You heard right … C64 games are coming to Virtual Console.

The Commadore 64 wasn’t exactly known as the pinnacle of retro gaming, but there have got to be a few decent titles in amongst the dross. I hope they are super cheap.

Via The BBPS.

I just noticed there is a new developer diary (aka blog) up for Blast Works : Build, Trade, Destroy, (previously titled Blast Works : Build, Fuse & Destroy) which will be released around May this year by Majesco (of Cooking Mama fame).

Blast Works is being adapted from the incredible work of Kenta Cho, and the first post goes into some detail about how they have ‘deconstructed and rebuilt’ his scrolling space shooter TUMIKI fighters to become Blast Works. Looks like Blast Works will enable players to build their own enemies with an in game editor, before blasting them to pieces. I just hope they have managed to maintain the coolness of the original TUMIKI fighers; if so, it should be a solid little shooter … I can’t wait !

(Oh, anyone who hasn’t should play Kenta’s freeware PC games .. they rock so hard it hurts).

So, this old news .. but not for me since I just got caught by it. In Bowsers Dark Matter Plant, during the boss battle at the end, there is a show-stopper glitch; sometimes Bowser can just float off into space … and nothing can be done except restart the level.

I ignored most news about Super Mario Galaxy when I was first released (except for the overall ratings), so as to avoid spoiling the surprise elements of the game … well,  this certainly is a surprise … a glitch in an otherwise pretty polished first-party Nintendo game. Don’t see that often.

There’s a video of the glitch here at NintendoWiiFanboy … I’m just hoping this doesn’t happen next time I work my way back though the level and meet Bowser …

Well, it may be a little early for anyone to actually produce a homebrew Wii game, but news just in from the 24th Annual Chaos Communication Congress (24C3) is suggesting that some dedicated hackers have managed to find the encryption and decryption keys for the Wii via full memory dumps, allowing homebrewed code to be run with full access to the Wii hardware (not just Gamecube mode) for the first time. Here’s the video to prove it:

These guys are professionals, with their reputations on the line … they don’t fake stuff, so I’d say it’s all true.

This is great news … it means that in the future developers will be able to release innovative software for the Wii without requiring the direct blessing of Nintendo, and we as players will have a wider choice of independently developed games and applications.

It is a very Merry Christmas for Wii owners after all !

Via Nintendo Scene and Next Generation and WiiNintendo.

There’s an entertaining review of Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles by Adam Hartley up at Sprong. I’ve been looking forward to this game, and it looks like it’s turned out to be decent, so I’ll probably pick up a copy myself sometime soon.

Some choice quotes:

“Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles is, in my opinion, the best original third-party game developed for release on Wii this year.”

“… Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles co-op, with two Zappers, is close to the most perfect amount of fun two people can have with their clothes on.”

I’d say the House of Dead Wii releases in the pipeline are going to have a hard time competing with RE:UC, and the classic RE4. Check out the full review for the lowdown.