This is one of the most depressingly awesome examples of a generational sleeper hit. Like Kid Icarus, StarTropics was a fantastic NES game with outstanding gameplay, level design, and challenge, and it was roundly beloved by all who played it. Also like Kid Icarus, it saw a single, relatively disappointing sequel and then faded into total obscurity. It’s a slightly even more obscure game, because StarTropics didn’t even get a Nintendo history shout-out in Super Smash Bros. Melee or Brawl.

StarTropics was basically The Legend of Zelda with a tropical flair. Instead of Link, an elf with a sword looking for the Triforce and Zelda, you’re Mike Jones, a teenager with a yo-yo looking for three magic cubes and his uncle. You still wander around an overworld, manifested as a linear string of tropical islands rather than the big wilderness of Hyrule. You still delve deep into dungeons, solving puzzles and killing bosses. You even keep track of your health with tiny hearts representing your hit points.

The game actually eclipsed Zelda in a few areas, which isn’t too big a surprise considering it came out four years later. The graphics were much better, the puzzles were much more challenging, and Mike could actually jump around, which added a new level of depth to both combat and puzzle-solving. You didn’t get as many tools through the game, and you couldn’t explore as much as in Zelda, but otherwise StarTropics was every bit as much a stellar example of the action-adventure genre.

War over.  They’re all equal.  Carry on as usual.  (via Geekologie)

This week’s From the Game was a bit disappointing, so we’re giving you a little bonus. It’s not really a replica from a game, but it’s still pretty sweet. It smells pretty good, too, because it’s actually soap.

Last month, ThinkGeek introduced Magic Missile and Fireball bath soaps. For $10, you get a two-pack of half-sphere soap bars named after the classic Dungeons and Dragons spells. $5 a pop might sound like a lot for bars of Irish Spring, but when you compare them to high-end soaps like the sort of stuff you’d get at places like Lush, it’s a fairly standard price. Indeed, these seem like fairly high-end soaps, made from seemingly natural ingredients.

[From The Game is a regular department on Aggrogate, featuring replica items from video games. FTGs can feature merchandise, convention swag, special edition pack-ins, or personal replica projects from across the Internet. If you have something you want featured in From The Game, drop me a line.]

It’s time for a change of pace. Past From the Games have involved some pretty sweet replicas. Big or small, bundled or sold separately, they were all pretty satisfying in their own way. This is the first genuinely disappointing game replica to show up in From the Game.

When I heard about the collector’s edition of Batman: Arkham Asylum, I was incredibly excited. A replica batarang from the game? Awesome. I preordered, went to the midnight launch, the works. Then I got home and opened the box. Inside I found an excellent game hidden under a load of overpriced plastic disappointment.

It’s time to introduce a new weekly department for the frugal gamer in us all. Sure, we have regular listings of game deals, but they tend to be big, notable sales that come and go. There isn’t enough attention given to the around-the-clock bargains you can find by poking around the used game shelves and outlet pages. That’s why we’re introducing Bin Digging.

Bin Digging is a regular department on Aggrogate that highlights dirt-cheap games that are still worth playing. Each Bin Digging highlights a specific system’s game library, showing of a huge list of budget titles from across the web. To be eligible for Bin Digging, a game has to meet two criteria. First, it has to cost less than $20 if it’s a console or PC title, or less than $15 if it’s a portable title. Second, it has to be a game you actually would want to play. Not every game will be a AAA system seller, but it’ll at least be worth at least a few sessions of play time. No shovelware here.

We’re kicking off the first Bin Digging with the Playstation Portable. While the system has had a bit of a disappointing run, and the technically inferior DS has vastly eclipsed it in sale numbers, it’s still built up a pretty good library in the 5 years it’s been on the market. There are tons of cheap, fun games you can grab used at your local Gamestop or new from online sources. Obviously, if you have a PSP-Go, you’re out of luck. These are all UMD games.

Check out the list after the jump.

It’s been over a decade since we’ve seen a new X-COM game. The rights to the series have been swapped down the line from Microprose to Hasbro to Infrogrames/Atari to Take Two, with nary a game to show for it. Finally, in 2010, Take Two has announced that a new X-COM is finally in the works for the PC and Xbox 360!

Hold your horses there. It’s not a return to the series’ strategy roots, or even to the space sim format of Interceptor. No, this new X-COM will be an FPS. Yes, it’s going to be an X-COM first-person shooter. I feel a disturbance, as though millions of gaming nerds squealed in hopeful glee and were suddenly silenced.

[Tuesday's Trope is a weekly department highlighting an amusing video game trope from TVTropes. Aggrogate is not affiliated with TVTropes.org in any way. All trope examples come from TVTropes and are shared via the Creative Commons license.]

When you get a sequel to a video game, you usually expect a pretty big set of changes. Sure, you want new levels, a new story, new characters, all of that, but you also want some new features. Ideally, a good sequel introduces a new element or significant upgrade to the series. It doesn’t have to be groundbreaking, but it makes the game feel palpably different from the previous title. When a video game doesn’t offer this sense of progression and innovation, it’s a Mission Pack Sequel.

Huzzah! Nintendo is finally adding a pack-in game to the DS! Well, one model of the DS. Either way, between this and the Wii’s since-launch inclusion of Wii Sports, Nintendo seems to understand once again that pack-in games are a big draw for consoles with primarily first-party major titles.

Starting April 25, white versions of the DSi will come with Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story. The price will remain the same at $169, so the “limited time bundle” is basically the core console with a pack-in game thrown in. Bowser’s Inside Story is surprisingly good, as well. It might be the best portable Mario RPG out there (though Superstar Saga comes close), and while it doesn’t reach the heights of Super Mario RPG or the Paper Mario series, it still offers a genuinely satisfying gameplay experience.

Amazon already has the bundle available for preorder, and it should be hitting Gamestops, Best Buys, and other stores on the 25th.

The Nintendo Wii has been a paradise for shovelware developers. Lots of appeal among “casual gamers,” lots of attention in the media, lots of potential for gimmicky bullshit make for a platform that’s ideal for every publisher with a terrible license or stupid idea.

The most terrible licenses and stupidest ideas can dumbfound even the most jaded gamer who lived through the days of LJN on the NES. These are the top 10 ridiculously stupid Wii games. None of these games are made up. They are all real. I wish I was kidding.