This Week at the Nintendo Shop: Get Out Your Shovels

[Doctor Setebos]

Another week, another mysterious grab bag of questionable material tossed haphazardly onto the various Nintendo download services. Oh, the suspense!

Aksys releases yet another entry in their "Family" series of WiiWare shovelware. Judging by the quality of the previous three entries, I'm starting to think that Aksys hates families. Nintendo keeps the hits coming on DSiWare releasing a game where you cut and fold boxes. Yes, you read that correctly. There's also a puzzle game that involves the military somehow? I guess? And another puzzle game where you assemble shapes into other shapes, all incomprehensibly wrapped around an Egyptian theme.

I'm starting to think I could make this entire list up from scratch using random words from the dictionary and it still wouldn't sound as ridiculous as the actual list itself.

Full game info and links below.


WiiWare

Drill Sergeant Mindstrong (http://wiiware.nintendolife.com/games/wiiware/drill_sergeant_mindstrong)
Publisher: XSEED Games
Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) - Mild Language, Mild Violence
Price: 800 Wii Points™
Description: Line up and get ready to use your mind. Drill Sergeant Mindstrong is a party game that allows up to four people to play at once. Players become boot-camp trainees under the tough Drill Sergeant Mindstrong, going through mind-boggling, mind-training games. The rules are simple, but concentration and quick thinking are key. Become the top boot of your class and earn promotions based on your efforts. This game is best played with friends and family.

NEVES Plus™ (http://wiiware.nintendolife.com/games/wiiware/neves_plus)
Publisher: YUKES Company of America
Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 600 Wii Points
Description: Try your hand at the newest puzzle craze to come out of Japan, NEVES Plus! Enhanced for WiiWare, NEVES Plus not only retains all the simple, mind-bending tangram-based game play from the original Nintendo DS™ version, but also includes new multiplayer modes wrapped up in an Egyptian theme. This time, you and up to three others can work together to move, rotate and flip the seven Lucky stones into each of the 500-plus silhouette puzzles. You can also challenge one another in new multiplayer modes such as Versus, Speed, Lucky Number and Party Mode. Whether you play every mode by yourself or with friends, NEVES Plus is set to charm you with harder-than-they-look silhouette puzzles.

Family Mini Golf (http://wiiware.nintendolife.com/games/wiiware/family_mini_golf)
Publisher: Aksys Games
Players: 1-8
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 500 Wii Points
Description: Daddy, Mommy, Sarah and Billy are back for some mini-golf action. Play through multiple golf courses that contain obstacles ranging from bumpers to speed ramps to fans and more. Up to eight players can play together using a single Wii Remote™ controller. You can download new courses to expand your fun-filled mini-golf experience, creating even more complex and difficult challenges to overcome. Can you conquer all the courses and become the mini-golf champion?

DSiWare

Art Style: BOXLIFE™ (http://dsiware.nintendolife.com/games/dsiware/art_style_boxlife)
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 500 Nintendo DSi Points™
Description: Climb the corporate ladder in the world of BOXLIFE using your wits and... paper? Use the Nintendo DSi™ stylus to cut and then manipulate the paper into a box shape. Be careful-if you're not efficient with your cuts, you'll waste paper and be penalized. R&D mode teaches you new patterns and challenges you to complete various ranks, while FACTORY mode gives you the chance to earn money by making as many boxes as possible from an endless sheet of paper. Success in each mode brings its own reward: Clear ranks to earn a promotion, change your character's appearance, and use your earnings to acquire new items for your character's miniature garden. With this game's stylish graphics and catchy sounds, thinking inside the box isn't such a bad thing.

Virtual Console

SimEarth™: The Living Planet (http://vc.nintendolife.com/games/tg16/simearth_the_living_planet)
Original platform: TurboGrafx16 CD-ROM
Publisher: Hudson Entertainment
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) - Violent References
Price: 800 Wii Points
Description: An entire planet becomes your laboratory in this large-scale simulation game. Players help foster new life and promote its evolution into life forms of higher intelligence. Guide civilization along the path of evolution until it can achieve Exodus, the ultimate goal of settling on another planet. The basic challenge of the game is to maintain a comfortable environment for the life forms by adjusting atmospheric and geological parameters. Small organisms called Prokaryote and Trichordate will grow and evolve into a multitude of life forms. Making a drastic change is a recipe for disaster. The key to success is making small adjustments and watching how the life forms react. SimEarth also includes planets with environments different from Earth, such as Mars and Venus. Try your hand at terraforming these planets with harsh conditions and creating a world where life can thrive.

Enjoy?

[Sandman]

You know what? Fuck you Nintendo. You've got to really show me something incredible on DSiWare now for me to even bother logging into the store for those free points.

[Lint of Death]

They made SimEarth for a console?! Dear goodness, that sounds like a nightmare!

[Chris_D]

Nintendo needs to try harder if they expect me to care.

[Wilkz07]

Sim Earth was fun on pc when it came out... not now.

DSiware doesn't sound like it will pickup for awhile yet. Holding out on a dsi until there is a solid library of games... it may take a while.

[Doctor Setebos]

I just added up the cost of all the games on this week's list and it comes out to $32. That's 32 dollars. 32 actual cash money dollars.

I'm beginning to suspect that WiiWare and DSiWare have been monumental financial failures for Nintendo. And now they're just holding onto the services by a thread, biding their time until the next consoles come out and they can drop the services completely.

That's really the only explanation for this to occur every single week.

[Doogie2K]

I just added up the cost of all the games on this week's list and it comes out to $32. That's 32 dollars. 32 actual cash money dollars.

I'm beginning to suspect that WiiWare and DSiWare have been monumental financial failures for Nintendo. And now they're just holding onto the services by a thread, biding their time until the next consoles come out and they can drop the services completely.

That's really the only explanation for this to occur every single week.

Not to state the obvious, but maybe if they put something other than reskinned clocks on the service, they might make some fucking money.

[Mike Kelehan]

I just added up the cost of all the games on this week's list and it comes out to $32. That's 32 dollars. 32 actual cash money dollars.

I'm beginning to suspect that WiiWare and DSiWare have been monumental financial failures for Nintendo. And now they're just holding onto the services by a thread, biding their time until the next consoles come out and they can drop the services completely.

That's really the only explanation for this to occur every single week.

That's 32 actual cash money dollars more than physical releases from Nintendo this week.

[Savok]

Was the Mario vs DK game on DSi any good? Cause really that's the only thing remotely interesting there.

And SimEarth? Really? You couldn't tap another EA/Konami (depending on who has the license) game?

[Vyzov]

I used to play a ton of Sim Earth on SNES.