Ummmm, look. It’s a gun shell for the Wiimote. And it looks like a shark. What’s that all about then? We’ve taken the bait (*groan*) and posted about it, if only because the company responsible are clearly a few fish short of an aquarium. Here’s the blurb on the packaging:

“During the gun-fighting game, use the Wii remote nunchuk and Shark Gun together, holding the Shark Gun, poking the trigger with your forefinger to shoot, will bring you a ‘you’re there’ feel.”

And how, pray tell, will holding a plastic shark in my hands give me a feeling of authenticity when playing Umbrella Chronicles? Perhaps there is a skewed logic to their madness; with Nintendo’s own Zapper (as yet unreleased) bundled with a Zelda game, third parties will have to go the extra mile to make themselves stand out. Such are the perils of being a small fish in a big pond…

Via DealExtreme

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Portal is the internet meme du jour, a first person puzzle game bundled in The Orange Box with Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress for the PC and 360. If you hadn’t realised, it’s the reason why black-clad gaming spods are making insider jokes about “cake” and “Weighted Companion Cubes” whilst chortling into their skinny mocha lattes. What we’ve seen and heard of the game is certainly intriguing, and the concept is original to say the least. Which is why we literally choked on our skinny mocha latte when we heard rumours of the game being developed for the Wii.

Alas, those rumours barely had time to flourish before developer Valve stepped into the fray. Their position is that, whilst an appealing prospect, there’s nothing Portal related in the pipeline for the Wii. According to spokesman Doug Lombardi: “It’s an extremely interesting idea, but there’s nothing in product - not yet, anyway.”

Hmmm, not a complete denial, then. There’s still a chink of hope that something could happen on this front. Given the non-violent nature of the game, Nintendo would have no problem with the content, and we reckon that the motion-sensitive Wiimote would work well with something like the Weighted Companion Cube. Perhaps Valve will consider making Portal a candidate for WiiWare?

Via CVG

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Hallow’s Eve is nearly upon us, ladies and germs, and you’ve got three choices tonight.

Firstly, you can go trick or treating around the neighbourhood dressed as a ghoul, zombie, or politician. That’s fun for about five seconds, but it’s cold out there, and there’re only so many doors slamming in your face you can take. Secondly, you could visit the local fleapit to watch an all-night horror movie marathon. That has its appeal, but only if the popcorn and coffee is flowing as freely as the blood.

Finally, you could plonk yourself in front of your telly to play one of these games which are virtually guaranteed to make you scream like a little girl and wet your pants. Each title is either available on the Virtual Console, or is a Wii or GameCube game (which can be played on the Wii). Can you guess what it is we’ll be doing? That’s right, we’re going to camp in a graveyard for a dare, taking our promiscuous girlfriend along with us.

5) Luigi’s Mansion (GameCube)

Okay, we lied. This game is not guaranteed to make you scream like a little girl and wet your pants. But look a little closer; it’s got Mario’s hapless bruv, Luigi, walking into a creepy haunted mansion with naught to defend himself but a flashlight and hoover. Wouldn’t you be concerned for his safety? Not even a little bit? A fun game and a rare showcase for the green Italian beanpole. Nowhere near the glorious heights of Mario’s own adventures, but worth digging up nonetheless.

4) Super Castlevania IV (SNES, Virtual Console)

The absolute very best - and that’s saying something - in the long running Castlevania series. Essentially a remake of the first game on the NES, Simon Belmot ventures into the lair of Dracula, Prince of the Undead, to deliver some flowers and a get well card. Whoops, sorry, damn Wikipedia for spreading their lies. In actual fact he’s there to cut off Dracula’s head and drive a stake through his heart, and maybe give his buttocks a light whipping afterwards. With an expanded range of movement and improved graphics and sound, this is an adventure to savour on any night, not just Halloween.

Read the rest of this entry »

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It’s only a port with tacked on Wii controls and still it’s managed to sell over a million copies worldwide on the Wii. But it’s also a port of one of the best games of both this and last generation: Resident Evil 4. Capcom were ecstatic to announce that the sequel that epically dusted the cobwebs off a franchise in danger of becoming a shadow of its former itself has been doing great business on Nintendo’s latest machine.

Around 1.6 million Gamecube version were sold in comparison. Although, what would be interesting is to find out exactly what percentage of Wii versions were bought by fans who already owned the previous one, and who was jumping on board for the first time.

It does, at least, thumb a nose in the face of Akira Yamaoka, who in his role in developing Silent Hill, said that “the Wii user isn’t a hardcore user.” Perhaps when he sees those numbers he might have second thoughts about what kind of audience Wii users are. Hey, we can do mature games too! (Besides the Wii would be brilliant at doing Silent Hill’s fog.)

Source: MCV

Related posts: Capcom shares hit 5-year peak (thanks to Wii),

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Hello and welcome to another instalment of Ask WiiWii, a semi-regular feature where we answer a question about the Wii or DS sent in by our legions of readers. We don’t profess to be experts, but we can certainly point you in the right direction. The best way to reach us is via the contact form here.

This week, we have a question sent in by a reader called Jack. Without further ado:

“Can I connect my Wii to my DS and play a game or send messages?”

Well Jack, there’s a short, disappointing answer and a long, hopeful answer to that one. The short answer is “no”. Although Nintendo stated that this would be a major feature when the Wii was first launched, as yet we don’t have any functionality connecting the Wii to the DS. It’s a different story in Japan and the US, where Pokemon: Battle Revolution allows players to control their Pokemons on the Wii using the DS. Unfortunately, that game hasn’t been released here in Europe… yet.

The long answer however, would be “no, but ask us again in a couple of months”. Recent announcements and indications from the Nintendo stable are that we’ll soon have a number of services launched for DS to Wii connectivity. Primarily about downloading software for the DS, these will include demos of DS games, Virtual Console games (Game Boy and Game Boy Colour only), and possibly even “official homebrew” applications along the lines of WiiWare.

In summation, it’s very much a case of wait and see. Let’s ask another question, though; what do you hope to gain from Wii to DS connectivity? Nintendo have done this several times before, remember - the original Game Boy could hook into the Super Nintendo, and later the Game Boy Advance could be connected to the Game Cube. It’s a gimmick that has yet to produce any software of merit, and Nintendo’s engineers have been doing it simply to prove it could be done, rather then it having any real purpose.

Our advice, Jack? Be happy with the DS and Wii as individual consoles. They work great by themselves, and have nothing to gain by being joined at the hip.

Related Posts:
Nintendo introduces official DS flash cards, homebrew to become legal?
Nintendo Conference: Sonic in Brawl, Fire Emblem DS, and more
Wii-DS connectivity – what do we know so far?

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There are now more models of the DS lite than there are owners. In the near future, CSI episodes will be abandoning fingerprints and DNA scans and just checking shop receipts to see which of the millions of colour variations belongs to yourself. Adding to that problem, we’ve spied two new versions available over in the US. One is (another!) Zelda model: a gold coloured edition with a tasteful Triforce in the bottom right corner, slightly similar to the GBA model. The other is a pink Nintendogs Best Friends DS lite complete with cute pawprint.

We’d hate to be the person who has to collect all those. Judging by the amount of Gameboy variations there were, except a hell of a lot more.

And on that note, we also saw these unofficial DS Lite decals on the same site. Bling up your handheld with these gold metal stick-ons from South Korea. It’s needlessly tacky, but oh so bright and shiny. Will match perfectly with our Argos jewellery.

Source: DS Fanboy

Related posts: Special edition Zelda DS bundle in the UK, Lucky Canadians get a custom Zelda DS kit, Crimson-black DS looking juicy

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Yep, in 2008 China will get more than the Olympic Flame. At a recent Q&A session Nintendo president Satoru Iwata explained that iQue, Nintendo’s Chinese subsidiary, would release a version of the Wii in the Chinese market during 2008. South Korea, meanwhile, will receive the Wii courtesy of the recently established Nintendo of Korea. Inside Games quotes Iwata as saying, “There are piracy problems in the Chinese market, but Nintendo feels that Wii is, one way or another, well suited for release in China.”

Whether China will get the standard Wii console or a redesigned approximation of the machine, as it did with iQue’s N64-in-a-pad (pictured), isn’t clear just yet. But the very fact that China remains part of Nintendo’s masterplan is a sign of NCL’s confidence. Price and distribution will be important factors in ‘Nintendo vs. The Pirates’, but at least iQue already has three years of experience providing Nintendo products in the Chinese market.

And don’t worry, Iwata assures us Nintendo isn’t deserting its existing supporters: “We feel as though this year, with Wii still in short supply, we have a responsibility to reach out to our existing markets. So the Chinese launch of Wii will take place next year.”

It’s also interesting to note that Nintendo sees a bigger future for China than simply turning it into an export destination. Could new Chinese developers soon be competing on an international level? Listen to Iwata:

“Naturally, with so many people in China and the nation experiencing such tremendous economic growth, the potential for the market is undoubtedly huge. But besides simply introducing the Japanese Wii to China, I think it’s vital that we consider the development of software within China in order to do well there.”

Maybe this will spell the end of the Vii…

Source: Inside Games

Related posts: Introducing the Vii, Chinese console knock-off

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Ah, Smash Bros. Dojo, what would we do without you and your consistently excellent update nuggets? Get into arguments about the amount of worthy newcomers, that’s what. But as if to frantically wave our attention away from such pointless nitpicking, the latest Dojo news brings us something that we can all get distracted about: the ability to create our own stages.

Using a grid pattern and a selection of scalable platforms and objects, you can build your level out of nothing, planning the perfect battleground for a punch-up. Then save it onto an SD card and send it off to people on your Friends list to fight on and enjoy.

In addition, Nintendo are planning to accept submissions of custom-designed levels. They’ll pick and choose the best ones (or more likely the first ones in the pile that don’t look like the platforms resemble penises) and showcase them on a daily basis. They do warn, though, that each stage will possibly only exist to play once, before being scrapped for the next submission without, we presume, the ability to save it for yourself. WiiWii’s tip: use tracing paper on your TV to trace the outline of the best levels and you can then design it yourself later - simple!

Of course, Smash Bros. games have alway been known for their inventive, hectic stages, and from the looks of it, the tools aren’t there to design something quite as visually phenomenal. However, maybe we’ll get something that allows a new mode of fighting to come to the fore, emphasise a particular set of characters’ abilities, or even lead to some non-combat game styles they hadn’t even considered. We can’t wait to see if the system’s versatile enough to accommodate our wildest dreams.

Related posts: Super Smash Bros. delayed in Japan and US, Super Smash Bros. Brawl online mode confirmed

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Rock on. Somebody’s cobbled together a GlovePIE script that lets you use the Wii version of the Guitar Hero III peripheral with the PC-based clone, Frets on Fire.

If you’ll recall, GlovePIE is the emulation software that allows a variety of input devices to work with Windows. You’ll have seen people using it to adapt the Wiimote and nunchuk before, using it to strum along successfully in some approximation of the instrument. Because the Wii guitar, is essentially a shell for the Wiimote, though, that makes it easier to go one step further and make the whole thing do the job as a dedicated peripheral on the PC.

Of course, you could always plug in a USB guitar from one of our rivals, but doing it this way might take some of the hurt out of Rock Band still not coming out on Wii.

Source: 4 color rebellion

Related posts: Guitar Hero III - Wii will have online play after all, Wii Guitar Hero III controller, stage-diving now compulsory

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If you’re a despicable, unscrupulous pirate, then now just might be your Christmas. According to a NeoGAF forum source, an illegal copy of Super Mario Galaxy’s found its way onto the Internet, ready to be downloaded and enjoyed on a chipped Wii.

Apparently, US Store EBGames was given Galaxy demo discs to showcase in their in-store pods. While the playable demo itself is limited to ten minutes, Nintendo have included the whole of the actual game on the disc. Which means, with a bit of jiggery-pokery, some show-off hacker was able to remove those barriers and upload the title to a torrent site quick-sharp.

So what do you reckon? If it’s true, will you be rushing off to download it? Are you one of those people who think it’s your right to pirate a game in order to try it out, then buy it if you like it? Or do you just like getting things for free? This is one of the biggest - if not THE biggest - Wii game for ages, and some people are going to be desperate to get their hands on it. Are morals are thing of the past when it comes to playing games, then?

Source: Leaked onto Joystiq

Related posts: Famitsu scores Mario Galaxy - really great, but not as good as 64, Flee Pirates, flee! Nintendo is coming!, Remember kids, piracy is BAD!

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