Nintendo Okie

Howdy Howdy everyone.  Well, the second week of January is upon us, but history never sleeps.  Let’s take a look at what happened this week in Nintendo’s past.

We start the week off strong this week as back on January 11^th, 2005 Capcom released Resident Evil 4 for the Nintendo GameCube.  Development on this game originally started back in 2001 and was going to be featured on the Playstation 2.  Due to issues that many felt led the game away from the feel of Resident Evil the game was shifted to become Devil May Cry.  Resident Evil 4 began development proper in 2001 and was initially going to be an exclusive for the GameCube.  Heavy losses incurred by Capcom in 2002 led the game to be developed for the PC and PS2 as well.

The game sees Leon S. Kennedy recruited by the government to rescue the President’s daughter, Ashley, who’s been kidnapped by a mysterious cult in Spain known as Los Illuminados.  While there Leon is infected with a mind control parasite called Las Plagas.  It was discovered that the cult had planned to infect Ashley and sent her back to the U.S. to infect members of the government there.  Leon is able to find the cure to the virus and cure himself and Ashley, but is forced to give Ada Wong a vial of the virus at gunpoint before she leaves. 

The game was a huge departure from the previous games in the series, using infected humans rather than the Undead.  Context sensitive controls allows players to interact with environments and enemies in ways not previously seen in the series.  It also was the first game to feature the over the shoulder viewpoint turning the game into more of a third person shooter.  It was, ultimately a hugely successful game for the GameCube and was ported in 2008 to the Nintendo Wii to take advantage of the Wii’s pointer functionality. 

Also released on January 11^th, 2005 was The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap for the Game Boy Advance.  This was the twelfth game in the Legend of Zelda series and was developed by Flagship.  In the game Link finds a magical hat, named Ezlo who can shrink Link down to the size of a Picori.  The Picori are a small race of people native to Hyrule and are about the size of a human thumb.  Vaati has petrified Princess Zelda and the King of Hyrule has sent Link to rescue her.  Being a child, he is able to see the Picori and this is why he is chosen to go.  It’s discovered the Ezlo was Vaati’s master and Vaati had turned him into the hat after stealing a magic hat and making a wish that he be a powerful sorcerer.  Link must find and unite four elemental artifacts that can be used to restore the Four Sword and defeat Vaati.  Minish Cap was well praised by a number of people and the main complaint against the game was that it was too short.  In Europe the game was released in a special bundle, limited to 25,000 a gold Game Boy Advance SP with the Triforce logo printed on it. 

January 12^th, 2009 was Virtual Console day in North America.  On that day only one game was released, but it was a good one, Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. 

Animal Crossing: Wild World players were given a special gift on January 13^th, 2006.  Using Wi-Fi Connection, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata send out special coins in the style of Super Mario Bros. to anyone that logged on to the game. 

Virtual Console Day came on January 14^th, 2008.  Classic game fans were able to download Pac-Attack for the Super Nintendo and Riot Zone for the Turbo-Grafix 16. 

The busies day of the week was January 15^th.  On that day in 2001 Mario Tennis was released on the Game Boy Color.  Mario Tennis was originally released for the Nintendo 64 in 2000.  This handheld version released in 2001 was the third game in the Mario Tennis franchise.  It featured a number of characters from the Mushroom Kingdom and also human characters that you could use.  This handheld version of the game also featured an RPG mode that wasn’t included in the console version.  In that mode you began as a rookie tennis player and built up skills by winning matches and through practice.  In the end your goal was to become the champion of the Royal Tennis Academy.  You could play through this mode in both singles and doubles version. 

WarioWare: Smooth Moves hit store shelves on January 15^th, 2007.  This fifth game in the WarioWare series was the first on Wii and took full advantage of Wii motion sensing abilities.  It is essentially a collection of micro-games lasting no more than about five seconds. that you played through in very quick succession.  Each of the game’s story stages featured a different character and centered around a control theme that was introduced at the beginning of the stage.  You were given a number of lives that you would lose if you failed to complete one of the games.  Being successful allowed to you face off against the level’s “boss”, which used the same mechanic to complete another game that was a bit more difficult that most of the level.  There were over 200 different games in total that used both the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk.  The game was considered one of the best party games on Wii and allowed up to 12 people to play at once by passing the controller between them. 

CSI Hard Evidence hit North American retail on January 15^th, 2008.  This was a point and click investigation developed by Telltale Games based on the hit TV show CSI.  There were five cases for players to solve using the Wii Remote to uncover clues.  Many of the shows actors were replaced by voice sound a likes.

Also on that day players were able to pick up NitroBike for Wii.  This racing game, developed by Left Field Productions allowed you to control a motocross racer similar to ExciteTruck, on of the game’s predecessors.  The game had a very arcade feel, but was universally panned for having terrible controls and many called it a slow, wreck of a game.    

January 16th, 2007 saw the release of Phoenix Wright: Justice for All that released on this day.  Please forgive me for the confusion.  This was the sequel to the original game and takes place one year after the events of that game.  It features many of the same game play elements of its predecessor, but the special techniques featured in the Rise From the Ashes case do not appear.  Instead there is a new feature called Physce-Lock that appear over a characters heart.  Pointing out evidence that will complete a line of questioning will open one of those locks, but if you choose wrong you can lose health in the process.  And Justice for All was received fairly well, but was criticized for not having many of the DS exclusive features present in the first installment.   

So there you have it folks.  Another week of history is in the books.  I hope you’ve enjoyed these looks back and if there is anything coming up that you know of and would like to see included feel free to let us know.  Leave us a comment and tell us what you think or head over to the forums to discuss anything here.