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Japan's VC announcements for April: Boxers, ninjas, and punkic cyborgs
We're jealous of the Japanese Virtual Console selection already. It's even worse now that we've seen the newly-announced games for April. There is some really great stuff coming out next month-- at least it means there's a chance we'll get it at some point. The new games include awesome selections like Final Fight (SNES), Puyo Puyo Tsuu (Genesis), Punch-Out!! (NES), and Star Fox 64 (N64). Really, the whole list is packed with awesomeness. Of special interest to us: Ninja Gaiden (NES), which we pretty much don't need to say anything about, because who hasn't played Ninja Gaiden, and Air Zonk, the futuristic Bonk spinoff that exemplifies the term "cute-'em-up".
Get a job as VC coordinator, become our best friend
Nintendo has a job listing on their web site for what seems like one of the coolest jobs ever: Wii Shop Channel Coordinator. You'd be in charge of, among other things, "Coordinat(ing) the production of Wii Shop Channel content, including Virtual Console and other digitally distributed titles." Naturally, we want one of our readers to get this job. Specifically, we want a Virtually Overlooked fan to get this job. We'd apply ourselves, but we have a Sacred Duty to keep our faithful audience informed. Plus, you know, qualifications.[Via Game|Life]
VC Friday: Oh snap, it's Punch-Out!!
We want to go ahead and get this out of the way: this week, there are two other VC games released in Europe that aren't Punch-Out!!, so try to at least notice them. Do your best. We know it will be hard, what with the siren song of boxing dancing before you, within your reach.So who's buying? Dragon's Curse (TurboGrafx) -- 600 Wii points The Legend of the Mystical Ninja (SNES) -- 800 Wii points Punch-Out!! (NES) -- 500 Wii points
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.
Virtually Overlooked: Arkista's Ring
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. Arkista's Ring is an action/adventure/puzzle game about an elf girl who battles giant scorpions, orcs, and forest-dwelling ninja in a labyrinth-like forest, all displayed in the charming square-tile graphical style popular with games like Zelda. It was released for the NES in 1990, published by American Sammy. Sammy now owns Sega, and Sega and Nintendo are newly in love. So today's game is kind of timely, in an oblique way. Also it's fun to play and stuff.
Here come two new VC challengers from Capcom
Two superb Capcom fighting games are headed to the Virtual Console. Final Fight and the inevitable Street Fighter II Turbo Hyper Fighting have been spotted on the ESRB's list of rated Wii games. The SNES version of Final Fight lacks co-op play and Guy, but has plenty of "Oh! My car" to satisfy us. Street Fighter II Turbo is just like Street Fighter II, but sped-up, with more moves, more characters, and some bizarre changes made to the color scheme. We aren't sure why we're explaining this, because everyone in the world has played enough Street Fighter II to know the different versions.Oh, also new on the list was Tecmo's Mighty Bomb Jack. As obscure game advocates, we feel like we should be most excited about this one, but ... yeah, Final Fight is really, really awesome.[Via Siliconera]
VC Monday Madness: post-game wrap-up 3/26/07
It's that magical time again when we all get to download a bunch of games one game from the Virtual Console and have fun? Well, with only one game available to all of us this week, it makes our job a little easier, but at what cost? Surely, we thought we'd be seeing some other titles emerge on the VC. Guess that ship has sailed ...
VC Monday Madness: Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV
This week only sees us receiving one retro titles via the Wii's Virtual Console service, leaving us all a bit sad inside. Those with a love for tactical simulation titles will probably be a lot happier than we are, counting down the minutes until the title goes live. Today you'll be able to download: Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire - SNES - 1 - 8 players - 800 Wii Points Anyone plan on giving this a download? And, as always, be sure to stop back later for our impressions.[Via press release]
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!]
A trio of Sega Genesis titles confirmed for VC
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/A_Trio_of_Sega_Genesis_titles_confirmed_for_VC'; The Virtual Console is poised to become a lot more Sega ... ier? Sega has announced that they plan on bringing the Sega Genesis port of Virtua Fighter 2, along with Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle and Wonder Boy in Monster World. Each title is expected to go for 800 Wii Points each, the standard pricing for Sega Genesis titles on the Virtual Console.Do we really want these games though? Perhaps they have an audience on the Virtual Console, but with the Sega Genesis port of Virtua Fighter 2 being, well ... less than enjoyable, we wonder if Sega loves us or merely hates us, as they wait to laugh maniacally at the silly folk who download this game expecting something else?
VC Friday: Link to the Past and Castlevania [update 1]
Another Friday means another week of Virtual Console releases for those of you in Europe. Sadly, you only get two different titles to download, but they're pretty darn good titles at that. Also, you guys can rest easy as you get one more VC game than those blokes down under. Here's the deets: The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past - SNES - 1 player - 800 Wii Points Castlevania - NES - 1 player - 500 Wii Points Australians will only be able to download Link to the Past this week. Do you plan on giving any of these a download?Update: Fried brain = typos aplenty. Sorry about that.
Wii Warm Up: More consoles
We love the Virtual Console. In the (completely mythical) drought periods between flagship Wii titles, the Virtual Console gives us a steady diet of excellent, cheap games. More than that, it serves as a history lesson for all the new gamers flooding into the hobby, and those too young to remember the 8-bit era. Also it gives you all a second chance to buy some Turbografx-16 games. Obviously, we want more. We love the available consoles, but they aren't enough. We salivated over the Saturn rumors, and we'd like to see that. In fact, we have a great deal of affection for all Sega consoles. We'd like to see some Master System games show up on the VC soon. What consoles would you like to see added to the lineup? Any answer is the right answer, as long as it's not the ActionMax!
Wii Warm Up: Seriously, where are the VC demos?
You know, we try our best to cover the Virtual Console downloads for you all every week (see: VC Monday Madness), but the state of things on the VC really aren't fair to consumers right now. Nintendo asks us all to pay a lot of money for these games (which was the general consensus determined by you, the awesome reader), so is it not fair to allow us to download a demo of said game before contributing our precious money for the product?So Nintendo, you want to make these retro classics available to a new audience, this same audience who's probably never even heard of these games before? How are they to be interested at all if they can't even try before buying? Nintendo expects us to just toss away $5 bucks for the chance of a good Virtual Console game? Sounds like highway robbery to us ...Also, take into account the folks who have been faithful to Nintendo all their lives, never owned a Sega Genesis or TurboGraphx16. Hudson and Sega are making their libraries of older games available to a new audience, but if they've never heard of or played these games before, what's to make them spend money on, again, the chance of a good retro game?What do you guys think? Obviously this change needs to happen and with Nintendo being so secretive about the figures (number of games downloaded, total revenue earned from the service, etc.), we're thinking they might not be selling so many VC games. So could we expect this necessary change (or new Channel) to come in the near future?We'd suggest starting an online petition, but we know how effective those things are ...
Miis, Virtual Console games transfered to replacement Wii
When we sent a malfunctioning Wii back to Nintendo, the company returned a crisp, new Wii with all of our Mii data copied over. Additionally, Nintendo transfered our Virtual Console points to the new system, and we could re-download previous VC purchases for free. (We also had to re-download the other, always-free channels.)While the VC transfer isn't news -- CVG noted it late last year -- more than a few Joystiq staffers were surprised. Nintendo deserves some credit for the smooth process, but we expected this to happen; we'd be angry if the company ate the Wii Points with the hardware exchange. The Mii transfer was a bigger bonus, preserving our 2040-rated tennis pro and our beloved Big Poppa.This exchange is just one customer service replacement without incident. (The glitchy Wii was a personal system, so we went though the regular customer support channels instead of calling PR contacts.) What are your stories?See also: Ring of Death: An Xbox 360 story -- Part 1Ring of Death: An Xbox 360 story -- Part 2
VC Monday Madness: post-game wrap-up 3/19/07
Another week has delivered us some goodies on the Virtual Console service and another week we have played them and prepared a post that explains which you should download and which you shouldn't. This week, our job is pretty easy because you need to download all of these games. For more details on the why, head past the post break.
VC Monday Madness: Beyond Oasis, SPLATTERHOUSE [update 1]
Without any kind of press release, we've been left in the dark for hours, waiting to see what Virtual Console games are available for download. Now that it is past the usual time games are available, we decided to hop on and check what's there for download. What we found surprised us, as two excellent titles are available in download, confirming previous rumors they would emerge on the service. Here's what is on your plate today: Beyond Oasis - Sega Genesis - 1 player - 800 Wii Points SPLATTERHOUSE - TurboGraphix16 - 1 player - 600 Wii Points Excitebike - NES - 1 player - 500 Wii Points So, will you be downloading either of these games? As usual, be sure to stop back later for our impressions.[Update: Nintendo sent word that Excitebike is also available. It was not live the time we checked.][Thanks, VidGuy!]
In Defense of the Virtual Console's pricing
We've surveyed your irritation with the Virtual Console's rates and even had you calculate the exact amount of Wii points you've been swindled out of so far, but VGamp's Chris Sinclair argues that the game downloads aren't expensive at all. Chris listed eleven reasons to support his claim, even admitting that he would be willing to pay more for the retro titles. While he might come across as an inflexible apologist, some of his points make sense.According to Chris, you're getting a deal whenever you make a purchase on the Shopping Channel. For example, let's say that you put out the cash for Soldier Blade, a title that sometimes sells for $50+ on eBay. You're scoring a discount on a relatively rare game that's guaranteed to work decades from now, and you don't even have to pay for the TurboGrafx-16 console or the controllers to play it with. As an added bonus, many of these emulated games look better than they ever did before.Alright, so we're still not entirely convinced that Altered Beast is worth the 800 Wii points Sega is asking for, but we can see where Chris is going with this. What do you think? Does the pricing seem justified after considering his points, or do you still feel like you're being fleeced?
Virtually Overlooked: Ninja Spirit
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.This is the second time we've ended up following a theme from week to week in these features-- in this case, we wanted to talk about Ninja Spirit for the Turbografx-16, and didn't remember until we started researching that, like last week's Photograph Boy, Ninja Spirit was developed by IREM.The best way to describe Ninja Spirit for people familiar with Virtual Console games is "The Legend of Kage, but good." And we say that as fans of Kage.
Virtual Console cost calculator
According to the poll results we posted earlier today, 70% of our readers think Nintendo's Virtual Console pricing is way too expensive. If you're anything like us, however, you didn't let that get in the way of purchasing a few retro games anyway. Gunstar Heroes? The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past? Overpriced or not, how are we supposed to pass on that?We spotted an online calculator that adds up the total amount of Wii points you've spent or can expect to spend on the current Virtual Console lineup (Sorry, North American releases only!). If you have some Wii points saved up, the application will even display how much more points you will have left or will need to buy. So how much has Nintendo robbed you of so far? How many more Wii points will you have to shell out in order to complete your dream collection? Drop a line in our comments and let us know![Via The Tanooki]
Poll results: How do you feel about VC pricing?
We can't honestly say we're surprised at the results of our latest poll pertaining to the Wii's Virtual Console service's pricing, since its titles lack the extras that most games released on one of its competitor's service offers. And with Nintendo being so secretive about the numbers of games downloaded and their revenue from the service, we're wondering just how successful the service has been. Plus, with the pain of inputing your credit card info every time you want to add Wii Points to your account (unless you purchase cards, of course), we can understand how most are put off by the service.
