Aliens and explorers enter Virtual Console lineup
by Ludwig Kietzmann 
{ Dec 8th 2006 at 12:25PM }
Taking a break from watching obscure Japanese commercials, the fine fellows at Bits Bytes Pixels & Sprites recently poked their noses into the various nooks and crannies of Hudson Entertainment's website. Along with a vague smell of bacon, they discovered the product pages for two, as yet unannounced Virtual Console games. Though there's no mention of a release date, Alien Crush and Dungeon Explorer are both set to appear on the Wii's TurboGrafx-16 emulator. Memory refresh: Alien Crush sees you playing pinball on the faces of some rather menacing aliens, whereas Dungeon Explorer adequately equips you with tools clearly intended for hacking and slashing. Presumably, you also get to explore dungeons in the company of a "knome." If either of these floats your cup of nostalgia, be sure to check back with us on Monday -- there's a decent chance they'll become available then.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
LunarDuality @ Dec 8th 2006 12:37PM
Dungeon Explorer is an excellent "gauntlet-style" top down dungeon (go figure) crawler that pits you against the evil "NATAS".
Pretty great game back in the day. Co-op is where it's at. I wonder if all the old codes/glitches will work?
silkylove @ Dec 8th 2006 1:00PM
Alien Crush and DE are cool, but what I really wanted was Ninja Spirit and Devil's Crush.
HaloBreaker @ Dec 8th 2006 12:53PM
NATAS!! How original. It looks like a old roguelike I wonder if the levels are the same every time you play?
frodo @ Dec 8th 2006 1:01PM
Alien Crush was an AWESOME pinball game. Holy crap. Monday can't come fast enough!
Also there was some very weird H.R. Geiger kind of imagery. Like a little dong that wiggled when you hit it. Very very strange.
Crowbar @ Dec 8th 2006 1:10PM
I played around with the URL a bit further, just to see what other goodies may come up and found this one:
http://hudsonentertainment.com/gamedetail.php?game_id=51&console=1
Military Madness? *ROCK ON*.
Haven't found anything else yet, but I think I'll keep an eye out in the near future.
Crowbar @ Dec 8th 2006 1:21PM
Blah, my mistake. It seems as it was already announced, according to Wikipedia, and I somehow completely missed it.
Still, the page is up and running, so we'll probably see it very soon.
Ironhide Delta @ Dec 8th 2006 2:37PM
This all in all is promising. I'm actually only so-so on Wi games themselves, but the virtual console makes me drool with nostalgia. Add a few more VC games like these classics and I'll be able to mothball my old TurboDuo. Wireless play has got me spoilt now.
lthewhite @ Dec 9th 2006 11:23AM
Alien crush was good, im gonna get it, but i rather Devils crush, is was way better!
JD @ Dec 8th 2006 2:56PM
I'd rather see Devils Crush (the sequel) than Alien Crush, but I'll take what I can get. Now where's my Blazing Lazers?
Ryan @ Dec 8th 2006 2:56PM
Dungeon Explorer was already on the list of games to be released in Dec. for the US VC. Alien Crush is new though, and I'd love to see some alien pinball action this Monday.
What I want to know is, when are we going to get some new VC publishers?
Looking at http://vcnotifier.com/browse, all of the games announced/released in the US are either by Nintendo, Sega, or Hudson Soft. I mean, that's great and all, but where are the konami's, capcom's, and tecmo's of the world?
Phil @ Dec 8th 2006 3:06PM
Yeah, Alien Crush is absolutely confirmed for Monday, according to a Hudson Soft rep.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=129709&page=30&highlight=alien+crush
It's somewhere at the end there anyway.
There's also confirmation on the Hudson Soft forums, but I'm feeling far too lazy to dig that up atm.
Darkness @ Dec 8th 2006 3:29PM
Ryan, I know what you mean. I'd love to see Bionic Commando make it to VC. Or how about Dragon Warrior 3 and 4? Lots of stuff that came out in the old days that I would spend money on. My guess is as the service gets longer in the tooth, more companies will see the green and put stuff up there. It's still young, so there's lots of room for growth.
jayntampa @ Dec 8th 2006 4:31PM
Alien's Crush rocks hard ... best video game pinball ever -- except for Devil's Crush, which is better. I hope they release both.
D-Town @ Dec 8th 2006 4:59PM
Japan already has Konami releasing Contra III and Castlevania 4, and these games have been confirmed for Australia as well, meaning that the rest of the world will probably see them somewhere in January. Also, Dungeon Explorer is already available in Europa, so you might want to check it!
Gavin @ Dec 8th 2006 4:31PM
Another week of crappy VC titles. Wow, they are really making this as lame as possible, aren't they? Where are the triple A marquee titles? I know they are supposedly doing this to give the VC longevity, but come on. There are literally thousands upon thousands of ROMS to choose from. This is just a joke.
Darkness @ Dec 8th 2006 5:17PM
Gavin, word on the street is that Gunstar Heroes is released on Monday with Alien Crush. I can't wait for Gunstar Heroes!!
D-Town @ Dec 8th 2006 5:10PM
Yeah, Gavin, we got crappy stuff like F-Zero, Donkey Kong Country, Ristar, Bonk, Dungeon Explorer, Legend of Zelda, Mario 64, Super Star Soldier, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Alien Crush and Gunstar Heroes coming up. Goddammit, where are the quadruple A titles?! Sheesh!
Wait, you aren't one of those people who are going to make a comment such as 'Fuck you Nintendo, where's my [inserts some obscure game title and wanks hoping everybody stands in awe of his hardcore game history or hardcore game pose]!'
rudimentalist @ Dec 8th 2006 6:34PM
As others have said, Devil's Crush > Alien Crush...
Although I doubt Nintendo is excited to put out Devil's Crush, they're probably scared Christian families will come down on some of the kind of risky imagery. That beautiful female face that turns to lizard face that turns to demon face comes to mind, the pentagram-ish things... you know what I'm talking about if you've played the game. I mean geez, that face thing still kinda creeps me out.
So what do you guys think Nintendo will do? I think the game is just too metal for them. Huge fan of both the game and Nintendo, but I don't think they're content with just slapping a T on it for "Mild satanic imagery". It'd make an interesting post on Joystiq actually.
Gavin @ Dec 8th 2006 8:55PM
"Coming up" is the key word there. This trickle of games is absurd. They should have launched with a larger library of updated games, instead of the slim pickings of non-modified ROMs that they are selling at over-inflated prices.
If you are content with the manner in which they are handling the Virtual Console, you would probably do nothing but defend Nintendo on anything at anytime. Stop being an apologist and face the reality of the situation.
So far, the VC has been amazingly underwhelming.
D-Town @ Dec 9th 2006 6:45AM
What are you rambling about being an apologist? I just see a few good games are already here and Nintendo has already confirmed 2 to 5 new games on each monday. The entire list for December has been revealed months ago, they just release 'em week by week. There's lots of good stuff on there, so it's way too early to start bitching about 'triple A margquee titles' yet (whatever those are, btw. If Gunstar Heroes ain't, nothing is).
Second, I'm just as annoyed as anyone else about the pricing and about the emulator issues in PAL countries. But I reject any shit about updating games. It's a RETRO library, no XBLA. Don't mess with the RETRO! :-) The VC has an update option if you want to enhance your games. I just want to stick to the retro experience, what's apologist about that?
D-Town @ Dec 9th 2006 3:45PM
The Euro release list for VC has been leaked! Kinda...
http://www.meanmachinesmag.co.uk/wii/news/20/upcoming-games-for-uk-pal-virtual-console.php
Six days, and Gunstar Heroes is unleashed... two weeks, and we'll have R-Type, Castlevania 4, and Contra 3... Balls to the marquee! :-)