Wii Rally

Apparently it’s “Krazy Kidnapping week” on the Virtual Console. In all 3 of this weeks VC games a common video game theme binds them all. “Insert bad guy name here” has taken “Insert victim’s name here” and you must venture through X many stages to get him/her/them back.
Sound familiar? Well it’s just the most used plot for a video game ever. Enjoy!

Mighty Bomb Jack (NES, 500 Wii Points)
Final Fight (Super NES, 800 Wii Points)
Ordyne (TG-16, 600 Wii Points)

When Castlevania dropped on to the Euro VC some time ago I was sure that would be coming to North America the following Monday. I set up the post and even found this awesome picture but that Monday came and went with no Castlevania well today I finally get to use the post I started writing weeks ago.

3 more titles for the VC today. A Konami classic, a nicely challenging action-adventure and what appears to be another MegaMan clone.

Mystical Ninja is totally worth the 800 points. Trying to finish a game like this long before sites like GameFAQs were around was just short of torture but it was worth it to see that ending scene. Although if running around feudal Japan isn’t your thing you can always save the world from Dracula and his army of the undead. See there’s something for everyone.

Castlevania (NES, 500 Wii Points)
The Legend of the Mystical Ninja (Super NES, 800 Wii Points)
Shockman (TG16, 600 Wii Points)

Good morning everyone. It was a stellar weekend here in Canada the sun was shining, the birds were singing it was beautiful outside. So of course you couldn’t ask for a better weekend to stay in and play video games. Much playing was done by me and Jen. I finished the Godfather: Blackhand edition (Review coming soon) Jen got the first good chunk of Super Mario done as well. So far I’m digging the new platform heavy baddy stomping gameplay but the story seems really long winded and nonsensical at times. Still there are a few good quips like the villainous Count Bleck’s maniacal laugh “Bleh he he he he he BLECK!”

Anyway enough friendly banter I almost forgot that it’s Virtual Console Monday.

The old standard of 3 new releases should be available by noon today (9am pacific). Nothing particularly exciting but with the release of Gradius III that means that there is now over 5 different side scrolling space based shooters on the virtual console for you to enjoy. Oh Goody, let me get my credit card.

Battle Lode Runner® (TG16, 600 Wii Points)
Wonder Boy in Monster World (Genesis, 800 Wii Points)
Gradius III (SNES, 800 Wii Points)

Fighting Game Fans Rejoice!

Earlier this year I reported on the possibility of NeoGeo games coming to the Japanese Virtual Console. Now Joystiq and IGN are reporting that these game may not only be available to those lucky ducks in Japan. IGN interviewed SNK Playmore USA President Ben Herman where he revealed that the games have the definite possibility of beinf made available to Wii gamers the world over.

SNK is known for it’s high quality arcade games and really tight fighters. Now according to Nintendo’s Japanese website the NeoGeo and MSX games are marked as conditional. The condition being that they sell. I could be wrong on that seeing as how I can’t read Japanese but still remember that your most powerful weapon as a gamer is your credit card. So if you want to see more NeoGeo on the VC be sure to download the first batch when they become available sometime this summer.

Now who wants to guess who is going to make the first Arcade style joystick for use with the Wii Remote?

Ladies and gentleman welcome to the bout of the century. In this corner wearing the black trunks with the green trim the heavyweight champion of the of the wooooooorld! MR. DREAM! and in this corner Little Mac.

Punch Out!! Finally hits the North American I’d love to stay and chat but I have I have Wii points to buy.

Oh yeah some other games came out today too.

Bonk’s Revenge (TG-16, 600 Wii Points)
Virtua Fighter 2 (Genesis, 800 Wii Points)
Punch Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream (NES, 500 Wii Points)

So I am relaxing watching The Simpsons when out of the corner of my eye I see my Wii starts to glow that familiar and hypnotic blue indicating that I have a message. So I start her up thinking it’s just some random message from one of my friends but it’s from my best friend Nintendo. A new version of the Wii Internet Channel is available today.

If you already have the trial version of the software than you are just quick system update and a download away from full browser goodness. What’s new? You ask why I already told you that so lets dig into the Wii Rally archives and find that post. Here ya go!

You know you have to hand it to the Wii a whole new piece of software and I had it up and running in less than 10 minutes with a 3 MB/Sec connection. Probably would have been quicker if I had an ethernet connection but still only WiFi for now which is fine because I hate wires.

Something small I noticed right off the bat was that there were some new additions to my favorites list aside from the obvious Wii Rally Viidelectrix and WiiCade I noticed that Google and Yahoo were now among my favorite web pages. Very sneaky guys I knew I should have called Nintendo and asked them to put Wii Rally in every one’s favs. I guess hindsight is always 20/20

What the hell man? I mean come on! Happy Easter indeed. I can deal with the Wii game drought that’s not supposed to be happening. I can even deal with last week’s Japanese Virtual console getting 5+ games. But I will not stand for this complete lack of quality. There are some stellar franchises that just seem to be M.I.A where’s the Mega Mans, the Castlevanias the Marios the Metroids? Nope we’re stuck with Alex Kid and the Enchanted Castle. BB over at 1P Start has been pointing out the weakness in the weekly line ups for sometime and at first I though he was being awfully hard but I’m ready to hitch the Rally train to his band wagon. With such an amazing library at their finger tips why are we subject to such crap before we get the good stuff.

Galaga (NES, 500 Wii Points)
BRAVOMAN (TG-16, 600 Wii Points)
Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle (Genesis, 800 Wii Points)

The Cornerian army WANTS YOU! To help save the galaxy from the evil Andross and his Venomous forces.

That’s right everybody the long awaited Star Fox 64 hits the North American Virtual Console today. Star Fox 64 is touted as being the best in the Star Fox series and I would tend to agree despite the nostalgic feel of the “FX Chip” powered graphics of it’s SNES predecessor. But as they say on the Facts of Life “You take the good, your take the bad and there you have” the worst TMNT game made. Yup TMNT for the NES drops today as well. I’m still waiting for TMNT 2 a.k.a the Arcade game which Xbox360 owners got a few weeks ago. Still no Punch Out!! though…. damn!

Star Fox 64 (N64, 1000 Wii Points)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES, 500 Wii Points)
Dragon’s Curse (TG-16, 600 Wii points)

One of the features of the Wii I like to hold over the heads of my Xbox 360 counterparts is that Virtual Console updates normally feature more than one title per week often 2 or 3. The Xbox Live Arcade usually only gets 1 title a week, this week the Virtual Console breaks the mold. This week Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire for the SNES was released but why not Romance of the Three Kingdoms V or IX what about II or even VII? Seeing as how developer Koei Co. has made 9 games in the RTK series talk about milking a series for all it’s worth. Normally the honor of being a lone VC release is reserved for 1st party big name titles like Zelda: Ocarina of Time and its ilk but I guess some random game in a never ending series buy a lackluster developer is just as good.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire (SNES, 800 Wii Points)

Nintendo has decided to forgo the press release this week (at least at press time) but that doesn’t mean that there is no Virtual Console update for today. Like I’ve said in the past the European Virtual Console update is normally indicative of what will be hitting North American Wiis the following Monday, this week is no different. Today the NA VC give a fond hello to Splatterhouse and Beyond Oasis. No sign of the Ice Climbers though so I guess they’re either off chasing giant birds, scaling the alps or hanging with Chad Lowe. I’d watch out for that Chad Lowe guy he tried to kill the president and blame it on Renfield. Now what’s up with that?

*UPDATE*Excitebike (NES, 500 Wii Points)
Splatterhouse (TG-16 600 Wii Points)
Beyond Oasis (Genesis, 800 Wii Points)

*UPDATE-1* I added Excitebike to the list. Thanks Brill