What's new April 2nd, 2008

Misc notes (misc ramblings found at the end of this listing)

Small update, just a few games each for a variety of systems.



Send all questions, order requests, etc. to:
matt@wolfgames.com

Nintendo DS game (new)

Art Truck Legend Black Spike continues the series on the DS Racing $49

Sony PSP games (new)

Moegaku @ Portable An English-learning magical girl adventure Adventure $49
Mugen Kairou (JPN 'Echochrome') Kike a M.C. Escher videogame Act/Puz $39
Star Ocean 1: First Departure Remake of the PS1 RPG RPG $49
Umi Hara Kawase Portable Remake of the PS1 game w/extra levels Action $44

PC-Engine hucard (used)

Tricky (JPN Tricky Kick) Boxyboy/Sokoban style, but better Puzzle $14

PC-Engine Super CD (new)

Builder Land SCD, French-made act/puz game Act/RPG $9

PC-Engine CDs, Super CDs (used)

Shin Megami Tensei SCD, stylish RPG by Atlus RPG $19

Sega Saturn games (used)

Decathlete (JPN version) Very much 'Track & Field' style in 3D Action $7
G-Vector Tough sci-fi 'panzer-dragoon' like game 3D shooter $59

Playstation 2 game (used)

Psyvariar 2: Ultimate Final Vertical shooter with 'special capture' DVD Shooter $54

Playstation 1 game (used)

Pulirula w/ mini-strategy guide Cartoony action/beat-em-up Action $24

Mega Drive game (used)

Rainbow Islands Extra Pen-tip size puncture on side (see scan) Arcade $44

Super Famicom games (used)

Super Bomberman 4 Neatest 'new' idea: pushing other players Action $39
Twinbee Rainbow Bell Adventure One of the best mario-world type games Action $44

Miscallaneous (Music CD)

Music CD: Metal Slug 5 Soundtrack (new) Not a wide release, mainly direct-only Music CD $29

Misc. rambling by Matt

Well, still playing a lot of 8-bit Famicom stuff. One neat series of videos on youtube is going through showing footage of *every* official JPN Famicom game (1252 of them). Theres about 50 per video, and he's doing them in order of release date, with the first 8 videos (400 games) done. His youtube page (that also has a couple other stuff, like a 'every famicom game title screen' video):
DragonScreen2301's mostly-Famicom related youtube videos

Moving onto my opinions on more recent stuff:

PSP Umi Hara Kawase: I really like this port. Yes, there's video showing bugs from the demo up on youtube, and while in even the final game the occasional physics oddity can be made to happen, this is something that only happens once every few games... and while the rope physics are a bit different than before, I made it pretty far through the game and did all sorts of difficult jumps almost more easily than before. Also, the sharp graphics and widescreen presentation is nice; this isn't a lazy "stretch and zoom the graphics" port like so many others got.

Wii House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return: Nice ports, but the Japanese version (in particular the one that comes with the zapper) is a bit spendy. Not sure if its worth the JPN retail price for me, but the cheaper US version is good for those with US Wiis.

DS Ys, Ys 2: The only flaws: Price, and no voice (moreover, it has that annoying "speaking sound effect" as you skip through text). The graphics are good, I'm fine with the controls/gameplay, and theres almost no loss of quality in the music. But it *is* 4800yen or so each for games that were released as a 2-in-1 over 15 years ago on the PC-Engine.

DS Famulator Lite: A non-licensed device to allow you to play Famicom games on the DS. Very poor video output that comes off almost like an mpeg-compressed picture on your DS. Text is very hard to read. Some games, like Lolo that otherwise play fine are annoying because its near impossible to read the passwords. Still, at least it's worked with every game I've played on it. I'll just keep mine for the novelty.