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I can't remember a single game release I ever anticipated more in my life than Pokémon Gold and Silver. By the time the game hit U.S. store shelves in 2000, I'd been rendered a shivering addict to versions Blue and Red for nearly two years. The promise of new pocket-sized monsters and new areas to explore thrilled me to the central of my very being -- and thankfully, the franchise's massive second generation did not disappoint.

I'm a decade older now, and while I've retained most of my love for the franchise since my middle school career, I worried that the recently released remakes, HeartGold and SoulSilver, wouldn't have the same intoxicating properties as their source materials. Now that I've spent about eight hours in the game, I feel confident in reporting that these remakes possess the same gripping magic as the originals -- partially due to the infusion of new elements introduced in later generations of the series, and, surprisingly, due to the bundled Pokéwalker peripheral.

This week, Majesco reported its earnings for its fiscal first quarter (which ended January 31). As you may have surmised from the recent news of its potential Nasdaq delisting, things aren't precisely where Majesco would want them to be, financially. Its net profit for the quarter was $3.8 million, showing a year-over-year decline compared to Q1 2009's $4.2 million profit.

However, the slightly smaller Q1 still seems big enough to make Majesco happy. "Majesco had a very solid first quarter driven by strong holiday sales of our Cooking Mama franchise," CEO Jesse Sutton said, "which once again delivered impressive results, and Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel." Yes, that's right, some of you bought something with the word "Squeakquel" on it.

"Our results were in-line with our internal expectations and we remain on track to deliver improved profitability for 2010," he added. "We have made significant progress in fine tuning our strategy to meet the challenges of the current operating environment." The latest announcement from Majesco, of course, is another extension of the Cooking Mama franchise, Crafting Mama.

So you want to make a video game. Most folks would tell you, "Start simple." Well, it doesn't get much simpler than the "microgames" of the WarioWare series, which are about as long as ... that pause right there. WarioWare D.I.Y. is all about building your own teeny-tiny titles -- as talked about in our recent preview of the game app game-app -- and Nintendo's attempting to show how easy it can be with a series of brief tutorial videos. We've plugged in the one above, as well as another after the break for your educational needs.

You'll notice that the guy in the videos is using a DSi XL -- we can tell you that, after seeing the hardware running D.I.Y. in person, the hefty handheld's humongous screens really are great for editing sprites and other details, as is the pen-sized stylus. Either that, or our eyesight really is getting worse.

Somehow, developer CyberConnect2 is making a game that is neither Naruto nor .hack. In fact, Solarobo for DS is a spiritual successor to CyberConnect2's 1998 PlayStation game Tail Concerto. Like Tail Concerto, Solarobo is a platforming action RPG starring anthropomorphic animals in walking mechs.

As Red Savarin, you pilot the robot DAHAK-AZI03 on bounty hunting missions. Without weapons, your only method of combat is picking up and throwing objects using the robot's arms. Solarobo is due in Japan this year from Namco Bandai. It features some kind of 1-4 player support, but the details of that have yet to be released -- as does any information about a release outside of Japan.

Marvelous's World Game Parade brings a "world game" that actually has yet to release anywhere but Japan: Akaoni Studio's Zombie Panic in Wonderland, a sort of spiritual successor to the DS's Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ. Also on Wii is one of the original fighting games, Karate Champ, in its original arcade form -- though we doubt it supports the dual-joystick interface of the original.

• Karate Champ (Arcade, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points)
• Zombie in Wonderland (WiiWare, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points)
• Pokosuka Racing (WiiWare, 1-4 players, 500 Wii Points)
• Write to Memorize: English Notebook (DSiWare, 1 player, 200 DSi Points)
• Write to Memorize: Picture Notebook (DSiWare, 1 player, 200 DSi Points)
• G.G. Series Exciting River (DSiWare, 1 player, 200 DSi Points)
• Ah! Nikaku Tori (DSiWare, 1 player, 500 DSi Points)
• Shooting Down King (DSiWare, 1-4 players, 500 DSi Points)
• Hachi-One Diver Story (DSiWare, 1 player, 500 DSi Points)

Bumps in the night. Unexplained sounds. A chill up your spine. Extreme terror. These things aren't associated with the Nintendo DSi, unless you unexpectedly leave yours behind in a taxi. But A Different Game CEO Tom Soderlund wants to bring all of that augmented paranormal activity to your DSi with Ghostwire and turn you into a ghostbuster (minus the proton packs). Now you're armed with a stylus and the power of Nintendo.

Originally conceived four years ago for Symbian-powered smartphones, the idea is to turn your handheld into a tool for communicating with the paranormal world. The built-in camera, sound meters, light meters are all a part of the experience, providing a combination of real-world and computer-generated data. Soderlund's team built an adventure game around it -- you talk to ghosts, find out what's troubling them, and either capture them or attempt to ease their pain.

Ghostwire lead developer Tom Soderlund told us at GDC that his upcoming DSi-exclusive Nintendo DS game might be coming to Apple's iPhone and Google's Android. The DSi version, published by Majesco, is set to come out near Halloween this year, and it's possible that other flavors might join it at that time.

"With the DSi we have location to some extent using the wifi chip, because we can kind of recognize when the user is in a new location, or where they are somewhere they've been before." Soderlund said, "But, we're thinking of taking to the iPhone or the Android which have more emphasis on location-based gameplay.

We hope Elvis' grave is first on the list.

This week's most noteworthy Nintendo Channel item is by far the Developer's Voice video on Cave Story above. Next week, we'll finally get to play it. How pumped are you? Like, beyond pumped? We sure hope so!

Head past the break for the rest of this week's content.

Today's Wii downloadable releases look like they'll work nicely together. When Medusa heads have murdered you enough times in Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, you can switch over to Rage of the Gladiator and smash them in first person!

Okay, so it isn't Rondo of Blood this week in Europe. Nintendo instead chose to inaugurate the latest Hanabi Festival with the pre-rendered Neo Geo shooter Ironclad and Lode Runner for NES. It's pretty novel in and of itself to have two Virtual Console games in a single week, not to mention a Neo Geo game! They're joined on Wii by the WiiWare version of Military Madness.

• Lode Runner (NES, 1-2 players, 600 Wii Points)
• Ironclad (Neo Geo, 1-2 players, 1,000 Wii Points)
• Nectaris: Military Madness (WiiWare, 1-4 players, 1,000 Wii Points)
• Elemental Masters (DSiWare, 1-2 players, 800 DSi Points)
• Pop Island (DSiWare, 1-8 players, 500 DSi Points)
• Simply Sudoku (DSiWare, 1 player, 200 DSi Points)
• Simply Mahjong (DSiWare, 1 player, 200 DSi Points)
• 4 Travellers Play Spanish (DSiWare, 1-4 players, 800 DSi Points)

Following last night's NPD report for February, Nintendo has issued a press release lauding the amazing selling power of its own products. In typical fashion, the gaming giant that got your grandma into gaming has managed to sell a ridiculous amount of DS and Wii systems in the U.S. -- 1.9 million in the first two months of 2010, to be exact.

As impressive as that 1.9 million figure is, Nintendo's ability to break its own records is even more impressive. In selling 613,000 DS units throughout February 2010, Nintendo has managed to set a new monthly record, besting the previous top-selling month of February 2009's figure of 597,000 units. It would seem that two things are certain in this life: we're all going to die one day and before that day comes, each of us is going to own nine DS systems.

With March 28 fast approaching -- that's the release date for the DSi XL -- Nintendo is hoping to further build on the success of its now six-year-old handheld. And, to think, even after all that time, the gif still hasn't gotten old.

Immediately following his well-attended GDC panel, Nintendo's Yoshio Sakamoto talked with us about (what else?) Metroid: Other M. In addition to all sorts of questions on the unique Team Ninja collaboration, we asked Sakamoto about the long-rumored Metroid Dread project and, barring a confirmation of that product, when we'd see another 2D handheld Metroid.

Joystiq: Speaking of the core Metroid development team that last worked on the GBA, there have been rumors of a game known as 'Metroid Dread' – purportedly a 2D Metroid game for DS. First question: Was 'Dread' a real project? Second question: If not, where is a 2D Metroid on DS?

Yoshio Sakamoto: It seems we get a lot of questions about Metroid Dread, especially at interviews following E3 for example. But nothing's ever been announced about this game; it's all just been rumors so far. So we never know exactly how to respond to questions like this.

While there actually was a point where some teams were meeting to discuss if it was possible to create a 2D Metroid for DS using a relatively small team size, it's not something that we ever really announced or thought of as "Metroid Dread." But whenever people bring out that idea, we recognize that the basic concept is something that we can't say never existed. But at the same time, we can't of course, make any official comment about a Metroid Dread-like project coming out.

Our main goal [with Metroid: Other M] is to, as I said earlier, first raise knowledge about the Metroid universe and the Samus character before we start to introduce different elements like online or even going back to another handheld game for the next in the series. So there's nothing coming immediately, we want to think about these new challenges first.

But, of course, we never say never.

Capcom has announced the Japanese release date for Ace Attorney creator Shu Takumi's supernatural puzzle adventure game, Ghost Trick. Japan will be able to put Sissel's spirit into a bicycle on June 24. Capcom has yet to offer a date for North American or European releases beyond simply 2010, but if the game is in a complete state by June, that bodes well for localization sometime in the fall.

However, if you can't wait that long, and you don't mind clicking through a bunch of Japanese text, you can play the TGS demo right now! Capcom posted a flash demo to the Ghost Trick site.

[Via Andriasang]

Warner Bros. Interactive has revealed that, in addition to the previously announced PS2, PSP, DS and Wii releases, it's putting Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest on PS3 -- with PlayStation Move support. The kid-friendly LOTR game will now be released this fall (delayed again!) on all five platforms, with the Wii version developed by Headstrong Games (yes, that Headstrong Games) and the others by TT Fusion. Of course, the Wii and PS3 versions will be the only ones with motion control, and they will also be the only versions featuring two-player co-op (with the second player controlling Gandalf).

The PS3 version won't be an exact port of the Wii one, but it's the same idea -- a game for which the Wii was originally the lead platform, now spreading to the PS3 thanks to the existence of a very Wii-like motion controller. It may be the first, but this is definitely not the last time we'll see this!