Crispy Gamer News

The wait is over as the classic Tecmo football game is reborn as a DS exclusive. Tecmo has released Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff for Nintendo DS. Based on the popular cult classic Tecmo Super Bowl , Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff adapts that game’s old-school style and revitalizes it for a newer generation of gamers. The classic, over-the-top, all-American football game enables players of all levels to engage in a fun filled, fast paced, arcade style of football - and it does it without the need for an NFL license. Take that, Madden.

Tecmo Bowl Kickoff lets players customize their team with team colors, emblems, player names, team cities and abilities; offers Wi-Fi and Wireless multiplayer a choice of 32 different teams, tactical use of the abilities, stylus control, a customizable playbook to fool around with, and a unique soundtrack to crack skulls to.

Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff is rated “E” by the ESRB and carries a suggested retail price of US $29.99.

Tecmo this week revealed its holiday lineup as we inch closer and closer to the most lucrative shopping season of the year. with that in mind, Tecmo wants to get the word out on what it will have on store shelves when the Christmas shopping season begins in late November.

On October 28 the company will release Robocalypse, a real-time strategy game for the DS featuring robot armies equipped with unique weaponry and a twisted sense of humor. SPRay will also be released on October 28 for the Wii, giving gamers an action-platformer game experience packed with puzzle elements and a unique gameplay element that requires you to spray your way out of trouble.

The return of Tecmo Bowl will be realized with the release of Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff for the DS in November, while Rygar makes his return to the world of videogames in December on the Wii with Rygar: The Battle of Argus.

Look for all these games later this year before Santa trespasses on your private property. I warned you old man, stay out of my house or there will be blood..

Microsoft says that TECMO/Team NINJA’s Ninja Gaiden II for the Xbox 360 has sold over one million units worldwide. Not too shabby. One million fans have made the jump to the 360 to join Ryu Hayabusa in his epic quest to avenge his clan and prevent the destruction of the human race. In just a little over two months since its release in June 2008, Ninja Gaiden II has sold over one million copies worldwide on Xbox 360 and currently enjoys an average critics’ rating of 81 out of 100, according to Metacritic. Yeah, the whole Metacritic thing is real important. Right. Yeah.

Ninja Gaiden II is rated “M” for Metacritic’s approval. Check out the review that didn’t make it into metacritic - ours!

If you’ve bought Ninja Gaiden II for Xbox 360 and have already breezed through its original missions then you may be happy to hear that 25 new missions are on the way today. Woo Hoo! These new missions will be divided into two sets of missions: Karma and Survival. Survival missions are fast paced affairs where you must survive an ever-increasing onslaught of bad guys using only one weapon. Karma missions challenge players to get highest score possible.

All of these can be yours for 800 MS Points beginning today on Xbox Live Marketplace. Enjoy.

Hudson Entertainment is bringing Fishing Master World Tour to the Wii in Winter 2009, the company announced this week at E3. If you are going to do a fishing game, the Wii is probably the best platform to do it on, no? The game will be published by Konami in North America.
Sequel to Fishing Master, this new Hudson game comes with over 200 different types of
fish to catch and enables players to catch fish in their native waters around the world in forty different locations inside seven different regions.

Players use the Wii Remote and Nunchuk to battle fish; pull the Wii Remote left and right as the fish fights you from the end of the line and adjust your drag to avoid breaking your line.

Other promises? Four person multiplayer modes, boss battles (catch rare fish with unique boss battle
controls), a Trolling mode (offshore boat fishing), Wi-Fi Laddering (lets players compete online against others), new local multiplayer battle modes and more. Of course, you could just go outside and catch a real fish, but that would probably be too easy. just saying.

Tecmo today released details on its line-up of games to be shown off next week at E3. The company best known for the Ninja Gaiden series plans to revamp a classic, spray a little sunshine and let an army of robots loose. Good times, good times.

Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff, a remake of the classic and popular football game will be shown off in all its glory. Some of the features that will be shown off include customizable teams, super abilities, 32 different teams, Wi-Fi and multiplayer support, and of course - stylus-centric controls.

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A quick check of the calendar shows that it’s the weekend, which means it’s time for all of you out there in Gamer Land to get caught up on the tidbits of news you might have missed this week on the Crispy Gamer site. I’ll be your tour guide once again this week, as we board the recap trolley, so buckle up boys and girls and be sure to keep your hands and feet securely inside the ride. And away we go ?

• Microsoft’s Answer to Miis Coming This Holiday?The week started off on an interesting note, with more leaks than a screen door on a submarine, thanks to a screw-up at market research firm Intellisponse. Apparently, the firm failed to securely stash away some material, which seemingly raised the curtain on a number of different project ideas being bounced around at Microsoft and Activision. One of these leaks pointed to an upcoming avatar service on Xbox LIVE, complete with a screenshot that some outlets say has a very Mii-ish feel.

  Okay, I’ve got a couple of issues with this one. For starters, all the news being reported is based on a leaked marketing report. That’s like handing out an Oscar based strictly on a spec script. The project may never see the light of day, and even if it does, there’s nothing saying the final product is going to look anything like the screenshot. Which leads me to issue number two ?

  Don’t get me wrong, I think the Wii’s Mii avatars are cute and entertaining and all of that, but since when did Nintendo invent the idea of 3D avatars? These things have been around for more than a decade, even before Nintendo fans were playing on their Nintendo 64s. Now, does that mean there’s not some correlation between Microsoft working on an avatar system and the success of the Wii’s Mii feature? Of course not. But doesn’t Nintendo’s WiiWare service seem more than a little similar to Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE Arcade? MS Points, Wii Points. Second Life, Home. Pok?mon, Digimon. Yeah, for good or for ill, people borrow ideas from each other, but people tend to forget that just because you’re the most popular fad at the moment doesn’t necessarily mean you came up with the idea first.

• EA Extends Take-Two Offer… AgainHave you ever seen the movie Groundhog Day? You know, the one were Bill Murray keeps reliving the same day over and over? Well, taking a look at the latest in the whole EA/Take-Two takeover brouhaha, I can’t help but feel like I’ve been through all of this before.In case you missed this news the last, oh, half a dozen times or so it’s already happened, EA’s deadline passed this weekend for Take-Two stockholders to accept its offer to buy their shares of the company for $25.74 per share. Once again, EA decided out of the goodness of its heart (or maybe just a wee bit of desperation) to go ahead and extend its offer for another month. And, like clockwork, Take-Two dished out a statement of its own saying, essentially, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  Right about now, you’ve got to be wondering when EA’s going to give up on trying to acquire Take-Two and just move on. It’s kind of pointless to draw a line in the sand when everyone is pretty sure you’re just going to erase it and draw a new one. Anyone want to take bets on what’s going to happen on July 18th, when the NEXT deadline passes?

• Tecmo’s Overtime BluesTecmo’s hit some hard times in recent weeks. First there was Tomonobu Itagaki’s abrupt departure from the company and the Team Ninja studio he helped to make famous. Now comes word that Itagaki isn’t’ the only one taking Tecmo to task, as two more Team Ninja members have filed suit against the company, echoing Itagaki’s claim that Tecmo withheld large amounts of overtime pay and other promised compensation.Why does this story seem to carry that feeling of d?j? vu? Oh, now I remember. It wasn’t that long ago that it was Electronic Arts that was under fire for unpaid overtime and the like. Well, it’s nice to see that issues like that this aren’t limited to our little corner of the globe. Hey, I’m not going to make assumptions here as to who’s right, who’s wrong, who’s being honest, and whose pants are on fire. One thing I will say though is that, if the allegations are true, it’s a pretty piss poor way to treat the guys ultimately responsible for getting the publishers all those millions of dollars they’re rolling around in. C’mon Scrooge, loosen the purse strap just a bit and let all the Bob Cratchits of the video game world have a decent Christmas turkey for once.
• Puzo Estate Wants The Godfather Game ResidualsIt looks like the estate of Mario Puzo, the author and creator of the Godfather series, is trying to make Paramount an offer they can’t refuse. Word came out this week that the Puzo estate is seeking about $1 million in compensation for Paramount’s licensing of the Godfather property to Electronic Arts for video games based on the hit flicks. The suit cites a 1992 agreement between the Puzo estate and Paramount which apparently laid out just how any revenue from the property would be divvied up.While Electronic Arts isn’t directly involved in the lawsuit, I can already hear the chuckles from the peanut gallery. Something about the idea of an EA game based on a mafia story supposedly cheating someone out of money might seem ironic to a lot of people. Me? I just want to know how in the hell the game made more than a million bucks. If that’s the case, whose bed to I need to leave a dead 360 in to get my sixty bucks back?
• Wisconsin Courts Game DevelopersThink fast. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Wisconsin? The Green Bay Packers. Cheese. Video games. Wait ? video games? That’s right. If the state has its way, Wisconsin could soon be known as much for its game development as it is for its football team or lactose tolerance. The state recently expanded its Wisconsin Film Incentive to include giving game developers as much as a 25 percent tax break for eligible productions. This comes just after Georgia unveiled an incentive plan of its own meant to court game developers.While the state isn’t exactly a stranger to game development, it’s not really a bustling hub of activity either. I can’t help but imagine taking a leisurely drive through the Badger State only to see herds of game developers grazing in large open fields before buttering up some publisher and churning out yet another cheesy title sure to milk gamers out of their hard earned cash. The idea kind of sours in the stomach ? much like all of these dairy puns.

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