Nintendo Wii Fanboy

This announcement from SNK comes in a close second to the Family Trainer in the Weird Wii Game Timing awards. Not even a whole week after the first Neo Geo game was made available on the Virtual Console, SNK is announcing a compilation disc of 16 Neo Geo games for the Wii.

4 Color Rebellion's Vinnk got the news firsthand from SNK, and what you're seeing above is genuine, unfiltered "fanboy glee" from the news. To be honest, we'd be a lot happier to buy a regular compilation disc than to pay $9 per game. We imagine a lot of other people will be as well. It raises a lot of questions, beyond the obvious "what games will be included?" Specifically, why SNK planned downloadable games on the Wii if they're going to sell them on discs as well. Is this for people without Internet access, maybe? Will it focus on game series that SNK wants to bundle together? Does SNK's home games division just not talk to the downloadable content people?

Virtual Console pricing got you down? Not to fret -- there are plenty of GameCube compilation titles available at a budget price. Racketboy recently took an in-depth look at a few of these game sets, offering readers a detailed look at what's included in each ... and some answers to the question of whether or not they're worth your $10. For instance, he reports that the Namco collections play well, but Midway Arcade Treasures seems to feature a few games with below average controls. But even with a few duds, the pricing on most of these sets is just right for gamers on a tight budget who need to get their retro fix.

A few days ago, Nintendo held a special press event in Redmond (we were invited, but were too busy preventing nuclear war to go) where the media could have a very long, very uninterrupted playthrough of the final build of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

No less than a dozen major gaming sites and publications have already released their in-depth experiences with everyone's favorite kinda-elf, so we've done you the favor of assembling the cream of the crop right here. The overall gist? 1) Don't wait for the Gamecube version, and 2) Holy damn this game is amazing. Of the five listed, we recommend good 'ol Matt Cassamassina's impressions; they're quite thorough.

Zelda Impressions from IGN: Matt Cassamassina

Zelda Impressions from GoNintendo: Raw Meat Cowboy

Zelda Impressions from 1up: Jeremy Parish

Zelda Impressions from Gamespot: Ricardo Torres

Zelda Impressions from Planet Gamecube: Steven Rodriguez

It's way too early for anything serious, so let's take a moment to goggle over the dedication of Turpentine, an admin at the Wii Fantastic forums. Turpentine put together a list of 35 different Wii videos from YouTube. It's enough to make us consider getting into voodoo if it'll get November 19 here any more quickly. While you've probably seen a lot of these videos before, it's nice to have so many on one page. It's convenient when that Wii crave starts kicking in.

[Thanks, flubba!]

Hey, everyone loves rumors. You can usually grab them by the handful at sites like, say, SPOnG, but when you cry wolf as many times as they do, well, it diminishes credibility. EGM, however, have a fairly good track record with their Rumor Mill section, and the newest issue has some delectable bits.

• First off, Square-Enix is purportedly using the two upcoming incarnations of Dragon's Quest (DQ Joker for the DS and DQ Swords for the Wii) as a gauge to see if the next incarnation of the main series, Dragon's Quest IX, will be released exclusively on the Wii. Though it has a slightly diminished standing in North America, the DQ series is loved by millions upon millions worldwide, an RPG phenomenon second only to the Final Fantasy franchise. If this is true, it's one hell of a victory for Nintendo.
• We're not done with Square-Enix yet. Second rumor: SE is developing an MMORPG for the Wii based on the Mana universe. While we're not sure if the Wii even has the technical capabilites to run a true MMO (they tend to be very limited without a dedicated hard drive), we still salivate at the possibility.
• Finally, Nintendo is looking at releasing an Earthbound compilation for the DS. This would include Mother 1, a game never released outside of Japan, the ever-beloved Earthbound itself (a.k.a. Mother 2), and the recent Mother 3, a game well-received in the Land of the Rising Sun. Add touch-screen capabilities, and bam. Million seller. They make it look so easy...

And, there you have it. While we must once again stress these are rumors, I'd eat my nonexistent hat if at least one of these three failed to come true. Your feelings, trusty readers?

[Update 1: Square-Enix was not the publisher of Earthbound; corrected Rumor 3.]