NintendoWare Weekly: Pinball, Gravitronix, Final Fight 2
Usually, we can’t fit all of the titles available for download across Nintendo platforms into the headline, but this week’s NintendoWare Weekly post is an exception. Those anxious to get their hands on some digital wares will only find three games available this week — so in the interest of keeping this train a-chuggin’ along, let’s get to the details.
Continue reading NintendoWare Weekly: Pinball, Gravitronix, Final Fight 2
NintendoWare Weekly: Pinball, Gravitronix, Final Fight 2 originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Street Fighter II Gets Tribute in Zen Pinball for PS3

Zen Pinball is an excellent pinball game for PS3 that can be purchased and downloaded from PSN. It offers four well-designed tables with plenty of strategy and frustration, crisp graphics, awesome sound and even several multiplayer options. If you love pinball, it’s a must have. If you resisted the temptation to purchase Zen Pinball and you happen to be a hardcore fan of the classic Street Fighter II, then you may be forced to lighten your wallet a tad, as Zen Studios has announced an expansion table that will pay tribute to Capcom’s classic brawler.
From the Press Release:
“This is our first expansion table for ZEN Pinball and we couldn’t be happier to bring this amazing franchise of Capcom’s over to PSN,” said Zsolt Kigyossy, managing director of ZEN Studios. “The Street Fighter II Tribute table for Pinball FX was one of the most popular XBLA downloads of all time, and with new gameplay features and enhancements we’re confident that we’ll achieve similar if not more success for ZEN Pinball.”
Loaded with the iconic characters that revolutionized the fighting genre, “Street Fighter II” comes alive in ZEN Pinball. With this new table, players will experience the legendary Street Fighter™ franchise combined with the arcade thrills of traditional pinball employing cutting-edge visuals, true-to-life ball and table physics and new innovative features not found in any other pinball game.
ZEN Pinball Street Fighter II Tribute Table Features:
• Enter the World Warrior Championship fighting as Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, and Guile and battle against Sagat, Evil Ryu, Vega, and Balrog, then win the final round of the championship against M. Bison!
• Discover combo shots, animated punches, kicks and special moves as you fight against opponents using ramps and a variety of orbit shot
• Multiple in-game challenges featuring objects, art and memorable items from Street Fighter™ II
• Table soundtrack, sound effects and voices from the original Street Fighter II
Hands-On: Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection

Sadly, we don’t have a hands-on for Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection, and that’s a real travesty. It was one of the best games released for the Wii last year, and if you’re a Wii owner and a fan of pinball (admittedly, that’s probably a niche market), then you need to go out and pick it up somewhere. It’s a great pinball simulator, features faithful recreations of some of the best pinball tables ever manufactured, and even includes tilt via the Wii Remote.
The Gottlieb Collection, which brings eleven new tables to the Wii, will finally appear in North America this year. This set includes the history for each table, along with a scanned copy of the flyers that manufacturers used to send out to get arcades interested in new machines, a feature lacking in The Williams Collection. They’ve tossed in two arcade staple bonus games as well, and the only thing missing is a slot for your quarters and the soda-sticky floors. Read on for more info, including a list of the tables in the game.
Continue reading Hands-On: Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection
Hands-On: Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection originally appeared on Joystiq Nintendo on Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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VC Friday: Resistance is futile
EX-TERM-IN-ATE! EX-TERM-IN-ATE! Wait, no, those are the other ones. But whatever. The point is: after hearing nothing about Space Invaders Get Even! for months, the game has randomly appeared on the European and Australian Wii Shops. We are unashamedly jigging with joy as we type this. And the extra-terrestial goodness doesn’t stop there, for Alien Crush Returns has also joined the line-up. Needless to say, we wholeheartedly welcome our new rulers (of all our spare time).
The other game is Brain Challenge. Sorry, Brain Challenge.
- Alien Crush Returns — WiiWare — 800 Nintendo Points
- Brain Challenge — WiiWare — 1000 Nintendo Points
- Space Invaders Get Even! — WiiWare — 500 Nintendo Points
Brain Challenge (WiiWare)
Space Invaders Get Even! (WiiWare)
VC Friday: Resistance is futile originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Fri, 07 Nov 2008 08:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Wii Fanboy Review: Alien Crush Returns

I’ve been a huge fan of Naxat Soft’s Alien Crush and other Crush games since they came out. It’s no exaggeration to say that the availability of Alien Crush on the Virtual Console factored into my decision to purchase a Wii. When Hudson revealed plans for a 3D WiiWare update of Alien Crush, it definitely captured my attention.
Alien Crush Returns, it turns out, is much more than an update: it is a direct sequel to Alien Crush, and a very different game. While the new version doesn’t outshine the original, there’s certainly more of it. And it finally brings online leaderboards to the series — along with direct online competition!
The game is divided into arcade and story modes — yes, there’s a story, and it’s ridiculous, obviously written to evoke nostalgia for pointless game stories. Your spaceship crew, piloting a pinball or something, investigates a giant spacecraft that turns out to be — some kind of huge alien thing! That also turns out to be pinball playfields! In order to escape with their lives intact, the crew must destroy certain creatures inhabiting each of three pinball tables, as well as boss stages. This story mode is brief — maybe thirty minutes long on the first try — but it’s a novel and goal-oriented way to play a pinball game, and provides a nice diversion from repeated high score attempts.
As expected, repeated high score attempts are the basic experience of the arcade mode, a game on one table of your choice that lasts until you run out of lives. These tables are identical to their story mode counterparts, except, of course, that you can’t complete them by destroying monsters. The tables all feature dynamic moving parts, including creatures to destroy, bumpers of various kinds, conduits between areas of the field, and multiple sets of flippers. As you hit certain targets, you’ll trigger tons of points, of course, but also a unique version of multiball in which the second ball is a different color, and the loss of the original ball results in death even if the “new” ball remains in play.

You also have the ability to trigger multiball yourself with the A button (the flippers are controlled by B and Z, and that’s the only control scheme), as well as speed boost and a “reverse” mode that makes the ball shoot in the direction opposite its movement. It’s nice that you suddenly have unprecedented control over your pinball’s movement, because the bosses in the story mode do the unthinkable: they can attack and kill your ball.
The additions — extra abilities, bosses, multiple tables — help ensure that Alien Crush Returns is not confused for its predecessor. But even more than that, the game’s look distinguishes it. While the original playfields were organic in nature, the 16-bit graphics gave everything a “clean” appearance. Alien Crush Returns dials up the grotesque-o-meter, never letting the player forget for a second that the game’s playfield is supposed to be an organism. The entire board pulsates; creatures spray purple mist for no real reason and explode into green goo upon contact. The playfield surface looks like some kind of meat, and the walls evoke fibrous muscle tissue. When destroying obstacles, I couldn’t help but get the distinct feeling that I was puncturing unspecified organs in some alien’s digestive system. Worst of all, the game emits a swallowing sound when you lose a ball.
These new playfields may not be as distinctive or as memorable as the original, though that may be because I haven’t had almost twenty years to memorize them. But they play very differently from each other and add variety to a genre that usually features enough gameplay in a single table for hundreds of hours. I’m pleased to say that Alien Crush Returns admirably revives the grossout sci-fi pinball genre, and that the new online features make a welcome addition.
Final score: 8.5/10
Wii Fanboy Review: Alien Crush Returns originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Wii Warm Up: Flipping out
Filed under: Wii Warm Up
We’re very excited about Alien Crush Returns, because, as you’ve noticed, we’re all about the Turbografx-16 original and its pseudo-sequel, Devil’s Crush. We need some more time to learn to love Jaki Crush, but we’re definitely fans of that one too. But just because we’re insane-o-crazy about this series doesn’t mean we’re avowed video pinball fanatics. For the most part, outside of Naxat’s excellent games, we’re unmoved by simulated pinball.
Are you a fan of pinball games? If so, are you also a fan of the noisy, clattering, awesome real thing? Also, what’s your opinion of Crüe Ball?
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Wii Warm Up: Flipping out
Filed under: Wii Warm Up
We’re very excited about Alien Crush Returns, because, as you’ve noticed, we’re all about the Turbografx-16 original and its pseudo-sequel, Devil’s Crush. We need some more time to learn to love Jaki Crush, but we’re definitely fans of that one too. But just because we’re insane-o-crazy about this series doesn’t mean we’re avowed video pinball fanatics. For the most part, outside of Naxat’s excellent games, we’re unmoved by simulated pinball.
Are you a fan of pinball games? If so, are you also a fan of the noisy, clattering, awesome real thing? Also, what’s your opinion of Crüe Ball?
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Alien Crush Returns, Bomberman Blast to make American debut at PAX
Tycho and Gabe, as well as all those other game companies, must be feeling pretty insecure right now, because they’re all going to be upstaged by a humble WiiWare game. Or, at least, that would be the case if this year’s Penny Arcade Expo were being attended exclusively by a crowd of weirdos just like us, because Hudson will have Alien Crush Returns and Bomberman Blast on display at their booth. This will be the first official public appearance in North America by either of these games!
Fishing Master World Tour and the already-released Deca Sports will also be on display. And Alien Crush Returns! Did we mention that one?
[Via press release]
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