World of Nintendo

9) Donkey Kong Jenga

What a brilliant tie-in! It’s a tabletop Jenga set with retro-styled girders for blocks. Donkey Kong and Pauline sit atop the tower, and the aim is to reach the summit with four coloured Mario pieces before the whole thing topples. It’s only available in America right now, and completelysold out on Amazon, but you might find a friendly importer on eBay.

10) Rii-p off

Asus, makers of cheap and desirable miniature PCs, have come up with anovel control methodfor gaming on their diminutive hardware. If this thing takes off, we can see it unlocking a whole new demographic of casual gamers who might not be interested in traditional consoles. Oh.

11) Impressive homebrew

As amateur programmers become more familiar with the DS hardware, the results are beginning to look as impressive as back in the old 16-bit home computer demo scene, where bedroom coders would produce better graphics than you’d see in most retail games. Check out thisDS demo– it looks amazing in motion – and remember that Worms developers Team 17 started out as demo writers.

12) Wii workout

Research students from Cleveland State University have beenplaying Wii Sports, under the guise of doing a proper degree, and have determined that a half-hour workout on the boxing game is equivalent to half an hour spent pounding a heavy punchbag in a gym. It sounds plausible – we’ve noticed that playing Boom Blox hurts our elbows every bit as much as throwing a real ball in the park. Still sounds like an excuse to play games all day rather than study.

Freelance Journalist

Martin Kitts is a veteran of the video game journalism field, having worked his way up through the ranks at N64 magazine and into its iterations as NGC and NGamer. Martin has contributed to countless other publications over the years, including GamesRadar+, GamesMaster, and Official Xbox Magazine.