Alright, it’s just been a day since I posted my last Conduit post. But I just got a pic of the game manual in my email today, and had to share it with you guys.

Manual after the break

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Pokémon trainers in America, here’s your chance to finally pick up a legitimate Deoxys for your copy of Pokémon Diamond or Pearl. For two very special weekends, GameStop, EB Games and Software Etc. will be having the legendary Deoxys for download! Are you interested? Then head over to your local games store between June 20-22, or June 27-29, to receive your very own shape-shifting Pokémon!

The GameStop Deoxys will be holding a NeverMeltIce and possess the following moves, one from each of its forms:

• Psycho Boost
• Zap Cannon
• Iron Defense
• ExtremeSpeed

As with every other Pokémon giveaway, be sure to have a PokéDex in your game and an empty Wonder Card slot. If you don’t live in the United States, it doesn’t hurt to bother a friend who does. After all, what’s the internet for anyway?

source: Get Pokémon Deoxys at GameStop

I’ve placed a link about it in the news get earlier this week, but didn’t have time to make an actual post about it. High Voltage’s FPS, “The Conduit”, sounds and looks better each time we see it in the news. IGN got us some new screenshots and The Conduit Information Center got a Q&A with the devs with some interesting tidbits.

• *Offline play is single player only
• *3 modes of online multiplayer
• *They mention LAN play possibility (does this mean system link up?)
• *They’re trying to get voice chat in (where’s our mic?)

Another interview from Wii Fanboy

If you have WiiConnect24 turned on, you’ve noticed by now that a new system update is available. Does this update add new features? Does it unlock the third GameCube? Mass storage support?

Of course not, don’t be silly. The new Wii update kills the Twilight hack, and with it, just about ever piece of Wii Homebrew. Not only does it delete the save file used for the Twilight hack, it prevents it from being reinstalled on your system. European gamers, did you pick up a Freeloader so that you wouldn’t need to wait months for games like Smash Bros? Sorry, you’re screwed. The TRUCHA booting method used by the Freeloader has been nuked by this patch.

What real features do we get with the update? You can now move your Miis into your Mii Parade. There also seems to be a “blue halo” when you hover the cursor over an icon on the Wii menu.

None of this is particularly surprising. No matter how cool the homebrew is, Nintendo doesn’t want to allow anything that can lead to piracy. Sadly, this does set back legitimate homebrew efforts until some other workaround can be found.

Wii Menu Update 06/16/08 Twilight Homebrew Save Hack “patched”

There have been a lot of rumors and leaks going on these past few days. Most of them have been specifically about the Xbox 360, but one of the biggest rumors could be about any of the systems.

Megaman 9 was recently rated by the OFLC and then right after that, a mysterious being named “The Shadow” released this information:

- Rockman 9 will feature a retro 8-bit art style, a homage to the earlier games.
- Two playable characters: Rockman and Blues (ProtoMan). Each has their own unique storylines.
- A popular belief is that RM9 will act as the ‘link’ to the events of the X Series. This is not so, The storyline DOES NOT lead into the X Series, rather it’s a ‘traditional’ plot.
- Many new characters, new Robot Masters and maybe some new supporting characters.
- Gameplay is reminiscent of Rockman 3-6.
- Online components: Leader boards and some unknown form of online play
- RM9 will be on all major home consoles: Wii, X360 and PS3. X360 and PS3 users will be able to purchase the game from their respective download services. It’s unknown how the Wii version will work, whether it will be a downloaded game or not.

The most exciting thing is the 8-bit graphics and gameplay similar to the older Megaman NES games. I’ve had about enough of these Battle Network and ZX games, so maybe Megaman 9 will restore my faith in the series.

Link

Wii
June 17 - Wacky Races: Crash & Dash
June 22 - Rock Band (GameStats)

Virtual Console / WiiWare
Block Breaker Deluxe (Gameloft, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points)
Cocoto Fishing Master (Neko Entertainment, 1 player, 700 Wii Points)
SAMURAI SHODOWN (NEOGEO, 1-2 players, 900 Wii Points)

DS
June 17 - Arkanoid DS
June 17 - Code Lyoko: Fall of X.A.N.A.
June 17 - Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard (GameStats)
June 17 - Imagine Rock Star
June 17 - Space Invaders Extreme
June 17 - Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop 3
June 17 - Wacky Races: Crash & Dash
June 22 - Guitar Hero : On Tour(GameStats)

Etrian Odyssey 2!!! Finally! If you’ve missed the first one in this series, make sure to get this one. It improves on everything and I highly recommend it to any hardcore RPG fans. And get it this week, it’s only 30$ and after this week it will be one of those title that’s impossible to find. Also, Mitch will be getting the new tamagotchi game. They still make them even though he’s the only one buying them.

After a nice relaxing day today I really wanted to play some video games. I haven’t had the time to play much lately and I really wanted to pick up Wiimote and have some fun. Looking through my library of games I realized that I had a whole bunch of half finished games. Half finished games means that I would boot them up, realize I totally forgot what was going on and then have to start over from the beginning.

Since I wasn’t in the mood to do that, I thought I’d check out WiiWare for the first time. Yeah, like I said, I haven’t had much time to game lately. Anyway, I did a quick scan on the interweb of which games were worth checking out and determined that Lost Winds was the game I wanted. The always wonderful and reliable Eurogamer gave it 9 out of 10, which is good enough for me.

As you can tell by the title of this post, I was blown away. If this is what we can expect from WiiWare, count me and my credit card ready and willing. This game just oozes charm and polish. While playing I was reminded of first party Nintendo games like Jungle Beat and Pikmin, which in my book is about the highest praise a game can get.

I’m only about an hour in, but so far this game is beautiful, clever in its use of the Wii hardware, clever with its level designs and puzzles, has fantastic music and is worth way way more than the measly $10 I paid for it. Who else is playing this game? Lemme know what you guys and girls think of this wonderful gem!

Lost Winds Developer Site

As I mentioned earlier, tigsource’s Procedural Generation competition ended with 60 entries. I’m sure not everyone wants to go through and play all 60, so I’ve gone through and played them for you! There weren’t a whole lot of outstanding games, but there were three in particular that I thought were fantastic.

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Here at 4cr, it goes almost without saying that we love Telltale. Their Sam & Max series was a beautiful shot in the arm for the adventure genre and has pretty much revolutionized and legitimized the episodic game as a medium.

They seem to like us too. Emily Morganti, Telltale’s awesome Marketing Coordinator, sat down and answered a ton of our questions. Read on for the low-down on the future of the Sam & Max franchise, their upcoming Strong Bad series, and Wii development.

Official Website
Our previous interview with Telltale

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The Independent Gaming Source’s “Procedural Generation” competition has just ended and now it’s time for voting! It’ll take awhile to try all the games because of the fantastic turnout (60 entries!). Now, not all of them are great, but there are some pretty neat games and ideas in there.

You can download all of the games and vote here.

Next time I’ll make a post about it before the competition ends so that we can get some 4cr readers in it.

I know Rumas will defend them until his fanboy heart bursts, but the new Star Wars movies just aren’t that good. Sure, if I’m in a forgiving mood I can following along and not really pay attention and enjoy the overall story and scope, but that’s hard to do sometimes.

Just in the last week I have watched both Empire Strikes Back and Revenge of the Sith and I figured out one of the major problems that I have with the films… their visuals. In Episodes 1-3 (although more so in in 2 and 3) everything just feels… fake. Why is it that almost every floor in the movie was green screen and has a weird surface on it? Characters don’t even look like they are standing on anything. And why is it that there isn’t a single real Stormtrooper suit? I mean really, even if you had 10 practical stormtroopers to interact with the real actors it would have been so much better. Come on people, build some stuff out of metal and wood!

Looking at this new trailer for the all CG Clone Wars movie I instantly feel like the world is more real. Odd, but true. When everything is set in the same world (this one being all CG) it just feels better. It also doesn’t hurt that the acting seems to be better and coming off the awesome Star Wars: Clone Wars series by Tartakovsky (although I’m extremely confused as to why the whole 2003 series seems to have been wiped from the mind of the Lucas) this should be an action packed adventure.

Anyway, check out the new trailer. Sweet. The movie hits theaters on August 15th and a new weekly computer-animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series on Cartoon Network will follow in the fall.

Star Wars Clone Wars Trailer

I love me some Scott Pilgrim. It’s one of my favorite comics and hopefully soon to be one of my favorite movies. Michael Cera has been cast in the lead role, which is cool, especially if you are a nerdy girl… as they seem to go crazy over him. I think he should be able to pull it off.

Anyway, I was always able to pick out all the awesome video game references littered throughout the comic, but I’m not so up to speed on my indie music. In the Scott Pilgrim comics there are a ton of references to old punk banks and crazy different tracks. Over at the Los Angeles Times they have a great article highlighting the musical references in the comics along with tracks to listen to. A lot of it is a crazy combo of punk and country… which somehow just seems to fit.

Bryan Lee O’Malley has listed off a “soundtrack” for each book in case you want to peruse iTunes and grab all the tracks to listen to while reading. Head on over to the LA Times and get a sampling of the music. And make sure to buy the books immediately if you haven’t already. They are truly some of the most fun and entertaining comics, especially to video game fans (and punk-country fans!). Books 1-4 are out now and books 5 and 6 will wrap up the series soon.

The Music of Scott Pilgrim

Buy Scott Pilgrim’s Comics of Awesomeness

Wii
June 10 - Backyard Baseball 2009
June 10 - Blast Works: Build, Trade & Destroy (GameStats)

Virtual Console / WiiWare
My Pokémon Ranch (Nintendo, 1 player, 1000 Wii Points)
DIG DUG (NES, 1 player, 600 Wii Points)
BIO MIRACLE BOKUTTE UPA (NES, 1 player, 600 Wii Points)

DS
June 10 - Jake Hunter: Detective Chronicles
June 10 - Looney Tunes: Cartoon Conductor

There’s only one Wii title to look forward to this week and that’s Blast Works. I’ve been waiting for this game to come out for a while now and it looks like the wait is over.

Instead of showcasing a game, this week I’ve decided to talk about my favorite webcomic, Cyanide and Happiness. Also, you don’t have to worry about this replacing Fun For Free, I just haven’t played any new games since last week.

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Everyone knows the state of third party games on the Wii. Ever since the system was released, developers have been trying to grab a quick buck by releasing “casual” games in an attempt to rip off the Brain Age and Wii Sports crowd. I was hopeful that this was a temporary thing and that once developers got the hang of the Wii controls, it would end. However, for at least two big name devs, it hasn’t gotten better.

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