Now that E3 is pushing up daisies, Germany's Leipzig Game Convention may be the next big thing - Nintendo today used the conference to announce sequels to two of its 2005 hits, Battalion Wars and Super Mario Strikers.
The biggest news bundled with this announcement is that Wars 2 (or whatever it ends up being called) will support three online multiplayer modes. Yes, after what seems like a lifetime of dancing around the obvious, one of Nintendo's consoles is openly embracing online play.
Wednesday 23 August 2006
Mario Strikers Charged has been announced for Wii, as a Wii-mote enabled follow up to GameCube footie mash-up Mario Smash Football. With Nunchuk and Wii remote in hand, you'll be controlling Mario, Yoshi, Donkey Kong and a host of other laced-up characters to fill your opponent's goal mouth with iron balls.
We've seen the game in full flow, and special skills like Mega Strikes - near-unstoppable multi-ball assaults on goal - use the Wii-mote's pointer for defending. If
Wednesday 23 August 2006
A sequel to the not-quite-Advance-Wars action title has just been announced for Wii at the Leipzig Game Convention. Featuring a new (but still not exactly subtle) conflict between the stiff upper lips of the Anglo Isles and the Coral Atolls-dwelling Solar Empire, Battalion Wars 2 will also feature three online multiplayer modes - sorely missing from the original.
Assault multiplayer will allow players to simply jump in and start blowing each other up, whereas Skirmish
Wii three
Wii news, big and small: our British sister site has three interesting reports up. The first concerns 128 Marios, a game Nintendo mentioned (and even showed a demo of) that was originally in the works for the GameCube. Yeah, we weren't exactly expecting it to come out, at this point. But it turns out that 128 Marios, did, in fact, provide the underpinnings for Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii. You can check the UK story to find out more, but be careful - it says that Galaxy is
Tuesday 22 August 2006
Super Mario 128, the name given to an eye-popping tech demo shown at Nintendo's SpaceWorld event in 2000, was a test concept and inspired the upcoming Wii adventure Super Mario Galaxy. "The parts in Mario Galaxy where you're running around on the surface have come from Mario 128," producer Shigeru Miyamoto has revealed, referring to Galaxy's planetoid-leaping gameplay.
The original clip of Mario 128 showed 128 Marios racing around a curved, GameCube-styled Monopoly board
Tuesday 22 August 2006
Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto is keen to remake some of his earlier GameCube titles with Wii remote support - aided by the Wii hardware's similarity to GameCube's innards.
Of course, Wii is already backwards compatible with GameCube games, controllers and memory cards and, as most of its back catalogue is still available, Miyamoto told Japanese magazine Nintendo Dream that he sees any such remakes as being released at an "affordable price".
It's a cost-effective
Tuesday 22 August 2006
Upcoming Super Smash Bros Brawl for Wii already made a splash at E3 with the inclusion of a non-Nintendo figure - Metal Gear Solid's Solid Snake - but rumours are swirling that he may not be the only newcomer to the fight party. Recent comments by the game's creators, including the ever-teasing Shigeru Miyamoto himself, indicate that overwhelming fan response has called for Sonic to step into a very different kind of ring.
We contacted Sega regarding this development and
Monday 21 August 2006
An updated version of seminal sports game California Games has been confirmed for release on Wii, DS and PSP next year. California Games will also include bonus features from Winter Games and Summer Games. A refreshed Impossible Mission will also be released.
California Games was a huge success for original developer Epyx in the late '80s, spanning over 10 platforms including Atari's doomed Lynx handheld and Sega's Mega Drive. The new game aims to preserve the magic of
Buy three
According to industry site GamesIndustry.biz, Electronic Arts believes that Nintendo will release the Wii for $170 - much cheaper than the $250 price bandied around by internet pundits. Executive VP and COO of EA's worldwide studios, David Gardner says, "I've heard in Japan that the price is about $170, but I don't know if the price has been set in Europe yet." That's pretty unbelievably cheap - it's only $40 more than a DS Lite, little more than half the price of a crappy hard-drive
Got a few copper for a special lady?
There are lots of guys playing World of Warcraft. Lots of lonely guys. That's what we imagine is the thought process behind whoever created Whores of Warcraft - and posted up a picture of two feisty cosplayers along with a "Coming Soon" message. We're not too impressed by the name, though - we prefer World of Whorecraft. Wouldn't you just know that it's already taken, too? Rather than sexy imagery, it just barfs up a generic text-only page, with categories
