Art of Balance and FAST Racing Neo are using Shin’en’s second-gen Wii U engine
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 4 Comments
Several months ago, Shin’en revealed that the company was hard at work on its second-generation engine for Wii U. Both of the studio’s upcoming titles for the console – Art of Balance and FAST Racing Neo – are taking advantage of the upgraded tech, Manfred Linzer confirmed to us.
Linzer, CEO of Shin’en, said that the two games are actually just using “a subset of our new engine”. However, “we are pretty happy with the results,” he told us.
Linzer explained, “With FRN we wanted to get more realism. That was not possible with our old tech. So we implemented a lot of new stuff that allows us to get there. We are still learning but we think we are on a good way to create a really special Wii U game.”
While Art of Balance and FAST Racing Neo are taking advantage of the new engine, “Art of Balance is more on the ‘stylized’ side and FAST more on the realism side.”
We are sworn to secrecy regarding the engine’s capabilities, but know that Shin’en has managed to implement a number of improvements and a few new graphical effects. Some of these were previously used “in an ad hoc way, and not in a unified system.” According to Linzer, “Now everything blends nicely together which we need to get on a new level.”
More: Art of Balance, FAST Racing Neo, Manfred Linzer, Shin'en, top
GameStop ad (4/2 – 4/8)
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Images, Wii U | 0 comments
This week’s GameStop ad has gone live. You can find it in full below.
Miiverse receives another update, lets you see all popular posts without NNID
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 1 Comment
Miiverse has received another small update today. Two small changes have been first.
First, users will now be directed to the Communities screen when logging in to Miiverse on the web. Second, those without Nintendo Network IDs can now view all popular posts as well as comments on those posts.
Here’s the official update news from Miiverse’s Marty:
More: Miiverse, Nintendo Network ID, title update
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze updated to version 1.1.0
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 1 Comment
Update: Fixes a bug within the game:
Fixes an issue where, upon completing level 3-3 – Frantic Fields, the path to level 3-4 – Scorch ‘n’ Torch would not open up, preventing players from proceeding with the game
Original: Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze has received a new update: version 1.1.0. Thing is, we’re not quite sure what it does at present! If we obtain any information, we’ll update this post.
Media Create hardware sales (3/24 – 3/30)
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Wii U | 60 Comments
The latest Japanese hardware sales from Media Create are as follows:
3DS LL – 52,124
Vita – 39,752
PS4 – 23,327
PS3 – 17,154
Wii U – 13,026
3DS – 12,508
PSP – 4,206
Vita TV – 2,115
Xbox 360 – 304
For comparison’s sake, here are the hardware numbers from last week:
Vita – 35,374
PS4 – 30,201
3DS LL – 28,291
PS3 – 15,455
3DS – 11,985
Wii U – 9,982
PSP – 3,563
Vita TV – 1,754
Xbox 360 – 288
More: charts, Japan, Media Create, sales, top
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U screenshot (4/2/14) – Gust Bellows
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Screenshots, Wii U | 1 Comment
Along with today’s screenshot, Sakurai passed along the following message on Miiverse:
The Gust Bellows can blow opponents away with its powerful wind blasts. When someone drops it, though, the gusts run wild! Out of the new items, more than a few will be from The Legend of Zelda series. We’ll take the most interesting and straightforward ones and reformulate them to match the Smash Bros. world.
Peter Moore apologizes for “unacceptable” April Fools’ tweets made on Frostbite account poking fun at Wii U
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 46 Comments
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a big fan of April Fools. That’s one of the many reasons why we shy away from posting related content each year.
That said, one attempted April Fools’ joke did spiral a bit out of control earlier today, and developed into a more mainstream piece of news worth covering.
Essentially, a few tweets were posted on EA’s official Frostbite Engine Twitter account earlier today, which completed backfired. They are as follows:
More: EA, Peter Moore, top
Oddworld’s Lorne Lanning compares Wii U to Vita, owners are “invested and they want good experiences”
Posted on 10 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News, Wii U | 1 Comment
Lorne Lannning and the folks over at Oddworld Inhabitants have generally been pretty positive on the Wii U since announcing the Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty and Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD would be coming to the console, and today they’ve spoken with VentureBeat about Nintendo’s struggling system further, saying that despite a small install base it’s still well worth supporting:
“We’re self-publishing. With Sony that’s a breeze. With Steam it’s a breeze. With Microsoft it’s not a breeze. With Nintendo, something’s going to happen there shortly,” said Lanning. “Even on the Wii U, though, how many people did buy it? It’s kind of how we looked at Vita in the Christmas of 2012.
“We did Stranger HD on Vita, and the publishers were kind of snubbing Vita at the time, because there wasn’t enough installed base to move their dial. We said, yeah, but that small base is pretty passionate. They invested and they want good experiences that are designed to maximize that control scheme. Why don’t we spend a little more time and attention – because we’re small and we can – and a result we took number two in the US and number one in Europe that Christmas on Vita.
“So far we’ve had zero on Nintendo. We’ve had zero brand visibility on Nintendo since day one. We never built for Nintendo. Today, we’re looking at it and we say, ‘We’ll get over to Wii U.’ As a business model it might not completely make sense, but we want to get to work on Nintendo, get to self-publishing on Nintendo. Everything’s a new store. Everything’s more shelf space. We’re trying to get the brand across that as widely as possible.”
Venturebeat via IGN
Save a little bit on Zelda: Wind Waker HD
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments
Although it’s not huge savings, Amazon does have Zelda: Wind Waker HD available at a small discount.
You can purchase the Wii U title for $41.41. That amounts to about $9 in savings. Since this is a Zelda game we’re talking about, that’s not too terrible of a deal.
Update: Ninja Gaiden 3, Game & Wario as well – The Wonderful 101 reduced to $30 on the eShop
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 9 Comments
Update: Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge and Game & Wario are also available for $30 each.
Original: The Wonderful 101 was given a discount a few months back, but the Wii U eShop has finally been updated to reflect the new price. You can now grab a digital copy for $30 – well worth the price of entry!
