Dcubed

Finally! It has moved up again! It's jumped from 7th to 5th on the UK all time eShop charts! (the previous 6th and 5th place must've been really close!) Now nipping at the heels of Little Inferno...

More than anything else. 3DS needs more new IPs to call its own - ideally at retail. While there have been a good number of them on the eShop (Dillon's Rolling Western, Denpa Men, Pullblox/Fallblox, Harmoknight etc) and the built-in stuff like the AR Games, Face Raiders and of course Streetpass Plaza (as well as the 4 downloadable Streetpass games), at retail Nintendo has only released one single new IP worldwide (Steel Diver) and that was actually a repurposed DS tech demo! I wouldn't want the 3DS to be forever remembered as the sequel machine. I'm still waiting to see more new original IPs at retail for 3DS...

When you have retailer confidence on your side, you don't need to pay for shelf space. If Nintendo need to pay to get it on store shelves, then that's what they need to do. Same goes for ports and other 3rd party support. If they need to pay to play the competitive game, well... they've got plenty of cash to do so!

Hey! If we're already up to 2003, maybe we'll skip straight to 2006 by early next year

It's GCN in fast forward it seems. It's just like when Argos publically dropped the GCN from their catalogue. Even despite the fact that they gave very little shelf space to begin with, it's the kind of message that is the last thing Nintendo needs to see right now

They can detect if you bought it via download code or by direct purchase in your purchase history (the DDP website mentions how you purchased a game), but all of their promotions so far have ignored any differences between the two - hence why I assumed that everything would work just fine. I can see why they might want to limit it to direct eShop purchases (since they don't need to split the revenue with a retailer in that case) but if they wanted to do that, then they should specify in the promotion, clearly stating that download codes don't count towards it. Oh well, it's all sorted out now anyway so I'm happy. No harm done

Huh!? Now it seems that they've changed their mind... I just got another email telling me to disregard the last one, which states the following... So it seems that they're honouring the promotion for those who got it from GAME before the release date, but not for those who bought download codes afterwards!? Confusing Seems like a quick fix patchwork solution, as they probably didn't intend for GAME to start selling them before Friday, but hey! I'm not complaining

Turns out that it's not to do with the broken street date after all. Apparently, retail download codes don't count towards the promotion at all. Just got a reply back from Nintendo UK... That's pretty crappy TBH. They did not make that distinction between direct eShop downloads and retail download codes clear at all and plenty of sites like NintendoLife were under the impression that download codes counted towards the promotion as well, so it's not just me... I'm glad that they're looking to sort out the DDP points issue (it's not just me who has not recieved them and you are supposed to recieve them from download codes - I've gotten them before from one I redeemed), but I'm not happy about missing out on that promotion as that was part of the reason why I bought that download code in the first place (that and it let me get the game early, while allowing me to lend my physical copy to my cousin). I won't lose any sleep over it (it's not exactly a great deal anymore - you'd only save £2 by buying both games direct, instead of buying both via download codes from GAME), but I'm not happy

Yeah me neither. Apparantly a lot of people have been having problems with it, going by comments on Neogaf... I sent them an email yesterday, so hopefully tomorrow will bring some answers.

Yes, they skip most of the gameplay with the included "Metroid Other M: The Movie" - only adding in a very small amount of snippets so that the story flows as intended. There's plenty of gameplay in MoM and it's also really great fun too! Overall MoM gets a really bad rap for two reasons - its story (which is pretty poorly written and intrusive - admittedly a tremendous failing when you consider that its story was bigged up as a major selling point of the game...) and the fact that its gameplay/exploration follows on from Metroid Fusion rather than Super Metroid (so you'll find that the path forward is very linear and story driven, rather than open like SM and the Metroid Prime games are); Understandable, considering that all the pre-release material bigged the game up as a sequel to Super Metroid, rather than the prequel to Metroid Fusion that it actually is, so people expected something close to the former rather than the latter. Despite that though, it's a lot of fun to play. There is a healthy amount of exploration involved (if you're after the item pickups), Samus has her agility back from the 2D titles, the combat is well done and really innovative and it's just outright fun to play. If you can look past the badly written story (which unfortunately, seemingly most people cannot), just go in expecting a prequel to Metroid Fusion (though with an even stronger focus on story than in that game), rather than a sequel to Super Metroid and you'll enjoy it

Funny thing here is that you're both wrong here, because it actually comes in very handy when you get multiple characters in the more convoluted stages, without really breaking the flow of the gameplay. You can use the touch screen to send one of the three characters off on their own with their own Pikmin squad to go somewhere else while you control a different character. Gamepad comes in super handy then as you can see the exact position of each character at any given time (and what the Pikmin are doing), without needing to pause the game to check the map! It's obviously not integral to playing the game, but it does greatly enhance the experience

How's about some good news? COD Ghosts has finally gotten officially announced for Wii U. Why on earth Nintendo waited so long to announce it, I have no idea. God knows why they'd want people to think that it's not coming and despair even more over the 3rd party situation, but there you go

That's what this... ... is for Having the Gamepad sitting on my coffee table in-between me and my TV, within easy reach (for using the touch screen), while I use the Wiimote & Chuck for the TV action is boss :awesome:

Nope. Still got Rayman Legends and The Wonderful 101 to go

Yup. This game was clearly designed for the Wiimote & Chuck from the get go (and the controls are even better than the NPC Pikmin games! Motionplus works a treat ) - the game makes use of this straight away by having enemies with specific small weakpoints on their body (like how hitting the bulborbs eyes stun it for a brief moment). You're at a severe disadvantage without that high accuracy, or the ability to call Pikmin out of range, or the ability to throw Pikmin behind you as you run from an enemy. But likewise, the game is also clearly designed around having that topographic view on the Gamepad as well as the stages can get rather convoluted (remember how much you used to switch to the map screen in the GCN games? You'll be doing double that here!) The ability to send captains to various places on their own while you do something else is also a godsend!

Best way to go is to use both at the same time (put that Gamepad stand to use ) It's really fun making use of both at once! You get the super awesome Wiimote & Nunchuk controls and then a super awesome terminal computer that gives you lots of useful topography info and a really useful waypoint feature that lets you send captains to specific points on the map! Definately the true way to play!

Sod it, I might get it anyway. I'll let my cousin borrow my physical copy when it arrives

Just checked, oh snap, you're right! Oh man, it's tempting... (especially when you consider that Wonderful 101 offer and the DDP discount!)

Not quite yet... Good to see that they're selling the codes already though (and at a reasonable price too )

Agreed, it sounds nuts! and also sort of Actraiser-ish in how it has you playing two seperate games that intertwine and link together We need a western release stat! Time to start sending the message direct to Game Freak Serebii! Hop to it!

People who were complaining, asking for variable prices on VC games that reflect their value... You got your wish :p

We are getting Kirby's Dreamland 3 this week, we got Earthbound last week and we got Donkey Kong, Metroid and Kid Icarus the week before (Super Mario Kart is also probably on it's way shortly as it came out on the JPN VC not long ago). We also already have had SMB 2 and Super Mario World on the Wii U VC for a while already, so you can knock those off your list. Nintendo have actually been pretty good about getting their own 1st party titles out on the Wii U VC quickly. We've gotten those ones at a MUCH faster pace than the Wii VC ever did. The problem is the lack of 3rd party releases, which are currently anemic, even in comparison to the Wii VC! (The lack of non-Nintendo consoles also hurts a lot). Also, they have yet to delve into titles that haven't received previous re-releases on the Wii VC (with Earthbound being the one glaring exception of course)

True. I actually forgot that Game Freak is still an independent company (was thinking of Genius Sonority - which published the Denpa Men games themselves, despite being a Nintendo owned studio; now THAT was just plain strange). I suppose it's not that weird then in that case. I'm just happy to see them making original games again! Nice to see that their new policy is already bearing plenty of fruit (wish Nintendo's own developers would do the same thing...)

WTF!? Self published? That's unexpected! Why wouldn't Nintendo publish a Game Freak game? Cool to see them working on another original title (especially so soon after Harmoknight - that new policy seems to be working wonders already! ), but not seeing Nintendo publish it is a bit weird and unsettling...

Patricia Wagon has been beaten! Earthbound has just ousted MSFHD from the 7th place spot on the all time UK eShop charts. Next up, The Cave