Topic: This Week in Nintendo Downloads

[NWR_DrewMG]

Bit.Trip Runner, Looksley's Line Up, and Kirby Superstar highlight this week's seven-game haul.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=23092

 This week in Nintendo downloads, we have seven games across the digital platforms: four on DSiWare, two on WiiWare, and one on Virtual Console.    

First up for DSiWare is Looksley's Line Up, published by Nintendo for 500 Nintendo DSi Points ($5).  This game has you following Looksley the rabbit on a journey through a fairy-tale themed world to help him finish the story he's writing.  The game has you moving the DSi to look at 3D dioramas from various perspectives.  This is a single-player game, which features a spin on the classic "hidden picture" puzzle game.    

Also on DSiWare we have Frogger Returns, a top-down Frogger spin-off with all new levels, 3D graphics, new enemies, and even power-ups.   The game features four different stages, all based on parts of the original Frogger game, such as the highway.    Frogger Returns is available for 500 Nintendo DSi Points ($5).    

The third DSiWare game this week is A Topsy Turvy Life: Turvy Drops, a Tecmo game for 200 Nintendo DSi Points ($2).  This game has you playing your DSi Upside down, and drawing objects on the touch screen to fill spaces below.  The game has 30 different puzzles, and also an endless mode.   Topsy Turvy is a single-player game, and is available now on the DSi Shop.    

The last DSiWare title for the week is Flips: More Bloody Horowitz, another interactive book in the Flips series.   More Bloody Horowitz presents stories by Anthony Horowitz, best-selling author and creator of Alex Rider.   Three horror stories are included, set at a total price of 200 Nintendo DSi Points ($2).      

On WiiWare we have two games.   The first is Bit.Trip Runner, the latest in the Bit.Trip series from Aksys Games.   Bit.Trip Runner is a platformer which has you running and jumping in rhythm through the Robotic Mines, and across the surface of the moon.   The game features 50 stages, and sports a slick retro style.   Bit.Trip Runner is available for 800 Wii Points ($8).    

The other WiiWare game for download this week is Blood Beach from Coresoft, Inc.    This violent action game pits you against the Japanese Navy, mowing down as many soldiers as possible to fight your way out of hopeless peril.   The game gives you plenty of different guns to choose from, and also saves high scores.   Three difficulty levels are available.   Blood Beach is available for 1,000 Wii Points ($10).    

The lone game on Virtual Console this week is Kirby Super Star, a Super NES classic from 1996.   Kirby Super Star features eight different games, six of which are full platform games, and two of which are mini-games.    Each of the games plays slightly differently, and Kirby is given some new and interesting abilities, such as being allowed to give up a power in order to turn an enemy into a helper.    Kirby Super Star is available from the Wii Shop Channel for 800 Wii Points ($8).    

NINTENDO DOWNLOAD: NEW DOWNLOADABLE GAMES WILL BLOW YOUR MIND, NOT YOUR BUDGET    

May 17, 2010    

Just because Nintendo offers a rich selection of downloadable games doesn't mean you have to be rich to enjoy them. Available for just 500 Nintendo DSi Points™ apiece, Looksley's Line Up™ and Frogger Returns for the Nintendo DSiWare™ service offer immersive virtual world fun and arcade-inspired thrills, respectively, at a budget-friendly price. Check out the complete lineup of incredible titles for the hand-held Nintendo DSi™ system, and while you're at it, be sure to download the hilarious new Photo Dojo™ game, available for zero Nintendo DSi Points through June 10 (the game will require 200 Nintendo DSi Points for download as of June 11).    

BIT.TRIP RUNNER marks a fresh installment in one of the WiiWare™ service's most acclaimed game series, while the Super NES™ classic Kirby Super Star™ arrives on the Virtual Console™ service, each available to download for only 800 Wii Points™. Also, fans of Band Hero for the Wii™ system can be among the first to play the new Band Hero 1 Track Pack, featuring music from Miley Cyrus ("7 Things"), Selena Gomez ("Falling Down") and Demi Lovato ("Here We Go Again"). This pack will be exclusive to Wii for one week starting May 18, 2010.    

This week also brings new additions to the "Big Name Games" section of the WarioWare™: D.I.Y. series, featuring downloadable microgames from some of the industry's most talented figures. Gary and Allison, hosts of the Nintendo Channel's "Nintendo Week" program, have each created an original microgame to add to the series' wild mix. New "Big Name Games" will be added every Monday through July 26, all available to download for zero Nintendo DSi Points to anyone with broadband Internet access and a copy of either WarioWare: D.I.Y. for the Nintendo DS™ family of systems or WarioWare: D.I.Y. Showcase software for the WiiWare service. Visit the Nintendo Channel on your Wii™ system today to learn more about these games and to get a look at Gary and Allison's imaginative creations.    

Nintendo DSiWare    

Looksley's Line Up
  Publisher: Nintendo
  Players: 1
  ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
  Price: 500 Nintendo DSi Points
  Description: Looksley the rabbit needs your assistance to finish the story he's writing. Guide him through a world based on famous fairy tales and folk stories from around the globe, helping him to gather inspiration by finding hidden items along the way. In this unique take on hidden-picture games, you'll move the Nintendo DSi system to change your view of various 3-D dioramas. Peer deeply into the scene as you shift the system, watching as layers within the diorama move to reveal previously unseen letters and objects. As you collect these letters and objects, you'll meet new characters and spell words that will open additional stages with more sets of hidden items to find. Particular stages contain secret pictures, testing your observation skills even further. Scour each scene's incredible depth and detail as you lend Looksley a hand in completing his masterpiece. Players of all ages will love this visual puzzle challenge and be amazed to see that even the same spot can look different from another angle.    

Frogger Returns
  Publisher: Konami Digital Entertainment
  Players: 1
  ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
  Price: 500 Nintendo DSi Points
  Description: Frogger is coming to a Nintendo DSi system near you! Frogger Returns takes the heart-pounding challenge of arcade Frogger and moves it into the next dimension. Classic top-down 2-D game play is updated with colorful 3-D graphics, a new perspective, new levels, new enemies and game-changing power-ups to dodge and use. Four stages take the original journey of Frogger from highway to home through a new adventure. Use multiple modes to attack your top scores, race against the clock or just get Frogger to his home pad.    

A Topsy Turvy Life: Turvy Drops™
  Publisher: TECMO KOEI GAMES
  Players: 1
  ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
  Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points
  Description: Turn the Nintendo DSi system upside down and draw blocks on the touch screen to fill spaces in this topsy-turvy take on puzzle games. Play "Endless Mode" to see just how many points you can get as the blocks on the bottom screen fill faster and faster. The more blocks you clear at once, the higher your score. Play "Puzzle Mode" to test your brain against 30 mind-bending puzzles. Clear all the blocks within the specified time and turn limits. Can you solve the puzzles before time is up?    

Flips: More Bloody Horowitz
  Publisher: Electronic Arts
  Players: 1
  Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points
  Description: Anthony Horowitz, the best-selling creator of Alex Rider, gives horror a whole new look in this mischievous collection of macabre tales, exclusive to the Flips series. Including three new stories – each with its own unique feature, such as illustrations and sound effects – Flips: More Bloody Horowitz finds Horowitz at his most wicked. The Flips series brings modern classics to the Nintendo DSiWare service, allowing readers to collect, solve, interact and learn as they progress through the various stories and challenges.    

WiiWare    

BIT.TRIP RUNNER
  Publisher: Aksys Games
  Players: 1
  ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
  Price: 800 Wii Points
  Description: Discover the fastest, most exhilarating action-platformer to hit the WiiWare service. Race across the moon, kicking down crystal walls and sliding under chomping moon-slugs. Bound through the Robotic Mines and face off against the MinerMech. Dash through the Big City on a quest to find friends and defeat the final boss together. RUNNER is the fourth entry in the award-winning and critically acclaimed BIT.TRIP series. You control CommanderVideo as he runs, jumps, slides and kicks. With exciting modern and retro challenges, you can move through more than 50 levels of addictive game play. Chiptune supergroup Anamanaguchi makes a guest appearance. Join CommanderVideo on his most epic journey yet!    

Blood Beach
  Publisher: Coresoft Inc.
  Players: 1
  ESRB Rating: T (Teen) – Blood, Violence
  Price: 1,000 Wii Points
  Description: You are hopelessly outnumbered and have no choice but to fight and win. Just you, your guns and the thin stretch of Blood Beach stand between you and the entire Japanese Imperial Navy. You have an impressive arsenal of weapons, including the M2 BMG, 40mm M1 and, of course, your Thompson SMG. But the Imperial Japanese Navy will hit you with everything they can muster – "Zeros," "Bettys" and even Takao-class battleships – in their methodical and relentless push to recapture the Solomon Islands. High scores can be saved for Easy, Normal and Hard levels of difficulty.    

Virtual Console    

Kirby Super Star
  Original platform: Super NES
  Publisher: Nintendo
  Players: 1-2
  ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
  Price: 800 Wii Points
  Description: That awful King Dedede is at it again – he's stolen all the food in Dream Land. It's up to Kirby™ to get it back and ultimately save Pop Star from being overtaken. In what may be the most diverse adventure yet for the round, pink hero, Kirby journeys through six main games and two minigames, finishing with the ultimate showdown in The Arena. Each game offers its own story and style of platforming action, as well as unique environments and an assortment of enemies. Swallowing an enemy allows Kirby to copy the abilities of that enemy, granting him the power to perform special attacks and giving him a new hat to don. In a strategic twist, Kirby can now give up an acquired ability and use it to turn an enemy into a helper. The helper will follow Kirby around and automatically fight as his ally or offer a second player the chance to join in the game by controlling it. There's never a dull moment as Kirby dashes, flies and swallows enemies in his battle against King Dedede, Dyna Blade and Meta Knight.    

Nintendo adds new titles to the Nintendo DSi Shop and the Wii Shop Channel at 9 a.m. Pacific time on Mondays. Users with broadband Internet access can redeem Wii Points or Nintendo DSi Points to download the games. Wii Points can be purchased in the Wii Shop Channel. Nintendo DSi Points can be purchased in the Nintendo DSi Shop. A Nintendo Points Card™ can be purchased at retail locations. All points from one Nintendo Points Card must be redeemed in either the Nintendo DSi Shop or the Wii Shop Channel. They are not transferable and cannot be divided between the two systems.    

Remember that both Wii and Nintendo DSi feature parental controls that let adults manage the content their children can access. For more information about this and other features, visit Wii.com or NintendoDSi.com.

[Halbred]

Hey, they brought a DS game to the Virtual Console! Wierd!

ALSO HAY NO SHANAY

[TJ Spyke]

I am interested in Frogger Returns for DSiWare, but I am waiting for a review.

One more big game now added to the VC, now where is my Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island? That was one of my favorite SNES games and is the biggest potential VC game that I want.

[broodwars]

Ugh, I had just enough points to purchase Bit.Trip Runner.  I hadn't expected to have to shell out more cash for the only good traditional-style Kirby game as well.      Nice to see both finally up on the service, though.

[vudu]

Looksley's Line Up is such a horrible name.  With a name like that no one who doesn't already know what it is will buy it.

[NWR_insanolord]

I'm beginning to think they're just never going to release The Tower DS in North America.

[Caliban]

I just played a bit of Looksley's Line Up. The first letter was easy to target, but boy am I having some trouble getting the other two letters.

BIT.TRIP RUNNER is fun. The music is awesome.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Where is Last Flight

[NWR_Neal]

Bit.Trip Runner is super awesome until you get to the levels that are really really long and it becomes a bit of a trial-and-error mess.

[Mop it up]

Does anyone know if Kirby Super Star Ultra on the DS is still in production?

[King of Twitch]

Bit.Trip Runner is super awesome until you get to the levels that are really really long and it becomes a bit of a trial-and-error mess.

Are there checkpoints?

[TJ Spyke]

Does anyone know if Kirby Super Star Ultra on the DS is still in production?

I still see it in mainstream stores like Target and Walmart (and their websites).

[NWR_Neal]

Bit.Trip Runner is super awesome until you get to the levels that are really really long and it becomes a bit of a trial-and-error mess.

Are there checkpoints?

Nope. You are required to 100% every level. Imagine if Guitar Hero or Rock Band required you to 100% every song before you could move on. And there were no difficulty settings.

I love the aesthetic, and the game is fun except for this one level that I'm on, but this just sucks. I thought Gaijin Games was into checkpoints now.

[King of Twitch]

Bit.Trip Runner is super awesome until you get to the levels that are really really long and it becomes a bit of a trial-and-error mess.

Are there checkpoints?

Nope. You are required to 100% every level. Imagine if Guitar Hero or Rock Band required you to 100% every song before you could move on. And there were no difficulty settings.

I love the aesthetic, and the game is fun except for this one level that I'm on, but this just sucks. I thought Gaijin Games was into checkpoints now.

  20 years of level design must have slipped their minds, but did they forget the concept of playtesting too?

[Mop it up]

I was a bit curious about Bit.Trip.Runner, but I'll probably pass on it. It sounds difficult for the wrong reasons.

[broodwars]

I've been playing a bit of Runner since I got home, and honestly I have to disagree with you a bit, Neal.  The checkpoints aren't gone: the levels are the checkpoints.  Rather than have one humongous 15-minute track where a small collection of errors can send you right back to the beginning, the tracks are broken up into 2-3 minute chunks that you have to repeat if you fail them.  Yeah, I've gotten stuck a few times (and I'm really stuck on 1-11 right now), but it hasn't really bothered me that much.  The game's just not letting me progress till I've proven I can learn from my mistakes.  I just wish you got a certain number of screw-ups before it made you sent you all the way back to the beginning, because if 1-11 is any indication some of these levels can get very long and have pretty boring beginnings.

Oh, and the retro levels are lame.  Yeah, we all see what you did there making sections that look just like Pitfall.  Without rousing music to play through them, they're pretty boring (and hard).

Overall, I like the game.  There's just something kind of therapeutic about it.

[NWR_Neal]

I see what you mean, and that's why the beginning of the game is so good, but 1-11 is inexcusable in my opinion. If that is representative of the rest of the game, I won't be playing much more of it.

To compare, each of the previous levels have about 10-30 gold bars you can optionally collect. 1-11 has 92 (or so). It's straight-up absurd.

[broodwars]

I see what you mean, and that's why the beginning of the game is so good, but 1-11 is inexcusable in my opinion. If that is representative of the rest of the game, I won't be playing much more of it.

To compare, each of the previous levels have about 10-30 gold bars you can optionally collect. 1-11 has 92 (or so). It's straight-up absurd.

If it means anything, I've gotten all the way to World 3-1 now, and so far 1-11 and the following boss were by far the hardest parts of this game.  World 2 (and its boss in particular) are a cakewalk.  In fact, this might be the easiest Bit Trip game overall so far, or at least the easiest for my type of skills.  I think it helps that this is really the first Bit Trip game with consistent rules: if you see a low-hanging object, you duck; if there's an obstruction in your way, you kick it; if there's an object on the ground you jump over it; etc.  It doesn't do what the other Bit Trip games always do and try to fake you out by suddenly changing how objects behave.  You just have to grit your teeth and bear with 1-11 and 1-B, and it's fairly smooth sailing after that (not to mention some great music and callbacks to previous Bit Trip games). 

[NWR_pap64]

Ok, that's good to know, brood.

[NWR_Neal]

Luckily, 1-11 isn't representative of the full game. Thank god. I'm still annoyed by the brutality of the one-hit-and-you-restart thing, but I'm much happier once I got past 1-11.

1-11 sucks.

[KDR_11k]

I find the game pretty tiring for some reason, the screen blurs and my reflexes break, actions sync up with the beats (which is bad because the beats are when the obstacles hit you, you have to act before then to avoid them).