Author Topic: Virtual Console Mondays: January 1 (Read 21177 times)

WindyMan · « **on:** January 01, 2007, 12:50:00 PM »

Nintendo follows up a merry Virtual Console Christmas with a not-so-happy VC New Year.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/vcArt.cfm?artid=12976

We'd like to wish Nintendo fans around the world a Happy New Year, because it seems as if Nintendo decided not to. This week's Virtual Console update is the worst since the service was launched, with only two new NES games available. (Actually, make that two old NES games.) Here's what they are and what we think of them.

Baseball - NES

Released: 10/1985
1-2 Players
Cost: 500 Wii Points ($5)
Controllers: Wii Remote, Wii Classic, GameCube

The official line on the game is "Play nine innings of fierce sandlot competition with classic NES graphics." If we pull that sentence through the PR filter, it becomes "Sit though an old first-generation NES sports game." Fierce? Surely you can be more honest than that, Nintendo. Even though it's one of the more decent games from the early days of the NES, there were others after it that were so much better.

Not Recommended Like Tennis a few weeks ago, you've already got an awesome (and decidedly fierce) version of Baseball in the Wii Sports compilation. Keep your Wii Points on the bench. - Steven Rodriguez

Urban Champion - NES

Released: 8/1/1986
1-2 Players
Cost: 500 Wii Points ($5)
Controllers: Wii Remote, Wii Classic, GameCube

Speaking of Wii Sports, Urban Champion is as close as we'll get to boxing on our NES until Punch-Out!! shows up. Combatants duke it out on the streets until one of them falls into a sewer manhole. Yes, that's right. A manhole. Occasionally, players will need to avoid a potted plant being dropped from the windows above. And then the winner gets sprayed with confetti. That's the entire game. How much are they charging for it again?

Not Recommended Ha ha! Very funny, Nintendo. Last week you released one of the best video games of all time. You wouldn't follow that up with one of your most boring first-gen NES games, right? Right?? - Steven Rodriguez

Artimus · « **Reply #1 on:** January 01, 2007, 01:20:08 PM »

Do we know what's coming next week?

WindyMan · « **Reply #2 on:** January 01, 2007, 01:26:04 PM »

Chances are high that no matter what it is, it will be better than this garbage.

Louieturkey · « **Reply #3 on:** January 01, 2007, 01:40:33 PM »

Garbage is too good a word for this crap.

Entroper · « **Reply #4 on:** January 01, 2007, 01:52:34 PM »

Urban Champion? Seriously? Why are they even wasting the 5 minutes it takes to add this title to the VC database?

This is becoming absurd. Nintendo is randomly pushing buttons on a money-printing machine and not realizing that it isn't plugged in. I got a Wii Points card and two classic controllers for Christmas, and there's nothing I want to use them for.

Acefondu · « **Reply #5 on:** January 01, 2007, 01:57:12 PM »

Did we really expect them to top last week? No. But did we expect them to have the worst week yet? Nope. I am surprised other companies didn't assist this week.

Artimus · « **Reply #6 on:** January 01, 2007, 01:58:01 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Entroper
Urban Champion? Seriously? Why are they even wasting the 5 minutes it takes to add this title to the VC database?

This is becoming absurd. Nintendo is randomly pushing buttons on a money-printing machine and not realizing that it isn't plugged in. I got a Wii Points card and two classic controllers for Christmas, and there's nothing I want to use them for.

Right...this week is BAD but there are a ton of games worth owning. Let's see the games worth owning (many of these you may not want as you've played, but I'll list them anyway):

Solomon's Key
Legend of Zelda
Super Mario Bros.
F-Zero
Super Castlevania IV
Super Mario 64
Sonic
Gunstar Heroes
ToeJam & Earl
Bomberman '93
Bonk's Adventure

And worthwhile to some:

Military Madness
Wario's Woods
SimCity
Ecoo the Dolphin
Ristar
R-Type
Alien Crush

That is 11 great games and 7 good games. Barrels of worthwhile downloads? No. But if you don't want a single one of these then that's merely an unfortunate coincidence, not an indication of nothing good being available.

WuTangTurtle · « **Reply #7 on:** January 01, 2007, 02:18:09 PM »

The point is this week s@cks and Nintendo dropped the ball. Everyone knows that after Christmas there is a lot of purchasing going around, which could have been on the virtual console. The fact that the N64 still only has one game released is pretty pathetic. Next week better be good.

ShyGuy · « **Reply #8 on:** January 01, 2007, 02:21:53 PM »

TICKLE MY FANCY, IWATA SLAVE!

vudu · « **Reply #9 on:** January 01, 2007, 02:55:43 PM »

These are pretty weak reviews/impressions. There's no information anywhere to be found. We all know these are subpar releases, but you guys should at least write a little bit about them--how do they play? Did anyone responsible for the reviews even play the games or are we just speculating and judging the games based on their three second portions that appear in Wario Ware?

GamerGeorge · « **Reply #10 on:** January 01, 2007, 03:04:23 PM »

Nintendo of Japan (as well as the entire country of Japan) is likely laughing at Nintendo of America's "best efforts" when it comes to the Virtual Console.

darknight06 · « **Reply #11 on:** January 01, 2007, 03:07:36 PM »

If I didn't have both as E-Cards I might have gotten these.

TJ Spyke · « **Reply #12 on:** January 01, 2007, 03:11:04 PM »

What happened to Dungeon Explorer? That was confirmed yesterday on Hudson Soft's website.

This week blows. I refused to buy UC for $4 on the e-Reader, why would I pay $5 for this version? Also, I hated Baseball when I played it on Animal Crossing.

xanrastafari · « **Reply #13 on:** January 01, 2007, 03:11:30 PM »

Yeah, ok, ok, but we knew these titles were coming, because of earlier lists, and we knew they were crap.

So now they're out of the way and NOA can bring on the good stuff.

NotRimmer · « **Reply #14 on:** January 01, 2007, 05:17:05 PM »

Urban Champion is awesome. Not $5 awesome, but the people talking smack about it make me really sad

WindyMan · « **Reply #15 on:** January 01, 2007, 05:39:01 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: NotRimmer
Urban Champion is awesome. Not $5 awesome, but the people talking smack about it make me really sad

The game gets boring after three minutes. If you're playing with two players, it gets boring after ten minutes. Thirteen minutes does not make a $5 game worth it.

darknight06 · « **Reply #16 on:** January 01, 2007, 06:44:59 PM »

I managed to get both for 99 cents as E-Card packs. I didn't pay 5 for them.

GoldenPhoenix · « **Reply #17 on:** January 01, 2007, 07:32:19 PM »

Is baseball that game where if you hit a homerun and it hits the spotlights around the stadium they break? I really loved that game when I was younger, but it probaly is terrible by today's standards.

King of Twitch · « **Reply #18 on:** January 01, 2007, 08:07:50 PM »

I took a HUGE VC today, had to flush twice.

KDR_11k · « **Reply #19 on:** January 01, 2007, 09:48:08 PM »

What happened to Dungeon Explorer? That was confirmed yesterday on Hudson Soft's website.

It's been released in Europe for quite a while now. You got Super Mario Bros and Street Fighter instead, be happy about that.

Ian Sane · « **Reply #20 on:** January 02, 2007, 04:12:58 AM »

You know how the first year or so of NES games had that blocky cover art that tried to simulate the graphics? That used to play a huge factor in my friends' decisions regarding what games to rent. We often rented games from a local mom and pop videostore back in the day when literally every videostore in my area was mom and pop (as opposed to now where I don't think ANY of them are). They had a great selection of games and obviously had been all the ball about NES rentals from early on because they had all the older games that retail stores didn't carry anymore.

The general rule was that the blocky cover games were an automatic no-rent because they were really old (remember when you're under ten games from like two years ago are ancient) and usually were dated as hell. The exception was Excitebike. Super Mario Bros was considered no-rent as well since, well, everyone already had it. I think we forgot that Metroid and Kid Icarus were blocky cover games as well.

Anyway the point is that the infamous no-rent blocky cover games is pretty much all Nintendo is giving us. Most of them came across as dated in 1989 and now it's 2007.

Though honestly Baseball and Urban Champion wouldn't seem so bad if they were only a buck.

Nintendo's just pushing the Animal Crossing NES games on us first because they know we want to buy something so they're trying to get us to give in and buy games we can get for free with another game first before they give us the good stuff. They'll go through the GBA NES Classics as well and then SNES titles that were ported on the GBA. They want the re-purchases first before they give us something like Super Metroid, that everyone who missed it the first time around has been waiting for a re-release for at least ten years.

UncleBob · « **Reply #21 on:** January 02, 2007, 04:19:21 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
Nintendo's just pushing the Animal Crossing NES games on us first because they know we want to buy something so they're trying to get us to give in and buy games we can get for free with another game first before they give us the good stuff. They'll go through the GBA NES Classics as well and then SNES titles that were ported on the GBA. They want the re-purchases first before they give us something like Super Metroid, that everyone who missed it the first time around has been waiting for a re-release for at least ten years.

"We"? "Us"? I didn't think you had a Wii yet....

Smash_Brother · « **Reply #22 on:** January 02, 2007, 05:11:50 AM »

I'll start using the VC once Nintendo makes good on offering NEW games which are a better fit for the VC than a production print.

...and I don't mean games you can already play in flash on the internet channel, like fruit fall.

segagamer12 · « **Reply #23 on:** January 02, 2007, 06:22:21 AM »

I likd Urban Chanmpion back in the day. But I had it recently on a plug N play thingy andit wasnt as fun as it used to be.

MegaByte · « **Reply #24 on:** January 02, 2007, 06:23:51 AM »

Some people have reported bugs in the TG-16 emulator and this time it led to the delay of Dungeon Explorer. Hence we only get two crappy games instead of two crappy games and one broken one.

From Hudson:

Quote
As astute fans may have figured out by now, Dungeon Explorer did not hit the street date as intended. It appears that there were some last minute bugs that needed to be addressed, so we have decided to hold back to see what can be done.

As some of you know, when games are played on an emulator, which is the case for Virtual Console games, sometimes funky things happen. Emulation technology is not perfect, so not all games work right from the get go. In this particular case, the bug was serious enough to have a the release schedule changed. I'm sure we'll have an update on when the game is coming soon.

So, call up your old buddies and tell them that the 5 player Dungeon Explorer game nite is going to have to be put off til another day. In the meantime, enjoy the sunshine. Play some ball. Have a picnic. You won't get much sun once you are down in the dungeons.

Happy New Year!

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