Double Dribble, Vegas Stakes, Ecco Jr. come to Virtual Console

by Justin McElroy { Nov 26th 2007 at 9:00AM }

You may have hoped that with the ho-hum new release week, we'd find some respite in the new Virtual Console releases. ... Well, no dice. Let's take a look, shall we?

Double Dribble (NES, 1-2 players, rated E for Everyone, 500 Wii Points): Is a police officer banging on your door like he's trying to serve a warrant? No! That's just the sound of the ball bouncing in Double Dribble, silly. For 500 points you can play a game that manages to be both a basketball simulation and a mental endurance test. Yippee!

Vegas Stakes (Super NES, 1-4 players, 800 Wii Points): Dear videogame industry: The next time you're going to work on a game that would would require people pay $8 to play SNES blackjack, don't. Why not go volunteer your time at a homeless shelter? Side note: If your grandma is one of the Wii's legion of old fans, you may want to let her know about this casino sim. Maybe it'll keep her out of the bingo halls.

Ecco Jr. (Sega Genesis, 1 player, 800 Wii Points): If your kid has never been able to master simultaneously pushing a button to make a dolphin swim and being totally bored, you can probably go ahead and blow those college savings on a Lamborghini. But at least now there's a game on Virtual Console made especially for them.

Tags: virtualconsolemonday, wii

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Martin @ Nov 26th 2007 9:17AM

I used to play Double Dribble all the time. Not enough to warrant any kind of nostalgic feelings, but it was a decent game at the time.

Nothing that I'll pick up this week.

samfish @ Nov 26th 2007 5:16PM

Blah! I say screw Double Dribble and give me NBA Jam!

Best sports game EVER!

Fortyseven @ Nov 26th 2007 9:25AM

Vegas Stakes was pretty slick.

I still sometimes make the "doodle-doo-doooo" noise that the game did when something bad happens.

While that might seem like a useless bit of personal trivia, what I mean by it is that the game left an impression 10+ years after having first played it.

If I was in the unfortunate situation of being forced to play a casino game, I could definitely do worse than it. :P

JodyAnthony (Good Eats Defense Force) @ Nov 26th 2007 9:35AM

I am not buying another VC game until I get my damn Bubble Bobble. Best game on the NES, hands down (sorry Mario 3/Star Tropics)

Blast Processing Megadrive @ Nov 26th 2007 11:43AM

It's hard to say Bubble Bobble is #1, when there's also River City Ransom. One or the other is definitely #1. And the other is... #1.5. Yeah.

PAL VC got Bubble Bobble last week. I'm disappointed we didn't get it this week.

samfish @ Nov 26th 2007 5:14PM

I already got Super Mario 2 and Lolo's Adventure, so my Favorite NES Games quote is fulfilled.
SNES, however, is painfully lacking in Illusion of Gaia.

I probably won't buy any VC games until IoG comes out or I beat Mario and Zack & Wiki first.

...or Mischief Makers. I don't think I could resist the temping call of that one.

Blast Processing Megadrive @ Nov 26th 2007 5:44PM

HEEEEELP MEEEEE, MAAAARIIIINAAAAAA!!

Shake shake!

samfish @ Nov 26th 2007 11:16PM

A [+] for you, good sir.

h8rain @ Nov 26th 2007 9:51AM

Wow Justin, that is harsh. (Sadly, I agree)

To Jody: I spent many of hours playing Bubble Bobble, and my wife and me were singing(?) that theme the other. I would buy it.

What I don't understand is why are these game not being "published" faster. If the "emulator" is made by Nintendo all the game should be almost perfect. (The open source ones work great no?) Basically someone just needs to test a game, and boom, it's available. If that is how it works, what do they only have one person doing it?

shawn @ Nov 26th 2007 9:57AM

wow no good games this week,i mean double dribble is a good game but not worth really getting....

Service_Games @ Nov 26th 2007 10:00AM

Oh the memories. I LOVED Double Dribble back in the day. For $5, I might just have to get it for the sake of nostalgia.

SG

LilCo187 @ Nov 26th 2007 10:00AM

Double Dribble is all I need.

Kevin @ Nov 26th 2007 10:34AM

I would like to enter a prediction for next week:

Super Smash Bros. (N64) on VC

samfish @ Nov 26th 2007 5:17PM

No way. They'll hold off on that one until Brawl is released, like they did with Mario 3 and Galaxy.

Kevin @ Nov 26th 2007 6:00PM

I dunno, they were supposed to release Brawl on the 3rd, a Monday, so why not: "Well we were originally going to give you Brawl today, here's the original to tide you over"...

samfish @ Nov 26th 2007 11:12PM

Hmm...good point.
I guess we'll find out, but Japan usually gets games first and, as far as I know, they haven't got it yet, so I'm still a doubtful doug.

kip @ Nov 26th 2007 10:44AM

My dad still plays Vegas Stakes. That and Monopoly for SNES. I actually got him an SNES when I went to college so that he could keep playing them (since I took the SNES and all the games I played with me).

Lanturn of Ash @ Nov 26th 2007 10:52AM

I say it almost every week and I'll say it again today.... 'Yet MORE games I'd love to buy if Nintendo got their head out of their asses and let us use SD loading without channel restrictions!'

AstroZombie @ Nov 26th 2007 11:12AM

Why is this such a big deal? I've got over 20 VC games on my Wii right now, and I've played maybe two or three of them in the last month. If I were pressed for space, which I will likely be soon, it's not like I'm going to have much trouble deciding which ones get deleted/banished to SD. There are a lot of good games on VC, get off your high horse and enjoy them instead of bitching about some trivial storage complaint.

Lanturn of Ash @ Nov 26th 2007 11:37AM

Are you serious? Whoever decided that 512mb is good enough to restrict you to for a download service was probably mentored by Andy Kaufman. The fact that you're actually defending it means that Nintendo is just going to feel less like getting off their lazy asses and doing something about it. Why should they bother putting out work into the system when it's flying off the shelves at an incomprehensible rate -_-

AstroZombie @ Nov 26th 2007 12:14PM

I just think the system Nintendo has in place is sufficient... for now. In the near future, as user-generated content (SSBB) becomes more prevalent, and we see more frequent WiiWare releases, I'll expect a better solution, whether that's better SD support or a genuine hard drive. As of right now VC titles, several of which I probably wouldn't hesitate to delete, are taking up the bulk of my storage space. I don't see a problem, yet.

Lanturn of Ash @ Nov 26th 2007 12:38PM

So since you don't have a problem right now I can't complain about it right now? I'm waaaay past the 'oh this game isn't good, I don't care if it's not on my system' phase that you're in. All the games on my system right now I've played the hell out of as a kid and I just flat out don't want to get rid of them, I love them all too much. I'm down to low double digits in terms of memory. I've been dying to play Sin and Punishment but I just can't bring myself around to deleting all of my games to make space for it.

AstroZombie @ Nov 26th 2007 1:51PM

Right, ok. And you play each and every one of these games so often that it would be a horrible inconvenience to temporarily get rid of even just a few. Never mind, forget I said anything. Please go back to holding your breath until every game ever released is accessible to you in 10 seconds or less.

WiNG @ Nov 26th 2007 11:36AM

Why do they release garbage? There are so many AAA titles that need to come out:

1. StarFox (SNES) (unless it did?)
2. Bubble Bobble (NES)
3. Sonic & Knuckles (GEN)
4. Vectorman (GEN)
5. Earthworm Jim (SNES/GEN)
6. Mortal Kombat 2 (SNES/GEN)
7. Mario Paint (SNES) (did this come out?)
8. Mutant League Football/Hocket (GEN)
9. NBA Jam (SNES/GEN)
10. General Chaos (GEN)
11. Aladdin (GEN/SNES?)
12. Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (GEN)
13. Jurassic Park (SNES/GEN - diff games)
14. every damn Kirby game ever (SNES)
15. Super Smash Bros (N64)
16. Killer Instinct Gold (N64)

I know a lot of these won't happen anytime soon due to licensing but does anyone agree w/my list?

Sieged Eagle @ Nov 26th 2007 2:10PM

"14. every damn Kirby game ever (SNES)"

Amen! Kirby Superstar has been my favorite game on the SNES, not to mention KDL3, which had one of my favorite bosses ever (the 4th one, guess who).

And you forgot Earthbound on that list.

samfish @ Nov 26th 2007 5:22PM

You forgot Chrono Trigger, too.
And Earthworm Jim 2.

And EWJ2 is why we need Saturn games so badly on the VC.

Sieged Eagle @ Nov 27th 2007 1:42AM

Thanks for reminding me of Chrono Trigger samfish. That game was an absolute beast. I can't find it anywhere, and I want to play it again!

Not to mention SMRPG, one of the most epic RPGs ever, and the 3 Megaman X games, along with Megaman 7, and both Pocky & Rocky games, as those were entertaining shooters, and are still fun to play 'til date.

Todd @ Nov 26th 2007 11:41AM

I'd love to get some SNES "Pugsly's Scavenger Hunt" which was an insanely hard game (visually good) to play. Damn!

Ken Seang @ Nov 26th 2007 11:48AM

Yea I used to play double dribble with my friends back in the days... It was fun then but not so much now.

Martez @ Nov 26th 2007 12:02PM

Ecco Jr.? REALLY? Why not Tides of Time? Tides of Time is awesome.

Blast Processing Megadrive @ Nov 26th 2007 12:24PM

Tides of Time is already up.

Adv2k1 @ Nov 26th 2007 12:30PM

Dude that game has been on Virtual Console for months now. July 2nd it was released . Overall a nice bunch of random games , nothing to buy for me but I still haven't finished galaxy so i'm happy

Martez @ Nov 26th 2007 4:01PM

Oh. Shows what I know. Also, hooray!

rdj75 @ Nov 26th 2007 12:03PM

I don't know about y'all but double dribble was the shit back in the day and I will definitely be getting this one. Granted the overall list recently could be a little better but Double Dribble is a note worthy classic in my book

JodyAnthony (Good Eats Defense Force) @ Nov 26th 2007 12:11PM

Blades of Steel is way better than Double Dribble

Lemmiwinks @ Nov 26th 2007 12:17PM

It's going to be hard for me to resist getting Double Dribble. Many many hours lost to that one in the past.

d'bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum...

Lemmiwinks @ Nov 26th 2007 12:19PM

I'd put them at about equal in my book. They got equal play time in my NES, but DD's dribbling sound effect haunts me to this day.

Lemmiwinks @ Nov 26th 2007 12:20PM

BoS and DD, that is. Damn jankey "reply" button.

Obie @ Nov 26th 2007 1:32PM

Stop being cute Nintendo and release:
Super Mario Kart, Super Punch Out! and StarFox.
Hop to!

Blast Processing Megadrive @ Nov 26th 2007 1:50PM

Hmmm... I have Vegas Stakes on Super NES. Well, technically, it's my mom's game. But not like she ever played it much... and it never interested me. I think we ended up giving it to my younger cousin years ago.

Anyways... my gambling game of choice would be Ceasar's Palace for the Game Boy. I found it funny how you could select the bathroom in the game. You'd see the male/female sign on the door, press a button to leave, and the game made a toilet flushing sound. I was very amused by this as a kid.

Butters81 @ Nov 26th 2007 3:03PM

I agree with Blast Processing Megadrive, River City Ransom is definitely #1. When are they bring that to VC?

GoldenS1104 @ Nov 26th 2007 3:26PM

I just want Majora's Mask. Sigh.. it'll happen eventually...

I also think they should start porting Game Boy and Game Boy Color Games. I've got quite a few cartridges that I've lost that I'd gladly re-buy, even if it meant sacrificing portability. Wait... they should have a Virtual Console for DS! It could be like Sony's setup where you can download the game for PS3 or PSP, except with Wii and DS.