Faced with so many announcements to come out of last month's E3, you may've missed the previous news that the Metroid Prime Trilogy is coming to the Wii. This single disc compiles the two Metroid Prime games previously released (in 2002 and 2004) for the GameCube, as well as the 2007 Wii release of Metroid Prime 3. The first two games will feature slightly updated graphics (especially if you have a widescreen [480p] television), unlockable rewards — and, most significantly, motion controls native to the Wii, as exemplified by the "New Play Control!" series of GameCube-to-Wii ports. When the game ships on August 24th, it will come with an artbook, a t-shirt, and, if you order online, a poster.
A Nintendo fanboy, I already own all three Metroid Prime games. Each time I finished one, I thought, "That was excellent — I'll probaby play it again someday." But before enough time had passed for my memory to fade sufficiently to warrant a replay, the sequel would come out.
Now I'm tempted by these re-releases, seeing the new controls as the incentive I need to revisit such enjoyable games. To get all three for just $50 is a steal. The downside is that I've already invested $150 in these games, and this version of Metroid Prime 3, which was already a Wii original, is unlikely to be at all different from what I already own.
Would my money be better spent on an unknown but unplayed game that might prove an entirely new experience? Or is there wisdom in buying (again) into a franchise I know to be fun?
I'm curious to hear your thoughts about this trilogy pack, as well as your own experiences with the Metroid Prime series.
As recently noted, Adventure is famous for having the first well-known Easter egg. But this classic game was groundbreaking for more than its hidden features. The gameplay itself established the precedent for the likes of The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy. It's also a fun game in its own right — especially for a program written in only four kilobytes of code and with only 128 bytes of memory available for it to use. (For comparison, a standard DVD holds about 4,928,307 kilobytes, and a computer with 2 GB of RAM has 2,147,483,648 bytes.)
However, these ports and sequels have either not advanced the game or have not been widely available. As of today, a new take on Adventure overcomes both these hurdles. First announced five months ago in the Penny Arcade forums, a remake of the original game is now available for download. Created from the ground up to feature 16-bit graphics, voice acting, time trials, and more. What's not being discussed is whether the game features any Easter eggs!
Adventure 2600, released today for Windows. Here, the hero has used the purple bridge to evade Grundle the green dragon, gaining access to the Black Castle.
I've often reminisced about exploring the catacombs of the white castle, laying the purple bridge, or getting caught in the belly of a dragon (or duck) while the bat spirited us off to parts unknown. With the release of this free Windows remake, a new generation of gamers can share in this foundational experience. (If you want to try the unadulterated original on your PC, see the links in my previous post.)
Lode Runner was originally released in 1983 for the Apple II computer, where its combination of frenetic activity and puzzling gameplay made it an instant classic. You can play the original online — it looks something like this:
Lode Runner has always been one of my favorite games and one that I return to in any year and medium. I drop quarters to play the coin-op at FunSpot every year, and courtesy the Wii's Virtual Console, I have the Nintendo version of Lode Runner — though that game's limited resolution requires the screen to pan to see everything, limiting its effectiveness. There's even an iPhone version called Gold Runner, reviewed in the March issue of Juiced.GS.
Lode Runner costs 1200 Microsoft Points, which is the equivalent of $15, the high end of XBLA games. I hope it's worth it, as this gameplay video looks a bit mundane:
The lack of background music combined with the somewhat confusing graphics (I can't quite tell where the player can go and where he can't) might not represent the final product. I'm also hoping the Xbox version is somewhat frantic, as I'm used to playing Lode Runner at a slightly accelerated pace.
I'm delighted when Apple II games inspire today's greats, but I'm overjoyed when they are resurrected, heart and soul, in a form that any geezer can recognize.
The name "Easter egg" comes from the Easter tradition of hiding chocolate eggs for children to find. It has a similar meaning in software: an undocumented, hidden feature or message that users may stumble across.
The first software Easter egg is popularly thought to have occurred in 1979. In the early days of software development, programmer identities were jealously guarded. Software studios didn't want their staff to gain celebrity status, their names eclipsing those of the brands they'd created. Warren Robinett, then a programmer for Atari, didn't appreciate this lack of acknowledgement. He couldn't get his name in the manual for the Atari 2600 game Adventure — so he sneaked it into the game itself.
Ah, April Fool's… a day of delicious pranks, falsified rumors, and opportunities for corporate entities to demonstrate a sense of humor. Last year, Microsoft got in on the fun with phony Xbox peripherals. In blogging about that joke, I neglected to spotlight an even more impressive one.
Video games are proving an increasingly popular source for Hollywood scripts, with adaptations coming from Hitman, Max Payne, Street Fighter, and Prince of Persia. But what about the games we actually want to see turned into films? Last year, production company Rainfall Films together with IGN created this mock trailer for a movie based on the Legend of Zelda series:
The production quality is so high that many people were fooled. Only a few clues tipped off suspicious viewers, such as Link's lack of dialogue (true to the source material, admittedly!) and Ganon's cheap costume. Except for those, this trailer suggests (at least to me) that a faithful and high-quality movie of this series is possible.
This mockup goes well with another trailer. It's expected that franchises will evolve over time; this teaser demonstrates the Zelda series so by taking a giant step forward… into the future:
What other games would do well as movies and/or in futuristic settings? Maybe… Tetris?
Given the current and global economic turmoil, many big-budget developers are relying on established franchises, rather than taking risks with new, experimental intellectual properties (IPs). Fortunately, a balance can be found by brushing off old franchises and updating them for a new generation. When done right, this approach plays to older gamers' nostalgia while offering newcomers to the series something original.
Nintendo is doing just this with the Wii version of Punch-Out!!, a re-imagining of their 1987 classic NES title. Although a brief teaser trailer was unveiled back in October, it hasn't been until this week that I've seen anything worth getting excited over:
The characters, the soundtrack, the peppy optimism — with this single video, I've been transported to my youth. When this Punch-Out!! comes out on May 18th, it may simply be a marriage of old gameplay with the Wii's motion controls, which are themselves getting old… but I still think I'll enjoy squaring off against something other than the workout bag offered by Wii Sports and Wii Fit.
To the best of my knowledge, the last Indiana Jones game was The Emperor's Tomb, which was released in 2003 and based on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer game engine. Though I never finished that Indy outing, I have fonder memories of it than I do of his previous Nintendo 64 game. I'm looking forward to continuing this upward trend with a more successful revisit to the franchise than last year's film.
The other hero swinging onto the TV screen is the Dark Knight in Batman: Arkham Asylum:
Batman's interactive experiences have generally gone the way of Sonic the Hedgehog, both of them having promising beginnings that quickly slumped into shame. The Caped Crusader's 8-bit NES debut was the best yet, whereas his 2003 game, Dark Tomorrow, was more a dark morass. Could Arkham Asylum be any worse? At least it is capitalizing on the recent films' successes without necessarily relying on them. I'm not a fan of Christian Bale, so I'm glad to hear the game's main hero and villain have the right voice actors for the parts.
