Imagine Babies. The name alone prompted sniggers from juvenile internet types, but when the full game arrived in stores Ubisoft found it getting a lot of press coverage and all for the wrong reasons - the boxart featured a watermark from the photo site iStockPhoto. Apparently it would have only cost a mere $12 to purchase the photos sans watermark. You can probably put that down to laziness rather than a lack of funds on Ubisoft’s end.
Vaguely amused by the above? Then you’ll like this - the US boxart for Okami on Wii includes an IGN watermark in the background. That’s quite embarrassing for a game that’s known for its artistic flare. Capcom have made an apology already and are offering a free replacement cover. If you’ve got a ‘defective’ cover then my advice would be to keep hold of it - it may be worth something on eBay one day.
Wii Fit is tipped to be the fastest selling Wii game in the UK so far. £69.99 does seem very steep but when it comes to losing weight people are always prepared to pay. Game are also cashing in with an anti-slip cover, at an absurd £14.99.
No PlayStation 3 or PSP games this week, and only one for Xbox 360 - NBA Ballers. On PlayStation 2 there’s Singstar Summer Party while the only thing of note on DS is the intriguing Undercover: Dual Motives.
If you’ve forgotten or have been living under a dead whale for the past few months, GTA IV is out on Tuesday. A few online retailers have started dispatching copies already, meaning that some lucky folks may potentially have their copies as early as Saturday.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl has finally been dated for Europe. That date is June 27th. US gamers got it on March 9th, although we have had Mario Kart Wii before them. The WiiWare Channel has been given a date of May 20th, with games starting from 500 points, while a new Nintendo Channel - which will include release lists and new game announcements - will make an appearance on the 30th.
It also looks like Cooking Navi - an interactive cookbook for the DS - will be coming to Europe, under the new name of Cooking Guide: Can’t Decide What to Eat?
Here’s my suggestion: chips.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the Wii recently, and its surprising success. Richard wondered last week whether it could bring an end to the console war. I don’t think it’s dominant enough to do any such thing, but more than that, I think it would be a really bad thing if it did.
One of the main arguments in favour of the console war has always been competition. Consumers benefit from a competitive market. Usually.
But historically, what benefit has there been from having multiple formats? Everyone was trying to do basically the same thing, in basically the same way.
Format holders would bang on about innovation, and how unique their format would be, but almost universally fail to deliver on that.
You might argue that we’ve had better - and 3D - graphics thanks to competition. But that’s a result of ever improving technology independent of consoles.
Analogue sticks? Surely just a logical progression of control in a 3D world.
Lower prices? Competition always lowers prices, doesn’t it? I say just this: PlayStation 3.
But Nintendo’s lack of success drove them to the point that they had to take a risk, and try something genuinely differentiable. That gave us the Nintendo DS and the Wii.
Competition at work, says I. Previously, it was argued that all the consoles are so similar, there may as well just be one. Not so now, and to me that proves that there are still new ideas to come in gaming. To see them, we need competition.
If you get used to something you can instantly tell when it has been tampered with. Like the time somebody broke into my house and put cloves in my Coco Pops. Those that have been playing Mario Kart since it was half a screen high were feeling a bit dismayed when Nintendo wheeled out Double Dash!! - a game which required more luck than skill. Mario Kart DS put things back on track, while it’s more than evident that Mario Kart Wii has had a lot of love and attention applied. Which is good seeing that historically Nintendo only releases one iteration of Mario Kart per hardware cycle. Unless you happen to own an arcade; in which case you would have got Mario Kart Arcade GP 1 and 2. And a load of chavs hanging around your front door.
An unsteady mixture of 16 new and 16 recycled retro tracks is what Nintendo has decided to dish up. The best of the new ones include a Super Mario Galaxy themed Rainbow Road, an amber-hued jaunt through a tranquil forest, the chance to bounce around on some giant fungi and a snowy course with a half-pipe. The retro tracks on the other hand are a mixed bag. The flat-as-a-squished-Goomba revamped Game Boy Advance tracks are dull and lifeless whereas the beautified Mario Raceway and DK’s Jungle Parkway - taken from Mario Kart 64 - are more than welcome. It’s the first Mario Kart to feature motorbikes and stunts too, and if you weren’t aware it also comes with a free Wii Wheel. Personally I prefer using the nunchuk and Wii Remote instead. Only the A button is used on the Wii Remote leaving the nunchuk for the rest. It’s a comfortable setup as you don’t actually have to point at the screen at any time.
After a rocky start with Mario Strikers Charged, Nintendo has managed to get the online aspects of Mario Kart Wii bang on. Starting off with a total of 5000 points, you can play against up to 11 friends or random gamers either from your continent or all over the world. Win a race and more points are added, lose and some get deducted. It’s a simple system that perfectly manages to display your karting credentials. You can’t play through entire cups but courses can be voted for and you never have to go back to the menus between races; if somebody drops out then in the next race somebody else will simply take their place. You can’t change karts and drivers between races either, although this has probably been done to stop dilly-dallying. Before a race there’s a little parade of Miis (which show what countries your rivals are from) which is a nice touch, while a Mario Kart channel can be downloaded to the Wii Menu to track rankings and such.
As there are now 12 racers on the track it can be more of a challenge to get hold of a power-up, and as there are more heavyweights than before there are a lot of vicious shunts to avoid. Annoyingly, the unstoppable blue shell - which heads straight for the racer in first place - has been left in. There’s nothing worse than feeling the wrath of one of these mere moments from the finishing line. The new storm cloud power-up is fun though - if you don’t pass it on to a rival in good time you’ll end up getting fried.
The challenge-free 50cc mode should really be called ‘baby mode’ - if you can’t get gold on all eight cups on your first (or at least second) play through then you’re doing something wrong. Maybe holding the remote upside down. To start off the bikes can only be used in 100cc and 150cc (along with karts) but you can unlock 50cc motor biking later. Another fun unlockable is the ability to play as your Mii with others including new characters and novelty karts and bikes. The bikes themselves are well adapted to drifting and if you flick the Wii Remote up you can perform a wheelie that’ll give you a short burst of speed. As with the karts, you can perform tricks when going over ramps by shaking the remote in whatever motion you fancy.
The Mario Kart games have never been full of options but there’s one that really could have been done with here - the ability to turn off the AI opponents in the battle modes. Another niggle is suddenly how annoying the sound effects have become, particularly those emitted from Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong. Wario sounds all wrong as well… and how can both Mario and Baby Mario co-exist in the same game? Hmm!
Despite shortages, Mario Kart Wii has managed to stay at the top of the chart for the second week running.
UEFA Euro 2008 goes in at #8 - and will no doubt rise over the next few weeks - while Sega Superstars Tennis has risen from #11 to #5. Presumably because Asda are doing the Wii version for a nice £15 at the moment.
The stupidly expensive Time Crisis 4 arrives at #24, leaving just one other new entry - The Sims 2: Kitchen & Bath Design Stuff. Is that really what it’s called? EA clearly aren’t trying any more.
In the single format charts The Sun Crossword Challenge makes an appearance in the DS chart at #17. Remember: don’t use a pen, or you’ll make a mark on the screen.
Over the years Capcom’s street fighters have faced a wealth of new faces to pummel, from Marvel Superheroes to SNK’s lesser known brawlers. Midway have now decided to make a belated jump on the crossover bandwagon, with Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe. Shame it wasn’t DC Thomson Universe - we could have had Scorpion fighting Minnie the Minx.
Notice something odd about this trailer? That’s right - there’s no blood. Series creator Ed Boon has also told the press that there won’t be any fatalities either, presumably because DC won’t take well to seeing Batman’s head being ripped off. Arial combat looks fun though.
The worrying thing is how unbalanced the characters are going to be. Sure, Sub Zero vs Batman seems a fair enough fight… but against Superman? Not a chance.
There is, apparently, a shortage of official Nintendo Wii Wheels. But worry not - issue 23 of NGamer (which is due to reach newsagents next week) comes with a free steering wheel shaped piece of plastic. Which isn’t a bad freebie at all, really.
In other magazine related news, Retro Gamer hits nifty fifty this month… which is good going for a magazine with niche appeal. Inside there’s a retro inspection of the Dreamcast (10 years old this November!) plus the makings of GunStar Heroes, The Great Giana Sisters and a six page history of Grand Theft Auto. Also: Thundercats on the Commodore 64. Roar!
The Nintendo Wii was the highest selling console in American this March. Nothing unusual about that, except that to win that title, it outsold the Xbox 360 by 459,000 systems. That’s a lot.
Overall Nintendo sold 721,000 Wiis, which made it the biggest non-Christmas month for the Wii yet. The DS was shamed into second place with a paltry 698,000 units.
The PSP is rising in popularity, lately. It was the highest selling non-Nintendo console. With 297,000 units sold. It’s a solid number, but one that only really highlights the different league Nintendo are playing in. It’s amazing how far it’s come since the unveiling of the name Wii was met with thunderous laughter and pronouncements of the death of the company.
My Mum has a Wii. Granted she doesn’t really play on it a lot (although she is scarily good at Wii Sports Boxing), but she has one. She also has a DS, yet until these systems were released she had no real interest in consoles, and I could never imagine her buying a Xbox.
Contrary to what some people have said, the games are selling, too. In March Super Smash Bros. Brawl sold 2.7 million copies. Compare that to the second-biggest selling game of the month (Rainbow Six, which sold 752,000 copies) and you can see how massive that figure is.
This week the BBC iPlayer came to the Wii. Not the Xbox or the PS3, the all-in-one media centres, the Wii. Things like this speak volumes.
The dominance of the Wii has been obvious for a while, but it’s the scale of the dominance that shocking.
The question now, is not who will win any arbitrary and made-up console war. The question to ask is if the Wii will become a standard, like DVD or CD? Will the Wii become the single-format that has been talked about so much in the past?
Probably not. This generation.
American Hardware Sales for March
WII 721K
NDS 698K
PSP 297K
360 262K
PS3 257K
PS2 216K
The DS RPGs just keep on coming, with Square Enix’s The World Ends With You making it out to stores this week. It’s set in Shibuya, Tokyo, and features a battle system that spans two screens. Apparently it works really well.
If you own a PlayStation 3 and have some money to burn, then you might be interested in Time Crisis 4 (with G-Con) for a nasty £64.99. Eurogamer weren’t very impressed, but they did like UEFA Euro 2008.
Only one for Wii - Namco Museum Remix. It includes a remake of the DS gem Pac ’n Roll, so it might be worth a look if you’re bored of Mario Kart Wii already.
Next week: a load of budget guff from the looks of things.
Travis Touchdown is a curious fellow. He’s a sleazy anti-hero of sorts, who lives in a dingy motel packed full of anime figurines and is on a mission to become #1 assassin by taking out the top 10 one by one. Pleasingly, that’s about as complex as the plot gets. You can’t help but like him, even if deep down he’s little more than a self-obsessed mass murderer, a little bit like TV’s Dexter - a serial killer that only kills other serial killers.
The game itself is even more curious. Travis rides his flashy motorbike around the oddly deserted city of Santa Destroy picking up sub-missions and part time jobs (including lawn cutting, garbage collecting and… err, coconut foraging) but calling it a GTA clone would be way off the mark. There’s no shooting of innocents, car chases or anything of the sort - at best the city is just a glorified selection screen. Most missions take place in warehouses or other box-like environments, usually joined together by reams of corridors although there are often amusing surprises along the way. Once the next assassin on the list has been taken out it’s back to the streets to earn some money to pay off the next battle admission fee.
Now would probably be a good time to mention that No More Heroes is barking mad, which isn’t a massive surprise seeing as it’s from the minds behind Killer7. The menus are retro themed, as are many of the sound effects, while enemies satisfyingly explode into a shower of coins when vanquished. At the bottom of the screen there’s a little fruit machine - match three symbols and Travis can go mental, lobbing fireballs and jumping all over the place. Also, back at the motel you can watch music videos and play with Travis’ cat, while saving a game is simply a case of visiting the nearest toilet.
A natty light sword just happens to be Travis’ weapon of choice, which emits a familiar hum from the Wii remote’s speaker. You can also perform wresting moves by stunning an opponent then waving both the remote and nunchuk in the directions shown on the screen. Rather than attack by swinging the remote like a sword it instead merely picks up two stances - hold it up high for high attacks and down low for sweeping attacks. It’s a system that works pleasingly well and is all the better for being kept simple.
Other good uses for the Wii remote include holding it up to your ear to take phone calls and shaking it to charge up the light sword in a rather perverse manner. Boss fights are inventive and with no indication as to where you next battle may take you, there’s always a reason to keep playing.
This is a video of a man playing the Mario theme tune with bottles and a remote control car. That is all.
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