defend-your-castle posts(Subscribe to this feed)

Touch Ruminations: Serious business

by David Hinkle { Feb 13th 2009 at 4:59PM }

In the latest edition of Touch Ruminations, former DS and Wii Fanboy Lead David Hinkle talks about how lousy Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop looks and why the Wii needs to be taken more seriously. Basically, he just rants about stuff. The opinions expressed here belong to the author and don't necessarily reflect those of Joystiq, Weblogs Inc. or its affiliates.

You've seen it, right? Horrible, I know. How does something like this even happen? I don't have all of the answers, but being an individual that has worked in the Wii trenches for years now, I can tell you one thing: this isn't helping the Wii to get the respect it deserves.

Continued →

Konami digs up screens of WiiWare's Sandy Beach

by Alexander Sliwinski { Sep 15th 2008 at 6:00PM }

Nobody likes crabs. In various contexts, they're just a pain. So, perhaps Konami and developer Frozen Codebase are tapping into some perfect hatred here with WiiWare title Sandy Beach.

Beyond the screenshots (found in the gallery below), we did get in touch with the game's producer, Eric Francksen. He tells us there are two modes in the game: One is just "free play" where players build their own castles, while the other is "crab battle." Sandy Beach's crab battle game is reminiscent of Rampart or Defend Your Castle. Players are tasked with surviving waves of pirate crabs, then rebuilding and adding defenses between waves. We were told that Konami will reveal a release date at a later time.

Gallery: Sandy Beach (WiiWare)

Konami reveals Sandy Beach for WiiWare

by David Hinkle { Sep 15th 2008 at 10:50AM }

Click image for more sandy beaches

Konami's upcoming WiiWare game may look a bit like another WiiWare game. That's right, we're talking about Defend your Castle and without any kind of fact sheet or information, we're thinking Konami's game Sandy Beach is just that, only with crabs. And it also takes place on a beach.

Be sure to hit up our gallery below for more screens and we'll be sure to update you all with info as soon as it comes along.

Gallery: Sandy Beach

[Via Siliconera]

VC Friday: Yee-haw!

by Chris Greenhough { Aug 1st 2008 at 11:00AM }

Light gun game Wild West Guns rides into town the European Wii Shop today for its worldwide debut, complete with Zapper compatibility, six levels, four-player support, and a whole host of mildly offensive steretypes. Truth be told, it looks quite fun in the post-break trailer -- certainly a lot more engaging than, say, Target Terror. Far more importantly, it gave us an excuse to post a Will Smith video. Wicky, wicky!

Defend Your Castle has also finally arrived, and is totally worth a look.

Wild West Guns -- WiiWare -- 1000 Wii Points
Defend Your Castle -- WiiWare -- 500 Wii Points

Swing past the break for videos of each.

Gallery: Defend Your Castle

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Wii Fanboy reviews the WiiWare launch lineup

by Ross Miller { May 13th 2008 at 10:00PM }

Sure, Microsoft may be living it up with the Xbox 360 Spring Showcase, but let's not forget about Nintendo's WiiWare launch this past Monday. Our friends at Nintendo Wii Fanboy have been churning out reviews and impressions to give you an idea of what to expect.

	Lost Winds (review) "Without a doubt, LostWinds is like finding a diamond-encrusted Hummer in your box of corn flakes." (Gallery)
	Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King (impressions) "Several hours later, since I was still playing ... Without my even realizing it, My Life as a King had gone from boring to fun." (Gallery)

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Wii Warm Up: Rate WiiWare

by David Hinkle { May 13th 2008 at 8:00AM }

So, WiiWare launched yesterday! We were all excited to see what we'd be getting, and we even found the time to check out a pair of the more casual titles on offer. But, who cares what we think, we're just a bunch of dumb jerks on a gaming blog.

We want to know what you think. Did you download any of the games? Read some impressions? What did you think of the overall WiiWare launch line-up? And, to make it simple, just go ahead and assign WiiWare's launch a score, like we do with our reviews (keep it between 1-10, makes it easier).

Wii Fanboy Review: Defend Your Castle

by David Hinkle { May 12th 2008 at 2:00PM }

Click to see more screens from Defend Your Castle

The browser game that many of you have tried at one time or another has been revamped for Wii and launched alongside WiiWare earlier this morning. After spending a good bit of time with the game, we're confident that we can present a decent review of the title. With a price point of 500 Wii points, as well as a fairly addictive game just lurking beneath that small admission price, we're happy to report that Defend Your Castle is a good game and well worth your small sum of money.

Gallery: Defend Your Castle

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WiiWare goes live!

by Chris Greenhough { May 12th 2008 at 10:15AM }

As we anticipated, Nintendo waited until the last possible moment to reveal the details on WiiWare's U.S. launch. In a press release which describes WiiWare as the "most democratic environment in industry history," Nintendo confirmed the six titles that launched with the download service today -- and it looks like the leaked information from the weekend was spot-on:

LostWinds -- 1000 Wii Points
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King -- 1500 Wii Points
Pop -- 700 Wii Points
Defend Your Castle -- 500 Wii Points
V.I.P. Casino: Blackjack -- 700 Wii Points
TV Show King -- 1000 Wii Points

So it's finally up -- hurray! Monday mornings haven't felt quite this optimistic in some time! Have any of you lot already downloaded yourself some WiiWare?

Gallery: LostWinds

Gallery: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King

[Via press release]

Nintendo reveals WiiWare launch List

by Candace Savino { May 10th 2008 at 2:30PM }

The North American WiiWare launch is almost upon us, and instead of the stealth releases that we thought were coming, Nintendo's press release of WiiWare games debuting this Monday (along with their point values) was recently leaked. While we can't be sure this list is 100% valid, it looks like we can expect the following:

Defend Your Castle -- 500 Wii Points
Pop -- 700 Wii Points
V.I.P. Casino: Blackjack -- 700 Wii Points
TV Show King -- 1000 Wii Points
LostWinds -- 1000 Wii Points
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King -- 1500 Wii Points

Although we're disappointed by the lack of Dr. Mario, this looks like a pretty solid launch list to us. It'll be difficult to pick and choose exactly which titles we want, but there are definitely some that stand out more than others.

How about you? Do you plan on downloading any of the above, or are you going to wait for impressions and reviews first?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

XGen defends their work on Defend Your Castle

by David Hinkle { Apr 2nd 2008 at 12:45PM }

IGN has a rather extensive interview, along with other media, for WiiWare title Defend Your Castle. We don't have to tell you how good this new downloadable title is looking, so when we hear the developers behind it made a conscious effort not to do a quick port of the PC Flash game and instead are working to completely overhaul it, adding in 4-player co-op and the new graphical style we all love, we fall in love.

XGen Studios, your chocolates and roses are in the mail.

Gallery: Defend Your Castle

Defend Your Castle trailer storms the Internet

by JC Fletcher { Mar 21st 2008 at 10:30AM }

We weren't exactly hard to convince, since we already loved the "sweded" look of the Wii Ware version of Defend Your Castle, but we think that had we been in the "do not want" camp, seeing the game in motion would have melted our hardened hearts. Every interface is made to appear as if it was crafted from household items.

The temple, where you convert enemies into followers, is a paint can. The battering rams are popsicle sticks. The cursor is a bread clip. It's as if you made a found-art collage depicting a Wii game! And then, uh ... made it move and stuff.

Gallery: Defend Your Castle

Wii Warm Up: Wii Ware Warm Up

by JC Fletcher { Mar 14th 2008 at 9:00AM }

Wii Ware's coming! And it's bringing games -- which is kind of the whole point of the thing. As we approach the launch of the service, new game announcements are coming at an increasing rate. There's already a ton of stuff to look forward to.

What's your most anticipated purchase? Besides Major League Eating, of course. Perhaps one of the multiplayer puzzle games, like Tetris, Dr. Mario and Bacillus Extermination (likely to be called Virus Buster as it is in Brain Age 2)? A vaguely strategic game like Defend Your Castle or Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King? The bubble wrap game? Whatever the Pokemans thing is?

Wii Warm Up: Remade for Wii Ware

by JC Fletcher { Mar 3rd 2008 at 9:00AM }

The really awesome new look of Defend Your Castle got us thinking about Flash games. With the budgets that come with the possibility of sales, Flash game developers are able to expand and revamp their games significantly for the Wii Ware audience. Defend Your Castle looks great, and we wouldn't mind seeing more.

Which Flash games would you like to see made for Wii Ware? What would you pay five bucks for, with potential motion controls and graphical upgrades?

Defend Your Castle: new awesome date, new awesome look

by JC Fletcher { Feb 29th 2008 at 3:00PM }

XGen Studios has revamped the look of Defend Your Castle significantly for its May 12th Wii Ware release, swapping out the, well, "Flash game" look of the original for a lovely "made of junk" theme. The castle has become a set of construction-paper rectangles decorated with paper flags on toothpick poles, and the enemy invaders have become doodles with button heads. Our absolute favorite detail is the user interface: the health bar is now made of fabric scraps.

We hate to make the comparison to a not-particularly-awesome game, but this style was used to excellent effect in the Napoleon Dynamite DS game. The art was by far the best thing about that game, whereas this has already been proven to be a pretty good game.

Gallery: Defend Your Castle

Defend your Castle coming to WiiWare

by Scott Jon Siegel { Feb 26th 2008 at 10:55PM }

Now that we have a definite launch date for Nintendo's WiiWare service, we can expect the software announcements to start rolling in. Up to bat today is a WiiWare version of the flash game Defend your Castle, a little literally-titled affair where players must... defend their castles.

Defending one's castle can be as easy as picking up and throwing oncoming enemy stick-figures with the cursor, but later levels unlock more devious means of dispatching would-be castle crashers. The WiiWare version will feature updated graphics, and will be available in "early 2008" for 500 Wii Points.

That said, check out XGen Studios' original flash game, and let us know if you think a WiiWare version will be worth the admittedly-modest price of admission.

[Via Wii Fanboy]