World of Goo climbed to 9th/4th place on the US chart this past week after sitting in 13th/7th. Bit.Trip Beat returned to the chart in 19th/14th place as well after a period of non-appearance.
NyxQuest did not crack any of the Top 20s, but five slots normally reserved for paid downloads are occupied by freebies. It’s entirely possible that the game is sitting in 16th place.
Pokemon Rumble was released alongside its demo and has stayed at or near the top spot in all three territories.
As one of the most successful WiiWare releases, both critically and commercially, World of Goo is no stranger to the top of the charts. While it doesn’t enjoy that luxury as often anymore, 2D Boy’s Kyle Gabler noted that the demo service was a nice boost.
“I haven’t looked at the demo numbers in detail, but at a glance, and having heard from two other developers with new demos, we’ve all seen a definite increase in sales,” he said.
Alex Neuse of Gaijin Games, the studio behind the Bit.Trip series, would love to see the demo service extend beyond its experimental nature.
“I think that the WiiWare service has so much to offer that any amount of marketing effort that The Big N puts behind it is very well spent,” he said. “I would love to see Nintendo flex its marketing muscle more on the downloadable services.”
Demos may be a nice first step for the advertising-starved service, but in order for the service to really take off like developers and Nintendo want it to, greater awareness should be raised outside of gaming circles to hit the very market that made the Wii and DS so successful in the first place.
“When I tell non-tech-savvy friends ‘Hey, I made a game and it’s for Wii! You can download it from WiiWare!’, it would be nice if they didn’t respond ‘So that means I can buy it at Target? In a box? What? I can connect the Wii and download the internet into it?’,” Gabler said. “With however many millions of Wii’s out there, it sure seems like a small percentage actually knows they can get games that aren’t on a disc, or even that non-disc games exist. It might be easier if consoles were ‘always connected’ with magic like the Kindle.”
[source]
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The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces is an arcade-style combat flight simulator for the Wii based on the 2008 anime film adaptation of Hiroshi Mori’s novel series The Sky Crawlers. Developed by Namco’s Ace Combat development team Project Aces, the game was released in Japan by Namco Bandai Games on October 16, 2008. Xseed Games is currently planning to release the game in North America during the 2009 holiday season.
Plot
Set in an alternate history, the game follows the journeys and tribulations of a group of young fighter pilots involved in aerial dogfighting using propeller-driven fighter planes. Although the world is at peace, in order to ease the tension of a populace accustomed to war and aggression, private corporations contract fighter pilots to stage combat operations against each other for show.
In the game players control Lynx, a rookie pilot who joins a team of privately contracted pilots, the Sky Crawlers. As he tries to gain acceptance in the team, Lynx and the Sky Crawlers also become embroiled in a mystery revolving around the appearance of a group of seemingly immortal fighter pilots.
Gameplay
Players hold the Wii Remote in their left hand and the Nunchuk in their right hand. Using the motion detection of both controllers, movement of the Nunchuk is used to tilt, roll, pitch and yaw the player’s aircraft, while the Wii Remote is used as the throttle, with players tilting it up and down to accelerate and decelerate. The game also supports the Classic Controller and GameCube controller for more traditional control.
The game introduces a gameplay mechanic called the “Tactical Maneuver Command” system, in which players gain the ability to perform automatic acrobatics to better position themselves for attack by keeping in close proximity to their enemies. During the game players unlock new planes, which they can customize in seven areas, such as color, weapons and armor. Players can also replay previous missions that they have beaten.
Development
The game features cut scenes animated by Production I.G, who also animated the 2008 film. The film’s director Mamoru Oshii was a special consultant along with author Hiroshi Mori, and both played and tested a pre-release version of the game.
Release Dates:
North America – January 5th, 2010
Europe – First Quarter of 2010
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Looks like Square Enix hopes to see a return on that Eidos investment sooner rather than later; the publisher announced this morning that Just Cause 2 will be hitting store shelves on March 23, 2010 — just before the end of the fiscal year, incidentally.
Along with Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, Just Cause 2 will be among the first major Eidos properties to come out of the company following this year’s acquisition by Square Enix. Will it make a bigger splash than the original Just Cause? Developer Avalanche Studios has had over three years since the first game released, so it should be interesting to see what they’ve learned since then.
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Technically, we’re a few weeks passed the fifth anniversary of the release of the first Killzone — the PS2 original was released on November 2, 2004. But with developer Guerrilla Games located in the Netherlands, they’re treating the European release date of November 26 as the true five year anniversary of the franchise. To celebrate, they’ve temporarily slashes the price of the Killzone 2 DLC currently available on the PlayStation Store, bringing down the price of the Flash & Thunder pack to just $2.99, and the Map Pack Bundle is now $9.99. Both deals will last until December 10, at which point you’ll have to go back to paying full price.
This weekend will also be host to a double XP weekend; any and all games played from November 27 – November 30 will land you twice as much experience as they normally would. That extra boost will come in handy for this week’s retro tournament which will use only the Beach Head and Southern Hills maps from the second DLC pack.
And all this week, for the real Killzone fans out there, Guerrilla will be hosting a variety of events on the official Killzone website at Killzone.com. In addition to side-by-side comparisons, pitting the Killzone 1 versus its sequel, two Guerrilla staffers will be playing through the first Killzone and offering up some reflections while playing the game five years after its release.
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It’d be an understatement to say I was a fan of the original Phantasy Star Online. While my classmates in high school would often blame their poor marks on lengthy football practices or alcohol-fueled social events, the reason for my own slipping grades was less typical: My level 100 HUcast ate my homework.
Nearly a decade later, Phantasy Star Zero on the DS manages to stir up some of that long-dormant obsession. It looks and plays like a lost sequel to the classic Dreamcast dungeon crawler, but that vintage feel also stands out as its most glaring flaw — with its high-maintenance camera, imprecise controls, and lousy user interface, Phantasy Star Zero could easily pass for an action-RPG from 2001. And even though it’s packed with all-new environments, enemies, and characters, I can’t help but feel like this is the same game that I played in lieu of studying for Chemistry exams.
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Namco Bandai has come up with a unique promotional tie-in for Splatterhouse, to say the least. They’ve just announced a partnership with Globe International Limited to produce a shoe based on the upcoming remake.
Apparently, this new shoe was “designed as a testament to Splatterhouse’s gory, intense, and horror movie-like tone.” It’ll feature the Splatterhouse logo “splayed across the vulcanized outsole siding in blood red, along with faux splattered blood detail all over and a Skull icon hit.
According to Namco Bandai, all of this will “tie in the game’s iconography in a moody yet playful way.”
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Miyamoto answers the following:
* Mario Couldn’t Jump At First
* The Reason Mario Wears Overalls
* I Saw A Pipe On The Way Home From The Office
* Letting Everyone Know It Was A Good Mushroom
* Allowing Novices To See the Ending Too
* A Medal for Skilled Players
* A Block Floating In Mid-Air Is Unnatural
* Capturing That Mario-Esque “Smell”
* The Correct Way to Enjoy An Action Game
Mario Couldn’t Jump At First
Iwata: In this interview, we’re going to talk about New Super Mario Bros. Wii, but rather than diving straight into a discussion of the new title, I’d like to begin by talking about Mario’s roots. There will of course be a lot of readers who know all about this, but I think there are also people who are completely in the dark about how Mario began.
Miyamoto: Yes, you’re right.
Iwata: Shall we begin by talking about the period of Mario’s initial conception, when he was known as “Jumpman”?
Miyamoto :Sure. Now, this is something I’ve been asked about in hundreds of interviews, so I’ll make it quick! (laughs) In the Pac-Man1 era, there were a number of games that were really popular in the video game arcades. Nintendo had released titles such as Sheriff2 but none of them quite achieved the level of popularity where you could call them hits.
Iwata: This is back when Nintendo had yet to release the Nintendo Entertainment System and while the company had made a number of arcade machines, we were still unable to come up with a hit game.
- 1. Pac-Man was an arcade game released in 1980 by Namco (now Namco Bandai Games Inc.). A huge hit worldwide, it later appeared on the Nintendo Entertainment System.
- 2. Sheriff was a shooting game released in 1979 where the hero had to defeat 16 outlaws. It also appeared as a mini-game on Warioware, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! for the Game Boy Advance.
The Reason Mario Wears Overalls
Iwata: So if you draw a moustache, you don’t have to draw a mouth.
Miyamoto: You don’t have to draw a mouth, which makes a big difference. You only need one pixel for the chin and if you draw two vertical pixels, you’ve got eyes that hopefully look quite cute. (laughs) Also, because you can’t fully draw hair, by making him wear a hat, you can reduce the hair to only a couple of pixels.
Iwata: So you made Mario wear a hat in order to keep the number of pixels you were using down?
Miyamoto: Well, if you have hair, it also presents problems to animate it. And if you draw a hat, you can have the eyes directly beneath it.
Iwata: And with that the face is complete.
Miyamoto: But when you come to draw the body using the remaining pixels, there’s a limit to what you can do. Furthermore, because we wanted him to run properly, we needed to animate him and we were only able to use three different frames for this. When Mario is running he moves his arms, but in order to make that movement easier to see, I thought it would be best to make his arms and his body different colors. So I wondered whether there was a type of outfit that was like that…
Iwata: And that’s how you came up with overalls! (laughs)
Miyamoto: Right! Overalls were the only option! So that’s how we ended up giving Mario overalls. Fortunately, the game was set on a construction site so we thought we had no other option but to make him a carpenter! (laughs)
The Correct Way to Enjoy An Action Game
Miyamoto: There’s something I’ve learned from making this new Mario title multiplayer.
Iwata: And what’s that?
Miyamoto: I realized that, fundamentally, Mario is a game where if you fail and lose a turn, you’ll be sent straight back to the start. So it’s tough. Even if you’re just about to get to the boss, you could fall into the lava, get burned and be sent straight back and have to start again from scratch. So even if you slip up just before clearing the castle, you’ll be sent right back to the starting point. Maybe this is all due to my nasty streak! (laughs) But I think playing at that level of intensity is actually the most enjoyable way to play.
Iwata: You think it’s more fun to have to play from the start of the level again?
Miyamoto: With platform games, only playing the difficult parts can really take it out of you. It feels good to play parts that you can breeze through as well. That’s one of my guiding principles…
Iwata: That’s why rather than having lots of checkpoints where you can save your position, it’s better to play through the easy part again.
Miyamoto: Right. That’s more pleasurable for the player. And while you’re playing the parts that you’re good at again, you’ll get even better at the game. In the past, when arcade shooting games would keep getting more and more difficult, the “Continue” system was developed…
Iwata: Insert a 100 yen coin and you can keep on playing…
Miyamoto: That was doubtless something the arcade was happy about, as players would keep pumping in 100 yen pieces. But what it actually ended up doing is ensuring that the player would always be playing at the very limit of their abilities. I don’t think it feels good to play like that. It might be exciting, but it doesn’t feel good.
Iwata: So it might be thrilling for the player, but it doesn’t give them that sense that: “Hey, I’m really good at this game!” All the player experiences is that feeling that: “I’m still useless at this!”
Miyamoto: But once someone makes the assumption that always playing in a high state of nervous excitement is more fun, and they then come to discussing how the gameplay should be balanced, they’ll always be trying to ramp up that excitement. But the ideal is actually to make the player feel this kind of nervous excitement in moderation while being able to enjoy playing. However, it is not very easy for us to be able to realize that all the time. So, I think replaying the levels is the correct way to enjoy an action game. That’s something that I’m quite particular about.
Iwata: But that won’t work when you have four players.
Miyamoto: Right, it won’t work. In this case, it works out just right because if you have one of the four players who is still alive, you can steadily progress through the game.
Iwata: As you can still make progress even if you lose a turn, when weaker players play together with more skilled ones, they can get them to take them all the way through to the end.
Miyamoto: Right. That’s why I think we’ve come up with a well-balanced game that comes somewhere in between watching the Super Guide and then clearing the level yourself and getting the Super Guide to clear the level for you. That’s why I hope that a wide range of users will be able to enjoy the game in a wide variety of different ways. I’ve always wanted to make a multiplayer Mario. It’s been my dream for many years. I really feel that this time, we’ve pulled it off.
Iwata: (laughs) You’ve really worked incredibly hard on this one! At the 2009 E3, I spoke about Nintendo wanting to make “games for everyone.” It’s become commonplace to assume that as games continue to develop, they will steadily become more clearly divided between games for very skilled players and games for beginners. But the motivation behind my speech was my strong belief that in order to further expand the gaming population, it’s necessary to make games that everyone can enjoy, regardless of their abilities. Now, perhaps it’s because they consider this completely unfeasible, but this isn’t something that a lot of other people seem to discuss. But in spite of that, I am very serious when it comes to making games for everyone and this is something, Miyamoto-san, which you and I have been talking about constantly for over a decade. The impression I get is that with Mario, which is in no sense an easy type of game for such a purpose, you have actually gone and done it – you’ve made a “game for everyone.” I’m quite excited to see how this new Mario title will be played. There’ll be plenty of players who will feel: “Wow! I can do this!” At the same time, players who are confident in their abilities won’t feel that the game is too tame and we’ll see them erasing their data and playing from the start to ensure that no hint blocks pop up.
Miyamoto: This game is played holding the Wii Remote horizontally so you only use the +Control Pad and the 1 and 2 Buttons to play.
Iwata: It’s the same controls as the Famicom days.
Miyamoto: But you’re going to have to master the “B Button Dash”27. If you can’t do that, you’re going to have a hard time. Holding the 1 Button down on the Wii Remote lets you carry around objects and also enables you to do the “B Button Dash”. Moreover, the Wii Remote’s unique motion-sensitive controls also come into play when you’re controlling the game. So if you remember to shake the Wii Remote and to press the 1 Button, the game will be really exciting to play. In New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the player can make Mario dash by holding the 1 Button down and moving left or right.
Iwata: So in this new title, you can dash using the 1 Button on the Wii Remote. What are you going to call this?
Miyamoto: The “B Button Dash” of course! (laughs)
[Read the entire interview at Wii.com]
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Congratulations to our most recent challenge winner, Titan38! His winning review, along with other submission to our last contest, will be posted soon.
Remaining prizes are as follows:
The Secret Saturdays: Beasts of the Fifth Sun – DS and PSP
Ben 10 Alien Force: Vilgax Attacks – DS and PSP
Astro Boy: The Video Game – DS and PSP
This week’s winner gets… all of them! Yes, the next winner gets all of the above games for both DS and PSP.
For the last week of November, I wanted to do a memorable contest… and what is more memorable than a fan video?
So, this week’s challenge is as follows:
Make a fan video for Nintendo or one of its franchises. Music video, MS Paint cartoon, I don’t care. The more original, the better!
Contest rules:
- Make a Nintendo fan video
- Put the phrase “Weekly Challenge 3” somewhere in the video
- No language or suggestive themes
- Slideshows won’t be accepted (put some effort in to your work!)
- Upload the video to the Internet (I recommend YouTube), and either email it to sirvenom#wiinintendo.net (replace # with @) with the phrase Weekly Challenge in the subject line, or post it on our forums.
- The contest ends at 5:00 PM EST on Tuesday, December 1.
There you go. Have fun!
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