Dcubed

How fast is your internet connection? I have 30mb download. I just started downloading it around 40 mins ago or so (been playing Wind Waker HD while it was downloading) and it's already halfway done for me! Sounds like some gremlins in the system to me BTW, I wasn't planning on picking it up yet (hence why I didn't get the physical version), but then I watched this vid below and thought, yup! WANT! NOW! Never played the original version, but I hear nothing but praise for this game (ignoring the boss fights and other quirks which are fixed by this Director's Cut). Been a while since I played a good stealth game, so here's hoping it lives up to the hype! (plus the Gamepad features look to be extremely well done; something I'm really looking for - a good meaty game that makes great use of the Gamepad) Hopefully it can be the Wii U's Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition for me : peace: (a last gen game, reworked for Nintendo's new machine, making fantastic use of the new controller to really massively improve the overall experience, with extra bonus content, for a budget price - can't complain about £24.99, including DDP points discount, for a great game I've never played before ).

Well! Looks like I'm getting a VC game this Halloween! Hopefully it won't be the only game next week, but even if it was I'd still probably be happy. That's one of the SNES VC games I wanted playable on the Gamepad the most!

Sounds like BS to me. Way too much effort involved for too little gain and Iwata has already said that they're releasing N64 games on the VC. Why would they want to sabotage themselves and release two competing versions of the same games on the same console? We'll just get the games on the VC, running in 1080p and with Off TV play/the usual Wii U VC features.

Is that the fastest a newly released console has ever gotten a special edition of? That's gotta be a record! On the subject of a Nintendo Direct coming soon, VD Dev (developers of VRally GBA, COP: The Recruit and the upcoming 3DS game Ironfall) have said that their new game will be revealed in a video, due to be released on the 28th. Shinen have also said that their new Wii U games are due to be unveiled in "a matter of days" on their Twitter page... Make of that what you will That being said, we've never had two normal Nintendo Directs in the same month before...

The Mario Party/Wii Party games never review well in general, so it's only really fitting with the rest of the series... It's just not well suited for the kind of environment (near exclusive multiplayer focus, local multiplayer social interaction, slower paced board game gameplay with a high influence of luck & randomness - which in turn makes online play unavailable because it would never work, as no game would ever finish before players ragequit) that most major review sites like IGN review games under and the expectations that they have. The kind of things that they would normally rate games down for, just so happen to be these games' greatest strengths...

1st: Zelda ALTTP 2nd: Link's Awakening 3rd: The Minish Cap 4th: Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link 5th: Zelda 6th: Zelda: Oracle of Ages 7th: Zelda: Oracle of Seasons Four Swords Adventures is also a brilliant game (as is the original Four Swords game), but that's a very different beast to the other 2D titles, so I'm not including it in these rankings. Oh and just in case you're wondering, I'm also counting the DS Zeldas amongst the 3D games, despite them mostly taking place from a top-down perspective because significant portions of those games utilise 3D perspectives.

So it seems that people are getting their review copies of this and Zelda ALBW today... (Not sure if that's the case in both EU and US, but I know that at least one region is getting them today!)

This review sounds fair enough. A bit disappointing that the 4 and 2 vs 2 minigames don't really use the Gamepad much, but it's good to hear that the 1 vs 3 games do (as those types of games are practically made for the Gamepad, given their assymettric nature). I do wish that there were more House Party games, cause they were probably my favourite mode type in the first game, with how creative they were with the Wiimote... Ahh well, I'll have it tomorrow anyway. Still looking forward to it. Been much too long since Nintendo Land, which was the last major 4 player Wii U game for us BTW, I wonder what kind of use they get out of Motionplus for the mini games (don't forget that the Gamepad is not all that the Wii U offers to the series. Neither Mario Party 9 nor the original Wii Party required Motionplus, so that's yet another extra dimension that NDCube are given to play with here!)

Oh wow! I just realised something! Earthbound isn't the only game that has been released for the Wii U VC that wasn't originally released for the Wii VC... THIS was also never originally released for the Wii VC in any region, not even Japan! Before the Wii U VC, its inclusion in Animal Crossing and in the eCard Classic NES series was the only time it had ever been re-released! Can't believe that I didn't even notice... So it seems that Nintendo have already started delving into games that didn't get Wii VC releases, outside of Earthbound, and I didn't even realise it... Maybe we'll get The Mysterious Murasame Castle before they finish getting through their un-re-released VC titles after all

If you can't wait for the Wii U VC release, that game is actually available on the Wii VC as a US import right now! (you can buy it from the Wii Shop Channel for 1,200 Wii points/£9 on the Wii Menu on your Wii U) If it does ever get released on the Wii U VC proper, you'll get a heavy discount on the Wii U version if you already own the Wii VC version on the same console, so it won't be a total waste if you can't wait for god knows when or if they ever re-release it again

That's a great ad, really tugs at the heart strings (and I never even grew up with a PS1 or PS2 as a kid!) My only real complaint is the decision to use Resident Evil 4 as the PS2's defining game. I would never associate RE4 with the PS2, it's a GCN game through and through! (If they wanted to pick a defining PS2 horror game to do that flashlight gag with, I would've picked Silent Hill 2...) Mind you though, it does also sort of highlight how the Playstation ecosystem also sort of lost its identity with the PS3... (But that's not really the advert's fault, just more a matter of Sony moving away from the kinds of games they pushed in the past...) But yeah, it's a great ad!

I bet that Nintendo will release the remaining un-re-released games in the following order... DKJr Math, Volleyball, Ice Hockey, NES Open Tournament Golf, Mach Rider, Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels, Zelda ALTTP (probably released some time near A Link Between Worlds to coincide with that game's release), Wario's Woods (hopefully with both versions being made available!), Super Mario Kart, Sim City (assuming that licensing issues don't get in the way of an EU release), Adventures of Lolo, Adventures of Lolo 2, Kirby's Avalanche, Super Mario Bros 3, Super Punchout, StarTropics, Startropics 2, Super Mario RPG. The only real questions are how quickly they'll get through the remaining games, whether or not the N64 and GBA VC will release before they get through all of the remaining games (because they WILL cut into their NES & SNES significantly) and whether or not they'll be able to re-release the games that were de-listed from the Wii VC...

WTF!? No digital version of Wii Party U? Why? It would be great for people who don't need another Wiimote, who would rather get the game solus for a cheaper price! Also MSF2's £/€/$ "conversion" is total BS

Probably will do soon enough. I just hope that we get the SNES version alongside the NES one when it does eventually hit - I've always wanted to try that version and they've never ever re-released the SNES version of Wario's Woods! (WHY!?)

Wow! I was totally spot on! (Amazed that they're releasing 3 Wii U VC games this week BTW! Very nice!) That leaves just 13 NES games left (12 if we discount Yoshi's Cookie) for Nintendo to re-release again on Wii U. It's moving at a good pace

Well OoT 3D is actually an example of how to update a game like that right. They went out of their way to not upgrade the game's visuals too much... By contrast, I'd rather look at this... Than look at the dead, soul-less look of this... Let's not even get into what they did to Elvis... Before... (Cute!) And after... ...Yeah... As for whether or not a "throwback 3D" style could be commercially successful... I suppose that A Link Between Worlds might actually give us an answer to that question funnily enough! (since it is very clearly trying to emulate the same look as feel as ALTTP in 3D, with similarity proportioned characters that are much lower polygon than what the 3DS is capable of).

I wouldn't say that... I played through Jet Force Gemini for the first time last year and I really liked the way it looked in game... ... But I'll be the first person to tell you that I think that its high polygon CG art work looks absolutely GOD AWFUL! More polygons & higher res textures don't automatically equal better looking... But eh? Since when did the "average gamer" ever have good taste in visual design (or games themselves) in general anyway? :p

Low polygon characters can have a certain charm about them... A lot of people prefer the graphical style of Final Fantasy 9 to the likes of 13... (They also leave much to the player's imagination - much like how sprites do) Greezo also understood this when they worked on OoT 3D. When they updated the visuals, they purposely kept to the same style as the original game. They could've very easily upped the detail of the character models if they wanted to, but instead chose not to deviate too far from the original style of models (even keeping Link's lack of fingers!) because they wanted to make the in-game visuals look closer to the original art work, while not moving too far from the original game's look. It's not necessarily so cut and dry as you might first think... I really like the style of the old N64 Banjo games (and all of Rare's other N64 games) - so much so that I actually think that Perfect Dark N64 looks better than Perfect Dark XBLA (ignoring the increase in resolution, I never liked the updated models - especially Elvis on 360; YUCK!): oh and the original CBFD looks far better than its remake (which missed the point entirely, with it's more realistic visual style). I have a certain affinity for chunky looking N64 games It's also where the typical Rare "art style" looked best IMO.

Look at Banjo Kazooie on N64 and then Banjo Kazooie Nuts & Bolts... There's your answer (Be honest. You'd much rather see a new Banjo game done in the same style as the N64 games, low poly models and all, than with modern spangly graphics wouldn't you?)

So I was bored and I compiled a list of Nintendo published titles that were released on the Wii VC that have yet to be re-released on the Wii U VC... NES Pinball, Mach Rider, Baseball, Donkey Kong 3, Wario's Woods, Volleyball, Ice Hockey, DKJr Math, NES Open Tournament Golf, Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels, Super Mario Bros 3, Startropics, Startropics 2, Adventures of Lolo, Adventures of Lolo 2, Yoshi's Cookie (De-listed) 16 games left to go (15 when discounting de-listed games) SNES Kirby's Avalanche, SimCity, Super Mario RPG, Super Punchout, Super Mario Kart, Zelda A Link to the Past, Donkey Kong Country (De-listed), Donkey Kong Country 2 (De-listed), Donkey Kong Country 3 (De-listed) 9 games left to go (6 when discounting de-listed games; 5 if we don't count SimCity, which was de-listed in the US, but strangely not in Europe ) These games are the ones that will most likely make up the majority of the imminent VC release schedule, as they can seemingly be re-released at Nintendo's whim (though who knows what the hell is happening regarding DKC 1-3 and Yoshi's Cookie's licensing...) Hopefully they'll get through their own games quickly and start getting into the games that weren't released on the Wii VC... (or in English at all... I'm looking at YOU Fire Emblem!) As for the 3rd parties' track record in getting their Wii VC games out on the Wii U VC... Let's take a look at some of the bigger publishers and what games that were on the Wii VC are currently missing... Capcom NES Mega Man 5 (1 game) SNES Street Fighter Alpha 2, Mega Man X2 (2 games) Konami NES Castlevania, Probotector II/Super Contra, Castlevania II, Double Dribble, Blades of Steel, Skate or Die!, Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa, Castlevania III, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (De-listed) (9 games - 8 discounting de-listed games - 10 if we include Life Force, which was released in the US only on Wii) SNES Super Castlevania IV, Super Probotector/Contra 3, The Legend of the Mystical Ninja, Gradius III, Axelay (5 games) Namco NES Dig Dug (1 game) (2 if we count Sky Kid, which was US only on Wii) SNES Pac Attack (1 game - 2 if we count Metal Marines, which was US only on Wii) Square Enix (They've released nothing on the Wii U VC outside of Japan yet, so below is a list of all the titles they released on the Wii VC in EU/US) Final Fantasy, ActRaiser, Secret of Mana, Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen, Final Fantasy II/IV, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy III/VI, Bubble Bobble (Taito), Operation Wolf (Taito), Space Invaders: The Original Game (11 games - 14 if we count US Wii VC only games including, The Legend of Kage (Taito), Elevator Action (Taito) and Darius Twin (Taito)) Tecmo-Koei NES Mighty Bomb Jack, Ninja Gaiden (2 games, 6 if we include US Wii VC only games including, Ninja Gaiden 2, Ninja Gaiden 3, Tecmo Bowl, Uncharted Waters: New Horizons, Nobunaga's Ambition, Genghis Khan II: Clan of the Gray Wolf - Note that Romance of the Three Kingdoms 4 HAS actually been released on the Wii U VC, making it the first time it has ever been released in Europe on any platform - meaning that they're ok with releasing previously unreleased titles over here now) So looking at the major 3rd parties, Konami and Square Enix are the big holdouts (especially when you add the Hudson games to Konami's list which, even when ignoring almost the entire TG16 library, bumps up their list to a whopping 25!); while Capcom has already managed to re-release almost everything they ever released for the Wii VC... (And considering that Mega Man X2 has already been re-released in Wii U in Japan, while Mega Man 5 & 6 have also been re-released on 3DS in both the US AND EU, they'll probably fill those last three holes shortly enough...) There is also a matter of other smaller companies which hold licenses like Jaleco, Sunsoft, Aksys Games & 505 Games (Technos...), Gmode (Data East) - where god only knows what's happening with them; but Konami and Square Enix stand out like a sore thumb amongst the big publishers... Konami do seem interested in giving the Wii U VC some support, considering that Gradius is already on there and the JPN Wii U VC has quite a few titles like Super CV 4, Goemon etc (and Contra 3 has been rated for a Wii U release in Europe), but they're the biggest offender by far - especially when you add on Hudson's huge back catalogue... (And it gets even worse if you look at their full list of titles that haven't been re-released. Oh my lord Jesus Christ! The list is GINORMOUS! It's fucking criminal that such an incompetent company is sitting on such a gigantic list of IPs and classic titles! )

Well I'm really enjoying it and I'm someone who hated the 3D Sonics and thought that Colours and Generations were OK at best).

This game is funny as hell It's the perfect game for those who love making the wrong choices in games on purpose

DOOOOOO IIIITTT!!! The sound of splatting on a wall is hilarious BTW Me and my friends just kept doing it on purpose on one of the multiplayer stages once we heard it. We just couldn't stop laughing for a good solid 5 mins Speaking of laughs, the cutscenes are actually really well done too. Some real laugh out loud moments (and not for all the wrong reasons like past games ). Sonic is a real jerk in this one - in a good way

God! Why are people like this... ... reviewing the game!? Are they trying to make the game look bad on purpose? Ugh! It's just painful to watch these video reviews... The game isn't even that hard! It's only about on par with Mario 64 or Mario Galaxy in terms of difficulty...

I'm up to mid world 3 now... Yeah, this game is awesome. The likes of IGN are totally full of it. Go in with the knowledge that there's a steep learning curve (and that the controls aren't well explained - with the colour powers allowing for button/stick controls and you'll enjoy it) The levels are great. Inventive, creative, short, sweet and very replayable - just like the MD games. Buy buy buy!