Nintendo Virtual Console Games Updates North America

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Legend / ★= Recomended Must Buy / ✔= Good / ●= Average / ✘= Bad
■= Also Available as GameCube Disk (playable on Wii)
[★] =Click On For Full Review / [S] = Screen Shots
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Nintendo Entertainment System (500 points)
Nov 19, 2006
✘ Donkey Kong *missing 1 arcade level
★ Legend Of Zelda ■"The Legend of Zelda: Collectors Edition" Bonus Disk
✘ Mario Bros
● PinBall
✘ Soccer
✔ Solomons Key
✔ Wario's Woods
Dec 4, 2006
● Donkey Kong Jr.
Dec 11, 2006
✘ Ice Hockey
Dec 18, 2006
✘ Tennis
Dec 25, 2006
★ Super Mario Bros
Jan 1, 2007
✘ Baseball
✘ Urban Champion
Jan 8, 2007
✔ Gradius
Jan 15, 2007
● Xevious
February 12, 2007
● Ice Climber
✔Kid Icarus [S] [★] * special secret passwords don't work (progress passwords still do though)
★ Kirby's Adventure
February 19, 2007
✘ The Legend of Kage
March 5, 2007
● Elevator Action
March 12, 2007
✔ Tecmo Bowl
March 19, 2007
● Excitebike
April 2, 2007
● Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles *(600 points) licencing issue
April 9, 2007
● Galaga
April 16, 2007
★ Punch-Out!!
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Super Nintendo (800 points)
Nov 19, 2006
✔ F-Zero
✔ Sim City
Dec 25, 2006
✔ Street Fighter II: The World Warrior
✔ Super Castlevania IV
Jan 15, 07
✔ R-Type III: The Third Lightning
Jan 22, 07
★ The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Jan 29, 2007
✔ Contra III: The Alien Wars
Feb 5, 2007
★ Super Mario World
Feb 19, 2007
✔Donkey Kong Country
March 5, 2007
✔ Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts
March 26, 2007
● Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire

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Nintendo 64 (1000 points)
Nov 19, 2006
★ Super Mario 64
Jan 29, 2007
✔ Mario Kart 64 *can't save ghost
Feb 26, 2007
★ The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time ■ "The Legend of Zelda OOT/ MQ" Bonus Disc
April 2, 2007
★ Starfox 64
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Sega Genisis (800 points)
Nov 19, 2006
✘ Altered Beast
✔ Sonic The Hedgehog ■ "Sonic Mega Collection"
Nov 28, 2006
● Ecco the Dolphin
✔ Golden Axe
Dec 4, 2006
● Columns
✔ Ristar ■ "Sonic Mega Collection"
Dec 11, 2006
★ Gunstar Heroes
✘ Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine ■ "Sonic Mega Collection"
Dec 18, 2006
● Space Harrier II
Dec 25, 2006
● Toe Jam & Earl
Jan 29, 2007
✔ Bonanza Bros.
✔ Comix Zone
Feb 5, 2007
✘ Gain Ground
Feb 19, 2007
● Streets of Rage
Feb 26, 2007
● Bio-Hazard Battle
March 5, 2007
● Sword of Vermilion
March 12, 2007
✘ Sonic Spinball ■ "Sonic Mega Collection"
March 19, 2007
✔ Beyond Oasis
April 9, 2007
● Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle
April 16, 2007
✘ Virtua Fighter 2
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Turbo Grafx 16 (600 points)
Nov 21, 2006
✔ Bomberman '93
✔ Bonk's Adventure
Nov 27, 2006
✔ Super Star Soldier
Dec 4, 2006
✘ Victory Run
Dec 11, 2006
✔ Alien Crush Pinball
Dec 18, 2006
✔ Military Madness
Dec 25, 2006
✔ R-Type *(800 points) released in Japan as two separate games
Jan 8, 2007
✔ Soldier Blade
✔ Dungeon Explorer
Jan 15, 2007
● Moto RoaderDragon's Curse
Feb 5, 2007
✔ Vigilante
Feb 19, 2007
✔ New Adventure Island
Feb 26, 2007
✔ Chew Man Fu
March 12, 2007
✘ Double Dungeons
March 19, 2007
● Splatterhouse
April 2, 2007
✔ Dragons Curse
April 9, 2007
✘ Bravoman
April 16, 2007
★ Bonk's Revenge
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Kid Icarus Wii Virtual Console Review

System: Nintendo Entertainment System
Developed: Nintendo R&Di (Intellegent Sytems) and TOSE.
Publisher: Nintendo
Year Released: 1987
VC Release: February 12 2007
Genre: Platform Action
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (for everyone)
Difficulty: Impossible

✔ Good
Gameplay ★★★
Graphics ★★★
Music/ Sound ★★★★
Replay Value ★★★★★
Age Value ★★★
Overall Rating ★★★★
*out of five stars
-gameplay graphics music/sound replay value are rated for its time
-age value is how the game stands up today
-Overall rating is based on the game as a whole

★= Recomended Must Buy / ✔= Good / ●= Average / ✘= Bad
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If Metroid, The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros had to join together to fight an oversized Japanese style monster the outcome would be Kid Icarus. Having said that it's not quite as good as the aformetioned games but then again those game set the bar pretty high.

This game was actually built with the same engine as Mertroid and uses a password system to save progress much the same. On the virtual console this is almost completely unnessesary because the Wii will save your current progress unless you restart, reset or turn the power off. Also the Virtual Console game does not support the special passwords such as ICARUS FIGHTS MEDUSA ANGELS for unlimited life or DANGER !!!!!! TERROR HORROR for invicibility on the last level. Nintendo does tell you before you by the game however and only cheater will really care.

The graphics are comparable with Metroid or Super Mario Bros and pretty standard for the time it was release.

The music and sound is brilliant for it's time. The music was composed by Hirokazu Tanaka who also composed the music for Metriod, Balloon Fight, Mother Series (Earthbound) and many other big projects for Nintendo.

The gameplay is a cross between Super Mario Bros combined with Metroid. There is alot of platforming but the control and responsiveness is like Metroid. Which worked great fo metriod but not as well in this type of game.

The difficulty for this game is impossible there is no way your going to beat this game on your first try. I have never beat this game! I have sworn at this game, threatened the game and shook the controller violently vowing to destroy it's creators . When you finally do pass a level you get a feeling that it was all worth it and forget all about the vows of death and instead hold a deep admiration for all that is Nintendo until you start the next level....

Newsgab: Dan Aykroyd Confirms Ghostbusters III Movie

Yesterday in an interview with CISN 103.9 FM Dan Aykroyd was asked about the rumored Ghostbusters sequel. To much surprise Aykroyd revealed that the was a movie in production.

“It lives! It lives today! Last year it didn’t!” Aykroyd confirmed. The script written by Aykroyd is called “Hell Bent”. The movie will be about the Ghostbusters crossing dimensions to go to the Hell side of Manhattan called Manhellton.

The basic premise seems like a flipside of the real world where everying will be related to real world people and locations. The visualization given includes cops as blue minotaurs, Central Park as a huge mine with green demons surrounded by black onyx thousand foot high buidlings with classic red devils. Aykroyd says ther will also be a Donald Trump type character named Mr Siftler.

The movie was rumored on the internet in recent years to be on hold because of Bill Murray refusal to do another sequel. Sadly it seems Murray still refuses to appear on screen for a Ghostbusters movie. “It won’t happen as a live action because Billy [Bill Murray] will not come on a live action stage anymore for it.” Dan Aykroyd reveals. However Murray will lend his voice to it as a CGI animated project.

Aykroyd goes on to explain why the CGI route will actually be beneficial “With CGI animation and the way these cartoons are done we can do just everything I ever wrote in that script for much less money.”

On a related note, in an interview with the Edmonton Sun, Dan Aykroyd revealed, "Universal purchased the rights from Sony for a game. I'm actually going to have to perform and do some motion capture for them. That will be next year." This would most likely why Sony, who currently own the rights to the property, was quick to pull the plug on the unlicenced Zootfly game. Sony has made an effort to remove all evidence of the game by getting ZootFly as well as YouTube to remove all video of the never to be game.

pieces Of Advice: Don't Touch Crack

If you own a car there is a pretty good chance you have had a stone chip in your windshield at one time or another. Your annoyed by it and it is a minor distraction while driving. The small chip doesn't look pretty but it certainly doesn't reduce your cars mobility or functionality. It's not something you feel needs to be taken care of right away.

In my case the stone chip occured in November of this year right after I bought my car. I was extemely pissed off and told myself I was going to fix it right away but after a good nights sleep and a couple busy weeks and the upcomming launch of the Nintendo Wii it was on the bottom of my list of priorities.

Between the time of the incident and January I notice the crack got a little bit bigger most likely due to moisture freezing in the crack. This should have been enough to get me worried enough to get me to my nearest auto glass specialist but i figured I could hold out a little longer after all it wasn't covering the entire windsheild.

Wendsday of this week the weather was nice enough and I decided to clean my car. As I was washing the inside of the windshield I notice the crack was getting bigger. Now with the crack being about an inch I figured it was time to fix the problem.

I decided to wait until saturday, which would be today, as I work full time and didn't want to loose my attendance bonus at work. The crack grew about another half inch as I was driving home yesterday.

Today I went to my freindly neiborhood auto glass repair shop. I showed them the crack and they told me there was a pretty good chance the crack would get bigger as they were trying to repair it. I didn't like this at all. I went home and phoned around to check with other auto glass specialists. The general consensis was the same. as I was driving back to the location of the original buisness my windsheid crack tripled in size....

There is now NO chance of repair it will have to be replaced! The cost of this will be upwards of $260 which was about the same cost as my Nintendo Wii. If I would have gotten the problem when it had happened It would have only cost me $35 at my local auto glass repair shop.

Lessons Learned:
Get your head out of your ass! Small problems become big problems if you ignore them.

If you currently have this minor problem with your windshield I stongly suggest you fix it. It may not seem important but a small chip can quickly turn into a full window spanning crack.

Auto glass buisnesses are usually open from 9 to 5 and they are usually open Monday to Saturday. The cost to repair ranges from about $25 to $50 Most of the major shops are walk in and don't require an appointment. This means you can get your chip fixed shortly after the problem occurs.

If you wait vibrations, pressure, moisture or temperature could cause the crack to spread. It may happen in small incriments or suddenly all at once. If you let the crack get over an inch it could be too late to fix it.

Newsgab: Unofficial Ghostbusters Officially XBox 360 Bound?

A few days ago prototype videos of an unknown Ghostbusters video game were seen around the internet. The game appeared to be somewhat of a sequel to the popular blockbuster hit movies from the eighties. Yesterday European developer ZootFly confirmed the videos to be in-game footage an early prototype on the Xbox 360.

The promising videos gameplay looks to be a "Gears of War" style 3rd Person Shooter.

Videos:





The developer recently updated their site in response to the excitement generated by the videos:

What you’ve seen is indeed in-game footage of early prototypes on the Xbox 360, running on ZootFly’s proprietary engine. Due to licensing issues, further development of the Ghostbusters game hit a bump on the road, but everybody here at ZootFly is working actively on resolving the challenges with the owners of the Ghostbusters IP.

Not to lose the momentum, a part of the ZootFly team is currently working on an original game called TimeO, which is closely related to Ghostbusters. The game follows the adventures of two die-hard New Yorkers. They get trapped deep in the shadow world of a parallel New York. The city itself is a war machine threatening to wipe out our world and they have three days to stop it.

As soon as the Ghostbusters IP issue is resolved, the whole team will go back to Ghostbusters. In the meantime, please enjoy these two movies.

Currently the property is owned by Columbia Pictures which happens to be a part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment. Considering development is for the XBox 360 hopefully the properties ties to Sony won't be a issue. In addition licencing issues, in terms of character likeness, has been somewhat of a problem in the past with the official merchandise and cartoons. In the animated cartoon show the "Real Ghostbusters" the character likenesses had to be changed. Whether or not ZootFly would consider going with the "Real Ghostbusters" licence seems unlikely considering the current look of the game.

From the comments posted on the ZootFly website we can gather that if ZootFly cannot obtain official licencing we may still see the game in some form. "TimeO" doesn't seem to have the same appeal as "Ghostbusters" though.

There have been many Ghostbusters games released on older consoles in the days of Atari and the later released Sega Master System and Nintendo Entertainment System including a somewhat popular arcade game but none of these games really captured the true action of Ghostbusters. Hopefully fans will finally get to play a game that will give them the real excitement they get from the movie.

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Completely useless somewhat relevant Ghostbusters trivia:

Lorenzo Music, the voice actor who voiced Garfield in the cartoon "Garfield and Friends", was the voice for Peter Venkman in "the Real Ghostbusters" cartoon.

Bill Murray, who played Peter Venkman in the Ghostbusters movie, was the voice for Garfield in the live action picture "Garfield: The Movie" and it's sequel "Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties".

All Blogs Are Created Equal

This blog is not as great as some of the blogs out there but anyone can view it as easily as a greater blog if they choose to. You can watch a video of a guy getting kicked in the nuts just as easily as a video from NBC's site. What am I getting at?

Net neutrality ensures that your internet provider has no control over how or what you view on the internet. The phone and cable companies would prefer there is no such thing as net neutrality. They would prefer to be paid a premium for faster services exclusive to there network. It has already happened with free meduims like television and radio. Hopefully you won't let big corporations take the internet from you to.

If Net Neutrallity disappears a lesser site like mine could take precedent over a blog like askaninja.com or LUCYinLA if I paid a premium price. You don't want that do you?

With the internet in it's current state my blog will have to become greater than others to be viewed by more people. It is always left up to each individual user. That should be what the internet is all about!

Wii Are the Champions Mii Freind

It's a still a little early to tell but I'm going to call it. This generation of video games belongs to Nintendo. It doesn't take a genius to figure this out. It doesn't even take a hippie. I decided to take some time to answer some of the questions you may be asking yourself.

So were did Sony go wrong with the Playstation 3?
Well for one thing no one can afford it because Sony decided to shove a Blu-Ray drive into your video game system.

Why are what used to be PS3 3rd party Exclusives being moved to the XBox 360?
PS3 is $649.99! The Game sold per system ratio is poor. XBox has a greater installed user base.

The PS3 Controller is pretty "Bad Ass" though?
No rumble feedback and tilt sensor technology that Nintendo used on the GameBoy color with "Kirby's Tilt and Tumble". That's not "Bad" that's just bad...

So can you actually watch Blu-Ray movies on my PS3?
Yeah! Can you believe it? It seems like it was just yesterday when I didn't watch DVD's on my Playstation 2.

What games should I get if I get a PS3?
Well Resistance is exclusive to the PS3. I would get a whole bunch of players choice PS2 games there is God of War, Shadow of the Colossus, the entire Grand Theft Auto series. Chances are if your any sort of a gamer you already have a PS2 though.

I hear the Wii is just basically a GameCube with a different controller. Why does Nintendo's outdated technology have the advantage over the PS3?
Let me give you a couple examples. What game is better the original Pac Man or Pac Man World 3? Sonic the Hedgehog 2 or Sonic Adventure? Castlevania: SOTN or Castlevania 64? If you answered the first game in each consecutive question congratulations. It doesn't take the best technology to make the best games. Sony has spent the last 10 years with systems (PS2 and Playstation) technically inferior to their competition and for the last 10 years they have been dominating the home console market. Now they are telling us that advanced technology is what makes a system?

Does Sony's PS3 have the best Graphics at least?
Well it is suppose to. So far every title to appear on PS3 and Xbox 360 looks better on the XBox 360. Eventually the PS3 should have better looking games though. Of course alot of people thought the Playstation 2 had better graphics than the Game Cube, Playstation had better graphics than the Nintendo 64 and the Genesis had better Graphics than the Super Nintendo. The graphics war is and always has been totally irrelevant.

You can Download 700+ old Playstation games on PS3 that's way better than Nintendo's Virtual Console right?
You need a PSP to play old Playstation games. You can't play them on the PS3 at all. Besides what would you rather Play Super Mario Bros or Tomb Raider.

I would rather play Tomb Raider cause Lara Croft is so hot!
What? How about Princess Peach from Super Mario Bros? She's like way hotter and she's blonde!

So what! Princess Peach is like a little girl!
What are you talking about? Why would Mario be going out with her.

Who said Mario was going out with her?
No one but it's kind of implied. Why would she make cakes for him otherwise?

That doesn't mean anything! My Grandma makes cakes for me all the time!
Maybe your spending to much time with your Grandmother....

STFU! Seriously though who's hotter Angelina Jolie or Samantha Mathis?
What the hell does that have to do with anything?

Samantha Mathis was the Princess in the Super Mario Bros movie and Angelina Jolie was Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider movie.
First off the princess in the super Mario Bros movie was Princess Daisy. Second who the hell is Samantha Mathis? Thirdly there was no Super Mario Bros Movie.

Why are there an imdb link in you very answer then?
.....fake interview over!

pieces Of Advice: Credit Where Credit Is Due

I'm still a pretty young guy and like many young people I like to spend my money. The big problem with this is sometimes to get what I need I'm am forced to spend money I don't have.

This mentality is what keeps the economy going. You have a job you work hard, you have your necessary expenses, you pay your bills and on top of that you deserve to have a little fun.

Eventually you decide you want to buy a car or a home and you can spend more than you have by simply using credit. Spending money you don't have then means you are working for the banks or credit companies until you can pay off your debt. This means you are getting less for your money in order to suit convenience. There is nothing wrong with doing this however. For example, your not going to save so you can buy a house twenty years from now when you need to live in it now. Your not going to wait to get a car if you need one to get to work. Borrowing money so you can live better is pretty much a fact of life for almost everyone.

The problem is after you have your vehicle a home, pay the bills buy necessities such as food and clothes people still feel they deserve to spend their money on extras. This is by no means impossible for most people. There are some people that make enough so they don't even really have to think about it. Almost anyone can easily get a credit card and pretty much buy any extras they want.

This can be big trouble for a lot of young adults. If your spending money on top of the money you already don't have your going to find yourself putting off some of the things you need in order to pay your debts. Perhaps stop paying the bills for awhile. Skip a meal or two. This is all fine and good if your single but what if you already have a family? Where could you possibly cut expenses? Can you afford to loose what you needed the credit for in the first place?

What you need to do is change your way of thinking. You need to realize although you deserve to spend the money you have earned you do not deserve to spend money you don't have on things you don't need! If you do, your not working for yourself, your working for credit companies. You are actually working against yourself.

But don't take my word for it. It's your life you can make your own mistakes. Just remember even a hippie has enough sense not to spend money he doesn't have.