Wii Gaming News

The original Ninja Gaiden 2, while a solid game, could have been better: inconsistent pacing and brutally cheap moments weighed down an otherwise fantastic experience. With Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, despite the absence of former director Tomonobu Itagaki, Team Ninja has made a well-developed action game that surpasses its predecessor; Sigma 2 retains the developer’s signature raw style while excising NG2’s bloat and excess.

In the first game, incendiary Ninja enemies armed with explosive shurikens were a huge pain and almost insurmountable on harder difficulties. The huge explosion after beating the armadillo boss in the Daedalus level was an unexpected cheap shot, and an instant death if you didn’t block in time. And the game’s compulsory puzzles required boring backtracking and rote memorization. With Sigma 2, Team Ninja clearly listened to and implemented player feedback; they wisely omitted the instant death property on the armadillo explosion, and they edited several levels by taking out some of the duller puzzles. The result sharpens those pieces, and ultimately, the whole.

In Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble, an action game from Spike being brought to North America by Atlus, you play a “yankii” (or “yankee”); a gruff, authority-hating teen with powerful fists and a striking hairdo. Real-life yankii have been around for decades and in various forms throughout Japan — once considered detrimental to society, today they’re relatively harmless, if still somewhat intimidating and wildly-dressed, youth. Although they come from Japanese pop culture, the whole yankii concept is odd in any context, making it easier to make fun of — both for the developers and for you, the player, surprised by the game’s absurdity.

The main character, Sakamoto (you can change his first name) joins the rest of his fellow high school seniors on the annual field trip, and there are many places the students are going during their week-long itinerary. For the most part, though, Sakamoto is more interested in other schools’ ne’er-do-wells, defeating their banchos (leaders), and becoming the number-one badass in the whole country. Since the other prefectures’ schools are, conveniently, on their field trips too, Sakamoto doesn’t have to go far to assert his dominance — a few trips around the nearby towns are all that’s needed, provided that he has a school’s itinerary telling him where they’ll be. That, or they’ll simply be found semi-randomly as the days go on.

Pre-release demos have become de rigueur in this modern age of downloadable content, but one of the biggest games of the year will be forgoing the seemingly standard process: Infinity Ward has tweeted a message saying they won’t release a demo for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 before its November 10 release, no doubt to the disappointed of thousands of very impatient gamers.

“No plan for a Demo before launch. The entire team is focused on polish all the way up to ship of the full game,” reads the Twitter message. It’s a complete 180 from Infinity Ward’s approach with the original Modern Warfare in 2007, which not only had a single player demo but an extensive multiplayer beta months before it’s release as well — which surely contributed to building tons of hype for the game leading up to its launch.

Of course, building hype is one area where Modern Warfare 2 needs no help (well, maybe in Japan…), as it’s probably one of the few games that can afford to skip a demo and still make a bajillion dollars this holiday season anyway.

In what is always a good news, bad news situation, BioWare today opened registration for the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta, and received overwhelming response from fans… which eventually crashed their website.

Once normal operations resume, you will eventually be able to head to this website to sign up. But as you can see now, there’s only a maintenance message from BioWare saying they estimate “the site will be back up in the next few hours.”

Signing up will involve registering on their website, filling out some basic information, and submitting to a system scan. Beta spots are limited, so if you really, really want to have a chance to try The Old Republic before it’s (still unannounced) official release, it looks like you may want to get that refresh button warmed up.

For me, Raiders of the Lost Ark is the perfect movie. It doesn’t feature an Oscar-bait story about issues or feelings, nor does it feature a stunning performance from a mute Norwegian captured on 16mm black-and-white film. It just shows what happens when a creator with superlative skill applies his craft towards a genre he loves; Raiders is the ultimate mashup of action, adventure, romance, treasure hunting, James Bond, Uncle Scrooge, Nazis, and relics of Biblical proportions. Similarly, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is the ultimate mashup of cover-based shooting, platforming, puzzle solving, sneaking, and character quipping.

Like the previous Uncharted, this installment puts you in control of slick, treasure-hunter Nathan Drake as he jumps and shoots his way through various locales spread across 26 chapters. Uncharted 2 doesn’t add new gameplay systems that turn it into a racing game or anything like that; it’s a sequel that features lots of little tweaks and additions in a “how did I get through all of Uncharted without this?” manner. Throwing grenades no longer involves futzing with the D-pad or the sixaxis; it’s now a simple tap of L2. Nathan not only slides into cover more efficiently, he can occasionally create it and transition around corners more easily. Nathan was always able to shoot from cover; this time, there’s an actual reticule when blindfiring — making it more practical for weapons like the shotgun. New firearms include an assault rifle with a red-dot sight and a three-round burst, a vastly improved grenade launcher, and a pistol that shoots freakin’ shotgun shells.

Left 4 Dead 2 might be just a little over a month away, but that doesn’t mean Valve isn’t continuing support for the first Left 4 Dead. Just as promised, the Crash Course downloadable content is now available on both PC and Xbox 360. It comes packed with new Achievements, dialogue, and locations as the story continues shortly after the end of the No Mercy campaign. The new campaign is also playable in Versus and Survival modes, so whatever your particular brand of L4D action is, you’ll be able to take advantage of the new content.

Just like every other update the game has seen, the PC version receives the Crash Course DLC free of charge, and even comes along with a few tweaks to the game, including faster matchmaking support. But there’s a price to pay if you’re playing on Xbox 360: 560 Microsoft Points or $7 is the asking price. It’s unfortunate that Valve wasn’t allowed to release this for free, but keep in mind that a single campaign isn’t comparable to a single map in your typical FPS. Whether that price is right for you is another thing, but it should extend the life of the game at least until L4D2 hits store shelves in November.

As they often do, Nintendo has once again released a system update killing homebrew support for the Wii today, bringing us to version 4.2. Unfortunately, the benefit of updating isn’t particularly great, especially if you’re into the homebrew scene — the 4.2 update completely eliminates any such content you may have on your system.

Assuming you’re not the homebrew type, you won’t find anything new except supposedly increased system performance. Really, this update seems to fall in line with the 4.1 update, which also attempted to stop any unauthorized, third-party channels from calling the Wii home. But just like last time (and the times before that), it’s almost surely just a matter of time before the homebrew scene finds a workaround to once again let them run wild. Following that, we can all sit tight and look forward to update 4.3.

We’ve nearing the point where it’s time to start shopping for holiday gifts, and Microsoft knows it. That’s exactly why today they announced two new Xbox 360 bundles for the holidays, one featuring an Xbox 360 system, and an Xbox 360 controller in the other.

The Xbox 360 Elite Holiday Bundle is exactly what we expected it to be after a photo leaked last week. For $299 you’ll get an Xbox 360 Elite along with copies of Pure and Lego Batman. The Elite is normally priced at $299.99, so that makes for two games that are absolutely free.

Microsoft’s other new bundle is called the Xbox 360 Wireless Controller Game Pack. To match that new black Elite console of yours, it includes a black wireless controller, a 48-hour trial of Xbox Live Gold, and four Xbox Live Arcade games: Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2, Lumines Live, Bomberman Live, and Ms. Pac-Man (available only as a download, which you’ll receive a voucher for). This will all run you $59.99, just $10 more than a standalone black wireless controller goes for, although one can be had for nearly $13 less at Amazon right now, leaving you with about $23 before tax to buy exactly the XBLA games you want.

You don’t need to be a hardcore gamer (for that matter, you don’t need to have ever touched a controller in your life) to realize that Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey lives up to its name. Just look at the box. Simple.

The newest MegaTen, due out October 8 in Japan, got reviewed in this week’s post-TGS issue of Famitsu magazine — and the adulation came fast and furious all over Atlus’ latest. The game nabbed a total of 36 points out of 40 from Famitsu’s reviewers, all of whom had nearly nothing but good things to say about it.

“Strange Journey is balanced pretty severely throughout, but the game itself is kind, and there’s constant tension as you’re having fun exploring around,” wrote one. “Combining demons is the greatest asset the game has — they give you better results the more you use them, encouraging you to keep plugging away, and the battles are strategic enough to never get old. The experience is totally worth it, and it’s easy to get wrapped up in this unique world.” Another agreed: “The game’s accessible enough that series fans and people just passing by can enjoy this equally. The tutorial’s nice, and the mission goals are clear enough that you’re never really lost.”

The upcoming remake of Earthworm Jim for WiiWare, Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and iPhone will feature a few enhancements, including a level from the special edition, reports GamerBytes. The game’s code is being reworked from the ground up to allow new features like difficulty levels and online leaderboards along with the previously known HD graphics. The game will also include the “Big Bruty” stage from the Sega CD and PC versions of the game. Though we haven’t gotten a look yet at the new visuals for consoles, the screenshot (above) is a comparison of the old version to the iPhone.

The Wii version is being handled by a different studio, but the graphics are being optimized for its lower resolution. The company is reportedly considering a PSP version, but for now is focusing on the ones that have been currently announced. It is set to release later this year with a month-long window of XBLA exclusivity.

[Image courtesy of GamerBytes.]