Mongo Nation

Awesome, seizure inducing fighting action that’s EVEN MORE Japanese than you’re already used to!

By Jeremy Azevedo

Of all the games I’ve ever thought I’d see for sale exclusively on the Nintendo Wii, a hardcore Capcom fighting game, imported from Japan, featuring a roster of characters most people here have never heard of was not chief among them.

It was with great interest, then, that I followed the story of Capcom Vs Tatsunoko: Ultimate All Stars, a game that may turn out to be exactly what the Wii needs for a number of reasons. The Wii is a hard system to develop for because you have two totally different audiences, the casual and the hardcore. Capcom Vs Tatsunoko appeals equally to both, thanks to a remarkably flexible control scheme. Veterans and purists will want to opt for a traditional joystick, or maybe even a classic Gamecube controller. Newcomers, on the other had, can use the wand and nunchuck for an experience that is less “Street Fighter” and more “Super Smash Bros.”.

When playing with the standard Wii controller, all of you basic attacks are mapped to the A button button. Likewise, all of your special attacks are mapped the Z button. All you have to do is move the control stick in the direction of the move you want to perform and pull the trigger, i.e. up for a vertical attack, back for a feint attack and so on and so forth. The question that this raises is, can you really play a fighting game with dumbed-down controls like this? Apparently, yes, you can, and yes, it’s also super fun.

I myself am a longtime fan of the Capcom fighter, and while I initially balked at the simplified controls, I soon found that it opened up a whole new level of fast and frustration-free gameplay. No longer reliant on quarter circle turns, that occasionally don’t register, I was free to focus on my combos, as were my less-experienced opponents. Essentially, the barrier for entry has been lowered for n00bs, wile still allowing hardcore players to flex their skills the old-fashioned way. And the more I think about it, the more I feel like I’ve done all the shoryken motions that I ever need to, and am totally fine with being able to pull off special moves without getting blisters on my thumbs. I’m over it.

Moving on from the controls, the most important aspect of a “Capcom Vs” is always the character selection. In case you’re wondering what a “Tatsunoko” is, it’s a Japanese animation company responsible for such beloved classics as Speed Racer, Robotech, Samurai Pizza Cats and Neon Genesis Evangelion… None of which are represented in the game due to licensing rights, I’m assuming. Instead, we get a bunch of unknown characters from the 70s wearing skintight jumpsuits. Thankfully, what the Tatsunoko side lacks in distinguishing features, they more than make up for in wildly disparate fighting styles. Yatterman-1, for instance, looks like Vince Noir from “The Mighty Boosh” and bounces all over the screen kicking the shit out of you with a ball-in-a-cup. Meanwhile, Casshern plays defensive while his dog, “Friender”, eats your face.

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We interview Capcom’s Seth Killian before whupping him at his own game!

By Jeremy Azevedo

If you’re a Wii owner, you probably feel just a little bit left out after watching SFIV, Super SFII Turbo HD Remix and Marvel Vs Capcom 2 all pass you by without so much as a wayward glance in your direction.

But clearly, Capcom hasn’t forgotten about you, as Capcom Vs Tatsunoko: Ultimate All-Stars is not only one of the freshest 2D fighters in ages, but is also exclusive to the Wii.

We talked to Capcom’s Community Manager Seth Killian about the decision to develop for the Wii, the challenges of importing the Tatsunoko licenses to the States and circumventing the infamous “friend code” to streamline online play. Check it out!

After chatting with Seth for a bit we set down to a few matches of Capcom Vs Tatsunoko against the man himself. At first glance, it appears as if there are a few too many Gatchamaen/Yattermen/Tekkamen/whatever for the game’s own good, but as it turns out, they all actually play incredibly different. Fans of Marvel Vs Capcom 2 will feel most at home with the speed and flashiness of the gameplay. Combos do billions of points of damage, super moves fill the entire screen and there are enough flashing lights to give a Pokémon a seizure. And yet, I didn’t notice a hint of slowdown or jagginess. Now I’m aware that the Wii isn’t necessarily designed for hardcore graphics rendering, but when it comes to top shelf 2D animation like this, it kills.

All of the characters were a lot of fun in their own way. Frank West in particular was a blast to play as, summoning hordes of hungry zombies to sick on my opponent (who I’m pretty sure was half letting me win/half getting his ass whupped by me fair and square). His timing is a little weird but his super combos are pretty rad. My favorite involves slamming a Servbot mask over your opponent’s head and exploding them ass-over-teakettle. The Street Fighter characters play as expected, but I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by Viewtiful Joe and Kaijin No Soki from Onimusha 4. They’re great new additions with really unique play styles.

On the Tatsunoko side, I’d have to go with Yatterman or Karas as my favorite. Yaterman is both agile and strong, with some really psychedelic super combos. One of them was like a giant robot dog that barfs up exploding lizards or something like that. It’s weird. Karas is just a straight badass, type character, sort of Tatsunoko’s “Akuma” if I had to compare him to someone. Maybe best of all, though, is the titanic Gold Lightan. He’s so big that you don’t get to have a partner when you use him, and it requires the entire stage to scale to his size. It almost seems unfair how big of a size and reach advantage he has, but somehow the balance remains pretty even, especially when you’ve got two other characters teaming up against him.

It also bears mentioning that we were playing on an official-looking arcade style joystick, which worked wonderfully. I’m quite a bit more used to standard controllers by now (as are most people), but there’s something to be said for a joystick setup when it comes to fighting games. When you pick up a copy of Capcom Vs Tatsunoko: Ultimate All-Stars next year (as you very well should), you should probably also consider getting a joystick to go along with it. You’ll be glad you did. Fewer blisters.

Capcom Vs Tatsunoko: Ultimate All-Stars will be available for the Wii on January 26^th, 2010.

Once again, Capcom targets our nostalgia with another pitch-perfect NES throwback.

In anticipation for Dark Void, the jetpack flying, zero gravity action adventure title that we’ve been waiting so long for, Capcom has unveiled a supplemental title exclusively for the Nintendo DSi. Dark Void Zero is a vintage throwback title in the vein of Mega Man 9, and looks to capture the spirit of the early days of gaming beautifully. Of course, Capcom is playing this off as if the game had existed all along, sort of a “lost” game from the Capcom vault of history.

Official press release:

“As the ‘80s were drawing to a close, the developers at Capcom began work on a top secret project that aimed to set new standards for the platformer genre.  That game was called “Dark Rift”, and it blended the intense shooting action of Section Z™ with the latest innovations in platform jumping from Mega Man.  In order to properly fulfill the producer’s vision for Dark Rift (later renamed Dark Void), the hardware engineering team at Capcom was enlisted to design and produce an all-new chipset that would be included in every cartridge, enabling huge numbers of sprites and never-before-seen special effects to be displayed on the aging NES® platform and the PlayChoice-10 NES arcade cabinet.

Alas, time waits for no man and game developers are no exception. The dawn of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System® made the additional hardware requirements for Dark Void redundant. Capcom suspended development on Dark Void as it began to evaluate the SNES. Before long, the game was shelved and drifted into the annals of gaming history. Even the internal tape-based archives were lost due to an unfortunate magnet incident which even today is best left un-discussed. Dark Void became a legendary “lost project” at Capcom…until now.

Nearly twenty years later the next gen version of the game, Dark Void, is back on the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC!  But to commemorate the game’s humble origins, Capcom has commissioned this recreation of the original 8-bit classic, now re-titled “Dark Void Zero,” on the DSi platform.  You play Rusty, the first human born in the Void, who must take on the Watchers in a quest to stop their domination of Earth. With the aid of Nikola Tesla, and his state-of-the-art rocket pack, Rusty must take down the Watchers and their minions across three intense levels of action and intrigue.”

Check out the trailer and all the screens below!

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We talk to the director and star of our favorite Nintendo-themed online series.

Welcome to “Taco the Town”, the most delicious interview show on the Interwebs!

Because our studio is still hopelessly contaminated after our disastrous attempt to create a real, live, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, we’ll be talking to famous musicians, authors, comedians, “Avatar” fan fiction writers, actors, sentient Ouija boards and professional hand models in the one place that everyone can agree on: The Taco Stand!

Today we’ll be talking to Sandeep Parikh and Tony Janning, the director and star of “The Legend of Neil“, the immensely popular web series currently running on Atom.com. (You may also recognize Sandeep as Zaboo from “The Guild”, also starring Felicia Day). We talked to the guys about The Legend of Zelda, auto-erotic asphyxiation, how to write a good theme song, fairy sex and, of course, tacos. Check it all out right here, exclusively on CraveOnline!

Hey assholes! You can help Legend of Neil win at this year’s Streamys! The Streamys are kind of like the Oscars of web video, if the Oscars were held in a high school cafeteria with a cash bar. So really, they’re more like the Golden Globes. But that doesn’t make it any less prestigious! Visit Sandeep’s site, EffinFunny.com for a listing of nominations, and then head over to Streamys.org to make your submissions!

Watch Legend of Neil, Season 1

Watch Legend of Neil, Season 2

Finally, a proper award show for the nerds that actually play the games being awarded!

For those of you that are interested in video game awards, but find the “Spike TV Video Game Awards” to be a bit too much of a glorified commercial (though not in an awesome way, like “The Wizard”), there is an alternative.

Our friends at Machinima are scooping Spike TV the night before their award show with an award show of their own, to be hosted on their insanely popular YouTube channel. The “Inside Gaming Awards” will air the first of two special episodes on Black Friday (Nov. 27^th) in which Inside Gaming host The Dead Pixel will announce over 90 nominations across 18 categories including Game of the Year, Best DLC, Best Art Direction and best dick joke in a teen-rated game.

Actually, I may have made that last one up. Not that I’d be surprised to see this category included. For an example as to why, check out their latest episode:

On December 11^th, right before Spike TV televises their award show, “Inside Gaming” will host an offline awards ceremony in Santa Monica, CA, and announce their own winners. On August 11^th of the following year, Machinima will not be invited to Spike TV’s birthday party for cock blocking them several months prior.

Anyway, the moral of this story is that you should watch the first “Inside Gaming Awards” special on Machinima, this Friday, while your dumb family members get trampled to death at 6am sales for shit they could’ve bought for less on eBay any other time of the year but don’t know how to operate a computer. And don’t forget to watch the results show on December 15^th, in which Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will undoubtedly have swept every award despite being nearly identical to the previous games in the series. (Although, I’m personally pulling for Borderlands, FTW!)