It's good news/bad news time again. Good news first- Cave Story Wii has been resubmitted to Nintendo for approval. The game was supposed to be out months ago, but for reasons unknown, Nintendo has been holding it back. I played a very final-feeling version of the game at E3 this year, which makes me think that the game has been done for a while. The word on the street was that the game's translation needed changing before it could be releases, but I'm guessing that there's more to it than that.

Which brings us to the bad news.

Some mysterious changes have been made to Quote, the game's main character. His iconic red hat and pants have now been replaced with a yellow and brown ensemble that's much less flattering. Happier people than myself are guessing this change signifies DLC palate swaps for Quote, or even better, a new 2-player co-op mode. My guess is that Nintendo thought that the original Quote looked too much like Ash Ketchum, and wouldn't let the game come out until the character was changed. You can see the original Quote sprite, the initial WiiWare revision, and the latest yellowed-up sprite all in the gallery.

So what do you think?  Am I being paranoid, or did Nintendo just force Quote to start dressing like Devo circa 1978?

[via Gonintendo]

During his comments following the release of Nintendo's recent financials, company President Satoru Iwata laid out the connectivity rates for the Wii and DS in Japan. According to Nintendo's numbers 30 percent of Wii owners are currently connecting their Wii to the internet and only 20 percent of DS owners are doing it. The numbers spike whenever a big online game is released for either system or whenever new online functions are released, but Iwata says that the company must take more aggressive action or those numbers will drop.

Despite Iwata's claim that Nintendo is truly interested in its system's online functionality (and their work to sponsor wireless hot spots in places like McDonald's) Iwata does not think that digital distribution of games will be playing a big role in the gaming market for quite some time. He reinforced his opinion that while he does see digital distribution as a means to provide additional internet-driven software features he does not see it as a dominant delivery method for games any time soon.

""In 20 years or so, I might say it will have probably changed," Iwata said while discussing the possible shift to digital distribution. "But in 5 years or so, I do not totally agree. ...Habits of life do not change [so] radically and quickly."

He is, of course, right. Even I, a technologically advanced person of a young age, am having trouble letting go of physical retail. Imagine what a member of Nintendo's new "expanded audience" feels when they're offered a game without a box or disc.

Nursery-room appropriate music? Check. Japanese guy saying "Ackushun Addvenchu-aaahhh"? Check. Gamecube quality graphics. That's an affirmative. Put them all together, and you know what we've got; another PokePark Wii trailer.

Don't assume that when I say "Gamecube quality" graphics, that I mean it in a bad way. On the whole, I'd rather look at graphics from five years ago than the dermatologically handicapped dudes often found on the HD-consoles. Sometimes detailed graphics just aren't important, and I see nothing about PokePark Wii that warrants more detailed visuals. Watching Pikachu headbutt squirrels in the ass and periodically get his mime on is a guaranteed good time, regardless of the resolution.

I'm comfortable enough with my manhood to say that PokePark Wii looks promising. Taking real-time Pokemon combat and combining it with the type of mini-games found in Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2 is a fine idea. The game is set for pre-order in Japan right now, and if NoA passes on it like they have so many other NoJ games, I'll probably import it.

How about you? You feeling this low-res, Pokemon head-to-ass butting thing?

[via Gonintendo]

Despite the fact that Miyamoto himself has said that Nintendo is shooting for a 2010 release of the new Zelda teased at E3 behind closed doors, we find it very hard to believe that it will actually come out then. Zelda games are notorious for their epic development time and constant delays and we're already getting one on the DS this year. On top of this Nintendo is really trying to not set a release year that this game will come out. That's not a release date, or a release month, but an a release year.

In a recent interview with GameTrailers TV Nintendo of America's Reggie Fils-Aime sounded a bit shocked that they'd even suggest a 2010 release for the game and then went on to confirm absolutely nothing by saying, "We haven't committed to Zelda in 2010." Bummer.

Despite my disappointment with this fact I can understand it. Hopefully Nintendo will play it smart and not announce a release date until the game is absolutely and completely done because there is nothing more depressing than marking your calendar for a new game and then having that date pushed back again and again.

Bit.Trip VOID is a game that you can play with your family, where you compete to see who can get fatter the fastest. Thanksgiving (link NSFW) is a holiday where families do the same thing, except with more awkward silences and passive aggressive bickering. One is a charming allegory about the dangers of selfishness, the other can give you an ulcer and case of mud-butt.

The choice is clear, people; skip eating this year and play Bit.Trip VOID on Thanksgiving instead. If you don't want to choose, that's actually OK too. The game is set for release on November 23rd, which will give you four days to play before the actual celebration of excess and obesity begins.

Just don't come crying to me when the mud-butt comes-a-calling.

Kyozo Kicks returns! The guy who brings us awesome Zelda and Phoenix Wright shoes that we can never wear because he only makes one pair of them has brought us another pair of shoes we can never wear. This time he hand painted a pair of Converse for his girlfriend's birthday from with Patapon. It's quite awesome.

I think this might be my favorite pair of these shoes just because they are so subtle. The tiny little images around the sole wouldn't be noticed by most, but you'd have an instant connection with anyone who recognized them. Mr. Kyozo I am a size 12-13 shoe. Please contact me for my mailing address. It appears you do take custom requests. I can pay in love or blog posts.

Let's get the "I'll buy that for a dollar" quote out of the way. Right, now we can get on with the actual story.

Did you know that the classic arcade game Smash TV was in line for a remake? It was going to be a top-down shooter, just like the old days, but given a coat of modern paint with 3D graphics. Original Smash TV programmer Mark Turmell confirmed that the game was in development, but then it "hit the fan" with Midway and the project had to be scrapped.

Fear not, though, Smash TV fans. While Turmell did not state that the new game was still in the works, he voiced confidence that it "will rise again," thanks to Warner Brothers., the company that now owns Midway's soul. WB has the right, the means and, we hope, the desire to do it, so watch this space. Big money and big prizes may be yours to enjoy once again in the near future.

There have been plenty of stories over the years that Captain Obvious has posted, but I feel this might be his greatest achievement. Yes, the power to state the obvious has been granted to Activison and they've used it with great skill. Hold on to your hats, because here it comes: next year will have more Guitar Hero and Call of Duty games. Activision stated as much during a recent earnings call. We can only imagine that the announcement was followed by a slow clap building into a roaring applause as all the participants realised they were in the presence of the most obvious statement ever.

Also announced in this cavalcade of obvious was a new Spider-Man game and a new Shrek game. The latter of which is most likely based on next year's new Shrek film. We don't know much else at all about any of the games other than their impending release in the next year, but it's pretty clear that the new Call of Duty will move away from WWII and into a new time period with awesome music.

So far, one of the main things we've known about From Software's 3D Dot Game Heroes is that it's a PS3 exclusive. From even confirmed as such a few weeks ago, explicitly stating that it was only for the Big Black Box o' Blu-ray. However, it seems the actual development studio, Silicon Studios, is open to the idea of a 360 version.

"We can do it. Our libraries are multiplatform, so it would be possible to make it for 360," states Hiroyuki Misawa. "It's up to From. We're a developer, so if there's a call to make it, I believe we can do it."

Misawa was also asked about the whole Zelda thing, although he seemed to be ducking the question. He did confirm that the studio has in no way tried to get Nintendo's blessing, and that 3D Dot Game Heroes is "something like" an homage. He also denied that the created character data being shared with customers is Link, stating that "It probably looks like it, but it's not."

Oh, you rascal!

_{[Weekend Destructainment is a collection of funny videos brought together from all across the Internet to bring you entertainment on these slow and boring weekends.]}

ScrewAttack gives us an analysis of the launch trailer for Modern Warfare 2. Sadly or awesomely, we're going to be hearing a lot of what ScrewAttack said during multiplayer matches.

Weekend D is smaller this week, but it's still full of entertainment! After the break, check out the Left 4 Dead 2 Easter Egg. Then remember how awful the Mega Man cartoon was. Next up, the Totally Rad Show guys play Ju-On. Followed by some rejected Mortal Kombat Fatalities. The Destructainment ends with an old Dig Dug sketch by Mega 64.

We've teamed up with Namco Bandai to giveaway some great Magnacarta 2 prizes. Over on the official page for Magnacarta 2, you can win an art book, battle atlas and a Magnacarta 2 Xbox 360 themed faceplate. Over here on Destructoid, we're giving away six copies of the game away for the Xbox 360.

All you need to do to win the game is create a funny image with a photo editing program using one or all of the pictures from the gallery below. Whatever you create, try to keep it safe for work and post it in the comments below. The funniest and/or most creative image creation will win Magnacarta 2.

You have until November 8 to submit a photo and this contest is open to US residents only. Good luck!

[Update! The Magnacarta 2 contest on the official site is now live! Just register on the site and you'll get entered in the contest where you can win one of ten prize sets made up of an art book, battle atlas and Xbox 360 themed faceplate.]

Videogames are a constantly and rapidly evolving medium. While this means that amazing advances in gameplay and graphics consistently surprise us, it also means that those very same advances are destined to look rustic, quaint or simply atrocious in the short space of a few years. Just take the PlayStation era. The move from sprite-based gaming to 3D was hailed as a masterpiece, yet most of the PSOne "classics" of the day are regarded as rather sub-par now. Many of today's great-looking games run the risk of a similar fate.

To stand the test of time is a rare and special feat in the games industry. Some games have remained ageless due to impressive gameplay that nobody before or since has attempted, a simple graphical style that relies more on artistic beauty than graphical horsepower, or simply being damn good at what they do in ways that modern games can't even match.

That said, there are a fair few games looked back on fondly today that have not aged as well as everybody believes they have. They may have been groundbreaking, brilliant titles in their era, but going back to them now reveals a shockingly poor experience that one's rose-tinted specs have attempted to deny. These are the games we shall name and shame in this feature, so come with me as we look at a number of "classic" games that did not age well.

It's tough to be blind or visually impaired. I think we can all agree that that is a true enough statement. You probably miss out on a lot of great things. Playing videogames would be one of those things that completely blind people miss out on (unless they've mastered echolocation), but what about those who are only visually impaired and want to play games? Shouldn't they be considered when game designers make games? A new lawsuit filed against Sony thinks as much.

Disabled gamer Alexander Stern filed suit against Sony, Sony Online Entertainment, and Sony Computer Entertainment America in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. He alleges that Sony is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by not implementing any features that make their games accessible to visually impaired gamers. The suit claims that despite repeated requests via e-mail and snail mail Sony has completely denied the idea of making reasonable modifications to their games in order to make them more friendly to those with "disability impaired visual processing."

No specific games are mentioned, but the general gist of the suit seems to be leaning towards MMO and Sony's lack of visual cues in the game. It also points to other games that do help the visually impaired, like World of Warcraft, which allows the use of third-party mods and thus has many mods that help the visually impaired play the game.

Even more shocking is the lawsuit's contention that Sony's lack of support for the visually impaired has cost the visually impaired community money. Since Sony runs an official auction site where gamers can sell all of their in-game loot for real money those who cannot fully participate in the games, like the visually impaired, cannot make money. The suit says that Stern's inability to do this has cost him money. 

Sony doesn't comment on pending litigation, but aside from the monetary loss I'm pretty inclined to agree with Mr. Stern. Seems to me that many of his issues could have been fixed with a simple patch, and I think anyone who played Lost Odyssey on a standard definition screen would agree that being able to properly see and interact with your games is highly important.

MAG, the PlayStation 3-exclusive first-person shooter that boasts 256-player multiplayer, is set to release on January 26, 2010. So to get people geared up and ready, Sony invited us to a one-on-one training session, complete with some hands-on play time with the beta.

If you haven't been keeping up with every little detail (and you aren't already in the beta), then feel free to read on past the jump to get the lowdown on how the game functions, and some of the impressions that I got from my limited time with it.

Your copy of the local Sunday newspaper won't be the only place you'll be finding word games this weekend. The fine folks over at the news section of the Final Fantasy XIII website have left us a bit of a brain teaser to figure out. It's an anagram that hints at something that is about to come and it reads:

A Henchmen Inventor Tent Unto

As anagrams go this one is pretty weak thanks to the fact that it's just a bunch of random words grouped together. I have of course figured it out using my superior intellect and limitless intellgence, but I don't want to give it away so I won't write it here. Feel free to tell me what it is below... even though I obviously already know because I'm super smart. Don't worry if you can't figure it out, they'll be revealing the answer on Monday.

As an added bonus I have included a Hammer Day puzzle in the header. Can you figure out what the letters and images mean? Enjoy!

Yeeeeeeah boy! This week's edition of TVSWID features a special guest star. His name is Grand Master FUC-KNUKKLE and he's Manchester's hottest mixy-scratchy-man on the club circuit. He'll be showing off his pimpin' moves in this video, which is all about DJ Hero, aka the unnecessary piss-take of the music game world.

I think this video turned out pretty damn well, so do please make sure to watch it if you've been a fan of the other ones. I like the episodes that have characters in them. I might try to do more in future. Or I might NOT! Who knows? It's a total effing mystery.

Despite my other job being that of a film critic I have been paying little to no attention to the upcoming Tekken film set to be released in 2010 at some point. I could make up a plethora of excuses about why, but it's mostly because I am 99.9 percent positive it will suck, and the new promotional art you see above for the film pretty much pushes that percentage up to 100.

Despite "Survival is no game" being an almost unbearably cheesy/awesome catch phrase it's hard to find anything else of value going on here. The women look like they were dressed by either someone from the 1980s or at the local costume shop and the men all have decidedly serious faces on that inform me they're taking this far too, well, seriously. Evidently, in the near future that the film takes place in everything is tinted blue as well. In all fairness though, is this any worse than the Tekken 6 box art? I mean come on Tekken. Street Fighter delivers this, and all you can muster up is five people standing around flexing?

Anyway, back on topic. Bad movie, bad sales art.

Activision is not messing around when it comes to Modern Warfare 2, and has demonstrated that it will literally hunt down anybody engaging in shenanigans involving its massive FPS title. When one cheeky thief was discovered offering a Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 bundle on Craigslist, the evil publisher hired a private investigator to track down and apprehend the suspect.

IPCyberCrime was brought in and managed to track down the seller, discovering that he worked at a retailer and had conspired with friends to steal bundles from the store and sell them on. The employee was given over to the retailer's loss prevention department. As if that wasn't enough, a prospective buyer for the bundle was also followed up on, since he was claiming he would take the game, rip it, and then leak it online for pirating purposes.

Christian Del Amo, the would-be pirate, got off less likely than the seller, since he's now dealing with the Miami-Dade Police Department. So yeah, ripping Modern Warfare 2 off might sound great if you're a PC gamer who feels that Infinity Ward deserves it, but remember -- Activision is a jealous God, and it will smite you.