Club Nintendo has had this sweet deal going for a while that allows members to use coins earned registering Nintendo product codes on actual video games rather than the type of paraphernalia more commonly found in Chinatown. For the most part selected titles have been restricted to stuff the majority of long time players wouldn’t bat an eyelash at but as you can tell from the headline and screenshot above, this isn’t the case at the moment. The N64 classic 1080 Snowboarding is up for grabs for a mere 150 coins as are three other selections each worth looking into. 1080 is a game that I spent a ridiculous amount of my un-prescribed medicinally medicated marijuana years playing as a teenager and it’s a lot of fun. Especially now since you can enjoy it in a higher resolution while your hands are wrapped around the asscheeksofthewomanyoulove GameCube controller. Also, if you burn some Nag Champa and listen to this track as you tear through the Golden Forest stage over and over again, shit gets really far ou-sorry? Oh right, what else is currently up for grabs: Let’s have a look.
Well Nintendo’s certainly feeling generous with this week’s top notch roundup of eShop downloads. The 3DS is now home to the full retail version of Adventure Time: Hey Ice King? Why’d You Steal Our Garbage? at $29.99 and the 8-bit Ninja Gaiden slashes its way onto the Virtual Console for five bucks. The former of course, is a game based on the popular children’s cartoon whose charms I am apparently immune to and the latter is a stone cold classic action platformer that I will never be good enough to complete but still love to death. The Ninja Gaiden games for the NES were some of my favorites to play as a kid despite their sadistic challenge level. The gorgeous graphics, revolutionary (at the time) cut-scenes and airtight controls made them incredibly fun and they still totally hold up. Still, I’ll probably pass because I really don’t want to be one of those guys who screams obscenities on public transportation. However if by some chance you’ve never had a go with this series before, I strongly recommend the experience.
And here at the List we all wish our beloved creator of Mario, Link, Pikmin and of course, Wii Music Shigeru Miyamoto a truly wonderful birthday. Just think: By the time the next presidential election rolls around the guy will actually turn 64!
Why thank you so much Nintendo for giving gamers two Halloween worthy downloads to choose from today! Unfortunately neither of them are very good but hey…we sure appreciate the gesture. First up is Castlevania: The Adventure which was originally released for the Game Boy way back in 1989. Simon Belmont’s Grandaddy Christopher leads the charge in this installment as the series takes its first (of many) dips into portable water. Too bad this one whiffs it pretty hard as the end result is horrifying for all the wrong reasons. Aside from an excellent soundtrack, Adventure doesn’t come close to matching the visual or control standards set by its home console cousins. As a curiosity, I’d say this game is worth tossing a couple of bucks at but really what you should be doing is downloading the Rebirth WiiWare remake from a couple of years back. Now THAT is some damn fine Castlevania gaming right there, buddy. READ MORE
Well that isn’t a very nice attitude to have now is it 8-Bit Vader? The truth is that me and my pals here at the List have been invited to help put the final nail in the coffin provide our old friends over at Nintendorks.net with our invaluable insight and expertise on all things Nintendo (and maybe even some other stuff) from now on. Now what does this mean for you my dear, faithful reader? Well…nothing really. We aren’t going anywhere and I’ll continue to update regularly until the police find my lifeless, nude corpse at my computer desk surrounded by empty bottles of discount I.P.A. You can look forward to the same high quality self indulgence that we’ve blessed the internet with these past few years only now under both the Shigeru’s List url and the legendary banner of Nintendorks. In fact, I’ll probably be cross posting all of the larger pieces such as news and reviews on both sites but keep the random little mini updates exclusive to my little baby here.
I know, I know. It all sounds too good to be true but please, try and contain yourself. You’re embarrassing us.
Super Ghouls ‘ Ghosts is a game that is so hard it will make sitting on your balls feel like a Summer breeze. Seriously. I don’t know what Capcom’s problem is with this series but every single entry has been inappropriately difficult to a degree that as a kid it felt like borderline child abuse. This SNES entry is a particularly sore spot for me because the graphics and sound are so beautiful that I’m regularly lured in to give it another shot. Always with the thought that maybe, juuust maybe this will be the time I make it if not close to the end (LOL) at least to the midway mark. Of course, this has never happened. So why am I bothering to post about this game at all if it’s such a frustrating experience?
I wonder how Splatterhouse 2 has managed to exist on the Virtual Console this long without me drunkenly throwing 800 points at it. Oh right, because the first one was such a massive piece of shit that no level of intoxication could convince me that typing in my credit card number with one eye shut again would be worth it. Well, that and the fact that I’d read somewhere that once the Splatterhouse series jumped ship from the Turbografx 16 to the Genesis, that the 3rd installment was by far and away the best of the bunch. So you see rather than be disappointed yet again by Part 2, it made a lot more sense to me to wait around until Part 3 appeared on the VC which as we all know now, was not to be. Still with me?
As far as my bedroom is concerned, we are now in full on Halloween time. I’ve got cobwebs spread out, a skeleton hanging on the door, red light bulbs plugged in, these really great gummy-like ghosts and bats stuck on my window/mirrors as well as an awesome jack ‘o lantern lamp thing right here next to me on my desk (2 for $10.00 at CVS!). You may have noticed that I even changed the background of the site to a super cool Ghost house theme from Super Mario World (thank you, google image search). I truly can’t get enough of this season, so with that in mind it’s time to start playing some creepy games whenever my television isn’t occupied with Tales From the Dark Side reruns. Of course I plan on posting any current news that I find interesting as it pops up, but aside from that the month of October (and I guess this last week of September) belong to write ups involving primarily two things: Nintendo and horror.
Beginning with today’s quick look at one of the most memorable stages I can uh…remember playing in a video game: READ MORE
Pretty much every review you’re going to read about Kirby’s 20th birthday compilation will begin with a direct comparison to Nintendo’s own anniversary treatment for their mustached mascot a couple of years ago. And for good reason: When the announcement was made that a special commemorative box would be released to coincide with the 25th birthday of the original Super Mario Bros., a lot of longtime fans (yours truly included) were understandably excited. But as the end result wound up being essentially an unchanged 20 year old rom (Super Mario All Stars from the SNES to be exact) slapped onto a disc and packed in with a flimsy at best scrapbook along with an anemic 13 track CD…well, pissed isn’t exactly the right word but you get the idea. Now with HAL laboratory celebrating the second decade mark for their little friend Kirby with such style, what once simply felt like a missed opportunity for Mario at this point feels like a legitimate insult.
Erase the memory of that Godawful flick where Charleton Heston plays a Mexican Jake Gyllenhaal plays a Persian from your mind right now. There was once a time (and not so long ago) when the Prince of Persia brand was synonymous with quality side-scrolling platform gaming. People would yap on and on about how cool it was to edit your own levels and that the “beautiful” character animation had to be seen to be believed. Actually, I think I’m just quoting the douchebag kid that lived next door to me who couldn’t be torn away from this thing. Personally, I was pretty underwhelmed when I had a crack at it. The theme wasn’t very compelling and I think he had some kind of computer version that required a keyboard to play. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, years later when I decided to wrap my hands around a GameCube controller, I became deeply hooked on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, but by then the series had already (brilliantly) made the leap into full 3D. Based on my deep affection for that game I was convinced that maybe I should go back and give the original stuff another shot but like so much in life, never got around to it. Well for any of you gamers out there that have a similar history with this franchise, as of today you can remedy your mild curiosity by downloading the SNES version for 800 Wii points. Of course you could also pick up Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands for the Wii that includes this full game as an unlockable starting at $0.01 used on Amazon instead. Yes, I know its none of my business what you do. Forgive me for mentioning it at all.
According to the fan that created this highly impressive piece:
“I used to play Super Hang-On at Chuck E. Cheese. It was so rad. I kinda want to make this into a t-shirt but I’m still on the fence about it. I’m not sure if anybody would buy a Super Hang-On inspired shirt.”
Club Nintendo has been rotating the available downloadable game codes with greater frequency for a couple months, with a new game being available roughly every two weeks. This time at bat it’s the original Super Smash Bros., originally released for the Nintendo 64 in 1998 and downloadable on the Wii Virtual Console. Spending 200 coins, or roughly what you get for registering a 3DS system and a game with your Club Nintendo account, nets you the ability to beat the crap out of your friends as Link and Kirby, who were forever after nerfed as the series went on. Pikachu’s always been the tits, though. Anyway, if you want to throw Pokéballs like a maniac on top of the Silph Co. building to cause a cacophonous clusterfuck, and don’t feel like spending 1000 Wii Points, you have until September 16th- next Saturday- to cough up those coins you’ve been holding onto in the faint, desperate hope that the Super NES Classic Controller would ever come to the NA Club Nintendo store, before Nintendo switches it out with some other game, probably a worse one.
“Thank you all. Please be seated. *Ahem*. Ladies and gentlemen, like many of you here today I came across Nintendo Power at a very young age. For me personally, it was the third grade and I was eight years old when I first heard whispers of a magazine that was all about Nintendo and filled with maps, special codes and strategies. These rumors spread like wild fire across the black top during recess but that’s all they amounted to at first: Rumors. Some kid knew a guy from another school who’s brother supposedly had described some book he’d seen as having the small clay Mario you see beside me plastered across the cover. More words were spoken of free pull-out posters and comic strips as well as contests that gave away prizes like t-shirts, toys and most importantly: Nintendo Games. It all sounded too good to be true of course and these second hand (third and fourth even) stories were all I had to tide me over before the truth of the matter would finally be revealed to me. It was a cold, overcast October afternoon when this kid I knew opened his backpack to reveal the beautiful image of a grown man in full body armor holding the decapitated head of Dracula by his hair.
As of right now and until supplies run out, you can finally snag one of these bad boys for yourself provided you’ve got 900 Club Nintendo coins lying around. Of course, Japan gets all the cool stuff first and had these available long ago: A fact that has kept my patience in a coma for far too long. However that country won’t be recovering from an earthquake, a tsunami, and radioactive emission from the nuclear station for who knows how long so I guess everything shook out in favor of North American Club members in the end. I jumped on ordering this thing right away since I can’t resist any offer that includes the words Limited quantity available and I love seeing shit like this in the mail box.
Who knows? Maybe this will even provide the motivation I need to get back into Skyward Sword? Yes? No? Maybe? Beuller?
I’d been planning on downloading Sega’s 1987 high speed racer Super Hang-On ever since it was made available for the Virtual Console back in May but held off until this past weekend. As incredible a display of willpower as that may seem, the real reason was that I’d already achieved platinum status on Club Nintendo a long time ago and made myself promise to not buy any new games until the year reset at the end of June. That’s how mediocre prizes get won, there fellas. Anyway, as a kid this was a game that definitely stood out in arcades due to the fact that you had to straddle a “motorcycle” to control the damn thing. The gameplay was shallow for sure but also a lot of fun and incredibly addictive (so long as there weren’t any girls around to see you make a complete ass out of yourself). “I wonder how well it holds up after all this time?” you may be whispering to yourself at this very moment.
Well, I guess it’s a good thing we’re around to answer big questions like these for you because after finally taking this thing for a test drive myself, you’re about to find out right after the jump! READ MORE
