Contra 4 Shoots At the DS

Wow, what a pleasant surprise.

1up brings word on Contra 4 for the DS and it appears to be a new Contra game in the same vein as Contra 3, one of the best games in the series. It will, of course, utilize both screens, which looks like it could create some interesting vertical levels and situations. Hopefully it will be as good as it’s looking right now (even if it does look exactly like a original SNES version).

Breaking News: Zelda Still Popular

Looks like the rumors of Zelda’s death have been greatly exaggerated.  I’m too lazy to sort through our archives to find the post, but there was some concern that the Zelda franchise was on the wane after less ridiculously successful Twilight Princess sales than had been anticipated.  Fortunately, Phantom Hourglass has sold over 350k copies in just two days in Japan. 

Off the top of my head, I would attribute that to four things:

1.)  The DS is already enormously successful in Japan.
2.)  There’s no cross-platform confusion to blunt LoZ: PH’s success like there was in the GCN and Wii versions of Twilight Princess.
3.)  PH isn’t launching against either new system buzz or any other really big DS games.
4.)  PH isn’t constrained by drastic system shortages like TP faced at the launch of the Wii.

But those are just my conjectures.

I’m Too Old For Pokemon

Apparently, the release of the new Pokemon titles has increased prices for older Pokemon games as well.  I don’t find this especially surprising (although it is interesting that someone has bothered to compile the data here).  I am curious, though, if the effect extends to other franchises, and how popular they have to be to see an impact.

I’m also curious to see if the effect lasts a while, or if it’s just a fleeting issue.  I was actually fairly intrigued by the first Pokemon games, but they’ve gotten so unnecessarily complex in their easter eggs and other requirements that I’ve stopped paying much attention to them.

Start, Middle, End

This GameSetWatch post hits on one of my personal pet peeves - endless games.  When I was much younger, I was incredibly disappointed to discover that, after I had invested a solid month at the pool on beating it, Donkey Kong Jr. just kept going ad infinitum. 

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Stop The Presses, Nintendo Internet Solution Sucks

Sadly, it would appear that the newly released DS browser is underpowered, lacking Java or Flash support and moving sluggishly at best. 

Unlike most web capabilities in consoles, I think there’s a lot of potential for a DS-type of solution, because the way the system works allows for extremely rapid booting.  That means that it will provide an attractive alternative to both slow-loading laptops as well as awkward PDA browsers.  Too bad they didn’t aim for quality.

The PSP’s Golden Age?

The general consensus for most gamers over the past few years has been that the DS has really beaten the crap out of the PSP, both in terms of sales and critical response.  Once in awhile, there was a game that seemed ok for the PSP, but in general nothing that seemed to match the onslaught of good and creative games that had been coming out for the DS.

But, lately, there have been a few PSP games that have stirred my interest, like MGS: Portable Ops and Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters (I’m a sucker for the series).  With the recent price drop, I decided I’d take a look at what games were out there that had been well reviewed, and what I found was somewhat surprising.

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Nintendo’s First-Party Blues

I was reading through IGN’s review of Wario: Master of Disguise today and was a bit surprised to read the conclusion:

“The game definitely screams “third party” not just in its clunky and inconsistent gameplay but also in its inconsistent visual style…Nintendo-published games are supposed to be the cream of the handheld crop. This one’s a bit of the lumpy sludge instead.”

The surprise here for me wasn’t that Wario wasn’t very good (although I was hoping for the best), but rather that Nintendo’s lack of quality 3rd party support has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Lots of people have lamented that lack of support since the days of the N64.  But it’s only recently that people have begun to assume that the bulk of those 3rd-party titles are going to be inferior to Nintendo’s own product.

Schaudenfreude

This Izuna piece is one of the funnier reviews I’ve read in a long time.

Pointless Gear Watch: The DS Stand

Hori and Nintendo have come out with the latest advance in DS hardware technology: the DS stand.  The ingenious formula for developing this accessory appears to have been the following:

1.  Take a device designed for its small size, light weight, and portability.

2.  Make the device larger, heavier, and immobile.

3.  Special Bonus Hori Step: Remove half of the device’s functionality by plugging your accessory into the GBA game slot.

Are there that many people out there who find actually holding a DS Lite to be all that difficult?  Seriously, who would buy this?