Dcubed

It started on November 10th 2002 and lasted until April 15th 2010. So it had a lifespan of 7 years 5 months, with it lasting 4 years and 5 months after the 360 was launched in the US. The WFC service started November 2005 and lasted till May 2014 - so that's a life span of 8 years 6 months, with it lasting 3 years 3 months after the 3DS came out in Japan. Makes me glad that Nintendo continue to focus on local multiplayer... So sad to see all of that development effort go to waste as the online functions are lost to history (assuming that they aren't restored when DS and Wii games eventually come to the VC).

And make people question how long Nintendo will keep those games online for? Yeah, that's exactly what they need... The real reason is no doubt just that they can't justify the running costs anymore. Especially since Gamespy (the company the ran the Nintendo WFC servers) was taken over by Glu Mobile; a company that since taking over Gamespy has held developers who relied on Gamespy to ransom with jacked up prices and an inability to switch suppliers (and of course since DS and Wii games can't be patched, they couldn't get out of it that way either...) That list only includes Nintendo published games. There are a lot more online DS and Wii games from 3rd parties that aren't listed here (and will also be taken down along with Nintendo's own games). Thankfully none of those games relied on "real" DLC, since the content in those games is just unlocked and is already on the game card; so Action Replay devices can still be used to unlock them (and any "real" DLC is actually downloaded from Nintendo's own servers that run the Wii & DSi shops, so they'll be safe - plus I believe that all Wii Ware, VC, DSi Ware and paid Wii DLC has been successfully dumped and archived anyway). Here's hoping that the hackers grab all the packet sniffing information that they can right now in order to develop unofficial servers where possible!

The servers are all linked together, so it's almost certainly a matter of it being all-or-nothing. Just like with the original Xbox Live...

We all knew it would happen one day, but still... Goodbye Mario Strikers Charged Football online. The memories of making people ragequit with Hammer Bros and Boo abuse will not be forgotten! I was hoping that the advent of DS VC releases would warrant Nintendo keeping WFC online, but alas... (I wonder if they'll be able to run the online DS games off of different servers once they get released on the VC?) The service did last for a good while, it outlasted the original Xbox Live by over a year, but I wonder if it might have lasted longer had Nintendo not been in the dire financial position that they're currently in... RIP Nintendo WiFi Connection: 2005-2014 We should do a Mario Kart DS/Wii N-E League before the servers get shut down!

Yeah, that's a nice way of putting it. I probably won't get it until it's really cheap (if at all) because I'm not interested in the gameplay at all, but I'm glad to see it get a release over here and see them go all out on pushing its... assets to the fullest Any game that can give me a good laugh is alright by me

While I love the Prime series, it's not really right to say that it preserved everything. Retro did have to sacrifice the agility and fast paced platforming that defined the 2D games in order for the game to work in 1st person (of course it gained a lot for doing so, but it was still a necessary sacrifice). That's something that wasn't really brought into 3D at all until Metroid Other M. The gameplay format is much closer to the 2D games than Prime was and indeed that was absolutely Sakamoto's intention. It was meant to be like "An NES Game with the Latest Technology" after all!

It's really telling that almost all of the complaints about the game are about the story rather than the gameplay... It's so bad that it blinds people to the good qualities of this game. And for those who do take issue with the gameplay, the majority of gameplay complaints always come down to one of three things; the linearity, the controls and the pixel hunt sections (as well as that second last boss battle... You know the one...) For the former I put the blame squarely on Nintendo for marketing it as a Super Metroid sequel when in reality it's actually a Metroid Fusion prequel (along with everything that entails...). The game isn't really any more linear than Metroid Fusion really and like that game, there are plenty of secrets and shortcuts to find for those who enjoy seeking that elusive 100% rating. For the second point, that is the player's fault. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the controls if you know what you're doing. The game is designed around the intentional limitations of the control setup; the 1st person missiles (where you have to stand still to use them) is a particular point that trips up a lot of players as you are supposed to focus on creating space between you and your foes before switching to 1st person. But so many players don't understand this and just try to pump them full of missiles as if they were playing Meteoid Prime; they seem hellbent on fighting the controls instead of actually learning how to play the game properly... There's lots of moments like this throughout the game that many people just don't get (the bee hive is another good example as what you're supposed to do is kill the bees with your normal beam before using your missiles on the hive, as the bees get in the way and intentionally trigger the lock-on function - preventing you from hitting the hive with the missiles - but many people don't seem to understand this and just end up getting frustrated when they can't figure out how to beat it properly)... ... which brings me to the 3rd complaint and is one I actually do agree with. The pixel hunt sections are not fun and are total BS (the same goes for the boss fight when you need to use the power bombs - there is NO indication of this being possible whatsoever and is easily the worst designed part of the game!) I loved how the game brought back the acrobatic movement of the 2D games, I loved how it dared to explore an entirely new form of gameplay, I loved the focus on speed running, I loved the clever way it designed around the limitations of the controls and I loved the various clever moments throughout the game (the elevator shaft and the four different ways you can beat it was a particular highlight for me! ) But I said enough about the game in my top 10 Wii games list a few years back so I'll end my piece here. It's an underrated gem that doesn't get credit for the things it does right simply because people care too much about the story over the gameplay to see past its reletively minor (but plentiful) flaws.

Not really. I have TONS of games I have that I have yet to play across all of the consoles I own (like Panzer Dragoon Zwei, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Tales of Xillia, Ys: The Oath of Felghana, Zone of the Enders 1 & 2, Tomba 1 & 2 etc...) This drought just happens to be a nice excuse to get round to playing them and I'll enjoy my Wii U stuff more when the thought of a drought following on from playing the Wii U stuff I do have is cleared from the back of my mind

God Half Minute Hero is such a brilliant game! Just started a new game on it and it's just as good as I remember! Easily one of the PSP's very best! (And that's saying something because that handheld ended up building a really solid library!)

Yup, it's crazy bad. So bad in fact that I'm putting off playing anything on the console until Mario Kart 8 comes out. That way I'll have loads of games to play on the Wii U (including the likes of NES Remix, Super Mario 3D World, Pikmin 3's DLC, DKCTF, Deux EX HR, EDGE, Rush; all of which I have yet to start playing through properly - on top of the other eShop titles like NES Remix 2, Shovel Knight, Scram Kitty etc that will see release between now and MK8) come the start of June! (And hopefully no more massive drought to endure!) Until then, I'm basically pretending that the console doesn't exist... Instead I'm playing catchup with my retro consoles

Final Fantasy 8. I was playing through the whole series for the first time, back to back, around 2006 or 2007 and I came up to this game. Holy shit! It's unbelievably horrible! I've never had such a miserable experience trudging through a game like this. Outside of the soundtrack (which was and still is sublime), there was absolutely nothing about the game I liked whatsoever; but I just had to know how bad it would get. I had gone too far in to stop before the end... ... I wish I did... Thanks to that experience I stopped myself from doing the same thing with other similarly terrible experiences (like FF13, which I got on the cheap, just to see how horrible it was... After about 4 hours, I couldn't stomach anymore. Not putting myself through that same kind of torture that I did with FF8 ever again!) I'd highly recommend watching Spoony's review of the game. I agree 100% and it's FAR more entertaining than playing the game could ever dream of being. Fuck that game. Fuck it so hard!

Not surprised to see it come to consoles (as if a western developer/publisher would ever make a true handheld game truly exclusive...) but I am surprised to see it come to Wii U! Nice to see that WBros haven't completely abandoned the console Too bad that the game isn't really that good though... Especially disappointing when you consider that the game was directed by several Metroid Prime leads...

Sadly, that Rare doesn't exist anymore. Even if Nintendo bought them out when they had the chance, they would've, more or less, still have suffered the same fate. They were bleeding staff left-right-and-centre by the year 2000 or so and the Stamper Bros wanted to cash out and quit the industry. Quite frankly, history has proven it to be the right decision for them to have taken and really there isn't much else that they could do to fill the hole right now. Think about it, what other large developer out there could Nintendo partner with that both fits Nintendo's gameplay-first development philosophy (so not counting devs like Naughty Dog, Crystal Dynamics etc) and has the talent to fill the hole that Rare left? I'm struggling to think of anyone major developer out there (non-indie) who fits the bill... That being said, Nintendo would do well to start an indie developer funding programme... Maybe even match Kickstarter funds for developers who choose to make their KS projects Wii U and 3DS exclusive... They've made strong in-roads with indie developers but they need to do more still. Go out of their way to establish long-term relations with these developers who ARE happy to support them!

Worst music quality and the battle system runs slow for some strange reason (there may be other things wrong as well, but I don't remember right now). Either way, I still really enjoyed my time with the game anyway and it's the only real English version anyway (the recently released iOS version is total garbage - it might be based on the superior PSP version, but they made it F2P and utterly gutted the game). Also for some reason the EU version of TOP GBA has really washed out colours, while the US version (the one that I own - funnily enough I just happened to be in the US and picked it up while I was there, just like you) uses the original SNES version's colour pallette and looks much better as a result

It's a shame that the GBA version is arguably the worst version out there (fighting for last place along with the iOS version, the only other one available in English ) I'd love to see them go back and localise the original SNES version or the PS1 version... sigh...

Nice to see that Namco are jumping in with the GBA VC on Wii U. Their NES/SNES/GB/GBC VC output so far has been really lacking so this comes as a pleasant surprise (plus I just happened to be looking at buying the original Mr Driller games recently, so this seems like perfect timing for me!)

It's almost certainly Smash Bros 4, used in exactly the same way as KIU's AR cards (figurine battles, optional way to unlock trophies).

Great job. Depressing as hell to look at, but still at least it's easy to understand, useful and looks really nice! That being said, I think it might be good if you listed the upcoming eShop titles in the ??? list with the month or quarter of release in parenthesis (if available).

I don't think you'll see many of the staff go there though. Boston is a long way from Texas... A hell of a relocation for those with families...

I would imagine that we'll get another game that takes place in Columbia. Their focus will no doubt be on re-using as many assets as possible to get the game out the door as quickly and cheaply as possible. Afterwards... Possibly an Assassin's Creed approach. Same gameplay, different locals (maybe sticking with the idea of having two games in the same location back to back).

Pretty sure you hit that nail squarely on the head there. BI took what? 6 years to make? Bioshock also had a long dev cycle IIRC... Take Two also burn cash at an incredible rate. They consistently lose around $100-250 million every single year that they do not release a GTA game (except for that one year that they released Red Dead Redemption) and have recently made promises to their shareholders that they intend to profit again this year... Just a timeslice of the state that the industry is in. AAA games are going the way of the comic book industry... Or this'll do fine They need the extra artists/animators etc!

That point about Ken wanting to "focus entirely on replayable narrative" is very interesting... For me, Bioshock was very much a "one and done" game. I tried to replay it a few years back and I just couldn't bring myself to really enjoy it again. It's a strange phenomena that I've had with only a few games I've played, where I've enjoyed it the first time through and just don't enjoy at all on the second playthrough (Gears of War is another good example for me); but I find it very heartening that he seems to realise this himself too and that he wants to focus on replayablity I'm pretty sure that it wasn't his decision to close down the studio. Just because Ken wanted to leave to work on smaller projects, doesn't mean that the whole studio would have to close. Obviously Take Two saw little value in keeping the studio going as it was, especially without him and his 15 closest...

Woah! Didn't see that one coming! I would've thought that BI would've sold enough to make a tidy profit surely!? But then again, when you consider how long it was in development for... (The same fate that Team Bondi suffered from with LA Noire). I can imagine Levine wanting out to work on smaller projects, it's not uncommon, but for the whole studio to be shuttered!? Crazy! It sounds like they still intend to carry on with the Bioshock brand (developing it internally with one of their own 2K studios), but it still feels like Take Two will become even more reliant on GTA and Rockstar than ever before going forward... The end of days is drawing near. "Traditional" Gaming is getting raptured...

They didn't have to throw away the series staples that RE4 left intact, they could've chosen to dial back the action and bring some of the older elements into focus (much like Revelations did). RE4 might have been the turning point that Mikami wanted it to be, but it's not his or RE4's fault that the remaining staff at Capcom (and most importantly, the execs in charge) decided to gut the series of what horror it did have in favour of turning the series into a bad Gears of War clone (oh the irony!)

Ahh RE4. Nothing else needs to be said about its qualities as a game; we all know the song and dance here (amazing gunplay, fantastic level design etc), but I think something needs to be said about its qualities as a "Resident Evil" game. I think that this game gets an unfair bad rap for "abandoning" the survival horror qualities of the series and that unjust blame is out on it for the series' current direction. The truth is that while it did abandon series staples like fixed camera angles, jump scares (except Oven Man of course ), ammo/ink ribbon conservation and the Metroid-like path finding structure; it didn't abandon everything! It's not that it moved away from horror completely, but rather that it traded away the more psychological aspects of horror in exchange for tension; the feeling of overwhelming odds stacked against you (perhaps best demonstrated in the cabin sequence with Luis). It was a different kind of survival horror, but still definately horror. Other series staples like puzzle solving and exploration were dialed back, but were also still present in a different way. The game wasn't completely linear, not like RE5 and 6! It was not RE4 that "destroyed" the series, it was RE5! That game tried to copy RE4 as closely as possible, to the point of desperation, but totally missed the point. It failed to recapture what was good about RE4 and abandoned the series staples that it did preserve in the process (and of course RE6 threw everything away and just have up completely in favour of blindly chasing wider industry trends). Whatever you think of the series' current trend, you can't place the blame on RE4. It was the revolution that the series desperately needed to survive and anything that followed afterwards is not the fault of this game nor its original creators (most of which would go on to leave shortly after the PS2 version was announced). And besides, it's a cracking game and easily the best of its kind. One of the best games ever made, no matter what side of the fence you stand on!