It is looking like it will be near the top of most year-end lists, and it is almost here. Mario 3D World, the game described to me in a text message as “my favorite Mario after World” by our editor, drops for Nintendo Wii U on November 29. Priced at £49.99 for the download, (59.99 if you are operating in Euro Rupees), you can also pick up a retail version, probably for a bit cheaper, too. Either way THERE IS NO EXCUSE. If you have a Wii U, you buy this game, it is that simple.
November 28 also sees the release of two arcade classics from SEGA as 3D Super Hang-On and 3D Space Harrier arrive for the 3DS. Will time have been kind to two perennial residents of seaside arcades when I was a kid? Will the soundtracks be intact (cos they are boss)? E4.99/£4.49 a piece and you can find out.
Also on a Virtual Console tip, oddball Arc System Works NES title Crash’n the Boys Street Challenge offers old school street sports for £3.59.
Also out on the same day for the 3DS as downloads are Cypronia’s unoriginal-titled physics based puzzler Angry Bunnies (E6.49/£5.99), WWII strategy romp World Conqueror 3D (E4.99/£4.99), and Microvalue’s Mystery Murders: The Sleeping Palace (E4.99/£4.49).
One Piece 3DS RPG Romance Dawn is out the same day from Namco Bandai, and will set you back £28.49 on the eShop or whatever it costs in physical form. Same goes for Power Rangers Megaforce, from the same peeps, at the same amount of scrilla.
Rounding off the 3DS eShop action we have mobile classic Doodle Jump Adventures for £19.99 from Avanquest, along with another ridiculous sounding shovelware “sim” in the form of My Baby Pet Hotel 3D, which for the thick end of twenty five quid allows you to “become the best pet hotel in the world!” Living the dream.
Wii U owners who have any spare cash left over after buying Mario can also be tempted by a Virtual Console release in the form of Tecmo Koei’s Uncharted Waters: New Horizons, and old school strategy game from the SNES days. That will cost you £5.49.
Remember the Wii? We do. Bless it. And they are still making games for WiiWare. Deer Drive Legends is one of those hunting games, only instead of just popping a cap in some venison, in this one you can HUNT DINOSAURS THAT ARE IN MODERN TIMES. The cost? 500 Wii shop points. Get involved.
There are big discounts about as well for 3DS fans. Joindots’ 3D Game Collection for 3DS is down to £5.99 from £11.99 until December 8, joining it in the bargain bin from the same developer are Funfair Party Games (slashed to a paltry £8.99 from £17.99) the brilliantly stupid Murder on the Titanic (the irony!) and Gardenscapes both now £7.49 from £14.99, and 3D MahJongg, slashed to £2.19 instead of the O.G £4.49.
Teyon’s Heavy Fire: Black Arms 3D is now only £3.59 (was £4.49) and last but not least is EnjoyUp Games unspectacular Darts Up 3D, which is now about the same price as a loaf of Kingsmill over my local shop (£1.34).
All of these myriad reductions stand until close of play on December 8.
Happy gaming.