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This week’s North American Nintendo Downloads are as follows:

Wii U Download

F1 Race Stars Powered Up Edition – $29.99
Unepic – $9.99

Wii U Virtual Console

Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest – $4.99

3DS Virtual Console

Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest – $4.99

eShop sale

Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl – Want to start off your year with a stellar adventure? Grab your map and prepare yourself. Atlus’ Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl is $20 off in the Nintendo eShop on Nintendo 3DS from Jan. 20 to Jan. 27.

Source: Nintendo PR

This month’s digital rewards on Club Nintendo have gone live. Members can choose from Game & Watch: Cement Factory (3DS, 100 coins), Spin Six (3DS, 150 coins), F-Zero (Wii U, 200 coins), and 1080 Snowboarding (Wii U, 200 coins). These items last through February 9.

Visit this page to order a downloadable game.

This week’s European Nintendo Downloads are as follows:

Wii U Download

Dr. Luigi – €14.99 / £13.49
F1 Race Stars: Powered Up Edition – €24.99 / £19.99

Wii U Virtual Console

The Legend of the Mystical Ninja – €7.99 / £5.49

3DS Retail

Mario Party: Island Tour – €39.99 / £34.99 (available Jan. 17)

3DS Virtual Console

Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest – €3.99 / £3.59

Special Offers

Trine 2: Director’s Cut – €6.79 / £5.49 until Jan. 30 (was €16.99 / £13.99)
Dress to Play: Magic Bubbles – €0.99 / £0.89 until Feb. 6 (was €3.99 / £3.59)
Dress to Play: Cute Witches – €0.99 / £0.89 until Feb. 6 (was €3.99 / £3.59)

Source: Nintendo PR

Screen Shot 2014-01-10 at 1.26.18 AM

The preceding image and message were passed along by Sakurai in the Super Smash Bros. series director’s room on Miiverse.

Disclaimer for all study-based posts: This is not meant to be taken as positive or negative, nor is it wholly conclusive. It’s an intriguing set of data with which you can do what you please– not a moral conclusion in and of itself.

Researchers at something called the “Nottingham Trent University International Gaming Research Unit” have gathered data leading to an interesting observation: A portion of gamers experience minor visual/aural alterations to reality after playing games for an extended period of time, presumably 4+ hours straight. These alterations are called similar to hallucinations but not entirely the same thing.

The study covered 483 gamers and “656 experiences” that were gathered via online forums, and did not include a psychological profile of players. Researchers say that, after playing for long periods of time, some gamers continued to “see” (in a non-literal sense, of course) elements of the game that in some cases prevented them from sleeping or caused strange behavior. The professor of psychology at Nottingham Trent admitted that the study was not necessarily representative of gaming as a whole, but finds it interesting nonetheless.

Read more about the study over at Gamespot.


This week’s North American Nintendo Downloads are as follows:

Wii U Download

  • Cocoto Magic Circus 2
  • – $29.99

Wii U Virtual Console

  • Gradius – $4.99

3DS Download

  • Chibi-Robo! Photo Finder – $9.99

3DS Demo

  • Jump Trials Supreme

Sales

  • Aqua Moto Racing 3D (Nintendo eShop on Nintendo 3DS) – Sale: 25 percent off until Jan. 23
  • Darts Up 3D (Nintendo eShop on Nintendo 3DS) – Sale: More than 50 percent off until Jan. 30
  • Code of Princess (Nintendo eShop on Nintendo 3DS) – Sale: More than 30 percent off from Jan. 13 to Jan. 20
  • Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan (Nintendo eShop on Nintendo 3DS) – Sale: More than 30 percent off from Jan. 13 to Jan. 20
  • Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers (Nintendo eShop on Nintendo 3DS) – Sale: More than 30 percent off from Jan. 13 to Jan. 20

Source: Nintendo PR

Over the past few years, Nintendo fans have seen Next Level Games’ work in a number of prominent titles. The studio has produced Super Mario Strikers, Mario Strikers Charged, Punch-Out!!, and Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon within the last decade.

Next Level hasn’t always worked exclusively on Nintendo products, however. The team has previously churned out titles like Spider-Man: Friend or Foe and Ghost Recon on Wii.

But things have changed. Next Level doesn’t intend to work on games for companies besides Nintendo – at least for the foreseeable future – with co-founder Jason Carr telling Gamasutra: “We are doing only Nintendo products now.”

Carr also spoke with the site about Next Level’s relationship with Nintendo:

With The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Nintendo took a SNES classic and made it completely new again. Yet even though there’s a lot that’s new in the game – new dungeons, a new item system, and more – it also uses A Link to the Past as a base.

Could A Link Between Worlds set a new standard? What if Nintendo were to return to the core/basic elements of its other franchises and put a new spin on them?

When Game Informer asked Zelda: A Link Between Worlds director Hiromasa Shikata if he believes Nintendo is more interested in revisiting the structure/perspective of classic SNES games such as Metroid or Star Fox, he said:

It’s an honor that people consider the game to be a success. When we make a game we often start by thinking of the basic system and letting that in turn determine a suitable setting. If there’s something fitting for the basic Star Fox and Metroid formula then I think we’ll be able to develop something. On this title, if we hadn’t come up with the idea of going into the walls at the beginning and instead thought of something new which had the player curling up into a ball, we might have ended up with Metroid, not Zelda.

Source

If you happen to have a 3DS with v4.5 firmware or older, you might just be able to avoid the system’s region lock. Some folks over at GBAtemp have created a workaround that allows for games in different regions to be successfully booted.

All you need is a DS or 3DS flashcard, which runs a special patched launcher file. The code modifies your system to load cartridges from other regions. Once completed, more recent firmware can be installed to play imported games that require it.

Keep in mind that this method is not at related to piracy. Users can only play retail games – not ROMs – that have been purchased legally.

You can find more information about the workaround here.

Source
Image source

This week’s European Nintendo Downloads are as follows:

Wii U Virtual Console

Contra III: The Alien Wars (US version) – €7.99 / £5.49

3DS Retail

Cooking Mama 4 – €29.99 / £24.99

3DS Download

KORG M01D – €24.99

3DS Virtual Console

Mario Bros. – €4.99 / £4.49

Special Offers

MYST – €9.99 / £8.99 until January 31; regularly €13.99 / £12.99
Aqua Moto Racing 3D – €5.99 / £5.39 until January 23; regularly €7.99 / £7.19

Permanent Price Reductions

Gabrielle’s Ghostly Groove 3D – €3.99 / £3.59; was €13.99 / £12.59
Tangram Style – €2.99 / £2.69; was €5.99 / £5.39


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