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Tradewest continues ex-Midway Europe exec hirings
Having worked with Nick Howard in the past at Midway Europe where he acted as head of sales, Tradewest Games head Martin Spiess recently added Howard to the growing roster of ex-Midway Europe employees now employed by his newly formed outfit. "Nick has been a key contributor to our business over the years and we are confident that his appointment will accelerate Tradewest's growth strategy," Spiess told MCV. Howard will act as managing director for the nascent company, specifically looking over UK sales and marketing. We've still yet to hear what Tradewest Games is up to in terms of, well, games, but hopefully this new hire is bringing the company closer to revealing some details.
Tradewest co-founder passes away at 75
After fighting a long battle with illness, Tradewest co-founder and businessman Leland Cook passed away this week at the age of 75. He was known in the game industry for spearheading the American distribution and licensing of Ikari Warriors coin-op machines in 1986, bringing such Tradewest classics as Battletoads and Double Dragon to the US, and for appearing as the military colonel you save at the end of the first Ikari Warriors game ("Colonel Cook"). The Tradewest name was purchased by the now defunct Midway in 1996, though following the publisher's collapse, ex-Midway Europe boss Martin Spiess repurchased the name for use with his own startup. Mr. Cook hadn't been involved in the gaming industry for over 10 years, and instead served as the chairman of the board of Community National Bank of Texas Holding Company. He is survived by his wife of 56 years and his loving family. [Via GoNintendo]
Tradewest Games hints at upcoming IP lineup reveal
Martin Spiess has been busy the past few months, between raising €1 to buy Midway UK and France and resurrecting the long gone Tradewest Games moniker. The ex-Midway exec's acquisition of the two company branches went light on the details in the SEC filing, leaving us with a handful of questions for the recently re-branded company. We contacted Tradewest to find out exactly what the acquisition means for the future of the company, in terms of assets gained. "We`ve got a portfolio of [our] own IPs and will announce highlights from our line-up over the next weeks," a representative told Joystiq. And what does it mean when the filing says Mr. Spiess has acquired the UK and France offices, specifically? "This includes all of the companies assets ... that also means that Tradewest has direct access to two of Europe´s biggest markets for games products." Unfortunately, the rep couldn't tell us much more at the moment. And yes, we're still keeping our fingers crossed for Battletoads.
Midway Europe buyout complete, renamed Tradewest Games
GamesIndustry.biz reports that the acquisition of Midway's English and French offices, by Martin Spiess, and the German office, by Uwe Fürstenberg and Hans Meyer, for a single Euro combined has been finalized. On the way more exciting side of this news, however, is the announcement that the UK and France offices will be re-branded as Tradewest Games, resurrecting the name from its rather dusty tomb. According to Spiess, Tradewest will become "a European full service provider in the fields of game distribution and publishing," a transition made possible by "a well-experienced European team behind [TG] that has proven its expertise and know-how in the past years by bringing to market some of the biggest games projects in the world." Interesting that you note that, Mr. Spiess, as none of the games released in "the past years" have been Battletoads. What of that, then? We've contacted Tradewest to find out exactly what this will mean for those classic IPs, among other things, and will update this post if we hear more.
The VC Advantage: Double Glitching
Dave was totally right in his VC Monday Madness video: I enjoy Double Dragon glitches. The best-known glitch -- and the most useful -- is the experience factory found in the second level. It's easy to completely fill up your heart gauge and unlock every move simply by walking over to the pile of girders after the climbing fence, then going back across the fence, and back again. This will cause the Williams enemy who was standing in front of the girders to disappear, and you can punch the crap out of his ghost for as long as your timer allows. Later in the same level you can defeat the boss by running away from him. He disappears and the game counts it as victory. I'm also a fan of the glitch-bat, which occurs when you swing a weapon just as it's supposed to disappear, leaving a weird bar made up of other graphical elements from the game.But my favorite glitch in Double Dragon on the NES is at best useless and actually pretty likely to hurt you. At the end of the first area, you can climb up these -- gutters? Pipes? I don't know what they are. Really, they're just wall decoration. But you can walk straight up that wall. Walk up high enough and you'll come back up to the bottom of the screen. Walk downward and you'll die. Move left and you'll warp back to the ground. Try to jump or attack and you'll fall over. Sometimes one of the Linda enemies will try to follow you up the wall and will just end up in some flickery jiggle maneuver just off the ground.I pretty much can't get to this part of the game without messing with the wall for a while. I can't even explain why it's so amusing. I could only find one video of this glitch in action (at around 2:50), but be warned -- it's one of those YouTube videos with audio of some guy mocking the game as he plays -- the scourge of the retrogaming blogger. The VC Advantage is a weekly look at the secrets inside games -- not just cheat codes, but assorted trivia and oddities. We aim to bring back the feeling of the hint columns from game magazines, except when we do something else.
'Is this fun yet?' It will be next week!
Hey, Generic Dudes, guess what? Aksys Games has announced that they are, in fact, bringing the two Technos games found in the ESRB database to the Virtual Console -- along with another one that just happens to be the best game on the Nintendo Entertainment System! River City Ransom. Next week. Five dollars.The week after that, Double Dragon will become available (which would be awesome news if not for OMG RIVER CITY RANSOM SERIOUSLY), and the week after that, Renegade. If you don't have a Wii, you should probably go ahead and buy one now, because it just got its killer app.
Virtually Overlooked: Taboo: The Sixth Sense [update 1]
Welcome to our weekly feature, Virtually Overlooked, wherein we talk about games that aren't on the Virtual Console yet, but should be. Call it a retro-speculative. Rare has been responsible for many of the most beloved games on Nintendo systems throughout the years. RC Pro-Am, Goldeneye 007, and Donkey Kong Country come immediately to mind when thinking about the company and its history of great games. Taboo: The Sixth Sense is not great, or beloved, or even a game. If it were a game, it would be one of the worst ones on the NES. But if something like Taboo can even have a time, then that time has come.
