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NintendoWare Weekly: Tales of Monkey Island, Bookworm, The Combatribes

by David Hinkle { Nov 30th 2009 at 12:00PM }

If you thought last week's NintendoWare Weekly update was huge, well ... you'll probably think the same thing about this week's update! That's mostly because Nintendo provides quite the overweight offering this time, with a total of ten new titles available for your post-Thanksgiving download. Loosen that belt and make some room for more by heading past the break for the full list of this week's releases.

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European Nintendo downloads: Banana fighting street

by JC Fletcher { Nov 6th 2009 at 12:10PM }

Finally, the wait for Fighting Street is over for Europe! We suppose it's timely, given that a new Street Fighter game is in the news now, but ... it's still Fighting Street. The continuation of Tales of Monkey Island should be a bit more welcome, as should the DSiWare Bomberman Blitz.

Manic Monkey Mayhem on WiiWare sounds like it could be great (monkeys throw bananas to knock each other off of platforms), with online play -- but, of course, we always feel guarded about unknown WiiWare games. But monkeys! We look forward to hearing impressions.

As for the rest, Uno sounds like Uno and SUDOKU sounds like sudoku, but louder.

Fighting Street (Turbografx-16 CD-ROM, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points)
Manic Monkey Mayhem (WiiWare, 1-4 players, 1,000 Wii Points)
Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 3: Lair of the Leviathan (WiiWare, 1 player, 1,000 Wii Points)
Uno (WiiWare, 1-4 players, 500 Wii Points)
A Little Bit of ... All Time Classics: Family Favorites (DSiWare, 1 player, 500 DSi Points)
Bomberman Blitz (DSiWare, 1-8 players, 500 DSi Points)
SUDOKU (DSiWare, 1 player, 200 DSi Points)

NintendoWare Weekly: Zombies Axed My PictureBook

by JC Fletcher { Oct 26th 2009 at 10:20AM }

Of course Nintendo of America didn't release Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth today. That would have been far too obvious. However, rather than disappointing us with this week's selections, Nintendo actually surprised us with a very welcome, seasonally appropriate Virtual Console classic! Knock on the post break and see what kind of downloadable candy Nintendo is shoving into our pillowcases.

[Image credit]

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EA to follow MySims Camera with Scrabble, Littlest Pet Shop on DSiWare

by JC Fletcher { Sep 21st 2009 at 3:30PM }

In case you think you want a camera app that adds MySims characters to your DSi photos, but aren't sure, EA sent a couple of screenshots of the app in action. It does pretty much what it says, though we didn't expect the MySims images to be so freely positionable.

Along with shots of MySims Camera and Sudoku, EA announced more upcoming DSiWare games. Littlest Pet Shop gets even littler on DSiWare, allowing you to collect and interact with pets, dress them up, and "throw a dance party for your pets and watch them groove to a cool song."

Scrabble will be released as several different apps including Scrabble Classic and Scrabble Tools, a Scrabble-themed vocabulary building game. Apparently, each Scrabble game will be a separate download.

Gallery: MySims Camera (DSiWare)

NintendoWare Weekly: Picturebook Games, Revenge of Shinobi

by David Hinkle { Aug 17th 2009 at 10:48AM }

Today's highlight is no doubt Revenge of Shinobi, the first Shinobi game on the Sega Genesis. What's funny about this is that the third game in the series on that console, Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master, was released on the Wii way back in 2007. Two-thousand-and-freaking-seven, people! How crazy is that? More after the break.

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iPhone It In: Drop7

by Ben Gilbert { Jul 21st 2009 at 10:59AM }

Bonus: Joystiq is giving away Drop7 download codes! Details at the end of the review:

You know what, I'm just gonna say it: I love Drop7. I've been evangelizing the game since I downloaded the free "Lite" version two weeks ago -- and subsequently bought the full version for $2.99 -- trying desperately to explain the game's "Tetris meets Sudoku" concept to anyone who'll listen.

Forget about your Super Monkey Balls and Metal Gear Solid Touches -- Drop7 feels built from the ground up with the iPhone (at least sort of) in mind, and easily warrants the same praise that games like Rolando and Word Fu have earned. It's easy to jump into a game and play for as little (or as long) as you'd like, just the way I like my phone-based gaming.

Oh, and before you jump all over me for not playing the game earlier, I'm quite aware that the game came out all the way back in late January, which is like ten thousand internet years. It doesn't matter though, because Drop7 is timeless.

Gallery: Drop7

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New DSiware revealed: Prehistorik Man, Six in One Translator

by Mike Schramm { Jun 2nd 2009 at 2:45PM }

Nintendo has cracked open the vault of upcoming titles due out later this year, and there's quite a few new titles mentioned for DSiWare. A few we already knew about (Gameloft's Uno and Hudson's Sudoku games were expected), but Prehistorik Man, published by Interplay, is an old SNES game (so Virtual Console we guess?), and there's a working title for a DSiWare game called Six in One Translator. Could you be translating between six different languages on your DSi sometime later this year? There are also quite a few "Domo" games planned -- we're guessing these are games that have to do with the popular Japanese Domo character, though

The full list of publishers, games, and expected release dates is after the break.

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Hudson bringing Sudoku to DSiWare this summer

by Jem Alexander { May 27th 2009 at 10:00PM }

Hudson has announced that it will be bringing Sudoku to DSiWare in two different flavors. Sudoku Student and Sudoku Master will both be made available this summer at a"very affordable price point." The games will each feature puzzles hand crafted by Nikoli, the Japanese puzzle company.

It's unclear exactly what the differences are between the two titles, though the press release does mention that Sudoku Master features "a class certification mode, which tests advanced players' puzzle solving abilities and rates their skill levels." Sure, Sudoku's getting a little bit tired nowadays, but with the puzzles coming to DSi there's now literally no way to escape them. May as well just give in.

iPhone apps stats revealed, games dominate list

by Ben Gilbert { Apr 7th 2009 at 2:30PM }

With game applications taking up nearly half the list (12 of 25), the rankings for iPhone apps released this week by internet information company comScore may be aimed at advertisers, but tells us a ton about the newest gaming platform. For instance, of the 15 million iPhone users in the US, 32 percent (nearly one in every three) have installed Tap Tap Revenge, making it the most popular application by an ice cold five percent.

Furthermore, of the 12 game applications listed, 75 percent of them were developed by small startup companies or, in one case, a single individual. Actually, aside from Pac-Man, Hangman, Sudoku, and a version of Solitaire, all the games are original IP, with number one title Tap Tap Revenge serving as the prime example. We're starting to understand why the iPhone dominated the IGF this year and will likely continue to do so for years to come.

VC Tuesday: Pop-up Ping-pong

by JC Fletcher { Nov 25th 2008 at 9:00AM }

The Virtual Console releases are pretty slim this week in Japan, but still just unlikely enough to show up outside of Japan to make them super interesting. First, Smash Ping Pong, a Nintendo-published Famicom Disk System version of the arcade Konami's Ping Pong. There's something hilarious about playing retro sports games, with their archaic button controls, on the Wii. Maybe it's just us.

The other game is one of the many entries in Falcom's Dragon Slayer series, Legend of Xanadu. It's a "ram into enemies" action-RPG like Ys -- and a side-scrolling RPG like Ys III.

Smash Ping Pong (Famicom Disk System, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points)
Kaze no Densetsu Xanadu (PC Engine CD-ROM, 1 player, 800 Wii Points)

WiiWare in Japan, like in the US, has a sudoku game, though it is a different one. @Simple Series Vol. 2 THE Number Place Neo is part of the super-budget WiiWare version of D3's famous Simple series. Milestone, developers of shooters like Karous and Chaos Field, contribute a poker-based falling-block puzzle game. But the most exciting release is no doubt Kurohige Kiki Ippatsu Wii, Takara Tomy's adaptation of the Pop-up Pirate toy that Chris raved about.

@Simple Series Vol. 2 THE Number Place Neo (1 player, 500 Wii Points)
Kurohige Kiki Ippatsu Wii (1-4 players, 500 Wii Points)
Pokers Wii (1-2 players, 500 Wii Points)

Gallery: Pop-up Pirate Wii

Compile Heart goes puzzle crazy

by JC Fletcher { Feb 1st 2008 at 11:15AM }

Japanese developer Compile Heart, which contains members of Compile (who developed Puyo Puyo and just about everything else we have loved) plans to release a three-part (so far) series of puzzle games for the DS, called the Puzzle Mate series. Crossword Mate features Japanese crosswords, Nanpure Mate is a "number place" (also known as sudoku) game, and Oekaki Mate is a picross collection. These, however, differ from other such products in one important way: the puzzles are large. All three collections feature larger playing fields than usual, which leads to things like the nightmarish multi-screen picross puzzle seen in the screenshot here.

And speaking of nightmarish, coulrophobes will be terrified to see the mascot for this series, a clown drawn by Famitsu artist Susumu Matsushita.

Read - Crossword Mate
Read - Nanpure Mate
Read - Oekaki Mate

Merscom to bring sudoku puzzles to XBLA

by Jason Dobson { Feb 1st 2008 at 6:00AM }

Sudoku is one of those cultural phenomena we just don't pretend to get. The seemingly innocuous brain teasers seemed to crop up overnight, reducing commuters the world over into savoring number crunchers. The casual puzzles have found a welcome home in books, newspapers, and even in video games, and publisher Merscom has now announced plans to bring the logic challenges to XBLA as well with Buku Sudoku.

The game, a conversion of Merscom's PC title of the same name, will boast such enhancements as "a very fast entry method" using the Xbox 360's thumb sticks, as well as support for multiplayer over Xbox Live. Buku Sudoku will also sport HD resolution, which to be honest seems wasted on a game about filling out numbers on a grid. That said, if Xbox Live Arcade can manage to make hardcore gamers fall in love with UNO, don't be surprised if your Halo buddies have to cut out early in order to throw down with some serious number counting when Buku Sudoku is eventually released.

Fail at puzzles, show the world

by JC Fletcher { Nov 13th 2007 at 1:10PM }

TDK Core's DS Puzzler Nanpure Fan & Oekaki Logic Wi-Fi Taiou (DS Puzzler Sudoku and Picture Logic Wi-Fi Interaction) is a pretty simple game design: a bunch of sudoku and picross-type puzzles. And that's fine! People like picross and sudoku.

But DS Puzzler goes beyond the normal self-motivated challenge of these puzzle games by including online rankings for both. We're familiar with this kind of thing in a picross setting, but we certainly wouldn't want anyone to see how, uh, great we are at sudoku. And we're pretty sure we'd embarrass ourselves with these more complicated, colorful picross puzzles too.

We have spontaneously decided that sudoku is awesome

by JC Fletcher { Jul 25th 2007 at 10:40AM }

We don't know what caused our feelings about sudoku to change from "meh" to total enthusiasm, but our change of heart coincided almost exactly with the first time we learned about a sudoku game on the NES. Weird how that works out, right?

Only 90 grey-cartridge copies and five gold-cartridge copies of Al Bailey's homebrew NES Sudoku have been made, and all of the remaining copies will be at this weekend's Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, where we would also like to be. The single unsold gold cartridge is going to be auctioned for charity, to someone who has a lot more money for NES games than we do.

[Via Siliconera]

DS releases for the week of July 23rd

by Alisha Karabinus { Jul 23rd 2007 at 2:00PM }

This week sees the release of some interesting titles around the world, such as the latest in Pokémon for Europe, and Taiko Drum Master DS in Japan. American gamers get to contend with Dynasty Warriors DS. We know some of you are looking forward to it, and some ... well, aren't. But maybe it will surprise us!

Chameleon: To Dye For!
Dynasty Warriors DS: Fighter's Battle
Ultimate Puzzle Games: Sudoku Edition

Slide past the break to see what's happening in the rest of the world.

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