Just the other day I was relating to friends that I thought MP:H failed in the single player department. Phil Bond seemed to think the multiplayer made it worthwhile. So much for that.
4cr reports a hack allowing “Infinite Energy, Infinite Missiles, Infinite Sub-Weapon, and Hold B To Levitate” has been specifically designed for Nintendo WiFi.
Heres the first big obstacle for Nintendo’s fledgling online service. When cheaters started to populate Halo 2, Bungie and Xbox Live unleashed the “Banhammer” program that autodetected hacked files and removed players from matchmaking or Xbox Live altogeher. Does Nintendo have the ability to implement something similar?

In an interview with Nintendo Power Magazine this month, Retro Studios speaks of the Wii-bound latest installment in the Powet favorite Metroid franchise.
So whats the scoop?   X-ray Visor and Hyper-Mode are back, and you’ll traverse multiple planets like in the recent DS release, Metroid Prime: Hunters.  Backtracking an exploration will remain in tact, something woefully missing from Hunters.  Also makin appearances will be more Phazon, more competing bounty hunters, and more Metroids.
They also say multiplayer will be back, but not in the same way it was included in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.  Wii’s WiFi capabilities are a given.

The best part is they confirm Metroid Prime 3: Corruption will be a launch title for the Nintendo Wii, due out by the end of the year.
Click here for highlights, though they are transcribed from the magazine by someone without the use of a spellchecker.

While roms and emulators are a sticky topic to discuss, I thought this was too good to pass up. Browsing 4chan, I found a hack provided by Romhacking.net which gives us Super Metroid, but totally reimagined. The entire game’s layout is different. As soon as you land in Crateria, it’s readily obvious. All the items, events and locations have been completely rearranged and the difficulty has been significantly increased as well. In addition to the different gameplay experience, the game physics have been altered as well. The speed at which you drop is faster and wall jumping (which is actual item you must obtain first) has become more fluid.

I’m only an hour in, but I’m definetly going to see this game through to the end. Obviously, I’m only providing the link to the patch for this game, but I’m sure the rom itself and an emulator can be found easily enough. this is internet, afterall.

Vinnk and TheOrange play a little Famicom and then use Phil Bond‘s method of transfering your Wifi Settings from one DS to another.

*note: will come to iTunes in 2 parts on Sunday June 11.

Lost in the E3 shuffle since most people were actually playing the game was the 1 minute montage of in-game footage showcasing new aspects of Metroid Prime 3.
Game Informer was patient enough to record this footage and bring it to us now.
Included in the video are lots of new characters (some looking like rival hunters), the gunship air strike, and a new zip-line Samus (pictured).
Theres also 3 other gameplay movies if you missed the demo the first time around.
via 4CR

Me reviewing a Nintendo product.  A sign of the end times perhaps?  Nah, I just wanted to one-up Phil, Zac, Sean and aDam.

Anyway, as long as there are video vames, there will be Tetris.  Alexey Pazhitnov‘s puzzle masterpiece set the standard for all puzzle games that still hasn’t been matched to this day.  Many different versions exist as Java/Flash web games, game cartridges, homebrew applications, etc.  So what makes Nintendo’s latest entry so different? The integration of classic Nintendo franchises, the sheer variety of game types, and the addition of Mariokart-like items to the classic versus mode.

Standard – the regular Tetris we know and love, make lines while Mario idly navigates levels.

Mission - Decorated with the Legend of Zelda, play standard Tetris while meeting different goals to progress.

Catch - Themed around Metroid, pieces are caught with a large mass manipulated by the player. The mass shrinks when (minimum) 4×4 masses are created within it.

Touch - The main character from Balloon Fight is trapped in a cage atop a tower of tetriminoes. Use the touch screen to slide blocks around, eliminate the tower, and set the Balloon fighter free.

Puzzle - With a nod to Yoshi’s Cookie, clear screens with predetermined sets of pieces. The challenge is in figuring out the order and orientation.

Push – This mode is available in multiplayer. On one end of the field is Donkey Kong, on the other is Mario. Each opponent drops pieces toward the center, and as lines are cleared, the center moves toward the opponent. When the stack reaches the enemy goal line, you win.

All the game types plus Wi-Fi support make this one of the best versions of Tetris yet, and a must-buy for puzzle fans with a DS.

The first real day of E3 come to a close with less E3 news than the days that weren’t technically part of E3. Weird.

Here’s are some of the fun things discovered today:

A new Duck Hunt?!

A sequel I honestly never thought I’d see is playable at E3. The Wii will have a new gun peripheral and what is surely gaming history’s most played gun game appears to be having another go at it. Is this going to be a full on Wii game or is this just a demo so that they can showcase the gun at E3? I’m not going to speculate an answer to that! IGN gives us an impression of the game as well as a look at the new “light gun” shell for the Wii controller. It’s unknown how exactly the “light gun” will work or even whether or not it will use light (if it does not it will probably not be refered to as a light gun much longer…”. Since the original Nintendo Zapper is incompatible on some modern televisions (such as my LCD projection TV) this may finally give us unfortunate souls who tragically only have access to high end televisions the oppurtunity to shoot some ducks again.

New Super Smash Bros. Brawl characters announced

New characters for the Wii Super Smash Bros. game have been reported by Kotaku. New characters include Solid Snake, Nintendogs, Metaknight, Pit, Zero Suit Samus and Wario. I don’t even know who two of those are! I certainly hope players can move their Wii-mote in a belly rubbing motion to incapacitate their Nintendog opponents… though apparently we will be using the classic GameCube controllers on this one.

Earthworm Jim Returns!

From the soil did crawl an interesting announcement from Atari today. We’ll be seeing another Earthworm Jim game, this time on the PSP. Check out IGN for more on this.

An innovative X-Box game?

A game more attypical for it’s system than Kameo will be released on the X-Box! You guess it! It’s a… piniata game… WHAT? Yeah so I guess you just whack a piniata with a bat, right? No. It’s a piniata farm simulation game. Wasn’t that a skit on the short lived John Leguizamo vehicle “House of Buggin“? Well I’m pretty sure it was but still this game is coming. Check out this article at Kotaku for more info and a sweet looking screenshot.

The Nintendo press conference has already gone down, the Microsoft one is still coming. Want some of the important points of an already insanely busy day?

Nintendo Wii still doesn’t have a release date (they say “Q4”) or a price (everyone implies $249), but it does have a launch list including Zelda Twilight Princess, which will be released on both GameCube and Wii on the same day. Other announced Wii titles: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, New Fire Emblem, Rayman, Sonic Wildfire, and Super Mario Galaxy!

And anyone worried that the WiiMote won’t be any good for playing older games on the virtual console need only look at the attahed image.

Lots more info after the jump!
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