When I first heard the news that Neo Geo games were slated to be released on Virtual Console in the US and Europe, my first thought was .. I bet Australia misses out, again (just like the TurboGrafx-16 debarcle). Well, I turns out my knee-jerk reaction was wrong …. the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) has just rated the Neo Geo version of “Fatal Fury: King of Fighters” … so Aussie and Kiwi’s will get getting Neo Geo games on Virtual Console.

Thankyou Nintendo and SNK for not making your Australian (and New Zealand etc) customers second class citizens this time around !

Story via Wii News Blog.

The official press release from SNK.

Nintendo shipped a boatload of Sega Megadrive (aka Genesis) releases to the Virtual Console shop this week. (Sorry about the lateness of this post .. I was on holiday). We got the “Gauntlet-esque” Crack Down, Ghouls ‘n Ghosts (the sequel to Ghosts ‘n Goblins), Shining in the Darkness (one of the Megadrives seminal RPGs) , Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (the sequel to … er, well, you know) and E-SWAT: City Under Siege (a side-scrolling shooter in the vein of Contra). Read the rest of this entry »

Aaron Davies is on a crusade. As a loyal Nintendo Wii fan, he is sick an tired of the Australian, New Zealand and and Pacific regions (ie “PAL” format) getting consistently screwed with slow release dates for first-party Nintendo games. Aaron’s report covering release dates of the top 8 rated games (pdf) clearly shows that when it comes the third party releases, the lag time between the English language release in North America and Australia is much shorter than games produced ‘in house’ by Nintendo. Nintendo ‘in house’ titles tend to be released several months later in Australia, while third party titles are usually available in Australia less than a month after the US release. Read the rest of this entry »

Sorry I was a little slow on the Australian Virtual Console release update this week … I was on holiday. This week (well, last week) brings two new games to the Wii Virtual Console; a Super Nintendo release, Vegas Stakes, and another Bonk franchise release for TurboGrafx-16, Bonk 3: Bonk’s Big Adventure. Read the rest of this entry »

I haven’t posted in a week since I went on holidays to Thailand. Phuket and Phi Phi Island, to be exact. This area was flattened by the tsunami of December 26th, 2004, with significant loss of life, but the tourist industry appears to have bounced right back.

Out in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere on Phi Phi Island, my significant other and I met a guy called “Yaa” who was running a fairly isolated little bar/restaurant at Loh Ba-Koa Bay called “Hippies”. We were the only customers. “Yaa” was a lot of fun .. he did some magic tricks, gave us a personal one-man fire show, and then challenged me to some video games. He had a weird console I’d never seen, a PikaGame by Primaworld, which appears to contain lots of (probably unlicensed) NES roms. “Yaa” obviously wanted to challenge me to his favorite game, which was a Japanese NES release, Battle City (It’s basically like the Tanks game in Wii Play, which in turn is heavily based on the originial Atari 2600 “Combat” game). As you can imagine, with my reflexes a little slow due to the cheap beer, and the fact that “Yaa” had all day to practice with no customers around in the rainy season, he whipped my butt. Still it was great fun and I’m really hoping one day we get a Virtual Console release of Battle City, so I can re-live my holiday gaming experience.