This Week in Nintendo History: May 16th to May 22nd
Howdy everyone. Welcome, once again, to our weekly look back at the events that make up Nintendo’s history. This week, according to my sources, is an extremely light week on Nintendo’s calendar with only three big releases coming out.
If there’s one thing Nintendo knows it’s nostalgia. They’ve proven that they, as a developer, can take something old, repackage it, add a little bit of flair to it and resell it as something new. They’ve done it time and time again. May 18th, 2009 saw the release of Punch-Out!! for Wii. This game was the first release in the franchise for nearly 20 years. It managed to blend the original releases on the NES and SNES with motion control, new visuals and a new character into one solid package that old fans instantly re-fell in love with and new fans finally got to experience. This new release saw Little Mac, once again, trying to climb the ranks of the World Video Boxing Association and become the champion. Many faces would be familiar to him, like Glass Joe, Von Kaiser, Bear Hugger, Soda Popinski and more. Some would see slight changes to their names, like Piston Hondo, previously known as Piston Honda. Some, like Disco Kid, were new. Because this game was released on Wii it also included motion control with both the Wii Remote/Nunchuk being used as your fists to box, but also the ability to dodge enemy attacks with the Balance Board. The game was developed by Next Level Games and saw both critical and commercial success. It also saw new content in the form of a Club Nintendo Bonus, Doc Louis’ Punch-Out!! where Club Nintendo Members who chose this game as their gift would finally be able to face off against their chocolate loving trainer. Next Level Games has expressed interest in doing a sequel, but no news concerning that has been announced.
May 18th, 2009 was also Virtual Console Day in North America. On that day The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask for the Nintendo 64 was released.
May 19th, 2008 was Virtual Console Day a year earlier. On that date only one title, Sky Kid for the NES was released.
Wii Fit sparked a real surge in excer-gaming for Nintendo’s newest platform. There have been a number of different companies that have tried their hand at getting people fit while playing video games. Some of been successful, like the previously mentioned Wii Fit, others haven’t been. EA brought a solid contender to the table on May 19th, 2009 with the release of EA Sports Active. This game took many of the issues with games like Wii Fit and improved on them. The biggest addition was the inclusion of a solid non-stop workout experience. You could set up work out sessions that lasted 20 minutes or more and even take part in the 30 Day Challenge. This challenge let you set goals such as a number of calories burned or sessions and it kept track of your progress over time to let you see how you are progressing. The game came with a resistance band and a leg strap that you attached to your thigh and held the Nunchuk to help with your form on some of the exercises. It sold very well for EA and sparked a sequel called More Workouts.
May 21st, 2007 was Virtual Console Day in North America. On that day Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong’s Quest originally for the Super Nintendo, Streets of Rage 2 for the Sega Genesis, and Blazing Lazers for the Turbo-Grafix 16 were released.
Our last big release of the week is one that many fans of First Person Shooter hold in high regard. While GoldenEye is considered the holy grail of FPS’s on the Nintendo 64, many people also really regard its spiritual successor Perfect Dark, as just as good a game. It was released for the system on May 22nd, 2000. The game’s single player campaign sees you, as Joanna Dark, going through 17 missions trying to stop a conspiracy set in motion by dataDyne, a rival corporation to your Carrigon Institute. The game is set in the year 2023 and the two corporations are in league with rival alien species. One of the more visual aspects of the game, not present in GoldenEye was that of visible reloading. During GoldenEye the gun was moved off the screen and you did not see the weapon being reloaded. Perfect Dark included unique reloading animations for each weapon. You also had the ability to dual wield some of the weapons. The game’s multiplayer mode featured six different gameplay scenarios with up to four people in split screen and eight computer controlled bots. Each of the game’s multiplayer features was also customizable with players being able to choose which map was used, weapons available, and victory conditions. The main character, Joanna Dark came about because the development rejected the offer to work on another James Bond game. The game’s Director, Martin Hollis, felt there needed to be more games with females as the central figure and Joanna Dark was born. Perfect Dark has sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide and was re-released, by Rare, on Xbox Live Arcade in 2010.
There you go. Those are the releases for the upcoming week. If you know of anything that we’ve missed or you know is upcoming and would like to see included in the article feel free to let us know. Leave us a comment or send me an email and we’ll make sure to include it with credit. Before we go though, we have to mention the releases that hit stores in other countries around the world.
May 17th
2002 – GameCube launched in Australia
2005 – Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (GCN, Australia)
2007 – Marvel Ultimate Alliance (Wii, Japan)
Pokemon Trozei (DS, South Korea)
May 19th
2005 – Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes A Day! (DS, Japan)
2008 – Deca Sports (Wii, Japan)
May 21st
1992 – Metroid II: Return of Samus (GB, Europe)
May 22nd
2008 – Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii, Japan)
2009 – Punch-Out!! (Wii, Europe)
Pokemon Platinum (DS, Europe)
The Great Friend Code Exchange
