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Black Wii hitting UK on Nov. 6

Gamers in the UK unhappy with the current white chassis of the Nintendo Wii will be happy to hear that a limited edition black version will be hitting store shelves on November 6th. As for the rest of Europe, you’ll be getting it on November 20th.

This limited edition comes with a black Wiimote, Nunchuk and Motion Plus. If you want the fancy black Classic Controller Pro, you’re going to have to buy that separately.

via techfresh

Super Smash Bros. Brawl still most played online Wii game

When I first purchased my Wii how ever long ago I bought it with one game on mind that I knew I had to have and that was none other than Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The entire franchise was a hit ever since its N64 debut in 1999 and with its Wii iteration, it only got better.

To further prove Super Smash Bros. Brawl’s success, Kotaku has recently posted their monthly online Wii usage findings and the fighting title holds the top spot. Make note that due to technical difficulties Kotaku has yet to add last month into the study but upon seeing Brawl’s obvious dominance it leads one to believe that this month can’t be much different.

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.

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)

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.

Conduit Developer “Messing Around” With MotionPlus

They might have decided that the peripheral wasn’t worth integrating into their recent FPS title The Conduit but High Voltage admit that they’ve been messing around with the Wii MotionPlus and see a lot of untapped potential in it: “Whenever you see new equipment and tools to play with, that just opens up the door for all kinds of creative new ideas. I’m sure we’ll see in the next year some really cool stuff coming out on the Wii that could only work with Wii MotionPlus.”

This all comes from the mouth of producer Cameron Rains, with Rains adding that since in these early stages of the peripheral most companies are focusing on sports related titles we have yet to see the full potential of the device. That’s a pretty no-brainer statement of course, since it’s rare that any gaming system or new peripheral/control scheme is executed perfectly in its first few offerings.

In an industry where boasts and gigantic egos are fairly common it’s refreshing to see that Rains doesn’t follow it up with a claim that they’ll be the ones to deliver on it.

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.

New Wii Zelda Not Going New Direction

There’s been talk of the next Wii Zelda title taking the series in a new direction. Some patents hinted at a hint system and drop in-drop out style of gameplay that would make the game more casual-friendly. In the lastest issue of Nintendo Power Shigeru Miyamoto said that this next game won’t be the one to take things in a new direction: “I don’t think it’s going to be that radically different.”

I’m guessing that any Zelda game which would be a radical departure from the standard formula will be developed separately from a standard Zelda title. While Mario games have benefitted from variety and changing gameplay experiences, the Zelda series has kept fans by keeping to its roots, requiring exploration and puzzle solving to advance. Nintendo relies heavily on their first party titles featuring their flagship characters and releasing a Zelda title that could potentially alienate fans is a big risk. They’ll likely release a fan-appeasing title before venturing forth with something different.

Resident Evil Archives Game Review–Time For A Sleazy Cash Grab!

Wow, Nintendo–this might be a new low, even for you.  First you had the nerve to release the original Resident Evil on the Gamecube with basically just enhanced difficulty and call it Resident Evil Zero.  And now, you step it up a tick by releasing the original Resident Evil on the Wii with basically just enhanced graphics and calling it Resident Evil Archives.

Seriously, this is the second time you’ve rereleased a game from 1996 and called it good enough.  Is there no limit?

But okay, you’ve done it, and now we have to live with it, so off I go, to review Resident Evil.  Again.  Thanks, Big N. Thanks ever so.

Resident Evil Archives is about a group of special forces types, the S.T.A.R.S (Special Tactics And Rescue Service) team, who’s gone off to investigate a rash of murders out in the wilds of the Arklay Mountains area just outside of Raccoon City.  And when the S.T.A.R.S team doesn’t report in, Alpha Team is sent in to track them down.  What they find is nothing short of horrifying, as genetically altered mutations now rule the Arklay Mountains region.  When Alpha Team takes cover in a sprawling mansion after being chased by a pack of mutant dogs, they discover that their night of horror has only just begun.  Now missing nearly half the team, the remnants of Alpha Team have to find out what happened to everyone else and get out alive, in the process discovering the truth behind what’s going on in the Arklay Mountains.

It’s no secret that the original Resident Evil was the start of something amazing.  It’s no secret that Resident Evil was a spectacularly fun game and if you’ve never had the pleasure of trying it out then you definitely should.  And I’ll even go so far as to admit that the Wii version really does have loads better graphics.  I only WISH the original Resident Evil looked this good.  But I’ve got serious problems with Resident Evil Archives.

One, there’s the obvious.  i really question the value of this game’s existence to begin with.  Considering that the PS2 is fully backward compatible with the PS1, and the PS2 is still selling like hotcakes, why would you need the Wii to play it in the first place?  This just reeks of massive sleazy cash grab.

Two, holy hell, the CONTROLS.  I don’t know where the nunchuk’s major malfunction was, but when it’s taking me a good three minutes to try to push the bureau into position in that damn sculpture room so I can snag the first floor map, I’ve got a serious problem here, and I don’t think it’s an issue of my own fine motor skills.

Three, there’s something very seriously wrong with the difficulty here.  I run into that first zombie, just off the dining room?  My first response has always been to back into the hall so I can line up my shot.  And I’m firing into this thing in as rapid a fashion as possible, but it just shambles up and starts chewing on me.  Next thing I know, I’m down two-thirds of my starting ammo capacity and my EKG’s blinking at me that I need a health powerup and bad.  Since when do these zombies absorb fire like that?  Oh, and you can forget about trying to take head shots.  That’s all apparently randomized now, even if you could get it to aim solidly.

So all things considered, this is a great game for anyone who hasn’t yet had the sweet joy of Resident Evil and longs to see it in brilliant clarity but not necessarily with the greatest control scheme.  If you’ve got a Playstation, or a PS2, or you’ve already played Resident Evil, there’s no reason at all to crawl through the Archives.

Fishing Master World Tour Game Review–Calm and Frantic By Turns

Once, long ago, I discovered the glory of a certain sports game, then on the Playstation 2.  It was Hot Shots Golf, and it became one of my personal favorite relaxation games.  I’d line up my shots, consider angles, and then take my shots, one right after another, on beautiful courses to the sounds of birds and the occasional insect.  After a while, I never thought I’d find a game like that again, until I found Fishing Master World Tour on the Wii.

The plot–and yes, there’s a plot, which actually elevates this one a couple notches–puts you as a young fisherman (in the generic sense–you can be a fisherwoman if the mood so strikes) who’s gone venturing out with his pet dog (or her pet dog, or either of theirs’ pet cat) to become the world’s greatest–a Fishing Master.  And of course, the only way to be a master of anything is by going forth and doing it repeatedly.  If you want to be a Pokemon Master you have to catch a load of pokemon.  But if you want to be a Fishing Master, you’ve got to catch a lot of fish.  Along with plenty of other stuff, including the keys to the boat that’ll be carrying you around the world.  You’ll play various tournaments all over the world, and engage in various quests besides.

The Wii, as you’ve probably already figured out, is pretty much tailor-made for any kind of fishing game.  With its motion capture technology and lower emphasis on graphics, it’s perfect for the kind of gameplay that fishing games require.  You can pull back on the Wiimote to cast, and the nunchuk makes for an excellent rapid-reel system.  The combination of a perfect rod controller and a perfect reel controller, plus a solid overall environment that doesn’t need a whole lot of graphic processing capability–how much computing power do you need to portray a lake with some fish?  They’ve been doing that since back before the PS1, so even the Wii can’t flub this job.

Granted, it’s a fishing game.  More specifically, it’s JUST a fishing game.  All you do is fish.  You’ll cast your line out and you’ll let it sit until you get a bite.  You’ll have the option of selecting various baits, as well as regular chances to upgrade your rods.  But no matter how many fancy bells and whistles are ever attached, at the end of the day it’s still just throw line, catch fish, repeat.

This brings me back nicely to my original point, that this may well be the best chill game I’ve played since Hot Shots Golf.  You cast your line, you catch fish.  But the fish will FIGHT.  And when you get that fight, you’ll really be in for a fight, snapping your rod back and forth to tire out the fish so you can reel it in.  It’s unusually frantic for a game like this, in fact, it’s almost out of place.  But it fits, in its way–that’s what real fishing is.  Long periods of calm punctuated by a fish fighting for its life against nearly impossible odds.

There will still be, however, plenty of long periods of calm, and staring at that bobber, waiting for a fish to strike can be downright reflective.  Relaxing.  And just enough to make Fishing Master: World Tour one of my favorite chill games.

Animal Crossing City Folk Game Review–Absolute Absurdity

Animal Crossing: City Folk, now available on the Nintendo Wii (were you expecting Xbox 360?)  may well be the most absurd game I’ve ever played.  And considering not so long ago I was writing about a game called You Have To Defecate Upon King Bhumibol, that’s saying a LOT.

As for the plot, you play a random traveler on his way to a certain city that’s populated entirely by cheerful anthropomorphic animals despite the fact that your character is clearly human.  Those of you wondering if your avatar is, in fact, some kind of closet furry join me in wondering the exact same thing.  Your new town is admittedly rather small and quaint, but boasts a clothing shop, a museum, a bus station, and a general store run by everybody’s favorite loan shark / raccoon, Tom Nook.  A word about Tom Nook–he operates the general store Nook’s Cranny (ba DUM bum!) and will give you your first home loan to purchase a place in the small town.  He will then offer you a job in Nook’s Cranny to get you started paying down your debt, but he’ll promptly fire you after one day with a huge amount in mortgage left.  At least I think that’s the currency of choice there; I’m a little spacey on that detail.  Anyway, the good news is that Nook’s Cranny deals in pretty much EVERY ITEM KNOWN TO MAN OR ANTHROPOMORPHIC ANIMAL, and thus, you’ll be able to sell Nook any random piece of garbage you find anywhere to pay down your house debt, despite the fact that he could literally stay within sight of his shop and get the exact same thing himself for free.

Seriously–it’s actually quite possible to pay off a home loan in Animal Crossing City Folk with cherries you find on public trees.  No wonder Tom Nook’s a loan shark–people can pay him off with shiny rocks and sticks they found on the ground and he’s required by some kind of law to take them.  He’s got to charge ridiculous fees just to keep ahead of the deflationary curve!  If I went down to MY bank and asked if they take cherries on a mortgage payment they’d probably have me arrested.  Or shot.  Possibly both!

This game is just the epoch of absurdity.  For instance–after getting fired from Nook’s, I went to the town’s bulletin board on my first day and left a rambling, profanity-laden diatribe about how I wished every resident of the town would die in a series of horrible tragedies just to see what would happen.  Sure enough…they greeted me with cheerful smiles and sunny waves and offers to join them for dinner or bridge or knocking over garbage cans or whatever giant anthropomorphic animals do for fun.  You can’t get a rise out of these people, thus you’re left to play the game as intended.

Which is, sadly, boring.  You go fishing.  You find fossils which you take to the museum where they make appropriate oohing and aahing noises over before putting them on display.  Occasionally you can go into the city (hence the name, City Folk) and see a movie or go shopping.  It’s like life, if your banker were a raccoon that accepted tree bark on a mortgage payment and your neighbor were a five foot tall pig that walked on its hind legs and sent you a vase on your birthday.

And frankly, if I wanted my games to be more like real life, I think I’d just stop, you know, playing games.

My Sims Party Game Review–Like A Freshman Kegger

Now, you may be asking yourself at this very moment why I would compare a purely nonoffensive game like My Sims Party (now available on, not surprisingly, the Wii) to a high school drinking party?  Well, I actually just told you why, but let me elaborate.  See, a freshman kegger, a high school drinking party, has about as much chance of getting actual alcohol as, say, Dick Cheney has of being elected president.  It would require an incredible intersection of events–extremely permissive parents, an understanding elder relative who didn’t fear anything less than extremely permissive parents, outright bribery–to actually happen, so the result you’re left with is a party that promises to be a lot more than it actually is.

This is, of course, exactly the case with My Sims Party, a game that promises to be a whole lot more than it actually is but seems unable to deliver.

The plot is pretty simple, as is generally the case for Sims games of any stripe–you’ve moved to a new town, which you get to name (I called mine Steveland, because it’s so very plausible and sounds almost exactly like Cleveland, only with two letters changed).  The tourism board of this little town is desperate for a way to keep residents in the town, working and contributing to the tax base–and of course is always looking to bring in more people–thus they’ve hit on the idea of the Festival.  The town regularly (at least once a month from the look of it) declares a holiday and puts on a tournament of various minigames, including running luggage from one side of a hotel lobby to another, dancing at a night club, scooping up to-order ice cream cones and making pizzas.   This all will, of course, be accomplished by doing various things with your Wiimote.

All of this sounds fun enough on the surface–we’ve played a literal slew of games like this already–but the big problem with this one isn’t the cutesy-poo characters or the repetition or the fact that most of the “games” at this Festival look like a way for the townspeople to get free labor out of us, but rather that the controls are seriously malfunctioning.  When I went to rock out at the dance club, they assured me that all I’d have to do is “shake my Wiimote”, which sounds a lot dirtier than it actually is, but when the time came to do the shaking, it refused to accept my commands no matter which direction or how hard i shook the Wiimote.  Worse yet, it wouldn’t even accept simple button press commands.  Scooping the ice cream cones was also not an easy thing as my scoop would frequently overshoot the particular flavor of ice cream I was after.

So that’s why the comparison, and that’s why I can’t recommend this game at all.  Sure, it looks like it’d be a lot of fun.  it even sounds like a party.  But when you get there and discover that the promised keg is nowhere to be had and the game barely recognizes that you even have a Wiimote, there’s just not that much point in sticking around.

Megan Fox Loves The Wii

Shia LaBeouf’s assertion that the Wii is for amateurs didn’t help his image as a goofy awkward nerdy type, but Megan Fox is probably going to make some more fans with the acknowledgement that she is in fact something of a gamer. You won’t see her tossing grenades in an online Halo match or anything like that, but according to an interview in WhatTheyPlay.com she’s into the Wii: ”I’m totally a fan of the Wii, I’m just not good at it”.

The Transformers eye-candy admits to a prediliection for Lego licensed games and says the Star Wars games are her favorite of the bunch. She also claims to have memorized most of the fatality moves for Mortal Kombat and spends some of her time in virtual gardening with Rare’s Viva Pinata games and plays Wii Fit, defending it against claims that it’s only for girls.