Source: infendo.com

Hudson held it’s annual gamer’s day in San Francisco last month and two things are certain: the company makes a lot of money on Wii, planning a bevy of games for the system in the next few months, and the best one among them is easily Snowboard Riot for WiiWare.

By the numbers, Snowbard Riot supports 4-person online multiplayer, 2-person split-screen, both Balance Board and traditional controls, and features four tracks, according to Hudson. In terms of control, the game plays a lot like a Twisted Metal, Jet Moto, and Mario Kart in that you race around tracks with weapons power-ups, but it’s smaller in scope.

I was unable to try the Balance Board controls as they were not being demoed, but overall, I found the game to be a fun diversion, even if it plays slower than Excite Truck and is a little sluggish making wide turns. Still, the game has potential, depending on final price which I can’t imagine being more than $10-15.

Other games shown at the event included Bomberman Ultra for PSN, Fishing Master World Tour Wii, Help Wanted Wii (a Cooking Mamma-like game), Pit Panic Crew Wiiware (a crazy-looking mini-game), Pool Revolution: Cue Sports Wiiware (technically not shown, but announced), and Marble Saga: Kororinpa for Wii.

Release dates were not announced.

Hudson Entertainment Announces Snowboard Riot for Digital Download on Wii
A unique twist on snowboarding using weapons!

November 11, 2008 - Hudson Entertainment, the North American publishing arm of HUDSON SOFT, today announced that Snowboard Riot, a distinctive snowboarding game unlike anything players have ever encountered will be coming to WiiWare. Snowboarding will reach new heights when players take to the slopes with action-packed racing utilizing weapons such as homing bullets and invisibility!

“Snowboard Riot is not your standard snowboarding game,” said Sabine Duvall, Vice President of Product Development at Hudson Entertainment. “A snowboarding game is a rush by itself, but when you add weapons, it becomes even more exciting. Add in online play for four people and you have the perfect game for both snowboarding and action-racing fans”

While snowboarding is already an exhilarating activity, nothing can prepare players for Snowboard Riot. Battle with up to 4 boarders using the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection to race online and blow away the competition. Weapons such as mines and turbo are available to give players an edge fighting it out on the mountain.

Gamers have several control options, as they can use the Wii Remote and Nunchuk or the Wii Balance Board to carve their way to victory. Just like a real snowboard, players can lean left and right on the Wii Balance Board, providing a realistic snowboard experience. Boarders can also choose from four characters to bomb the slopes, and can customize their look with Oakley apparel and goggles to improve their performance.

Snowboard Riot is rated E for Everyone by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB).

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Tetris Party is a downloadable WiiWare version of the uber-popular and addictive puzzle game. Featuring online support that allows up to six players from around the world to face off or go at it in two-player co-op on the same playfield. Of course you also get the 15-level traditional single player marathon mode.

There are 18 game modes in all, with 10 never-before-seen single- player and multiplayer variations of Tetris. These include modes that use the unique point-and-shoot capabilities of the Wii Remote, as well as the recently released Wii Balance Board.

If you haven’t played Tetris DS yet, rearranging blocks has never been this exciting in these Tetris multiplayer modes.

Tetris Party producer Tony Tran discusses the miracle of Wii Balance Board controls in WiiWare Tetris.

To be honest, I yawned. All other modes look like great fun, though.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Hudson Entertainment today announced that they are releasing Bomberman Ultra, an all-new Bomberman for digital download on the PS3’s PlayStation Network this winter. Retaining classic gameplay elements combined with 8-person online multiplayer, full character customization and gorgeous high-definition graphics, Bomberman Ultra is slated to launch worldwide in winter 2008.

Fans of the popular series will be able to compete with the best Bomberman players worldwide, as Bomberman Ultra delivers frantic 8-player multiplayer battles online in 14 exotic arenas, as well as 4-player local multiplayer. Players can customize their own Bomberman characters with more than 50 character costumes, resulting in more than 150,000 possible combinations!

Bomberman Ultra promises to deliver frantic, explosive action, motivating players to remain competitive and fight to prove that they are the best Bomberman player in the world. Utilizing the leaderboards, players can track their ranking to see just how they good they really are, and what they need in order to bomb their way to the top of the chart.

After the earlier releases of Bomberman Live on Xbox Live Arcade last year and more recently Bomberman Blast on the Wii Shop, it’s about time Bomberman made its way to the PS3!

Source: infendo.com

One of the (unfortunately) overlooked titles from the early Wii days was Kororinpa Marble Mania, or “Marble Madness with a Story,” as I like to call it. It was a cheap, no frills, but wonderfully well-executed title that took advantage of the Wiimote accelerometer. And now it’s getting a sequel.

Summary, and terrible pun, provided by Wired:

Hudson said today that the sequel, Marble Saga: Kororinpa, will be available on Wii in Spring 2009 in the U.S. You should be very happy about this. The sequel will feature 150 levels, four-player multiplayer, online leaderboards, and the ability to download new stages. And, of course, Wii Balance Board support, if that’s how you roll.

Did anyone experience marble mania the first time around? Was Marble Madness not the most ridiculously hard game ever? Answer either, or bring up something else, in the comments below.

Source: infendo.com

PRESS RELEASE – Hudson Entertainment, the North American publishing arm of Hudson Soft, today announced that it is bringing its classic TurboGrafx-16 Alien Crush series to WiiWare on the Wii with Alien Crush Returns.

Alien Crush Returns is a sci-fi pinball game based on the classic TurboGrafx-16 Alien Crush series from Hudson Entertainment. In extraordinary pinball fashion, the game offers gameplay spanning two screens, providing players a lot of real estate to rack up points, multipliers, and bonuses. The game is played across multiple boards, all of which feature an eerie alien landscape and enemies that try to prevent pinball perfection.

“Alien Crush Returns is making pinball more sci-fi than ever” said Sabine Duvall, Vice President of Product Development at Hudson Entertainment. “This is not your father’s pinball game. This unique sci-fi take on pinball includes enemies, power-ups, bonus stages and hidden surprises we know players will love.”

For players who are confident in their alien crushing skills, they can go online to play against a friend to see who can get the higher score! Alien Crush Returns is the only pinball game for WiiWare that lets gamers compete head to head online. In addition, the game includes online leader boards for score-obsessed pinball players.

With the release of Alien Crush Returns on WiiWare, Hudson Entertainment will offer several online tournaments, including one that will coincides with the game’s launch. For more information on the upcoming tournaments and to register, players can visit www.HudsonEntertainment.com.

Alien Crush Returns is rated E for Everyone by the Entertainment Software Rating Board.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Hudson Soft reports that their Wii-exclusive sports game Deca Sports has sold 500,000 copies worldwide. So far the company has shipped out 700,000 copies to Japan, North America and Europe according to Famitsu.

Looks like they’ve been successful in motivating players to get off of the couch and up on their feet for the 10 sporting activities which support both single and 4-player multiplayer modes. Turning a new leaf after Wii Sports’ tennis, bowling, boxing, baseball and golf activities; the sports included on Deca Sports are beach volleyball, snowboard cross, badminton, basketball, curling, figure skating, archery, supercross, soccer and kart racing.

Translation by Kotaku

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Master Higgins invented the Turbo Button which was made standardized on the Japanese PC Engine, as revealed in 1-Ups exclusive interview below. The PC-Engine was released in the U.S. as the TurboGrafx-16.

The Turbo Button switches on the system’s controllers allowed players to switch on a “rapid-fire” mode, so that instead of having to repeatedly press the button to fire more rapidly, you would simply hold the button down. Back in the day, third party “turbo controllers” that featured turbo switches or buttons were a huge hit back in the 8 and 16-bit days for Nintendo & Sega systems.

Click on the bottom-right corner arrow to view it fullscreen.

If you don’t know who Master Higgins is, he is the main character in the Adventure Island series of games and was named after “Takahashi Meijin”, who is the infamous executive of Hudson who became popular due to his extremely fast finger which could press the fire button on a controller 16-times a second! He starred in some hilarious commercials that made him famous in Japan and the name “Takahashi Meijin” literally translates to “Famous Takahashi”. His real name is Toshiyuki Takahashi.

Source: infendo.com

From Siliconera this morning comes word that Hudson’s upcoming online Tetris title could have a very interesting new feature.

Will Tetris for WiiWare have any new features other than Mii support or online play? Maybe drag and drop play like Dr. Mario & Virus Busters?

It features a number of new rules and items. Currently, we’re tossing around the idea of using the Balance Board. The game also supports 6-Player Wi-Fi battle.

Oh, and there’s the 6-player WiFi battles to consider too. Is it time for a Tetris resurgence?

Source: infendo.com

I approached the Deca Sports preview disc Infendo received last week with an open mind and low expectations, if that makes any sense. The comparisons to Wii Sports, fair or unfair, are unavoidable: both titles are a collection of sports mini-games and both feature colorful cartoon players that are more at home on a Saturday morning than on the real-world pitch of other more “serious” sports titles like PES 2008, for example.

But Deca is also its own beast, and goes off into new territory not covered by the five pack of sports covered by Nintendo’s flagship pack-in disruptor. Bump and set in 2v2 beach volleyball; swing away at a shuttlecock in Badminton; or even pedal about a Supercross course wagging the remote to do simple tricks. Hudson packed a lot in there; everything from motion sensing arms swings to nunchuck controls, but it still felt incomplete, even for a demo. They included a lot of stuff in Deca Sports–everything, it seems, but the fun.

For all the hiccups in the demo, the one thing that Deca boasts, for better or worse, is simplicity. To pass the ball to the server in volleyball, you can recreate the motion from a real game by motioning the Wiimote updwards. Same for setting the ball for the spike. Spiking? Just swing down when the ball is enveloped with a red circle. The instructions say the harder you swing, the faster the ball goes (also for games like Badminton), but I was having trouble deciphering whether or not this worked exactly as advertised. Same goes for Badminton, which was so simple that should I have had a Player 2 of equal skill with me at the time, the game could very well have gone on forever. The controls advertise that you can change the direction of the birdie with Wii Bowling twists of your wrist, but the game (not the Wiimote, mind you) didn’t seem to recognize them.

Racing faired slightly worse in that it neither captured nor came close to any of the other racing games I’ve played on the Wii to date. It’s a mini-game in a compilation of sports games, sure, but again the cheapness and cheesy music distracted me. The bike controls artificially, and the Wiimote tilting does little to make up for it. Hitting the edges of the track reminded me of bumper bowling and again felt cheap. Hitting a jump off kilter and heading towards the barrier of the track produces an Endless Ocean-like invisible barrier effect. It was jarring, to say the least.

Lastly, there was figure skating, which I saved for last because nothing says manly fun quite like prancing about an ice rink in tights while firing off a triple salchow. Skating basically boils down a rhythm game in the style of Elite Beat Agents, but you get to control a skater with the nunchuck. Hitting large color circles and motioning with the Wiimote makes the skater perform a trick. It’s all about timing. You follow little yellow marks like breadcrumbs to the next “trick circle” and it all begins again.

Overall I was disappointed with Deca Sports. The foundation was laid by Wii Sports, and with Nintendo moving upstream with more mature titles (no Wii Sports 2, as far as I know), there was ample room for this title to literally copy the formula and add new games on top of it. This could have been Wii Sports 2, but it falls short. Hudson comes off as if it was afraid to copy and innovate, which is as tried and true strategy as any in technology, gaming, whatever, and instead went down its own path. It aimed to be different to avoid comparisons to Wii Sports, and yet also the same with a collection of sports-themed mini-games, and ended up providing neither. There are many more games that the demo doesn’t allow me to access, but after my day or so with the four I could play, I was in no rush to find out how they handled.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Hudson combines ten sporting events into one addicting and fun-filled game, Deca Sports offers an immersive experience for sports fans of any age when it’s released on May 13th, 2008, in America. The sporting events are: Beach Volleyball, Snowboard Cross, Badminton, Basketball, Curling, Figure Skating, Archery, Supercross, Soccer and Kart Racing. Right down to the box it screams Wii Sports clone to me, but if it’s fun, who cares?

Each sport in the game uses the Wii Remote in unique yet accessible ways. With a subtle swing of the Wii Remote players can hit and spike the ball in Beach Volleyball, while twists of the wrist produce a wild ride down the slopes in Snowboard Cross. In Figure Skating players need to keep to the music and properly time all of their jumps and spins in order to impress the judges while passing the ball and lining up shots is essential in Soccer. All ten sports support both single player and multiplayer modes, in addition to a training mode to practice essential skills. The wide range of events and modes make Deca Sports the perfect game for players and sports fans of all ages.

Run, aim, shoot, jump, dive and kick in this collection of 10 sport mini-games. This gameplay video gives an overview of all included sports. Feel free to enjoy the truely beautiful background music… or not.