Maybe that should be a little lessDead Rising, considering, but we love all versions of the game like ice cream, so in the end, it hardly matters. What does matter is that in these latest Dead Rising screens, you can witness what we hope is the lead-in to one of the more daring (and fun) rescues in the game, as well as some very irritating cultists. We also get a look at the wholly different menu screens, and even though these are in Japanese, you can get a feel for what’s what — particularly if you played the original.
How any follow-up could top the unlikely mélange of disasters (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, terrorists, bears) that featured in the first game is beyond us. Perhaps an asteroid?
Nevertheless, developer Monolith Soft is at least open to the idea of a Disaster 2. In an interview with Cubed3, Director Keiichi Ono revealed that “…there were so many wonderful options [in the game]. We would like to see the possibility for them, if we have chance to develop the sequel…” The sequel? Or a sequel? The difference is pretty crucial! While we’re not exactly taking that as rock-solid confirmation of Ray’s return, it’s an interesting remark.
To bring us back down to earth, Nintendo’s Hitoshi Yamagami reminded us of why the first game might not even come to North America, describing how Disaster is “performing lower than expected” at the tills.
Evidently, Konami ill needs logic or sequential order when releasing Castlevania games on the Virtual Console — which is probably why Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse has only just been rated by Australian regulators at the OFLC.
The game, a former star of Virtually Overlooked no less (if you can hear celebratory gunshots being fired into the air, that’ll be Alisha), now looks like a certainty to join Castlevania, Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, and Super Castlevania IV on the download service. If you read this, you’ll be reminded of why that’s very special, fist pump-worthy news indeed.
Another E3 interview with Castlevania series producer Koji Igarashi has surfaced, this time from Nintendo World Report. After justifying Castlevania Judgmentyet again, Igarashi gave a tenuous, noncommittal, but still interesting statement regarding future Castlevania games: “With regards to WiiWare, I’m evaluating that right now, and to be honest, I think a 2D Castlevania game on WiiWare might be the right approach.”
He has previously said that he was interested in how things turned out for Mega Man 9, and he has said that WiiWare was an interesting service, but this is the most direct Igarashi has been yet about a WiiWare entry in the franchise. He also confirmed the nature of the Order of Ecclesiaconnection bonus: as we expected, Shanoa is unlocked in Judgment by connecting with a DS running Order of Ecclesia.
Gallery: Castlevania Judgment
Talking about Castlevania is a bit of a cottage industry for Wii Fanboy. Not only do we want the 2Dgames on Wii, we’ve made it happen — though not the amazing Dracula X, which Japan has on VC. We’ve expressed our bemusement about Judgment and tried to gauge yours. In fact, we pretty much bring up Castlevaniawhenever possible.
We’ve heard some quiet rumblings that Fatal Frame IV might be better if it had a little more action (the whole point of the series notwithstanding). While it’s certainly not the voice of the majority, we can’t help but wonder if there is a perception that some of the self-proclaimed hardest-core gamers won’t be happy with anything short of a frag fest, which means that developers may be looking at either FPS games and other titles built around violence for the core contingent, casual and party games for everyone else, and the titles that are more deeply nuanced are being shelved. That could explain a few things, such as the disappearance of Disaster: Day of Crisis, and the lack of love for a few ports/sequels that would be absolutely appropriate for Wii gamers.
We’re sorry to report that the latest media from From Software and Acquire’s Tenchu IV does not feature adorable historical kittens. But on the upside — if there can be said to be an upside to a lack of kittens — the video is instead chock full of badass ninjas assassinating folks and threatening one another in gravelly voices. That’s pretty good too!
After more bad Tenchu games than good ones, we aren’t sure why we’re so hopeful about IV. We’ll have to wait until the Japanese release in October to find out if the return of Acquire means a return to form or if this is going to be another Z-grade release.
There may be a dearth of actual Dead Rising: Chop ‘Til You Drop screens, but we’ve been pretty rich in print media on the re-imagined game so far. The latest, from a French Nintendo magazine, show off some different angles from some of the scenes we’ve already seen, such as the psycho battle in the gun store.
There’s been some concern that there just won’t be as many zombies in the Wii version — and the number of zombies is pretty much the crux of the game — but considering we’re seeing screens from early in the game, it isn’t that surprising that there aren’t that many zombies. Until we see screenshots from a cramped area like the nightmarish Al Fresca plaza, we won’t really be able to judge how much, if any, the game has been downgraded in that sense. We’ve put together a couple of comparison shots after the break that demonstrate that there’s more to be hopeful about than many had thought.
Gallery: Dead Rising
Location: Inside a store
Xbox 360 — six zombies
Wii — six zombies
Location: Paradise Plaza
Xbox 360 — many zombies
Wii — many zombies
Location: Roof
Xbox 360
Wii
Only here in this last set is there a difference, but it’s a vastly different angle. No matter the angle, however, things are looking up for this new vision of Dead Rising!
It generally doesn’t take much more than a “zombie” descriptor to pique our interest in a game, but High Voltage Software (the folks behind The Conduit) went even further than that for Animales de la Muerte. Not only are they making a WiiWare game about the undead, which they aim to release in September, but even better (or at least, different) — it’s about zombie animals in a Mexican zoo.
High Voltage summed up the premise of this cartoonishly zany game more cleverly than we could by saying, “Now, wandering freely through the zoo, the rotting beasts are no longer content with eating visitor scraps they get tossed into their cages — instead they prefer to eat the whole visitor.”
Not only do you have to kill the zombified animals, but you also have to save the poor creatures that have not yet succumbed to the outbreak. Funnily enough, the undead animals drop pesos when you kill them, which can be used to upgrade your weapons. As for the controls, the game is essentially a point-and-shoot action title, putting the Wiimote to good use. There’s also a co-op mode where you can play with up to four people, if you’re not shut-ins like us.
We posted some goodies after the break, including a hilarious trailer, so make sure to take a look.
Over the years, the games industry has developed the irritating habit of cramming all of its best software into the last three months of the calendar year. The inevitable result of this is the dreaded post-Christmas lull, whereby the first quarter of the following year is severely lacking in noteworthy titles.
No More Heroes, being somewhat of an open-world game, will have a mission-based structure. Famitsu has revealed three of the mission types. They may be the only mission types found in the game -- we don't really know. Two of the three mission types fall under the obvious category of "hitting people with a beam katana a bunch of times," which is how we want to spend our time in the game anyway.
"Free Fight" missions involve just that -- fighting. In these missions, you're asked to beat up as many dudes as possible within a time limit. In "Murder Missions," you are assigned a target to assassinate. We don't know why we didn't think of this earlier, but the UAA assassins must actually work as assassins-- which means killing people other than each other.
Finally, the "Part-time job Missions" consist of the hilariously random jobs we've seen Travis undertake in screenshots -- coconut collecting, cat care and the like.
If all this gameplay information fails to hold your interest, head over to the No More Heroes website for another week of PLAYSYLVIA cosplay! This week, in addition to pictures of a model dressed as Sylvia, publisher Marvelous has helpfully provided a link to the retailer of the wig the model wears.Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Maybe that should be a little less Dead Rising, considering, but we love all versions of the game like ice cream, so in the end, it hardly matters. What does matter is that in these latest Dead Rising screens, you can witness what we hope is the lead-in to one of the more daring (and fun) rescues in the game, as well as some very irritating cultists. We also get a look at the wholly different menu screens, and even though these are in Japanese, you can get a feel for what’s what — particularly if you played the original.
We’ve heard some quiet rumblings that 
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