“At this point, we’re not thinking of going in that direction [MMO]. Trading is a core concept of Pokémon. So when you’re trading, you meet with a friend and decide which one you want and which one they want. I would like to emphasize real-world communication. You don’t see each other online.”

Now, I get the nobleness of this. Wanting to keep the pure spirit of real-world trading and interaction but I am pretty sure that I nearly played all the pokemon hand held games by myself, and, if I happened to watch some of the show it was definitely by myself, and I never collected the cards. I think that there will be some hesitation from the game developers until they realize that a Pokemon MMO would sell better than water in a desert. Sorry for now Pokemon fans :(

Kensuke Tanabe, Producer of Punch-Out!, talks about the unlockables in the upcoming Punch Out! game for Wii:

“There is a lot to unlock! There are for example, characters, new ring environments, challenges, victory animations,etc.” He goes on to say,”…there are lots of challenges outside the ring. Some tutorials, training sessions, etc.”

Along the way though they ran into some disc space issues. Tanabe said:

“We packed the disc to the brim and there were a few things we had to leave out because there wasn’t any space left. We are the first internal Nintendo dev team to come across this problem with the Wii’s dvd, so you are def. getting a lot.”

The rebirth of this game is something that has been long awaited. Maybe the disc space issue from an internal Nintendo team will finally make them realize that there needs to be a solution for the limited storage issues with the Wii. Get excited one of the most classic games ever made is back!

View the trailer here!

Remember the early days of Guitar Hero when all you had was what came on the disc? Guitar Hero 2 in particular was a big offender with what I consider pretty awful song selection save for a few gems (hint: “Monkey Wrench”). With Rock Band, players were able to download new tracks (and even entire albums!) to keep the game fresh. It’s a shame this isn’t true of the PS2 and Wii versions of Rock Band, which only serve to diminish the incredibly high replay value regardless of how much more affordable they are.

Harmonix is changing that with Rock Band 2, promising that a majority of the downloadable songs will be made available for the Wii in the coming months. Now, before you bemoan the “most of” part, considering this: Harmonix plans to reach 500 downloadable tracks for the PS3/Xbox 360 versions of Rock Band by the end of the year. “Most of” 500 songs is still a lot.

Guess what that means. Now the Wii definitely needs to work on developing an external hard drive so gamers don’t fill up their paltry 400MB of internal space with Mötley Crüe songs and become unable to download anything else. After all, the more that players are able to download, the more money Nintendo gets. If they fill up their hard drives and refuse to delete anything to make space, Nintendo makes no money and the Wii crashes and burns like (some) people expect it to.

Now every video game developer should conspire to create tons of awesome downloadable content to drive the point home until Nintendo finally relents. Then comes step two: make even more downloadable content.

Go to your local Gamestop and check out the Wii section. Disappointed yet? For every No More Heroes, there’s dozens of games meant for kids, half of which have Miley Cyrus on the cover. It’s a good idea, as Nintendo has succeeded in making a video game system that appeals to a broad audience, but to ensure their survival (and for people to take them seriously like they glory days of the NES and SNES) they need to win over the hardcore gamers.

Thankfully, it seems like they’ve realized this, considering this quote from (link: http://www.nintendoeverything.com/?p=6404) from Cammie Dunaway Nintendo of America’s VP of Sales & Marketing, in which she says that some of Nintendo’s 2009 output will certainly appeal to this crowd. First she mentions The Conduit, a futuristic first-person shooter — the sort of game with obvious appeal if you’ve ever played X-Box. Then there’s Mad World, an incredibly violent game by Sega rendered exclusively in black, white, and red (watch the trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFNJfDGSZp0). For the old-school Nintendo fans, there’s a new Punch-Out!, too. Most exciting for me from the quote is the prospect of bringing Sin & Punishment 2 to the US, considering my disappointment when the first one (for the N64) never came out here.

In addition to quality staples like Mario and Zelda, these kinds of games are the key to the Nintendo Wii’s success. A look at EGM’s coverage of the Tokyo Game Show reveals even more promise, with follow-ups to Nintendo DS games like Trace Memory and Lost Magic being made for the Wii and interesting stuff like a spacefaring game called Cosmic Walker and the Norse Mythology-inspired Dynamic Slash. Now we must pray that this stuff comes to the US, particularly the fighting game (how many of those does the Wii have again?) Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, in which the old Capcom favorites take on anime characters like the bird-inspired superheroes of Gatchaman/G-Force/Battle of the Planets/Eagle Riders. It’s a long shot, but I’ll hold out hope.

We must also pray that all of this will lead up to a proper Final Fantasy on the Wii.

 Written for thewiitards.com by Danny Djeljosevic

The Nintendo Wii is frequently disregarded in the never ending Console Wars despite the notable fact that the system came out two years ago and it’s only JUST NOW becoming easier to find in stock (at least, according to the signs I’ve been seeing at Gamestop and Circuit City). I guess the failure of the PS3 overshadows the success of the Wii.

One of the unfortunate things that separate the Wii from its dueling older brothers is the lack of HD capabilities, which is a big deal for those that happen to have high-definition TVs. As a co-owner of an HDTV (we’re not rich, we bought it used), let me say that playing games in HD is a beautiful thing and you’ll never want to go back.

In a recent interview (http://www.3sat.de/3sat.php?http://www.3sat.de/neues/sendungen/magazin/112080/index.html) Shigeru Miyamoto, the Walt Disney of video games, was asked about it. Do yourself a favor and at least check out the opening of the video. Miyamoto’s intro is ADORABLE.

When asked about whether Nintendo was releasing an HD Wii, he could not confirm or deny, but rather deflected with a general statement that Nintendo is constantly at work dealing with the newest technological advances. Well, duh: Nintendo is a company from Japan, where giant robots police the city, you can download Suikoden on your cell phone (this may not be true), and the proper nomenclature of Final Fantasy is practiced — none of this “Final Fantasy VI is Final Fantasy III” nonsense.

Some are saying that Nintendo is waiting for prices on hardware to go down so an HD Wii will be affordable. That’s not a bad idea, considering one of the many attractive things about the system is its price, but if they wait too long the release of an HD Wii might be for naught.

Nintendo must embrace new technology to survive, lest we forget the Nintendo 64, a system that died a slow, painful death (some great games, though) because the company chose to go with cartridges instead of the CD-ROM format, which led to Sony breaking its partnership with Nintendo to create its own system.

And we saw how THAT turned out.

Written for the Wiitards by Danny Djeljosevic

Hey, remember when we told you about Mega Man 9 coming out as a downloadable game for the Wii (oh, and some other consoles with online capabilities, too). Well, it’s finally happened: Mega Man 9 is out today for the Wii (it comes out later for the other systems) for your downloading pleasure.

Now, you’re probably wondering why you should play Mega Man 9 when you could just go run over pedestrians in GTA IV or even download something well-worn and time-tested for your virtual console (like, say, Mario 64). Mega Man is a classic franchise, and the newest installment offers the same platform hopping, laser shooting, and enemy power stealing that made the originals great.

Many classic franchises have floundered in the wake of the 3D revolution (for example: has anyone ever raved about a new PAC-MAN game?), so Capcom have made a bold move to render the newest installment of the main Mega Man series in the NES side-scrolling style that made the original games a hit. Sure, it’s “simplistic” compared to 3D platformers, but that’s part of its charm: figuring out the patterns that allow your little blue helmeted midget to easily defeat the robot masters. Also, having played the originals, they don’t get any easier no matter how much the medium advances. The series will always provide a challenge for the willing gamer.

With such a bold move comes a wise decision: to price it at 1000 Wii Points (or $9.99), making it incredibly affordable for a new game from a major franchise.

Article written for the Wiitards by Danny Djeljosevic

Here’s the truth: I’ve never heard of Monster Hunter. I’m usually up on this sort of thing, but somehow it slipped through the cracks. Maybe I assumed they had renamed Monster Rancher. I’d continue believing that if I hadn’t found out that Tecmo did “Rancher” and Capcom made “Hunter.” Knowing that it is an action RPG by Capcom certainly makes me want to play it now.

Now that we’ve got that all figured out, the actual news: Monster Hunter (not Rancher) 3 is going to be Wii exclusive (yay?) but a total revamp of the franchise to fit the specifications of the system (promising!).

The infinite replay value that comes with a good online multiplayer mode is the best reason to buy a game (worked for every first person shooter ever), and Monster Hunter is no exception. Monster Hunter’s online mode (form a group with real players, trot around, kill monsters) is similar to other RPGs like Final Fantasy XI or Phantasy Star Online, the main difference being you could play through the story offline (the lack of which being the sole reason I never bothered with FFXI or PSO), but the online version offered more content. We can certainly expect that tradition to hold, as the online mode features an entire section of the game’s city devoted to being a meeting area for players to meet up. And let’s not forget: a Wii-exclusive game with a good online multiplayer can only help the Wii’s sales.

The most interesting thing to me, however, is that they’re revamping the franchise for the Wii. Too often are there multi-platform games that just fail on the Wii due to it being a game that was just meant for the traditional game controller (though we can all agree that Resident Evil 4 was born to be played on the Wii before the Wii even existed, right?), so it’s nice to see a developer (originally it was on the PS2) make the most of their platform of choice instead of just forcing the Wiimote controls onto a game it wasn’t meant for.

Trailer:

A few weeks ago we talked about Nintendo Wii’s hard drive problem. If you’re too lazy to click on that link, let me sum it up: the Nintendo Wii has a 512 MB of storage, and this is not enough for a system with an ever-expanding library of downloadable games and a long history of old games one would want to download.

Nintendo of America’s President and Chief Operating Officer Reggie Fils-Aime has said Nintendo is working on the hard drive problem. He was unwilling to specify what the solution would be, but that players would have a better way of storing their games than the Wii’s tiny storage space.

What could it be? Some people are speculating that it’s some sort of online storage system, but that sounds like it defeats the purpose of downloading games. This would only work if it were like those item boxes in Resident Evil where you traded stored items for items you want to use at the moment only to find out later that you forgot the Jade Key and now have to walk back through miles of ominous pre-rendered backgrounds to get it back. But that would be stupid.

Also, let’s keep the idea of streaming games completely out of the conversation, as I want to be able to play Mario: The Lost Levels without any lag.

Enough guessing. If Nintendo is smart, it will release some sort of affordable external hard drive to hook up via the Wii’s USB ports. It’s the most obvious solution.

Either that or carve a path into the 4th Dimension so we can have a physical place to store our downloads of Excitebike.

Written for thewiitards.com by Danny Djeljosevic

Steve Purcell’s Sam & Max: Freelance Police is the definition of underrated. They started out as an underrated indie comic. Then they became an underrated LucasArts point-and-click graphic adventure (a criminally underrated genre). Then they became an underrated Fox Kids cartoon. Then they became an underrated episodic video game series by Telltale Games that, thankfully, is still going strong on Gametap.

Now the first “season” is being ported to the Nintendo Wii, due for release on November 3rd.

It never occurred to me before, but the Wii, with its point-and-shoot interface, is perfect for the graphic adventure genre. I played the last Monkey Island game on the PS2 and it just wasn’t the same. These games were made for a mouse, not the average video game controller (which is also why I had so much trouble playing Grim Fandango on the PC).

The graphic adventure is a deceptively difficult genre. While only need to point and click to move your character around, the games require that you almost exclusively use your brains to figure out how to use acquired items to advance the story, which is something that most console games don’t stress in favor of the blissful simplicity of punching/kicking/shooting/jumping on top of the bad guys to win. To complicate matters, most of these games are comedic, which means that the items and solutions are often unconventional, silly, and sometimes even nonsensical. The reward isn’t the gameplay, but the engrossing and often hilarious story that ensues.

What does that mean for the Wii? Well, considering that the biggest criticism of the Wii coming from the hardcore gamer crowd is the kid-oriented fare, a bit of advanced problem solving will do the console (and its players) good.

That is, if they have the patience.

With any luck, the hopeful success of Sam & Max on the Wii will help get the fifth and final Monkey Island game greenlit.

Please?

Written for thewiitards.com by Danny Djeljosevic