According to a ’secret source’ of Eurogamer’s, yes. Seems everyone’s got snow on the brain at the moment, but it doesn’t take a genius to work out why this particular rematch is happening - the sporting waggle-fest being GAME’s third biggest-selling title in the UK during 2008, with the game shifting more than five million units in total during its first three months on sale alone.

For my money, this could potentially be a much better game than the already decent original, with several winter sports seemingly well-suited to the Wii controllers, particularly if there are any balance board-compatible events. Wii Fit proved how well snowboarding and skiing could work, and I can picture Sonic zipping down a tilt-based bobsleigh run, or even hurtling downhill on the luge. And pointer-controlled shooting would be just fine for the biathlon.

The Winter Olympics are never quite as popular as the ‘proper’ summer ones, so there’s a chance that the potential audience for this is lower than for the first, but those casual gamers who lapped up the first game are more likely to purchase a game if they know what they’re getting, so this will still likely pull in big numbers for Sega again. And if that helps fund a Yakuza 3 localisation (yes, I realise that’s not a Wii or DS game, but c’mon - it’s Yakuza) that can only be a good thing.

Sega isn’t commenting at the moment - it’s early days for a Winter Olympics game, let’s face it - but I’d expect to hear confirmation around E3 time if not before. Watch this space.

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I promised myself I wouldn’t get too excited about Jungle Beat’s impending Wii return on the Wii de Asobu (Let’s Play On Wii) label, but the above trailer has got my heart aflutter once more. There’s definitely some new stuff in there (around the seven or eight second mark I spotted a couple of sequences which I didn’t recognise) and it seems the controls will be pretty sensible, if still not quite as effectively primal and physical as the bongo controls in the GameCube original.

The end of the ad confirms which games we’re set to see soon - Pikmin 1 AND 2 will be making their way onto Wii, while Mario Tennis, Chibi-Robo and the two previous Metroid games are also appearing in the range. At 3800 they’re priced a fair bit lower than your average Wii title (which tend to range between 5800 and 6800 yen in Japan). Let’s hope they retail for around £19.99 or less when us Europeans get our hands on these new old titles.

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I must stop this whole give-the-entire-story-away-in-the-title headers. Anyway, it seems that Nintendo’s new Play It On Wii range is set to offer more substantial alterations to the re-released GameCube games which make up this new line.  Certainly, if Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is anything to go by, that is.

Rather than merely replacing the bongos with shakes of the remote and nunchuk, Nintendo is using a very traditional control scheme - you’ll use the analogue stick to control DK, while A will make him jump. Each stage’s ‘gimmicks’ will be repurposed, while enemy positions will also be affected. Motion controls are apparently used for punching foes and for pulling off repeated jumps.

More excitingly, there will also be some completely new stages. Anyone who’s played the GameCube version will know this is a Very Good Thing Indeed.

With the suggestion that the levels will be altered to make the most of the new control setup, it seems unlikely that the game will support the DK Bongos. Which would be a great shame - the unique control scheme (and the way EAD Tokyo’s genius designers exploited it so wonderfully) was the reason it was so much fun. The physical nature of pummeling the bongos seemed entirely natural for controlling your simian swinger - and it was particularly appropriate for the ape-battering boss scraps.

Mixed feelings about this, then - but if EAD Tokyo is heavily involved in the remake then surely the team behind Galaxy has a couple of aces up its sleeve.

It’s out on December 11th in Japan. Thanks, IGN.

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Wii Music, then. It’s not perfect (see yesterday’s blog for details) but it’s likely to sell boatloads. And the US TV ad above is a terrific bit of marketing, perfectly capturing the fun of creating your own take on a familiar song, and making it look suitably accessible.

Kudos to Nintendo’s marketing bods for using the Super Mario Bros. theme too, as if to show off its hardcore credentials. And ending with a neat musical stave motif is a stroke of genius.

Given Nintendo UK’s predilection for celeb-themed ads, we’ll probably just get a bit of Girls Aloud messing around. But it’ll be hard pressed to beat this rather joyous celebration of Wii Music’s simple, freeform jam sessions. Lovely stuff.

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1Up.com is carrying the first review - to my knowledge - of Nintendo’s Wii Music. And, shock horror, it’s actually very positive, garnering an impressive A- rating, with the main complaint being the narrow range of music, and the reliance on simplistic public domain songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

What’s particularly interesting about 1up’s review is that it’s written by classically-trained musician cum videogame journalist Jennifer Tsao - so it’s been rated highly by someone who knows what they’re talking about. An import copy of Wii Music should be winging its way to me fairly soon, so expect impressions and - perhaps - even videos.

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A delightful little documentary vid over on GameVideos sees Shigeru Miyamoto demonstrating Wii Music to a group of young Japanese schoolchildren. Predictably, they absolutely love it.

Joined by the man who does the voice of KK Slider in Animal Crossing, Miyamoto revels in showing off his creation to an appreciative audience (he’s probably thinking “finally!”) and it’s difficult not to smile when you see the kids waving the controllers around like crazy, making music that doesn’t actually sound entirely tuneless like the sort of thing you hear when young ‘uns are learning musical instruments. Then Miyamoto and chums perform a decent rendition of the Super Mario Bros. theme and have a laugh with the handbell-ringing minigame.

All good-natured fun, and a bit of a tonic if you’re feeling miserable about Nintendo’s Christmas line-up. Unless you’re a total Scrooge, you’ll surely be pleased that they’re at least making someone happy this Yuletide, eh?

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If I had to choose three games from other consoles I’d bring over to the Wii, the Xbox 360’s enormously daft third-person shooter Earth Defence Force 2017 would be one of them. It’s not the most technically impressive game ever made, it’s full of graphical glitches and slowdown, its gameplay is pretty one-note throughout, and it’s also just about the most awesome fun I’ve had with a non-Nintendo game in the past few years. I find it hard to comprehend there are people who don’t get riotous enjoyment out of the game, and so the news that yesterday’s Game With The Best Name - Dynamic Slash (”I have one every morning!” - Bear Grylls) - is not only first-party published, but comes from Sandlot, creator of EDF 2017, is naturally cause for celebration.

And to all extents and purposes, it looks like EDF 2017 But With A Sword Instead Of Guns. Which is obviously incredible news. The brief clip which popped up for all of four seconds during Nintendo’s Wii showreel yesterday (exactly 3 minutes in) made it look like the same mix of spectacular action and sloppy framerate which characterised EDF, while the idea of using the Wii remote to slice millions of Norse enemies to bits makes it look like Too Human only 842 times more entertaining. And with proper Scandic sword-slicing instead of faux-cyberpunk-themed hackandslash.

Needless to say, we may have to pray to the Gods at Rising Star to see this one outside Japan. But it’s almost certainly an insta-import for me, so expect impressions as and when it arrives. It’s down for a release at some point next year, and little else is known so far, but you can see a couple more pics if you click here, along with a few tidbits of (Japanese-flavoured) info.

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While most of the rest of the internet rants and raves about how terrible it is, I’ve always been cautiously optimistic about Wii Music, thinking it might just offer something a little different from the norm, but that it might not necessarily be a bad thing (certainly not as bad as some people would have you believe). However, I’ve stopped short of suggesting it could be brilliant, or gone even further into the realms of hyperbole.

But that’s what this gentleman here has done, with a blog entry that declares Wii Music to be “a work of genius”.

Though I’m not sure I’d go quite that far, Sean Malstrom certainly presents a convincing and well-constructed argument, which describes exactly why “Wii Music is the closest video game ever to become art”. It’s a testament to the piece itself that you may find yourself almost agreeing by the end. Go read.

Nintendo is reportedly holding review sessions with Wii Music in a few weeks’ time. Genius, or madness? You’ll find out soon.

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I don’t know whether this is a fantastically inclusive competition or a worrying admission that the developer doesn’t know which control scheme is best yet, but High Voltage Software, the team behind forthcoming nice-looking sci-fi FPS The Conduit on Wii, has announced that it is accepting fan-created control mapping suggestions for the title.

Have you ever wanted shooting mapped to the Z button, and walking backwards accomplished by swinging the Wiimote around your head three times? Well, now’s your chance to indulge those brilliant design ideas of yours that have never made it. Ever. To any game. For good reason. Or you might just come up with the best FPS control scheme in history. Who knows?

The game’s Lead Programmer Ed Federmeyer enthuses: “Given how flexible our control scheme code is, and how we’re going to have several preset mappings to choose from, wouldn’t it be a cool contest to allow gamers to propose schemes and we can take the best and burn them into the game as additional preset control mappings?”

You tell us, Ed. Oh wait, you’ve already announced the competition. My bad, I didn’t realise you were only speaking rhetorically.

The Chief Executive Officer of the company is 100% behind the idea. “From the start of the project our primary goal has been to make the definitive first person shooter for the Wii and specifically for core gamers. Asking core gamers for their input is just a logical extension of that rationale,” says Kerry J. Ganofsky, while standing in front of the mirror and shouting “core gamers” five times in a row in the hope that they appear.

So, what control actions will contest entrants be mapping? Well, I’m afraid I have to tell you this myself because, sadly, the High Voltage website doesn’t even mention The Conduit yet, let alone this competition.

1. Move Forward/Back

2. Strafe Left/Right

3. Jump/Activate

4. Shoot Weapon

5. Target Lock

6. Crouch

7. Reload Weapon

8. Scope/Binocular Mode

9. Switch Between Weapons Carried

10. Switch Between Grenades Carried

11. Pause Menu

12. Swap Between Weapon Carried and Weapon on Ground

13. Equip ASE (All-Seeing-Eye)/Special

14. Aim Reticule/Turn Camera

15. Melee Attack

16. Throw Grenade

17. Er…

18. That’s It.

Phew. No wonder they need our help!

Entrants can assign motions as well as control buttons to the above actions, and entries should be sent to Feedback@High-Voltage.com with the subject line reading, “Conduit Controller Mapping Contest”. Not only will winning entries make it into the game, but their creators will even be given in-game credit. Nothing else, though. Not even a nice mug for solving the whole Wii controls conundrum, which is a shame. But I digress.

Contest entries must be received by November 14th 2008, and the game itself is set to be released in Q1 2009.

In closing I must just refer to the Fact Sheet accompanying the press release, which informs us that, “Players battle enemy forces in a highly detailed 3D world using a dynamic control scheme only possible on the Wii.” Only possible if we think of it ourselves, of course. I’m only half-joking.

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While I still can’t say I’m full of confidence about Disaster: Day of Crisis - particularly given how ominously close its release is and still no-one has played the game - the newly-launched official Japanese site shows a game with promise - far from the outright disaster some were fearing the name all-too-accurately represented.

After a decent-quality (if a little cheesy) intro movie, the site offers information about the characters, the story and the various disasters occurring during this particularly eventful day. It’s the Player Action section that’s of most interest, though - this features brief gameplay vignettes that suggest the game mixes some third-person action-adventuring and survivor-rescuing along the lines of PS2 disaster titles SOS: The Final Escape and Raw Danger with minigame sections, driving sequences and Time Crisis-aping lightgun-shooting interludes. The driving sections (with the remote held sideways, a la Excite Truck) certainly look potentially quite exciting - vaguely reminiscent of the thrilling-but-frustrating earthquake escapes in Alone in the Dark or 24: The Game. Though hopefully without the frustration.

With a bit of clever marketing, Disaster could potentially sell as a ‘bridge’ title, appealing to the casual crowd with fairly simple controls for the most part, while the story and score attack features would attract core gamers. Perhaps its biggest danger is that it risks falling between those two stools, and maybe that’s why Nintendo is reluctant to allow the press some hands-on time with the game.

Minigames with a decent story tying them together? It’s not such a bad idea (let’s face it, Professor Layton isn’t a million miles away from that) and while Disaster might not turn out great, perhaps it could inspire other developers to give similar concepts a try.

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