Yesterday, Nintendo of America set up a hype page for Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1. The page listed a bunch of features, including online leaderboards and a widescreen format. The most interesting thing was the fact that Sonic 4 was boasting a “full HD resolution,” despite the fact that the Wii doesn’t output in HD.

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I remember the first time I played La-Mulana. Drawn in by its MSX-style graphics and the longing for another good action-adventure-y platformer, there was no way I wasn’t going to dig this free game. Seeing this trailer for the upcoming WiiWare remake makes me realize, damn, I didn’t get very far at all.

For you see, the game is pretty hard. When I haven’t invested money in difficult games, I don’t feel obligated to complete them; easy as that. The good news is, I love how a bunch of really solid independent games are getting Wiiware re-releases, like Cave Story.

That means I’ll reaffirm my support for this trend with my wallet when La-Mulana releases. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll then have reason enough to make it further into the game and get my ass kicked by these awesome-looking bosses.

Archaeology Lecture [La-Mulana Blog via GoNintendo]

source Destructoid

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When the Wii first launched Nintendo made the brilliant decision to bundle the system with Wii Sports, thus giving each person who bought it a high quality tech demo of what the system can do, and subsequently defining the use of the technology. It appears Microsoft will be attempting to take somewhat of the same approach with Natal, as Rare’s studio head, Mark Betteridge, says that first-party launch games will define the Natal experience.

“I suppose at Microsoft it’s about, overall, having the right content from first-party studios to define what Natal is,” he told Develop in an interview.

“We’re very confident we do have that, we will have that, and I think people are going to be impressed with what they see from ourselves and [other] first-parties,” he stated.

The Natal launch line-up hasn’t been announced yet, but that’ll most likely be done at one of Microsoft’s two E3 press conference. For now it seems that the company really wants to come out of the gate flying with their first parties showing everyone how it is done.

Rare: We’ll define the Natal experience [Develop, via That VideoGame Blog]

Via Destructoid

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Well, there’s a bit of a bummer for the first full day of PAX East 10. Penny Arcade’s Mike Krahulik has confirmed that Penny Arcade Adventures, the episodic RPG starring Tycho and Gabe, has been discontinued as developer Hothead Games pursues other avenues.

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