Nintendo recently put out the Metroid Prime Trilogy for the Wii -- a three-pack of some of Nintendo's most adult games, and likely one of the best gaming values this side of the Orange Box. But now fans have noticed that the Trilogy version of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption isn't quite how they remember it; GoNintendo reports that Nintendo may have chosen to censor certain aspects of Metroid Prime 3.
Specifically, GoNintendo cites a YouTube video of a cutscene from Corruption, during which the Admiral Dane character originally says, "Damn! They're targeting the planetary-defense system," only to be replaced in Metroid Prime Trilogy with a re-dubbed, "No! They're targeting the planetary-defense system."
It's not exactly clear why Nintendo would make such minor changes to the dialog in Corruption -- or if they altered any other parts of the game, for that matter. All three Metroid Prime games sported Teen ratings from the ESRB back when they were released, and so does this new compilation. Is a single instance of a relatively mild swear word really worth correcting?
Imagine the sort of mental fortitude it would take to play through each of the seven main Mario games -- Super Mario Bros., SMB2, SMB3, Super Mario World, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy -- with no breaks, and not just to the end, but also until achieving 100 percent completion of every title. We imagine you'd have to be a little insane to attempt it, which the men behind this Mario Marathon may be. But they're also generous, as the whole ordeal is being held to raise money for Penny Arcade's annual Child's Play charity.
The players include Brian "Shirt Guy" Brinegar, John "Couch Guy" Groth, and Chris "Slouch Guy" Deckard (nicknames are their own), and a live stream of the event can be seen at their website (if indeed watching some guys playing through various Mario games is your idea of a good time). But that website is also where you go to make a donation, and so far they've raised a remarkable $16,306, all of which will go to the Child's Play charity to benefit children hospitals around the world.
It looks like they're well on pace to reaching their donation goals for each challenge, with the ultimate goal being $98,304. The challenges include beating each game, then completing 100 percent in each game -- meaning completing every level and obtaining every star, including replaying Super Mario Galaxy as Luigi as well. They've already been at it for over two days, and as of this writing, they're still only making their way to completing Super Mario 64 with 100 percent.
We spoke with No More Heroes creator Goichi Suda (a.k.a. Suda 51) early on at the Nordic Game Conference in Malmö, Sweden, but when it came time for his scheduled presentation, titled "The Birth of No More Heroes," we made sure to be in attendance. Luckily, it didn't disappoint, as Suda delivered a multimedia presentation of the many diverse films that inspired some of his games -- most notably last year's No More Heroes.
Suda started by noting a couple of key films that inspired previous works. His 1999 import-only PSone adventure, The Silver Case (currently being remade for the DS), was inspired by Nouvelle Vague, a 1990 French film directed by Jean-Luc Godard about a female hitchhiker taken in by a rich man. He later took inspiration from the 1973 Japanese yakuza film Battles without Honor or Humanity: Hiroshima Deathmatch for one of his best-known titles, 2005's Killer 7.
Those who like fun might remember a PS2/Xbox/GameCube shooter called Metal Arms: Glitch in the System. It was an impressive debut from then-startup developer Swingin' Ape Studios, but it didn't sell very well, and when Blizzard ended up purchasing Swingin' Ape a couple of years later, it seemed like we'd seen the end of the Metal Arms franchise.
As it turns out, that might not be true. Don't get your hopes up too high, because it still looks like an extreme long shot, but in an interview with 1UP earlier this week, former Swingin' Ape head (and current president of Specular Interactive, a new developer working on a Hydro Thunder spiritual sequel called H2Overdrive) mentioned that he was interested in acquiring the rights to the series and would "absolutely" be interested in making a sequel if he had the opportunity.
So it's about as far as these things can be from being confirmed, but fun to think about!
Publishers are increasingly paying attention to videogame reviews and aggregate scores, but Ubisoft CEO Alain Martinez feels the importance of them is sometimes overrated. Gamasutra reports that at the UBS Annual Global Media Conference, Martinez remarked that historically, ratings haven't correlated with sales numbers for the company. "When Assassin's Creed launched and got 82 percent, we were desperate, and we thought we were going to die," he said. Now in hindsight, we know the game has seen financial success both during launch and in the long term. "If you look at our first Prince of Persia [The Sands of Time], we thought it was going to do great, [but] it only did two million, so we were kind of disappointed." Sands of Time, of course, was a critical darling but failed to catch a wide market.
Regarding more recent releases, he commented that he hopes the new Prince of Persia will hit about three million, saying four or five million would be ideal to have a strong hit. The company was also hoping for a stronger debut of Far Cry 2, and is now counting on it becoming a slow burn through the next several months to reach about three million units.
Both the new Prince of Persia and Far Cry 2 have scored in the mid-to-high eighties on Metacritic, which is only slightly higher than Assassin's Creed. Reviews and rankings may be less of an issue than publishers sometimes think, but Far Cry 2 didn't have the explosive opening month the company hoped for. We'll have to wait for next month's NPD data to see if the Prince achieves the success of his little brother, Altair.
