A medicore week for Virtual Console releases. Do I say this too often ? Not my fault, there’s lots of retro-gaming goodness out there, we just only get a small sample of it on the Wii.
This week, we got Blades of Steel from the NES (not to be confused with Blades of Glory, which is an altogether different travesty), the 80’s flashback Skate or Die also from the NES and Monster Lair (aka Wonderboy III) from the Turbografx-16.
Skate or Die (NES) - I remember being excited about the PC version of this, back in the day, but nothing compels me to go back to it today.
Not sure how I missed this one … I swear it wasn’t in the Wii Shop Newest Additions list in on Virtual Console Friday … I think it’s one of those unusual mid-week Virtual Console releases !
This is the first Virtual Console game to be ‘updated’ to use special features of the Wii - in this case you can send your favorite snaps of Pokémon to a friend via the Wii message board. Hopefully this is the start of a trend of Wii-izing retro Virtual Console games … ideally we could get some VC releases that in addition to the typical Classic Controller mode, also have some type of new Wiimote based motion or pointer control. The obvious (basically unavoidable) game for this is Duck Hunt, but what I’d really like to see is some VC releases that have control schemes like the Metal Slug Anthology, to put a new spin on the classics.
Check out this evil hacked Super Mario Bros. level (warning, NSFW audio, don’t watch it if you don’t like rude words). It really reminds me of my first time playing Super Mario Bros. 2: The Lost Levels.
This is pretty cool … by setting up an infra-red light source and some finger-mounted reflectors, the Wii Remote “IR eye” can be used for finger tracking, much like the neat interface from the film “Minority Report”.
With a bit of refinement, this looks like it could actually be usable for a real game. Nintendo or a third-party developer should really take this idea an run with it … bundle a game with an infra-red light attachment and some little reflective thimbles, and you have yet another innovative control scheme !
In fact, this gives me an idea for some alternative ways to play existing Wii games … look forward to videos of me with a helmet mounted sensor bar in the future …
