June 2012
May 2012
Simon and Trevor Belmont return for Castlevania: Mirror of Fate on 3DS
More details have come out from Nintendo Power’s cover story for Castlevania: Mirror of Fate, and it turns out that the game stars two familiar heroes from the series: Simon and Trevor Belmont. My Nintendo Power cover art comparison — and Pushmo code posted last week — seems way prescient now, even though I didn’t plan that.
“Mirror of Fate takes place within Lords of Shadows’ continuity reboot, so this is not the same Trevor you know and (presumably) love. … The gameplay in Mirror of Fate stretches across time, and players will eventually be able to control Trevor’s descendent, Simon Belmont. Two other unnamed characters are in the game as well.”
This seemed like a great opportunity for me to share these illustrations of Simon and Trevor (unrelated to Mercury Steam’s game) posted recently by Simon Gough.
Bit.Trip Saga for $15.99, Complete for $19.99 →
amazon.com
Amazon’s “Dads & Grads” sale is pretty light on handheld stuff, but it does provide an opportunity to get the 3DS Bit.Trip Saga compilation for $16. Not bad for six great games!
Bit.Trip Complete, the Wii collection with a bundled soundtrack sampler, is also on sale for $20. This is what you’ve worked so hard for all these years, getting yourself through school/raising a child to accomplish! Reasonably cheap Bit.Trip games!
Find: Nintendo DS/3DS release dates, discounts, & more See also: More of our Bit.Trip posts
Wizorb headed to PSP, PS Vita, & PS3
Wow, PS Vita had a pretty great week — first with Sega’s announcement of an HD Jet Set Radio coming to the handheld this summer, and now Tribute’s XBLIG/PC title releasing for PS Vita, PSP, and PS3 via PS Minis in June.
The RPG/Breakout hybrid, which happens to feature a Tiny cameo that does not at all affect our opinion of this first-class game, will be priced at $3.99. Ukranian developer Beatshapers, which also handled Canabalt’s PS Minis conversion, helped with the port.
Buy: Wizorb for Windows/Mac/Linux, PS Vita See also: Ignored DSiWare gem: AlphaBounce [Via PSNStores (which also has a trailer)]
Gravity Rush reviewed on Joystiq →
joystiq.com
There were some other things happening today that a) kept me too busy to update TC reliably and b) pushed this down the page on Joystiq, so in the interest of sharing some Vita coverage with you all before it disappears into obscurity, here is the review I wrote for Gravity Rush.
I’ve been playing Gravity Rush in every free moment for the last week or so; not just because I had to get the review done, but because it’s super fun. Here’s a small quote:
Since you spend so much time just traveling from thing to thing in games, especially open-world ones, I’m surprised more attention isn’t paid to making that fun. By putting so much joy in the navigation of the world, Gravity Rush shares space in my mind with standouts like Batman: Arkham City and Jet Set Radio.
That’s the biggest draw to this game: it’s just so delightful to fling yourself around using the ability to dynamically alter gravity, that it makes getting to a mission just as much fun as doing the mission.
It’s neat to have something to play on Vita again!
Buy: PS Vita, Preorder: Gravity Rush (June 12)
See also: More PS Vita coverage
Famicase-inspired game design competition announced →
agbic.com
Inspired by the 2010 A Game By Its Cover competition on TIGSource, and in turn by My Famicase Exhibition, a new game design competition invites entrants to make games based on fake game covers –- like the ones in Famicase.
Winning games will be shown at GameCity conference in October. If you’re looking for inspiration, here’s this year’s Famicase set, orrrrrrrrrrr you could base your idea on this random cart from Famicase 2011 (above). We also have these imaginary DS/3DS games you could start from…
Buy: Tiny Cartridge x Mare Odomo stickers for DS/3DS carts See also: My Famicase Exhibition designs [Thanks, @gingerbeardman!]
Guild02 has Inafune and other rad dudes
Yes, Guild01 hasn’t released in Japan yet, but Level-5 has already announced a sequel to the 3DS omnibus. The collection of names involved in this follow-up might not seem as hype-worthy at first — 01’s Suda51, Yoot Saito, and Yasumi Matsuno are hard to top — but I am here to tell you that we are in the midst of a dope situation.
Guild02 features four games from ex-Mega Man producer Keiji Inaune, My Summer Vacation creator Kazu Ayabe, and Chunsoft’s Kazuya Asano and Takemaru Abiko. Let us discuss the dopeness levels after the break.
Mario hat 3DS case now available at Club Nintendo →
club.nintendo.com
Nintendo has added the red Mario-style 3DS case to the North American Club Nintendo lineup, for 450 points – the same price as the green Luigi version, which now seems to have been removed from the site. It’s also oriented the opposite direction as the Luigi case, which is cute.
One of these cases will hold a DS, DSi, or 3DS admirably, with a little pocket for one game. It totally won’t hold a Vita.
Rumors of a new Castlevania 3DS unearthed from a miserable pile of secrets
E3 is but two weeks away, so expect all sorts of wild rumors to pop up between now and then, like today’s gossip that Konami is working on a new Castlevania game for 3DS, subtitled Mirror of Faith (or is Mirror of Fate?).
Konami registering a domain for Mirror of Fate several months ago gives this rumor some credit, but there’s another twist! There’s speculation that MercurySteam, the Spanish studio behind 2010’s Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, is developing this. Who knows what this means about Koji Igarashi’s involvement.
Anyway, whether it’s true or not, at least we got to share this Simon Belmont Pushmo code, and remind everyone that Pushmo exists and is a rad eShop game.
Buy: Castlevania games See also: More Castlevania posts [Via Sadist, N1ntendo, GameDynamo; Thanks, G Man]
Someone made Shaq-Fu worth playing →
romhacking.net
There are some who will argue that Shaq-Fu, the fighting game starring the gigantic former NBA star, isn’t terrible, but its reputation is probably enough to keep most people from giving this supposed kusoge a spin.
ArugulaZ has released a patch for the SNES version, though, that replaces its corny text. “Here’s your chance to play the game with a script that spends less time kissing Shaq’s butt and more time being entertaining,” he says.
Everything Shaq touches off the court seems to be garbage: his rap career, his performance as Steel, and now his awful commentary on TNT. It’s great to see something fun made out of yet another Shaq blunders with this patch.
Buy: Shaq-Fu See also: More game hacks
Retro Game Master DVD set out September 18 →
facebook.com
Discotek Media’s US DVD release of Retro Game Master, the localized Game Center CX, will be out September 18. It comes with the 12 Kotaku episodes, Mighty Bomb Jack, Ninja Gaiden 2, and Shiren the Wanderer.
September 18 is just about perfect for me to order a copy and have it arrive in time for my birthday. Good release date.
Buy: Retro Game Challenge Import: Game Center CX 2 See also: More Game Center CX posts [Via @rdb_aaa]
