New Virtual Console Titles added

Nintendo gives us the welcome back to the few weeks before Christmas message that tells us that we should all spend a little time shopping from the safety of our couch, away from the chaos of the malls. I think Nintendo is hinting at something. I have yet to figure out what they are talking about.

Maybe they are asking us to buy stuff off the Wii Shop Channel. No wait…Why would they ask us that?

Jokes aside (however they did say that message), Nintendo gave us a few games (that I would be more than happy to push aside). This week’s Wii Virtual Console games are: DOUBLE DRIBBLE, Vegas Stakes and the lovable Ecco Jr. Awww.

To come back with the tradition, here are the descriptions of the games:

DOUBLE DRIBBLE (NES, 1-2 players, rated E for Everyone, 500 Wii Points): DOUBLE DRIBBLE, the first 5-on-5, full-court home basketball game, is pure hoops action at its finest. While still a surprisingly accurate basketball game for its time, the frantic action keeps you on your toes as your players run from one end of the court to the other. Choose from a handful of teams and multiple levels of difficulty as you take on the computer alone or challenge a friend and see who has the better skills. Take the ball and sink shots from locations all over the court, or get in your opponent’s face and do your best to block the shot. Better yet, drive the lane and rock the rim to see one of the game’s trademark slam-dunk cut scenes. He shoots, he scores!

Vegas Stakes (Super NES, 1-4 players, rated E for Everyone – Simulated Gambling, 800 Wii Points): Feel like taking a road trip to Las Vegas? Let your inner high roller go wild as you try your luck at five different games-blackjack, slots, poker, craps and roulette. Start with only $1,000 in your pocket and play your way through five casinos, each with a different theme and varying limits. But no one wants to gamble alone, right? Not a problem, as you’ll be able to choose one of four friends to tag along and offer advice when you need it. Further enhancing the experience is the fact that you’ll be presented with a slew of interactions with random casino patrons. Best be careful, though-your choices in these situations could either get you closer to the millions of dollars you’re after or cost you a pile of that hard-earned cash. Roll the dice, spin the wheel, hit or stand-do whatever it takes to stake your claim in Vegas and beat the house!

Ecco Jr. (Sega Genesis, 1 player, rated E for Everyone, 800 Wii Points): The aquatic adventures of Ecco come to life for a younger generation of gamers. Perfect for kids, Ecco Jr. finds our young hero heading out to sea with a variety of tasks he must perform in order to get there. Along with his friends Tara the baby orca and Kitnee the young Atlantic dolphin, Ecco Jr. will interact with sea lions, sea horses and other aquatic life as he makes his journey to the Big Blue. Introduce your kids to the classic series of Ecco the Dolphin titles by downloading Ecco Jr. today.

That last line of Ecco the Dolphin wasn’t needed Nintendo! Stop begging for our money by doing that “perfect gift” message again. We heard you the first time with Check Mii Out. It’s not funny.

New Fall Dashboard update coming next week

Microsoft announced today that a new Fall Dashboard Update for the Xbox 360 will be released next week. The fall dashboard update contains a new feature called Friends of Friends and will show the friends that your friend has (how many more times can we say friends in this sentence?). Sounds like something from Facebook or MySpace. Of course, the new update includes the ability to set it so everyone can view your friends (must be 18 years or older), only your friends can view your friends (must be 13 years or older) and the default for people under 13, blocked. Sorry kids, no seeing your friends, not like you could stalk them over Xbox Live..no wait, I take that back, that’s possible.

The update also covers support for the original Xbox games on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

The dashboard update releases on December 4th.

Lose/Lose Situation for PS3 Owners

Most PS3 owners know that when it comes to multiplatform games, the other platforms’ versions are usually much faster and less choppy. The Orange Box is to be no different. Many think it is because while the PC and 360 versions were handled mostly by Valve, the PS3 version was developed by an internal team at EA. It was originally scheduled to be released with its counterparts, but now has been delayed until December because of technical flaws still needing to be fixed. This means that PS3 owners will have to wait even longer for their (what seem to be) substandard versions of Half-Life 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2.

Ocarina of Time silently slips back into “best game ever” slot

As I reported not too long ago, there was a bunch of hoopla about Super Mario Galaxy taking over GameRankings’ #1 slot, dethroning the very-long-standing Ocarina of Time. MetaCritic listed it as the second best, and now GameRankings joins them. After two 9/10s, Galaxy fell (yes, two 90%s dropped it…it’s that good) to second with a 97.3% (only a third of a percentage point behind OoT’s 97.6%), as Link happily sits atop his throne. But, you never know. It might be hard to hold the spot come February 10…

Undertow Review

Recently, you may have seen advertisements on the Xbox Dashboard about a game called Undertow. I normally download a lot of Live Arcade games to see if any are really good, as most of them are really boring and/or not fun at all. Undertow is one of the rarities in the XBLA, as it went over my expectations.

The game itself starts with a quote from a book talking about how humans can now live underwater. Thoughts of Rapture (BioShock) came to mind immediately. You play as an underwater town’s defenders as threats from pirates often occur. When the cinematic starts, you are fixing a leak with another guy talking about the pirate attacks when suddenly, you get attacked. What a coincidence!

You are then put into a battle where have to swim around underwater and blast people with a laser harpoon gun (different classes have different guns [I like the marine the best because I can swim fast and take out enemies really quickly]) and use Depth Charge (which is like a bomb) to survive. Battles are against the blue team (defenders), and against yellowish orange team (pirates). Undertow requires you to take control points (command posts), which you do by swimming in the area and taking out any near by bad guys. To fire you use the second control stick just like you do in Geometry Wars. You can turbo boost, which you can master for quick kills in awesome ways. The controls are easy to get used to and are pretty simplistic.

In graphics this game rules! Undertow is based on Unreal technology, I assume for the awesome water and lighting effects. Chair Entertainment (the company who made Undertow), did an awesome job on the level of detail for graphics. You really need to see them to believe it. Ripple effects, explosions, bubbles, etc. They are all nicely done. However, no one’s mouth moves when they talk. Something odd and extremely noticeable despite some shadow that is portrayed on the debriefer’s face (he is only your debriefer in the first few levels).

The biggest downside is it’s length, but being an Xbox Live Arcade game, it is okay, if it was not an Arcade game, this would be a problem. The story only lasts about 3 Acts, with each act having about 5 missions (2 of those missions are boss battles). However, this is an Xbox Live Arcade game so 15 levels is a good amount for a story mode. Thankfully Chair put in extra modes into Undertow, like a Co-Op campaign mode, as well as a Versus mode which allows you to duke it out underwater with the AI. The multiplayer includes 9 maps for up to 16 players. So, Chair makes up for the story length in the end.

And now to the ratings:

Sound: 9.0 – The sound quality was excellent and they did a great job with water noises. But the base being captured sound is played way too often.

Graphics: 9.4 – Well done. The water effects in themselves really bolster up this number, as well as the differences in bases and such. Just over all, greatness for an Xbox Live Arcade Game. However, the actors have to have their mouths move to talk. And the debriefer has a silly animation that causes him to wobble every now and then.

Difficulty: 9.6 – The difficulty is pretty good, Undertow covers many different difficulties, from Casual (like easy mode or people who play to relax), Normal, and Ultra (like super hard for people who have mastered this game). The changes in difficulty are easy to notice, enemies get smarter and will attempt actively to strike in groups for CP’s and try to get as many as they can. I mainly played Casual and Normal mode.

Story: 7.7 – Originally it does a very poor job introducing who you are as during the clip scenes, you are black but when you play in battles you are blue. The story is pretty interesting and makes you want to learn more. It does a okay job of drawing you in. It’s really hard to follow at times due to what seems to be the use of the same voice actor as the player (the player plays different characters).

Controls: 9.3 – The controls are easy to learn and master. However shooting can get a bit awkward at times with some of the slow to fire classes. I would also fix the character switching system. To switch you have to press A, but no menu or list of classes you can switch to (press a direction button to choose) isn’t very helpful.

Playback: 9.6 – The playback of the game is great, due to the fact the enemies don’t have a scripted fighting system, they seem to learn and battles are different each time you play.

Overall: 9.4 - This is a great game and I would suggest it to pretty much anyone. A must have!

Want a Wii for $79? PS3 for $139? 360 for $99? Vote now!

At time of posting, the Wii is crushing the competition at 55%.
Each holiday season, insanely-popular online retailer Amazon offers three related products for insanely good discounts.

The catch is, only one will be sold for that price- that’s where you come in. Users (sign up for a free account) vote on which product they would like discounted, and the winning one is sold- in very limited quantity- at the new price (ones that lose will also get at discount, but not at the price it would be if it won).

This year, Round 1 (“Game On”) consists of all three next-gen systems: the PlayStation 3, Wii, and 360. The Wii’s winning price would be $79; the PS3′s, $139; the 360′s, $99. All three are would be awesome, but due to the limited quantity, it won’t be easy to get the winning item when it goes live; last year, the Xbox 360 won, and killed the site!

You can only vote once, and the one you vote on is the one that you can buy if you are eligible. Anyway, happy voting!

(Also, in one of the rounds, there’s an HDTV for $1100 off, and a round consisting of a Sony Blu-ray player, a Toshiba HD-DVD, and an HD TiVo box…that’ll be a tough fight!)

NOTE: GameSpotting has nothing to do with this contest. Don’t comment here asking to get the deal, we can’t help you. We don’t sponsor this. Go complain to Amazon.

Ocarina of Time retains its Best Game Ever status on MetaCritic

There’s been a lot of hoopla today about Super Mario Galaxy overtaking Ocarina of Time as the best game of all time on GameRankings (two stories on the front page of digg.com and nearly every video game blog reporting on it). If you’re unfamiliar with GameRankings, the site is a review aggregator, collecting reviews from many magazines, web sites, and TV shows. The scores are done via percentages, and as of posting, Super Mario Galaxy boasts a 0.2% lead of OoT (97.8% vs 98.6%). However, GameRankings is not the only site of its kind; another (fairly popular) site, MetaCritic, which does the same thing (only with a score, out of 100), lists OoT one point ahead of Galaxy. So while “today, [may] be known as video game legend”, it’s not universal…yet.

Atari is going to stop making videogames

Good bye Atari, it was a great run. Atari announced today that they will stop making games, however they will still publish and distribute video games. For Test Drive fans, the license has now been purchased by Infogrames that gives $5 million dollars up front to Atari. Atari will be focusing its drive as a business towards North America publishing.

In other news, David Pierce, Atari’s CEO has announced his resignation.

Halo 3 heatmaps

Bungie put up a cool new feature on their website called heatmaps. Heatmaps does exactly as it’s name says, show 2D blueprints of Halo 3 maps overlaid with a heatmap of popular places to kill or die at for that map. Simply put, if a place is really popular (meaning lots of people die or kill at that spot), that spot generates “heat” and has a darker color. Places not so popular have a lighter color.

So, for those curious, you can check out popular places to die/kill at. You also get to specify how the people die/kill in the areas as well. It’s a pretty neat feature. Heatmaps isn’t perfect though, often times (search needler kills) you will find deaths in places where you can’t really die. Like outside the map. You can check out heatmaps by going here.

PS3 + DivX = Announced

Today, Mr. Hell (Seriously, his last name is Hell), CEO of DivX announced that they are working with Sony to add DivX playing capability to the PlayStation 3. The proposed feature will be included in an update “in the near future”. This announcement also means that game developers will be able to use DivX videos in their games (DivX videos tend to have high quality [tends to be true] at relatively low filesizes [that has yet to be confirmed at all]).

For those who don’t know, DivX is often used for DVD like quality in videos, and rips of DVDs tend to be in the DivX encoded format.

Microsoft announces their own Virtual Console system

Microsoft announced that they will be doing something that the Wii has been doing for a long time, only it’s for a game system within the last few years. Simply put, Microsoft is putting full downloadable Xbox games on the Xbox Live Marketplace (Xbox 1 not Xbox 360 games).

The plan, which will be enacted early December (the 4th to be exact), will allow games published by Microsoft to be purchasable (for about $15 dollars each [cheap!] or about 1200 points) over the internet where they can be downloaded onto the console. This plan could be seen as a way for Microsoft to get more money on those bigger (120GB) hard-drives. The price may go up (or down) soon on those babies.

From what we know, Fable, Indigo Prophecy, Crimson Skies: High Road To Revenge, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath Of Cortex, Burnout 3, and the original Halo will be launch titles in this new service.

The fall update for the Xbox 360 is supposed to unlock this feature.