Nintendo Okie

Howdy Howdy everyone, and welcome, once again, to our weekly look back at the events that make up the history of a gaming giant.  This week is fairly light on releases, but we’ll see what’s going on despite that fact. 

Up first this week is a movie tie in game for one of the biggest movies of 2008.  While Iron Man was hugely successful at the box office, the video game counterpart to the movie proved to be less successful.  The plot of the video game, released on May 2^nd, 2008 for Wii and DS, followed that of the movie, with Tony Stark going to Afghanistan to demonstrate a new weapon, getting kidnapped and coming up with the Iron Man suit in order to escape.  The game was received very poorly with many outlets citing terrible controls, bland graphics and overly repetitive gameplay.  Online reviews site Gamespot went so far as to call the game the “Worst Game Everyone Played”.

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat was one of the more unique games to be released on the Nintendo Gamecube back in 2005.  Nintendo released a few games over 2009 under their New Play Control label.  This line of games was designed to get people playing some of the GameCube games they might have missed.  New Play Control! Donkey Kong Jungle Beat was among those games and it released on May 4^th, 2009.  When it originally released the game used the GameCube’s bongo controller.  The Wii version replaced those with a more traditional control scheme using the D-pad to control movement.  The game was a traditional side scrolling platform style game, but in addition to just finishing the level you were trying to get medals based on how many bananas you collected during the level.  More bananas meant a better medal.  These didn’t serve any purpose in terms of gameplay outside of letting you know how well you did in the level.  There were some changes made to this version of the game to go along with the new control scheme.  The original release had players clapping to attack.  This was a 360 degree attack around DK, but attacks in the NPC version were directional and could be controlled by the player with the analog stick.  Also a more traditional health meter was added in the form of hearts at the top of the screen. 

Virtual Console day came on May 4^th, 2009 and on that day Tower Toppler, originally for the Commodore 64, was released. 

The Touch Generations line of games for the Nintendo DS was designed to help get people who might not be comfortable playing video games introduced to the system.  One of those games in that series was Crosswords DS, released on May 5^th, 2008.  The game featured over 1,000 crossword puzzles to solve.  There were three different types of puzzles available to solve in the game; traditional crosswords, word searches and anagrams.  Each of these puzzles also had multiple difficulty levels.  Players used the stylus to select a box and then that box would enlarge allowing you to write the desired letter.  On lower difficulties incorrect letters would appear in red making it easier to solve puzzles.  The large number of puzzles available and the intuitive control scheme made this a very successful game among critics and gamers alike, making it one of the best puzzle games available on the Nintendo DS.

May 5^th, 2008 was Virtual Console Day in North America.  On that day Pokemon Puzzle League for the N64, and Renegade for the NES were released. 

Guitar Hero has been a hugely successful franchise since its first release back in 2005.  It’s seen numerous entries into the series and even a number of band specific releases.  One of those band specific games, released on May 5^th, 2009 was Guitar Hero: Metallica.  This release was based on the Guitar Hero World tour game and so it compatible with all the instruments from that game including the guitar, microphone and drums.  Also included with this game was an additional bass pedal for the drums.  Guitar Hero: Metallica included a new difficulty called Expert Plus which significantly increased the difficulty for the drummer and took advantage of the second bass pedal giving players greater ability to mimic the signature double bass style of drummer Lars Ulrich.  GH:M featured 28 original songs from Metallica as well as 21 other songs hand picked by the members of the band.  Guitar Hero: Metallica was very positively received with many people saying it was a great tribute to one of the most popular heavy metal groups of all time. 

Castlevania has been a hugely successful franchise for Konami and seen numerous releases across numerous platforms.  The third game to be released on the Game Boy Advance was Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, released on May 6^th, 2003.  The game, while not a huge success in Japan, was a different story here in America where it sold quite well  The game, set in 2035, follows Soma Cruz, a high school student, as he battles people who are trying to acquire Dracula’s power.  Aria of Sorrow introduced a new feature to the franchise, known as the Tactical Soul system.  This allowed you to absorb the souls of fallen enemies in order to gain access to new abilities previously unavailable.  Those new abilities would fall into one of four categories, Bullet, Guardian, Enchant and Ability.  Also a new mode called New Game + allowed anyone who had completed the game to play through it again with any abilities and equipment previously obtained.  Aria of Sorrow was an attempt by the development team, led by Koji Igarashi, to take the game in a new direction by placing it in a future setting.  While taking the game in a new direction they attempted to keep many familiar elements in place to keep the feel of the series in tact.  Aria of Sorrow is one of the few Castlevania games to get a direct sequel, this time with the release of Dawn of Sorrow on the DS.

Our last game release of the week features a very famous name.  That of Indiana Jones director, Steven Spielberg.  Boom Blox was released on May 6^th, 2008 and was a game designed that the director could play with his kids.  It featured over 400 competitive and cooperative puzzle levels that had players using different objects such as balls and laser beams to knock down different types of blocks to score points.  The Wii Remote was used to mimic the throwing of balls during some of the levels and the pointer was used in others as a laser gun.  Different blocks had different properties, some were labeled with points while others acted as poison or disappeared upon contact with other objects.  The game was also inhabited with cute block shaped creatures that would interact with each other sometimes to humorous effect.  The game also featured a level editor that players could use to create their own puzzles and share them with friends through the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.  Boom Blox was praised for its ingenious puzzles and insane replay value. 

May 7^th, 2007 was Virtual Console Day in North America and on that day Mighty Bomb Jack for the NES, Final Fight for the Super Nintendo and Ordyne for the Turbo-Grafix 16 were released.

So that’s it for this week.  Those are the biggest releases of the week coming up.  As always if you have anything we left out or anything you know of coming up please feel free to let us know and we’ll include it.  Also, before we go, we have to mention all of the releases that happened outside the United States.

May 3^rd

2002 – GameCube, Luigi’s Mansion, Pikmin (GCN, Europe)
2003 – The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GCN, Europe)
2007 – Elite Beat Agents, (DS, Aus)

May 4^th

2007 – Eledees (DS, Europe)
2008 – Pinball Hall of Fame: Williams Collection (Wii, Europe)

May 6^th

2005 – Yoshi Touch ‘n Go (DS, Europe)

May 8^th

2003:  Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA, Japan)
2007:  Bomberman Land (Wii, Japan)