WiiNintendo

5.0/10
source

1UP has a great preview of this game, here’s a snippet:

It should be little surprise, then, that Konami’s decision to call the next Contra game Contra 4 has caused no small amount of hand-wringing among the series’ fans. After all, Contra III put in its appearance 15 years ago, and the half-dozen unnumbered sequels since then have strayed further and further away from everything that fans loved about the arcade and NES classics. “Contra 4″ is a clear statement: ignore all those others; this is the first true Contra game since 1992.

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For all you so eager to play the game that Nintendo is touting as the best first person shooter experience since Halo, here’s something to make you drool! The game still appears to be set for release in North America on August 20th of this year. Personally, I can’t wait.

Wario: Special Moves

Wario’s side special move is the Wario Chopper. He jumps on and starts racing!

Vroom! Vroom!

Tilt the Control Stick in the opposite direction of your movement to pull a 180. Use an attack button to jump off.

Axle turn!

Only one motorcycle will appear on screen, so if you fall off, run back up to it and climb on again.

Where’s my hog?!

Oh, and Wario’s down special move is the Wario Waft. That is to say, he passes gas.

This particular special move builds up power the longer you go without using it.

If you haven’t held it in, it’ll be a cute little poot.

But when you hold it in as much as you can…

In this case, patience really is a virtue.

So, what are we seeing? I say not much, a lot of Resident Evil footage which is to be expected. How much of the plot will this game really fill? I’m assuming everything is played from Umbrella’s POV, so does that mean that ultimately, you lose? our set in this story line that you shouldn’t be able to alter, so how much of a game is there?
This game is supposed to be a FPS of some sorts, like the failed RE: Survivor. So we’ll see how this works out for them.

Ed Boon talks about Ultimate Mortal Kombat
The DS version is coming, and the Kombat King talks about the portable rendition.

Ed Boon — he’s the one half of the original two-man design team still with Midway working on the Mortal Kombat franchise. When Midway let slip that it would be releasing Ultimate Mortal Kombat for the Nintendo DS, IGN couldn’t resist throwing a few questions to Mr. Boon about this portable rendition due out in November.

IGN: Explain what “Ultimate Mortal Kombat” is for the Nintendo DS.

Ed Boon: Ultimate Mortal Kombat for the Nintendo DS combines the arcade version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and Puzzle Kombat which first appeared on Mortal Kombat Deception. Both games are included on this version and they both can be played solo, locally against a friend (on another DS) or online over the internet. We’re really excited to have both of these games in one!!

IGN: Why the arcade game and not the MK: Armageddon design?

Ed Boon: We’ve been fortunate enough to have some great success bringing back the “old-school” MK games to some of the newer consoles. We’ve had great online playing versions of MK2 and MK3 on the Xbox 360 and the PS3. The DS has never had an MK game before so we thought it was a perfect fit. Since UMK3 has already come out for the home, we wanted to also offer something that the previous versions didn’t have so we are including Puzzle Kombat. I’m not entirely sure we would be able to fit all of MK Armageddon on a DS cartridge.

IGN: The previous Mortal Kombat updates for the Game Boy Advance, Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance and Mortal Kombat Tournament Edition were excellent, but the last time the classic Mortal Kombat 3 arcade game hit a Nintendo handheld it was, admittedly, horrific. Please do us a favor and put our minds at ease: how will you assure that this game will be arcade accurate on the Nintendo DS?

Ed Boon: Oh come on now! 2.0 isn’t THAT bad of a score….it’s better than 0.0 !! Actually if I can volunteer a little bit of insider information, Mortal Kombat Advance was completely made without my input. For what it’s worth, the original design team and I are very involved with this version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat for the DS. It will be arcade accurate and we are very excited about it.

IGN: So Mortal Kombat 3 can be obtained for cheap on the Xbox 360, and as one of many games on the PlayStation Portable for a bargain price. What are you doing on the Nintendo DS to make the game a worthwhile purchase?

Ed Boon: You’re right. What we like to do is offer Mortal Kombat on different platforms so that we can take advantage of what those platforms have to offer. In the case of the DS, you can now take Ultimate MK with you and play against friends or strangers where you could not before….basically anywhere there is WiFi access. We also added Puzzle Kombat as an added bonus and included online play with that as well. Neither of the previous releases let you play these games portable and online. That’s one of the features the DS offers over the home consoles.

IGN: Is the DS game being handled internally at Midway, or in development at an outsourced handheld developer? What’s the team done in the past?

Ed Boon: Ultimate Mortal Kombat is being developed by “Other Ocean Interactive”. They used to have the name “Backbone Entertainment” and have a LOT of experience with Mortal Kombat and online play. They did an amazing job at making Ultimate MK3 for the Xbox Live Arcade and the online play for that game was outstanding. We are fully expecting that kind of excellence in this version of MK as well.

IGN: An early screenshot of the game shows that the second screen’s only being used to display a logo. Is this just an early mock-up? What sort of ideas do you have planned for the extra display?

Ed Boon: That was an early mockup. We are experimenting with different ways to use the DS’s extra screen. In Puzzle Kombat we are utilizing the upper screen to display the puzzle fighters as well as the Death Traps. This lets us devote the entire lower screen to the actual puzzle play. As for the fighting we are working on a few ideas but haven’t fleshed them all out and aren’t quite ready to share them just yet. We don’t want to radically change the control scheme for this game but would also like to introduce a new feature that takes advantage of the hardware. We will definitely keep you posted.

IGN: Any touch screen functionality being inserted in there?

Ed Boon: We are also working on some ideas for the touch screen. However, since the player’s hands will be busy with the direction pad and the attack buttons, we probably won’t do something crazy like having the player touch the screen for punches and kicks.

IGN: What sort of multiplayer features are being planned for Mortal Kombat on the Nintendo DS?

Ed Boon: We are planning on letting players fight against each other locally as well as finding opponents to fight against over the internet. We would also like to include game sharing, which would let someone without the game play by sharing the cartridge with someone who has the game locally. Currently, we are not sure to what extent we will be taking this feature but will certainly let you know when our decision is made.

Matt Cassamasina talks about the situation of game ratings nowerdays, ESBR giving Manhunt an AO rating and Sony and Nintendo not allowing AO rated games on their systems.
-The below text was taken from Matt’s blog on IGN.com

“Software company executives love to draw parallels between the videogame industry and Hollywood, but I think the recent Manhunt 2 debacle shows how different the two remain. Hollywood makes movies for kids, for teens, and for adults. If you so desire, you can see an NC-17-rated movie — you have that choice. However, according to console manufacturers like Nintendo and Sony, adult-targeted software is not welcome on Wii and PlayStation 2 respectively. You have been removed from the equation.

I recently gave an interview to USA Today where I spoke about how seemingly broken the videogame rating system appears to be — partly by fault of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, which takes a look at the most offensive content in videogames and then assigns them a rating - but also because the big publishers won’t license titles that don’t fit snugly within the confines of the E to M standards. And also because the big retailers won’t carry AO-rated titles, even if they somehow slipped by the watchdogs at the console companies.

So you have to wonder, why does an Adults Only rating even exist if nobody save for uncensored PC users could possibly even buy these games?

Nintendo calls itself “an ‘and’ company, not an ‘or’ company,” and yet it has specifically told third party Rockstar that Manhunt 2 must make an M rating “or” it may as well go crawl under a rock and die. Wii is designed for everybody, from “age eight to eighty,” as we’ve been told so many times in official Nintendo hyperbole, so I’m curious, do Adult Only games somehow miss this 72-years-wide demographic? Perhaps you need to be 81 to appreciate Manhunt 2.

According to the ESRB, an M-rated game should only be played by gamers ages 17-years-old and up. Mature titles encapsulate content that “may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language.” I have played several hours of Manhunt 2 and I can tell you that this description very accurately describes the content housed within the game. Is it violent? Absolutely. Is the violence intense? Yes. Does it include blood and gore? Yes. What about sexual content and strong language? Check and check. That is why we have an M rating.

What, then, makes a game cross that unseen chasm that separates M-rated games, which frequently sell into the millions (just ask Rockstar about its GTA series) and AO-rated titles, which aren’t licensed or carried by retailers, thus guaranteeing financial disaster? Well, let’s go back to the ESRB ratings descriptors. Apparently, 17-year-olds just don’t have the stomach for these AO-rated games and that’s the real distinguisher. Sorry, teens, you’re just not ready for this type of content. But tell you what, on your next birthday, it’s all good. Turn 18 and you’re fit for AO, baby! A mere 365 days is what distinguishes the two ratings, from what I can tell, because the qualifier for Adult Only software is otherwise unspecific at best.

AO-rated games may include “prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity.” There’s the difference. Now, you could say that Manhunt 2 features prolonged scenes of violence, but that depends on how you define prolonged. As has been established, there are some particularly brutal and grotesque situations in the title, but are they prolonged? No, not really. No more than any other violent games. What is the difference between a five-second death animation in Manhunt 2 and a three-minute-long chainsaw massacre created as a gameplay objective in Scarface: The World is Yours? I would argue that the latter is more violent in many ways. At least in Manhunt 2 you’re only killing one person at a time and not 10 or more. And yet, Scarface had no problem obtaining that coveted, beautiful M.

I think early coverage hype for Manhunt 2 may have contributed to its undoing. Too often, critics cite Manhunt 2’s main character’s ability to use weapons to mutilate an opponent’s testicles, a mechanic only unveiled after initial eyes-on impressions by enthusiast press. Maybe it was the early buzz or the fact that Rockstar is again pushing the digital content boundaries, or maybe it’s just because Manhunt 2 is coming to the family-friendly Wii, but I think the ESRB buckled, lost its nerve, and smacked the title with an unfair rating. By the Board’s own definitions for M and AO-ranked software, Manhunt 2’s content is at the very least open to interpretation and while it is incredibly violent, neither its violence nor sexual scenarios are more prolonged than the majority of M-rated games on the market.

Nintendo and Sony had the chance here to step up and to mimic Hollywood, but they both proved that even as they trumpet that videogames are all grown up, they are unwilling to let the games speak for themselves and for buyers to make up their own minds. Maybe they are collectively afraid of backlash. Certainly Nintendo has something to lose if Wii’s squeaky clean image becomes tarnished by an AO game, right? I can understand that point of view, but if that is the case, let’s stop with all the talk about how Wii is for everybody, unless you want AO software.

Imagine if DVD manufacturers like Hitachi and Samsung came out and said, “Sorry, folks, but you’re NC-17 movies won’t be allowed on our players.” These hardware manufacturers create the platforms, but they don’t police them. There is another difference between the two industries.

Manhunt 2 is a landmark game because it brings these issues to the forefront. Clearly, something is not quite right when consumers are not even given the option to buy a title that receives an acceptable rating by the ESRB. And clearly there is something wrong when the ESRB seems to hold some games to different standards than others. When you get a chance to play it for yourself, you will understand that it is one of the most violent and in many ways disgusting games to ever grace a console, assuming it does, but also that its content falls within the boundaries of an M rating. If not, well, then that’s another bag of worms because it means there are several other M-rated titles that could just as well be rated AO, too, in my opinion.

Right now, this is just one game, but as software makers grow as storytellers, there will come a time when many games are concepted for and targeted specifically to adults. Whenever this shift happens, the ratings system will definitely need some new definitions, bare minimum, and quite possibly a complete overhaul. Perhaps then, console makers like Nintendo and Sony will also consider the possibility that their respective audiences may actually want to make their own choices about the games they buy. “

Source

Names

You can enter individual names for each player. Start by just entering a name.

This time, enter it like you would on your cell phone!
You can also use random names.

Once it’s entered, choose your name for your character on the character-selection screen before you begin fighting.

The character-selection screen is still a secret!

This time, names are extremely important. That’s because we’ve included personalized button configurations.

We’ve made this game compatible with four different controllers:

You can change button configurations for each one for each registered name, and alter those configurations any way you like.

Assigning personal button configurations each time you fight would be a bit of a pain…but if you just choose your name from the list, BAM! You get to play with your preferred configuration! There’s no waiting!

We’re also considering allowing you to save your name to the memory in your Wii Remote so you can bring your settings with you to your friend’s house…

But if we can’t make that happen, I apologize.

Its the Infamous Banana Peel

Stop Running Kirby

I told You not to stop

** cries **

SmashBros.com