Nintendo is going dark for its weekly Wii Shop Channel game update. Don’t worry, that doesn’t mean they’re skipping the Virtual Console uploads this week; it means they’re going with games that aren’t the normal “fluffy bunny” type of games.
Oh, and did we mention the headliner this week is Metroid? Yes, the original from the NES?
At 9:00am PST today, Nintendo will release Metroid, Shining in the Darkness and Cratermaze. Metroid will set you back 500 Points, Shining in the Darkness 800 Points, and and Cratermaze 600 points. Now, on to the descriptions….
In the NES classic Metroid, players are introduced to the hideous title creatures and the slick, cybernetic bounty hunter Samus Aran. As Samus, players’ mission is to penetrate the space pirates’ home planet, Zebes, and keep the pirates from destroying the galaxy with the dangerous life forms known as Metroids. Metroid has all the high-tech weaponry, creepy tunnels and crawly alien creatures anyone could ask for, and a frightening ambience that will both haunt and entertain.
Shining in the Darkeness, a 3D game, originally appeared on the Sega Genesis. In the game, Dark Sol has vowed to reign over the enchanted Kingdom of Thornwood, and only the player can stop him by finding the powerful Arms of Light and battling the deadly beasts keeping the populace desperate and starving. Roaming the dark Labyrinth, players will seek out enemies and collect weapons, all of which will allow them to move from battle to battle, solve puzzles and discover secret items that help players become a shining knight.
Cratermaze, a TurboGrafix 16 title, is a comical action game set in a parallel world. While on a trip through time, players and their friends are confronted by Kublai, henchman to the evil Zenzombie. After trapping the friends at separate points in the space-time continuum, players must fight their way through 60 rounds of mazes to save their friends. Dinosaurs, ninjas, robots and other enemies lurk within the mazes, spanning from primitive times to the future. Players escape the enemies by digging holes to trap them and then filling the holes to finish them off.
