Owners of the Wii U will be receiving a fun Christmas gift this year as Nintendo intends to bring the classic NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) game Duck Hunt to the Wii U, on Christmas Day.
Duck Hunt was first released to the NES in 1984. At the time, it was an included game with the NES, and the system included a Wii Zapper to simulate a gun. The game was all about shooting ducks or clay pigeons, and it could be played with one or two players. The influence of Duck Hunt help make the NES a new leader for console games in the mid-eighties, and it led to a revival of console games after systems like the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Intellivision, and Coleco vision began to lose steam.
Duck Hunt for the Wii U is planned to be a port of the original game. This means that the game can only be played in all of its 8-bit glory, so the graphics will look very dated to modern gamers used to the more popular updated Nintendo franchises on the Wii U like Super Smash Brothers and Mario Kart. Both of these games have been very well received by Wii U players and have helped Nintendo increase their profits after the disappointing Wii U launch.
Players of the Wii U Duck Hunt game will be able to use a Nintendo Wiimote as the gun. For those that want the eighties experience of the Wii Zapper might want to invest in a Wii accessory that turns the B-trigger switch on the Wiimote into an actual trigger.
I'm surprised that Nintendo did not try and update Duck Hunt with better graphics. You could easily make more realistic looking ducks, and even raise the rating to T or even M if there is a lot of duck blood involved. Some players of the original might remember the dog that fetches the ducks after you have shot them, as well as the catchy theme music as the dog proudly holds up the dead duck trophy. Many of us remember when we missed the ducks, and then the dog would laugh at us. Everyone tried to shoot that dog, but the game would not allow you to do so. You still can't shoot the dog on the Wii U version. Someone really needs to make some downloadable patch for that, as Nintendo players of all ages would pay for that.
As far as the price goes, there isn't any word on it. The Verge reports that NES games usually sell for $4.99 through the Virtual Console, and Gamestop anticipates that it won't sell for more than $10.
