Sorry about missing the feature last week… I was really busy with school and work and Advance Wars. Regardless, A Closer Look is back to show you the games nobody else wants to! This week I look at Sega’s Wii port of the classic light gun shooters, The House of the Dead 2 & 3.
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Fatal Frame 4 made a serious splash for Wii-owners when Tecmo revealed that it would be a Wii-exclusive title. I mean one of the scariest franchises in gaming coming exclusively to a “casual” console? The fact that this franchise has always been a PS2 exclusive? That’s a big deal. Well, new details have surfaced regarding the title, and the news is bound to make almost any Wii-owner happy.
Tonight’s update was a bit of a suprise… Though not actually. Now that Brawl has officially released in Japan, there’s not much that Sakurai-san can hide from us anymore, so he’s admitting that fact and from now on will be revealing all the spoilers and exciting information about the game that unfortunately we already know from the major leakage of the past couple of days.
Oh well. He’s still a really cool guy.
January 31st, 2008. Super Smash Bros. Brawl has officially gone on sale in Japan. Is everybody having fun with it?
However, Smash won’t come out in North America for a bit and sadly, Europe has an even longer wait until the game releases.
For the past eight months or so, Smash Dojo has served as a source of basic information for the game, but with the release of Brawl, the Dojo will take on a new role.
From here on out, the Dojo will begin to introduce the hidden characters, hidden stages, and additional features in Brawl that have gone unmentioned until now. I’d like to continue to add on to the Dojo so that players of Brawl can come back to this website following it’s completion and view Smash Dojo as a sort of guide for the game.
I plan on continuing updates for another two months, so please continue to enjoy the site.
Just remember, I’ll be posting information on hidden characters and other in-game secrets, so you should take caution when viewing the site if you want to save those surprises for later.
I know that I’ve posted rumours before, but it looks like this is official as official gets. People in Japan already have the game (even though it’s not “out” until the weekend) and over the past 12 hours or so, pictures and videos of Brawl have come flooding out. Going on the obvious assumption that nothing will change between the Japanese version and the North American version, we now know just how many and which characters we’ll be getting to duke it out with when Brawl finally hits our shores on March 9th.
Oh, and that infamous 35-Character roster that was supposedly leaked a while back that everybody called “fake” on? … It turns out it was the real deal.
I won’t spoil it for you here in case you didn’t know about that specific roster, but you can take a look at the full list of characters after the jump!
This one’s pretty self-explanatory. We finally have the opening intro video to Smash Bros Brawl. It’s the Japanese version, but I doubt they’ll make many changes. You’ll probably recognise the music, as it was the music played during the first ever trailer for Brawl, way back at E3 ‘06.
In case you’re avoiding Brawl spoilers like the plague (why are you on the Internet?) there are two “new” characters confirmed in this trailer, so keep an eye out for them! Enjoy!
It gets its own TV show!
Does anybody here remember Video & Arcade Top 10? It was a show on YTV about 10 years ago about video games that featured a segment of 3 competitors playing a “recent” game for a chance to win a random prize. It really was a terrible show. Korea has a similar TV show right now, except instead of reviews and news as well, the show is just about the competition. And it doesn’t feature various games, it only features one: Mario Kart DS.
MKDS hasn’t been out in Korea for too long, but already it seems to have found a hardcore audience. Gaming and competitive gaming in Korea has become big business. “Run & Run Mario Kart DS” is a program all about gamers playing MKDS, and only MKDS. There are 6 players in all, two teams of three, and they race to get their team the collectively fastest times while the show’s hosts give a constant play-by-play of the competition.
The VC library grows ever larger. Today, Sega announced that their 8-bit system will be officially hitting Nintendo’s Virtual Console service. The console was a very under-appreciated piece of hardware that was drastically overshadowed by the NES in the 80’s.
The first two games set to hit the service will be Fist of the North Star (600 points) and Fantasy Zone (500 points). These two titles are set to hit Japanese Wii’s some time next month. Master System titles have also been confirmed to be coming to North American and European consoles soon, but no date has been set.
While nothing has currently been said by Nintendo, Circuit City’s webpage has placed a pre-order page for a brand new sku of the DS Lite. The new Black/Cobalt Blue colour clearly seems to be replacing the Black/Crimson special edition which was originally bundled with Brain Age 2, but then released as a stand-alone unit. The Black/Crimson DS Lite seems to be discontinued at this point, and we can only assume that this version may have the same ‘limited edition’ fate.
The Black/Crimson DS Lite was strongly criticized for having a lower-quality screen than the standard units with the backlit screen being noticeably darker. There’s no idea if this one will be the same. No release date has been given for the unit, and is priced as a standard DS Lite unit ($129.99 USD). Note, Nintendo has still to confirm that this unit is actually coming, but it seems pretty likely that this is authentic.
The Circuit City pre-order page can be seen here.
Well, as we we said earlier, as it gets closer to release, the likelyhood of a final roster for Brawl finally leaking gets higher and higher. Also the likehood of fakers trying to dupe poor suckers increases. Late last night, Gametrailers posted the second part to their video series that examines the characters. Right at the beginning of the video they show a screen shot of the supposed final character selection screen (from the Japanese version) for a very brief moment, but if you’ve got quick fingers you can take a screen shot of and examine it on your own time. A lot of It is logical and seems legit. I see no reason GT would post something false, but there is a suspicious question mark that floats across the screen indicating a big-ass “maybe” into it all, so won’t claim it as “official” until I know the truth.
It’s a big list. 44 characters in all. To see the list in question and start the debate on its legitimacy click past the jump.
Just today before work, I ran off to EB Games to pick up my copy of No More Heroes. I had tried the day before just after their latest shipments came in, but the box that was expected to be the game instead held Endless Ocean. While it still looks like a really interesting game, it wasn’t what I was hoping for. Anyways, during my attempt today, I was confused when my buddy from across the counter looked at me and said “I think it has been delayed.” Upon asking when, he said February 1st.
But this could just be typical EB Games, right? Well, I tried basically every other retailer who I am sure carries games. Almost all said the same thing. Could this be true? It seems odd since the title is already out in the U.S. Is Canada actually getting left out for a week?
Unfortunately, this is going to hold back our review for the game. But in the meantime, feel free to pick up Endless Ocean, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (just picked this title up and am really enjoying it!), or even take the time to finish those games you haven’t touched in months. How about picking up Zack & Wiki? That’s a game that needs your support!
Anyways, we’ll keep you updated if this is in fact true or not. Expect our review for Advance Wars: Days of Ruin to come soon from Kevin, and I will be reviewing No More Heroes soon after it is made available.
If you’re in Canada and are having the same problem, leave a message in our forums. And if you’re in Canada and HAVE received the title… PLEASE leave a message in our forums so we can figure this out!
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Chris’ Note: Apparently, this problem is nation-wide, with many reports of the same problem of a delay until February 1st. According to rumour, Ubisoft in their infinite wisdom forgot to print French manuals to include with the game. As required by law in our bilingual country, every product must have French instructions and/or packaging, as I’m sure you’ve all noticed by now. I’m going to keep an eye on stores tomorrow, and if nothing shows up at work or anywhere this’ll pretty much be all the confirmation we need of a delay.
This is a complete bummer to all of us, and I’d imagine all of you, as I know all three of us spent a fair amount of time trying to track down a copy today to no avail.
