Nintendo Wii Fanboy

There's a rumor floating around that the lack of a playable character from Camp Capcom is due to a little game by the name of Resident Evil 4. You see, before it ended up on the PC and PS2, along with the Wii, it was meant to be entirely a GameCube exclusive. That didn't last that long, however.

With the inclusion of Sega's Sonic and Solid Snake from the Metal Gear Solid line of games, the inclusion of one of Capcom's characters (oh, let's say ... Mega Man) quite possibly would've been too much for this blogger's weak little heart. The rest of the world, however, probably would've liked to see one of Capcom's characters make it into the already overstuffed line-up of playable brawlers.

What Capcom character would you have liked to see in Brawl?

The latest No More Heroes site update reveals some of the different beam katana weapons that Travis Touchdown will be using in his quest to become the highest-ranked assassin in Santa Destroy for some reason. The "system" page has images of the pistol-gripped "Blood Berry," which is the katana that Travis wins from an auction, and the elegant Tsubaki, which is made for him by Naomi.

We think we're going to scour eBay for a couple of hours now. We're definitely pro-beam katana, even if we feel pretty strongly anti-assassinating-folks.

In other No More Heroes news, on the Kojima Productions Report podcast, voice actor Quinton Flynn revealed that he was a member of the No More Heroes voice cast, playing an Irish character named Henry. Flynn, best known for playing Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2, was on the podcast to discuss his upcoming reprisal of that role. But you guys knew all of that, because you already listen to the Kojima Productions Report every week, right?

Our love of Kojima is no secret within the walls of Fanboy HQ, so when he goes on record saying that he got to play Super Smash Bros. Brawl with the game's director, Masahiro Sakurai, we listen. Not only that, but the game he played was apparently very polished. How polished? Well, according to Kojima Productions podcast person Ryan Patton, Kojima said the game was "a lot of fun" and "already feels very complete."

As if that wasn't enough torture, Kojima apparently further emphasized his opinions on how finished the game felt, adding "You guys could put it out right now and it could sell millions of copies." Of course, we're kind of peeved that the game isn't on store shelves, in its apparent "millions-selling version," but if the version Kojima played was that good, imagine what the final product is going to be like?

[Via Joystiq]

Listen - Kojima Productions podcast (Smash Bros. discussion starts around the 11 minute mark)

Some slightly disparaging remarks were made recently on this blog about Metal Gear Solid's Solid Snake. While a certain contingent of our staff may doubt the fighting ability of the son of Big Boss, but we know the truth. Snake is hardcore. He may ask a lot of questions ("Metal Gear?" "A Hind-D?") and he may have a habit of hiding in boxes, but he definitely has the combat prowess required for Smash Bros., made evident by the fact that he smashed his own brother.

This post is a big "!" for Snake fans. We can hear your thoughts. Come out of hiding and tell us how awesome Solid Snake is!

Last Saturday, Suda 51's company Grasshopper Manufacture held the coolest event ever, at least for game nerds: Snake vs. Zombie vol. 2, a series of informal panel discussions by big names in the Japanese game industry, including Hideo Kojima, Shinji Mikami, ICO's Fumito Ueda, and Tetsuya Mizuguchi. There were also musical performances from Metal Gear Solid 3/Portable Ops soundtrack composer Norihiko Hibino and Silent Hill series producer and composer Akira Yamaoka.

As if the mere existence of this event (and our non-attendance at said event) weren't causing us physical pain, now we have unbearable anticipation buzzing around in our heads. During a Kojima/Mikami panel hosted by Suda, Mikami, a man of taste, mentioned that his favorite Kojima game was Snatcher, to which the other two responded "Ah yes, Snatcher," followed by "Oh, should we announce it here?"

To sum up, in italics, there is a possibility that Hideo Kojima and Suda 51 are collaborating on some kind of Snatcher game. We do not care if it is a sequel, a remake, a port, an action figure, or an official recipe for Neo Kobe Pizza. We want ten.

Over at GameDaily, Chris Buffa (ha!) has put together a list of what he believes are the "top 5 most overrated industry people," calling out industry gods (and rightfully so) Hideo Kojima and Shigeru Miyamoto. Surely, anyone who ever doubts the abilities, contributions and impact one Mr. Miyamoto has on the industry deserves to have their head examined ... with a sledgehammer.

First, we'll get into his comments on Kojima, a man we'd probably be thankful to if he even took the time to set us on fire. We love him that much. And with Chris' criticisms of the Metal Gear Solid franchise (all play the same, no idea what is going on in the games, etc.), we're that much more sure the man is off his meds. The reason all the "traditional" Metal Gear Solid games play the same is because they are good. Why fix what isn't broken? Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was our favorite game of 2004, and for good reason. As for not being able to understand the game's content, we suggest you actually pay attention to the cut scenes.

As for Mr. Miyamoto, to say that he is "falling back on the same overused franchises" over and over again is a misinformed statement. He isn't falling back on them, he's helping to improve them. Whether you believe the hype or not on a certain Super Mario Galaxy, it's probably going to reinvent the platform genre (we can say that, we played it). To try and downplay his contributions at Nintendo is just idiotic.

Finally, Chris takes time to bash Reggie Fils-Aime. Aside from the GBA Micro debacle (seriously, why was that thing made?) at E3, Reggie has done nothing but improved Nintendo's place in the industry. And that's not to downplay Iwata's contributions, but for as much as we all love to make fun of Reggie, he's probably done more than most for the company during his stay with Nintendo.

[Via Joystiq]

Welcome to our weekly feature, Virtually Overlooked, wherein we talk about games that aren't on the Virtual Console yet, but should be. Call it a retro-speculative.

We didn't intend to cover the same series two weeks in a row, but recent developments in the world of Virtual Console made a discussion of a Konami RPG for the MSX2 computer seem timely. Maybe, we thought, our prayers for Snatcher caused the universe to swing things our way a little bit. Well, here's another appeal.

SD Snatcher takes the violent, gritty, sci-fi detective story of Snatcher, and presents it as a turn-based RPG populated by big-headed "super deformed" characters. We choose to believe this decision was some postmodern playfulness from Hideo Kojima-- deliberately downplaying the dramatic aspects of his game and overlaying obvious videogame conventions on top of it, like when Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid read your memory card. Or it could just have been that Japanese gamers like RPG's a lot.

Update: screens!

Welcome to our new weekly feature, Virtually Overlooked, wherein we talk about games that aren't on the Virtual Console yet, but should be. Call it a retro-speculative.

This week, we'd like to talk about Snatcher, a Sega CD game from Konami released in the US in 1994. The game was also released in Japan for the MSX2, PC8801, PC Engine CD-Rom, Playstation, and Saturn.

Why the game hasn't been announced for Virtual Console yet: Not too long ago, the obvious answer to this question would have been "because it is a graphical text adventure." Luckily, however, the DS has changed that, bringing an era where graphical text adventures are the subjects of rabid fandom. What hasn't changed is that Snatcher is a Sega CD game, and Nintendo has made no announcements regarding support for CD systems. The size of the files may be prohibitive, although it would be possible to save space by compressing the sound and music.

Taken from a recent issue of Gamepro magazine, Metal Gear guy Hideo Kojima said the following things when asked about HD gaming and the possibility of working with the Wii. Given the past (Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes), we think the possibility of a Kojima project, whether it be Metal Gear related or not, is good.

What kind of project would you like to see from Kojima on the Wii? Maybe a port of Metal Gear: Portable Ops or perhaps a brand new IP?

Gamespot recently received a postcard from Kojima productions inviting them to a E3 press conference. The team over there suspects that this invitation, which is located directly above this chunk of text should you have missed it, is directly tied to an interview Kojima had with Japanese gaming mag Famitsu where the man himself revealed he was working on a Revolution Wii title that would be a brand new IP and geared towards girls. Thankfully, there isn't much time left to speculate and come close to this time next week, we'll all know for sure just what this perplexing invitation is all about.