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Game Informer must be craving some Guitar Hero because their June issue is loaded with info on the game. The cover story goes in depth and sheds some light on the new entry to Activision’s top-selling franchise.
The fourth in the main series of Guitar Hero game will follow closely in the footsteps of competitor Rock Band, featuring new instruments besides a guitar, which include a bass, microphone, and a six-piece drum set which includes two cymbals.
Since the recent break up between Gibson and Activision the guitars used in Guitar Hero IV will not be licensed and will have all new original designs. This leads to a new unrevealed guitar feature that will “directly impact the way you play Guitar Hero in the future.”
To even make this new Guitar Hero even more special and unique by adding a “studio” mode where players will have the chance to create their own songs and even share them online with other players through the Guitar Hero Tunes service. The bad news is though is that these custom tracks will be lacking in the vocal department. Adding more customization yet, players will have the opportunity to design their own musicians, album art, and instruments on-screen from scratch.
Moving away from customizing and going on to songs, there has been no song titles announced yet. However, Van Halen, The Eagles, Sublime, and Linkin Park have all been confirmed for the game's track list.
Guitar Hero IV is due out for Wii later on this year so you'll be able to get your rock star fantasy going once more.
The official trailer is now embedded below and it should be a lot clearer to see.
Let's get a show of hands, who else would like to see more blood and gore come to Wii? If Resident Evil 4 and No More Heroes just weren't enough for you here comes Mad World from Platinum Games who were previously known as Seeds and before then were responsible for creating great games like Okami and Viewtiful Joe as Clover Studio.
Yesterday a shaky and low quality off-screen video of what was apparently a Wii exclusive game entitled Mad World hit the internet and was seemingly being pulled from YouTube as soon as it was uploaded. All this left Mad World as being nothing more than rumored new IP since there was nothing official from Platinum to confirm or deny the video clip which you'll find below.
However only a day after the release of the leaked video Platinum director Shigenori Nishikawa sat down with Famitsu to discuss Mad World and as a result also confirmed its development. The title looks very promising and has us gripped with anticipation already.
The video that was leaked yesterday contains a few short clips of people being chainsawed to death, getting their hearts ripped out, and having road signs jammed through their skulls. It seems the game will borrow slightly from the art styles in Okami and Sin City with a grainy black and white look with only blood appearing in color. Hopefully we'll hear more on this game soon.
After Harmonix shook up the rock rhythm game scene with Rock Band last year there was really little doubt that Activision's Guitar Hero franchise would have no choice but to adapt. They have done just that as Guitar Hero IV starts looking more and more like it should be called Band Hero with the addition of drums and vocals to the next installment in the series.
The drums you see off to the right look to be very similar to what was offered with Rock Band aside from the removal of one drum pad and the addition of two hi-hat resembling pads for a grand total of 5 objects for you to beat with sticks. Not to be forgotten is the bass pedal which will also be included.
We can only hope that the drum sets and microphones from Rock Band and Guitar Hero IV will be 100% compatible with each other, but if Activision's refusal to open up Guitar Hero III to Rock Band instruments is any indication, I wouldn't bet on it.
Just a single day after the launch of WiiWare and also launch title LostWinds in North America the game's developer, Frontier Developments went ahead to make it official that a sequel to their wind based platformer is coming. On Frontier's official website they have given fans the option to register for information regarding the "forthcoming LostWinds sequel".
This is great news for Nintendo's WiiWare service and it hopefully means an expansive LostWinds series as the original did after all end with an epilogue containing the words "to be continued". If you haven't already looked into LostWinds it is definitely worth checking out and makes a strong case for being WiiWare's best game to date.
WiiWare is set to launch in Europe this coming Tuesday (May 20) and to make up for the service coming just a little over a week after having launched in North America it seems that the Europeans have gotten the best WiiWare launch between the three regions.
The European launch will receive the meatier of the North American launch titles in LostWinds and Final Fantasy Chrystal Chronicles: My Life as a King, alongside Pop and TV Show King. Also coming at launch will be Star Soldier R and Toki Tori. These are two games which launched with the Japanese WiiWare service back in March. The fun doesn't stop there as in addition to all those the European launch will also see Dr. Mario Online Rx and Pirates: The Key of Dreams.
We'll have to assume that the service will launch in Europe with the same price points seen in America while Dr. Mario will set you back 1000 Wii points.
Ugh. Here's a day I've been dreading. The day I'd be forced to clean out my virtual mini-fridge (as Nintendo seems to like to put it) which I like to call my Wii. I knew I'd fill up my internal flash storage eventually and was pretty sure it would come at around WiiWare time, but it was still really hard to come to terms with the fact that if I wanted one of my two anticipated WiiWare titles I would need to do a little reorganizing.
I haven't downloaded anything just yet, but noticing my Wii memory dwindling down around 180 blocks I started wondering if I would have room for either LostWinds or Final Fantasy Chrystal Chronicles: My Life as a King should I have chosen to download either one (still not decided on which I'll be getting). Imagine my horror when I discover that LostWinds would take up 259 blocks and Final Fantasy 287. I swallowed my pride and cursed something about 512 megabytes under my breath and went to free up a few blocks.
The first thing I looked at was game saves I'd no longer be needing and moved those to my very spacious SD card. It was mostly rentals and crap (aka Wii Play) saves, but being files that averaged only 2 blocks I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere fast with only game saves. The next logical step was to move onto channels and Virtual Console games (and I also want to take this time to ask why the hell am I not allowed to remove the Forecast and News channels? I'm sure that they take up at least 125 blocks together).
This is when I started to wonder just how strained for blocks I'd be if I hadn't already deleted Mario Kart 64 the week before since the Nintendo Channel had just been added. I decided not to think about that regrettable purchase and looked admiringly over at Mario Kart Wii to forget about it. With still only about 190 blocks free I had to make a decision on what could stay and what had to go. Deleting the Nintendo Channel wasn't originally planned but I realized that since my terrible internet connection made it impossible to stream the videos anyways there was really no reason for me to keep it and away it went to my SD card, relieving me of 123 blocks.
The Everybody Votes and Check Mii Out Channels were already long gone (along with their little save files) but you can be sure that they would've been the first go. The only other non-VC game channel I had left was the Internet Channel and after a little time spent mulling it over I figured I'd keep it since it did come in handy for a little quick and convenient web browsing here and there.
I looked over my Virtual Console line up and drew up the pros and cons of each game. Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, and Super Metroid still sit a little over half finished so they would stay. While I haven't touched Star Fox 64 or Sin & Punishment in a while, their place as easy to pick up and play arcadey shooters cemented their position in my Wii Menu. This left Wave Race 64, which in the end unimpressed me and could easily go up onto my list of regrettable purchases right next to Mario Kart 64, Red Steel, and Endless Ocean. It was a quick decision and all of a sudden I had another 94 blocks open to me while still feeling a little angry that I wasn't allowed to move my 34 block Endless Ocean save file away.
With that my memory ordeal was over as I walked away with a sense of relief in now having 417 blocks free and a sense of disgust in the pit of my stomach. I knew that as soon as I download one or two more games I will be back at square one, and this game of storage Tetris will begin anew. Whatever form of external storage I'm convinced Nintendo has planned can't come soon enough.
It begs the question, why hasn't Nintendo responded any sooner to a problem that's been staring them and Wii owners in the face and one that was clearly evident, even from launch? Satoru Iwata's recent comments seem to suggest that this is something Nintendo wasn't even aware of until recently, and his choice of words in referring to Wii's "most avid players" as "a small number of people" certainly isn't encouraging. I'm sure that Joe Casual over there enjoying Wii Sports and now Wii Fit is probably entirely oblivious to how much his system can hold, but there's a large number of us avid players who watch our number of blocks shrink faster than your self respect while watching a Uwe Boll movie.
Taking that Iwata has acknowledged that there is indeed a problem and all this secrecy Nintendo has suddenly gone into leading up to E3, I'm 99.9% convinced that we'll be seeing some sort of external Wii memory at the event. It will frankly be incredibly overdue but appreciated none the less so long as the price is right. I've already bought your console, so don't expect me to be willing to pay anymore than $20 for a reasonable amount of memory which should be somewhere in the 8 GB range if you were to ask me considering the original Xbox had just as much. Is that really so much to ask?
So congratulations Nintendo, you've finally broken me. I'm practically begging on my knees for something to be done. It is a pitiful sight to be sure, but there doesn't seem to be any other way out right now as Nintendo seems to have been ignoring its hardcore audience. Say what you will, but there is no denying the fact that every hardcore Wii user out there must feel at least a little bit alienated and unappreciated.
Do something Nintendo, and do it fast. Here, you can even take my idea of an external USB drive in the shape of a Wii stand (above), and I won't care one bit. If anything, I'll just be overjoyed.
If Nintendo plans for the recently released WiiWare to be successful, then the diminutive flash memory seems to be their largest obstacle as I can't see very many people being happy with the service, their console, or the company as it stands right now. Should they not choose to reveal some sort of external storage at E3, it will be an incredible letdown and would even diminish my interest in WiiWare and any downloadable content in general.
So we got the impression that maybe the last couple podcasts were a bit on the longer side and no one really wanted to sit at their computer for an hour listening to Dume and I drone on about Wii games and such. So this week we fixed both of those problems by shooting for a shorter podcast (this one came out to about 36 minutes) and by adding another person, namely Rawrmander.
With WiiWare just on the horizon we take a look ahead to the service's launch titles. But before we look ahead, we'll need to look back at Nintendo's newest Wii channel, the Nintendo Channel. Toss in some talk on Skate It, the Wii Balance Board, Pay to Play, Rock Band, and Kid Icarus, and you've got yourself one heck of a good podcast.
Yet again however, we didn't receive a single email. Come on now, we know there's at least 3 or 4 of you out there that listen to this. Send us an email or even an audio recording to podcast@wiiloaded.com and considering the amount of mail we've been getting so far it would be a pretty safe bet to assume that you'll be included in next week's podcast.
Download Now! (MP3 - 29.1 MB) Right click and select "Save Target as..." or "Save Link as..."
Opening song: Kodo (Inside the Sun remix) - Yoshida Brothers
After two months of waiting North America will finally be getting WiiWare. WiiWare titles will be released on Mondays just like Virtual Console titles. Developers big and small have contributed to the launch of the service and will continue to do so in the future. Anticipated titles such as Gyrostarr, Dr. Mario Onine RX, and Pokemon Farm will not be available at launch but should be arriving in the near future. Until then these six titles are ready for you to download. It may also be worth mentioning that with the launch of WiiWare, Nintendo will not be releasing any new Virtual Console titles this week.
Final Fantasy Chrystal Chronicles: My Life as a King (1500 Wii Points)
My Life as a King takes the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles series into a new direction. In this title you play as a king and must build a kingdom for your followers. In RPG form, you will collect more materials to build your kingdom and use what you acquire to keep your people happy. This will be the first Wii game to use Nintendo's Pay to Play service and it will allow you to purchase downloadable content.
LostWinds (1000 Wii Points)
LostWinds takes platforming in a new direction with being controlled with the Wii remote. Help Toku create tornadoes, gusts, and more to combat enemies and solve puzzles. Use the nunckuck to move Toku around and the Wiimote to help him jump and glide. LostWinds even allows for a friend to join in and help with wind control.
TV Show King (1000 Wii Points)
TV Game Show King brings the fun of a game show right into the comfort of your home. Within six categories there are over 3,000 questions. Have your family and friends join in on the fun and win some great prizes.
Pop (700 Wii Points)
The title explains it all as you will be popping bubbles nonstop to score while trying to beat the clock. You can choose to play by just popping bubbles or you can perfect your timing to create combos for a higher score. Pop can be played with up to three of your friends.
V.I.P. Casino: Blackjack (700 Wii Points)
High Voltage's first WiiWare title out of its three attempts is V.I.P Casino: Blackjack. This game recreates the Las Vegas scene so you can feel like you are actually there. Will luck be on your side to increase you payout or will it be leaving the casino with empty pockets*. No real gambling is involved as far as we know.
Defend your Castle (500 Wii Points)
You may recognize this game as the very popular internet flash game and it comes to WiiWare with a few changes. Defend Your Castle's visual style has changed and has you protecting your ground against invaders. The longer you last the more power ups and weapons you will receive.
This week marks the launch of WiiWare in North America, while Europe and Australia need only wait one more week. The WiiWare debuts come from companies both big and small with a few familiar faces. Three other retail titles are being thrown into the fire as well in North America. Europe one has one game this week to hold them off until their Wiiware launch, while Australians will have to continue with Mario Kart Wii because there is nothing new for them this week.
North America
Six WiiWare titles make their debut, the biggest of them all being Square's building sim RPG in Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King. Another notable launch title is the unique LostWinds, a platfomer that lets you control wind to throughout the game to move, battle, and solve puzzles. The other WiiWare offerings present a chance for you to appear on live television, pop some bubbles, and defend your territory. Hitting brick and mortar store shelves this week are Deca Sports, We Ski, Castle of Shikigami III, and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. The most noticeable of the four should be Wii We Ski, the first game not called Wii Fit to make use of the Wii balance board.
Retail Releases
Castle of Shikigami III - May 13
Deca Sports - May 13
We Ski - May 13
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - May 15
WiiWare
Defend Your Castle - May 12 (500 Wii points)
Pop - May 12 (500 Wii points)
V.I.P. Casino: Blackjack - May 12 (700 Wii points)
TV Show King - May 12 (1000 Wii points)
LostWinds - May 12 (1000 Wii points)
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King - May 12 (1500 Wii points)
Europe (UK)
Is there really much to say in Europe this week? You're getting Dream Pinball 3D this week, enjoy. Just hold out one more week for WiiWare.
Dream Pinball 3D - May 16
Note: All dates are subject to change and may not remain the same as listed. Check with your local retailers to confirm dates.
For many months rumors have seemed to been endlessly floating around the gaming community that Kid Icarus is going to be reborn on the Wii. Well now it seems that those rumors are coming true with IGN’s Matt Casamassina basically confirming that the forgotten angel with be making his big return with Nintendo’s revolutionary console.
In episode 7 of the IGN Nintendo Voice Chat podcast, Casamassina says, "Of course [Nintendo is] going to have some E3 surprises. You know, Kid Icarus, for crying out loud, how many times do we have to say Kid Icarus? Kid Icarus is coming for crying out loud." Then a co-host asks Casamassina if he wants to reveal the developer he replied, "I think we've confirmed it a billion times but no, I'm not going to say it officially."
Stirring up Kid Icarus fans even more on this week’s show, Casamassina said, "Kid Icarus, that's another one that I'm really anticipating just because I love the franchise and I'm sure that the developer will make a really pretty game."
It seems like we will all need to wait a while for word from Nintendo, but if we can believe Casamassina, a Wii version of Kid Icarus is a done deal, making Kid Icarus fans all over the world jump for joy.
