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Game Boy inducted into toy Hall of Fame

It’s always an honor when a great athlete gets inducted in a Hall of Fame — earlier this year for instance, Micheal Jordan was inducted into the NBA hall of fame, and now, more importantly to us gamers, Nintendo’s original Game Boy has been inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame, specifically, the Strong National Museum of Play’s Toy Hall of Fame.

The original 8-bit Game Boy was released in 1989, and its subsequent variations, have sold over 120 million units world wide since then, with the best game being Tetris, selling a whopping 33 million copies.

Congratulations, Nintendo!

UK getting New Super Mario Bros. Wii Limited Tin Edition

It was recently made known that certain UK retailers will offer a Limited Tin Edition of New Super Mario Bros. Wii when it hit store shelves. One such retailer is GAME who has already begun taking pre-orders for the Limited Tin Edition.

There aren’t many exciting features about this limited edition other than the fact that the case is tin which means you could use it as a piggy bank.

This Limited Tin Edition New Super Mario Bros. Wii will drop on November 20th in the UK for 49.99 alongside the regular version for 34.99.

via joystiq

Nintnedo announces PokePark Wii: Pikachu’s Big Adventure

Nintendo has today come forth to announce PokePark Wii: Pikachu’s Big Adventure, a Wii title developed by Creatures Inc.. If you’re a gamer, you’ll undoubtedly recognize Creatures Inc. as the creators of the megapopular Gameboy Pokemon titles.

But anyways, PokePark Wii won’t be fashioned after the Gameboy games but instead will star Pikachu as he works with other Pokemon to complete mini games and the like. Yes, more mini games for the Wii but this one is with Pokemon so it’s sure to sell like hot cakes.

PokePark Wii: Pikachu’s Big Adventure will hit store shelves in Japan on December 5th for around $53.

via joystiq

Lil Wayne has a modded Xbox?

Lil Wayne is a Grammy award winning rapper who sold over 1 million copies of Tha Carter III in its first week on store shelves. However, when he’s not busy making music, he’s apparantly an avid gamer. But he isn’t just any kind of gamer instead he is a gamer with an Xbox that plays “every game from A-Z, Atari, Nintendo, pong, movies and even porn”.

But wait, why doesn’t my Xbox 360 do that? Well, the only way this is possible is if Mr. Carter has a modded Xbox. Sure, mark it off as convenience but you would think a guy with that kind of money could afford to buy his games rather than have them all stored on one console.

via joystiq

Nintendo releases Wii Fit Plus

Seemingly out of no where Nintendo has come forth to let us know of the Wii Fit Plus, essentially an expanded edition of the original Wii Fit title that hit store shelves in May of 2008.

Wii Fit Plus will feature 20+ new mini games for you to choose from such as Segway and skateboard riding. This expanded title also features many more customization options for the various workouts.

If you already have the Wii Fit you don’t have to go out and but the one bundled with a balance board for $99.99, instead you can opt for just the WiiFit Plus title alone for $19.99.

via techfresh

Nintendo pushes out Wii System Update 4.2

If you booted up your Wii today you may have noticed that  version 4.2 of the Wii menu is now available for download. Don’t expect any amazing features from this update because, well, there are none. Unless you consider “behind-the-scene fixes” that will work to “improve overall system performance” amazing features that is.

Of course, for you homebrewers out there this, this update disables the use of unauthorized saved files but fret not as the dedicated community is probably already close to releasing a fix.

New Pokemon sells close to 1.5 million in its first week

Yesterday we let you know that Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver have hit Japanese shelves but I bet you didn’t think it would be this successful of a launch. Then again, it is Pokemon, and it is Japan.

Anyways, it was recently made known that the two latest versions of Pokemon have collectively sold 1,480,980 copies in their first week on the Japanese market. However, since the game was released on a Saturday it only had 2 days of the week to show numbers for which means it sold all of those copies in just 2 days.

Now all we have to do is wait until Spring of 2010 to see if Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver will make the same impact in North America.

via rpgsite

Wii Internet Channel is now free to use

Back before my Wii began collecting dust due to its lack of a solid games library (yes, I know, Super Smash, Mario, etc. are great games), the Wii Internet Channel was just a Trial before gamers were required to pay 500 Wii Points for the software.

Well, Nintendo has announced today that those who paid said fee will be getting credit towards any NES game this October while the Internet Channel will be free to use for all.

What’s more, Nintendo has also let us know that they are updating the browser’s Flash from 7 to Flash Lite 3.1, making for a whole slew of new found usability.

Read (Nintendo)

Damn, Nintendo censors a swear word in Metroid Prime Trilogy

Nintendo has actually gone ahead and censored the dialog of Admiral Dane in the new Metroid Prime Trilogy. In the original Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, the Admiral says “Damn!”, while in Trilogy, he says a whole-hearted “No!”.

It’s a very minor change, and I’m not the least bit affected by it, but it’s interesting to see what is censor-worthy in Nintendo of America’s eyes.

via GoNintendo

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games dated

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games has been officially dated by Sega for an October 16th release. The sequel has basically the same premise as its predecessor, but this time, is based on events in the Olympic Winter Games. Along with a release date, Sega has released a spiffy website for the game, showcasing some new multimedia and epic music.

The site also reveals a few of the Olympic events to be featured in the game. Confirmed for the Wii version, sports taking place will be Alpine Skiing, Ice Hockey, and Speed Skating. As for the portable counterpart, Snowboard Cross and Skeleton will be included, along with Alpine Skiing.

Read (Sega Blog)

Metroid Prime Trilogy dated for Europe

The Metroid Prime Trilogy has been scheduled for a September 4th release in Europe. While this isn’t as early as the North American release (August 24th), it’s still a solid date. Nintendo of Europe is notorious for having scheduled games in the PAL region several months after its North American and Japanese counterparts.

The trilogy includes every Metroid Prime game, including Corruption, on one disc. All of the GameCube titles have been redone to work with the Wii controls. The collector’s edition will be also be packaged with an art book.

Read (GoNintendo)

The Conduit Game Review–It’s Like Red Bull, The Game

That headline, of course, will require some explanation.  If you’ve ever drank a Red Bull before, especially if you don’t do it often, what you get is kind of a sweetish, cloying taste (that for me put me vaguely in mind of chewable vitamins) followed by an incredibly twitchy sensation as the sugar and caffeine goes burning its way merrily through your endocrine system.  And, either ironically or by design, this is EXACTLY how I’d describe The Conduit, the newest first person shooter for the Wii.

Basically, The Conduit asks you to believe that all those things you scoffed at as merely tinfoil-hat lunacy, stuff like chemtrails and 9/11 being an inside job and aliens and whatever it is they’re doing out at the Denver International Airport, are all in fact very real.  This is already tough enough, but then they’ll follow that up by asking you to believe that the shadowy figures behind all of them actually brought a tinfoil-hat type INTO the conspiracy, and said tinfoil hatter actually accepted his new role.  From there, he’ll be heavily armed with all the latest government hardware and whatever he can manage to pick up along the way from the race of alien marauders who’s looking to set up shop on Earth.  Their technology tends to focus on things that are grown rather than built–their weapons use biomass as propellant and their locks are organic–and the centerpiece of their tech tree is the Conduit, a kind of interdimensional warp generator that seems to be similar to the old Stargate design.  But, as you’ll discover as you go through the game, there’s plenty of sneaky shadowy stuff going on here, and you may not be able to trust your own handlers as much as you’d want to…or even as much as you hope.

I give them all the credit in the world for assembling a sharp, sweet storyline.  Seriously, they clearly put a lot into it and it really is a fantastic story that uses plenty of the things we might find roaming around the internet at this very second.  They’ve got the plot on lockdown, and even the graphics and sound weigh in nicely for a Wii title.  Though everyone TALKS about the so-called Wii Syndrome, in which a game is automatically docked by virtue of being on the Wii, let’s face one indisputable fact–graphically, no game for the Wii has yet been produced that can compete with an Xbox 360 or PS3 title.  This isn’t bias, this is sheer fact, and if someone actually CAN point out a Wii game that CAN compete graphically with, say, Prototype or Haze or Killzone 2 or Fallout 3, then I will cheerfully and publicly retract this statement in the comments section below.

There’s only one other problem with The Conduit, and that’s the twitchy control scheme.  A first person shooter depends heavily on the ability to get the firepower where it needs to go, whether it be into a tank or an enemy’s sternum.  And when I’m trying to line up a shot, it really doesn’t help that the Wiimote will periodically jerk halfway across the screen from one small twitch of the wrist.  This will take getting used to.

But the fact remains–The Conduit just might be, all things considered, the Wii’s best first person shooter.  And if you love a good first person shooter with plenty of action, then you’re going to be all over this game.

Miyamoto Tells Fans To Be Patient For New Kid Icarus Game

In his early days Kid Icarus’s Pit seemed poised to be one of Nintendo’s flagship characters. He had his own villains, platforming adventures and the inevitable Gameboy title. He was even a supporting character on the cartoon Captain N, but soon he disappeared. His return has been a rumor that’s failed to materialize at the last two E3 conferences, but his inclusion in Smash Bros. Brawl suggests that there might a return for Pit.

If it is coming though, it’s not going to be any time soon. In Nintendo Power Shigeru Miyamoto said ”Wait, please. I’m really surprised how popular that is,” when prodded about the possibility of a new Kid Icarus game. Given that other more marginal characters were used in Smash Bros. including Captain Falcon and Fox McCloud Pit simply could have been rounding out a roster with some less familiar faces, but since Miyamoto hasn’t ever given a definite ‘no’, things are still up in the air.

Kororinpa Marble Mania Game Review–What Won’t They Make A Game Of?

It seems like most every time I pick up a Wii game these days I wind up getting slightly freaked out about the whole thing and trying desperately to pin down where the hell the logic is in these things any more.  I’ve seen them make some truly baffling games so far, and frankly, the weirdness only continues.

Today I venture into the depths of Kororinpa Marble Mania for the Nintendo Wii, a game that left me asking the question, is anything so simple and mundane that they WON’T translate it into a Wii game?  I’ve played Wii games around cooking and cleaning and washing things…it’s like there’s no activity so pedestrian that Nintendo or one of its many tentacles (Hudson, I’m looking RIGHT AT YOU) won’t convert it to a game.  I’m eagerly awaiting Super Mario Scratch Your Own Ass, or perhaps Donkey Kong’s Throw Your Feces At Passersby.

Kororinpa Marble Mania, for example, is a game that revolves around rolling a marble down a series of passageways until you manage to roll the ball into a hole marking the end of the course.  Along the way, you’ll be required to roll your marble over red crystals and challenged to roll your marble over green crystals, thus adding a bit of admittedly rather tedious and pointless challenge to your marble rolling agenda.  You’ll roll over a variety of different courses, including courses with walls, courses without walls, courses with slopes and steps and even some traps.  You don’t want to try rolling your marble through honey.  It’s just not pleasant.

I admit that, on certain levels, Kororinpa Marble Mania is actually a mildly fun sort of puzzle chill game that doesn’t require you to do a whole lot, nor does it ratchet your adrenaline levels through the roof.  The best word, for example, to describe the background music is “soothing”.  Indeed, when it’s just you and your marble and rails on the track, the game is downright relaxing.  Take off the rails, however, and things can get a little dicey.  This is really only a problem, of course, because the Wii controls are not well suited to this one.  See, rather than, for example, holding your Wiimote in the eight-bit-game format, or using the nunchuk’s joystick, you’re going to do your track manipulation by pointing your Wiimote straight at the screen, remote control style, and then twisting it from side to side.  Setting up the controls in this way requires you to twist your wrist left and right to twist the controls, and any kind of fine movement in that fashion is pretty much impossible.  This means that you’ll essentially be rolling your marble around by sheer brute force, which is all fine and well if rails are in place, otherwise, it’s an open invitation to repeated failure.

I admit that I liked the idea behind Kororinpa Marble Mania, and enjoyed the game to a certain extent.  However, some very serious flaws in execution kept this game from being all that it truly could have been.  A few minor tweaks would’ve served this one well, and hopefully, the next installment will learn from its mistakes.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time Game Review–Better Than You’d Expect

‘ll be honest with you, folks–you know I always am, but this time I have to be particularly blunt about what I’m saying.  I always get a little freaked out whenever I hear about an RPG for Nintendo’s Wii.  There’s just something so very…not right…about the idea.  See, an RPG, in the commonly meant sense of the term, involves a huge production and graphical overload and a story that goes on and on for days or even weeks.  And when you think of the kind of systems that can handle such a venture, “the Wii” is generally about as far down the list as, say, “Colecovision”.

But even I can be wrong–savor the flavor, kids, because this doesn’t happen very often.  I tried Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time and got a pretty good surprise out of it.

As for the plot…wow.  On RPG Cliche Day–okay, on a young man’s sixteenth birthday, he oversleeps, gets up late and dashes off to his Coming Of Age Ceremony.  Yes, they even CALL it the Coming Of Age Ceremony.  I’m both amazed and horrified.  Anyway, after completing said ceremony, he returns to the village to discover that his best friend’s little sister has contracted some kind of mysterious illness that resembles nothing so much as radiation sickness.  No, really.  And it gets better.  So now, on his sixteenth birthday, the boy has to violate the laws of his village and actually LEAVE to go find medicine to heal the “crystal sickness”.

Yeah, you heard all of that right.  An opening jam packed with cliches leads to a little girl getting radiation sickness that, if she survives it, will actually mutate her into being a super-strong entity with rapid healing powers, which turns out to be the exact same disease the hero had, and then the hero will actually break the law to go fetch medicine but no one seems to care about the legal issues here at ALL.

This may well be the most predictable and yet the most ridiculous game plotline I’ve ever heard.  I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen so many tropes in one place, only to be followed up by a ridiculous series of plot holes sufficiently large to drive a herd of chocobo through.

And yet, the game play isn’t half bad.  You’ll get some mini-games in the middle of this full-blown series of adventures, and there’s plenty of variety to be had here.  Sure, it’s all a bit cookie-cutter and plain vanilla, but there’s nothing necessarily wrong with it.  It’s a fairly fun game, and with a little bit of excitement.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time isn’t exactly the greatest game ever, but it’s a far cry from the worst, too.  There’s reason enough to give it a try that it’ll make at least a decent rental, even if it won’t wind up taking over your life.  If you’ve got a yen for RPGs and a decent tolerance for half-baked plotlines, you’ll probably have a good time with this one.