Filed under: News, Screens, WiiWare

We’re trying to think of words to describe how we felt when we saw the Mega Man 9 screens in the gallery below, but there’s just too much emotion to articulate. As if the scans weren’t legendary enough with their retro, 8-bit goodness, the screens just make us downright giddy. There’s not much else to say, except that we’re so in love with Capcom right now.

Games Radar has some delightful details on the game, too, which just add some extra oomph to an already oomph-tastic game. For one, beloved Mega Man designer Keiji Inafune was especially involved in the making of Mega Man 9, even creating the bosses this time around. As for the story, it still revolves around our favorite villain Dr. Wily, but this time he has the public on his side, convincing them that Dr. Light is the bad guy. Silly public.

That’s not all, though — according to Games Radar, this game is hard. Not this hard, but still difficult. We say, bring it. You know what else it has? A lot of music from Mega Man 2, also known as one of the best video game soundtracks of all time.

Lastly (but not least), Games Radar has the skinny on Mega Man 9’s bosses, including one that’s a woman robot named Splash Woman. Others include Galaxy Man, Jewel Man, Hornet Man, Tornado Man, Concrete Man, Maga Man, and Plug Man. Man alive, that’s a lot of mans.

Now you can stop reading and look at the screens below. You might want to have some tissues handy, because they may just bring tears of joy to your eyes.

[Via NeoGAF]

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Filed under: Homebrew

[Thanks, trefox!]

The homebrew community has been hard at work creating wonderful experiences for you to enjoy with your Wii. Did you know about homebrew game Masteroids? Or how about the shmup OpenTyrian? Outside of games, people have been using the Balance Board to come up with some really neat stuff. Keep up with the homebrew scene by staying current with our Homebrew category!

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Filed under: It’s-a Mario World

Welcome to another edition of It’s-a Mario World, where we seemingly spend more time blathering about Mario games than we do playing them. In last week’s feature debut, we presented a gallery detailing some of the elusive pickups of Mushroom Kingdom history. This week, we begin a two-part catalogue of our hero’s job experience, analyzing the many professions Mario has belonged to in his 27-year career, and in what capacity. Attempting chronology and comprehensiveness, this is indeed Mario’s Super Résumé.

Not content with the popular belief that Mario is simply a plumber by trade, we’ve scoured the known Nintendo universe to find out exactly what else he has been. Considered altogether, the results are pretty impressive. More than a mere adventurer, Mario has championed everything from the assembly line to the tennis courts. Refer yourself to our gallery where you’ll be shocked and amazed at the varying talents of our red-capped protagonist.

It’s-a Mario World is a weekly feature in which the ubiquity of Nintendo’s flagship character is celebrated: We’ll incessantly ruminate about mustache wax, debate the curious whereabouts of the princess and covet the luminous power stars strewn about the galaxy. Check back here every Thursday to find out what strange and wonderful thing has got us tipping our caps.

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Filed under: News, Sales

There was a momentary panic in the Wii Fanboy dungeon a few weeks ago, after news filtered through that PlayStation 3 sales had zipped past the Wii in Japan.

Was this it, we wondered, reading the figures over and over again to check that we weren’t seeing things. Was this Sony finally rising to strike down the Nintendo hegemony in Japan? Well, no. Not at all, actually. Turns out some old dude had wandered on to Sony’s console and sent PS3 sales spiralling. Things are now back to normal, and the data-gatherers at Enterbrain confirmed as much by revealing that the Wii outsold Sony’s platform by almost 100,000 units during June — 235,990 to 139,494 was the final score.

[Via Next-Gen]

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Filed under: Rumors

Someone at the Score Hero forums recently got the chance to play test Rock Band 2 and they decided to post the tracks included in their session. A mod at the forum took the post down, but not before someone got the info over to Joystiq. Below, you can find these tracks:

• “Man in the Box” - Alice in Chains
• “We Got The Beat” - The Go Go
• “American Woman” - The Guess Who? (or Lenny Kravitz)
• “White Wedding” - Billy Idol
• “Aqua Lung” - Jethro Tull
• “Bad Reputation” - Joan Jett
• “One Step Closer” - Linkin Park
• “Peace Sells” - Megadeth
• “You Oughta Know” - Alanis Morissette
• “Testify” - Rage Against The Machine
• “Spoonman” - Soundgarden

These join the other leaked tracks, which have been tucked past the break for those of you who missed them.

The other Rock Band 2 leaked tracks are:

• “Panic Attack” - Dream Theater (or Finger Eleven)
• “Chop Suey” - System of a Down
• “Give It Away” - Red Hot Chili Peppers
• “Everlong” - Foo Fighters
• “Kids in America” - Kim Wilde
• “Ace of Spades” - Motorhead
• “Hello There” - Cheap Trick
• “Any Way You Want It” - Journey
• “Pinball Wizard” - The Who

[Via Joystiq]

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Filed under: News

Those purple folk at the GAME Group (a prominent games retailer) have released European sales details for the first half of 2008, and it’s looking pretty good. Group sales are up 54 percent, with like-for-like sales up 28.4 percent. Like-for-like is such a dumb term. Reminds us of these things.

Anyway, despite the strong performance of the group as a whole, the constant shortage of Nintendo products has left a gap in the big fat bricks of cash they’re raking in. Well, the UK and Ireland are doing okay, but international performance isn’t as high — “particularly in Spain.” Those wacky Spaniards and their neverending lust for technology! Total international sales were up 43.9 percent, with like-for-like (arrgh!) sales on the low end of the scale at 16.9 percent.

GAME will be opening 60 new stores before the end of the year, so if you aren’t familiar with that big, neon purple logo, you soon will be.

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Filed under: News, Screens

Mushrooms are tasty. In fact, Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars should end with some random guy coming in and cooking up a nice mushroom sauce to have with a tender ribeye steak. Will that guy be Les Claypool? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps we have some new screens for the upcoming platformer, where mushrooms are the heroes rather than delicious enemies.

It’s no surprise that we are pretty excited about Mushroom Men, the potential of which is enough to break down the doors of Red Fly and take a peek inside. If you dig the new screens in the gallery, then you’re an official member of an exclusive fungi appreciation club. Hey, it’s an upstart organization. Seeking sponsorship opportunities.

[Via press release]

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Filed under: Virtual Console, Virtually Overlooked

Star Wars games aren’t always great. In fact, sometimes they’re Masters of Teras Kasi. Sometimes they’re Super Bombad Racing. They suffer from the same fate as any other licensed game: the developers put the universe before the gameplay, and insert whichever popular genre of game they feel like into a Star Wars framework, knowing that enough units will sell regardless of quality.

Namco’s Famicom Star Wars game is the worst, and the best. It deviates from the source material not just to fit the genre (Super Bombad Racing required the existence of karts, for example, though in this case the game just shouldn’t have been made), but seemingly at random. Somebody on the team may have heard of Star Wars, maybe. Even Soul Calibur IV, which actually isn’t a Star Wars game at all, makes more sense as a Star Wars game than this.

This isn’t the JVC Star Wars game that came out in the U.S. on the NES. For unknown reasons (possibly including common sense), the Namco Famicom game was never released outside of Japan. What we got was a lot more faithful.

Star Wars (the Famicom game) tells the familiar story of Luke Skywalker, who goes from planet to planet in the Millennium Falcon, fighting Jawas, Tusken Raiders, and Stormtroopers in order to rescue his friends Obi-Wan Kenobi, Chewbacca, and Han Solo. Never mind that at the point the game starts, Luke shouldn’t have a lightsaber or an X-Wing, and he also shouldn’t know Chewie or Han — both of whom should be hanging out on Tatooine.

Between Luke and his goal is, more often than not, Darth Vader. But not the normal air-choking, hand-slicing Darth we came to know and root for (it’s an easy choice between magical, seven-foot-tall robo-badass and Luke) — Darth Vader has a habit of transforming into animals. Obi-Wan was wrong: Darth Vader isn’t “only a master of evil” — he’s also a master of turning into a giant scorpion that kind of looks like his own helmet (crossed with Winston the cat).

To battle these Vader … things, Luke has an assortment of Force powers (which he shouldn’t yet, especially given that in the game Obi-Wan is trapped on the very Egyptian planet Kessel). He can float, stop time, and do other stuff that isn’t just hearing Obi-Wan and making guys think that these aren’t the droids they’re looking for.

Sure, a really terrible Japan-exclusive licensed game would seem like an unlikely choice for the Virtual Console, but Takara Tomy put Transformers: Convoy no Nazo up. After that, quality seems like a poor predictor of Virtual Console eligibility.

[Images via Duck-Logic/VGMuseum; inspired by Wired's "Tainted Tie-Ins"]

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Filed under: News

Hold on, what’s all this? A Sadness rumor that actually came true? This can’t be right — and it sort of isn’t. The website is there, and it’s got stuff on it, but the stuff is old and it’s a pretty amateur attempt at a website. It’s just, you would think that the creators of the most talked-about Wii game pretty much ever would make the effort to put together a good show, but it looks somewhat awful.

The screens are old and tiny, the text is formatted all wrong (and translated poorly), and there is no trailer, although it will be “Coming soon (this vacation maybe).” Maybe? Maybe? Whatever.

To top it off, the release is scheduled for Fall 2009. That is, over a year from now. On the plus side, Nibris representatives will be attending the Leipzig Game Convention this year, so if nothing turns up at E3 we might find something there.

[Via GoNintendo]

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Filed under: News, Video

“It was easy to throw characters into one another, lift a baddy up into the air and then saber throw,” said Mark Bozon. “The lock-on camera worked great for bosses, and even the ’tilt to the side’ block with the Wiimote worked every time we wanted it to.” Pointer integration has been added as well, allowing players to point and click around the environments.

They were able to test the controls in several single-player levels (including a Jedi temple) as well as the Wii-exclusive one-on-one fighting mode. That mode is also the subject of a spate of new videos, one of which can be seen above. Knock him out the box, Luke, knock him out!

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