Higgin's Is Back And He Brought His Shooting Watch

Master Higgins triumphant return in this weeks WiiWare release, Adventure Island: The Beginning sweetens the pot with the inclusion of fun looking mini-games. Twitch-meister Higgins disciples will be pleased to know that a competitive Shooting Watching mode is included in this new release.

For those who are interesting in Xtreme tapping, but aren't interested in importing an official Shooting Watch, snatching up an e-copy of Adventure Island: The Beginning for $10 sounds like a perfect deal.

Now if only you could shoot out against people online...Hello Hudson!? How about a dedicated Shooting Watch game for XBLA? Sell it for $5 and have ranked and player matches, plus extra games modes like melon-smashing.

Get to work Higgins!

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GIRL Has Made It To Mars!

After 92 days of stretching, the Noby Noby Boy community has finally reached Mars!



This comes as a surprise seeing as Noby's creator Keita Takahashi recently stated that at the rate that players were contributing length, GIRL wouldn't reach Mars for another three years or so.

Thankfully Takahashi introduced Lucky Week. Lucky Week is a new feature in Noby Noby designed to entice PS3 owners into playing more. Here's how it works: Every month or so, an announcement will be made that there will be a Lucky Week. Namco will draw a random number and any GIRL length that you report during Lucky Week will be multiplied by said number.

The galaxy exploration and sense of journey and accomplishment in Noby Noby Boy make for a truly epic and sublime gaming experience. If you have a PS3 you really owe it to yourself to experience this game. It will be the best $5 you've ever spent.

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The Neo-2D Action Post!: Starring Shank and Dust

Who doesn't love a meticulously crafted, gorgeously animated sprite?

2D games have kept a low profile on the living room systems for a while now. With the advent of high-definition graphics on former "next-gen" systems, you'd think that 2D dot-artists would be running for the hills screaming. "Holy s***! I cant e-sketch that big on my Wacom tablet! "

It's astounding that over the last few years we have witnessed a 2D revival on the current generation of platforms, many rendered in undoubtedly time consuming high definition.

Here is a pair of upcoming 2D show-stoppers that I'm sure will join the ranks of Castle Crashers, Warioland: Shake It!, Soldner-X, and Braid, just to name a few.

This footage is from an alpha-build of XNA-developed Elysian Tail: Dust, created by Dean Dodrill.



The animation is breathtaking! Hope the furry-esque character designs don't turn people off from this awesome looking hack-n-slasher.

This next video is also pre-alpha footage, but much like Dust, even it it's early stage the art and animation looks superb.

Klei Entertainment, of Eets fame, are developing a Tarantino-inspired 2D action side-scroller titled Shank and it's shaping up nicely to say the least.



Klei have yet to officially announce a platform release yet, but the controller shown at the beginning of the video suggests that this may come out on XBOX LIVE Arcade. Maybe an announcement will be made at E3.

Viva la 2D!

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As if You Need Another Reason to be Excited: Uncharted 2 Multiplayer

Excuse me while I put on my Young Jeezy voice...

Ha ha!!!

I am usually not too crazy about online multi-player, but I have to admit, this looks like a lot fun. I mean, what could be better than pulling your homie off of a building by his leg while suspended a hundered feet in the air? Just icing on the cake that is looking to be one of the hottest games of the year.

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It's All About the Fear: Punch Out!! Wii Review

Of all the terrifying characters I have met in the gaming world: Pyramid Head, the Cyberdaemon, Big Daddies or these guys, one villain in particular stands out. One who frightens me in a way that no other can...

Soda Popinski.

Besides having the laugh of a homicidal manic: he's big, ugly as hell, freakishly proportioned, and has a questionable addiction to "soda" (yeah, um...more like PCP.) The real secret to Soda Popinski's reign of terror though, is his speed. He is fast. Fast and strong. Like many of the later characters in the original Punch Out, he will take advantage of even the smallest mistake in your game and pummel you to quivering pulp in a matter of seconds. The ability that the Punch Out's baddies have - to instantly turn a fight in their favor - always kept me in a state of total panic. As far as I am concerned, a large part of what made the original Punch Out so amazing was it's power to strike deep and intense fear into even the coldest, most un-shakable gamer. The villains of Punch Out got into your head, and once they were there, they were there for good.

Of course, I absolutely loved both the OG Punch Out and its Super Nintendo sequel, Super Punch Out. Even though they both scared and frustrated the hell out of me, they were fantastic games boasting imaginative characters and absolutely addictive gameplay. Naturally, I was incredibly excited when I first heard that Nintendo would be bringing back their beloved franchise, but when the news hit they would be farming the development to the barely known Next Level Studios, I got a bit nervous. Would they be able to capture the character? The heart? The FEAR? Well, the wait is finally over and I have been able to spend some quality time with the latest installment in Nintendo's classic series.

Does Punch Out!! Wii live up to the hype? See the full review after the break!!!

Right off the bat, it's obvious that that Next Level is aims to hold true to the Punch Out legacy and pump the nostalgia factor as far as it can possibly go. Innovation and new ideas were not high on the developer’s priority list, but that’s not really what I was expecting, or hoping for, to be quite honest. This game makes no qualms about its fan-service: nearly every character in Punch Out!! Wii's roster has appeared previously in the series and they all look, act and fight just the way you hoped they would. Hearing Doc Louis giving Little Mac inspirational pep-talks between matches for the first time is a load of fun, especially since his voice sounds exactly the way you imagined it would back in the day. All the classic tunes are there as well, only this time, with the added punch of live horns and shredding guitars. The controls feel just the way you would expect, left and right dodging, high and low punches, the heart meter, the star punches, it's all there and it all feels great.

It isn't until you reach the final third of the game that the true essence of Punch Out!! Wii comes to life. That’s when things start to feel less like nostalgia and more like reliving a nightmare from your past. I mean that in the best possible way, of course. When the fights start to get really scary, you know that Next Level has done their job. You’ve got your Soda Popinski, just as blood-hungry and bat-shit-insane as ever before, you’ve got Bald Bull with easily one of the most intimidating special moves in gaming history and of course, Super Macho Man, who brings not only the fear of an instant knock-out but also the unease of a potential sexual assault on our Little Mac. When you finally meet Mr. Sandman at the "end" of the game, he is so massive, so quick and so powerful that the hardest part of the fight is getting past the intimidation factor. He will literally syke you out with an occasional "boo" between hammering your head into your shoulders with overhead punches. My friends, the fear you remember is there, maybe more so now than ever.

I imagine working on a game series that people love and treasure as much as Punch Out is a lot like that fight with Mr. Sandman: intimidating and overwhelming. Despite the odds, the little game company that could, Next Level, has really won me over with their heartfelt sequel to the most racially and culturally stereotyping videogame of all time. Much the way that the Little Mac always gets his win, no matter how huge the goon you throw against him.

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Could This be the New Team ICO Game???

Above is a link to about three and a half minutes of what is allegedly test footage from the new Team ICO project. I say allegedly because nothing official has been released from either Sony or Team ICO as to whether or not this leaked video reel is actually from the much-loved, art-house developer. Perhaps it's a hoax? Perhaps it's a loving homage to Team ICO from a fan? Whatever it is, it looks absolutely incredible....

Let's just move forward assuming it is real, shall we? My impressions of the video after the break.

Taking what seems to be a blend of the two Team ICO projects: Shadow of the Colossus and of course ICO, this new game looks to incorporate innovative platforming, a child-like hero, themes of companionship and giant creatures (or at least one.) Speaking of giant creatures, the hero's massive kitten/rat partner is the stuff that dreams (maybe nightmares) are made of. It's beautifully designed and rendered: I love the beady, glowing eyes, feathery hide and ugly rat tail. The creature seems to carry realistic weight, something that many developers can't seem to get right and Team ICO totally nailed with Shadow of the Colossus. Hanging on to the creature while it is scaling mountains and jumping over chasms is sure to be a thrilling experience.

Though the elements shown in the footage look to be in-keeping with the Team ICO's typical themes of ruins, quiet heroes, caves, creatures and epic vistas, the power of modern graphics processors brings an entirely new level of detail and focus to the vision. That's what has me so excited about this game - the idea of incredibly creative developers taking advantage of incredibly powerful hardware. I am sure we will see things in this new project that we have never seen before and the results will be very important to the gaming world, or at the very least, yours and mine.

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Weekend Wrap-Up: Madworld and Uncharted's Love Child

Ahhh...Nothing beats a lazy weekend where instead of going outside to enjoy the late-spring weather, you're pent up inside playing video games. The sun glare in my television beckons me, "come out and play!" it says.

F*** you sun! Can't you see I'm trying to beat this boss!? Damn!!! I need black curtains.

More after the break!

So this weekend I sat down again with Madworld for the Wii and came to an alarming realization that I'm actually stuck on this deceptively simple game (at least on the default difficulty.) Frank's Castle is the first level where I get killed by regular scrub enemies and it's always the same giant-scissors wielding devil-mask guy that gets me.

Another realization I've come to with Madworld is that you can't be lazy with the motion-controls. To do our hero Jack's horizontal attack you can't fake the funk. A wide horizontal swipe with the wii-mote is really the only way to consistently do this move that is needed to fillet giant-scissors wielding devil-mask character. Problem is, I'm too lazy to actually put any real life physical effort into playing video games, so that's probably why I keep getting iced on this level.

Motion-controls were great the first time you swung your tennis racket as your mii-doppelganger in Wii Sports two and a half years ago but now, for the most part, I'm kinda over it. The new Punch Out!! for Wii is being advertised as a motion-control-heavy game but thankfully, it allows players to tilt the wii-mote on its side for a "classic" control scheme. Guess how I'll be knocking out Glass Joe?

Back to Madworld. Armed with only one life left, I finally made it to the end of Frank's Castle to face the boss, a King-Kong-sized Mary Shelley inspired monster-man sitting eerily still in his electric-chair throne. All of the bosses so far in this game have been gnarly, but none intimidating enough to the point that I didn't think I could take them down on the first try. Frank was a different story. Again, this boss is the size of a Shadow of the Colossus beast, and simple hacking away at him with your chainsaw arm just ain't gonna' cut it (da-dum-snik!) Needless to say, I didn't beat Frank on the first try, in fact, he destroyed me instantly by swatting me off the upper-level catwalk plummeting me into the electrified cesspool below.

Game over.

Oh well...Maybe next time.

As the weekend rolled on I was inspired by Chris's Uncharted 2 hype-piece to pop in the original Nathan Drake romp. It had been a while since I played Uncharted and was happy to find it's stunning graphics and it's "Prince of Persia meets Gears of War" gameplay have held up nicely over the past year and a half. I started a new game on normal difficulty and played for an hour or so. As I guided Drake through the lush jungles and murky ancient ruins my excitement for Uncharted 2 really sunk in. Game sequels often surpass their originals and if this remains true for Uncharted 2, it could be a Game of the Year contender. Judging from the 5 minutes of footage shown earlier this week, I have no doubt that it will show up somewhere on our list come the end of December.

As the weekend drew to a close I got an urge to try out a new game. I browsed the demo section of XBOX LIVE and was pleasantly surprised to find a demo for XMEN Origins: Wolverine. My interest in this title had been piqued by buzz it's received on many of the gaming podcasts that I listen to. I think it was on the Joystiq podcast when one of the hosts mentioned that this game couldn't have originally been designed as a Marvel movie-licensed game because it was too good. Other podcasts have described it as a fun action game that was not worth full price but definitely deserved a weekend rental. Games that are prescribed that description by smug professional game journalists usually turn out to be really good to us unwashed commoners, so I thought I'd give Wolverine a whirl.

The first thing that shocked me wasn't the slightly above average graphics or snappy gameplay mechanics. No, it was the ridiculous amounts of bloody pulpy gore that ensues as you glide Wolverine through swarms of unfortunate enemies. Remember "hard R" movies? Well, this is a "hard M" game tied to a "soft PG13" movie and I'm equally thrilled as I am puzzled by this paradox.

Once I wiped the bloody giblets from my face I found that this game demo actually was, dare I say, too good. The game devs behind this game did a great job capturing the savage brutality of the character. As Wolverine you absolutely devastate the poor chumps brave enough to stare down the end of his razor-sharp claws. XMEN ORIGINS: Wolverine combines the spattered heroic violence from Madworld with the cinematic kinetics of Uncharted to create a game that I'd would most certainly pick up for twenty bucks in the used bin. What a coincidence that my weekend game-fest would be topped off by a game that melded the best elements of the titles that I had been playing.

It's a small game world.

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Tatsunoko A Go For North America!

Time for all you Capcom fighter fans to get your Wii back from the pawn shop.

NeoGAF.com confirms by way of a scan from the latest Nintendo Power that Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom is officially coming to a North American Wii near you.

Capcom had past gone on record that western companies holding the rights to the various Tatsunoko characters (Speed Racer, G-Force, etc...) were holding up the release of the game stateside. It's nice to see that legal matters were settled so this highly sought after title will now be available to fighter fans hungry for some "mahvel-esque" 2D fighting action.

The question now is, was this title one of Capcom's secret E3 games? Also, will we get arcade sticks for TvC?

E3 is just around the corner...

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Five Minutes of Uncharted 2 Footage: Ready to Poo Poo Pants?

Honestly, I feel like I had no business enjoying the first Uncharted game as much as I did. I never really cared too much for 3d platforming, tomb-raiding or half-tucks, but Naughty Dog won me over in Drakes Fortune with incredible animation, beautiful environments, a sense of real adventure, and a lead character that's so white bread, he's actually quite likable (for a cold-blooded, face-shooting, treasure-stealing murderer.)

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves seems to expand and improve on the original in every conceivable way, which is really saying something...Video after the break!

Let's take a sec here to watch this new, five minute gameplay clip.

Ok. Holy shit.

There is so much amazing jammed in those five minutes that I find it hard to believe what I am looking at quite a good chunk of the time. The first chase scene is one of the most cinematic and intense in-game sequences I have seen in quite awhile (actually reminds me quite a bit of a certain early Naughty Dog title.) Nathan Drake's animation in the fight sequences is so detailed - I don't think I have ever seen so many case-specific animations in such a short segment of gameplay. Clearly, a lot of love went into rending the environment: from the flags fluttering in the wind, to the carefully placed splashes of color, to the broken down buildings casting intricate shadows on the ground and on Drake. It's all really top-notch stuff. What really amazes me though, is how gracefully the game seems to transition between stealth, platforming, melay-action and gunfights. I can't think of any game that tackles so many different styles of gameplay so elegantly.

Rumors are floating around that Uncharted 2 will be hitting the shelves in September of this year...

Day one purchase fellers, day one.

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The State of Indianapolis

Both myself and fellow Blast-Blogger Chris Cruz hail from the state of Indianapolis (lol!) so it warms my heart to see former Capcom-God, now Platinum Games game designer-extraordinaire Hideki Kamiya sport such a rad and undoubtedly Japanese garment in his latest Bayonetta commentary video.

Kamiya and the rest of the Platinum games crew have been incredibly generous with the amount of behind the scenes access through blogs/media they have provided on their official site. This young game studio is wise to embrace the fan base that they have carried over from their Capcom/Clover days.

Also, can I please have that American kids job!? Can you imagine how cool it would be to shoot the shit with these legends? A guy can dream right?

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Mac is Back! Punch-Out Developer Diary

The summer kicks, urr...punches off in less than two weeks with the Punch Out! A game 15 years in the making.

Tide yourself over with this incredibly insightful and well produced developer diary then throw on your sweatpants and start joggin' ya bum!



It's nice to see Nintendo go all out for a fan favorite title. Maybe they will announce some more old-school revival titles at next months e3.

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Afrika Re-Branded And Set For Release NEXT MONTH?

ABC News recently did a report on National Geographic's venture into the video game market thats last sentence caught my attention.

"Other upcoming titles include "Rain Forests" and "Greencity," slated for next year from National Geographic, as well as "National Geographic: Africa," available next month from Sony."

It's pretty safe to assume that National Geographic: Africa is undoubtedly a re-branded version of Sony's photo-safari sim AFRIKA; a game that PS3 owning, Pokemon Snap! fans have been anxiously awaiting to be localized for quite some time.

Will this title stampede into retail or will it silently stalk PSN? Maybe we will find out at E3. Regardless, shooting pictures of giraffes with Sony-branded cameras will be a nice alternative to shooting poor, diseased citizens in the face with a shotgun in that other Africa game.

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OMG! Turtles In Time Remake Coming To XBLA!

This just made my day.

Okay...Now that I've calmed down from the excitement, It's time for assess the situation.

Who is making this game, and are they any good? I'm guessing it's a joint venture between Ubisoft and Konami, but I'm really interested as to what actual team is working on it. It's difficult to read the graphical quality of the game in these small blurry cellphone pics, but it looks like the game isnt using any kind of toon/cel shaders, which I find suprising. I'm grateful thaty they are remaking Turtles in Time, but I really dont want this game to have ugly, low-polygon graphics that are a step down from the vibrant, humorously crafted 2D sprites from the original.

I'm predicting that Turtles in Time will be the crown jewel of Microsoft's XBLA presentation at next months E3. Expect something along the lines of "The original TMNT: Arcade is our top XBLA seller with thousands of fans worldwide. We are pleased to announce today that the games sequel Turtles in Time is also headed to XBLA but with a shelluva twist. The games original 2D graphics have been replayed with stunning 3D HD graphics and will feature additional stages and characters developed exclusively for the XBLA release. When can we expect these Heroes in a Halfshell to return? How about next week?" THE CROWD GOES WILD!

We here at BH HQ will keep you updated and continue to provide commentary on any news developments in regards to this game. Until then, patrol your cities downtown alleys for muggers and dont forget to grab a slice of pepperoni. You cant fight crime without pizza DUDE!

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