Tecmo took advantage of their new association with Nintendo in one of the funniest ways possible: Nintendo character outfits in Fatal Frame IV. Should you want to punch a hole straight through the creepy atmosphere in Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, these two costumes will do the trick nicely.
At the same time, while they may seem flagrantly inappropriate, Tecmo has cleverly paid tribute to Nintendo's horror-ish games from the past. The Luigi costume is obviously a shoutout to Luigi's Mansion, and the Zero Suit Samus, uh, suit (after the break) is a reference to the costume's introduction, in a sneaking-based level found in Metroid: Zero Mission.
First 4 Figures has come back around full circle, after completing Sheik and Sonic and his pals, now they've got yet another Samus statue. This one, in our opinion, totally trumps all of their past efforts. Just look at the thing.
Of course, the catch is that this costs a bunch of money. $224.99 in money, to be exact. For those of you with a winning lottery ticket, this goes on sale Q1 of next year.
We were just wondering to ourselves this morning about the team-up title Sonic & Mario at the Olympics and how such a combination of mascots has been a huge financial success. It caused us to wonder what other kind of team-up could be not only a commercial success, but also a game we actually want to play.
And, like responsible bloggers, we decided that we couldn't think of anything good and instead would pass the buck onto you. So, what do you all think? Can you come up with some titles? How about a Duck Hunt clone where Mega Man and Samus compete to see who can shoot the most clay Metroids? Or, what about having Dante from Devil May Cry in a No More Heroessequel?
Of course, that last one is just a selfish suggestion from us.
For those of you who noticed the PS2 buttons make their way into the video, know that this does come from the PS2 build of the game. You see, Vicarious Visions, the developers behind Marvel: Ultimate Alliance for the PS2, wanted to include both Samus and Link into the game and apparently did without Nintendo's consent. There's a lot of confusion surrounding it and, supposedly, when Nintendo was shown the characters were included in the PS2 version of the game, told Activision to cut them out. The rest is just a bunch of confusing history.
When I ripped open the FedEx package today in a whirling dervish of nails and teeth, I found what I had been expecting: a copy of Smash Bros. Brawl. Nintendo, the wonderful and kind souls they are, decided this crummy little blog was good enough to get a copy of the game along with the press. A single tear poured down my cheek, kind of like that recycling commercial. It was a magical moment.
I then realized I had to work today and couldn't get my game on. As the day progressed and I tapped away at my keyboard, putting up news items and other stories that all 12 of you readers care about, the game sat there in front of my monitor, mocking me. It was almost like some kind of evil temptation, as I thought about just ducking away from my responsibilities to play. I then realized that it is my responsibility to play! I've got to review the damn thing, don't I?
And when I heard that Joystiq's own Kyle Orland got a copy of the game too, I decided a few mutliplayer matches were in order. And in the interest of those who don't want anything spoiled for them, stop reading here. The rest of you can head past the break where the real action is.
Aeropause's Stephen Munn is either a fan of Metroid or of spherical game characters. We have yet to hear of any Kirby or Lolo tattoos, so we'll assume the former. This tattoo featuring Samus Aran curled up into a Morph Ball, based on Metroid Prime concept art, is worth at least five incomprehensible kanji tattoos and three or four skulls. It's that good. To (total weenies like) us, the most impressive thing about tattoos is that each one represents so much physical pain. For example, Stephen here loves Metroid so much that he was willing to be burned continuously with a needle for three hours. We haven't even committed to buying fabric for a plush Metroid yet.
It's unlikely to ever actually happen, but have you ever pondered what a new 2D Metroid on the Wii would look like? Artist Alchemist Defined evidently thought long and hard about it, before committing his vision to canvas. The end result is ... well ... frankly, it's stunning, and if there really is some almighty, omnipresent deity watching over us all, there'll be a game that looks very similar to this in development now at Retro.
There's a selection of bigger, more wallpaper-friendly versions of this over at the artist's site, as linked below. Viewing them comes highly recommended.
Lucas just might be our new favorite character to hate, as today the dojo reveals his special move list. Sure, Fox has the annoying ability to reflect everything and spam his pistol across the whole level, but Lucas might have him beat with the Psi Magnet maneuver you see above. It allows him to absorb projectiles and turn it into health.
Since our favorite character is Samus, he could very well be a lot of trouble to fight.
It's another week and that means another 5 days full of updates over at the dojo. Today showcases the variety of maneuvers Samus can perform while in her Zero Suit, which you may or may not know occurs when she lays the smack downhard. Personally, we can't wait to give her a try in both forms, so that we may see which is better for us. Considering she was our favorite character in Melee, we're sure we'll like playing as her again.
There just might be a new level to topple our current favorite from Smash Bros. Melee, Hyrule. Not only is this stage a wonderful piece of nostalgia, it is also fairly functional and includes a feature we wish more stages had: nowhere to fall to your death. Seriously, we hate ourselves some plunging to doom. Oh, and occasionally a Metal Gear will appear. Rock!
Click on through to check out some videos aside from the ones featured this morning, including one where Snake talks about him and Samus taking their clothes off. "!" indeed.
We love Metroid Prime 3 and all, but perhaps the best thing about the game is that it inspired this jaw-dropping Wii mod from the guy responsible for the equally jaw-dropping ZeldaDS Lite and the astounding Zelda Wii case mod. Basically, we've developed TMJ from looking at Ramon's mods.
This one is the coolest one yet. In addition to the awesome backlit, custom-made Samus Aran emblem, the case mod integrates a Wiimote charger in its illuminated stand. The Wii disc slot glows green in imitation of Samus's visor; even the Wiimote and Nunchuk are painted the metallic green of Samus's arm cannon.
Like the others, this modded Wii is being auctioned off on eBay, and 15% of the selling price will go to Penny Arcade's Child's Play charity. In return, 100% of the awesome modded Wii will go to the buyer.
Check after the break for a couple of choice closeups! And then check your wallet for the hundreds of dollars required to buy this.
Reader fatherb sent in this video of his sad encounter with one of the bosses in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Apparently, he isn't the only one experiencing this horrible glitch in the game, which we won't go into detail about for those of you who have yet to come into contact with this boss. In fact, since this is chock full of spoilers, we've gone ahead and tucked the video past the break.
Continuing our romp through the Metroid series's boxart history, we're ending today with a look at covers from Samus's prime installments on both handhelds and consoles. We've also thrown in the packaging designs from the NES Classics releases which we neglected to include yesterday, though none of you noticed. As for music pairings, the boxarts past the post break go best with The Commodores's "Three Times a Lady." Seriously, try it.
This is it. This is why odd little events like Metroid week are so great. Not only do we get to wallow in all things Metroid, but as the week winds down, we get to celebrate with a great little song and video from Uncle Monsterface about one of gaming's biggest revelations. Let's take a little trip back in time -- and behind the break -- to see what it's all about.
You know how much we love to discuss boxart here at Wii Fanboy, so it seemed obvious to us that we should take a look back at past Metroid covers during our commemorative week. We've gathered up all the packaging art we could find from Samus's tenderfoot days on the NES to her later outings on the Game Boy Advance, and have posted them all past the post break for you to scroll through. Feel free to queue up Kenny Rogers's "Through The Years" for maximum enjoyment.
We were just wondering to ourselves this morning about the team-up title Sonic & Mario at the Olympics and how such a combination of mascots has been a huge financial success. It caused us to wonder what other kind of team-up could be not only a commercial success, but also a game we actually want to play.
Aeropause's Stephen Munn is either a fan of Metroid or of spherical game characters. We have yet to hear of any Kirby or Lolo tattoos, so we'll assume the former. This tattoo featuring Samus Aran curled up into a Morph Ball, based on Metroid Prime concept art, is worth at least five incomprehensible kanji tattoos and three or four skulls. It's that good.
This is it. This is why odd little events like Metroid week are so great. Not only do we get to wallow in all things Metroid, but as the week winds down, we get to celebrate with a great little song and video from Uncle Monsterface about one of gaming's biggest revelations. Let's take a little trip back in time -- and behind the break -- to see what it's all about.
