Only on WiiWare

Looking back, Excitebike would have benefited from being released a couple years later. Originally on Famicom in 1984, it was still stuck in the arcade mindset. It was very strictly round-based, there was no real progression, and the best you could do?? was compete for best time, which wasn’t actually recorded on the game itself.

The most console-specific feature that it had was a track builder, which was definitely cool. However, on NES, you couldn’t actually save your track, which was far less cool. If you were on Famicom, you could actually save tracks using the Famicom Data Recorder, which would save your data to a cassette tape. That’s extremely cool to a retro geek like me. I mean, the Famicom was marketed as being a family-friendly microcomputer (Famicom being shorthand for Family Computer), but because the NES tried to get away from?? that, we never saw it over here. It’s neat to be reminded that, through their own game design, they basically made a bunch of their own products obsolete.

What were we talking about? Right. Excitebike really needed some form of progression. It would take until 2009 until someone went back and actually did that with Excitebike: World Rally.

[caption id="attachment_373904" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Doot-doot-doot doo-doo-doo!

Excitebike: World Rally is like a really belated sequel to the first game. It essentially is just Excitebike, featuring all the same mechanic?s and featu??res as the NES title, but turned 3D. More importantly, however, there’s actually progression.

Yes, there is a series of four “cups�that progress in difficulty. In order to progress, you have to hit a B rank in each of the individual courses. This is done by finishing the course in a specific time threshold. Of course, you can also push yourself to get S rank by getting even better times. Doing so o?n every course in a cup will unlock a new color for your bike.

Better yet, there’s more than one track background. It’s not much, but it’s something. Unfortunately, whenever there are stands in the background, the audience all look like emoji people. I mean, this was the Wii. Miis were a thing, but instead? of using that style, we have the ugliest crowd possibly in existence.

[caption id="attachment_373905" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Souls contain CFC

If you’re unfamiliar with Excitebike, it’s essentially a side-scrolling dirtbike game.? You ride your two-wheeled friend, and it’s your goal to ramp over hills and land as gracefully as possible. You can also boost, but that?? builds up heat and can blow out your engine. The strategy there is to push your engine as much as possible without crashing or blowing up.

There are other riders on the course, but they’re not your concern. You really just need to make it t??o the finish line in a fast enough time.

Your opponents? are essentially just there to get in your way. This is mainly a problem when going between obstacles on the track. However, you can take them out ?by cutting them off or landing directly on top of them. It can be dangerous, but murdering your fellow riders will instantly cool off your engine. You see, the sheer anguish of their soul being ripped from their body acts somewhat like a refrigerant, immediately dropping the temperature of nearby internal combustion engines. The soul is subjected to excruciating torment, but that’s what they get for being slow.

[caption id="attachment_373906" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Thanks Nintendo

The track builder makes a comeback, and you can even share them on�Oh, right. The “Nint?endo Wi-Fi Connection�service was taken offline in 2014.

It’s kind of a bummer. It’s not that I expect the online was ever popping for Excitebike: World Rally, but there’s no offline? multiplayer. The best you can do is build tracks and compete for the ??best time on them. Sort of like, well, the NES version.

There were also some bike skins that are locked behind online play, and that drives me absolutely insane. It’s not even that WFC has been down for almost a decade, it’s the fact that I don’t even want to play online in the first place. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but humans are awful. I try to limit my interaction with them as much as possible. Just let me have my bike colo?rs and leave me in peace.

[caption id="attachment_373907" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

The moral of the story

I think the elephant in the room here is Vs. Excitebike. This was a 1988 follow-up to Excitebike released exclusively on the Famicom Disk System. Not only did this have progression in much the same way that Excitebike: World Rally does, but ?it also had ?bonus levels that had you jumping over trucks.

Furthermore, it had a two-player mode, that actually put both riders on the same track to compete directly. I’m honestly not sure why Excitebike: World Rally? doesn’t support splitscreen. It would have certainly been helpful after online support went down.

For that matter, you can’t even buy Excitebike: World Rally anymore because it was a WiiWare exclusive. Nintendo isn’t the worst company when it comes to preserving their back catalogue, but they leave a lot to be desired. It would have been the perfect fit for the 3DS, but ev?en if th??ey did port it, the 3DS eShop has been taken offline. This is why Santa doesn’t bring Nintendo any shit for Christmas.

You know what you can still play? Vs. Excitebike. I don’t even mean by purchasing a Famicom Disk System and the physical game. It’s on Nintendo’s Switch Online NES app. In North America. Were you aware of that? Did you know about the difference? I know that this article was about Excitebike: World Rally, but the moral of the story is really to go play Vs. Excitebike.

With that out of the way, now Nintendo should port Excitebike: BunBun Mario Battle Stadium.

For other retro titles you may have miss??ed, c?lick right here!

The post Excitebike: World Rally is fun but essential??ly non??-existent appeared first on Destructoid.

Why does it have a film-grain filter?

I was out completing my annual holiday tradition of buying myself some classic games, and also buying something token for my family. The clerk, who apparently knows of my disreputation, upsold me by suggesting the holiday classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for Wii. With Banjo-Kazooie, Batman Returns, Die Hard, Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes, Christmas Nights into Dreams, Toejam & Earl, and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories already occupying my usual rotation for ??holiday classics, I thought I could alw?ays fit in one more.

Now, listen, I get that game design is merely a job for a lot of people. Sometimes you don’t land at your dream developer right off the hop. Other times, a developer churns out licensed games to help fund their own passion project. I get it. However, Christmas is a time for building memories with family or friends, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is so short that it took longer for me to hook up my capture equip??ment than it did for me to play it. It also took me longer to walk home after purchasing it, and this article is almost definitely going to take more time to write. Chances are, when I think back to this moment, I’m mostly going to remember those things and not all the most famous reindeer of all.

Discount Burl Ives

I thought Rudolph the Red-Nosed reindeer was going to be based on the Rankin/Bass holiday classic TV ?special. I thought that would be funny, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen that one in completion, so I could make all sorts of speculation on what it’s actually about. However, while the aesthetics are based on the movie, the game? itself has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Christmas is apparently under threat, but I don’t remember anyone mentioning its precarious condition until the last level of the game. I’m going to assume that Starbucks is at it again with their “Happy Holidays�crap again. Look, I know other people celebrate different religious happenings this time of year. I’m not exactly the best lamb in the flock to start with. But this is the time of year when everyone should get in line and kiss the feet of humanity’s ruler, Santa Claus, and reflect on the time he saved Nakatomi Pl??aza from terrorists using traditions stolen from the Pagans. All that time spent slipping down chimneys really prepared him for sliding through vents.

The story, is told to you by a snowman, and while it looks like Sam the Snowman, he talks like that time when Invader Zim impersonated Santa Claus. Obviously, the voice actor hasn’t watched the TV special, either, because they sure as sugar don’t sound remotely close to Burl Ives.

There are four levels to play through, so we might as well go through all of them?.

Koliday Kelper

I think that’s supposed to be Holiday Helper, but those H’s look a lot like K’s. Your job is to decorate the Yule Log. For some reason, this is done? by having?? an elf hurl presents and decorations from the top of a ladder, and you need to bounce them across the room and onto or under the tree. Except freakishly-shaped presents; they need to go in Santa’s sack of horrors.

Since this is a Wii game, you control one of two Reindeers, Santa, or a dentist by tilting the controller. You can also jump by jerking the controller upward, or just pres??s the 2 button. I don’t know why they gave us an out for jumping but not moving, but that’s how it is. Fortunately, it’s all as sensitive as an infected eyeball, so the wor??st part of the controls is that they work too bad. Otherwise, the physics are awful here, which may cause you to lob items irrevocably in the wrong direction. I’m not sure if you can even fail this game, though. I certainly didn’t do well, but the yeti still came out and put a star on the tree.

Toy Maker

Despite the name, you’re not actually making toys in this minigame; you’re painting them. You do this by flicking the Wiimote around, which sends globs of paint at toys appearing on a conveyer belt. Somehow, perhaps through the magick of Chrismas, the dollops of primary colors shape their way perfectly around the toy. Meanwhile, a couple of elves tell you how awesome you are and that they “love to paint.�/p>

I did this mini-game perfectly. Not a single toy escaped uncolored. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer didn’t give the slightest shit. There wasn’t, like, a “pe?rfect�scrawled across the screen. The elves didn’t cheer extra hard. The yeti didn’t pat me on the butt. Nothing. If I wanted to be this unrewarded for my hard work, I’d g?et a real job.

Cookie Cooking

Okay, so, I feel this should be “Cookie Baking,�or, if we’re married to alliteration, I guess it could be “Biscuit Baking,�but technically, baking is just a more ??specific form of cooking, so I’ll let it slide. This one is my favorite mini-game. You roll the dough, cut the shapes, and slide the cookies into th??e oven before decorating them with sprinkles.

I think the only reason I like this game is that it really makes me want shortbread cookies. I’m normally a ginger molasses girl, but Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer just makes the co??okies look so good. Then, when you win (again, I don’t think you can lose), your deer dances on the coun?ter, which is adorable.

Saving Christmas

Agai?n, I’m not sure how Christmas is in danger. All I know is that this is war. Your job is to fling presents at houses. The game tells you that you’re aiming for the chimney, but you still get points if it lands on the roof. Here’s the thing: there’s no penalty for missing, and you can hit a house more than once. I see absolutely no reason not to just carpet-bomb the whole town. Crush all those unsuspecting materialists under an avalanche of holiday cheer.

Communal Suffering

That’s actually all there is to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It saves your high score in case you are ?really desperate for some kind of challenge. You can also play with a second player, which really is what Christmas is about: communal suffering.

It took me 12 minutes to get through all of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. If I was a parent, and I had bought Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for my kids, I would be extremely steamed that it didn’t keep the little bastards entertained for even long enough to take a nap. If you really feel like y?ou need more disappointment in your holidays, you could do worse. Or better? Either, really.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Rudolph the Red??-Nosed Reindeer f??or Wii is the true meaning of Christmas appeared first on Destructoid.

More like "Alan Wii-ke"

Alan Wake (now on the Switch) is psychological horror game about coming to terms with who you are. Many have compared it to Silent Hill 2 for that reason and many others,?? but for me, the ways?? that it's about internal conflict have always felt more unintentional than that.

Throughout the game, the titular Mr. A. Wake is thrown into nightmare situations that are too bad to believe. Likewise, the game's Switch port is technically much, much worse than anyone would have expected.  When it comes to stuff like polygon count, pop-up, frame rate, and just a general sense of jank, this is one of the least polished-looking modern games from a AAA studio I've ever seen. It runs worse than the ??original 360 version did in 2010. Heck, it even looks a little cruddier than Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and Resident Evil 4 did on the Wii back then.

And I sort of love it for that?

[embed]//twitter.com/GameXplain/status/1583175476226334720??[??/embed]

Maybe that's because the internal conflict that's always been key to Alan Wake for me isn't about it's tortured lead character. It's about how the game truly doesn't seem to know if it even wants to be a videogame or not. In my mind it's always been sort of a sister game to Deadly Premonition, another cult classic survival horror game about fighting the same shadowy zombie-type things over and over again in a little American town. The big different between the two is Deadly Premonition always had a reputation for being so bad-its-g?ood??.

Alan Wake, on the other hand, looked technically amazing when it first came out, and so it got rave reviews. That polished look never matched how clunky and laugh-out-loud hammy its story was. Much like with the recent derided re-release of GTA: The Trilogy - Definitive Edition, this worse-looking version of Alan Wake is a mu?ch better fit for how I've always felt about it.

Why am I being so hard on Alan Wake you ask? Dear reader, you have to understand: The first words you hear after booting it up the are literally "Stephen King", and it doesn't let up from there. There ar??e a few aspects of the game that seem more inspired by The Twilight Zone or Twin Peaks, but by and large, this is a game that desperately wishes it was either a movie, a book, or both by the world's most popular horror author. It features more references to King's work than I would ever want to count.

The premise itself is essentially a weird cover song of Misery, The Dark Half, with bits of other King novels like Christine peppered throughout. And that's OK! The problem is the complete lack of subtlety. The copying of King is so loud and strong that it makes the game more like a parody of the author more than anything els??e.

Spoilers: in the first couple of hours, the game features a cut scene that copies an iconic shot from Kubrick's film adaptation of The Shining. Then, as if that weren't enough to take you out of the game and make you think about a much better thing you could be watching than the game you are currently watching, the narrator then blurts out something like "this guy is like Jack Nicholson from The Shining!" This probably wa??sn't supposed to be funny, but I still laughed out loud, and a big part of me hopes that was the intention.

Games that try this hard to be like movies are now like the 3rd or 4th most dominant genre in the industry, way behind stuff like Minecraft, Genshin Impact, and even Mario Kart. That wasn't true when Alan Wake was first released though. Back in the 2010's, games that tried hard to be movies wo??n all the awards and made a bulk of the money. It was a scary time for people like me who saw the move to make games more like films as a self-lo?athing near-suicidal downgrade.

And even if I did like movies more than games, and therefore wanted to see games turn into movies, games are just always worse than movies at being movies! Alan Wake is definitely no exception. It feels much more like a Junior High School theater adaptation of a Stephen King movie than a big budget film. It's cute and earnest, but if ??there was any reason to think it might someday replace the real deal, you'd probably want to see it put out to pasture.

So not only does this technically worse port of the game serve to humble Alan Wake a bit, it also give the whole thing a little of that dingy, broken and unsafe feeling you might get from one of Puppet Combo's Indie Horror titles. Underneath all the heavy-handed narration and obvious aspirations to be "more than a game", Alan Wake is actually a pretty fun game, and having worse graphics doesn't change that?.

The main mechanic that makes it stand out is the need shine a light on most enemies before you can damage them. It's dark as hell most of the time so you need the flashlight for more than just self defense.?? When the game finally quits shoving heavy-handed narration, in-game collectable book pages that actually spoil the story for you(!), and uncanny valley packed cinemas??, it's actually a really effective survival horror game, and the low-fi aesthetic doesn't hurt that one bit.

There're also a lot of little touches here that remind you that, in 2010, Alan Wake was actually a huge big budget game. The soundtrack is, in short, bananas;  featuring Roy Orbirson, Poe, and Nick Cave. It's extremely off-putting to see the game go from looking like a PS2 title to sounding like one of the greatest melancholy pop-songs of all time. The sound design and in-game TV show called Night Springs both also carried over perfectly from the 360 original, and both do so much to suddenly make the game's world feel real. The contrast between those roots in reality and the purely surreal, game world you're trapped in it when you play makes both feel stronger by juxta??position.

When it was first released, Alan Wake looked like something from the future, like they had someone make a game from 2022 in 2010. Now on Switch, it looks like a low budget game from 2010, ??unearthed for the first time 2022. It's seems to be actively repulsive and hostile to people who loved it the first time around, but if you're someone like me who actually likes crappy looking games, you may enjoy this Switch port. So if you want to take the chance, saddle up for a down-port that you can sincerely love, and love to laugh at, nearly at the same time.

The post Alan Wake on the Switch runs like a Wii game appeared first on Destructoid.

Put it back in the bargain bin

I only knew two things before purchasing 2007’s Heavenly Guardian on PS2. First, it was going to be a game in the Pocky & Rocky series, only maybe not really. It looked to be aiming more at Kiki Kaikai, which the Pocky & Rocky games are the sequels to, but I’m not going to get into the finer details of why they’re almost two separate series. The quick version is this: Kiki Kaikai is Taito; Pocky & Rocky is Natsume. Yes, this means that Pocky & Rocky with Becky is more a part of the Kiki Kaikai series.

Anyway, that’s boring. The second thing I knew about Heavenly Guardian going in??to it is that it’s ?considered to be kusoge.

Totally different

According to articles leading up to the release of Heavenly Guardian, the title was originally going to be Kiki Kaikai 2. However, Square Enix bought up Taito in the midst of development and decided they didn’t want a new Kiki Kaikai game. So, Starfish canceled it. Then they revealed Kiki Kai World, which you’ll notice is one “kai�away from copyright infringement. They insisted that wasn’t just the canceled Kiki Kaikai 2 renamed. That might be true since Heavenly Guardian does have a lot of identifiable differences from the early screenshots. However, palette swapping the heroine and dropping a “kai�doesn’t mean it’s not a little too close to an existing license. So, eventually, we wound up with Heavenly Guardian.

I raised the question of whether or not this was more of a Pocky & Rocky successor or a game closer to the Kiki Kaikai arc??ade game, and the answer is: no. It’s neither. It’s a mess.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a top-down run-and-gun like the other games in its would-be series. Its influence is clear. The power-up system is similar, and the enemies are taken from Japanese folklore. It’s just a matter of flow. It doesn’t match either series. It’s not as tanuki-balls out as Pocky & Rocky, nor does it have the stiff, quarter-munching mentality of Kiki Kaikai. No, it feels more like a homebrew fangame.

Ungodly

Actually, the first thing that struck me when I saw its 2D art style is those advertisement Flash games from the �0s. There’d be a ??cartoon, and to promote that cartoon and keep children looking at ads on their webpage, companies would commission little games to advertise them. It’s all smooth lines and computerized gradients. Lifeless, I’d call it??, especially when paired with some pretty sparse animation.

Most egregiously, it has no real feeling of impact, so it’s not always obvious when you’re being hit or the enemy is. Pocky & Rocky had characters who threw scrolls and leaves, ?but it still made sure you knew when you did damage through this constant a-wok-a-wok-a-wok-a sound. There’s one boss, in particular, that has two types of attacks: one that does damage and another that revers??es your controls but doesn’t hurt you. I had to keep looking at my life gauge because, in the moment, I had no idea to tell if something did damage or just reversed my controls.

It doesn’t help that the weapons feel like butt and not in a good way. You pick up gems to change your weapon, and if you pick up the same colored gem, you upgrade that weapon. This comes in the flavor of? rapid, three-way, homing, and bomb. Rapid, I don’t even understand because you normally sh?oot rapidly. In fact, if you have a three-way, you can shoot faster the closer you get to your target. It’s the classic projectile sprite limitation. If you shorten the distance they travel, the next set can spawn quicker.

As for the upgrades, you have to squint to see the difference they make. I typically stuck to three-ways, since homing and bomb were disappointing and, again, I don’t see the point of rapid. I think upgrading any of the branches of firepower just makes them strong?er, but I didn’t see any tangible evidence of that. Bosses display their health as a numeric value, and it seemed like no matter what projectile you hit them with, it always does 2 damage. So�I guess just upgrade your weapons to make the imperceptibly better. They’re definitely improved, you just won’t know how.

Boss-level mediocrity

The bosses of Heavenly Guardian deserve spec??ial mention for being unexciting and tedious. If I show you a screenshot of them, they probably look all right. Then you get into combat wi??th them and realize it’s way too easy to either cancel their attacks or find that perfect spot to sit where most of their extremely predictable attacks just go right by you.

On the other hand, they have mountains of health. I noted above that every projectile seems to do a base 2 damage every time it makes contact. Well, bosses commonly have around 400 health. Now, you don’t necessarily have to hit them 200 times to win, as your three-way can affect them three time?s and bomb seems to suck down a cluster of health. However, it still takes a ridiculously long time. They pull out additional attacks as their health gets lower, so try not to dislocate your interocular lenses when you roll your eyes after getting killed when they’re down to 50 health.

I suppose every game deserves to be available

There are a few times I’ve picked up a game I knew was poorly received and, after a few minutes of actually playing, thought, “oh no, what have I gotten myself into?�This was one of them, as even before finishing the first level, a nauseous feeling was bowling in my gut in protest to actually having to play any more Heavenly Guardian. At some point, I t??urned to my dog and promised that when I hit the continue screen again, I’d put the game down and walk away.

There was no such solace, as after continuing once on the first level, I never had to again. To hell ??with my mad ??gamer skills! I begrudgingly wound up seeing the ending a few hours later.

I can only imagine that losing the Kiki Kaikai license was such a blow that the lead designer locked themselves in the bathroom and refused to come out. Like, they planned on putting effort into the game, lost the license, and were just, like, “Well, let’s throw the scraps together and push it out the door.�I f?eel like believing that there was once passion behind this project, but very little of it shows in the final product.

Although I played the PS2 version of the game, it came to my attention that you can get Heavenly Guardian on Steam and Switch under the name Snow Battle Princess Sayuki. I find this information distressing. You should probably get Pocky & Rocky Reshrined instead.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Heavenly Guardian is a positively hellish attempt to continue the Pocky & Rocky series appeared first on Destructoid.

Nice muscle!

Kusoge isn’t merely about bad games. I mean, it is. Kusoge is literally a Japanese portmanteau of “crap game?.�However, it’s a term of affection. What would the world be without crap games? I shudder to think.

Muscle March is an example of this. When I first saw its Japanese trailer, my thought was “I need this.�Then it actually somehow got localized for WiiWare, and I quickly forgot it existed until the Wii Shop was about to shut down. The buzz around Muscle March seemed to die the instant people actually played it. As bonkers as its central theme and as sugar??-charged as its energy, it all wears off fast.

Muscle March was initially conceived as an arcade game, and it shows. When I was in Japan, I played a game where you had to shut your bickering family up by slamming your hands down on a tea table controller. After a short while, you had to flip the table to do as much damage to the immediate area as possible. I was great at it! However, while it’s great for working out your frustrations, there isn’t a lot to it. And that’s sort of what modern Japanese arcade games have become, and that’s what Muscle March is.

First, you select your character, all of which have a bodybuilder’s physique. They’re buff, I guess, but have you seen these guns? I call them Super Soakers because th??ey are quite efficient at maki?ng everyone in the vicinity wet.

Someone has stolen all the protein powder, and it’s your job to get it back. You start off by sprinting behind them in a?? c?onga line of other musclebound juicers, and you need to survive long enough to catch up. What’s threatening your existence? Walls. Luckily, the forerunner is flexing their way through them, and all you need to do is mimic their pose with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk.

Such masculinity!

You may have just rolled your eyes at the mention of motion controls. I can’t say I blame you. Muscle March is maybe about what you’d expect in that regard: they work, but they’re no???t optimal. You don’t have to fully flex out the motions; small movements work. The controllers essentially just need to be tilted slightly to make the four poses. The controls are reasonably responsive, but I can guarantee it’s going to let you down, especially when things get frantic.

There are three levels, and each is broken into three progressively harder stages. There’s the city, feudal Japan, and a space station. They’re all amusing in their own way. While I think it’s funniest to have muscle bodies disrupting the mundane lives of the salarymen,? having to recover your protein powder from Oda Nobunaga isn’t without its appeal.

The presentation is rather adjacent to Katamari Damacy. There are a lot of rainbows and twitchy still images that pan in and out. Its attempts to grab your attention with its weirdness might be somewhat tiresome, but honestly, it still appeals to me. That’s probably a good thing because, unlike Katamari, the humor is all Muscle March has going for it.

The gameplay is so shallow that your toe hair won’t get wet. There are four poses to get you through obstacles, and that’s it. No power-ups add strategy, and the other mu?scle-bound protein addicts are just there so you can mimic their poses in the earlier parts of a stage. The skill ceiling is low enough to sand off your scalp. Can you get a hold of the motion controls? Then the rest is just being able to read the game, which can be difficult with all the chaos that happens.

Manly biceps!

The music is good, but again, it’s a lot like Katamari: Japanese pop songs about nonsense. But, I mean, I love Katamari’s soundtrack. I used to have multiple versions of its track on my iPod back when we were allowed to own music. It probably helps that N??amco-Bandai made both games, so the quality is comparable.

The issue that you’ll run into quickly is that there isn’t a lot of content. The three levels are it, and most of your time is going to be spent grappling with the third stage of each. In my playthrough, I had seen everything in under a half-hour. Add to this the fact that there is very little replay value, and there isn’t much to chew on. There is a multi-player “endless�mode for four players. Still, I imagine this ?is something you pull up to say “check this out,�then stop after a few rounds. I don’t know what your parties are like. Actually, I don’t really know what any parties are like.

Even though Muscle March isn’t great, the depths of my despair are limitless when I think of how it’s no longer available following the closure of the Wii Shopping Channel. If it were up to me, all games would be persistently available, but Muscle March is more deserving than most. Whether or not you view it as a derivative of games like Katamari Damacy, there’s obviously a lot of imagination and love woven into its pr??ogramming and art. Whether or not a game like that succeeds, it deserves to live on. I mean, t??here are quite a few games that deserve more than a quiet, obscure death, but I can’t advocate for all of them. Right away, I mean.

Your first thought may be that it’s a good fit for the Switch since the Joycons mimic the Wii’s motion controllers, but why stop there? The original arcade game was designed for two joysticks, so there’s no reason that wouldn’t work? on ??any modern controller. Come on Namco-Bandai. Milk these muscular teets.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Muscle March needs a little ?more meat on its bones appeared first on Destructoid.

Pro tip: Mines can be used to attack people behind you

This Weekly Kusoge comes courtesy of a request from Destru??ctoid’s favorite child, Wes Tacos. I bring this up to drag out the fact that he’s an enabler. W??hen kusoge has reduced me to a bitter husk of a human being, the intervention is going to be really awkward. I’ll point to him and shriek, “this is what you wanted, isn’t it!?�before diving out the nearest window and escaping back into the wilderness.

Anyway, I don’t know who Jimmie Johnson is. I thought he maybe made sausages, but then I realized I was just mixing together Jimmy Dean and Jo??hnsonville brands. Try getting that association out of your head.

Turns out, he’s a NASCAR driver. I am both Canadian and a woman, so my only intersection with NASCAR has been to make the revelatory observation that they’re just driving around in circles. Luckily, Jimmie Johnson’s Anything with an Engine is a cart racer and doesn’t feature many cars of the NAS variety. Unfortunately, the new tracks for Mario Kart 8 just dropped recently a?nd I’d much rather be playing that.

I’ve never really strayed far from the Mario Kart games. I think Wacky Wheels is the only other racer I’ve played, and I didn’t expect to make such a deep cut. I’m pretty sure I own various Sonic the Hedgehog racing games about six times each, but I’ve never played them. And yes, Crash Team Racing people, this is when your monocle pops off and falls into your wine glass beca??use I’ve never touched them.

So, the closest I’ve come to a bad cart racing game is playing Mario Kart Wii with the motion controls on. It seems like its own little neighborhood of kusoge city. I could explore M&M’s Kart Racing or�Ew, there’s a Woody Woodpecker Racing. That sounds lik??e the embodiment of everything I stand against.

James Stephanie Sterling, in their Destructoid days, handled the review of it. Their closing argument was that “Few videogames can claim to be 'good in a bad way,' but Anything With An Engine definitely comes close.�While I respect my senpai, I have to disagree. I find very little in Anything with an Engine that I’d actually consider worthwhile.

Let me back up a step and say that I don’t think Anything with an Engine is a bad game, it just underachieves in every way. There were times during a standard race when I was left thinking, “this isn’t too bad,�and then a time trial or endurance race would come around and I’d think, “this is what hell has in store of my putrified soul.�/p>

The tracks are fine. Some of them kind of suck, and because they’re all built as though they’re tracks within a stadium they feel flat, but they’re not the worst. I never really gelled with any of the drivers. They’re all just conceptually dumb. There’s a guy who drives a bathtub in an old-fashioned diving suit, but he’s a dope. There’s an incontinent? sumo wrestler, and I’m not sure if I’m offended because I’m not a fan of toilet humor or because it’s disparaging sumo wrestlers. I wound up playing as the vampire because she has big tires.

The weapons are similar??ly fine. They’re mapped to the four face buttons, and each driver has essentially the same ones. They look different, and I think they have different efficacies. However, if you select a new driver, you’re not exactly relearning everything. You gradually build up your armaments by gaining crowd approval, which is a neat system. However, it doesn’t make for the most chaotic of races.

Where the game starts getting?? intolerable is with the rubber-band AI. I found it amusing that Mr. Johnsonville told me that “e??very lap counts�in a standard race when you might as well just cruise until the final lap. Opponents stay glued to you, and if you fall behind, you will noticeably rocket back up to the pack. A few well-placed rockets and nitros at the end is all you need.

The worst is when you’re racing Jimmie in the final event of each cup. Anything with an Engine is determined to keep the two of you glued together. I wouldn’t even use turbo on the first two laps, because I’d just gain?? speed automatically as I got further away from the sausage man. I’d save my rockets, then just make his life miserable for the last lap. Worked every time.

It’s not the mo???st egregious rubber-banding I’ve seen in a racing game, but it is a great deal more brazen than it has to be. It might be necessary because the drivers aren’t that aggressive, but I don’t think it needs to be quite so blatant and easily manipulated.

I mostly hate the time trials, wh??ich provide you with an ideal track and a chevron instead of a proper ghost. Then there are the endurance races where you accumulate points the better you do during each lap. It’s monotonous. There are matador races where half of your opponents run the track in reverse, but this mostly just makes it difficult to tell how close you ar??e to qualifying.

Then there’s the voice acting, which I turned off. They have these announcer people who comment on your racing, and they don’t shut up. Just imagine Mario Kart where Toad’s raspy, chain-smoker voice pipes up to tell you that a mushroom can help you get ahead of the pack. It’s like that. The one dude was very insistent on t??elling me what mines are for at least twice a lap??. I get it, guy. They’re good for cleaning people off my tail feathers. They deter tailgaters. I was amply aware of this that past twelve races, maybe cool it on the unsolicited reminders.

Oh, hilariously, there’s an anaglyphic 3D mode. I think there’s a standard 3D-TV mode, as well, but my Playstation TV is in storage, so it was time to dawn my Blockbuster Video branded red and blues. Wow, it sucks. I mean, it doesn’t. It works like it’s supposed to, but I found myself unable to make out small details like rockets in that weird color haze my eyes make when trying to reconcile the two colors they’re seeing. Kind of funny, though. Takes me back to my Rad Racer days.

Like I said, Anything with an Engine isn’t awful, I just don’t k??now why anyone would play it unless Wes asked them to. Who is it for? NASCAR fans? Jimmie Johnson is the only NASCAR driver in it (I think). Is there a lot of crossover between NASCAR fans and kart racing fans? I don’t know.

It’s rare that I feel like I wasted my time playing a game, but this is one of those moments. I have accomplished nothing. I have only learned that Jimmie Johnson doesn’t make sausages. This is time I spent that would have been better put to use on Mario Kart 8’s new tracks. Anything with an Engine reaches this level of? unexcitedly, inoffensively bad that I didn’t know it existed. I’m going to ?put this back on my shelf and just be apathetic towards it from now on.

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Those are a sacred gift

I have a deep fondness for the Castlevania series. The original title is among my favorite games on the NES, the Metroid-style detour kept me addicted for weeks when I collected them all together, and I have plumbed the ?series�highs and lows. For such a long series, a surprisingly high percentage are gravy, but then you come across the odd entry that is still gravy, but it’s really old gravy that has been left out.

And maybe the worst isn’t 2008's Castlevania Judgment for the Wii, but it might be the most offensive. I can completely dig a Castlevania fighting game; there’s been a ??great cast of heroes and villains to ?draw from. It’s just then they slap on a veneer of old gravy and you’re left wondering if it’s still worth breaking out the spoon.

Oh, geez. It’s hard to know where to start with Castlevania Judgment. I? really want to dive into why the game is just plain bonkers, ??but I think it’s best if I just give a sterile rundown of what it is.

Galamoth, who I actually needed to look up, wants to defeat Dracula by pulling some dirty time pool, but this guy shows up and pulls all these disparate heroes (and villains?) into a time rift to make them fight to see who gets to destroy the Time Reaper. I know what you’re thinking, but name a fighting game that doesn’t have a completely ludicrous plot that makes little sense. The only thing impressive is that Castlevania Judgment got here on the very first game, whereas m???ost just ease into insanity by starting with a tournament.

The cast is made from recognizable characters with their wardrobes and personalities thrown into a blender. For example, Eric Lecarde is here, but he’s a child for some reason. Simon Belmont wears bondage gear. Trevor, Sypha, Alucard, and Grant reunite from Castlevania III, but for some reason, Grant is Voldo now.

So, let’s tackle the characters because it’s really th??e focal point. It’s the axis of this? decrepit centrifuge.

Since Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, the series had a good thing going art-wise, with the aid of Ayami Kojima. Her art had a bit more beauty to it than I came to expect from playing earlier games. But if that was divergent from what I expected from earlier graphics, Castlevania Judgment is so far off, it isn’t even han?ging in the same gallery.

For Castlevania Judgment, Takeshi Obata was brought in, famous for the manga, Death Note. His vision for the characters was lots of bondage gear. Screw whatever era they were supposedly from, they wear leather with lots of zippers. Take a look at Maria Renard, for example, who is closer to her appearance in Castlevania: Rondo of Blood if she and Richter invaded Dracula’s BDSM club.

She’s dressed like a leather goth lolita, and her personality is weirdly vacuous. I mean, there’s child-like naivety, and then there’s tripping during your special attack. She also has an obsession with tits, expressing jealousy for how all the other female characters have heaping boobage. I get that this is a sort of a trope in anime for flat-chested girls, but I mean, Maria should probabl?y just wait until puberty before she starts complaining. Wait, how old is she supposed to be. 15!? Whatever, she’s a late bloomer. Maybe she needs to learn the magic of a padded push-up bra like the rest of us. That leather is just going to bind them flat.

A few of the characters got off easy. Shanoa from Order of Ecclesia, for example, has a design that is closer to the one she rocked in that DS title. Sort of. She looks like a nun and wears garters over her pants, so�/p>

Alucard is just sort of okay, Cornell (from Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness!?) is a bit excessive but not horrible, Sypha is�whatever. There's obviously a lot of effort that went into their designs, but it just doesn't fit the subject matter. Vampire hunters from across time? How about a bunch of zippers and buckles! Maybe if this was the sort of style that the series went with around the time that the protagonists started havi??ng actual faces, but it's not. It just sort of clashes against the rest of the game that sticks more with the series?? aesthetic.

Their interactions are absolutely loony, as well. The characters loudly shout both their motivations and confusion at?? each other. They’re also like, “You’re this person of legend?�then decide they want to throw down anyway. I get i?t, it’s difficult to figure out why Trevor would fight Sypha. However, maybe if they came up with a more imaginative premise beyond “they’re stuck here, so I guess they’ll fight,�it could be explained.

The gameplay? It’s bad. It’s not Transformers: Beast Wars: Transmetals level of awful, but that doesn’t mean its passable. The idea behind Castlevania Judgment is that Igarashi wanted to incorporate motion controls into a Castlevania ?title, and thought that an adventure would be too tiring. That should probably put up some red?????????????????????????? flags right there.

So, I didn’t play it with motion controls because you can’t make me. I used a Wii Classic Controller, and you can ??kind of tell it wasn’t made for it. There’s one attack button, a button dedicated to throw items, and another button that I don’t think does anything at all unless you press it in conjunction with the attack button. You can block, which is sometimes necessary. There’s one dedicated to the special button which is all kinds of special.

You fill a gauge as you attack and de?fend, which is only used for your character’s super move and nothing else. This is a powerful attack that, if you land it, takes off roughly half of your opponent’s health gauge. Th??at may sound like a decent finale, but you can pull one off early and the bar fills so quickly that it isn’t impossible to use it twice in a match. But think twice about doing that, because the sequences unleashed by these characters are so long that I wrote part of this article while waiting for them to conclude.

The camera is unlocked, which I think is to facilitate running around the levels and collecting hearts and items. However, Castlevania Judgment seems to want to be Soul Calibur so bad that you wish it had just settled for being a bad clone. The movement system is just so sloppy that it singlehandedly ruins any chance for real ski?ll and st??rategy to be tied into the game.

It’s sad, because the game’s concept isn’t a bad one. I could absolutely dig a Castlevania fighting game if they did it justice, but the whole product feels like spit in the face. Did no one on the development team have an issue with the character design? Were they really so creatively void they couldn’t come up wi??th a more interesting way of mashing the characters together? It lacks any real ??cohesion or vision.

The environments, for example, fit the Castlevania theme just fine. The soundtrack is absolutely phenomenal, though it is largely just made from remixes of the series�best. Really, because it’s basically one big best of album. It’s generally what I turn to when I want some Castlevania music. It’s just too bad that it’s partnered with a sucky game. Castlevania Judgment is celery when I just want to drink the ranch.

I’ve played worse. The most painful part of Castlevania Judgment is what it does to the source material. Do you know what game did a better job of mashing up Castlevania characters? Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, and that’s partially because we don’t have to hear them talk to each other. You don’t need a reason to take all my toys and mash them ??together, I already do that in my head.

Castlevania Judgment is like when you ask for Frozen for Christmas, and your Grandparent gives you a bargain bin knockoff called something like “Freeze Sisters.�You might try to like it because of where it came from, but your disappointment sucks you into the depths of despair. Here’s Simon Belmont, but he’s wearing armored cargo shorts. Here’s Carmilla, but what do you mean you don’t recognize her? She was that mask boss in Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest.

It’s just bizarre. I do?n’t know how someone can put so much effort into something so blatantly disappointing. This m?ust be the frustration that all my teachers felt.

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Paint it black

Have you ever heard an idea that you knew just couldn’t fail? Something so spectacular and creative, and yet so blatantly obvious, that there would be no way it could possibly end up as anything other than an absolute triumph? Back in 2009, I was sure that Disney and Junction Point Studios had come up with a flawless formula as that was the year the world got its first substantial look at Disney Epic Mickey.

It was everything somebody like me could want at the time: a Wii exclusive from a third-party developer lead by an accomplished game producer that would offer us a new look at the classic cartoon character. Heading toward its 2010 debut, all signs pointed to this being, perhaps, one of the biggest new franchises in the industry. I pre-ordered the collector’s edition, fully expecting some ??sort of religious experience from the game.

Instead, what I got was a lesson in hype and how easy it is to set oneself up for eventual disappointment. I tore into Epic Mickey like a doctor had just given me a week to live, but by the time I reached Lonesome Manor, I had to put the controller down. The idea that I'd fall madly in love with this game gradually thinned away like many of the walls of the Wasteland. I was bewildered by the lot of it. After a year of buzz and exci??tation for a Mickey Mouse game that wasn’t aimed at the Elementary School crowd, I sat there staring at my television asking how could this have gone so wrong.

Ten years later, I’m still asking that question. How could the surefire idea of “Mickey Mouse in a world of forgotten Disney characters” result in two different studios ceasing to make video games? I wanted to find out what killed this franchise, and to do so, I dove back into t?he thinner-soaked Wasteland to see exactly what went wrong.

It would be easy to point to Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two as the culprit in this series' demise, but truthfully, its problems are merely a product of what Junction Point created the first time around. The additions made in the sequel -- co-op, Inkwells, voice acting, musical numbers -- did it no favors in winning over those? who were left unimpressed with its predecessor, but I'd argue this franchise's death warrant was signed even before a followup was ever greenlit.

To understand where I'm coming from, we're going to have to look at the origins of this project. For that, we need to go back to before Junction Point Studios came on board, when what would become Epic Mickey ?was just an idea in some Disney executive's head to make Mickey Mouse r??elevant again.

It’s honestly a miracle Epic Mickey ended up as endearing as it did given its beginnings as a corporate-driven idea to rebrand Mickey Mouse as a video game hero that’d appeal to players of all ages. They also wanted to reintroduce the world to one of Walt Disney’s earlier creations in Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, which it didn't actually own at the time. In what will remain the strangest sports trade of all time, The Walt Disney Compa??ny and NBC Universal reached an agreement where Oswald would rejoin the House of the Mouse while Monday Night Football play-by-play announcer Al Michaels would join John Madden on Sunday Night Football.

While that deal was completed in 2006, Disney had been in the process of regaining the rights to Oswald since at least 2005. That same year, Warren Spector formed Junction Point Studios and started pitching to various studios, including Disney. While none of his ideas were accepted, the executives had one of their own. They wanted him and his team to make a Mickey Mouse game, and according to the game's official art book, the execs provided the three central pieces of what would become Epic Mickey: forgotten characters, the Wasteland, and ??Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Spector agreed and got to work right away with his team, and by April of 2??006, Disney approved their plan.

Junction Point's first action would be to test the bounds of Disney's limitations. Looking at his previous titles, Spector could go quite dark with his concept and asked his artists to draw up designs to find out where Disney would draw the line. Chances are you know this concept art well as the various images have stuck with the franchise even when Junction Point abandoned most of the ideas they illustrated. A lot of great artwork originated in this early stage of development, including the "Paint Thinner Beach" piece and my personal favorite, "Epcot and Hollywood Studios on the Back of a Whale." The images presented a vision of Disney not seen outside the pages of DeviantArt, a reimagined world of forgotten critters and mechanical monstrosities possessing the faces of characters known and loved around the world. Nightmare-inducing would be a good way to describ?e it; Mickey Mouse by way of H.R. Giger.

The problem with this approach to concept art, to see how far you could go with it, is that video game art has a tendency to leak, and when it did throughout 2009, it set up certain expectations for wha??t we'd see in the fin?al game. I don't think any person was under the impression the Nintendo Wii could adequately recreate those images, but goddamn if I didn't hold out hope that they were trying.

Disney Epic Mickey would ultimately be revealed in the pages of Game Informer in October 2009. The issue finally gave those enamored with the concept art an inkling of an idea of what the game would be. According to the many articles posted on it, Epic Mickey would feature a new take on Mickey Mouse from the man who brought us Deus Ex, visiting a tarnished land inhabited by Disney characters and attract?ions that people and time had forgotten. It would feature a painting and thinning mechanic where players could literally finis??h the world around them or thin it down. And it would be dark, a far more grim take on the Mouse than had previously been seen before.

That issue hit a little more than a year before the game’s ultimate release, and in that time, a lot of what had been planned for the title would ultimately be changed or cut. An original version of the narrative, reported by Eurogamer in 2009, had Oswald as the ultimate villain, posing Mickey’s journey as one of survival through Oswald’s revenge. Eurogamer also detailed several concepts that aren’t seen in the final product, including the use of different color paint and additional tools like pencils and erasers. There was also an idea in place to change Mickey’s appearance based on how ??the player would control him in a system known a??s “playstyle matters.” Levels depicting thinner-soaked versions of Wonderland and Jack and the Beanstalk were cut but still found their way into the opening cinematic.

It would be interesting to find out just why all these adjustments were made, but my gut feeling tells me it had to do with the change in platforms. Originally, Epic Mickey was in development for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. According to an interview with Official Nintendo Magazine, a Wii port was discussed and dismisse??d before development moved over to the Wii in 2008 as an exclusive title for the platform.

When Epic Mickey finally did launch in Novemb?er 2010, hype and expectations collided with reality. While it did score decent reviews and sell more than a million copies in its opening month -- a feat for a third-party on the Wii -- one has to wonder how much of a role nostalgia played in that achievement. Strip away the dark Disney veneer and what are you left with? Would you describe this game as an outstanding mix of action, platforming, and adventure gameplay, or something built with glaring issues that were covered with a captivating coat of paint?

Junction Point wanted to make an adventure game, a platform game, and an action game; it wanted to make a game that gave players a choice in how they'd proceed through the campaign and provide a moral imperative to make the right decisions even when it's the more difficult choice to make. It wanted to do all that in a third-person 3D setting with some side-scrolling elements that reached back to the roots of the central character. Playing through Epic Mickey again, it's easy to see how the developers fail??ed to reach even ?an adequate level of execution in each of those ideas.

Let’s start with the gameplay design Junction Point settled on for the title. There was a lot of speculation in the run-up to its launch that it would be a platform game, something to rival Super Mario. While there is platforming in it, Epic Mickey is first a??nd foremost an adventure game. Everything here is a quest that has to b??e completed, from the required tasks you need to advance through the story to the optional ones you get from the various cartoon NPCs. 

A lot of these?? quests -- particularly those that are optional -- are basic fetch q?uests tasking Mickey with finding items or certain characters who’ve lost their way. Some make very basic use of the paint and thinner mechanism, such as erasing walls to find hidden items. Others still tie into the morality system and how you choose to go about beating the game’s few boss fights.

Most of these quests amount to nothin??g more than diversions to get you to play longer and explore as much of the game as you can. However, it’s those tasks you have to complete to beat eac?h area of the game that have me questioning the design decisions made here. Because player choice is always stressed without ever giving players significant reason to choose one path forward over the next.

Let me give you an example. In Notilus, one of the 3D stages you complete in the Tomorrow City section of Wasteland, you’re tasked with raising the Nautilus from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. You can do this in two different ways: paint the gears to rotate the p?latforms on two tow?ers to raise it yourself, or free a Gremlin who will do it for you. The latter option is by far the easiest and most efficient way to complete this quest.

Throughout Epic Mickey there are situations just like this and it’s not uncommon to be attempting to clear something yourself only to inadvertently free the Gremlin that finishes the task for you. I mean, if you’re going for the good ending, it’s not out of the question to believe you need to free every Gremlin to get it. I get the idea of giving players a choice in how to go about puzzle solutions and why that might be enticing. It's ??just these options are never equal in the amount of effort and critical thinking it takes to complete them. For many of this game's challenges, it feels like the idea of having multiple solutions was discussed but the developers eventually landed on a design document where Solution B would always be “Have the Gremlin do it.”

This wouldn’t be a big deal if these situations didn’t make up an abundance of what’s considered gameplay in Epic Mickey, but they do. Yes, some areas don't have any Gremlins that'll do the work for you, but even in those instances, the compact nature of each area severely limits how creative the designers can get in making compelling quests. There may be a fork in the road where you get to pick your way forward, but more often than not, your choices are limited to simple or simpler. There are some inventive aspects to the gameplay, such as conjuring a television set that captivates your enemies enough that you can sneak past them, but for the most part there isn’t anything here we haven't seen done better in other titles. ??And that includes the morality system.

Again, there is some ingenuity to be found here, particularly when you go thinner crazy and Mickey starts dripping ink like a leaky faucet. But the morality system is too basic in its implementation. Use paint to make the bosses and enemies your friend or embrace your malevolent side by erasing them with thinner. It’s all too white and black and the ensuing results of your actions are equally as stark. The fact that every area you visit resets to its original state when you leave does the game no favor??s in making it seem like your actions are of any real consequence.

If anything, the morality system works against the idea that this is supposed to be a cartoon world as regular cartoon antics are often treated as being bad when really it’s just part of the harmless fun that makes cartoons worth watching. Launching a character with a catapult or dropping a safe on someone’s head is pretty standard animated fare, but here it’s categorized in the same grouping as damning a group of pirates to an animatronic life or drowning the It’s A Small World Clock Tower in a pool of thinner. Spector repeatedly spoke of the old Mickey Mouse and how he was a bit of a mischief-maker. While that’s true, going the “thinner route” of Epic Mickey doesn’t really feel like making mischief. Rather, it comes across as the Disney-equivalent of killing Little Sister?s in Rapture.

If the adventure and morality gameplay of Epic Mickey do it no favors, its platforming portions seem to be actively working against it. Rather than tackling a purely 2D or 3D adventure, Junction Point sought to mix it up with the main areas of Wasteland appearing in 3D and the transitional levels between the different worlds cleverly designed as side-scrolling stages modeled after Mickey’s old cartoon shorts. When I first ventured through these Projector Screen levels, it was inspiring to see how the developers transformed something like Steamboat Willie or Mickey’s Mechanical Man into a platform stage.

For whatever reason though, Junction Point thought players wouldn’t mind replaying these levels multiple times. Because each time you travel from one area of the Wasteland to another, you’re forced to go through these Projector Screen stages even if you’ve already completed them. On its face, that’s just not a good idea, but its implementation is far worse when you consider that adventure game aspect of the title. Some missions will send you to multiple areas, forcin??g you to play through these levels several times in a short span. 

Take Damien Salt and his Gather the Flowers quest, for instance. To complete it, you need to travel from Ventureland to Mean Street to Ostown, and then back to Mean Street and Ventureland. That mission alone will have you playing two of these Projector Screen levels, Thru the Mirror and Jungle Rhythm, twice when you have already gone through each of them at least once at this point. Sure, you go ??through the levels forward or backward depending on which way you’re traveling, but it’s ??a ridiculous amount of forced repetition to put on players in such a small amount of time. Not only is it tedious, but the platforming wasn’t really up to the standards of its era.

Epic Mickey was released in 2010. Do you know what else released that year? Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Donkey Kong Country Returns, with the latter arriving just days before this game's debut. I know it’s tough to stand out when compared to two titles as exceptionally crafted and tightly controlled as those, but the actual design of Epic Mickey’s stages for the purposes of platforming didn't feel fresh or in?teresting, but rather quite antiquated.

Many of the 3D levels contained some of the more burdensome stage design concepts from the PS2/GameCube/Xbox era of licensed platformers. Throughout the 3D worlds of the Wasteland, you have to contend with surfaces with jagged edges you could slip right off and invisible walls that prevent creative solutions. Mickey himself doesn’t really have any weight to his movement or jumps, but he also tends to drop like a rock and his ability to grab onto ledges feels predetermined in all the wrong ways. As for the 2D Projector Screen levels, Mickey has a “floaty” quality about him that doesn’t blend well with the often misleading animal platforms of these stages. There is some cleverness to be found in painting platforms you need to jump on, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen in previous games like Max and the Magic Marker or Drawn to Life. 

The lack of strong fundamentals in Epic Mickey's platforming, adventure concepts, and morality system spills over into the actual designs of its levels and worlds. Most se?ctions of the g?ame are pretty small and many only require you to finish one or two quick tasks to proceed to the next area. The brevity in which you complete each of these sections not only creates pacing issues for the whole adventure but it can also feel like you're being rushed through the game before you realize how lacking in creativity some of these areas are. Spend only a minute or two in Tomorrow Square and you might think it's not that bad. Anything longer and it might start to look awful sparse and uninteresting.

It's a fundamentally flawed experience from top to bottom, from the way you control Mickey to the way you complete objectives to the way the game forces punishes you if you inadvertently forget to accept a quest. At its root, this is an unexceptional game, and that's before I even bring up the camera. The notorious Epic Mickey camera that made everything you wanted to do in this game awkward and difficult. Its preset positions did very little to showcase the levels and obstacles that stood before the player. Mapping the camera controls to the directional pad made them troublesome to reach depending on the size of your hand. In my experience, frequent use of the C button on the nunchuck was the only way to make it through the Wasteland. It is without a doubt the worst camera I’ve ever had the displeasure of using from a major third-party developer and unfortunately for Epic Mickey, it’s one of the aspects most associated wi??th the series.

Maybe it was the sudden shift to a less powerful platform or maybe it was because Junction Point bit off a bit more than it could chew, but my repeated trips through the Wasteland have shown me a game with ideas that were never fully formed before being presented to players. You have all of these genre concepts existing in a world that is not designed to allow them to meet their full potential, resulting in an experience that would be bland as hell if not for the greatness of its art direction. Credit must be given to the amazing artists at Junction Point for bringing the Wasteland to life. They did a magnificent job of working within the constraints of Disney and the restrictions of the Wii to create a spectacular-looking game. Make no mistake, Epic Mickey has some of the best art direction of its era. Not just on the Wii, but across the entire seventh generation of consoles.&nbs?p;

But that art only masked a title that was nowhere near worthy of the attention it was given before it launched. Even with its astronomical sales, I highly doubt a franchise could flourish when the foundation it's built upon is as shaky as this and truly, it didn't take long for Epic Mickey to crumble. The direct sequel fixed very few of the issues listed above, and, in fact, made it worse with even more inconsequential areas, poorer gameplay, godawful partner AI, and platforming that felt about eight years behind the curve. Even the DreamRift-developed 3DS spin-off, Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, couldn't e??scape the awful stank of this series with gameplay elements that were somehow even more misguided than what Junction Point cooked up (though it did have the superior narrative concept).

While it might not be what ultimately led to the sequel and the spin-off failing, one question I've always had about these games was their continued use of the paint and thin mechanic. I understand that, by this point, it was the gameplay element that separated Epic Mickey from other games, but it really didn't make sense in the context of either title. Player choice and the concept of good and evil made sense i??n the original game as it blended in well with its story. Mickey, as the reason why the Wasteland looked the way it did, was on a mission of redemption, and his actions affect how the Wasteland would turn out in the end. When taken in step with the narrative, that element of the gameplay fit snuggly in like one of Mean Street’s many cogs.  

In Epic Mickey 2, the narrative is nearly as deep and Mickey’s involvement in the situation troubling the Wasteland isn’t as personal. As such, the paint and thinner mechanic isn’t as necessary to tell the game’s story and seem as though they’re present solely because that’s just what the players should expect at this point. The same goes for Power of Illusion.

Would dropping the paint and thinner mechanic have resulted in much better games? Probably not, and I guess it really doesn't matter now. Spector only had two years between the release of Epic Mickey and its sequel to turn things around and when having to account for additional hardware to develop for, it's clear that wasn't enough time to reconsider if the direction they were taking the series in was the correct one. Both the sequel and the spin-off were lambasted upon release, and Junction Point was shut down a little more than two months after The Power of Two cratered at retail while DreamRift hasn't released a ??game since.

Someday I'd love to have a one-on-one with Warren Spector to talk about this game because, despite everything I've written here, it still holds a special place in my heart. I know it's bad, and I can tell you exactly why it doesn't work, but I'm still in love with the potential of Epic Mickey imagined in those pieces of concept art from all those years ago. I will never stop being fascinated with this game, and one day I'd love to see a plucky young developer get a chance to reimagine it, Final Fantasy VII Remake style. But until that happens, I'll keep playing and hating and loving every minute of Epic Mickey. 

_{[A special thank you to Triggerpigking for providing the headline image.]}

The post An autopsy of Epic Mickey appeared first on Destructoid.

The best racer of its generation

When we look back at the launch of the Nintendo Wii, there are a few titles that immediately come to mind. They're the ones that would go on to define the console throughout its lifespan. There’s Wii Sports, obviously, the pack-in that your grandmother probably still plays today. Then there is The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Nintendo’s first cross-gen hit that was saved from the Wii’s poorly performing predecessor to find massive success in the new generation. Those two titles were enough to sell the console to millions of people and radically expand the market for console gaming. As much as I enjoy both them, when I look back at the Wii’s start and the titles it launched with, honestly, it’s Excite Truck that fills me with the warmest memories.

The Excite series has never been a priority for Nintendo. The NES original didn’t see a sequel for more than 15 years when Excitebike 64 hit the Nintendo 64 near the twilight of its life. In fact, I’d say more people know the game from its inclusion in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe than as its own franchise. I don’t think Excite Trucks did enough to move the needle in the franchise’s favor — and really, what do you expect launching alongside Wii Sports — but it did prove popular enough to give us a sequel that remains one of my most treasured racing games of all time: Excitebots: Trick Racing. 

One of my favorite things about the Wii is how it took those little habits we have as gamers and turned them into actual gameplay elements. Think of how many times you’ve played a racing game and instinctively turned your controller as if that would help your car? Or every time you’ve played Super Mario Bros. with a parent and they flick the controller up as if that’ll make Mario jump higher? Most of us did that growing up (and some of us still do) and playing through Excitebots??, Monster Games took those little tendencies and gamified them for an a??bsolutely wild arcade racer experience.  

When Nintendo first revealed the motion-control capabilities of the Wii, a racing game where you tilt the controller to steer your vehicle was an inevitability. Excite Truck did it well. Need for Speed: Carbon, eh, not so much. And as fun as it was to take those massive jumps across China and Fiji in Truck, Monster Games went back to the drawing board for ‘Bots to see just how much more it could ?fit into these tracks. The sequel would still be an arcade racer like the original, one that rewards speed and big jumps while giving players the ability to reform the track as they drove it. But it would be i?nfused with what the Wii, by this point, had become best-known for: mini-games.

Imagine having to compete against five other racers and also bowl a perfect strike? Or hit a drift just right while kicking a field goal? Or getting a boost in speed but only if you hit the last two notes of “Shave and a Haircut” on a tambourine? Excitebots asked players to do that and more. Racing here just wasn’t about taking first place or doing a trick off some sick jump. It was also about throwing a pie into a clown’s face or attacking your opponents with some chattering teeth. And that's to say nothing of the poker races that were a blast to play while drunk, when you couldn't tell the difference between a club and spade so you'd argue the game is broken because you totally had a straight flush. It’s a silly experience; sadly, one most Wii ?owners didn’t get a chance to try out for themselves.

Nintendo was really weird with the Wii. Most of us probably remember the whole "Operation Rainfall" ordeal to get it to localize three of its core-gamer titles, one of which is now a million-seller franchise for the company. Excitebots had no trouble finding its way to Nort?h American stores in 2009, but it only made it to Japan in 2011 as a Club Nintendo reward, and European players were left to mod their Wiis and import it if they wanted a shot at it. Even when it was re-released?? as a downloadable title on the Wii U, it stayed on this side of the Atlantic.

Diving back into it this past month, my original save file lost to the ages, it struck me how timeless of an experience Excitebots is. Sure, it looks like a GameCube title, and the motion controls don’t always work as fluidly as I’d like, but ten minutes in, I was reminded about why this game remains one of my all-time favorites. It’s like somebody took carnival games and turned them into an arcade racer. Racing is fun. Throwing darts is fun. Throwing darts while driving at speeds that make Mario Kart Wii look like a race between 12 Model-??Ts is incredibly ??fun.

And I love the fact that it isn’t explained why you’re now driving motorized bugs, rodents, and reptiles. Why am I racing in a turtle with w??heels? Hell if I know, but if I’m able to grab this hammer, I can literally smash my competition. I tell you, there is no joy in racer like going off a mad jump, completing three full rotations, and then landing on the ladybug in first place. That’s exhilarating and exactly what’s been missing from my Switch.

Any Nintendo fan will tell you the company isn’t the best when it comes to treating its racing franchises right. We’re all still waiting for a new F-Zero, Wave Race hasn’t been seen since Blue Storm, and let’s not forget about Stunt Race FX (no matter how hard we try). All of those series take a back seat to Mario Kart, and while I understand why Nintendo would put all its eggs in the basket tha?t sells 25 million copies, I can’t help but picture what new entries in these series would look like on Switc??h.

All of those franchises creep into my mind, but mostly I think about Excitebots. I think about blazing across the moors of Scotland in a bug vehicle, a truck, a bike, or even all three. All three of the different Excite vehicles together in one game where winning doesn’t matter as much as having fun. That’s what Excitebots is to me. It’s the game that?? never lets you forget that it’s just a game, and games are meant to be fun.

The post Revisiting the infinite j??oy of Excitebots?: Trick Racing appeared first on Destructoid.

Swings and Roundabouts

Sam Barlow, the writer and designer behind 2009 Silent Hill entry Shattered Memories, has quietly reveal??ed that he is currently in the process of pitch?ing a follow-up to the mind-fucking horror title.

Speaking on Twitter, Barlow mentioned that he was asked about the possibility of a Shattered Memories follow-up dur??ing a recent interview, but was unable to answer the question as he is in the process of pitching that very idea. Barlow also notes that this pitch is not his upcoming "Project A" title, currently in development at Half Mermaid Studios, which is a different game entirely.

Of course, Barlow pitching a sequel  does not guarantee that a sequel is getting made, but it will sure raise the hopes of the Silent Hill faithful, who have been very frustrated by the lack of news from Konami in recent years, despite numerous rumours and whispers within the industry. Shattered Memories is certainly one of the more tightly held entries within the Silent Hill franchise, and a follow-up, from the original designer no less, would be a grim de?light.

In the meantime, don't forget that Silent Hill 4: The Room is now available on PC via GOG.com

TFW an interviewer asks what you'd do to make a Shattered Memories follow-up today but you can't tell them because you're currently pitching that thing pic.twitter.com/ztnbcjjBck

— Sam Barlow (@mrsambarlow) October 7, 2020

[embed]605657:84762:0[/embed]

The post Silent Hill: Shattered Memories writer curren??tly pitching a sequel appeared first on Destructoid.

When that last part comes in...

Wii Sports was an utter phenomenon.

Your grandma played it. Your neighbor probably played it. All in the before times of course: no I'm talking about when everyone's Wii was hooked up! 2006 was a wild year for Nintendo, when their plans for living room domination were finally realized. When Wii Sports and Wii Fit were crushing it, and the Wii?? would go on to be their best-selling home console of all time.

This video from willyj1234 brings up back to those simpler times: when we'd leave the game running to hear a Wii theme (or the eShop music!). "The band writing the 'Wii Sports' theme song and knowing it's a banger," is all you really need to know going into the?? below vided.

My Wii U is perpetually hooked up, so I'm game to go back and at least listen to th??e theme myself in the near future. That's right, I still use it! I'm not sure when I'll ever pack it in, even as the next generation arises.

[Thanks Bob!]

The post The Wii Sports theme is still a complete banger, and this video p??roves it appeared first on Destructoid.

I want one

A lot of people here likely have fond memories of their Wii. But older generations can recall some of Nintendo's bygone systems, like the fantastic and time-tested Game Boy Color. This mod from crea??tor GingerOfMods marries both worlds into one impressive system.

They call it the WiiBoy Color. The front of the system is a 480p screen, with inputs Frankensteined from DS Lite buttons and Switch joysticks. GingerOfMods hacks the system to allow GameCube controls to mirror Wiimote controls: which can also simulate waggling. The back has a fan intake and Z buttons, with a headphone jack on the side and a USB-C port on top for charging a?nd data ??transfer.

GingerOfMods can simply add games via USB when they want. It'll run for "two or three hours," but you can also hook up a portable charging bank to ??it to keep going. Plus, they can plug the portable directly into a Wii to play on a bigger screen: Switch style!

This is one of the most impressive hardware mods I've seen in recent years. I like the commitment to the form factor of the Game Boy Color the most: it looks incredibly sleek. GingerOfMods says that you can reach out to them via their Instagram or Twitter account if you want to buy ??it; but it'll cost ??you a "premium."

The post This ?magnificent m??odder turned a Wii into a Game Boy appeared first on Destructoid.

Vblank isn't screwing around

I admire the heck o?ut? of Vblank Entertainment's passion for porting games to outdated platforms.

We got an early heads-up about the developer's latest experiment thanks to an ESRB listing, but now it's official: Shakedown: Hawaii, a free-roaming overhead action game from 2019, is getting a physical Wii and Wii U release this year. This isn't a bit! Designer Brian Provinciano is going through with it.

In Europe, Shakedown: Hawaii is getting a 3,000-copy physical Wii launch on July 9, 2020, priced at $29.99. As he puts it, "the doors hadn't quite closed yet wit?h Nintendo of Europe," so it was feasible.

Wii discs are region-locked, which is partially why a Wii U port of Shakedown: Hawaii – "the next best thing" – came to be. Provinciano says he "didn't want North American players to be left out."

Also, Wii U discs are just pleasant to hold. Love that rounded edge.

Here's the technical rundown on both versions:

The Wii version supports both 50hz and 60hz, and both NTSC and PAL output. It supports the Wii Remote (with shake!), Wii Classic Controller, Wii Classic Controller Pro, and GameCube Controller. I took special care to ensure it parallels the experience of ? the more powerful platforms, and further optimized it to fi??t entirely into the Wii system memory. This means that you won't experience any disc load times during gameplay. Once the game boots, you're in!

The Wii U version supports both SD and HD, 4:3 and 16:9. You can play it with the Wii U GamePad, Wii U Pro Controller, Wii Remote, Wii Classic Controller, or Wii Classic Controller Pro. It can be played entirely on the GamePad (with touch!), or on the TV from the comfort of your couch.

Why bother going through all of this effort? "It's just something I enjoy. The older the platform, the more fun it is! The cleverer I need to be! The more ways I'll ne??ed to figu?re out how to optimize things."

If you're interested in the physical edition on Wii, there's an email signup. If you're looking to keep the Wii U flame lit, Shakedown: Hawaii is aiming for an August 2020 ??launch (and the same goes for Stea?m).

Ball's in your court, Just Dance.

It's Coming to Wii and Wii U! [Vblank Entertainment Inc.]

The post Shakedown: Ha?waii is getting a physical Wii and Wii U release in 2020 appeared first on Destructoid.

Is anybody out there?

With each passing day, with each horrific new milestone met in the COVID-19 pandemic, I wonder about how future generations will learn about this era in history. I think back to my education on the Spanish Flu and, outside of the monumental number of people who died from it and when it happened, I can't recall another fact about it from my va?rious history classes as it was usually enveloped within the greater le??sson plan on World War I.

The one aspect of the Flu that remains imprinted in my mind is the images that came out of it. I remember the rows and rows of people in hospital beds, nurses dressed in white holding the ha??nds of those about to pass, a small child crying next to what looks like their dying mother. It's heartbreaking, and our current catastrophe has produced no shortage of era-defining images as well, from mass graves to body bags stored in cold storage trucks to the abrasions doctors and nurses are left with from sweating into their PPE for hours on end.

All of those images are harrowing, but for weeks now, the defining pictures of what COVID looks like to me have been the many taken by photographers showcasing empty streets, deserted amusement park??s, and wildlife roaming through rural towns?? without bother. There are many wonderful photo essays you can find online highlighting the quieting effect this virus has had. Every time I would bypass a paywall to see the empty squares of Milan, another image would pop into my brain. One of a young boy looking for a friend in Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon.

Fragile Dreams is a peculiar title in the Wii catalog. Developed by Namco and Tri-Crescendo, it's a beguiling journey through a post-disaster Japan. Something has killed off nearly the entire world's population. Playing as Seto, you start the game moments after burying your dead grandfather. Scouring your observatory home, you find a note he left behind telling you to head for the red tower in the distance. The tower is Tokyo ??Towe?r, and every once in a while it will glow beyond the trees, like the green light beckoning Gatsby toward East Egg.

I probably shouldn't have been so drawn toward Fragile Dreams given the state of the world right now. For two months, I've been living an isolated experience, alone in my apartment, working from home, with only the occasional social interaction with employees at the grocery store or when chatting with my Podtoid co-hosts. But as thankful as I was for those fleeting moments of connectivity, I always had to remind myse?lf it didn't equate to real connections with those around me. Talking with friends and family on Skype and Zoom isn't the same as being in the same room as them; shaking hands, hugging, fist-bumping, and other sorts of physical contact I haven't felt in more than two months.

Maybe that's why Fragile Dreams?? was the first and only title to come to mind when going through this period of isolation. It's the only game from memory that can even remotely relate to what it is I'm experiencing. Like me, Seto is alone in this world. The first person he m?eets isn't a person. It's Personal Frame, an A.I. companion that makes Fi look like she's taken a vow of monastic silence.

This Siri-with-a-terrible-battery is the only communication Seto has for a great deal of Fragile Dream's opening, wearing it like a backpack as they explore a dilapidated train station and its attached mall. The communication feels real because there is something there to answer your questions and inquire about your state of mind, but like a Zoom call with my family, there's a digital wall that keeps it from being authentic. Seeing my parents on an iPad screen was certainly great for wha??t it was, but it ultimately did nothing to dissipate the co?nstant feeling of insulation.

Seto's journey is one of consistent loss. Personal Frame eventually runs out of juice and the friend he meets after isn't long for the world himself. Beyond the small number of survivors he runs into, the abundance of grief Seto exp?eriences comes from the memories tied to the artifacts scattered around the world. A popped balloon gives a glimpse of a child who becomes separated from his mother before ultimately dying himself. A dog collar shares the story of a hound and his owner as the reality of what's going to happen becomes c?lear. A school photo tells of a man who had everything he ever wanted except somebody to share it all with.

While I'm not finding artifacts of the past on my daily walks to the park, I do have access to Twitter. It's become the best glimpse into the reality of what's happening in the world. Just as Seto doesn't know any of the people from the objects he finds, the people I read about on Twitter who are bearing the brunt of our current circumstances are unfamiliar to me. People who've lost their jobs, who've lost loved ones, who are scared of getting sick but can't go without a paycheck; they're all stra?ngers. But hearing about their experiences only helps shape my understanding of how the rest of society is dealing with the COVID fallout, something my tiny corner of the country shields me from.

In truth, I forgot about these snippets into the lives of the deceased in Fragile Dreams before starting it back up last week. Before then, the strongest memories were the crushing sense of loneliness Seto feels and this barren, crumbling world he's forced to traverse. Now, video games have no shortage of decrepit cities to venture through. The Last of Us is a great example of how nature can rebound from a near-instant drop in the human population. The Metro series also holds its fair share of resplendent decay. From what I've seen of the Fallout franchise, it too is a creative look -- if a bit more colorful one -- at a world where humans took a timeout ?for a couple of dec??ades.

The difference between Fragile Dreams and those other titles is its focus on sorrow. That is the be-all, end-all theme of this 12-hour game and you can see it in every inch you explore. You see it in the drawings on the walls left by kids who are no longer there, the sad state of the amusement park and its rusted-out rides, and vast emptiness of the dam. You also see it in the creatures you choose to fight along the way. Fragile Dreams isn't filled with monsters, or zombies, or mutated humans. The most common enemies you'll fight in this game are ??ghosts or dogs that, without humans, have returned to their original feral state. The cats are still cool though.

The first time I ventured toward that red tower, I was most concerned with Seto's survival. I fought any and every creature that stood in my way. On this return visit, I approached it with a more caring mindset. Seeing the glowing eyes of these ravenous dogs didn't bring out the fight in me, but rather the desire to let them be. They're just dogs doing what they have to do to survive. The same goes for the ghosts. While there are certain yokai you can't avoid fighting, you can bypass most of the jellyfish ghosts you encounter. Even if that ultimat?ely sets you up for failure later in the game. This is still an RPG and as such, you're expected to gain XP through killing these ghosts.

Initially, I was ready to smack the hell out of them at any cost. But in a moment of error, I succumbed to my injuries from a group of arms reaching out of a bathroom wall. And on the Game Over screen, I saw Seto's jellyfish ghost floating away. That's what's so tragic about all of this. These ghosts were just once people, people you read about and sympathize with and mourn over when you find their tchotchkes. This is what I mea??n when I say this is a world built on sorrow. Guiding Seto through each of the areas doesn't give me a sense of accomplishment as it would in other games. Rather, it merely gets my hopes up before crushing them with the next realization of what has become of the world and the people who once populated it.

Playing Fragile Dreams in the era of COVID has given me a new appreciation of what Namco and Tri-Crescendo managed to pull off more than 10 years ago. Admittedly, many of its aspects have aged horribly or weren't even that good to begin with. But it's a wistful experience, one soaked in solitude and heartbreak, driven only by the hope there is something better on the horizon. That's what the tower was to Seto, a chance at a better life. There was no guarantee it was waiting for him once he arrived. If you've beaten Fragile Dreams, you know exactly what is and isn't there. But?? in the hours leading up to that arrival, it's the hope there is something beyond the bleak existence he knows that pushes each foot forward.

For us, that red tower is the vaccine. It'??s the shining light we can see on the horizon. Like Seto, we h?ope our tower will also bring a return to civilization, a reclamation of the life we once knew. But there's no guarantee that's what's waiting for us once we complete this journey. We just have to keep pushing forward on the hope there will be something worth the time, effort, and lives lost once we arrive.

I should probably focus on more social games to get me through the next few months of the pandemic. The last thing anyone needs at a time like this is to go through a game that is somehow not a form of escapism. But I am thankful I made this journey once more. I've grown a lot in a decade and in my return trip??, I was able to find a greater appreciation for Seto's world and connection to it I never had before??. I just wish the circumstances of my world could have been better so I could make the same strides with a more lighthearted experience.

The post Revisiting the isolated world of Fragile Dreams appeared first on Destructoid.

Baroque as Hell

Japanese developer Sting has revealed plans to release classic first-person adventure Baroque on the Nintendo Switch later this year. As announced on the company's Twitter, Baroque: Original Version will be a port of the 1998 Sega ??Saturn release, rather than its 2008 remake.

As a quick refresher, Baroque is a strange, post-apocalyptic fantasy adventure that follows a nameless and mute protagonist as they pick their way through the gothic "Neuro Tower," pu??rifying the Meta-Beings within on a quest for personal redemption. Blending cataclysmic end-of-days storytelling with first-person exploration and combat, Baroque is hardly the slickest or most upbeat of video games, but definitely one of the weirdest.

Baroque would be remade for PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Wii in 2008, completely transformed into a more typical third-person anime RPG. Despite this fresh look and playstyle, Baroque was received poorly by cri??tics, and has fallen into relative obscurity since. More information regarding Sting's new Switch port is expected soon.

Baroque: Original Version is currently in development for Nintendo Switch.

Baroque: Or??iginal Version coming to Switch in 202?0 in Japan [Gematsu]

The post Sega Saturn adventure Baroque is headed?? to Swit??ch in Japan appeared first on Destructoid.

Wii beg to differ

Technology has mostly funneled online identification systems down to a couple of options. On one hand, there's the approach of Xbox, PlayStation or Twitter which lets users sign up for a single account name that they own, but it can't be registered to anyone else. The other, like Discord or Blizzard's Battle.net has people register any name which is then assigned a random four-digit suffix to make ?i??t unique. Both are easy and logical and not-frustrating.

Which brings us to Nintendo's friend codes. Originally implemented circa 2006 for the Wii, Nintendo introduced 12-digit numeric friend codes for connecting socially. The system has persisted through the Wii to the 3DS and now the Switch. (It has been especially relevant lately as Animal Crossing?? has people swapping friend codes.) Nintendo has also partially done away with them, as Wii U and Switch make use account IDs similar to Xbox and PlayStation's setup.

Friend? codes aren't especially well-received. Most people view them as convoluted and archaic, a tough-to-remember way of telling others how to find you. That, somehow, was the exact opposite of what Nintendo hoped to accomplish. In a giant leak of Wii information, there's a PowerPoint presentation that argues in favor of friend codes because Nintendo thought usernames weren't simple or comfortable enough.

As part of that Nintendo leak, an internal powerpoint was found that spells out the reasons they went for friend codes. Apparently they thought signing up for screen names would be too confusing for the audience, and they would be frustrated if they didn't get the ones they want. pic.twitter.com/LWzM0BRhIb

— Imran Khan (@imranzomg) May 4, 2020

A major factor s??eems to be that Nintendo reasoned user-selected screen names would ?result in a high probability of duplication errors. Considering this system was invented for the Wii (and also considering that console's overwhelming popularity with an older demographic), that's probably not far off. Registration would've been a confusing nightmare as all but one Walter doesn't understand why he can't just be called "Walter."

That's the origin of friend codes -- an inelegant solution for Nintendo's earliest days of online connectivity. But, when will they die? Nintendo admitted nearly 10 years ago that friend codes "really [aren'?t] necessary" but they're still around. File this one under: Just Nintendo Things.

The post Nintendo adopted friend codes because screen names weren’t simple and comfortable appeared first on Destructoid.

'Due to the difficulty of securing the parts necessary for repair'

The Nintendo Wii had a really good run. Released at the tail-end of 2006 the ripples of that little waggle machine can still be felt today, and the thing just refused to die. Remember, Ubisoft released Just Dance 2020 on the Wii just a few months ago,? completely snubbing th?e Wii U. It's undead!

But every era has to fully end at some point, and when a system officially becomes a piece of legacy hardware, you know the time is nigh. Announced by way of their official website, Nintendo of Japan notes that they plan to terminate all opportunities to officially repair the Wii. It's only a matter of time unti??l the other branches follow suit internationally.

Nintendo says that this is "due to the difficulty of s?ecuring [the] parts necessary for repair," and as such the final date to get your Wiis sent in to Nintendo of Japan is March 31, 2020. This all refers to the "mai??n unit," model RVL-001, seen above.

Notice regarding termination of Wii repairs [Nintendo] Thanks Mike!

The post Nintendo of Japan will stop repairing the Wii soon, as the end of an era be?gins appeared first on Destructoid.

Dallas court overturns 2017 verdict

After the launch of the Wii, Nintendo found itself up against multiple lawsuits, mostly regarding the design of its motion-sensing controller, the Wii Remote. iLife Technologies was one such plaintiff, claiming that the Wii Remote infringed upon several of its patents. In 2017 a jury found in favour of the Texan company, to the tune of $10.1 ??mil?lion.

But it looks like that chunk of change is abo?ut? to find itself back in Nintendo's pocket, as a Dallas court has overturned the verdict. Presiding Judge Barbara Glynn ruled that iLife Technologies had not been able to succinctly state what specific invention the Wii Remote was replicating, only concepts of invention.

"Overall, claim 1 encompasses a sensor that senses data, a processor that processes data, and a communications device that communicates data," noted Judge Glynn. "No fur?ther inventive concept is recited to transform the abstra??ct idea into a patent-eligible invention."

Speaking to Business Wire, Nintendo of America's Deputy General Counsel Ajay Singh said of the outcome: "Nintendo has a long history of developing new and un?ique ??products, and we are pleased that, after many years of litigation, the court agreed with Nintendo. We will continue to vigorously defend our products against companies seeking to profit off of technology they did not invent."

The Nintendo Wii launched in 2006 and would go on to take the world by storm, largely due to its motion-sensor technology and accessible games, which helped embed the console into the homes of many non-video game enthusiasts. The Wii sold over 100 million units, and is one of the most successf?ul gaming con?soles of all time.

Court overturns $10.1 million verdict ?against N??intendo [Gamasutra / The Verge]

The post Nintendo suc?cess?fully overturns $10 million Wii Remote patent lawsuit appeared first on Destructoid.

So I hope Nintendo never stops making them

Not to self: the next time you want to break out Wii Sports for an afternoon-long holiday tournament, remember to dig through the box and confirm there's a real, working, non?-chewed-up Sensor Bar.

It happened again, dang it all. I'm now on my fourth, fifth – maybe even sixth? – Wii Sensor Bar. Truthfully, I could tally up rec??eipts in my email for ??the actual total, but I sure don't want to know it.

It's never fun to hype yourself up about an old video game system only to drag it out of storage and realize something's broken or missing. It's extra unfun to come up with a quick backup plan &n??dash; "Hey, wait, the Wii U should have its own Sensor Bar. We can just use that!" – only to be foiled again.

The cat destroyed that cord too. Past-me must've been so resigned that he just gave up.

It's as if the designers at Nintendo set out to devise the most alluring cat toy ever created, and the madmen pulled it o?ff beyond their wildest hopes. They should sell these things in boutique pet stores.

We weren't able to play Wii Sports bowling on Christmas as we hoped, but next time will be different. Next time, I'll be one step ahead. I didn't just order a replacement Sensor Bar – I got two.

That'll teach 'em!

The post I’ll never stop replacing Wii Sensor Bars thanks to my cat appeared first on Destructoid.

The Last Dance

Last week saw the release of a brand new game for Nintendo Wii, as Ubisoft dropped Just Dance 2020 on the seventh-gen console. Given the Wii's incredible saturation of the market, particularly among families, it has remained a go-to for Holiday get-togethers long after the ??console generation moved on and, as such, releasing "party" titles for the platform is still a viable option to bring in a few bucks.

But it appears the party's over, as Ubisoft has confirmed that this newest entry in the hip-shaking franchise will be its final release on the Wii platform. "We would like to clarify that Just Dance 2020 will be the last Ubisoft title to release on Wii," said the publisher in a statement to GamesIndustry.biz. "We can't speak on behalf of other publ??ishers or for Nintendo."

The Nintendo Wii launched in 2006 and would go on to shift over 101 million units, achieved through its novel use of motion controls and easily accessible titles such as Wii Sports, Wii Fit and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. This is not to mention a run of great entries in popular Nintendo franchises such as Super Mario, Metroid and The Legend of Zelda.

Just Dance 2020 is available now on PS4, Xbox One??, Nintendo Switch and Wii.

Just Dance ??2020 is the last Ubis?oft title on the Wii [GamesIndustry.biz]

The post Just Dance 2020 is Ubisoft’s final Nintendo Wii release appeared first on Destructoid.

But it still has a long way to go to touch the PS2

Does it fee??l like the PlayStation 4 is the second-most successful console of all time? Well?? it is!

According to a new financial report released by Sony that goes through the fiscal quarter that ends on September 30, 2019, they've eclipsed the Wii and the original PlayStation. That number, folks, is 102.8 million, surpassing the Wii's 101.63 million and the PlayStation's (PSOne) 102.49 million. Yes, the top three selling consoles of all time are all Sony-produced (PS1, PS2, PS4 - which goes to show how haggard the PS3 was for a while). That's an insane feat, especially when you th?ink about how synonymous Nintendo is with gaming as a whole.

But really, in terms of pure home consoles, the Wii was as close to record-setting as Nintendo was going to ?get. The GameCube and Nintendo 64 are both out of the top 15 all-time system-selling list (including portables), and even the NES and SNES are sitting at 61.9m and 49.1m respectively, out of the top 10. Nintendo can rest easy knowing that they cornered the portable market, with the DS and Game Boy/GBC taking up the number two and three best-selling slots respectively. If anyone was around when the DS became a phenomenon (same with the Wii), you can easily relate to why this isn't a surprise.

As the sun sets on the PS4 and we move into the era of the PS5 fairly soon (within a year), the PS4 will continue to sell for years to come. Will it ever hit 155 million? Probably not. But with promises of cross-play at the start of the next generat?ion, ??I'm hopeful for what the future might bring.

Supplementa??l Information for the Cons??olidated Financial Results [Sony] Thanks Jeff!

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But now my guitar gently weeps

I would never argue against the greatness that was 1999 because that truly was a special year for the gaming industry. It's so great, Prince wrote a song about it 17 years before we even got there. But 2009 was no slouch either. This was the year that gave us Batman: Arkham Asylum, Minecraft, Uncharted 2, Dragon Age: Origins, and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. Each an absolute gem of a game, but there's another title from that year that had a ??much bigger impact on me. It came out on 9/9/09 and it featured one of the very best bands of all time.

It's The Beatles: Rock Band, and it came out the year the plastic instrument rhythm genre, once the crown jewel of the industr?y, started to crumble.

The Beatles: Rock Band arrived at a good time for developer Harmonix. Its previous title, Rock Band 2, absolutely exploded in 2008. Getting out the door before Guitar Hero: World Tour, the first game in that franchise to add drums and microphones, Rock Band 2 managed to sell nearly two million copies by the end of the year on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, and Nintendo Wii. While that was inevitably less than what World Tour moved -- shouldn't have waited on that Wii version, Harmonix ??-- the game's popularity only continued to grow with the hundreds upon hundreds of songs added to its catalog as paid DLC.

That was my introduction to the Rock Band experience. I'd played a bit of Guitar Hero over the years, but I wasn't much for playing lead guitar and trying to nail those epic solos. I'm far too boring of a person for that. I preferred rhythm and bass. That's what Rock Band 2 offered, so when GameStop had a good deal on a bundle, I swooped it up and started to live out my tepid rock star dreams. It would eventually become the first game I put more than 100 hours into. And I did that in a pretty short span because once The Beatles: Rock Band released, I never went back.

Prior to 9/9/09, a Beatles song had never been featured in a Rock Band or Guitar Hero game. The only reason we ended up getting it is because MTV had bought Harmonix and George Harrison's son had an interest in making it happen. And though there were some band-specific Guitar Hero games before it, the release of The Beatles: Rock Band felt like an event more than just another game release. None of its songs offered the difficulty of something like "Through the Fire and Flames" and you couldn't make your own mop-top as with the other Rock Band titles, but that really didn't matter. Even if the st??ory mode was super linear, there was just something about a group ?of friends coming together to become the Fab 4 that set it apart from those other rhythm games.

For me, gaming has mostly always been a solo experience. Outside of slumber parties in my tweenage years, it was pretty much just single-player games for this guy. The Beatles: Rock Band brought other people back into my life to game with. My roommate, who didn't particularly care for The Beatles, was the first to join me and soon I was picking up beers as co-workers stopped by our apartment to blow off steam after work with a rousing rendition of "Paperback Writer." Neighbor kids would peek in on us playing and, unlike Rock Band 2 where I only played with my roommate, I would solo The Beatles, doing my best to work my limited finger skills on song??s like "Octopus's Garden" and "Back in the U.S.S.R."

I never was able to graduate past medium difficulty, but I didn't care. The Beatles: Rock Band wasn't about becoming someone who'd make a YouTube video showing off his mad fingering skills -- all the videos of my mad fingering skills can be found on YouPorn -- it was about being together with friends and a band whose music anyone and everyone could enjoy. That was something I never got out of Rock Band 2: people I knew who didn't really play video games wanted to be a part of it. ?And if it was??n't the gameplay we were all enjoying, it was that breathtaking opening video.

While The Beatles: Rock Band rocketed to sales success, the rest of the music rhythm genre started to slowly collapse around it. Years of asking people to buy more and more plastic accessories began to take its toll. From September to November of that year, Activision and Harmonix released five different plastic instrument music games, including DJ Hero, LEGO Rock Band, and Band Hero. While DJ Hero would eventually sell more than one million copies, the entire genre would crater in 2010, leading to a long hiatus for both Guitar Hero and Rock Band as casual music fans flooded to Ubisoft's Just Dance.

With Green Day: Rock Band released in June 2010, the possibilities were just getting started. Queen, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and U2 were apparently under some form of consideration at one point to have their own entries in the series. If those were to have come out and succeeded, just think of all the other bands who might have also been worthy of their own Rock Band. Off the top of my head, I would have loved to play some Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, Beach Boys, and The Monkees.

I don't think there is a trend in gaming I mourn more than our dearly departed peripheral-based music games. Sure, it was expensive and all those guitars and drums and microphones took up space next to my television. But outside of Wii Sports, there is no other genre that brought together me and my friends for nights dedicated to gaming. Games like Rock Band made karaoke cool, and The Beatles: Rock Band was the absolute pinnacl????e of the genre for my clique.

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The festivities kick off today with a 64 Combo Contest

Back in 2015, folks were wary about the idea of a Super Smash Bros. convention basically popping up overnight. Some doubted that it would even get off the ground (it was announced right after the infamous DashCon ball pit incident, among others), but it absolutely did, and many pros attended, including Wizzrobe.

But it wasn't all about eSports, as I witnessed many families running around enjoying themselves; the kind of spirit the show has latched on t?o even as it's grown before my very eyes. In 2019, despite the event's growth, not?? a lot has changed, for the better.

Super Smash Con takes place at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly Virginia, where it's been since its inception. The gist of the event? It's a combination of a gigantic tournament that sprawls every single possible Smash game and a chill gaming convention not unlike a smaller MAGFest or EGLX (or conversely, a bigger AGDQ)

There's an arcade to play around in, an indie corner, a VR zone, vendors (I was able to pick up this awesome Snake bead art figure fo????r my collection from Geek Mythology crafts!??), live music, and free play stations (including a BYOS, or "bring your own Switch" area stocked with TVs and docks). One of my go-to activities, the gaming museum was nixed (no!) due to "a lack of foot traffic," a rep told me today.

Last year Smash Con received approximately 11,000 people over the course of its long Thursday to Sunday weekend, and a rep informed me that they expect about the same, if not a little more. In case you were wondering 10,000 is a lot, as many events that folks would consider "huge" hover around 20,000: and this is for one franchise. If you're planning on attending make a note of that, as there are enhanced security measures this year.

I got there before the doors really opened and people started pouring in, which led to some great shots without wall-to-wall attendees. I think my favorite little improvement that I've noticed over the years: the details. The signage rocks, complete with minimalist informational little silhouettes. Hanging over the venue are character flags, with notations for when a Smash Ultimate character was "established," or, the year their first game debuted. Considering the huge ro?ster?? they have to deal with now, it's a ton of work.

At this point, Super Smash Con has a history. As I walked by the hall of fame on my way out to write this piece, I noticed a few familiar names on the wall: Mew2King, Prince, Nairo, ANTi, Mango, and of course, MKLeo, who just won the Smash Ultimate crown at EVO 2019. Whether you're in attendance or are catching its many tournaments online, I hope you enjoy it.

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Time to count the Counts

Unless it was made by just one person, it's a bad idea to give all the credit for a game's success or failure to a single individual. Koji Igarashi has produced many of the best games in the Castlevania series, but he's far from the only reason that era of 'vanias is so beloved. That said, with Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, he's proven that even? without Konami's bac?king, and the entirety of his old production team behind him, he can still head up a great game. 

Personally, I love all of Iga's games in one way or another. Under his watch, a certain knowing absurdity has its way of leaking through the layers of gothic fantasy and heavy-metal horror caked on t?he public face of the franchise. That, along with his tendency to stuff a game with more unessential-but-eye-opening weapons and power-ups than many games see in a decade, are his two signature moves. With that in mind, let's do a mini-autopsy on the Igavanias we have so far and see which ones are the? best. 

_{[Note: We didn't include the two Chronicles remake collections and Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth on this list as they are based on earlier games in the series it didn't feel fair to compare them to wholly original Iga titles.]}

11. Castlevania: Judgement

This Wii arena fighter has more in common than the recently released Kill la Kill brawler than it does Symphony of the Night and other 'vanias that Iga is better known for. With motion controls and bold but alienating new character designs by Death Note's Takeshi Obata, in many ways, the feels like a Castlevania in name only. Still, its the IP's biggest crossover to date, and each character plays remarkably close to their original incarnations (Dracula tele??ports around and throws fireballs, Shanoa uses tattoo magic to kill), so it's not all bad. 

10. Castlevania: Harmony of Despair

In many ways, Harmony of Despair feels like an apology for Judgement. It's also a crossover, except this time it's a 2D, co-op, exploration platformer. It's a great idea, but in the end, it's so afraid to do anything new that it ends up being nearly as disappointing as the game it's apologizing for. Since you're shown the map of every stage before you start in, true exploration is cut to a minimum. The fact that nearly all the c??haracters and graphics are recycled also hampers the sense of discovery and surprise that makes top-ranked Igavanias so compelling. 

9. Castlevania: Lament of Innocence

The first Igavania to go 3D has a good heart, but the body is suffering from rigor mortis. It tells the story of Leon Belmont, the first in the clan to battle Dracula, all the way back in 1094. While a huge step up from the painful pair of Castlevania games on the N64, it still pales in comparison to Iga's 2D titles. It's almost like they worked so hard to make a 3D game that felt like a real Castlevania title that they forgot to do anything truly interesting with it, other than the allow you to unlock a playable pumpkin child. 

8. Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance

It's funny (in a dad-joke sort of way) that Lament of Innocence rhymes with Harmony of Dissonance, as both games suffer from a lot of the same problems. This was Iga's first Castlevania game on the GBA, and after the success of Circle of the Moon, it felt like went a little too hard into reestablishing the basics instead of giving us something we hadn't seen before. Starring Juste Belmont, one of the least notable members of the family, the game lacks the much of the beautiful character animation seen in Iga's other 2D titles, while still presenting a serviceable adventure. It also ends on a high note with a battle against a flying skull with a giant eyeball and heart attached to it?. You can even fight it ??as the original 8-bit Simon Belmont, complete with limp, who's an unlockable character in Boss Rush mode. 

7. Castlevania: Curse of Darkness

The second Igavania to go 3D is a more confident game than its predecessor. Building off the relative success of Lament of Innocence, Iga did more to make this one align with his unique vision for the series, introducing new protagonist Hector and a detailed new "devil forgery" mechanic that allows you to raise six different types of demonic familiars. With its large interconnected map, simplified battle system, greater variety of weapons and power-ups, and cameos from Castlevania III's Trevor Belmont, this is as close as Iga ever got ?to producing a 3D game that plays to his strengths as a designer. Still, there's no question his work is better in 2D, where it's easier to control the spacing of enemy encounters, tighten the pace of discovery, and keep the world feeling cohesive. Let's hope Konami brings Iga back to work on a sequel, preferably with Trevor's lightsaber whip in tow.  

6. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

This one feels like a jack of all trades and a master of none. The second Castlevania title for the DS, it's saddled with some unwieldy touch screen stuff, but nearly not as much as its precursor (which we'll get to next). Like Castlevania III, it allows you to change between two playable characters (the whip-wielding Jonathan and the magic-using Charlotte), but not in ways that feel particularly necessary. The two of them together basically do the job of one Alucard, though deciding when to tag one out for the other, or when to combine their powers together, does make for some interesting moments. Like Harmony of Dissonance, this one feels little more by-the-nu?mbers than Iga's very best games, but the art and design ?craftsmanship here is nothing to sneeze at.

5. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

I originally had this game much higher on the list, as I had just finished it was really impressed with how well it all came together. Then I went back and played through my favorite parts of all the other Igavanias, and I saw that for all its new-car smell, Bloodstained doesn't quite have what it takes to make it to the top four. The game's high points are fantastic. When it comes to displaying Iga's unique sense of humor, moments like battling a giant demon housecat, an enthusiastic lead guitarist, a buff Shovel Knight, a dead Belmont,?? and a giant puppy head are all gold-star performers. The late-game bosses and weapons are also up there among Iga's best. The rest of the game, however, is just good-to-great, which doesn't quite cut the mustard when you're up against some of the best games in the genre.

4. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

It took a lot of hand-wringing to decide if this one should go before or after Bloodstained, as it has a lot going against it. The touch-screen controlled magic spells are a pain in the neck, the anime-style portrait art is a huge downgrade from most of Iga's output, and the game's story and setting don't go too far beyond what we saw in Aria of Sorrow on the GBA. Still, seeing Soma Cruz absorb souls and struggle against the urge to become Dracula, now with DS-powered art and music, is too much fun to rank any lower. I don't know what I love more, the bonus mode that allows you to play as Alucard, Julius Belmont, and Yoko Belnades in yet another callback to Castlevania III, or the collectible soul that's basically a vacuu??m cleaner made out of a? skeleton.

3. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

A controversial entry to be sure, but I absolutely adore Order of Ecclesia. It combines my favorite aspects of the earlier Castlevanias and the Iga-produced titles that followed them in a way that brings out the best of both worlds. In retrospect, it is also like a superior prequel to Bloodstained in more ways than one, with a female protagonist who can absorb enemy abilities into her tattoos, and a story that offers up a less-than-glowing review of organized religion. Also, like Bloodstained, Iga got weird with this one, featuring monsters like the Invisible Man, a Leatherface look-a-like, and a giant screaming crab who you crush with an elevator. Unlike Bloodstained, it's all packaged with impeccable polish, featuring some of the biggest and bes?t-looking weapons and boss battles in the series. 

2. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

This is the ultimate portable Castlevania, made with the knowledge that it couldn't rely on technical power to impress, so it had to go all out in every other way. The original story of Soma Cruz, a teen from 2035 who may be the reincarnation of Dracula, Aria is so packed with inspiration that you'll forget almost instantly that it lacks the horsepower of its siblings. There are so many opportunities to grind for cool weapon drops and souls – and so much feeling crunched into each enemy encounter, each note on the soundtrack, and each area of the map – that it's become the only game in the series that I kept playing long after I'd seen and collected everything; replaying it from the start multiple times over the years ju?st to relive it. 

1. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

So if Aria is the game that's most fun to play, shouldn't it be the top game on this list? On any other list, the answer would be yes, but this is a list of Igavanias, and when it comes to what Iga does best, there is no topping Symphony of the Night. This was the first game in the series that Iga produced, and each and every game in the series that followed borrowed from in one way or another. Sometimes actual graphics are recycled, sometimes it's gameplay ?concepts or characters. Either way, its influence is still felt to?? this day, in and out of the series.

More important to this list, it's also Castlevania at its most unhinged. In most 2D exploration platformers, you might eventually unlock an item that lets you fly. In Symphony of the Night, you unlock the ability to turn into a bat and fly, then later, the ability to turn into intangible mist and fly, and then even later, the power to turn into an intangible mist that poisons enemies while allowing you to be completely invincible. In any other game, this might be overkill, but to Symphony of the Night, it's just one thread in a tapestry of excess that no one, not even Iga himself, has been able to top. The gigantic bestiary of w??onderfully rendered, memorable monsters, the huge selection of weapons, secrets, and exploits, the fantastic score, the entirely ridiculous character-power scaling, the additional playable characters of Maria and Richter; the list of things that takes it over the top is as long as your arm.

Symphony of the Night is too massive, too overflowing with creativity, charm, and content to deny. Even if it didn't deserve the throne, it would no doubt take it by force, first by turning into a giant horse-man and electrocuting all comers, then beheading any survivors with a giant flying sword, then choking-out stragglers with a sentient? blotch of poison fog. 

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Switch spin-off hits PS4 October 17

Fans of Travis Touchdown, particularly his earlier exploits, might soon have reason to dust off the old beam katana, that is if No More Heroes creator Suda51 gets his way. The esoteric game designer has teased that he is currently in talks with publisher Marvelous to potentially re-release the original No More Heroes titles on modern platforms.

Speaking in an interview with Dengeki PlayStation, Suda51 (real name Goichi Suda) was discussing the upcoming release of Travis Strikes Again for PS4 w?hen the interviewer asked him if there were any plans for Travis' Wii adventure to see the light of day again. "Yes," replied Suda51 quite succinctly. "We’re currently in talks with Marvelous to make that happen. It’?s in positive consideration, so I hope we’ll be able to make a good announcement."

No More Heroes first arrived on Nintendo Wii in the west in 2008, where it won over an army of fans with its wild style, over-the-top combat, sexy characters and bizarre narrative. This popular release was followed up in 2010 by sequel No More Heroes II: Desperate Struggle. Currently, work is being undertaken on a second sequel, expected to hit the Nintendo Switch in 2020. Hopefully Suda51 and Marvelous can come together on this idea, and we can se??e those earlier titles get a new lease of life for a whole new generation of fans.

In the meantime, Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes is available now on Nintendo Switch and will laun?ch on PS4 worldwide October 17.

Grasshopper in talks with Marvelous for No More Heroes re-release [Gematsu / Dengeki]

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Why you gotta do me like that, Nintendo?

Donkey Kong Country Returns has shown up on Nvidia Shield devices in China with full HD support. What started a few years ago following the reversal of a console ban has led to a curious partnership between Nintendo and Nvidia that sees the Big N licensing its games for release on another platform. Previously, titles like Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy were available on the device in HD, but Retro Studios' Donkey Kong revival has just shown up.

The real kicker, though, is that this new version not only renders at 1080p but axes the motion controls form the original. From out of nowhere, China has gotten the definitive version of this game and we're left with a Switch port of Tropical Freeze with Funky Kong for $60. I really do have t?o question what logic goes through?? Nintendo's minds sometimes.

To be fair, this isn't a complete remaster or anything. It simply looks like the Wii original running at a higher resolution with no updated textures. That being said, I don't think the Wii version looks all that bad and I would have gladly paid $60 for both this and Tropical Freeze in a bundle on Switch. At least someone gets to experience this, but I do hope Nintendo realizes it's leaving?? money on the table by relegating these to China only.

Wii's Donkey Kong Country Returns Is Now Playable At 1080p And 60fps? On Nvidia Shield [Nintendo Life]

[NVIDIA SHIELD] Donkey Kong Country Returns World 1 GamePlay [Chinese Nintendo via YouTube]

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'A lot of our players are children and families who continue to play on Wii'

Just Dance w?as originally released in 2009 on the Nintendo Wii. That's just "Just Dance," by the way, no year, no e??xtra subtitle, just...you get it.

From there Ubisoft moved to sequel naming conventions (2, 3, 4) and then years (2014-2020). All of that time, across the span of an entire decade, Ubisoft remained committed to the Wii. As the series expanded to other platforms in 2011 with Just Dance 3, Ubisoft never faltered with their support? of the Wii, even as other ??consoles came and went.

So it wasn't a massive surprise that Just Dance 2020 would be launching on the Wii this November. Speaking to Polygon, an Ubisoft representative said that the reasoning was easy to understand: people still play it. A rep noted, "A lot of our players are children and families who continue to play on ??Wii."

A few viral campaigns that popped up recently seemed to focus on the fact that hospitals and rehab centers still use the Wii console, but Ubisoft was quick to note that they are not a benevolent force: the audience, and thus, the money is still in the banana stand Wii.

Wii games are still being made in 2019 because people ar??e using it [Polygon]

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Will it blend?

Remember "Will it Blend?" Although it's still technically airing, the show took off in a viral fashion back at the tail end of 2006, when the Wii launched worldwide. Yes, the Wii is 13 years old now, and roughly the same age as Will it Blend. And finally, after 13 long years of getting ??random sports, s??hovelware, and party game ports, its reign may finally be coming to an end.

Alain Corre, Ubisoft EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) executive director, told The Telegraph that Just Dance 2020 was going to be it for the console. Although he can't speak for every other third party publisher, Corre called Ubisoft "the last publisher standing" for the system, and says that as far as he knows, Just Dance 2020 will be the final Wii game.

He elaborates: "We are the last game on the Wii and we are happy about that as there still a lot of fans wanting to play on it. Now we see they are going to the Switch and at the end of the year that Just Dance 2020 will be one of the best games on the Switch because there are more and more? families playing on it, as it was in the Wii times."

The Wii had an impressive run, but the PS2 really takes the cake with close to 14 years. It was released in 2000, and the last game, PES 2014, came out at the very end of 2013, nearly 2014.

"We want 5 bil??lion players" - Ubisoft's Alai??n Corre on next-gen gaming, politics and Google Stadia [The Telegraph]

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Just in time for Epic Games Store giveaway

The critically acclaimed puzzle game World of Goo is getting a free remaster on PC soon. Bringing the game up to the quality standards of the Switch port, PC owners will now be able to play the icky, gooey game at resolutions higher than 800x600. A lo??t of the artwork has been redrawn, the HUD better scales to different resolutions, there are fewer bugs on modern systems, and other quality-of-life improvements from? the Switch version are now present.

If you don't want any of these new features, an option to run the original release will be present. It will retain the original art and UI, making for a suitably 2008 experience. If that someone isn't enough, all of the encryption on the art and save files has been removed to allow for easier modding. That should allow you to tweak World of Goo to your wildest imagination.

Currently, the update is only available for people that bought the game directly from developer 2DBoy. It will be rolling out to other digital distribution platforms in the coming days, which is mighty convenient for tomorrow's free game on the Epic Games Store. World of Goo will be going free for two weeks and will likely include al??l of the remastered textures and features from the get-go. Now ??you have no reason to not play this.

World of Goo Update, 10 Years Later [Tomorrow Corporation]

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Someone get the link cables and multiple GameCubes for a Double Dash tourney

Although Mario Kart was always a social affair, the game completely changed when I first played a giant Double Dash party using the GameCube's LAN functionality. If you were equipped for it, you could rock 16-player Mario Kart in the same space.

I remember crimping and creating LAN cables in high school (through my network engineering class) for use during Double Dash and Halo sessions: it was awesome. With the rise of online play these console parties kind of faded (though I keep host??ing them whenever possible), but folks are always eager ?to bring the tradition back.

This video from MrBean35000vr shows off a 24-player mod for Mario Kart Wii, which of course is even crazier. Just a week ago the creator managed to hit 12 players with a mod, and they half-jokingly sta??ted in the YouTube comments of the below video that they're aiming for 100 racers eventually.

If you're interested, you can find MrBean35000vr's website here.

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