mgroves

Out of all the cool features of the Wii, the one I find myself enjoying the most is the Virtual Console. I’m not exactly sure why, since I’ve had access to these games via emulators for years and years. Maybe it’s the same reason why some music pirates switch to iTunes, maybe because it’s much easier to play on a television, or maybe it’s just the novelty.

Whatever it is, I’ve racked up quite a few hours playing Wario’s Woods recently, and I’m looking forward to more VC goodness from Nintendo.

I found a rumored release schedule a week or so ago, and it appears to be accurate so far. There are some duds, but here are some games I look forward to:

• Punch-Out!! Nintendo February 19, 2007 (NES)
• Pilotwings Nintendo January 22, 2007 (SNES)
• Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars Squaresoft February 5, 2007 (SNES)
• Super Mario World Nintendo February 12, 2007 (SNES)
• Super Metroid Nintendo February 19, 2007 (SNES)
• Uniracers (one of my favorite games) Nintendo March 5, 2007 (SNES)

Looks like I’ll be spending a lot of money on VC games in the next year if this sort of trend keeps up.

I’d like to see them expand the VC concept a little more. Additional systems would be great (GBx/GBA, Game Gear, SMS, Atari, Sierra/Lucas). I’d also like to see some sort of online play component, even it was just a tacked-on zSNES netplay type of feature. Sure, split screens might be a nuisance, but it would be better than nothing. There’s been rampant speculation about this, of course, but Nintendo hasn’t said a word about online play for VC (and not much about online play at all, really).