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Haven't followed this thread yet. But having recently picked up Metroid Fusion (and ordered Metroid: Zero Mission) for cheap recently, I'm totally into the Metroid universe again. I missed those gems on the GBA a few years back, so I'm catching up on it now. Man, those games are awesome! I really loved Fusion, great story, nice twists and unbelievably fun and playable. I never got to finish Metroid Prime on the GC, I was at 88%, but somehow I lost interest in it. Now, I'm back at it again. It's beautiful to play and see that game again. It really captures the 2D games. Just this week I picked up Metroid Prime 2, since I missed that game as well. And since this game was dirt-cheap, I couldnt pass it up. So basically, I'm picking up all the Metroid games I can find. Getting prepared for the gem that is Metroid Prime 3. I'm expecting more of the same as the other 2 Prime games, but with better controls and a few new gameplay additions. One of the most important aspects of a Metroid game is that it's atmoshperic, with ambient music to immerse you into the game. Now hurry up on the VC release of Super Metroid!

I'm anxiously awaiting what kind of games Konami has planned for Wii. I don't think we'll get a MGS title, as Kojima Productions has its hands full on MGS4 on PS3 already. Besides, they've just produced MGS: PO for PSP. How many MGS games can they churn out? I'm personally hoping for a return of the console Castlevania titles on Wii. They have the GBA/DS fan base already. I'd prefer an ultimate 2D epic Castlevania title, but wouldn't mind those 3D games. Just make it good! But frankly, I don't think we'll get many huge franchises yet. Think more like Elebits, new games but with a family-friendly theme. Besides that, I'm fully expecting some Bemani games on Wii, especially DrumMania. Whatever they put out, just make it worthwhile and I'll gobble it!

Of course everybody can and should have his/her own opinion. I guess the responses thus far comes from those that didn't like the game at first, like you, but after giving it a little bit more time, they didn't just start to like. They loved it! We're perhaps trying a little bit too hard to convince people that Red Steel isn't as bad as some reviewers made it sound like. Sure, it didn't quite live up to the hype it created for itself, but still a decent and very enjoyable game. That said, we should all respect each other's opinions and preferences. It would be a boring world if we were all alike, right?

Agreed, it only gets better after that. I love the second part of the game, the last few levels are getting quite tricky actually. There's too much tutorial in the first few levels for my liking. As for focus modes, it's quite handy. I use it more than i used to. Simply disarm the leader and you're done. Very cool. But then again, it's cooler to blast those bastards away in a heated gunfight hehe. I got a few A ratings for accuracy now. I believe it was over 50%. My best one is 74% (really sparse one shooting people). Also, my current level is Lv.9 (Master, if Im not mistaken)! One more to go to reach the top level

If that Game Informer quote was real and not taken out of context, then great news for us. Actually, I would like Valve to create a totally new game (and IP) for the Wii, doing a port of an existing title just wouldn't do justice to both the title and Wii. Something along the lines of Red Steel, but even better. Oh, I remember in the latest IGN mailbox, they mentioned a mainstream FPS coming to Wii. Could it be Valve's?

Hm, I go by different rules myself. I don't care if it's exclusive or not. I buy good games and games I enjoy. Why limit yourself to Nintendo exclusives? If it's a quality game, ensuring your hours of fun, why would you want to miss that? (Now, I'm not saying this is a good game, since I haven't played it) It's only going to hurt you in the long run if everybody does that. You see, if good 3rd party / multi-platform games don't sell on the Nintendo consoles, publisher will be reluctant to pour development resources, time and money into developing more games. Less games on our hardware = less console sales = even less games. Let only being exclusive. It is, however, your choice. I can in no way judge you by anything and it's not my intention, just sharing my thoughts with you. As for NFS: Carbon... I don't feel excited about you. I wanted to buy a NFS title years ago. But they released one every year and I just couldn't decide which one I should get. In the end, I just passed and went for other games

Good to hear you people mostly loving this game. I know I do. Haven't played to game for two weeks, Wii Sports and VC are keeping me away from it, I have to say the game isn't perfect. It never was, I was thinking the other day. Red Steel really brings back memory of GoldenEye on our good old 64. But what GoldenEye superior to Red Steel is that Red Steel is way too easy. I'm not talking easy as in you never die, cos you mostly like will. It's the damn save points littered around the levels and the regenerating health bars. I mean, how wonderful would it have been if you had to restart a level or start from a checkpoint about 1/3 and 2/3 of the level. It would have made the game a lot challenging and exciting. Remember that mission in the control room in GE (mission 16 i believe?)? You had to play almost perfectly in order to stand a chance in the "defend Natalya (that was her name right?) while she's doing her stuff and enemies start coming from all sides" part. That was SO exciting to play and you felt you've conquered something. A similar mission can be found in RS, but if you die there or the person you have to protect, you just start over a few minutes before that event. The checkpoints makes you breeze through the game, while it would have been a much longer and challenging game if there were less checkpoints. Eh, i guess you get the idea huh? The regenerating health isn't THAT much of a problem, but combine that with the checkpoints and it suddenly is. After this long rant, I still love, enjoy and recommend this game. Let's not forget, it's still a launch title. Should Ubisoft have decided to delay this till March, I believe it could have been an ever better game. Im really looking forward to a sequel to this game. Iron out the problems, up the textures and graphics even more, add in an expansive multiplayer mode and even online play. Wow, what a great game it will be :P

If MK releases in March with online play, that means Wii's online service kicks off this March. Nintendo did say they got some important things to announce in January. So IF it comes this March, we gotta hear about it pretty soon. Still, I'm doubting about the credibility of this report. It just seems too soon of the service to be launched. I have a feeling it'll be very wonky if it does. But launching with Mario Strikers and Batalion Wars 2 (was it supposed to be online then?), along with a few 3rd party releases should make for a very decent start!

Slightly off topic, but I've seen some scans of a Japanese mag reporting on Space Channel Wii. Not sure if it's legit or not, but kinda cool though. I'll try to find the link. Seeing as Miyamoto was really charmed by Samba di Amigo, it wouldn't surprise me a Wii version could be in the making. I'd like more music rythm games on the Wii, like the DS has Band Brothers, Ouendan/EBA

Saw this on GoNintendo. I'm listening to it right now. Very cool! Added to my faves.

Just read this from Kotaku which get them from 1up: The Stamper brothers (Founders) are leaving Rare Kind of a shocker to me. I wonder what their reasoning behind this is. Could Microsoft be involved in this, ie telling them what to do. Or is it really just because they've grown tired of it and really wants to do something new? If so, what would they do? Start a new gaming company? Go teaching on schools? Apply for a job at one of those great "industry analysts companies"? Haha. It really makes me think what is left of Rare after their golden years in the SNES/N64 era. It's just a label now. And one that lost most of it's glory long ago. Though Viva Pinata seems like an interesting game. So what's your take on it? Edit: oh and if this should belong in another forum, feel free to change its place. Or if worse, lock this one up :P

in the official wii trailers the player were drumming on two wiimotes. Noku, perhaps they could release a footpedal extension with that game that connect to the remote. That would be awesome! I'm hoping for a Band Brothers type of game. Give us the beats and we'll drum it up

Ha, that's so true. I love that feature. That's how i finished Gunstar Superheroes. Some of the older games really required you to sit through several hours to make it to the end. Quitting and resuming the game gave me the possibility to actually see the end Sure, it's not as hardcore, but hey I've got more gaming duties to do :P

Optimized version? In what ways? You mean optimized from the Japanese/American version or European version? If it's the latter, I might wanna take a look at (I've already got Castlevania on my SNES).

its exactly the opposite for me. i've played castlevania4, but not r-type while i know its one of the better shooters out there. i'd go for castlevania4, firstly cos u never played it yet and secondly, its just a great game. certainly one of the best old style 2d castlevanias released. by which i mean the pre-SOTN games. get r-type later. always go for new experiences first!

So, I've finally played some multiplayer Red Steel, as well as my first dips in Call of Duty 3. Here are some thoughts and impressions: Red Steel multiplayer (only 2P, instead of 3P as planned): - We only played one mode and two levels, but it seemed kinda limited - You can't zoom in as in multiplayer, but certain graphical effects are still there, like sunbeams coming through - amount of characters were limited, though i gotta admit, we played on a new save file (15%), so playing on mine would perhaps unlocked more characters - Wiimote seems to act differently than in single player, but i adjusted to it rather quickly. - Played fluently, no hic-ups - 1 shot headshot with a handgun from the other side of the room. Awesome moment! - Lots of fun and gets quite frantic at times, even with 2P. Should be a blast with 4P In conclusion: Havent played every mode yet. The 3rd mode should be the coolest mode in which it uses the speaker. Have yet to try that. Even in the limited modes we played, I had a blast playing with my mate. Decent multiplayer that's more of a tag-on to the single player game. Call of Duty 3: - Looked very much like GameCube's COD: Big Red One. The game's structure is the same as every other COD, ie: cutscene, move forward, shoot, repeat - Aiming worked very well. No problem at all. Though it must be said, I was playing on my mate's setting, which according to him had been tweaked a lot. - Lost the pointer at the start of mission 2, so i was suddenly turning around and around. WTF?! - Wii controls are quite fun. To hit someone, push Wiimote forward. To switch weapons, swing nunchuk left/right. Those in-game one-on-one 'fights' with your enemies are quite cool, though get tiring a bit. Other motions like driving and rowing are yet to be experienced. - No grenade tossing like in Red Steel. Just hold a button and release. Boo! In conclusion: CoD3 seems like a very decent FPS. If you've played any of them before on the Cube, you know what to expect. Wii controls are accurate, but those "lost pointer moments, so let's turn around" moments are odd and annoying. So if you ask me, get Red Steel or CoD3? I'd personally go for Red Steel. You really can see it's made from the ground up for Wii. Grenade tossing, tilt your gun gangsta style, Wii-graphics, blowing things up. It just feels good. Maybe CoD isn't quite my game. It's too much put in scene to me. There's no interaction with the environment. I'm not saying Red Steel is without its problems, but that would be my 1st choice as the FPS for Wii at the moment. Sorry for the long post. Hopes it helps people out there!

Yeah I heard about the weird button mapping too for the GC controller. It sounds horrible! Now Im holding off on my SNES purchases. I was really looking forward to Contra 3 (Probotector 3), maybe I should go for R-Type first... Hopefully Nintendo realizes this problem and fixes it, letting the player decide would have been much better you know. So in fact, it means playing NES, MegaDrive and TurboGraphix games can be played with Wiimote, though MD games can get odd with A acting as the 3rd button), for SNES you NEED the Classic Controller and for N64 you use the GC controller. And why cant GC games be played with the Classic controller? I do plan on playing a Classic controller, so that's not the problem. It just seems like such a big oversight or maybe an evil plan for Nintendo to make us buy the Classic controller! Oh Viper, isn't possible in Castlevania 4 and many other games for that matter to change the buttons in the options menu? You should give that a try

Yeah i finished the game with 76% i believe. I'm replaying now and having a better ranking adds more % to it. I'm at 80% now. You get the second ending, I believe if:

I've finished it yesterday. Kinda shame it was over. I clocked 9 hours something to finish the game, though that's just the time I've saved. In total I guess I'm more around 15 hours. I'm already on my second game now. Trying to get better scores and... well, it's just so much fun blasting those badasses away with a shotgun or picking headshots with a sniper or handgun. Gonna try multiplayer soon, hopefully that'll add even more fun to it.

if ur loving the first few levels already, then it only gets better later on. have fun! shame to hear about the shite controls in cod3 though

I'm on the final part of the game now I think. There will be a few more levels till the end i think. I can safely say this game rocked my world. As i said it before, this game is nowhere near as bad as the reviews say. Controls took some time to get used to, but i'm moving fluently and shooting with lots of accuracy. The story is kinda compelling. It took a few missions till it took off, as the hotel levels are kinda lame. Graphically it's a mixed bunch. The first few levels are again the worst part, after that, it looks quite good and has some very nice effects. Definitely one of the better looking Wii games out there. I hope Ubisoft continue this game as a franchise and put a lot of effort in it to make a worthy sequel that has that extra polish to it. For those people considering this game, I'd say it's worth it. I'm gonna try COD3 on my mate's Wii soon, so i can get an accurate comparison. But Red Steel already has the advantage of being a new IP, COD3 is like COD2 but slightly different :P

I'm not sure about Zoonami. I think people give them too much credit and i dont mean to be harse on them. But seriously, what have their contributions been? 6 years up and running and having not released anything. Of the things they've announced, it really doesnt sound too interesting. As for Martin Hollis, yes he was a member of the Goldeneye team, but damn, that's 10 years ago. And the core GoldenEye team still is at Free Radical. That Game Zero project sounded interesting, but i fear the game didnt came along, since their team consists of only a few men. I still hope Zoonami brings something good to the table, either with or without the help of Nintendo. But they do need to show us something before we've all but forgotten about them. Btw, we havent heard much anymore of Nebris huh?

i wonder, is it possible to change weapon without the d-pad? every time i change by pressing left, my view changes. which is kinda annoying.

I got the game two days ago. Played the first 3 missions on a straight run. Gotta say, the controls werent as bad as the reviews made them to be. I did have to get used to it a bit. Today I played the first 3 missions again (stupidly overwrote the save file -_-') and to my surprise, the controls were almost a non-issue now. It controlled pretty smoothly. Sure, i had to re-adjust every now and then, but nothing major. Im actually enjoying the game now. The sword fighting is decent, but could be better. The parrying works a treat, the slashing is a bit weird. As for the game itself, that's perhaps what disappointed the most. The game is kinda easy, since your health regenerates when you rest. And the game is really generous with it's hitzones. You can shoot an enemy even when you're not really hitting him, at least that was my impression. Oh and what's up with the graphics? Those i've soon online were much much better. Is it because I dont use the component cable? In conclusion, at the moment I think Red Steel is a very decent and fun game. It has its glitches and some gameplay oddities, but somehow you grow attached to it. I'd say it's worth 7/10 - 7.5/10 from what i've experienced so far.

Kinda off-topic, but where do you see how long your multiplayer sessions have tallied up? I know there's the message board in which it tells you how much time you've spent on certain games and channels. Do they have a total for games too? OT: I've experienced some troubles with the wiimote only in occasions of being too far or too to the sensor bar. Also, having an awkward angle doesnt help much either. Have you tried changing the position on the sensor bar? I had it on top first, now i have it at the bottom. Worked slightly better. But all in all, no, i havent had too much trouble with remotes.