon full of weaponry. Don't be ashamed, we prefer our women that way too. More pictures of the figurines are embedded into the post after the break.
Rumor: Nintendo deliberately lying to us?
What's that little ActuJV? You have some "inside sources" at Nintendo? What are they telling you, hm? Nintendo's been purposefully withholding information on their system's specs in an attempt to blow us away with the graphical capabilities of their system at the next press event? Should I make a Ferris Bueller joke now?The next event referenced is set for the 14th of September and taking place in New York city. While this would be an excellent explanation for the graphics of some games, we can hardly believe that Nintendo would purposefully make trailers for other titles such as Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Super Mario Galaxy look worse than they actually are.[Via Joystiq]
Bounty hunters battle down under
Australian gamers recently took part in a Metroid Prime: Hunters tournament for a grand prize of $1,000 dollars AUD (about $760 dollars US). With 8 of the country's finest bounty hunters going at it, the competition was fierce and only one man was able to walk away victorious. Jeff Hawthorne of Brisbane was able to win in the end using the character Sylux. Jeff explains how he managed to best his competition:"The Battle was in Processor Core, and I got Lucky to have the Spawn Point closest to the Jump pad so I could race and get the Death-alt only moments before eXc35um (Ali) could get it. I got a quick 4 or 5 points with that, then just mainly Magmauled and used my shock coil when I needed health. Not to forget laying trap wires around the arena."You can see the other 7 finalists here as well as view pictures from the event here.
Fan-made MP3: Corruption trailer excites
This fan-made trailer, composed by pomega088, for one of the most wanted titles on the Wii, combines footage from various trailers and previews to form an unstoppable machine that rolls over your senses and leaves them as nothing more than a puddle of mush on the ground. We want this game...and we want it bad.Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, as you may well know, is developed by Retro Studios and is to release alongside the console's launch. In regards to the story, this time around we find Samus infected with Phazon, battling not only the deadly Space Pirate and Metroid menaces, but that of the infection within.[Via Jeux-France]
Could MP3: Corruption be without multiplayer initially?
Now, there are several ways you can read that above excerpt from Ngamer Magazine. Initially, you could think that Metroid Prime 3: Corruption won't include multiplayer right out of the box, instead to be added later by Nintendo's WiiConnect24 service. Or, we could assume that multiplayer will in fact be good to go right out of the box and, instead, we can look forward to fresh content from Retro Studios somewhere down the line. Either way you want to read it, we know that Retro is fully aware of and looking at utilizing Nintendo's WiiConnect24 service in some form or another
Wii box art mockup collection
You know, we admit we're just dying to get our hands on the Wii and some of its killer games, but Nintendo Nsider Forum poster GANONDESTROYER has us licked. His desperation to get his hands on the Wii and its games goes beyond infatuation. His photoshopped mockups of Wii box art show hours of detailed attention and quite possibly a small touch of dementia. Not to be without a sense of humor, his mockup of a box design for Animal Crossing and Tingle's Adventure elicit some chuckles. Also, his Nintendogs mock up is just about the cutest thing I've ever seen.[Note: 56K users beware as the forum post has enough images to destroy your modem.]
