I vant to suck your blood! New games for the Wii VC

Nintendo has brought Castlevania from the NES, the game where you have to destroy Count Dracula and a bunch of other ghouls to the Wii Virtual Console. It is priced at 500 Wii Points. Besides Castlevania, two other games were released as well, The Legend of the Mystical Ninja from the SNES  (800 points) and Shockman from the TurboGrafx16 (600 points).

Here are Nintendo’s descriptions of the games:

Castlevania (NES, 1 player, 500 Wii Points): Step into the shadows of the deadliest dwelling on Earth. You’ve arrived at Castlevania, and you’re here on business: to destroy the curse of the Evil Count, once and for all. Make your way through six monstrous floors filled with bats, ghosts, zombies and every kind of ghoulish creature you can imagine. Use the legendary whip Vampire Killer and a host of deadly weapons to battle your way to Dracula’s chamber and the ultimate duel of good vs. evil.

The Legend of the Mystical Ninja (Super NES, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points): In The Legend of The Mystical Ninja, take control of Kid Ying and Dr. Yang in an action adventure through feudal Japan. A curse has stricken the village of Horo-Horo, and its beloved princess has vanished. Together Kid Ying, a daring young mystical ninja, and Dr. Yang, master of the invincible spirit transformation, must overcome 10 levels of the Dragonbeast to save Princess Yuki. Each stage contains intense 3-D and 2-D zones where the duo must perform dozens of attack moves and solve magical problems and puzzles before advancing. Battle humorous enemies like the Carp Meister, who stuns victims with poisonous fighting fish, Tanaka-U-Out, a knockout artist who wallops opponents with a bone-crushing hammer, and the Sumo Tag Team, kings of the unbeatable belly-buster crunch. Collect coins to buy new equipment and to receive clues, spend some time playing minigames in the arcade or try your luck and increase your fortune at the Quiz House and Horse Races.

Shockman (TurboGrafx16, 1-2 players, 600 Wii Points): It’s been two years since Arnold and Sonya were made into Shockmen. A message from the professor to return to their bodies has them head to his laboratory, but they are ambushed by a mysterious enemy along the way. After narrowly defeating the enemy, they catch a TV news flash announcing the Ryo Empire invasion. They find that the professor has been abducted and set out to rescue him. Shockman is a side-view action shooter that has eight stages, including Action Stages, where you jump and use special techniques, and side-scrolling Shooting Stages. This game expands on the well-paced story from the previous version and contains cooperative elements like shared life and a powerful Team Shockbeam that can be used during two-player simultaneous play.

Wii don’t have enough Wii

The head of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, announced today that Nintendo had not successfully predicted how large the demand for Wii consoles was (however, one would think that it’s not a failure for Nintendo that they sold a lot of consoles). So, Satoru is calling for Nintendo to rev up the Wii making machines and be able to pump out more Wiis now. So far, Nintendo has sold over 5 million consoles within the 5 or so months the Wii has been out. He went on to say that Nintendo plans to sell 14 million or so more consoles by the end of this fiscal year.

If you still can’t find that Wii, then this pretty much is the reason why.

Hey hey hey, get in the taxi and roll away!

Sorry for not keeping up to date recently, I have been really busy over the past week. Sega announced that the old classic arcade game, Crazy Taxi, will be having a new game for the PSP. The game, which is called Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars. The game will be going back to it’s roots by using the old game world. We at GameSpotting! love Crazy Taxi, and while it can get overly repetitive, it sometimes cannot be avoided. Sega hasn’t given much more on the details of the game, but by the looks of it, it could just be a direct port. Also, the old Hitmaker (makers of the old game) have not signed on to do development but another company called Sniper Studios is set to do development.

Stay tuned.

Sega announces Wii VC titles

A few days ago, Sega released info about new games they will soon be releasing to the Wii Virtual Console. Sega listed: Streets of Rage 2, Toe Jam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron, Shining in the Darkness and Kid Chameleon will all be ported to the Wii VC and will release soon.

Take Two has legally banned Jack Thompson

This just in, Jack Thompson and Take Two reached a settlement that would ban Jack Thompson from making threats to sue Take Two. He is now not allowed to sue to block any sales on any game made from T2. He also can’t communicate to T2 or anyone affiliated (specifically, it’s partners) with them. However he can continue to publically criticize Take Two’s games but in order to contact take two, he has to go to T2′s attorneys.

Briefly, Take Two has dropped the case against Jack Thompson from trying to block sale of their games. And Jack Thompson can continue what he does, except that he can not sue the company, block the sale of their games, and he can’t send threats to anyone in the company and any of its partners (he can’t threat Rockstar games now).

Nintendo Float made by college students

Apparently, some college students really love Nintendo games/products. So much so, that they built a float that is pretty much a tribute to Nintendo. With Duck hunt, the super scope as stairs, and a huge NES for the top as a roof. It’s really awesome and you should go check out the photos of it. It’s so Nintendo-licious.

Pokemon Pearl and Diamond release tomorrow

Nintendo’s famous franchise line, Pokemon, is going to have two new games that will release tomorrow in the US. Pearl and Diamond will release tomorrow (4/22) for the Nintendo DS and DS Lite. Last time we checked with Nintendo, the game has had over 500,000 pre-orders, and more coming everyday. So if you are a major Pokemon fan (like some of our readers), you best get out there and grab yourself a copy.

The new Pokemon game features over 400 Pokemon, VOIP so you can talk to friends (if you have their friend code) and for the first time ever for the handheld Pokemon games, 3D graphics (as seen above). And many more features (like digging for treasure, traps, touch screen features, etc) and some classic ones too (like day and night, contests, and secret bases). (more…)

Call of Duty!!!!!! New map pack has been announced

Activision, the makers of Call of Duty 3 (which is what this map pack is for), is announcing their new map pack, called Bravo, which will come out for the Xbox 360 in May. Much like what Microsoft is doing with the Halo map ports, Activision is going to have old maps that were featured in previous Call of Duty games be ported over to the newest game. It will also feature new maps as well.

Currently, Activision has only released the names (and a few screenshots [unfortunately, we currently don't have access to their press server at this time but we will describe the maps to you]) of the new maps. The new maps names are Seine River, Rimling and Aller Haut. Aller Haut is, in simplicity, a death zone. It features a huge field, one American tank and a small church on a hill that is best set up for snipers. Seine River features a night map, that is set in a small town near a river (thus the name). It has fog issues so you best be careful. The Rimling map is a semi-realistic battle in German village.

The two other maps that were announced from old games are Gare Centrale and Merseilles.

If you are a major Call of Duty fan (like the people on “The Office” are), and you own the game for the Xbox 360 then you should check out this map pack.

It will cost about 800 Xbox Live points.

Command & Conquer 3 is Demo’d

Just on XBL is the Command & Conquer 3 Demo, which is free for all Xbox Live Gold users. It is a mix of online and singleplayer action. With 2 SP maps and 1 Multiplayer map.  The file is about 1GB big (let’s hope the game is good). It has support for the Xbox Live Vision camera (…um…that is if you want to strike terror in the faces of the people you just pwn’d [terror is to be delt out by scariness, not ugliness], or to see their face after you just pwn’d them with a smoke bomb…or something). The final game is released on May 10th.

Final Fantasy fans rejoice! FFXIII will not only be on the PS3

Square Enix, the creators of Final Fantasy, announced that the newest Final Fantasy game, FF XII, will not be exclusive to the PS3. This totally sucks for people who bought a PS3 for the sole purpose of FFXII, as the game is most likely to release for the Wii or the DS as well. We are not sure about either console, but recently Square Enix raved about how great the Wii works and how the DS compliments RPG games. So FF fans who bought a PS3 for Final Fantasy gaming, you could have saved alot more money on Car Insurance by switching to Geico buying a Wii.

Square Enix has not officially announced the other systems, but they probably will soon.

Oops, butterfingers! Target dropped the release date

Target became a rebel. Today, they “accidently” started selling the Xbox 360 Elites early. Instead of releasing in about a week or two, one Target store has been confirmed of selling Elites early. But it would seem that other stores are selling it early as well (probably best to check with Target first to see if they have the elites on sale). This may appear to only be a slip up in stores that don’t have smart technology department employees.

If the Target store near you is selling Elites early, we would love to know!