Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Two games this week involve things being thundery, at least in terms of title. Of course, neither Gate of Thunder nor Rolling Thunder 2 has much to do with actual thunder -- Rolling Thunder 2 is about dudes shooting guns at each other, and Gate of Thunder is about spaceships shooting space guns at each other. Pokémon Snap we've already discussed. It's really easy, but surprisingly fun for a Nintendo 64 game Pokémon spinoff game, and with added functionality that will let you bug the hell out of your Wii friends with annoying spam.

What should have been the biggest news on the list -- a Kunio game -- is instead not. When Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari came out, we feared we were mistaken and that it was actually Downtown Nekketsu Koushinkyoku Daiundokai, a street-Olympics game that predated the game known as Crash 'n the Boys Street Challenge. Well, this week, it actually is Downtown Nekketsu Koushinkyoku Daiundokai. So, uh, yeah.

• Downtown Nekketsu Koushinkyoku Daiundokai (Famicom, 1-4 players, 500 Wii Points)
  
• Pokemon Snap (Nintendo 64, 1 player, 1000 Wii Points)
• Rolling Thunder 2 (Mega Drive, 1-2 players, 600 Wii Points)
• Gate of Thunder (PC Engine Super CD-ROM, 1 player, 800 Wii Points)

On December 10th, six days after the Japanese launch of Pokémon Snap, the American Virtual Console will feature the rail-photography game. To promote the release, the online Toonami Jetstream channel will show a week of Pokémon cartoon episodes featuring Todd, the protagonist of Snap who was hamfistedly crammed into the show to help sell cartridges.

Why should you care about a Pokémon spinoff game? We'll recap:

1. It's a pretty okay game
   
2. Judged against other Pokémon spinoff games, it's a freakin' masterpiece
3. Expanded functionality allows you to share photos with Wii Friends
4. (if you're me) More attention on Pokémon Snap could finally get the "photography game" genre going, or at least convince Hudson to let us download Photograph Boy.

So, in conclusion, Photograph Boy is a great game. What? Oh, right. The Pokemans thing is good too.

[Thanks, Orange Soda!]

We know a lot of people have been waiting for Pokémon Snap, because they tell us. Frequently! It should come as a comfort to those people, then, that the game is scheduled for release on Japan's Virtual Console on December 4th, which makes a release in other territories soon after a near inevitability. We admit to a fondness for the nonviolent rail shooter ourselves, and it's aged rather well for an N64 game.

An N64 game on the VC is big enough news (they can only come out during a full moon on a warm night, and then only if nothing is there to spook them), but the release of Pokémon Snap also carries some news that is significant to the very nature of the Wii's classic game download service. You will be able to send your in-game photos to Wii Friends. We don't necessarily think Pokémon photo sharing is, itself, a killer app or anything, though we'll probably take advantage of the service if we can generate awkward enough poses. This is the first time that a Virtual Console game has had functionality added to it (instead of having functionality removed) and it means that Nintendo is not above going in and changing a game for a good reason. As long as that reason is Pokémon. Also surprisingly, the game will be the normal 1000 Wii Points.