Wii Warm Up

Quite a specific Wii Warm Up this morning, in that it's just for World of Goo players. Having recently started the game (remember that it only came out in Europe recently), I'm still only on the third chapter, but find myself constantly drawn back to the "World of Goo Corporation" mode. Here, players can construct huge, wobbly towers of goo from the excess goo balls they rescue in the main game.

I am transfixed by this mode (which I realize is basically Tower of Goo, the game that kicked off 2D Boy's WiiWare adventure), and will contentedly spend a couple of hours building, before inevitably watching my creations collapse. So far, I've managed a tower of around 23 meters, which I know you guys have bettered. What's the highest you've managed?

Virtual Console, Imports

Jake Hunter: Detective Chronicles on the DS didn't really set the American gaming community on fire, in terms of sales or critical response. The American debut of Workjam's detective series was marred by text errors and omitted content that caused the game to lose points with reviewers, and it just flew too far under the radar for even the Phoenix Wright audience to hear much about it.

All of that is just a roundabout way of saying this: the third Tantei Jinguuji Saburo game, with a scenario by Final Fantasy VII/VIII/X and Super Smash Bros. Brawl scenario writer Kazushige Nojima is out in Japan today, and we shouldn't expect Aksys to pay to translate it for the few people who would drop $5.

Prospects are significantly better for Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair -- so much better, in fact, that it's already out in the US and Europe, albeit on a different console. Rastan Saga 2, an awkward-looking Taito action-platformer about a big barbarian dude, is pretty much a lock as well, because Hudson is nice.

As for WiiWare, judging by Nintendo of Japan's WiiWare page at the time of writing ... nothin'.

• Tantei Jinguuji Saburo: Kiken na Futari Zengo-hen (Famicom Disk System, 1 player, 500 Wii Points)
  
• Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair (Mega Drive, 1-2 players, 600 Wii Points)
  
• Rastan Saga 2 (PC Engine, 1 player, 600 Wii Points)

VC Tuesday: Reopening the case originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink

Rumors

Okay, this is all pretty tenuous, but super interesting: apparently, a Sega of Europe employee kept a blog last year in which he revealed some stuff about NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams that he shouldn't have, well before the game's release. The posts have since been removed, but the Wayback Machine allows us to have a look back!

According to the blog post, Journey of Dreams was originally developed as an Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 title, and was hastily shunted to the Wii when the platform's success became obvious -- despite protests from director Takashi Iizuka. The 360 version was at least far enough along to be playable! The quick change in plans meant that NiGHTS' development time was effectively shortened. If you didn't like the game, you have something on which to blame the problems!

Also interesting, if this blog post is really as vintage as it looks (we don't discount some kind of Internet trickery): the blogger dropped a pretty big hint about a future Sega game, saying that Sonic Team should be freed from Sonic games, "... before they release another Sonic game with a transforming Evil 'Night' Sonic who looks like a werewolf and can stretch his arms out Dhalsim-style. It will happen, mark my words."

Imports, Screens

The first Deca Sports, while selling well, wasn't a perfect game, generally failing to achieve the (high) standards Wii owners expect from their sports minigame collections. Maybe Hudson will work to improve the quality of the gameplay in the new sequel, Deca Sporta 2. Or maybe they'll just present a bunch of new sports in the same way.

All we can tell for now is that there are new sports involved. The latest set of screens reveals ice hockey, speed skating, tennis, mogul skiing, and, amusingly, synchronized swimming. We look forward to seeing how Deca handles tennis, a sport that is already pretty well done on the Wii. And, of course, we look forward to seeing how the game makes a single-player game out of something like synchronized swimming, the whole point of which is that it is done by multiple people. That's what makes it hard! Maybe you control one member of a team and have to mirror the other swimmers' movements.

Deca Synchronized Swimming, and more new sports originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink

Born for Wii

Now that 2008 is tightly packed away into our memories and the glorious new year is unfolding before our very eyes, we're caught between looking backwards at what 2008 imparted upon us and anticipating what 2009 has to offer. Even though Born for Wii is all about looking backwards, it's hard not to be excited about what this year is bringing to the Wii: in just a couple months, the New Play Control version of Pikmin will be hitting the States, and it will be good times. But we've still got awhile to wait until then, and this week we're highlighting a sorely underappreciated Nintendo game of last generation: Super Mario Sunshine.

Mario Sunshine was released in 2002 as the first real successor to the groundbreaking Mario 64, and it was clear from the beginning that things were going to be a little different. For starters, Mario was on vacation on a tropical island, and soon found himself equipped with a water pack for cleaning up sludge. Though it was generally well-reviewed, Mario Sunshine has since become somewhat of a whipping boy in the fan community, and many claim that it didn't live up to groundbreaking pedigree Mario 64 established years earlier. Mario Galaxy managed to exceed its predecessors in virtually every way possible, but in the end, Sunshine still has things worth going back for. The wonderful tropical locale, the FLUDD-less levels, and some fun water pack puzzles all made Mario Sunshine a worthwhile endeavor, and a New Play Control version would give Nintendo the chance to polish its shortcomings and give Mario the vacation he deserved.