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ESRB Hints At Street Fighter II On Virtual Console
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: CAPCOM, Fighting, Nintendo, Retro, Wii,
1up.com has done a little trolling through the ESRB database and found some interesting titles. Games like Kirby’s Adventure and Kid Icarus appear in the database for the Wii, but a new entry, Street Fighter II: The World Warrior is listed. While this title could be for something other than the Virtual Console, this seems unlikely. Hopefully, having Capcom on board will mean that gamers will get to see other classic titles like Bionic Commando.
Read More 
| 1up
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Four New Titles In US Virtual Console
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo, Retro, SEGA, Wii,
Nintendo today made four new Virtual Console titles available in the US. The titles include Ice Hockey for the NES at 500 points, Gunstar Heroes and Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine for the Genesis at 800 points each, and Alien Crush for the TurboGrafx16 at 600 points. The titles are a decent mix; the most interesting is probably Alien Crush, a classic pinball release. Mean Bean Machine, based around the Puyo Puyo play mechanic may also interest puzzle game fans.
Read More | Nintendo
First PS1 Games Show Up On US Playstation Store
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, PlayStation 3, PSP, Retro,
According to a post from the E-mpire forums, the first batch of original Playstation games for the PSP is now available from the Playstation store. Those gamers that have managed to score a Playstation 3 to go with the PSP will be able to download one of five PS1 games for $5.99. The games, and file sizes are:
- Crash Bandicoot (469MB)
- Cool Boarders (283MB)
- Hot Shots Golf 2 (157MB)
- Syphon Filter (385MB)
- Tekken 2 (535MB)
The pricing for the games certainly seems aggressive compared to offerings Nintendo, particularly with Genesis and Nintendo 64 games running at $8 and $10 US on the Virtual Console.
Read More | E-mpire Forums
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Nintendo To Add New Virtual Console Titles Monday
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo, Retro, Wii,
On December 4, Nintendo will release four new titles for their Virtual Console game service. The releases include Donkey Kong Jr. for 500 Wii Points, Victory Run for the TurboGrafx16 for 600 Points, and Columns and Ristar from the Sega Genesis for 800 Wii Points each. The games will be available starting at 9 AM Pacific time, and Nintendo has promised that each Monday after this will also feature new Virtual Console titles. While the previous selection of Virtual Console titles has been a little uneven in terms of quality, having new releases every week may mean that gamers will get to see more of their past favorites or forgotten cult classics a little sooner.
Read More | Nintendo
Contra on Xbox Live is Really, Really Broken
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Action, Adventure, Mods/Hacks, Retro, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Arcade,
First a laggy Street Fighter II, now a non-playable version of the nearly-20-year-old Konami classic Contra... What’s next Xbox Live, a Pong clone that runs at 5 frames per second while installing spyware on every computer in your house??!?
Wired’s Gamelife is among the first to note the ridiculous problems that the Xbox 360’s version of Contra has been seeing. According to their story (and the pictures above, to prove it!), online multiplayer for the title is completely, unequivocally broken. Granted, getting any game to work well online is hard, but if we’re expected to drop $4 for a 20 year old game that we could get free by *other means*, shouldn’t we at least expect some quality in the production??
Click the jump for the full transcript documenting Contra‘s woes.
Click to continue reading Contra on Xbox Live is Really, Really Broken
It looks like Sony’s quirky “Simon” variant, PaRappa The Rapper is coming to the PSP. According to a report from Famitsu, the game’s graphics will be re-formatted to accommodate the PSP’s wider screen, and a wireless multi-player mode will be added. Up to 4-player multi-play will be supported. When each gamer has a copy of the game, any of the stages from 1 through 6 can be played via multiplayer, and it looks like with one copy, gamers can share stage 1. Merely looking at the screenshots online is enough to get those crazy songs stuck in a gamer’s head. The game is targeted for a winter release date in Japan.
Read More | Famitsu
The Game|Life blog over at Wired News has some quick updates to what was seen at the news conference today. Speaking with Perrin Kaplan of Nintendo, at the very least, first party titles from Nintendo should not be region locked. She suggested that there may be an optional region lock available for publishers though. Also, when discussing the Virtual Console, it appears that downloads will be tied to an account, similarly to the way they are with Xbox Live. In the case where a Wii has been broken, gamers will be able to re-download their Virtual Console titles. Hopefully, Nintendo can get the DRM right for these cases. Kaplan also confirmed that the Wii will not support storage expansion via USB hard drives at launch, and will be initially restricted to SD media.
Read More | Game|Life
Apple Releases PacMan, Tetris, Zuma for iPod: $4.99 a pop
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Corporate News, Hardware, Portable/Mobile, Retro,
Well, it looks as though all of those rumors of Apple trying to hire games industry professionals may not have been all that far off. Today, during the “It’s Showtime” keynote at the Yerba Buena center in San Francisco, Apple announced that they will be releasing iPod-compatible versions of Tetris, Zuma, Mah-Jong, Texas Holdem, Cubis 2, and other games on the iTunes store for $4.99 a piece.
It’s not clear whether these games will only be compatible with the iPod phat yet, or if they’ll also work with the nano. However, Steve J did mention that all of the games should be compatible with the 5G video iPods y’all already have. This is good news, since Apple also announced during their presentation that they’re updating the whole iPod product line - including a “5.5G” video iPod with 60% brighter screen, iPod nanos in colored aluminum enclosures, and a re-designed iPod Shuffle. We’ll update this story with more information as it becomes available on the Apple website.
UPDATE 1: Apple’s website has been updated, indicating that the iGames are compatible only with the 5G iPod or the newly-released 60% brighter 5.5G iPods. iPod nanos are not supported. We’ve downloaded some of these games from the iTunes Store (went very smoothly - this is Apple after all) and will have full reviews up shortly. It’s looking like at least some of these are worth the $5.00 download.
Read More | AppleInsider
ESRB Leaks Sega Virtual Console Titles?
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo, Retro, SEGA, Wii,
It looks like the ESRB has let slip information on seven of Sega’s Virtual Console titles for the Nintendo Wii. Codename Revolution found the titles in the ratings database by searching on game ratings for Wii games. The seven titles listed are:
- Altered Beast
- Ecco The Dolphin
- Columns
- Golden Axe
- Ristar
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Toe Jam & Earl
Gamers might notice some slight overlap between this list and the previously rumored titles for the Virtual Console from Play-Nintendo, however, Outrun was on Play-Nintendo’s list but not in the ESRB database. And the ESRB database has information on more Genesis titles. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the Play-Nintendo list is incorrect, but certainly more credence must be given to the ESRB.
Read More | ESRB via Codename Revolution
Rumor: Virtual Console Launch Titles
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, Nintendo, Retro, Wii,
Game site Play-Nintendo has a list of what they claim to be work-in-progress listing of launch titles for Nintendo’s Virtual Console service. The list is an interesting mix of titles for the original NES, the Super Nintendo, the Nintendo 64, and a couple of Sega Genesis titles. However, the list might be too interesting, since it reads almost like a fan’s dream list of classic games. The appearance of Mortal Kombat on the list is interesting, but with no information about the version, the quality of the title is up in the air. Duck Hunt could be interesting, depending on whether or not light gun support is mapped to the Wii controller. Play-Nintendo’s source also indicated that there were to be at least five new titles to launch with the Virutal Console service. It’s hard to put a lot of weight behind this listing, since Nintendo is unlikely to make any confirmation of this report, but the list does give gamers an inkling of the potential of the Virtual Console.
Read More | Play-Nintendo
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