Filed under: News, WiiWare

Keen ESRB-spotter Spencer at Siliconera has located a welcome addition to the ESRB’s database: Gradius ReBirth. While Japan has been pew pewing itself silly since early September, this is the first solid sign that the 1000 Point WiiWare game will be leaving its native country.

Input the code and shoot the core down the break for footage of the first two stages.

Gradius ReBirth: U.S. to destroy the core soon originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Fan stuff

GameDaily has put together a cool gallery of different Nintendo-themed carved pumpkins, just in time to celebrate the holiday today. We suggest you take a break from nibbling on chocolate and other candy goods to check them out. And, yes, our favorite is at the top of this very post.

Happy Halloween! Check out some Nintendo-themed pumpkins originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: It’s-a Mario World

Costumes are an integral part of any proper Halloween celebration, and we didn’t have it in our little video gaming hearts to exclude Dear Mario from today’s internationally recognized festivities. This is because we are obsessively enamored with Him, yes, sometimes to the extent of unnecessarily capitalizing pronouns, but also because we are under a rigorous blogging contract by penalty of death. Thus, we come to your monitor on this spooky evening with a mind for Mario’s unconventional garb.

It isn’t often that we see Mario dressed in anything other than his trademark overalls. Even in his more athletic role he seems to prefer his mainstay red and blue outfit, however constricting and warm it may be, topped with his all-too-familiar cap. So any time we see him decked out in a fancy suit or in powered up form, we do a double take. Today we have gone ahead and compiled some of these less usual costumes in a new gallery that will FRIGHTEN and AMAZE, probably. Get to it!

It’s-a Mario World is a weekly feature in which the ubiquity of Nintendo’s flagship character is celebrated: We’ll incessantly ruminate about mustache wax, debate the curious whereabouts of the princess and covet the luminous power stars strewn about the galaxy. Check back here every Friday to find out what strange and wonderful thing has got us tipping our caps.

It’s-a Mario World: Curious Costumes originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Video

And the Halloween-related media onslaught continues, this time with a delicious, gravelly-voiced, grindhousey trailer for The House of the Dead: Overkill. Unsurprisingly, we love this, but it still can’t beat the trailer that revealed the game to a breathless world, on account that “You will cry blood from YOUR OWN eyes” is hands down one of the coolest lines ever penned.

Still, if the opening few seconds teach us just one lesson, it is this: this game needs zombie horses, damnit.

House of the Dead: Overkill has terror, slaughter, possibly cute horses originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Point/Counterpoint

At their October media summit, Nintendo announced plans to release Wii ports of some GameCube games as the Wii de Asobu (Play on Wii) series. Today, we found solid evidence of a North American release. While GameCube games are, of course, currently playable on Wii, these new ports will enable motion and pointer-based control schemes, allowing new players to use the “simpler” Wii controls, and existing fans to play favorites in a new way. At least, that’s the idea, we think.

But is it a good idea to port these games and try to sell them again? Is it good for the fans? For the games? For the Wii? For the win? We say yes! And also no. That’s kind of how debating works!

Point/Counterpoint: Yea or Nay — Play on Wii? originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: News

Nintendo has published a list of Wii releases for 2009, and while it’s some way from being a complete list, the news for North America ranges from great to ominous. We want to start this post on a happy note, so we’ll begin by saying: the Play on Wii remake of Pikmin — just the first game — is totally coming to the U.S. The schedule also confirms the Mario Power Tennis remake for the States, so it looks like those two will lead the brand off here.

But there’s worrying news as well. For one, Disaster: Day of Crisis still isn’t down for a North American release. Okay, so this isn’t actually that surprising, as Reggie (who isn’t the title’s biggest fan, remember) has said all along that any U.S. release hinges on the performance of the game in Europe. As Disaster only came out in Europe last Friday, we still don’t know how it fared, though will find out soon enough. Also missing are numerous Play on Wii remakes, including Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, Chibi-Robo, and the two Metroid Primes.

We’ll say this again, just in case: this is definitely a bare-bones list, with not every Wii release of next year featuring. We’re not about to give up on getting Disaster just yet.

[Via Siliconera]

Nintendo directs Pikmin remake to North America originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Virtual Console, Imports

It’s a pretty light month for releases on the Virtual Console in Japan, but it’s still a good month, mostly for one reason: Mega Man 3. Even though we’ll be happy with any Mega Man games that Capcom decides to put on the Virtual Console, Mega Man 3 is, generally speaking, from the period before Mega Man games started to go downhill. So it’s actually good! We’d love to see how new Mega Man 9 players react to a game designed with sliding in mind.

The other really big news is Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen, the first Ogre Battle strategy game, and a classic of the genre. Personally, we’re happy to see Mercs, Cadash, and the CD version of the Kunio soccer game! The full list is after the break.

Famicom

• Rockman 3: Dr. Wily no Saigo!! (November 4)
  
• Smash Ping Pong
• Dragon Buster

Super Famicom

• Densetsu no Ogre Battle

Master System

• Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Mega Drive

• Senjou no Okami 2 (Mercs) (November 4)

PC Engine

• Nekketsu Koukou Dodgeball-bu CD Soccer Hen (November 4)
• Volfied
• Kaze no Densetsu Xanadu
• Cadash

November’s Japanese VC lineup: Ogres battle Mega Man originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: News

Remember Deadly Creatures, the game about a tarantula and scorpion who, uh, fight stuff and go on adventures? It seems like it’s been forever since we heard about Rainbow Studios’ creepy project. Apparently, THQ was planning on a Halloween release, but then Halloween turned out to be today, which is far too soon.

The good news is that Deadly Creatures is finally finished, with a December release planned. Rainbow Studios has used the extra time to refine the camera and the combat systems. Now, the A button is a jab of sorts, with heavier moves assigned to motions.”In this way, the gestures act as the exclamation point at the end of the sentence.” This sounds like a subtle revision of the No More Heroes-like system we last heard about.

The IGN preview also discusses the two human characters, played by Billy Bob Thornton and Dennis Hopper, whose paths the animal protagonists happen to follow; their story is basically overheard as we go about our arach-nasty business.

Deadly Creatures almost ready to strike originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Video

Yes, this video is extraordinarily silly … but it’s for Onechanbara. That’s pretty much the idea. Our favorite part: Aya appears to have a poster of her own rear end.

Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Party originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: News, Virtual Console

With a fresh Halloween upon us, Nintendo has settled on a horror theme for its latest update to the PAL Virtual Console. Nintendo restricting itself in this way could have gone tragically wrong — they could have given us something terrible like Friday the 13th, for example — but instead the results are … really, really good.

• Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse — NES — 500 Nintendo Points
• Devil World — NES — 500 Nintendo Points
• Ghosts ‘N Goblins — NES — 500 Nintendo Points

Normally we’d whoop unashamedly for Ghosts ‘N Goblins alone, but Castlevania III, which is yet to be released on the U.S. or Japanese Virtual Consoles? And Devil World, which North America has also been waiting on (for almost a quarter of a century)? Yeah, we’ll take those. Watch bone-chilling footage of all three past the break.

VC Friday: A huddle of Halloween horrors originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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