It's easy to make light of a horror game when you've only got screenshots and the odd video to go by. AJ testified that Calling has some genuinely scary moments during her preview of the game, so chances are I'll stop laughing the moment the game starts. Then I will play until the first scary bit, take the game out, and play something with stuffed animals in it.

During the 1980's Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System) boom in Japan, Takahashi Meijin became the idol of Japanese kids for his ability to press buttons quickly. "Because I was a famous figure for kids, I was told, and myself believed, that I had to be careful not to get too close to anything too shady, to avoid the "grown-up" areas of Japan," Master Higgins told game site 1UP. "Because even though I might not have been going anywhere or doing anything specific, the fact that any gossip magazines were looking for dirt on me, and tailing me, if they got a shot of me just walking around those kinds of places, that alone would have been pretty damaging."

So Takahashi Meijin had to, in his own words, "lead an extraordinary careful life".

The means that the game spokesperson had to stay sober. "But there was one time when I got really really drunk, and even though there was nothing bad going on, I was just drunk, so I was concerned that might have been damaging, but I guess that wasn't enough," he recalled. "I used to smoke back then — I don't now, but I was really careful not to be photographed while smoking, obviously, because of the whole "role model" thing, but a lot of my colleagues smoked, and that was one thing I was extra careful not to have exposed."

Not only does Takahashi Meijin look like Mr. Clean, he is Mr. Clean.

Master Higgins Speaks... [1UP]

As the name suggests, there's an awful lot of cell phone usage in the horror/adventure game. During a demo given to games journalists by the Japanese director, a poor woman finds a haunted cell phone that just wouldn't stop ringing. Even worse, she keeps answering it and the ghost on the other end keeps giving her updates on its progress (e.g. "I'm on the second floor landing..."). I imagine it would have been scarier in context, but at the time, it was downright funny. Especially because I had no idea which floor the girl started on, so I wasn't sure if the ghost was really close or just taking forever to climb the freaking stairs.

Also, if that haunted phone was the ghost's phone — and she said it was — what phone was the ghost calling from to provide the status updates?

What Is It?
Calling is a horror/adventure game with four main characters for the player to guide through a branching storyline. There are multiple endings, ghostly encounters and creepy environments to explore and hopefully survive.

What We Saw
After watching the demo, games journalists were given the chance to play through a single level starring a male character trapped in the empty apartment of a traditional Japanese doll maker.

How Far Along Is It?
Still in alpha — the game isn't due out 'til some unspecified time in 2010.

What Needs Improvement?
A Little Bit Waggly: For the most part, the Wiimote's motion controls are limited to gentle flicks to open doors or slide screens aside. However, there were two instances in the level where a ghost got the jump on the player and to get free you either had to mash the A button with perfect timing (like a quick time event), or just waggle furiously until the ghost let go. Guess which method is easier?

What Should Stay The Same?
It's Actually Kind of Scary: There was a part in the game where a guy comes upon a room where the sliding doors only open partway. Looking through the door and down, you can see the dead body of the doll maker. After sighting this grisly thing, I turned the character around to go into another room — but I stopped because I heard shuffling and giggling behind me. So I turned the character back around and — gah! — there were dozens of the creepy little dolls filling the slit of the partly-opened doors. Their hair fluttered and their eyes blinked and they were tittering at me in the creepiest way. It was genuinely upsetting.

Movement Is Controlled With The Analog Stick: This is the best possible way to control motion from the first person perspective, I think.

Final Thoughts
I came down pretty hard on Ju-on not because it was a nuanced Japanese horror experience (which Calling also strives to be), but because it fell flat on its face in the scary department. I realize minimalist storytelling is a big part of Japanese horror films — but I think this cost Ju-on dearly in the gameplay department. So already, Calling is a cut above where Ju-on wound up even in this early stage of development. Here's hoping the final product goes even farther toward that ideal scary experience.

In this moody puzzle game, players take the role of a mysterious person invited to a mysterious birthday party in a mysterious building. Sensing a theme here?

What Is It?
Rooms is a puzzle game where players navigate each room of a hotel by completing a sliding panel puzzle. The player's character can only occupy one panel at a time and can only move between panels that are connected by ladders, teleporting phone boxes or doors. Each sliding panel puzzle has one gold-lined door within it that you're trying to move your character to.

What We Saw
I played three intermediate-level puzzles.

How Far Along Is It?
Crazy early days. The game isn't due out on Wii or DS until some unspecified point in 2010 and the developer is still making gameplay related decisions about what should be in the game.

What Needs Improvement?
Move Tracker: At present, the game doesn't seem to know or care how many moves it takes you to slide all the panels where they need to be. It's something the developer might consider adding – and I really hope they do, or else the game will be missing out on a basic layer of skill tracking that games like Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box appeal to.

It's SO Small: Currently, the puzzle plane on the lower screen has a thick border around it and the individual panels of puzzles are barely bigger than a thumb print. This makes it really hard to see your brown-clad character in the sepia toned rooms and robs Rooms of some of its noir charm by limiting what you can see.

What Should Stay The Same?
Challenging: I didn't get stuck in any of the three sliding puzzles, but I definitely got confused or turned around a few times. To me, this proves the concept of the game as something I want to take with me on public transit.

The Puzzles Scale Up: The intermediate puzzles were only on a 3x2 grid or a 3x3 grid – but harder levels can scale up to 8x8 girds which will probably take an awful lot of time to sort out.

Platform-Specific Features: The Wii version will have a 2 player versus mode where you race each other to complete the puzzle (I assume in shortest amount of time as opposed to least number of moves). Meanwhile, the DS version will let you create your own levels to upload using Wifi for other players to try.

Final Thoughts
I really liked what I saw of Rooms. If it keeps developing along the lines its been using, it'll shape up into a proper lovechild of Professor Layton and Hotel Dusk.

My fondness for baldness has faded since that idyllic time (thanks, puberty) and I no longer need a babysitter to supply my Nintendo fix. However, that feeling of being young and unreasonably anxious about jumping puzzles we gamers call nostalgia never gets old when you see a classic game resurrected on the consoles of today.

What Is It?
Bonk: Brink of Extinction is a brand new adventure for the classic prehistoric character on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and WiiWare. There are three worlds with 30 levels total and while the gameplay stays classic (side-scrolling action), everything is rendered in lush 3D.

What We Saw
I played through area 5-1, a verdant jungle level fraught with peril and fruit pickups.

How Far Along Is It?
Still in alpha. The title is due out in spring 2010.

What Needs Improvement?
Ack! 2.5D! I've already expressed my distaste for games with fake 2D platforming glued onto 3D environments. However, I admit it's only really a problem when you either can't see something in a level or struggle with a jump that looks easy, but actually isn't because you're in the wrong plane of depth. Fortunately, Bonk didn't suffer from the former — just a little bit of the latter in areas where you had to turn around, find a ledge inside a tree and somehow jump up to it. At least there were no cliffs to fall off of...

What Should Stay The Same?
Loving The Power-up Helmets: I only vaguely remember Bonk's "bonk" powers changing based on which types of meat he ate. I do not have any memory of a Fire Bonk that lets Bonk shoot fireballs or a triceratops skull that both looks neat and does more damage during the bonk attack. Lacking nostalgia or not, though, the different Bonk power-ups keep things interesting and look ridiculously cute.

Gorgeous Graphics: The 3D rendering might cause some clunkly platforming, but man does it look pretty.

Yay! It's Bonk: Bonk rides mighty high on the nostalgia cloud, so high that not even new stuff is likely to bring him down. So if you're a fan of the classic game, I'm actually not sure why you're still reading this preview. You've already decided to buy it, right?

Final Thoughts
I'm not sure whatever happened to the cool babysitter with the Nintendo. But, Daniel, if you're out there, don't worry! I totally grew out of throwing controllers in frustration.

Loosely translated to Deca Sporta Ten Sporting Events On The DS, the game features ten games on, well, the Nintendo DS. Those games feature ping pong, clay pigeon shooting, arm wrestling, golf, skydiving, climbing, bobsledding, rugby, kick volleyball and cheerleading. There are plans for future download updates as well.

Deca Sporta on the DS supports up to six players by wireless connection and will be out this December in Japan.

今度はDSで登場！『DECA SPORTA（デカスポルタ） DSでスポーツ"10"種目!』2009年12月発売！ | インサイド [Inside Games] [Pic]

• Mega Bomberman
• Adventure Island
• Sengoku Mahjong
• Devil Crash

All of these titles are already available on Nintendo's Virtual Console. They're priced at ¥600 (SU$6.40) each on the PSN. Look forward to more TurboGrafx-16 games on the PlayStation Network in the future.

[Pic]

Miami Law is a game that wants to be a police drama, balancing action-packed shoot-outs, car chases, crime scene investigation, and detective work in order to create the ultimate cop show for the Nintendo DS. Play as Law Martin from the Miami P.D. or FBI agent Sara Starling as you struggle through mini-game challenges on your quest to uncover a criminal conspiracy.

The DS demo contains two mini-games, "Confirmation of Guard" and "Car Support", the former being a guard counting game and the latter a high-speed chase with gun play. It's available right now on the Nintendo Channel of your friendly neighborhood Wii.

Due to hit Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and WiiWare this year, Military Madness: Nectaris looks to remedy complaints levied against the PlayStation version—the last one I played, Wii Virtual Console release notwithstanding. The 1998 version, amusingly enough named Nectaris: Military Madness, was simply too slow, suffered from disc-loading times and was, well, kind of ugly.

It's never been flashy, ranking somewhere between the Advance Wars and Daisenryaku series in terms of visual pow, but it has exactly what I'm looking for: solid, turn-based military action with a little... erm, hex appeal. Who's with me?

The game is a hit! Developer Hudson Soft has announced that it has shipped 2 million copies of the game worldwide since it launched last spring.

Like Wii Sports, the game has players compete in various sporting activities by swinging the Wii Remote around and whatnot. However, it includes many sports not featured in Wii Sports such as archery, badminton, basketball, beach volleyball, curling, figure skating and super-cross.

History lesson: Hudson talisman Takahashi Meijin (aka Master Higgins) got kinda famous in the 80's for being able to press a button 16 times a second. Which is pretty awesome. Anyway, to cash in on this, in 1987 Hudson released something called the "Shooting Watch", which let you try and match/beat Meijin's score by calculating how quickly you could press its buttons.

It's this Shooting Watch that's been ported to the iPhone (and is going for $0.99). It's not going to work anywhere near as well as the real deal - no way the iPhone's screen can register that kind of frenzied button mashing - but that doesn't matter. It's a crazy port of a crazy game-related thing invented by a crazy man, and fully-functional or not, that should bring joy to your life, if only for a day.

[Image: Gpara]

Let's Zenryoku Hitchhike!!!!!!!!! focuses on the more attractive aspects of hitchhiking—thumbing efficiently for free rides on cows, tractors and rickshaws—with none of the negatives—having your corpse dumped behind the brush of an interstate rest area.

Even if the hitchhiking gameplay doesn't immediately appeal to you, we're certain the bright pompadours and masculine jumpsuits will. We haven't heard yet of a publisher picking this guaranteed cash cow here in North America, but if someone signs on for Let's Zenryoku Hitchhike!!!!!!!!! publishing duties, we'll give 'em the thumbs up.

The Wii title, released last December in Japan, comes packaged with a mic and is a collaboration with karaoke chain JOYSOUND.

Thin apartment walls and concern for disturbing the neighbors is one reason why singing-based games like Karaoke JOYSOUND Wii have a hard time in Japan — not to mention prevalent karaoke parlors.

The Urusakunai Kara OK! mic isn't exactly brand new, but the Wii-USB-capabilities are. You'll be glad to know that it's possible to wash the mute mic shell out with soap and water.

うるさくないカラOK！ミュートマイクUSB [JTT via Game Watch Impress]

Nintendo's WiiWare service is giving Hudson another opportunity to turn sidescrolling platforming fans onto this whole Adventure Island thing. That means more Master Higgins, more floating meat-on-bone, more walking to the right.

And no shirts. Maybe that's why I would prefer a cel-shaded Adventure Island as opposed to this. The first Japanese trailer doesn't look like it'll turn me into a fan, but maybe the 16-shot mini-game action will get you hot and bothered.

That was when Meijin was 27 years-old. He isn't 27 anymore. "I will turn 50 in about 2 months," says Meijin. "And I was 27 when I did the '16 shot'. Therefore, it is getting more and more difficult to do it at my age. Probably, I can do the '13 shot' at best now!"

At this rate, he'll still be able to do an "11 shot" when he's in his seventies, which nothing to sneeze at.

Try your button pressing skills here.

Takahashi Meijin Interview - Hudson's Adventure Island [WiiWare World]

Yes, the clues in last week's Wii Update led us to one inevitable conclusion: Commodore 64 games were coming to North America. We just didn't realize it would be so soon. Three C64 titles drop this morning on the Virtual Console, each ringing in at 500 Wii points a pop. Battle it out ferociously as The Last Ninja, or grab International Karate if you prefer your martial arts in a more formal setting. If kung-fu fighting isn't your bag, there's also the high-speed excitement of Pitstop II, featuring six of the world's top tracks rendered as only the Commodore 64 could - poorly.

For those of you craving something new, this week also sees the release of Hudson's first-person shooter Onslaught for WiiWare (1,000 points), which features online play for up to four players as the forces of the Elite Interstellar Strike force battles evil insectoid aliens.

Check out the full game descriptions below, along with an explanation of the clues from last week's Wii Update. I don't know if I will be picking up any of the C64 titles, but at least they kicked things off with the appropriate amount of ninja goodness.

WiiWare

Onslaught (Hudson Entertainment, 1-4 players, Rated T for Teen-Animated Blood, Violence, 1,000 Wii Points): Onslaught is an FPS that puts you in the middle of a futuristic war between humans and insectoid aliens. Become part of the Elite Interstellar Strike Force and fight against an overwhelming onslaught of alien life forms. Enjoy the rush of mowing down wave after wave of aliens with machine guns, grenades and more. Feel your heart pound as you battle gigantic boss aliens. Beyond the normal game, Onslaught includes additional modes that let you play with rivals from around the world using Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. Team up with as many as three other players in Free Battle mode, or compete on special maps to see who can get the most points by killing enemies before time runs out in Ranking Battle mode. (Router and broadband access required for online play. For more info, go to www.nintendo.com.)

Virtual Console

The Last Ninja™ (Commodore 64, 1 player, Rated E10+ for Everyone 10 and Older-Animated Blood, Mild Violence, 500 Wii Points): The evil Shogun Kunitoki has long envied the powers of the Ninja brotherhood and would do anything to acquire their knowledge. To this end, he has sworn an oath to their total destruction. Once every decade, all Ninja must travel to the Island of Lin Fen, where they pay homage to the Shrine of the White Ninja and receive further teachings from the Koga Scrolls. Seizing the opportunity, Kunitoki summoned forth all the spirits from the depths of the Nether World and flung their full force against the amassed Ninja. None escaped the wrath of Kunitoki. Word of this unnatural disaster soon reached Armakuni, the last Ninja. Gathering all his courage, he has sworn to wreak a terrible revenge on the Shogun and all his followers. What unforeseen hazards await him?

INTERNATIONAL KARATE™ (Commodore 64, 1-2 players, Rated E10+ for Everyone 10 and Older-Mild Violence, 500 Wii Points): INTERNATIONAL KARATE is a simulation of a karate tournament in which one person can play against the computer or two players can compete against each other. During the game, you'll fly to various locations around the world. In all stages of the game, a wise old judge will watch over you and award you either a half-point or a full point, depending on how successful a hit has been.

Pitstop II™ (Commodore 64, 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone, 500 Wii Points): Pitstop II was the first game that brought serious auto racing action to the computer screen-the thrill of battling an opponent, the excitement of fighting for the lead out on the track, and the suspense of struggling to be the first out of the pits. Third-person graphics and a split-screen display allow one or two players to experience the challenge of car racing head-to-head. Six of the world's toughest tracks are waiting, from Brands Hatch and its hairpin turns to the mile-long straight of Vallelunga. You can practice against the computer, but nothing will compare to the fun of racing against another person. Indeed, Pitstop II proves that car racing was never meant to be a solo sport.

As promised, here's a list of the Commodore 64-related clues that were embedded in last week's newsletter:

• In the second paragraph, each sentence contains exactly 64 letters and numbers (not counting spaces or punctuation).

• U.S. Route 64 runs from Arizona to North Carolina.

• The third sentence ends with a comma and the word "door," hinting at the name Commodore.

• "Brick House" was a hit for R&B group The Commodores.

• The athletic teams of Vanderbilt University are known as the Commodores.

• Pennsylvania's Route 286 passes through a town called Commodore.

• The phrases "birthday greetings" and "who could ask for more?" are found in the classic Beatles tune "When I'm 64."

What Is it?
It's the same Bomberman Live game that was released for XBLA, but now for PSN and with all the extra download packs included.

What we saw?
The demo they had featured a few different selectable maps for anyone to come up and jump right into. There were Hudson staff on hand to help out anyone who was confused about why people were supposed to blow each other up.

How Far Along Is it?
The game is done and comes out at the end of February.

What Needs Improvement?
Well...: At this point in Bomberman's life cycle, it's hard to fine ways to make the game even better.

What Should Stay The Same?
Customization: The say you can customize your own Bomberman with over 150,000 possible combinations. I couldn't examine the extent of the customization at the demo, however.

Pick-Up and Play Approach: The game is really easy to jump right into. I noticed several people, mainly kids, just come up and pick up a controller and get right into it.

Final Thoughts
Uh, it's Bomerman. I can't say I've experienced the multiplayer before in a way that people would be jumping in and out. It was quite fun. I could see this maybe making an excellent party game just to have out.

Onslaught is pitched by Hudson as a futuristic sci-fi shooter, pitting a squad of up to four players in a battle against "mysterious creatures" while also saving a distant research colony. In other words, science fiction plot #017.

Looks like Onslaught uses Wii Remote point and shoot controls, with plenty of shake to keep your forearms toned. The WiiWare release is listed as "coming soon" which we'll interpret to mean "coming soon."

New Online Co-op FPS for Wiiware by Hudson [Hudson via NeoGAF]

It might not be the highest quality snowboarding game out there, but then I've disliked most snowboard titles since the heyday of SSX. As far as I am concerned the genre peaked with Cool Boarders back on the original PlayStation, and with few exceptions most releases have completely failed to simply remake Cool Boarders with better graphics.

Having said that, the Hudson title doesn't look all that bad, but I don't have a Wii Balance Board, so I'm not sure I'd still be getting the most out of it or not. Wow. I suppose that didn't help any of you decide whatsoever. Oops.

From October 2008 to January 16 of this year, the suspect threatened Hudson 11 times, sending emails that said things like he was sending a bomb to the company that would kill everyone or demanding that 80 trillion yen be brought to JR Takamatsu Station.

JR Takamatsu Station is in Kanagawa Prefecture. The suspect worked part-time as a courier.

In a signed affidavit, the suspect admitted, "I did it because I posted my demands concerning the games, but the games didn't improve."

ハドソンに爆破予告＝ゲームに不満、29歳男逮捕−警視庁 [Yahoo! Japan]