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NintendoWare Weekly: Zombie Panic in Wonderland, Kung Fu Funk, Crazy Golf
This week's NintendoWare Weekly is brought to you by insanity. The eclectic mixture of downloadable content on the virtual table this week is quite odd, with everything from spoofs on '70s kung-fu flicks to "scented dwarves" coming to DS and Wii owners.
Zombie Panic hits Wonderland and North America this Monday
We've been patiently waiting for our turn to take Little Red Riding Hood (or Momotaro) on a zombie massacre, having seen Zombie Panic in Wonderland hit WiiWare in Europe and Japan already. Developer Akaoni Studio announced today that the North American release date for the undead shooting gallery is this coming Monday, May 3. We were already intrigued by the WiiWare title due to its similarity (and shared development staff) with the DS's Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ, but we became even more intrigued when we read this description of the premise: "To save his friends from the spell of the 'amorous zombies,' machine gun in hand, [Momotaro] will have to solve the mystery of the 'scented dwarves' in time and put an end to the evil power hidden in the castle in the northern city ..." That's right -- amorous zombies and scented dwarves.
European Nintendo downloads: Blaster Master, Zombie Panic in Wonderland, Game & Watch
This week's releases largely belong to DSiWare, at least in terms of volume. Three Game & Watch simulators are joined by a downloadable version of The Price is Right, the surprise hit Faceez and Alphabounce, a Breakout clone with ... RPG elements? But in terms of quality, the Wii has the advantage, with both the NES version of Blaster Master and Akaoni Studio's WiiWare shooting game Zombie Panic in Wonderland, which combines fairy tale characters and firing guns at zombies. The complete list of releases for the week follows: Blaster Master (NES, 1 player, 500 Wii Points) Zombie Panic in Wonderland (WiiWare, 1-2 players, 1000 Wii Points) Learning with the PooYoos - Episode 2 (WiiWare, 1 player, 500 Wii Points) Game & Watch: Helmet (DSiWare, 1 player, 200 DSi Points) Game & Watch: Manhole (DSiWare, 1 player, 200 DSi Points) Game & Watch: Vermin (DSiWare, 1 player, 200 DSi Points) Faceez (DSiWare, 1 player, 200 DSi Points) The Price is Right (DSiWare, 1-4 players, 800 DSi Points) Alphabounce (DSiWare, 1 player, 500 DSi Points)
What to do after the zombie apocalypse
Ah, zombie apocalypse. We hardly knew you. Your sudden departure leaves a lot of us confused, even if Blizzard swears it was all on purpose and according to plan. Regardless, the zombie plague seems to be over for now. We talked last week about how you could roleplay your sudden transformation into the undead brain muncher. Now, let's take a bit to talk about how your survivors are going to be feeling about this mess. Remorse. If you acknowlege that you died, came back as a zombie, died as a zombie, and came back yet again as a humanoid race, then you should probably acknowledge that you did some pretty horrible things. It's one thing to think, "My God, I ate the neighbor's cat," but there's a whole level of horror involved with "My God, I ate the neighbor!"This also supplies that most beloved motivation for roleplayers everywhere -- angst. You can be horrified ("I ate the neighbor!"), angsty ("And I liked it!"), and perhaps even be corrupted ("I'd do it again!"). If the memory of your wanton deeds aren't enough to sustain your remorseful roleplay, you can look to further naughty urges to supply more angst.
Grab a single kernel of popcorn: time for a short zombie movie
We can't be too sure of the quality of D3's Simple DS Vol. 32 THE Zombie Crisis. Neither the Simple series nor the stylus-based first-person zombie-shooting genre are hallmarks of high quality. In fact, we'll take that back. We're pretty sure that THE Zombie Crisis isn't very good. Despite the low budget, the limitations of the genre (on DS) and the fact that the zombie crisis happens to coincide with a thick fog that is so pervasive as to have gotten indoors, we actually like what we see here. It's fast-paced and there are a lot of weapons. Not to mention the excellent title screen, which is almost worth the price of purchase by itself. Who cares if the zombies aren't that great graphically? They're not going to be on screen long, if you're playing the game right.
A Simple addition to the zombie rail-shooting genre
Most Simple series games betray their low-budgetness in fairly obvious ways: crap graphics and either boring (mah-jongg) or insane premises. They also tend to be direct copies of other more popular games. Simple DS Vol. 32 THE Zombie Panic looks like pretty much the same concept as Touch the Dead, which is, uh, pretty much the same concept as The House of the Dead -- "shoot at some zombies."But where THE Zombie Panic diverges from its DS contemporary is that, well, it's got a sword in it. That's, like, a paradigm shift for zombie-shooting games. We'll take the dual-wielding as well. There's something suspicious about a fully-3D first-person game like this being made for the Simple series. We suspect that Dream Factory was originally doing this for another publisher who canned the project.
New Simple games: Tanks get customized, zombies get shot
D3 has revealed a couple new entries in their budget-priced Simple DS series, and they look awesome. Simple DS Vol. 31 THE Super Bullet!! Custom Tank is a side-scrolling run-and-gun that looks like a Metal Slug game, except starring a tank. It also happens to be quite a bit nicer-looking than SNK Playmore's own Metal Slug 7. Vol. 32 THE Zombie Panic is a zombie-themed rail shooter like Touch the Dead. And, inexplicably, it's developed by Dream Factory, the company responsible for Ehrgeiz and Tobal No. 1. It also looks surprisingly high-quality! Please, D3 of America, put some of that Naruto money into localizing some Simple series games! We'll give small amounts of money back to you in exchange!Both games are due on January 31 in Japan. Check after the break for the magazine scan in which these games were revealed.
