Most Recent: Wii U
Yacht Club will also release Amiibo figures for King Knight, Specter Knight, Plague Knight
In addition to unveiling the first gameplay footage from Shovel Knight: King of Cards, Nintendo and Yacht Club Games announced that a new Amiibo 3-Pack featuring King Knight, Specter Knight, and Plague Knight will soon be available.
Tapping each Order of No Quarter member will unlock “exclusive armor sets, new Challenge stages, and the ability to summon fairy companions to accompany players on quests” in Shovel Knight. You can get a look at the new figures in the GameGrumps-produced trailer embedded above.
Shovel Knight: King of Cards will be available to download for the 3DS, Wii U, and Switch in Early 2018. The Amiibo 3-Pack doesn’t currently have a release date, but presumably it’ll appear in stores around the same time.
Nintendo Download: Lego Worlds, RBI Baseball 2017, Azure Striker Gunvolt Pack, more
Side-scroll into this week’s Nintendo eShop update, which includes several new games for the Nintendo Switch…
Inti Creates originally released Azure Striker Gunvolt and Azure Striker Gunvolt 2 on the 3DS, and now the side-scrolling platformers have made their way to the Switch in a single package. The Azure Striker Gunvolt: Striker Pack includes higher resolution graphics, improved framerates, HD Rumble support, Pro Controller support, and all previously-released downloadable content.
Looking further out, WB Games will release Lego Worlds for the Switch on Tuesday. Players will get the chance to rebuild the world in a Minecraft-like sandbox made entirely out of Lego bricks.
Finally, Switch owners will be able to step up to the plate in RBI Baseball 2017 on Tuesday. RBI Baseball 2017 will feature 30 authentic ballparks and advanced stat tracking in a retro-styled package.
You can learn more about all of these games (and a few other new releases) after the break. (more…)
Splatoon 2 is swimming in green ink as the best-selling game from July 2017
The first year for Nintendo’s Switch continues to go swimmingly, and another exclusive release for the console has claimed the top spot in The NPD Group’s monthly tally of best-selling games.
Splatoon 2 was the top-selling game in July, beating out Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy (#2) and a resurgent Grand Theft Auto V (#3). Three other Switch games managed to crack the Top 20, including The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (#5), Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (#7), and Arms (#17).
According to GamesIndustry.biz, the Switch was also the best-selling console in July. Nintendo’s new device is so popular that it helped push monthly sales to $588 million, a 19% increase over July 2016.
The remainder of the Top 20 was made up of the usual suspects, including Tom Clancy games (Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege at #9 and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands at #11) and three Call of Duty games (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered at #12, Call of Duty: Black Ops III at #13, and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare at #15).
The NPD’s complete “Top 20 Best-Selling Games” from July 2017 can be found after the break. (more…)
Nintendo Download: Flip Wars, Severed, Sonic Mania (Tuesday), more
Nintendo has made the Switch a very indie-friendly place to be since the console’s launch in March, but things are getting even friendlier with this week’s Nintendo eShop update…
Flip Wars, that adorable tile-flipping game from the Switch’s first Nindies Showcase, is now available to download. Up to four players will attempt to push out their friends by grabbing powerups and flipping tiles in local, online, or single-player battles.
Also available to download this week is Severed, the wild touchscreen-based dungeon crawler from DrinkBox Studios. Severed was originally released for the Vita, Wii U, and DS in 2016, and it can only be played using the Switch’s Handheld Mode.
Elsewhere on the Switch eShop, console owners will find Phantom Trigger, a neon-fused hack and slash from TinyBuild; and Ironcast, a turn-based strategy game from Ripstone.
Finally this week, Sega will release the indie-inspired Sonic Mania for the Switch on Tuesday, August 15. Developed by a “supergroup” of indie developers lead by Christian “Taxman” Whitehead and Simon “Headcannon” Thomley, Sonic Mania will take the Blue Blur back to his 16-bit roots.
You can learn more about all of these titles (and a few other new releases) after the break. (more…)
The Video Game Canon: Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!
Dig deeper into the Video Game Canon with a look at how the real person at the center of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! changed sports games and how Little Mac’s cartoonish opponents did as well. Here’s a teaser…
“They say I can’t lose. I say you can’t win!”
– Mike Tyson, to Little Mac, in 1987’s Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!
“There’s no one that can match me. My style is impetuous, my defense is impregnable, and I’m just ferocious. I want your heart! I want to eat his children!”
– Mike Tyson, about Lennox Lewis, in 2000
In the 13 years between those two quotes, Mike Tyson went from being the face of boxing (and Nintendo’s best-selling Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!) to becoming a punchline for late night comedians. In between, he was convicted of sexual assault in 1992 and bit off a part of Evander Holyfield’s ear in 1997.
From that moment on, Tyson would fit right in with the cartoon characters that made up the undercard to his eponymous game. After his retirement from the ring, Tyson would remake himself as something of a gentle giant, constantly tending to the pigeons he kept on the roof of his apartment building. His later decision to act in absurdist comedies like The Hangover and Mike Tyson Mysteries (an animated Scooby-Doo parody where Tyson is assisted by the ghost of the Marquess of Queensberry) just cemented it.
But the Mike Tyson of 1987 was cartoonish in a different way. The boxing prodigy known to the world as “Iron Mike” and “Kid Dynamite” demolished his opponents in ways that the sport hasn’t seen since. His first professional fight was over in less than two minutes. His next fight lasted a mere 52 seconds, while his fourth required only 39. And in 1986, Tyson knocked out Marvis Frazier in a little over 20 seconds, though an appeal changed the official time of the bout to 30 seconds.
“The Dream Fight” in Punch-Out!! was just as brutal. Tyson deals instant-knockdown uppercuts towards the game’s diminutive hero, Little Mac, for the first minute and a half of this epic boss battle. “Iron Mike” follows that up with a series of hooks that are so fast, it’s hard to keep up. In the second round, a series of ferocious jabs eventually give way to a wild combination of punches that are telegraphed by rapid-fire blinking. With bleary eyes and weary thumbs, hopefully you’ve figured out that the best strategy for fighting the champ is to just survive to the end of the third round and hope for a favorable decision.
Visit VideoGameCanon.com to continue reading this article and to explore the complete Top 1000.
Nintendo Download: Retro City Rampage DX, Infinite Minigolf, Strikers 1945, more
The Nintendo Switch is getting a dose of retro nostalgia in this week’s Nintendo Download… specifically the release of Vblank’s Retro City Rampage DX. Retro City Rampage DX is a dual parody of top-down open world games and ridiculously elaborate crime movies from the 80s that features a full Story Mode and Arcade Challenges for “quick pick-up-and-play action.”
Seven other games are also available to download for the Switch this week including Infinite Minigolf, a neverending game of miniature golf from Zen Studios; Strikers 1945, a vertically-scrolling shooter from Psikyo set in World War II; Gunbarich, a puzzle shooter also by Psikyo; Use Your Words, a comedic party game for unfunny people; Slime-San, a side-scroller that takes place within the belly of a giant worm; and Puzzle Adventure Blockle, a puzzle game that asks players to rotate the world.
You can learn more about all of these games (and a few other new releases for the 3DS and Wii U) after the break. (more…)
Yacht Club will bring Shovel Knight’s King Knight campaign to PAX West 2017
Ready Thy Shovel!
Yacht Club Games has announced that Shovel Knight‘s final expansion/spinoff, the King Knight campaign, will be unveiled during this year’s PAX West expo:
You are hereby invited to join us on a royal adventure!
We'll be at PAX West Sep. 1st-4th with King Knight in our most glamorous game yet! pic.twitter.com/hsw70KH6Ib
— Yacht Club Games (@YachtClubGames) August 1, 2017
Yacht Club’s Nick Wozniak recently described King Knight’s campaign as “light-hearted” and “goofy,” so it likely won’t be as sad as Specter of Torment.
Shovel Knight’s King Knight campaign is expected to launch later this year, and will be available as a free expansion for all owners of the Treasure Trove bundle for the 3DS, PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Vita, Xbox One, and mobile devices. The regal adventure will also be available as a standalone download on the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
Nintendo Download: Namco Museum, Hey! Pikmin, Miitopia, more
This week’s Nintendo Download is jam-packed full of new games, so let’s take a look…
First up, Bandai Namco will bring Namco Museum to the Switch this Friday. The compilation of arcade classics includes Pac-Man, Galaga, Splatterhouse, and Dig-Dug, as well as Pac-Man Vs. Switch owners will also get the chance to download Overcooked: Special Edition this week. Four cooks must band together to produce a series of tasty meals from the original game and both expansions.
And over on the 3DS, Nintendo themselves will launch a pair of new games… Hey! Pikmin and Miitopia. Hey! Pikmin is the first Pikmin game for the 3DS, as well as the first side-scrolling game in the series. And Miitopia is a colorful RPG featuring Miis based on your favorite people.
More information on all of these games (and the rest of this week’s releases) can be found after the break. (more…)