Now Playing 10.13.2011

We hope you like Marvel comics! And those old bootleg Famicom cartridges with a billion games on ’em.

By Andrew Hsieh. Posted 10/13/2011 20:00 1 Comment     ShareThis

Fancy buying a video game or two this week? There’s a lot out there– and that’s where Nintendojo’s Now Playing column comes in. Check out the list, and lean back as we figure out just what these games are all about.


Note: titles in grey apply to Europe only.

Wii

October 14, 2011
Spider-Man: Edge of Time (Activision)
X-Men: Destiny (Activision)

WiiWare

October 10, 2011
101-in-1 Explosive Megamix (Nordcurrent)

3DS

October 11, 2011
Cooking Mama 4: Kitchen Magic (Majesco)
Imagine Fashion Designer (Ubisoft)
Pet Zombies 3D (Majesco)
October 14, 2011
Spider-Man: Edge of Time (Activision)

Nintendo eShop

October 13, 2011
Catrap (Nintendo)

Nintendo Video

October 13, 2011
Night of the Living Carrots Part 1 (DreamWorks Animation)

DS

October 11, 2011
Aliens: Infestation (Sega)
October 14, 2011
Spider-Man: Edge of Time (Activision)
X-Men: Destiny (Activision)

DSiWare

October 13, 2011
Furry Legends (Gamelion)
1001 BlockBusters (Selectsoft)


Furry Legends? Huh. Who’d have thought that developers for Nintendo systems liked animals so much? Wait, Bubsy– yeah, I guess this has been a long time coming, hasn’t it? Even DreamWorks is contributing to the animal population with its Night of the Living Carrots Part 1, which actually is kind of cool, because it means Nintendo Video has mainstream support! We were getting creeped out by the constant stream of Blue Man Group videos, so this is actually what we’d call Pretty Cool News. Even if Night of the Living Carrots Part 1 does seem a little, how you say, hard to watch.

(We’re just kidding about Furry Legends, by the way– it’s not about anthropomorphic animals, making the unfortunate title very misleading. It’s actually a fairly charming game based on the WiiWare game of the same name– a platformer with puzzle elements. Yeah, we would’ve named it something else, too.)

And no, nothing is coming out for DS and Wii this week– at least not in North America, and not on physical shelves. And even in Europe, where video game enthusiasts get their long-awaited (maybe) fixes for their favorite Marvel comics– not to mention Alien-related franchises– they’re not getting much at all. Actually, no, that’s not true– people have been talking about Spider-Man: Edge of Time, with its dual Spider-Men, for quite some time, and the game actually looks really great! In fact, here’s the first thirty minutes of the game:


It’s hard to pick between Peter Parker and Miguel O’Hara– but you get to play both!

Not bad, right? It certainly looks better than X-Men: Destiny, which is a game that unfortunately falls into that sticky situation of being much better on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 than it is on Wii. It’s rather unfortunate because the Wii version of X-Men: Destiny is actually developed by Silicon Knights, whom you might remember from Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem on Nintendo GameCube. On X-Men: Destiny‘s GameFAQs board, there are actually a couple gamers bemoaning the downfall of the once-vaunted developer. Of course, there aren’t that many people reading or posting in the first place (it’s only a page of board), so …

In any case, Majesco has gamers chopping and dicing once again with Cooking Mama 4— is it on its fourth iteration already? time flies when you’re poaching eggs– and Nintendo adds to the handheld Virtual Console with a Game Boy puzzle game that absolutely is not about mice or cats (at least, not completely animalistic ones) and definitely does not seem like a more complicated Block Dude for the TI-83. Aw, who are we kidding? Catrap joins Night of the Living Carrots and Furry Legends as vaguely animal-sounding games that aren’t actually that animal-related at all. Catrap at least was developed and published by Nintendo itself, so it at least looks like an investment worth making. One hundred puzzles for three bucks!


No, not blockbustersBlockBusters.

Though at first glance one hundred puzzles for three bucks doesn’t seem like such a bargain when looking at Nordcurrent and Selectsoft’s 100-in-1 Explosive Megamix and 1001 BlockBusters respectively. Actually, both remind of those old cartridges you’d find at that shady game shop by the Hometown Buffet, advertising a thousand games or something, none with an actual Nintendo seal. If the game shop was extra shady, the games might even be bootlegs of actual Nintendo Entertainment System games, from Duck Hunt to Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers, which made you feel extra good and extra bad at the same time. Anyway, it’s not like that here, folks. 1001 BlockBusters isn’t 1001 hit video games– actually, it is literally a collection of 1001 block-busting games, akin to Arkanoid of old. We wonder if it’s compatible with Taito’s paddle controller for Arkanoid DS. (It probably isn’t.)

100-in-1 Explosive Megamix, on the other hand, is the true successor to those shady game shop games. Heck, it might even be better– from screens alone we can’t tell if all 100 games are unique, but really, anything’s better than those old cartridges– especially since a lot of those “games” were really just glitchier versions of the same game. Don’t you miss the good ol’ days? (Because we’re looking forward to some new ones.)


Any of these games catch your eye? Gonna play X-Men: Destiny despite our eyebrow-raising? Let us know in the comments!

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