Yes, the fine art of Speedrunning is alive and well, especially with this second renaissance of retro games and remakes brought on by the rise of the virtual console. I’m still deciding which system to buy in order to play this excellent game, so I haven’t watched this for fear of spoilers, but that shouldn’t stop you. Here’s a torrent if you don’t want to watch it embedded.

You can read the speedrunner Satoryu’s notes on the run here; he thinks sub-24 is possible, but we’ll never really know what the true minimum time necessary is until the TAS’ers take a shot at it.

I’m feeling that same excitement I felt back in the day when something like StarFox would come out — probably because I’ve been looking for a new Mega Man game to kick my ass for a long time. And believe me, that’s exactly what this one is going to do.

Over the next 2 weeks, console gamers around the country will be throwing their controllers at the floor in frustration after being repeatedly owned by Mega Man 9′s nostalgic greatness. Capcom has announced the North American release dates as follows:

• Wii: September 22nd for 1000 Wii points via Wii Shop channel
• PS3: September 25th for $9.99 via PSN
• Xbox 360: October 1st for 800 points via XBLA

I honestly can’t remember the last time I was so pumped about a game that I knew was going to drive me insane.

[Capcom Unity via Kotaku]

I’m here in San Francisco today, eating delicious appetizers and playing Mega Man 9. Jealous? I thought so. I’ve also put my sweaty fingerprints all over their shiny new Wings, the wireless controller that Nyko is hoping will take the place of many gamers’ Wii classic controllers. Read on for impressions and more pictures, including Mega Man 9‘s title screen.

I think you could call this a review, but it’s worth noting that this isn’t the final hardware or driver so we’ll definitely take another look when they get that all figured out.

So they’ve loaded up their stations with some of the twitchiest games out there. Super Ghouls and Ghosts is next to two Street Fighter II stations, and in between is the frustration-alicious Mega Man 9. This leads to a little bit of trouble because these are the instant-death, no-second-chance games that reward extremely precise controls and punish the slightest delay, and it’s difficult to say when it’s you and when it’s the controller that made you die (kind of like the original).

The controller itself is well-put together, very light, and pretty small. If you’ve got big hands it might feel undersized but it’s definitely a better option than the diminutive classic controller or a wiimote in that department. It’s about SNES-controller-size, but thicker and with prongs facing you, so you kind of hold it like a Dreamcast controller. The buttons are nice and push-y, maybe slightly mushy but responsive enough for me.

It connects via a little attachment for your wiimote which they’re saying will work with the Wii MotionPlus. When I started it from zero it synced up instantly and with no issues. The unit on Mega Man 9 had some desyncing issues, but the others didn’t and Chris, the Nyko guy I was talking to, said that the drivers were still being finalized and they were squashing those desyncs as we speak.

The D-pad is a little slippery, and while I may not be a wizard at Street Fighter, I know how to do a Shoryuken and I was having a little trouble. Nothing that wasn’t alleviated by a little practice, but it reminds me of the Dreamcast’s D-pad, which could have been better. They say they’re modifying the D-pad to give it a little more texture.

I’ll get to the point: this is a nice little controller, and the wireless works just fine as long as you don’t get the same unit I was using on MM9. The others worked perfectly well. At only $30 I’d say this is an easy product to recommend; if you’re a big virtual console nut you’re going to want two and at that price it’s not an issue. They’ll be available in early October.

Mega Man 9, by the way, is awesome and super hard. I couldn’t get to the boss on either of the stages they had available, but with a little practice and a non-buggy unit, I bet I could have done it.

Mega Man 9′s step back to the golden days is exactly what the series needs. Seriously. It has been years since I’ve been this excited about getting frustrated and throwing my controller at the wall.

Sneak peaks at two of the game’s levels showed up online today, along with the opening cinematic shown above. Though they’re only a few minutes in length, the videos gives the impression that this one is going to be stupidly hard – just as it should be.

http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=38237

http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=38238

Basically, everything I see about this game makes me want to go out and buy a $200 Xbox 360.

Oh yeah, baby. I’m going to beat this mother in one sitting no matter what. I’m really glad they went back to about the Mega Man 2 era in terms of skills and enemies since that’s the era I rock. I’m going to play some Mega Man tonight with “Eye of the Tiger” on in the background to get ready for this.

They are doing so many things so right here.
1. Cross-platform love like never before
2. Retro graphics like — before
3. The Blue Bomber
4. Robot dragons

History will look kindly on Mega Man 9, which I’m hoping is going to be every bit as hard and filthy as Mega Man 2, one of my favorite games ever. [via Kotaku]