1.
North America
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North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It can also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea. North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers, about 16. 5% of the land area. North America is the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 565 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7. 5% of the worlds population, North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago, the Classic stage spans roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era ended with the migrations and the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect different kind of interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants, European influences are strongest in the northern parts of the continent while indigenous and African influences are relatively stronger in the south. Because of the history of colonialism, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French, the Americas are usually accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann. Vespucci, who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass previously unknown by Europeans. In 1507, Waldseemüller produced a map, in which he placed the word America on the continent of South America. He explained the rationale for the name in the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio, for Waldseemüller, no one should object to the naming of the land after its discoverer. He used the Latinized version of Vespuccis name, but in its feminine form America, following the examples of Europa, Asia and Africa. Later, other mapmakers extended the name America to the continent, In 1538. Some argue that the convention is to use the surname for naming discoveries except in the case of royalty, a minutely explored belief that has been advanced is that America was named for a Spanish sailor bearing the ancient Visigothic name of Amairick. Another is that the name is rooted in a Native American language, the term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with location and context. In Canadian English, North America may be used to refer to the United States, alternatively, usage sometimes includes Greenland and Mexico, as well as offshore islands
2.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
3.
Wii
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The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19,2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii competed with Microsofts Xbox 360, Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others. The Wii introduced the Wii Remote controller, which can be used as a pointing device. Another notable feature of the console is the now defunct WiiConnect24, like other seventh-generation consoles, it features a game download service, called Virtual Console, which features emulated games from past systems. It succeeded the GameCube, and early models are fully backward-compatible with all GameCube games, Nintendo first spoke of the console at the E32004 press conference and later unveiled it at E32005. Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata revealed a prototype of the controller at the September 2005 Tokyo Game Show, at E32006, the console won the first of several awards. By December 8,2006, it had completed its launch in the four key markets, in late 2011, Nintendo released a reconfigured model, the Wii Family Edition, which lacks Nintendo GameCube compatibility, this model was not released in Japan. The Wii Mini, Nintendos first major redesign since the compact SNES. The Wii Mini can only play Wii optical discs, as it omits GameCube compatibility and all networking capabilities, the Wiis successor, the Wii U, was released on November 18,2012. On October 20,2013, Nintendo confirmed it had discontinued production of the Wii in Japan and Europe, although the Wii Mini is still in production, the console was conceived in 2001, as the Nintendo GameCube was first released. According to an interview with Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, the concept involved focusing on a new form of player interaction, the consensus was that power isnt everything for a console. Too many powerful consoles cant coexist and its like having only ferocious dinosaurs. They might fight and hasten their own extinction, in 2003, game engineers and designers were brought together to develop the concept further. By 2005 the controller interface had taken form, but a showing at that years Electronic Entertainment Expo was canceled. Miyamoto stated that the company had some troubleshooting to do, so we decided not to reveal the controller and instead we displayed just the console. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata later unveiled and demonstrated the Wii Remote at the September Tokyo Game Show, the Nintendo DS is said to have influenced the Wiis design. Designer Kenichiro Ashida noted, We had the DS on our minds as we worked on the Wii and we thought about copying the DSs touch-panel interface and even came up with a prototype. The idea was rejected because of the notion that the two gaming systems would be identical
4.
Nintendo
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Nintendo Co. Ltd. is a Japanese multinational consumer electronics and video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. Nintendo is one of the worlds largest video game companies by market capitalization, founded on 23 September 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it originally produced handmade hanafuda playing cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small businesses, such as cab services. The word Nintendo can be translated from Japanese to English as leave luck to heaven. From 1992 until 2016, Nintendo was also the majority shareholder of Major League Baseballs Seattle Mariners, as of 31 March 2014, Nintendo has cumulative sales of over 670.43 million hardware units and 4.23 billion software units. The company has created and released some of the best-known and top-selling video game franchises, such as Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo was founded as a card company in late 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi. Based in Kyoto, Japan, the produced and marketed a playing card game called Hanafuda. The handmade cards soon became popular, and Yamauchi hired assistants to mass-produce cards to satisfy demand, in 1949, the company adopted the name Nintendo Karuta Co. Ltd. doing business as The Nintendo Playing Card Co. outside Japan. Nintendo continues to manufacture playing cards in Japan and organizes its own contract bridge tournament called the Nintendo Cup. In 1956, Hiroshi Yamauchi, grandson of Fusajiro Yamauchi, visited the U. S. to talk with the United States Playing Card Company and he found that the biggest playing card company in the world was using only a small office. Yamauchis realization that the card business had limited potential was a turning point. He then acquired the license to use Disney characters on playing cards to drive sales, in 1963, Yamauchi renamed Nintendo Playing Card Co. Ltd. to Nintendo Co. Ltd. The company then began to experiment in other areas of business using newly injected capital during the period of time between 1963 and 1968, Nintendo set up a taxi company called Daiya. However, Nintendo was forced to sell it because problems with the unions were making it too expensive to run the service. It also set up a hotel chain, a TV network. All of these ventures failed, and after the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, playing card sales dropped. In 1966, Nintendo moved into the Japanese toy industry with the Ultra Hand, Yokoi was moved from maintenance to the new Nintendo Games department as a product developer. Nintendo continued to produce toys, including the Ultra Machine, Love Tester
5.
Wii Remote
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The Wii Remote, also known colloquially as the Wiimote, is the primary controller for Nintendos Wii console. Another feature is its expandability through the use of attachments, the attachment bundled with the Wii console is the Nunchuk, which complements the Wii Remote by providing functions similar to those in gamepad controllers. Some other attachments include the Classic Controller, Wii Zapper, the controller was revealed at the Tokyo Game Show on September 14,2005, with the name Wii Remote announced April 27,2006. It has since received much attention due to its unique features, the Wiis successor console, the Wii U, supports the Wii Remote and its peripherals in games where use of the features of the Wii U GamePad is not imperative. Development of a motion enabled controller began in 2001, coinciding with development of the Wii console, in that year, Nintendo licensed a number of motion-sensing patents from Gyration Inc. a company that produces wireless motion-sensing computer mice. At this point, Gyration Inc. brought in a design firm Bridge Design to help pitch its concept to Nintendo. Under requirement to preserve the existing Game Cube button layout, it experimented with different forms through sketches, models. By late 2004, early 2005, however, Nintendo had come up with the Wii Remotes less traditional wand shape, and the design of the Nunchuk attachment. Nintendo had also decided upon using a sensor, infrared pointer, and the layout of the buttons. Coincidentally, this idea would later be implemented on the Wii Us GamePad controller, sources also indicate that the Wii Remote was originally in development as a controller for the Nintendo GameCube, rather than the Wii. Video game developer Factor 5 stated that development of launch title Star Wars Rogue Squadron II, Rogue Leader. As the Wii gained in popularity, reports surfaced of counterfeit Wii Remotes entering circulation, although these devices may provide the same functionality as official Wii Remotes, the build quality is typically inferior and components such as the rumble pack and speaker are noticeably different. It is also unclear if current and future accessories will operate correctly with counterfeit units due to the differences in internal components, the Wii Remote assumes a one-handed remote control-based design instead of the traditional gamepad controllers of previous gaming consoles. This was done to make motion sensitivity more intuitive, as a design is fitted perfectly for pointing. The body of the Wii Remote measures 6.2 in long,36.2 mm wide, the Wii Remote model number is RVL-003, a reference to the project codename Revolution. The controller communicates wirelessly with the console via short-range Bluetooth radio, however, to utilize pointer functionality, the Wii Remote must be used within five meters of the Sensor Bar. The controllers symmetrical design allows it to be used in either hand, the Wii Remote can also be turned horizontally and used like a Famicom/NES controller, or in some cases a steering wheel. It is also possible to play a game with a Wii Remote in each hand
6.
Bubble Bobble
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Bubble Bobble is an arcade comical action platformer video game by Taito, first released in 1986 and later ported to numerous home computers and game consoles. For example, some wrapped candies allow Bub and Bob to move faster, blow bubbles faster, other items, such as umbrellas, allow to skip numerous levels, moving closer to the final level. The game became popular and led to a series of sequels. The main goal of the game is to rescue Bub and Bobs girlfriends from the Cave of Monsters and it is an early example of an action game with multiple endings, which depend on the players performance and discovery of secrets. In the games plot, Baron Von Blubba has kidnapped the brothers Bubby and Bobbys girlfriends and turned the brothers into Bubble Dragons, Bub, Bub and Bob have to finish 100 levels in the Cave of Monsters in order to rescue them. In the game, each controls one of the two dragons. Players can move along platforms, fall to lower ones, and jump to higher ones and over gaps. Each level is limited to a screen, with no scrolling, however, if a screen has gaps in its bottom edge, players can fall through these. Each level has a number of enemies that must be defeated in order to advance. The players must blow bubbles to trap the enemies, then burst these bubbles by colliding with them, each enemy defeated in this manner turns into a food item that can be picked up for extra points. Defeating multiple enemies at once awards higher scores and causes more valuable items to appear. All bubbles will float for a length of time before bursting on their own, players can jump on these. Magic items appear from time to time and grant special abilities and advantages when picked up, special bubbles occasionally appear that can be burst to attack enemies with fire, water, or lightning. Furthermore, if a player collects letter bubbles to form the word EXTEND, he/she earns a bonus life, a player loses one life upon touching any free enemies or their projectiles. Enemies turn angry—turning pink in color and moving faster—if they escape from a bubble after being too long or the players spend a certain amount of time on the current level. They return to normal if either player loses a life, after a further time limit expires, an additional invincible enemy appears for each player, actively chasing them using only vertical and horizontal movements. These disappear once the level is cleared, or when a player loses a life, when there is only one enemy left, it immediately becomes angry and remains in this state until defeated. In the 100th and final level, players face a boss and this game was one of the first to feature multiple endings
7.
Taito
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The Taito Corporation is a Japanese video game developer and publisher of arcade hardwares and mobile phones, and an operator of video arcades. It is also a publisher of home video games. Taito is wholly owned by Square Enix Holdings, despite being a subsidiary to Square Enix Holdings, the parent company has kept the branding of Taito entirely distinct from Square Enix. Taito is known for producing hit arcade games, such as Space Invaders and it has produced arcade games all around the world, while also importing and distributing American coin-op video games in Japan. Taito owns several arcades in Japan known as Taito Stations or Game Taito Stations, Taito has its headquarters in the Shinjuku Bunka Quint Building in Yoyogi, Shibuya, Tokyo, sharing the facility with its parent company. In the past, the company had operated divisions in North America, Brazil, South Korea, Italy, the company was founded in 1953 by a Russian Jewish businessman named Michael Kogan as Taito Trading Company. Taito started out importing and distributing vending machines and it was also the first company to distill and sell vodka in Japan. Later, it began leasing jukeboxes and eventually started to manufacture its own, Taito began producing electro-mechanical arcade games in the 1960s. Taito changed its name from Taito Trading Company to Taito Corporation in August 1972, several of its early arcades games saw release in America by Midway, a Chicago area-based arcade manufacturer with strong ties to Taito. Taito opened in 1973 its Taito America division, in its first years, Taito Americas sole purpose was to handle the licensing of Taitos video games to American third party publishers. It wasnt until the late 1970s that Taito America began to self-publish Taitos video games in North America, initially based in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, Taito America relocated to nearby Wheeling in 1985. In April 1986 and barely a month after becoming part of the Kyocera group, Japan Vending Machine was once an independent company but was purchased by Taito in July 1971 to strengthening its presence in the operation of amusement facilities. Pacific Industrial was created by Taito itself in 1963 to develop products for the company, in May 1988, Taito Software, the division of Taito America responsible for non-arcade operations, opened its own office in North Vancouver, British Columbia. However, by early 1991, the Vancouver location had completely shut down, Taito America ceased operations in July 1996 after more than 20 years of existence. Taito had already sold exclusive rights for publishing its games in America to Acclaim Entertainment several months before, similarly, a division existed in London, England in the United Kingdom to distribute Taito games in Europe. Taito Corporation Limited was created in 1988 and liquidated in February 1998, Taito has many well known arcade video games. Space Invaders is probably the most notable, but games such as Speed Race, Gun Fight, Qix, Jungle Hunt, Elevator Action, Buggy Challenge, Bubble Bobble, Takeshi no Chōsenjō, Chase H. Q. Puzznic, Kick Master, Gun Buster and Puzzle Bobble are all part of Taitos library, Taito also had a license from Hanna-Barbera to produce games based on its animated series
8.
Analog stick
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An analog stick, sometimes called a control stick, joystick, or thumbstick is an input device for a controller that is used for two-dimensional input. An analog stick is a variation of a joystick, consisting of a protrusion from the controller, while digital sticks rely on single electrical connections for movement, analog sticks use continuous electrical activity running through potentiometers. The analog stick has greatly overtaken the D-pad in both prominence and usage in console video games, in a video game, an analog stick is often used to move some game object, usually the playable character. It may also be used to rotate the camera, usually around the character, the analog stick can serve a great variety of other functions, depending on the game. Today many analog sticks can also be pushed in like conventional face buttons of a controller and its use is prevalent in 3D games, where more than 8 directions are needed. Using a D-pad in a 3D game greatly limits the ability to move, for example, in a 3D platform game like Super Mario 64, using a D-pad would allow Mario to move forward, backwards, left and right, but nothing in between. With the prevalence of analog sticks, the limitations of the D-pad ceased to be an issue. Two analog sticks offer greater functionality than a single stick, on some modern game controllers, the left stick is positioned to the upper left of the D-pad while the right stick is positioned to the lower left of the face buttons. The Classic Controller for the Wii also uses this configuration, with genres such as action, adventure games, platforming, and shooting, the left stick normally controls the characters movement while the second stick controls the camera. The use of an analog stick alleviated problems in many earlier platform games. In Namcos Katamari Damacy and its sequels, both analog sticks are used at once to control the players character, Sonys PSP has been criticized for the lack of a second analog nub to accompany the left-hand one, a criticism that was later also leveled at Nintendos 3DS. Nintendo has since released an add-on for the 3DS that adds, among other things, the follow-up to the PSP, the PlayStation Vita, features dual analog sticks. It is the first handheld console to do so. The New Nintendo 3DS and New Nintendo 3DS XL added a second analog controller, the first consumer games console which had analog joysticks was the Prinztronic/Acetronic/Interton series, launched in 1976. This system was widely cloned throughout Europe and available under several brand names, the 2 sticks each used a pair of potentiometers, but were not self-centering. In 1982, Atari released a controller with an analog joystick for their Atari 5200 home console. However, its non-centering joystick design proved to be ungainly and unreliable, during that same year, General Consumer Electronics introduced the Vectrex, a vector graphics based system which used a self-centering analog joystick. In 1985, Segas third-person rail shooter game Space Harrier, released for the arcades, Segas analog Mission Stick was released for the Saturn console on September 29,1995
9.
D-pad
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Like early video game joysticks, the vast majority of D-pads are digital, in other words, only the directions provided on the D-pad buttons can be used, with no intermediate values. However, combinations of two directions do provide diagonals and many modern D-pads can be used to provide eight-directional input if appropriate, although digital D-pads offer less flexibility than analog sticks, they can easily be manipulated with very high accuracy. They are also far less demanding in maintenance and do not protrude very far from the controller, making them ideal for consoles such as the Game Boy, DS. D-pads have appeared on other kinds of equipment, including A/V remote controls, calculators, PDAs, smartphones. A precursor to the D-pad was the four buttons used in arcade games such as UPLs Blockade. A precursor to the standard D-pad on a game console was used by the Intellivision. The Intellivisions unique controller featured the first alternative to a joystick on a home console, similar directional buttons were also used on the Atari Game Brain, the unreleased precursor to the Atari 2600, and on some early dedicated game consoles such as the VideoMaster Star Chess game. Nintendos known cross design was developed in 1982 by Gunpei Yokoi for their Donkey Kong handheld game and this particular design was patented and later earned a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award. In 1984, the Japanese company Epoch created a game system called the Epoch Game Pocket Computer. It featured a D-pad, but it was not popular for its time, all major video game consoles since have had a D-pad of some shape on their controllers. To avoid infringing on Nintendos patent, most controller manufacturers use a cross in a shape for the D-pad. Sega coined the term D button to describe the pad, using the term describing the controllers for the Sega Genesis in instruction manuals. Arcade games, however, have continued using joysticks. Modern consoles, beginning with the Nintendo 64, provide both a D-pad and a compact thumb-operated analog stick, depending on the game, one type of control may be more appropriate than the other. In many cases with games that use a thumbstick, the D-pad is used as a set of buttons, all four usually centered on a kind of task. Even without a stick, some software uses the D-pads eight-directional capabilities to act as eight discrete buttons. Jam Sessions for the Nintendo DS, for example, uses the D-pad to select music chords during play, many, though not all, such designs include a trigger button in the center of the button arrangement, usually labeled Enter, OK, or the like. Some older devices do not have d-pads as such, but simple single-axis, on some remotes, the d-pad can also be used to control a robot using a signal-compatible receiver
10.
Bubble Bobble Revolution
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Bubble Bobble Revolution is a 2D platformer for the Nintendo DS. There are two gameplay modes in Bubble Bobble Revolution, Classic, and New-Age. Classic mode is a conversion of the original Bubble Bobble to the DS hardware, enemies are defeated by blowing bubbles to trap them and then colliding with them, each enemy produces a food item that can be collected for extra points. The original co-op multiplayer mode is implemented, if two players own copies of the game, they can use DS Download Play to play together. New-Age plays similarly to the game, with several key differences. Characters and levels are larger, and enemies and projectiles are faster, there are additionally boss fights every tenth level, and Bub and Bob can now take three hits instead of one before dying and have several new types of bubbles. Fans are also scattered around levels, and can be spun by blowing into the DSs microphone, rather than a co-op mode, Revolution includes a four-player competitive mode in which players compete for the most points in ten different levels. All levels beyond #30 in the North American version are unplayable due to an error that causes the boss of that level not to spawn. This was an often criticized aspect of the game, codemasters ultimately responded by releasing a fixed version of the game, which included a free copy of Rainbow Islands Revolution. Bubble Bobble Revolution received scathing reviews from critics, and currently holds a Metacritic score of 38/100 based on 19 reviews, common criticism was directed at the games dated visuals and level design. Reviewers also heavily criticized the amount of odd glitches, which were described by Frank Provo of GameSpot as strange. Many critics also made note of the level 30 glitch, which Craig Harris of IGN claimed makes a bad game worse, gamesradar was heavily critical of the title as well, stating If youre looking for a fresh update to a classic arcade game, this is not it. John Walker of Eurogamer began his review off by giving praise for the game before harshly criticizing the new-age remake. Reviewers also made note of the redesigns of the original characters. Despite the negative criticism, some did praise the inclusion of the original Bubble Bobble. Provo called the game a classic and enjoyable, and praised the multiplayer modes as well. However, Harris referred to them as unacceptable for requiring two copies of the game, a statement echoed by Walker, IGN reports on Dual Screen Bub and Bob codemasters. com game page
11.
Rainbow Islands: The Story of Bubble Bobble 2
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Rainbow Islands is a 1987 arcade game developed and published by Taito. The arcade version was licensed to Romstar for North American manufacturing, the game is subtitled The Story of Bubble Bobble 2 and is the sequel to Taitos hit game Bubble Bobble from the previous year. It is the second of four games in the Bubble Bobble series. The game was ported for numerous home computers and game consoles, the main characters are Bubblun and Bobblun, the protagonists of Bubble Bobble. However, in this game appear in their human forms as Bubby and Bobby. Also unlike the first game, players must now alternate, with one as Bubby. Following the events of Bubble Bobble, Bubby and Bobby set out to defeat the Dark Shadow, the Dark Shadow is the entity responsible for the events in Bubble Bobble. The game is set on a chain of ten islands, each one with a different theme, each island provides four rounds of game-play, and once these are complete the player moves to the next island in the chain. In each round the player must get to the top before the sea level rises, the islands get progressively more difficult, with enemies moving much faster on the later ones. These are depicted on a map screen before the start of each island, players can release rainbows that act as both weapons against the enemies and as a makeshift platform. By jumping on them, they fall down beating any enemies below it, collecting power-ups increases the players speed, the speed of the rainbows and how many are spawned. If players take too long in a level, water will start to rise up from the bottom of the stage, like Bubble Bobble before it, the game has multiple endings. To get the True and Happy ending you must find and complete the three secret islands and these islands are not visible until all 7 big diamonds are collected. To get a big diamond, the player must collect seven different-colored small diamonds on the island, the small diamonds are found by destroying enemies by dropping a rainbow on them from above or destroying them with various special items. After collecting the diamonds, a word NICE will appear. If the small diamonds are collected in the order, you will get to a secret room at the end of each island. One of the features which sets this apart from many others is its hidden depths. While initially appearing to be quite a game, Rainbow Islands in fact has a vast number of secrets for the player to discover, including secret levels, secret power-ups
12.
The NewZealand Story
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The NewZealand Story is a 1988 arcade game developed and published by Taito. The player controls Tiki, a kiwi who must save his lover Phee Phee, the player has to navigate a scrolling maze-like level, at the end of which they release one of Tikis kiwi chick friends trapped in a cage. The goal of each level is to safely get Tiki through the level, avoiding enemy fire and spikes, the weaponry starts out as arrows, but pickups can change these into bombs, lasers or bouncing fireballs. These act a little differently, and what is useful depends upon the players location, a distinctive feature of this game is the ability to ride a variety of flying vehicles, including balloons, blimps and UFOs. Vehicles can be ready for use or can be stolen from an enemy. The game features four main zones, each with four rounds, other features include the many secret areas and shortcuts hidden throughout the game, accessed using special hidden warp portals. On certain later levels, if the player loses their last life due to being killed by a projectile weapon, here, they can either receive a special ending or find the secret route out of Heaven and continue playing the game. The game shares several elements with previous Taito games, after the release of the original arcade game in 1988, the game was converted to most of the game consoles and home computers of the time. Most home releases came in 1989, with some arriving later through 1990–1992, the NES version was developed by Software Creations and published in the PAL regions by Ocean. In North America, however, the NES version was published by Taito as Kiwi Kraze, the game received even more publicity due to being included in the Amiga 500 Batman Pack, which was launched in September 1989 and sold over 2 million units. Home conversions generally received good reviews in computer game magazines, the game was also converted for the Japanese FM Towns and Sharp X68000 systems, providing arcade-perfect conversions, but released exclusively in Japan since both computers were only available there. The Sega Mega Drive version had its levels based on the version of the arcade game. The Taito Legends pack includes a version of the original arcade version of The NewZealand Story, allowing it to be played on the Xbox, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable. On October 14,2008, the PC-Engine version was released for the Wii Virtual Console exclusively in Japan, Tiki the Kiwi also made some cameo appearances in other Taito games such as Liquid Kids, Bubble Symphony and Popn Pop. On January 25,2007, Rising Star Games published the Taito-developed Nintendo DS remake titled New Zealand Story Revolution first in Australia, in North America, it was published by Ignition Entertainment on February 13,2007. On May 31,2007, it was published in Japan by CyberFront as New Zealand Story DS and this version combines the use of both screens for action on the top screen and a map on the bottom screen. During certain instances, the game utilizes the touchscreen, such as opening a door and it also introduces a four-player wireless mode, Normal and Expert game modes, and improved graphics and BGM over the original arcade version. Also, unlike in the original, Tiki can receive multiple hits before losing a life, the ZX Spectrum conversion of The NewZealand Story, published by Ocean in 1989, achieved critical success
