The Wii U’s eShop presented a strong lineup of five original offerings alongside the system’s launch last year, and in 2013 North American fans have already seen the arrival of Ron Gilbert and Double Fine’s adventure The Cave and Neko Entertainment’s Puddle - the most interesting physics-based, fluid-flowing puzzler outside of Nintendo’s own Fluidity games. In Europe, things have been even better, as Zen Pinball 2 just went live last week.
But those games are just the beginning. 2013 is shaping up to be the strongest, most interesting year for downloadable titles on a Nintendo console since the old Wii Shop Channel first went online back in 2006. Today we’re discussing 10 Wii U downloads that should already be on your wishlist for the year ahead. Let’s dive in!
We’ll kick things off with Zen Pinball 2. This game is pursuing an all-new pricing model that we’ve never seen any other Nintendo downloadable attempt – its revenue will be generated entirely by DLC sales. How it works is that you’ll download the game of Zen Pinball 2 for no cost, and it will present a few timed-demo tables to try out – but then you’ll pay to download each different pinball table you want to play in full.
There will be a huge variety available from the start – 26 tables in total – and the offerings will include everything from Zen’s original efforts like “Shaman” and “Sorcerer’s Lair” to licensed tables like “Plants vs. Zombies” and Marvel Pinball designs (starring everyone from Captain America to the Hulk to Ghost Rider). It’ll be interesting to see how well sales go for Zen with this unique pricing structure. And, hopefully, we in America won’t have to wait much longer to join our European friends in this virtual pinball parlor.
Ken makes people’s heads explode. That’s pretty much the one-sentence pitch for why you’d want to check out the latest Fist of the North Star game, as this is a series that’s been dispensing brutal, over-the-top, ridiculously gory violence across several forms of media since the ‘80s. It debuted as a manga, became an anime, and then the video game adaptations began to arrive – starting with an 8-bit NES title released nearly 24 years ago.
Suffice to say this new Wii U downloadable will offer slightly more detailed visuals than what that first Nintendo cartridge contained in 1989. And you won’t have to wait long to experience it for yourself, either. Ken’s Rage 2 is set to arrive this week in the Wii U eShop in both North America and Europe.
Let’s keep the “2” theme going, shall we? This third direct sequel bound soon for the Wii U eShop serves as a follow-up to an underappreciated gem from way back in 2001. Toki Tori was a Game Boy Color great that didn’t get the attention it deserved (which seems to have been a fate that befell several Game Boy Color titles). The developers at Two Tribes pulled their heroic duck-footed baby chicken hero back out of obscurity in 2008, though, with a more widely disseminated, graphically updated WiiWare port of that original puzzler.
Now, nearly five years since we last saw him (and almost a dozen since his GBC debut) the squat, yellow, puzzle-solving birdbrain is finally getting an all-new adventure. Toki Tori 2 was originally intended to be released before the end of last year, but Two Tribes pulled him back from the brink of release for an extra round of polishing to ensure fans will be nothing but thrilled with this sequel. Like Zen Pinball 2 and Ken’s Rage 2, though, Toki Tori 2 looks poised to actually go live in the eShop very, very soon.
The Bit.Trip series was a set of six retro-styled WiiWare designs that arrived in the Wii Shop over a span of a few years, each one chronicling a piece of the interstellar adventures of the blocky hero CommanderVideo. Almost all of the games adopted entirely different gameplay styles, from a rhythm-based take on Atari’s classic Pong to an auto-scrolling platformer that tasked the Commander to jump and dodge obstacles on a constant run.
And it’s that particular design, Bit.Trip Runner, that is being sequelized here. The gameplay is built on the same foundation of continuously running to the right and dodging obstructions along the way, but the overall presentation and graphics are wildly updated compared to the blocky, low-res look of the original. The developers at Gaijin Games have been maintaining an interesting development blog as the game has been in the works throughout the past year or so, and below you can get an insightful glimpse into their art process.
Runner 2 has been submitted to Nintendo for the final checking and testing process, so we should be seeing it go on sale very, very soon too.
Two Brothers is the new Wii U eShop adventure in the works at AckkStudios that tells the tale of a pair of siblings who dabble in death. Usually, in video games, dying means you’ve failed. You’re sent back to a checkpoint, forced to reload an old save or just given a “Game Over” before the title screen reappears. But in Two Brothers, death is just another game mechanic – you’ll sometimes kill your main character on purpose solely to travel to the Afterlife. So death’s not a failure at all, just a necessary means of transportation from this world to the next.
Since getting killed isn’t such a big deal, the Living World and the Afterlife are visually separated to help keep the two realms separate – and it’s a nostalgic Nintendo nod. The starting world is rendered in the monochromatic green color scheme of the oldest Game Boy hardware, while full color comes into play only after you cross from life to death.
There are certainly many more mysteries to explore in this original adventure from AckkStudios, and Wii U eShop owners will get to meet the Two Brothers sometime later in 2013. And Ackk’s already planning another Wii U eShop project beyond this one – a new RPG they say is inspired by the EarthBound series. Sounds like something true Nintendo fans will definitely want to keep an eye on.
Source : ign[dot]com
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