Archive for September 2nd, 2006
Wired Gets Hands On With Tingle And His Jewels
Not only is Chris Kohler—Wired blogger, published author of fine video game books, and sarcastic game opener—a fine example of game writing and message board posting, he’s also really good at reading things in Japanese.
Now he’s taking that knowledge of Japanese and video games and finally doing something good with it. He’s giving us impressions of the newly released DS game, Tingle’s Freshly-Picked Rose-Colored Rupee Land.
If you thought the title was bizarre, you might not be prepared for the gameplay and the story. According to Kohler, Tingle’s on a quest to get to Rupee Land where he’ll gorge on food and spend time with tons of lovely ladies. Yeah, ladies. *cough*
There’s a bizarre battle system and a bargaining calculator and all sorts of middle-aged fairy wackiness. Let’s hope Nintendo of America brings this stateside so we can all get together in the desert, ingest copious amounts of hallucinogenic mushrooms, and sort out this whole Tingle thing.
Tingle’s Rupee Land: First Impressions!
The Best Video On Kotaku EVER Is This TrackMania One
Sorry, but it just doesn’t get much cooler than this. My apologies to all the other videos that have ever been posted on Kotaku and the editors who have posted them. They all pale in comparison.
Titled “The 1K Project II”, it comes from a cobbled together set of 1000 replays running on the same track in the PC stunt racer TrackMania. Not only is it beautifully shot and edited, it does not, I repeat NOT, contain any nu metal.
Thanks to Crunchman for the tip!
Japan Lines Up For DS Lite. Again. Sells Out. Again.
The “jet black” Nintendo DS Lite was released to the consuming masses of the Japanese public today, and, despite being just a new color, there were lines. There were sell outs. There was much drooling as Nintendo rang the bell across Japan signaling the hypnotized populace to head to Akihabara and Den Den Town to drop another 16800 yen on something they probably already own.
This makes it the fifth available color for the redesigned portable. More hot colors mean more shortages and surely more reports on second-hand shops marking up the sold out device.
Will Nintendo be able to capitalize on the nations obsession with all things DS? If so, I foresee Nintendo prez Satoru Iwata wearing a turtleneck spun of pure platinum within the year.
Check out more pics of “Black Saturday” here, here and here.
Wee Leak On Resident Evil Wii
Resident Evil fan site Resident Evil Horror got a tiny bit of info on the Wii version of the survival horror franchise. Looks like Jill Valentine, who made her first appearance in the original Resident Evil ten years ago, will be returning to slice up more zombies.
Voice actress Tara Platt is to voice Jill Valentine in the upcoming RE:Wii game. She confirmed to us that the game will feature zombies (or at the least, zombie-like enemies) and plant creatures, as well as a wide array of weaponry. The fact that Ms. Platt was aware of the weapons in the game infers that she is voicing a playable character and is not just doing a cameo. Jill being the main character increases the likelihood of seeing Carlos or Barry turn up as well.
As long as we’re not subjected to another Survivor-style shooter, I’ll be on board with Wii wanding more undead. Thanks for the tip, John.
Update: We got an e-mail from Tara that may or may not disprove this info. Check out what she has to say after the jump.
I don’t want to disseminate incorrect information, and I cannot actually verify that I am in Wii or the Biohazard 5 game, all I know for sure is that the contract (for the game I did work on) had the title BIOHAZARD (but it could be any number of varying title offshoots from that same company).
Like I said, I only have the ‘title’ that was on the contract that I signed which was BIOHAZARD — so I really don’t know if that relates to either Biohazard 5 for PS3 and Xbox 360, or Biohazard for the Wii. We recorded in December of ‘05 - so it was almost a year ago, but these things often take a while….I’m sorry that I can’t be more helpful…as actors we are often only given so much information anyway, on top of the non-disclosure agreements we have to sign, so there isn’t much I can say. And with titles with so many divisions and offshoots, you never really know where the particular game or project you worked on will appear (as they don’t give you info that you may leak)….who knows, it may not even be either of the two you listed.
So. We’re not sure what the deal is here. Resident Evil for the Wii may NOT actually feature Tara as Jill Valentine. This may be voice over work for another Biohazard/Resident Evil title but we won’t speculate what the game is without more information as we don’t want anyone to suffer for our conjecture. Maybe we’ll know more after the mid-September press event.
More Guitar Hero II Tracks Revealed
That’s not a foil wrapped cucumber in my pocket, I’m just happy to see you, Guitar Hero II track list.
Courtesy of the latest EGM comes a much longer, but not complete, list of songs that we’ll be click-clicking away at come November.
- Nirvana “Heart-Shaped Box”
- Primus “John the Fisherman”
- Stone Temple Pilots “Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart”
- Anthrax “Madhouse”
- Motley Crue “Shout at the Devil”
- The Police “Message in a Bottle”
- The Pretenders “Tattooed Love Boys”
- Spinal Tap “Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight
Wow. Spinal Tap! Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that Harmonix would go there, but I’m so glad that they did. More songs after the jump!
- Heart “Crazy on You”
- Allman Brothers Band “Jessica”
- Lynyrd Skynrd “Freebird”
- Avenged Sevenfold “Beast and the Harlot”
- Dick Dale “Misirlou”
- Lamb of God “Laid to Rest”
- Alice in Chains “Them Bones”
- Reverend Horton Heat “Psychobilly Freakout”
- Black Sabbath “War Pigs”
- KISS “Strutter”
- Butthole Surfers “Who Was in My Room Last Night?”
- Van Halen “You Really Got Me”
- Guns N’ Roses “Sweet Child O’Mine”
- The Rolling Stones “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking?”
- Rush “YYZ”
Amazing. When Gizmodo editor Mark Wilson and I hit the Guitar Hero bus at E3, we made our way through “War Pigs”, “Psychobilly Freakout” and “YYZ” thinking it just wasn’t going to get much better than that. Oh how we were wrong!
Guitar Hero 2 Songlist Revealed [1UP]
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater: Source
If you’ve never made it to architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater (aka the Kaufmann House) in southwestern Pennsylvania (I have), now you can take a tour of it with your Half-Life 2 install.
Anyone interested can download the map here.
This Day in Gaming, September 2nd
1998: Hasbro Interactive releases Axis & Allies for PC in the US. It’s a port of the famous board game that goes by the same name. Not to take a shot at anyone, but we vowed to never play when at a high school party a bunch of hot, bored girls looked on as our friends geeked out to it. The neglected hotties eventually left and the boys played all night. Geeking out is good - necessary even. But as we grow, we find there’s a time and a place for those impulses. And we call it PAX.
1999: Contrail releases Wild Arms 2nd Ignition for PS. This game is not about an ex-clown with arms made of rubber that bounce funny as he walks and tend to grope the occasional woman with bonuses if you can simultaneously steal her kid’s cotton candy. Not one bit.
2000: GT Interactive releases Duke Nukem: Land of the Babes for PS in the US. The Duke Nukem games are so fun, we can’t wait to play the next one! Too bad half of us born in the 80s will be dead by the time that actually happens. And when we die, we don’t want to be cremated like boring people. Take note readers for when the time comes, you have our consent here: give us a normal funeral service. Then, in the middle, we want a Duke Nukem impersonator to bust in and fire a rocket launcher at our cold, useless body, blowing us straight to hell…err heaven.
Have gaming history, trivia, or famous birthdays you’d like to see in TDIG? Drop us a line at tdig@kotaku.com
Mario and Crew Hit Happy Meals
McDonalds and Nintendo invite you to “Take the Mario Challenge”! What’s the challenge? Is it to live a life of backbreaking blue-collar work (plumbing and princess rescuing, natch) while somehow maintaining an unsightly gut? No! It’s actually to get your kids off their chubby ass cheeks for a few minutes to mess around with the new Mario toys included in sodium and saturated fat heavy Happy Meals.
The promotion kicked off yesterday, which, according to my crippling hangover, is perfect timing. I’m off to my local McD’s to snag one now—hopefully snagging that Mario Throw and Catch ball—and curb the effects of three too many Tanquerays.
You, dear reader, have the next three weeks to snag yourself some Mario toys because on September 21, this promotion is over.
Oh yeah, more pics of the toys after the jump. I’ll ask my local McDonalds counter zombie how and when each will show up.
