Month: November 2006

Nintendo promised 30 American Virtual Console retro games by the end of the year. Europe will be getting 31 (plus Donkey Kong Country) this year. But Japan takes the cake with a total of 50 classic downloadable games for the Virtual Console in 2006! Prepare to get steaming jealous.

Famicom [NES] (all 500 points each)
Donkey Kong (Dec 2nd)
Donkey Kong Jr (Dec 2nd)
Renjyu (Dec 2nd)
Baseball (Dec 2nd)
Tennis (Dec 2nd)
Pinball (Dec 2nd)
Urban Champion (Dec 2nd)
Soccer (Dec 2nd)
Super Mario Bros (Dec 2nd)
Ice Hockey (Dec 2nd)
Legend of Zelda (Dec 2nd)
Xevious (Dec 2nd)
Key of Solomon (Dec 2nd)
Gradius (Dec 2nd)
Mario Brothers (Dec 12th)
Wario’s Forest (Dec 12th)
Legend of Kage (Dec 19th)
Shinobi Jyajyamaru-kun (Dec 26th)

Super Famicom [SNES]
Super Mario World (Dec 2nd, 800)
F-Zero (Dec 2nd, 800)
Legend of Zelda Link to the Past (Dec 2nd, 900)
Super Castlevania (Dec 2nd, 800)
Street Fighter 2 (Dec 2nd, 800)

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An accessory even harder to find than the PS3 console. Guess what? That’s right, the PS3 Memory Card Adapter.

The PSone and PS2 memory card adaptor can copy the save data onto a virtual memory card on your PS3 hard disk, so you don’t have to start all over in your old favorite games when using the PS3’s backwards compatibility. While that is very handy, there are some…

Noteable drawbacks:
* You cannot copy saves back to a physical Memory Card. You can copy them between PS3 internal virtual memory cards, but not back to a physical PSone or PS2 card.
* You actually only use the unit one time to copy over your old save data and that’s it. I realize this is very cheeky to say, but maybe you could get it at a store, carefully use it once, and then return it to get something else with the money.
* You cannot explore your PSone or PS2 card and copy over specific game saves. It’s all or nothing, but you’re still free to delete saves at will once the card has been copied over to the hard drive.
* The adaptor will not work with cards that have more than 8MB of storage space, like the Mad Catz 16MB card. While the card is recognized, a non-descript error is returned as soon as you try to copy its contents.
* At a price of $14.99 the PS3 Memory Card Adapter does not come with a cable, but this is just a heads up, because it doesn’t need to. You use the same USB cable to connect the adaptor that you use to charge the PS3 controllers.

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We listed the top 10 Wii facts, then the top 12 other Wii facts, continued with 16 secret Wii facts. All facts you might not have known, so it’s only fitting we continue this trend with 21 very handy tips and tricks for Nintendo’s Wii.

Console related:

1. Press the home button on the main menu. Next, click on the controller image. You can adjust the Wii-mote volume and rumble functions.

2. Hold A and B down and you can move the windows on the main menu around.

3. Want your plain-looking Wii to have some style? Add a blue light around you CD drive anytime the console is on by doing the following:

Go to your email from the home menu, and add your personal computer email address to your address book. Wait ~1 hour for the email (mine took at least this long) Reply to the email from your computer. In a few minutes, you will have an email waiting for you on your Wii. Don’t read it! As long as it remains new, you have a pretty blue light!

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The Wii game Heroes has been renamed to No More Heroes. Maybe to prevent confusion with the popular TV series? Developed by Grasshopper Manufacturer and directed by Goichi Suda, the game will be published by Spike in Japan. Yes, these are the developers of Capcom’s stylish Killer 7 GameCube & PS2 game. This cel-shade-loving team is joined by Shigeto Koyama of Eureka Seven and Top wo Nerae 2! fame, who’s in charge of weapon and vehicle design, and character designer Yusuke Kozaki, known for his work on Speed Grapher.

Famitsu has first details on the game. In No More Heroes, you play as Travis Touchdown, a geek who wins a Beam Katana (a weapon that resembles a Light Saber) through an online auction and uses the weapon to start a new career as a professional killer. One day, an assassin named Helter Skelter appears before Travis and the two face off in a battle. Travis emerges victorious and finds himself in the presence of Silvia Christel, a French chick who claims to be an agent with the UAA (we’re not entirely sure, but this appears to stand for United Assassins Association). Silvia gives Travis official rank of 11 in the organization.

No More Heroes takes place in the city of Santa Destroy,

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Half-Life 2: Episode 2 is considered one of the biggest upcoming game releases, despite the delay to summer 2007, since it will also include the long awaited Team Fortress 2 and their puzzle shooter Portal. FiringSquad got a chance to chat with Valve‘s director of marketing Doug Lombardi to find out more about Episode 2. Here are some of the interesting answers they got, but skip this first question if you haven’t finished Half-Life 2 upto Episode 1.

Question: While Episode 1 seemed like more of the same Half-Life 2 gameplay, it looks like Valve is changing things up for Episode 2. Is that intentional?
Answer: Episode One served as the bridge between Half-Life 2 and this trilogy of new episodes. Picking up exactly where HL2 left off, we needed to spend a bit more time in City 17 to resolve a few things, while extending the AI and other technologies to enable the single player coop experience between you and Alyx. In Episode Two, the Gordon has left City 17 and will spend the rest of this trilogy exploring new locations and interacting with new characters and items.

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The American PlayStation website mentions the PS3 system software version 1.11 update includes the following:

* General
o You can now use PlayStation Network services.
o You can now use the single tap text entry method on the on-screen keyboard for English and other European languages.
* Settings

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On Xbox Live Arcade Wednesdays Microsoft releases a new game weekly, but not this week, instead they announced they’ll today give Texas Hold ‘em a full-featured update.

“We’ve listened to our community and as a result, a host of features and improvements have been added to Texas Hold ‘em to speed up game-play, eliminate cheating and ensure proper competition. As a result, the online multi-player leaderboards will be reset to eliminate the inflated scores that currently appear. In a future update in early 2007, we’ll be adding Xbox Live Vision Camera support as well.”

Below is a full list of the new features and changes in the Texas Hold ’em update:

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