Sometimes it’s difficult to keep a handle on what titles ship for what consoles, and truly Konami has not made it any easier by shipping no less than five new games today for both the Wii and Nintendo DS.
Starting with the Nintendo DS, Konami has sent Lost in Blue 2 out the door, alongside WWI navel real-time/turn based strategy game Steel Horizon and Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2007. Of these, Lost in Blue 2 has most of my attention, though strategy games as such an attractive fit for the touchable handheld. It will be interesting to see how this version of Steel Horizon stacks up to the PSP version being released later this spring.
Looking to the Wii, the company today shipped Wing Island , a game that lets players use the Wii remote to maneuver a variety of planes in and around a chain of island environments in both solo and multiplayer play. Wing Island features three primary modes of play, including story mode, free mode and trial mode. In all three game modes players can either fly solo or in formation, controlling a group of five planes simultaneously. Players have control of their flight team, directing them to fly in a variety of formations simply by performing preset motions using the remote.
Today’s other Wii release from Konami is Kororinpa: Marble Mania, a puzzle game that has players using the remote to tilt, spin and flip the environment on three axes and up to 180 degrees in order to guide marbles through each stage. Sounds a bit like competition for the upcoming Mercury port to the Wii.
Microsoft has sent word that the latest celebrity to hop onto Xbox Live to challenge gamers is R&B artist Bobby Valentino. As part of the latest Xbox Live Game with Fame session, Valentino will be challenging fans in NBA 2K7, and Gold members interested in a chance to challenge the artist to a round of basketball should watch for the gamertag BobbyVGWF from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. EST on Tuesday, March 20.
In light of Capcom’s past back-peddling with platform exclusives, coupled with the PlayStation 3’s somewhat anemic install base, it comes as little surprise that the major publisher and developer now plans to bring [i]Devil May Cry 4[/i] to both the PS3 and Xbox 360, as well as the PC. The game will be released simultaneously for the PS3 and Xbox 360, though the jury is still out on the PC.
“Capcom is committed to making its titles available to as wide an audience as possible, and has been building its technology base to meet that goal,” said Mark Beaumont, executive vice president, officer and head of Capcom consumer software publishing in the Americas and Europe. “This announcement means that PS3, Xbox 360 and PC owners worldwide will be able to experience the latest installment of one of Capcom’s pillar franchises.”
According to a statement released by Capcom, “each version of the game will be maximized to take advantage of the systems’ strengths, leading to a breath-taking visual and gameplay experience.” [i]Devil May Cry 4[/i] will feature a new protagonist named Nero and a new gameplay mechanic, his powerful “Devil Bringer” arm.
[url=http://gamevideos.com/video/id/10087]GameVideos.com[/url] has put up a short video of Namco’s Splatterhouse, which went up on the Wii’s Virtual Console earlier today. Classic side scrolling action is the name of the game here, though I had forgotten how mind numbing that music could be.
Still keeping with tradition, Nintendo has once again released a batch of new games fot the Wii’s ever growing Virtual Console library. Today’s new releases include NES classic ExciteBike for 500 Wii Points ($5), Sega’s 16-bit action game Beyond Oasis for 800 Wii Points ($8), and the TurboGrafx-16 version of Namco’s visceral arcade classic Splatterhouse for 600 Wii Points ($6).
