We went hands on with Wii U at Manchester's Play Expo! Find out what we thought of it and the event in our latest feature.
We speak with orchestrator and conductor Andrew Skeet on his upcoming album, the Greatest Video Game Music 2, featuring Super Metroid: Symphonic Poem.
We preview Metroid Blast, a mini-game from the upcoming title Nintendo Land. Take a look at Metroid's first outing on Wii U!
Blake Robinson released earlier today his latest project, Super Metroid Symphony. It’s a 30-track album containing orchestrated arrangements of all of Super Metroid’s amazing soundtrack. You can listen to previews from all the tracks at its official website or pick it up for $10 at iTunes or Loudr. Stay tuned for Shinesparkers’ official review of the album next week!
Today also marks the 19th anniversary of Super Metroid’s release in Japan. Cheers for one of the greatest games of all time!
Ryo Nagamatsu, composer for Wii U’s debut game Nintendo Land speaks about his work on Nintendo Land and his approach for each of the twelve attractions, including Metroid Blast. In an interview with Jayson Napolitano at Destructoid, Nagamatsu talks about why he decided on an orchestral approach to the music and how he hopes the music will help players lose themselves in the mini game.
“Metroid Blast is the most complex attraction in Nintendo Land, one that gives you a really full-on action experience. I gave the music an orchestral arrangement for an epic, flamboyant sound, something that made you feel you were playing inside an enormous space.”
“The chorus you hear in the arrangement of Super Metroid’s ‘Lower Norfair’ music is composed entirely with my own voice, without any processing.”
“There’s a lot of original music here, too, songs that retain that grand sort of Metroid impact. I hope it’ll help players really lose themselves as they’re thrown into battle inside this massive space!”
To hear more from Ryo Nagamatsu about his work on Nintendo Land, check out “An aural tour with the composer of Nintendo Land” in a three part interview over at Destructoid!
Source: Destructoid
Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata presented a Nintendo Direct today, announcing new features and games for the company’s current console, the Wii U. One of the announcements was the Wii U Virtual Console, that will allow players to play retro Nintendo titles on the system. While the system won’t be immediately compatible with all existing Wii Virtual Console titles, Nintendo is working on porting all those games forward.
To celebrate the release of the feature as well as the Famicom’s (the Japanese name of Nintendo’s first system) 30th anniversary, Iwata-san announced the Wii U Virtual Console Trial Campaign, which will make one new Virtual Console title available every month from now until July for only 30 cents in the US and 30 pence in the UK. Several NES and SNES games were confirmed for release monthly until then, including the NES game Balloon Fight already available today on the Wii U eShop and, for Metroid fans’ delight, Super Metroid, which will be released in May.
Iwata also confirmed support for other platforms in the future, including the Game Boy Advance, which opens up the opportunity for Metroid Fusion and Metroid: Zero Mission to also appear in the service.
Source: Nintendo Direct
Update: Nintendo has confirmed that Super Metroid will be available at the discounted price from May 15 through June 13. After that, it will be sold for its regular Virtual Console price.
European 3DS owners can now purchase two Metroid games at a reduced price thanks to Nintendo’s Video Game Hero sale. Every week, games in a particular franchise are discounted, and until the 20th December, Metroid NES can be purchased at £3.19 (€3.49) and Metroid II: Return of Samus at £2.69 (€2.99) from the 3DS eShop.
If you haven’t bought these two classic Metroid games yet, be sure to grab them while they’re at this reduced cost!
Wii U, Nintendo’s new home console, was released today in North America. A minigame collection for it, Nintendo Land, also came out today. Nintendo Land features various minigames based on Nintendo series, like Mario, Zelda, Pikmin and, of course, Metroid. Metroid Blast is the featured minigame paying tribute to our favorite series, and more info about it can be read in our feature.
Europe gets the new system on November 30, while Japan has to wait until December 8.
After a year of hard work and dedication by the many musicians and team, Harmony of a Hunter: 101% Run is now available to download completely free! It features 39 tracks by over 30 musicians. Harmony of a Hunter 101% Run is a follow up to Harmony of a Hunter, an album we released last year to mark the 25th anniversary of Metroid.
Harmony of a Hunter: 101% Run was released to mark the 10th anniversaries of Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion, which reach their impressive milestones today. It’s been a lot of fun putting this album together and I want to thank the many musicians, artists and the team as a whole for making this album possible.
Last month we were invited along to Play Expo in Manchester by Replay Events and went hands on with Wii U and upcoming 3DS games such as Paper Mario. I (Darren) had a fantastic time and was really impressed by what I saw from Wii U and the event as a whole. Be sure to check out the full report on Play Expo by clicking the link above!
Our latest feature interview is with Orchestrator and Composer Andrew Skeet, who discusses Super Metroid: A Symphonic Poem on the Greatest Video Game Music 2 album, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Find out what it took to create the piece and working with Nintendo and Kenji Yamamoto to ensure the theme was just right.
Click the image above to go to the article!
Greatest Video Game Music 2 is available to buy from today from various stores.
In an interview to French site Gamekult, Legendary video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, known for creating series like Mario and The Legend of Zelda, expressed his thoughts on Metroid on Nintendo’s new console, Wii U:
You know, the kind of ideas I have on Metroid is already reflected in the mini-game that is devoted to the series in Nintendo Land, Metroid Blast. But more broadly, my reasoning is mainly as follows: the Wii U is an HD console with superior graphics and computing power. So naturally, what you may think, this is a nice action game in HD … (big smile of one who will not say more).
This is not the first time a Nintendo executive talks about the series on the console. Last month, Scott Moffit from Nintendo of America also said how Metroid Blast is to be enjoyed by Metroid fans while the developers think about what can be done in the series on the new system. Perhaps this means some of Metroid Blast’s ideas are going to be seen in the next major Metroid game.
However, Miyamoto isn’t directly involved with the development process of Metroid games, so what he says about the series could be inaccurate.
Source: Gamekult
Your donations feed our pet Ridley... Or if that fails, server costs.
