Source: infendo.com

Hit the jump for press release, fact sheet, and a few more screens.

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HIGH VOLTAGE HOT ROD SHOW RUMBLES ONTO THE WII!!
High Voltage Software announces new multiplayer racer for WiiWare

Hoffman Estates, IL – October 10, 2008 - High Voltage Software, Inc., one of the world’s largest independent developers, today announced High Voltage Hot Rod Show, an intense new racing title scheduled for release on the WiiWare downloadable service later this Fall.

High Voltage Hot Rod Show requires players to master more than the basic racing skills to compete. A unique stunt system gives players multiple ways to build boost, which drastically increases a Hot Rod’s speed. If you get too greedy, you might crash and burn! The game utilizes the company’s proprietary Quantum 3 Game Engine technology, which provides graphical performance and game play not possible on other Wii titles.

“We wanted High Voltage Hot Rod Show to be a fresh and exciting racing title for the Wii that would provide up to four friends with endless replay value,” said Kerry Ganofsky, CEO and founder of High Voltage Software. “The result is a game that is easy to pick up and play, but maintains a core of skill-based racing, which gives it special appeal.”

“Style was important to us on this project,” said Benjamin Savage, Lead Artist on the title. “We were inspired by the work of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth and that led us to design some really exciting characters, Hot Rods, and even music. We hope players will love the direction we’ve taken.”

“We set the bar for ourselves very high with each new title” said Eric Nofsinger, Chief Creative Officer of High Voltage Software. “Not only have we created a fantastic racing title with support for split-screen racing and online leaderboards, but we’ve also demonstrated the incredible versatility of the Quantum 3 Game Engine.”

About High Voltage Software, Inc.

High Voltage Software is a game development company located in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Established in 1993, employs more than 130 staff members. Red Eye Studios, a motion capture facility, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of HVS. For more information, please visit their website at www.high-voltage.com.

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Fact Sheet:

High Voltage Hot Rod Show
Format: WiiWare™
Launch Date: Q4, 2008
ESRB: E (Everyone 10 and Older) – Mild Cartoon Violence
Game Type: Racing
Players: 1-4
Developer: High Voltage Software, Inc.

Key Information
High Voltage Hot Rod Show is a slick and fast-paced racer that challenges up to 4 players to tear up the track on a variety of off-road courses, mastering death-defying stunts and building enough Boost to stomp the competition. Players must learn to tame their monster Hot Rods by nailing ramps, powerslides, bunny-hops and tricks, while avoiding mud pits and smashing through Boost Rings to fill their Boost Meters. Players can compete against seven CPU opponents in Championship mode, or set their best lap times in the Time Trials. Top times can be uploaded to an online scoreboard via Wi-Fi Connection and shared with players around the world. Multiplayer supports up to four players in split-screen mode, giving each player a wide range of controller choices. High Voltage Hot Rod Show is an addictive racer that fully leverages the company’s cutting-edge Wii technology!

• Boost or Die - Unique Stunt/Boost system rewards players with more speed for getting the biggest air and pulling off the wildest stunts. Be careful though, your Boost will evaporate if you crash and burn.
• Shake It Up – The default control scheme is similar to Mario Kart Wii, with motion-based steering and stunts.
• Racing, a la Mode – Three different game modes: Championship, Time Trial, and Multiplayer provide hours of white-knuckle competition.
• Choose your Poison – Players can choose from a variety of rockin’ Hot Rods, each associated with a unique character. Each Hot Rod has skins that can be unlocked by earning gold trophies in Championship mode.
• Bragging Rights – Post your top lap times for each of the tracks online and see how you fare against the world’s best.
• Couch Crashers – Fire up the game with up to four players in split screen mode and customize your multiplayer race series to suit your taste.

Gameplay Mechanics: High Voltage Hot Rod Show is an off-road racer with jumps and stunts. To win the race, players must not only successfully navigate each track at high speeds, but they must hit ramps and perform tricks in the air. These tricks build Boost in the Boost Meter. Boost kicks in automatically when the wheels hit the ground, providing a burst of speed. Other tools the player can use are the Powerslide, which makes handling more difficult but increases the speed through turns and maximizes boost, and Bunny-Hopping, which can be used to clear mud and obstacles and also to achieve maximum air off ramps. Players can also aim for lofty Speed Stars, which hover high above the track and reward skilled drivers with top speed bonuses.

How to progress through the game: The game is divided into three modes. The single-player Championship mode provides a series races with increasing AI difficulty. By winning races, the players unlock more races and skins for their Hot Rods. Time Trial mode encourages practice, helps players to learn the best lines through each track, and records their best times to be stored locally and compared with other players online. Multiplayer mode lets players customize a series of races with different tracks and lap counts to compete against up to three of their friends in split-screen fashion.

Track Features: There are various types of tracks: Island, Desert, Forest, and Ruins, each with a unique layout that challenges the player in different ways. Ramps, Powerstrips, Boost Rings, Mud Pits, Speed Stars, barriers and chasms all play a part. The more difficult tracks have fewer guard rails, more intense jumps, and more danger.

Difficulty: This is a skill-based game, but it is still fun and accessible for new players, even if they need a few races under their belts before they can hang with the veterans. Championship mode is geared to provide a few extra-easy races while players acclimate to the driving mechanics. Tips appear before each race begins to help players learn advanced techniques. Once players have the controls down to a science and the tracks memorized, they will find a whole new level of skilled gameplay that provides endless replay value.

Controls: It’s tough to be all things to all people, but High Voltage Hot Rod Show pulls it off by providing players with lots of control options. Controls default to the Wii motion-based scheme used by Mario Kart Wii and Excite Truck (players can use the Wii Wheel if they choose). Players can also plug in a Nunchuk for analog steering, or use the Classic Controller or GameCube Controller if they prefer a more traditional control scheme.

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Source: infendo.com

Even the medicine colored title screen of Yudo’s “Aero Guitar” that was released on the Japanese Wii Shop Channel last week told me that the game might not really satiate my desire for a quick-quality music title to play while waiting for “Wii Music” and the pointlessly late Japan release of “Samba de Amigo.” Nonetheless I figured it would at least make for a fun review and I flushed my 800 yen down the digital drain.

Time to call the plumber.

Aero Guitar tries to capitalize on the stateside success of “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band” and lack of attention from Konami to port their original “Guitar Freaks/Drum Mania” series onto the Wii.

Let’s get the most crucial part out of the way: the music. A music game has to have good music to be a good game and this one does not. It’s got four cheesy songs pre-loaded from bands you have never heard of (with vulgar names, no less) that appear to be mimicking other songs like the kinds they use in low-budget commercials that couldn’t afford to use originals. It appears you can buy a couple more songs with your hard earned Wii points but it’s hard to justify paying a premium for songs you don’t know. 

Forgoing any peripherals, the game uses the wiimote (or the much less fun A-button) to strum and all the while you press either up, down, or nothing at all on the nunchuck to simulate the holding down of a string. In theory this isn’t a terrible way to simulate how a guitar might feel, but the wiimote strumming is a hair-trigger. It ended up being more effective to hold the remote like a drum stick and swing it forward over-hand with my wrist, rather than moving it up and down in a strumming motion.

In addition, any note can be played by flicking the wiimote forwards or backwards, but some bonus notes can only be activated with the backwards flick. These are notoriously hard to pick up and presumably add a level of challenge though the points system doesn’t make a lot of sense. Also the lack of any tutorial or practice mode before the game started made sure I wouldn’t hit at least the first 4 or 5 bonus notes without any trial and error. Overall the effect is fun for a bit, but you end up pounding the wiimote quite hard and it kind of gets tiring quickly.

Oh yeah, and once the notes get fast? Forget about it. I cleared all but one song on normal mode with relative ease but the hardest song “How the hell?” contains a few quick notes that just don’t seem plausible — as if strumming the previous note keeps the wiimote from sensing the next one. Aero Guitar actually gives you quite a bit of control over how fast the notes go by, and the faster you make them the easier it is to figure out these quick strums, but most of the time they still seem not to work.

This brings me to Aero Guitar’s biggest problem: the overall interface. All selection can be done using the D-Pad and buttons but the default is to point at it with a guitar-pick shaped cursor. Now a pick is shaped like a triangle (right?) and one would assume that the tip of the triangle would be the part of the cursor you need to put on an icon in order to select it… right?? Apparently Yudo did not see my way and you actually have to point the fat bottom end of the pick on an icon to select anything. Now if you went ahead and read the instructions you might know that you can use the d-pad to circumvent this issue, but here’s one you can’t fix. Let’s say you pick the wrong song or the wrong difficulty - there is no pause menu, you cannot quick-fail the song by fudging every note, and you can’t even go back to the Wii menu. You have to either wait until the entire song has finished or reset the console just to get back to a menu. This is an oversight that encourages users to turn the game off — which is never good.

I don’t know if this is normal but I also had one of the three commands (up and stum) simply stop registering on one song — quite frustrating when you can’t pause or quit in the middle.

Now I make it my business to pick up almost every rhythm game and play it at least once no matter how terrible, but Aero Guitar doesn’t really need to be picked up again after that. Unless you’re really itching to try out the strumming or… can think of another reason, I wouldn’t recommend buying Aero Guitar if/when it is released stateside. Let’s hope if it is, though they fix some of the above problems.

Source: infendo.com

Well, you guys called it.

Art Style: Orbient, today’s curiously titled WiiWare release, is a remake of a 2006 GameBoy Advance title.

Nintendo plans to release two more Art Style games on WiiWare this month, according to Wired.

The Art Style games are remakes of the Bit Generations games, a series of seven GameBoy Advance titles released in Japan in 2006. The series was popular for its simple controls and stylish presentation.

WiiWare’s Orbient, originally Orbital on the GameBoy Advance, gives players control of a tiny celestial body. Using gravity, players orbit around larger ones to collide with other planets, stars and rocks.

Orbient has received a significant visual upgrade for the move to Wii. It is available in the Wii Shop Channel for 600 Wii Points.

Source: infendo.com

I played the Bubble Man stage with my eyes closed. Bring on number 9!

Source: infendo.com

When a console’s list of upcoming games includes zombified animal cruelty, you either hand over September or it takes from you.

A blogger over at Destructoid has profiled eight Wii games scheduled to waggle into your living rooms next month as proof that Wii has exclusive dibs on September.

The list includes Nintendo’s Wario Land: Shake It! and third-party titles like Mega Man 9, de Blob, Samba de Amigo and the irreverent Animales de la Muerte.

Hide your 360, and you may be spared.

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: infendo.com

One  of the most anticipated WiiWare games is finally coming out.  Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People launches August 11 on WiiWare and for PC.  Hopefully Telltale’s relationship with Nintendo is better than Capcom’s and we’ll be kicking the Cheat on Monday!

Click past the break for the full press release (and check out the “About Videlectrix” section for extra-LOLs).

SAN RAFAEL, CA, August 5, 2008 – Telltale Inc., the leader in interactive episodic entertainment, is announcing that “Homestar Ruiner”, the first of five monthly Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People episodes, will premiere Monday, August 11. “Homestar Ruiner” will release on Nintendo’s WiiWare™ download service in North and South America and worldwide on PC simultaneously. WiiWare availability for Europe, Australia and New Zealand will follow shortly.

As the star of the popular Homestarrunner.com web cartoons, Strong Bad has been answering emails (in boxing gloves), pranking his friends, pummeling his enemies, and making people with questionable taste snort milk out of their noses for years. Now he’s branching out to star in the monthly Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People series developed in partnership with Homestarrunner.com creators Mike and Matt Chapman.

In the season premiere, Strong Bad’s plans to beat the snot out of his rival Homestar Runner backfire, and he ends up with an unwanted houseguest cramping his style. Now he needs to get life back to normal, by any means possible. Comical point-and-click gameplay progresses the story, with side quests, mini games, achievements, and an “extended play” sandbox mode that unlocks after the story is completed rounding out the game experience.

“Homestar Ruiner is a great series premiere and kick-off for the season. The next five months will be filled with lots of surprises,” says Telltale CEO Dan Connors. “This is how we always envisioned episodic gaming—monthly releases, straight into the living room. We’re happy to be working with the Chapmans and Nintendo to make it a reality.”

New Strong Bad episodes can be downloaded from the Wii™ Shop Channel each month for 1000 Wii Points™. The series takes advantage of the WiiConnect24™ technology by giving players the ability to send Strong Bad-themed emails to Wii friends directly from the Lappy. Photos taken using the in-game camera feature can be attached to emails, allowing players to show off Easter eggs uncovered or hidden costumes collected during the game.

“We are very excited,” said a Videlectrix spokesperson from his pretend high-rise office, “Our last game topped out at 8 bits. We’ve heard this one might reach 9 or 10!”

Downloadable versions of each Strong Bad episode will also be available for the PC exclusively from Telltale’s website, with preorders starting today at www.telltalegames.com/strongbad. Episodes can be purchased individually for $8.95 or as part of a five-episode subscription for $34.95. As with Telltale’s popular Sam & Max series, customers who purchase the full series from Telltale will later be eligible to get a disc version for the cost of shipping and handling.

After the “Homestar Ruiner” premiere on August 11, storylines in the monthly episodes will run the gamut from political struggles to rock’n roll to the world of videogames (of course), building to the exciting season finale in December. Many fan favorite characters from Free Country USA will appear in each episode, along with special new super 8-bit style mini-games from Videlectrix. Additional details about the series can be found at www.telltalegames.com/strongbad.

About Homestarrunner.com
Homestar Runner was conceived in 1996 by Mike Chapman and friend Craig Zobel as an idea for a weird kids’ book they would only make a few photocopies of for friends. In 2000, Mike and brother Matt dusted off the idea and launched Homestarrunner.com, featuring the Flash-animated exploits of the characters. Since 2002, they have updated with new cartoons almost every week including the popular feature ‘Strong Bad Email’ in which fans get their emails answered by the cartoon’s charming antagonist, Strong Bad. Mike and Matt write and animate the cartoons with Matt and Missy Palmer providing voices for the characters. The site has been featured and mentioned in the New York Times, Wired Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Time, The Wall Street Journal, and, most importantly, two songs from the site were featured in the Guitar Hero series.

About Telltale, Inc.
Telltale is pioneering new forms of interactive entertainment, building upon strong foundations in both traditional and new media. Founded in 2004 by industry veterans with decades of experience, the company has quickly become the leading online episodic gaming publisher and developer, delivering award-winning interactive experiences that emphasize engaging stories, strong characters, and rich worlds. Telltale is establishing a regular, ongoing schedule of online episodic series, across all major gaming and entertainment platforms and channels.

Telltale’s games include the award-winning Sam & Max episodic series; Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People, the first episodic series for WiiWare based on the Homestarrunner.com Flash cartoons; and a new Wallace & Gromit game series coming soon. Telltale has also created games based on television’s popular CSI program, in partnership with Ubisoft, and on Jeff Smith’s epic Bone graphic novels. Telltale has built a robust digital distribution channel at www.telltalegames.com, and also publishes its games with select partners.

About Videlectrix
Since the beginning of organized time, or shortly thereafter, the ‘Trix, as they are sometimes known, has been at all four fronts of the electronic video gaming industry, providing lo-res entertainment to parents and children alike. In the early years, The Big V, as they are othertimes known, got their start by typing numbers into calculators and then turning the calculators upside down to form words. In 2003, they partnered with Homestarrunner.com and released the arcade peasant-masher Trogdor! They’ve since followed up with hit after hit, including next-gen text adventure Peasant’s Quest, side scrolling platformer Stinkoman 20X6, and the unforgettable Color Television Calibration Cartridge.

Source: infendo.com

Looks like Strong Bad won’t be making an appearance on your Wii before the end of July.  Instead, we have Pong Toss: Frat Party Games for WiiWare.  Classic cop car smasher Chase HQ and another NEOGEO installment of Art Of  Fighting appear for the Virtual Console.  Read all about them after the jump.

WiiWare

Pong Toss—Frat Party Games (JV Games, 1-4 players, Rated E for Everyone—Mild Language, 800 Wii Points): Pony up—it’s Pong Toss time. Compete against your friends or the computer in this ultimate party-game favorite. Play on a regulation table with up to four players. Make consecutive shots for the Fireball bonuses and Roll-Backs as you or your team try to dominate the table and reign as Pong Toss champs. In Speed Pong, up to three challengers can compete at the same time. Speed and strategy are the keys to this fast-paced game. Jack up your opponents by using a slew of power-ups that will slow them down. The first one who sinks the last cup wins it all. Be fast. Be furious. Be victorious.

Virtual Console

Chase H.Q. (TurboGrafx16, 1992, 1 player, Rated E10+ for Everyone 10 and Older—Drug Reference, Mild Violence, 600 Wii Points): This is a different style of racing game in which you attempt to catch criminals by chasing them and ramming their cars off the road. Playing as two cops from the NYPD special “CHASE H.Q.” unit, the first half of each stage involves you maneuvering your unmarked car in a heated chase, followed by an action sequence in the latter half. Once you reach the target vehicle, you flip on your lights and siren, and then try to stop the culprits by repeatedly colliding with them. Use your different gears wisely as you make your way through streets and around corners, and be careful not to hit objects or other cars, or you’ll lose speed. Also at your disposal are turbo units for temporary extra speed and ramming power.

ART OF FIGHTING 2 (NEOGEO, 1994, 1-2 players, Rated T for Teen—Alcohol and Tobacco Reference, Violence, 900 Wii Points): Released in 1994 by SNK, ART OF FIGHTING 2 sees 12 characters compete for the title in the toughest fighting contest of them all: King of Fighters. Each character has a range of deadly techniques in his or her arsenal, and players must use these lethal techniques to fight their opponents. As in the original ART OF FIGHTING, however, using a deadly technique lowers a character’s mental-energy gauge. For this reason, players must use these techniques carefully. Meanwhile, players can taunt an opponent to exhaust his or her mental energy, and even suppress their opponent’s techniques if successful. This type of mental-energy offense and defense gives ART OF FIGHTING 2 a uniquely enjoyable spin on the fighting-game genre. Further adding to the strategy required to win, an attack will become stronger or weaker depending on exactly when the button is pressed. And even if a player is thrown, defensive action is possible with the timely press of a button. All of this adds up to an intense and nail-biting fighting-game experience not found anywhere else.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

The Blue Bomber finally returns in this ninth chapter of the original franchise in NES old-school style for the WiiWare, Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network download services at a price of $10 in September 2008. In Mega Man 9, Mega Man’s creator Dr. Light is blamed for a robotic rampage and Dr. Wily himself has no apparent connection to it — to the point of even showing a video of Dr. Light declaring world domination and Dr. Wily refusing to follow him — announcing that he needs donations to complete the robots he created to combat those of Dr. Light. Mega Man must fight to prove his creator’s innocence and expose Wily’s true intentions.

See the man behind Mega Man’s authentic 8-bit resurrection in this video interview with Mega Man 9 producer Hironobu Takeshia.

At E3 2008 two challenging levels from Mega Man 9 were on display in Capcom’s booth. Watch the level 1 demo:

Watch the Mega Man 9 level 2 demo:

Source: infendo.com

This week we get the WiiWare prequel to a DS game with Pirates: The Key Of Dreams and two side-scrolling Genesis shooters, Super Fantasy Zone, and Gley Lancer.

Check out full descriptions after the break!

Pirates: The Key of Dreams - WiiWare - 1,000 Wii Points
Pirates: The Key of Dreams is a frantic nautical shoot-’em-up. Sail your way across the Caribbean, cannons blazing, looting booty, running blockades and ultimately battling Blackbeard himself. The player takes control of a navy captain sent deep undercover as a ruthless pirate in order to seek out and retrieve the Key of Dreams, a valuable and dangerous cursed artifact. Rescue castaways to bolster your ship’s crew, gaining performance increases to your navigation, weaponry, structural integrity and cartography skills. Collect increasingly powerful weaponry including rockets, mines, chain shot, saw blades and a flamethrower to hurl destruction into the path of your enemies. Play against three of your scurvy friends or A.I. opponents in pitched multiplayer battles over 35 levels, set in seven themed environments. Choose from different ship types that reflect your play style. Play in turbo mode if you’re pirate enough.

Super Fantasy Zone - Genesis - 1992 - 900 Wii Points
The last entry in the Fantasy Zone series, this side-scrolling shooter puts you in the shoes of main character Opa-Opa, who is on a mission to avenge the death of his father. To do so, you’ll have to battle a variety of Enemy Generators to clear out the various levels and finish off the Menon Guardian at the end of the level. Eliminating your enemies will let you rack up some gold, which you can use to buy even better weapons, upgrades and other equipment. Spend your gold wisely, as each different boss you need to defeat presents a unique challenge.  [Published by SunSoft]

Gley Lancer - Genesis - 1992 - 900 Wii Points
In the year 2025, a war breaks out between humans and a hostile alien race, and 16-year-old Lucia and the rest of the starfighter pilots in the Earth Federation must join the battle. When Lucia’s father is kidnapped by the aliens, she decides to take action and hijacks a brand new prototype starfighter, the Gley Lancer, in order to try to save him. In this side-scrolling shooter, step into the cockpit of the Gley Lancer as Lucia, rescue your father and destroy the evil aliens that are bent on destroying the human race.  [Published by Masaya]