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Metallic Uniframe Super Hybrid Virtual Console Game

December 13th, 2008 by JC Fletcher

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Musha Aleste came out in Japan back in April, and it was rated by the OFLC for PAL release (though that hasn’t happened yet). Also, it’s a shooter, which almost guarantees a game’s worldwide availability on the Virtual Console. We knew that Compile’s M.U.S.H.A. (as it was known in its American release on the Genesis) would be bound for the North American VC soon, and now there’s one less roadblock on the way to its release: it’s been rated by the ESRB.

If you haven’t played it, M.U.S.H.A. is a vertically scrolling shooter developed by Compile, creators of so many awesome shmups, including Zanac and Blazing Lazers. While it’s hard to explain what makes one shmup better than others, we think this one’s really keen.

Metallic Uniframe Super Hybrid Virtual Console Game originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted in , esrb, shmup, compile, musha, musha-aleste | No Comments »

Ultimate Shooting Collection targets December release

November 18th, 2008 by Chris Greenhough

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Yes, the localized version of Milestone’s Ultimate Shooting Collection may have generic boxart (seriously, compare this to the Japanese box and weep), but we still want the game badly.

Unfortunately, we’re going to have to wait. Previously, the game was scheduled to come out on November 11th, but as it isn’t in our homes right now, we had to assume it had slipped. When contacted, publisher UFO Interactive confirmed our worst fears: the new release date is December 15th, right in the middle of the Christmas rush. Pew pew your way past the break for a trailer.

Gallery: Ultimate Shooting Collection

Ultimate Shooting Collection targets December release originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted in , delay, ufo-interactive, shmup, chaos-field, karous, milestone, radio-allergy, ultimate-shooting-collection | No Comments »

Gradius ReBirth: U.S. to destroy the core soon

November 1st, 2008 by Chris Greenhough

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Click to enter gallery.

Keen ESRB-spotter Spencer at Siliconera has located a welcome addition to the ESRB’s database: Gradius ReBirth. While Japan has been pew pewing itself silly since early September, this is the first solid sign that the 1000 Point WiiWare game will be leaving its native country.

Input the code and shoot the core down the break for footage of the first two stages.

Gallery: Gradius ReBirth

Gradius ReBirth: U.S. to destroy the core soon originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted in , gradius, konami, esrb, shmup, gradius-rebirth | No Comments »

Bargains on Bully and bullet hell

July 6th, 2008 by Eric Caoili

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If you’re the type to never pay retail on anything, especially video games, the like-minded misers at the Cheap Ass Gamers community have found two worthwhile Wii deals for you:

If you haven’t looked into shoot-em-up Castle of Shikigami III before, make sure you check out the videos we posted a couple of months ago — there’s a flying butler! Amazon also has CSI: Hard Evidence on sale for $19.99, but we have a feeling that not many of you will be too excited to pick up this video game adaptation of a poor man’s Law & Order.

[Via CAG]

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Posted in , rockstar, ubisoft, amazon, shmup, shoot-em-up, CSI, telltale, Bully, scholarship-edition, arc-system-works, aksys, castle-of-shikigami | No Comments »

Thunder Force striking again?

July 6th, 2008 by JC Fletcher

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What an excellent week it’s been for classic game fans! The DS gets a new (release of) Chrono Trigger, the Wii gets a new 8-bit Mega Man, and now this! NeoGAF’s neo2046 noticed an update to Thunder Force developer Tecnosoft’s website stating that a new entry in the longstanding shmup series is on the way. The WHOIS data for tecnosoft.com indicates that the domain has been in the possession of a Japanese company since 1996, and archive.org shows previous TecnoSoft webpages in that space, so this seems legit.

There’s very little information on the barebones site — in fact, you’re looking at all of it — so we don’t know which platform or platforms TecnoSoft is planning to release the game on. But it’s a shooter, and the Wii is where shooters go this generation. TecnoSoft would be able to release classic Genesis Thunder Force games on the Virtual Console to promote it. We’d love to see Thunder Force II and its indecipherable intro available once again.

[Via NeoGAF]

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Posted in , shooter, shmup, tecnosoft, thunder-force | No Comments »

Great Wise King: a new shooter based on familiar material

June 11th, 2008 by JC Fletcher

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Daiseiou, which means “Great Sage King” or “Great Wise King” is a manga based on the Chinese Monkey King story that has been adapted and remade countless times, most recently in the game world as Starfish’s The Monkey King: The Legend Begins.

It appears that the legend is continuing: Starfish is working on a game based on Daiseiou, which is also a 2D side-scrolling shooter with the player as the Monkey King flying on his cloud (though this one also features Space Harrier-style segments). For two games in the exact same genre about the same subject matter from the same developer, the styles couldn’t be more different — Daiseiou’s detailed, painted-looking style is a sharp contrast from the colorful chibiness of The Monkey King. There’s nothing but a single (but pretty excellent) piece of artwork on the official website right now, but you can see plenty of screens at Famitsu.

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Posted in , starfish, shooter, manga, shmup, daiseiou | No Comments »

MSX games get deluxe treatment on Virtual Console

May 28th, 2008 by JC Fletcher

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Japan had to wait long enough for the first MSX game to show up on the Virtual Console that anything extra D4 Enterprise (or Nintendo, or whoever makes the emulators for the VC) could do to make the experience a pleasant one is welcome. Aleste features an extra “MSX Option Menu” that is accessed via the minus button, which allows players to choose between MSX hardware-based music and the more advanced FM music that, back when the MSX was real hardware, required an add-on card.

Impressively, you can also swap the two fire buttons via the “Button Change” option. It’s a good thing for Nintendo that they’ll never bother to release this over here, because the four people who would download an MSX game would get spoiled.

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Posted in , japan, shmup, d4, msx, aleste | No Comments »

Geometry Wars: Galaxies slips … everywhere

November 13th, 2007 by Chris Greenhough

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Slowly but surely, the threat of European wallets being completely stripped clean before the start of December is diminishing. In fact, we might even have cash remaining (though hey, let's not get ahead of ourselves).

Only a few days ago, we received the unhappy news that Zack & Wiki will miss the holidays in Europe, and Kuju's purdy Geometry Wars: Galaxies has now joined it. The shape-based shmup (try saying that quickly), once the cause of many a bleary-eyed, late-night session on the Xbox Live Arcade for this writer, will instead arrive on January 18th.

Meanwhile, the US will also be waiting a little longer for the game, but the delay is far less severe -- just one week, according to GameStop, which means the title will now launch on November 20th. The DS version, it's worth noting, is still due on the 27th.
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Posted in , Europe, zack-and-wiki, zackandwiki, delay, Geometry-Wars-Galaxies, GeometryWarsGalaxies, shmup, kuju | No Comments »

Simple Wii: THE Surprisingly neat-looking shooter

November 1st, 2007 by JC Fletcher

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D3 Publisher released some screenshots of the next two entries in their Simple Wii series, Simple Wii Vol.3 THE Party Casino and Vol. 4 THE Shooting Action. Both games use the same set of Mii-like characters, which we think are adorable. We're particularly interested in THE Shooting Action, because it appears to be a competitive shooter!

Using four different kinds of weapons, up to four players can shoot at each other in spaceships. Given the appearance of targeting reticles on the screen, we're guessing that aiming is done with the Wiimote pointer. And ... it's online. Suddenly, we're very interested in this game. If it's the same kind of space dueling found in Star Control, but with four players and online play? We'd gladly pay a budget price for that.

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Posted in , d3, shooter, shmup, simple, the-shooting-action | No Comments »

The VC Advantage: One ship

October 17th, 2007 by JC Fletcher

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The Internet has made it easy to find cheats for games, but we miss the tips pages from game magazines, when the discovery of a new code could inspire you to go back to an old game. These codes aren't exactly new, but oldness is the essence of the Virtual Console! We're bringing back the classic codes every week on The VC Advantage.

Everyone likes shooters, except for people who don't. And even they might, if they played the right one! We like them anyway, and guess who picks the games for the column? That's right, a groundhog looking at his shadow a random number generator us. Besides, shooters are really hard, and it's nice to have some kind of advantage. Here are some codes for a very small sample of the VC's many shooters.

Gate of Thunder (TG16 CD)
Stage Select: Whenever we see the name Gate of Thunder, all we can think about is the KISS song "God of Thunder." So instead of cleverly trying to work it in to the text here, we're just going to link to it, and then tell you how to select stages in Gate of Thunder. Sometimes the direct approach is the best approach. To access the stage select, press I, II, II, I, select, I, II, I, II, select, select, run.

Xevious (NES)
Skip the Fortress: We've kind of avoided playing Xevious in the last few years, since our only contact with the game was the annoying Atari 7800 version. Luckily, the NES version is less annoying and totally worth looking into-- if nothing else, as one of the first vertical shooters. It's possible to skip the Andor Genesis fortress by pausing the game right before getting to it, then unpausing it. We miss pause-glitch cheats!

R-Type (TG16)
More continues: Today, we're going to help you learn two surprising things about R-Type. First: you can give yourself more credits by holding select and jamming on the I button at the title screen. Here's the second thing.

[Codes via GameFAQs]
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Posted in , vcadvantage, shmup, star-soldier, gate-of-thunder, Xevious, starsoldier | No Comments »

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