Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Marble game accessory modeled after Goatse

Posted Jul 4th 2008 10:30PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: Peripherals, Controller

If you've managed to get this far in your internet life without running into Goatse, congratulations! Do yourself a favor and keep it that way -- trust us on this one.

It has been months since Chinese accessory manufacturers last entertained us with inane Wii remote attachments; we were beginning to fear that they had run out of wacky ideas! But here comes the Ball Bearing Maze Special Salver [sic] to cure our accessory doldrums!

With this handy, Kororinpa-branded product, all you need to do is drop your remote into that center compartment, and you'll have more exciting, immersive experience playing marble/labyrinthine games such as Kororinpa: Marble Mania and, uh, that's it. Similarly designed games like Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, Mercury Meltdown Revolution, and Dewy's Adventure all require easy access to the controller's buttons, so this accessory wouldn't work well with those.

Couple that limited support with the Maze Special Salver's pricing, $27.99 plus shipping/handling, and this attachment looks almost as unattractive as the terrible image its design alludes to. You would be better off taping your remote to a cafeteria tray!

[Via Go Nintendo]

LEGO Batman screens, or how to desexy the ladies

Posted Jul 4th 2008 9:02PM by Alisha Karabinus
Filed under: Screens

Sick of the likes of Lara Croft jiggling up your video games? Looks like the LEGO games franchise has the answer to the bulging and bursting ladies of gaming. Poison Ivy might be a sexpot in other media, from comics to television to film, but in LEGO Gotham City, she gives a whole new meaning to brickhouse.

Check out her blocky style, as well as some other new images from the multi-platform title, in our gallery below.

Gallery: LEGO Batman

[Via press release]

Another Week in Japan: Hardware and software numbers 6/23-6/29

Posted Jul 4th 2008 7:30PM by Candace Savino
Filed under: Another Week in ...

This Wii had a lot of software representation in the top ten this week, with a third-party game taking the highest honors -- Namco Bandai's Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. Japan's Wii RPG love wasn't enough to put the newest Tales game into first place, though; a DS title about horse racing, Derby Stallion, took that coveted position. Yet, Symphonia's first week sales are pretty impressive.

The other Wii games that found themselves in the top ten were Mario Super Sluggers, and of course Wii Fit and Mario Kart. As for hardware, the Wii dropped to third place, falling behind the DS by a minuscule margin:

To see the top ten software sales numbers and rankings, just clicky clicky on the "continue reading" link below.

Continue reading Another Week in Japan: Hardware and software numbers 6/23-6/29

Friday Video: A drive down Mario Kart Memory lane

Posted Jul 4th 2008 6:00PM by David Hinkle
Filed under: Friday Video

Now this is an old one. How many of you can remember this classic ad, utilizing the "SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!" voiceover guy? Did you know that the karts found in Mario Kart have two speeds? Fast and WAY TOO FAST! Ah, classic commercials, it doesn't get much better than that.

Each week, our Friday Video segment takes a look at the gaming landscape online and brings forth an interesting video that (hopefully) gets the dialog started. Past entries have included a look at Mario on the PS2 (what?) and some of Nintendo's other marketing attempts.

Red Steel costs little green

Posted Jul 4th 2008 4:30PM by Candace Savino
Filed under: Sales

People seem to either fall in the "love it" or "hate it" camp for Red Steel. For some, the controls were a mess, but others felt that they worked pretty well after an hour or so of playing. If such mixed opinions initially scared you away from Ubisoft's launch game, you might be happy to know that you can now pick up the title for super cheap.

Starting today (and lasting only one week), GameStop is selling used copies of Red Steel for $9.99. This deal is available in brick and mortar stores only, but you can check if your local store has copies in stock by using the retailer's website.

For those of you who've played Red Steel -- is it worth $10?

WRUP: Rockin' out with Aerosmith edition

Posted Jul 4th 2008 3:00PM by David Hinkle
Filed under: What are you playing?

This week's notable title is none other than Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. With nothing else on the radar, we're wondering how many of you pounced on this one? Personally, we're not big Aerosmith fans, but that's just us.

If you aren't playing that, then what's going to be spinning in your Wii? What are you be playing?

We're all shook up from Wario Land videos

Posted Jul 4th 2008 1:30PM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: Video

We knew that Wario Land: Shake It! looked really nice, but we simply were not prepared to see it in motion in the gameplay video available on the new Japanese site. The crisp backgrounds and fluid character animation make Shake It one of the best-looking games on Wii or any other console. It's surprisingly beautiful for something that is also so Wario-like -- the gameplay footage is all busting stuff and hoarding treasure.

The site also features the animated intro created by Production I.G., which we've embedded after the break. In addition, an animated controller diagram details the game's sideways-Wiimote-based control scheme: the 1 button tackles, the 2 button jumps, and shaking the Wiimote performs various context-sensitive actions, usually shaking stuff.

Continue reading We're all shook up from Wario Land videos

VC Friday: Bubbles and Pokemans

Posted Jul 4th 2008 12:00PM by Chris Greenhough
Filed under: News, Virtual Console, WiiWare

It's a double WiiWare update for Europe and Australia this week as the fresh-faced download service once again blots out new old games. There is a pattern emerging here -- WiiWare one week, Virtual Console the next, and so forth -- but we're not yet sure if it's a deliberate trend or just a coincidence. Either way, it's pretty plain now that Virtual Console stuff is going to become less regular. Up for grabs this week:

My Pokémon Ranch -- WiiWare -- 1000 Wii Points
Pop -- WiiWare -- 700 Wii Points

Videos after the break!

Gallery: Pop

Continue reading VC Friday: Bubbles and Pokemans

Happy 4th from Wii Fanboy!

Posted Jul 4th 2008 11:00AM by David Hinkle
Filed under: Meta

For those of us in the United States (a majority of our staff), today is Independence Day. We won't go telling you everything about the holiday, because the internet makes it easy to track down information for yourself. But, we will say that it's one of our biggest holidays, so expect us to be taking it kind of easy around here today.

We'll have posts lined up for you all throughout the day, but the space between them will be wider. So, if you find yourself in front of the computer today, check us out periodically, as we'll still have some great content for you. For those of you in the United States, have a great 4th. For the rest of the world, we hope you enjoy your day. Thanks for reading!

Wii Warm Up: Retro Man 9

Posted Jul 4th 2008 10:00AM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: Wii Warm Up

Chances are, you already know how we feel about Mega Man 9's appearance, but in case we haven't sufficiently conveyed our reaction: DOCTOR WOWEE. For us, it isn't about nostalgia. It's about the fact that, done properly, 8-bit is a beautiful art style that shouldn't be abandoned. And few games did it better than the Mega Man series. As nice as Mega Man 8 looked, the style of the NES games is much more distinctive.

Do you agree? Is the NES-esque presentation a wonderfully bold visual choice, or pandering to retrogamers?

Let the goddess of the sun keep your head warm

Posted Jul 3rd 2008 11:00PM by Chris Greenhough
Filed under: Fan stuff

Even though it's the height of summer in the northern hemisphere, we want one of these. We wouldn't usually post items from Etsy that have already sold out, but then we don't see too many Okami hats cluttering up the internets. This fine head garment, featuring Okami protagonist Amaterasu, reportedly took around five hours to complete, and was crafted from polar fleece. And we want one. Did we say that already?

Let's hope somebody out there can nag seller riomccarthy into making more!

[Via Capcom Blog]

Wii leaves India alone and in the dark

Posted Jul 3rd 2008 10:00PM by Candace Savino
Filed under: News

While most readers of Wii Fanboy don't have to face this kind of problem, there are many nations throughout the world that force gamers to resort to the gray market to pick up their system of choice. Take India, for example, the second most populated country in the world.

Sony and Microsoft have distributors in the country, but the Wii doesn't. However, that may change soon enough, after Milestone Interactive tests out the market for Wii software. We're not entirely confident in Milestone's approach, though. For one, it hardly seems smart to base results on game sales when the console itself hasn't even officially released yet. On the other hand, since that's just how things are in India (and they're not likely to change anytime soon), we can understand Milestone's rush to get the ball rolling.

Here comes the other, less excusable problem: the game Milestone chose to distribute is Alone in the Dark Wii. Not even critics are playing the Wii version of Alone in the Dark, so is it fair to assess the Wii's chances based on Atari's survival horror title? Also, because Indian gamers import their Wiis, we wonder if the region of the disc will have any effect on sales.

At least this is a step in the right direction, but now that supply for the Wii is starting to meet demand globally, we hope Nintendo branches out into some of the areas it currently neglects.

Gallery: Alone in the Dark

[Thanks, Vijay!]

New Active Life screens leap, skip, and kayak our way

Posted Jul 3rd 2008 9:00PM by Chris Greenhough
Filed under: Screens

We found little in the latest batch of Active Life: Outdoor Challenge screens that was new to us, though they are the first English language shots (not that the game was packed with mountains of kanji in the first place). It's the usual mix of runaway minecarts, kayaking, and jumping over logs -- increasingly, this is looking less like an exercise game (and thus a competitor to Wii Fit) and more like a light-hearted selection of minigames bundled with a potentially fun peripheral; we could never imagine Active Life: Outdoor Challenge calling us fat, for example.

More screens and (terribly lifestyle) boxart follow the break.

Continue reading New Active Life screens leap, skip, and kayak our way

O RLY? Sega confirms maracas for Samba de Amigo

Posted Jul 3rd 2008 8:00PM by Chris Greenhough
Filed under: News, Peripherals

Samba de Amigo without maracas isn't quite pointless -- a sombrero-wearing monkey shaking percussion to Chumbawamba could never be pointless -- but we imagine it's less fun than it should be. That's why we were entirely unsurprised to see the adjacent boxart, complete with maracas, appear on the site of a British retailer recently.

In a fairly appalling/hilarious attempt to cover up the leak, the packaging was later removed from view, but now Sega has confirmed to Gamekyo what we all kind of knew anyway: that the game will be sold with two "maracas" when the title arrives in the States this September. Something tells us that they might just look like those on the right.

Gallery: Samba de Amigo

FaceBreaker details make the game sound like a knock-out [update]

Posted Jul 3rd 2008 7:00PM by Candace Savino
Filed under: Video

When EA changed the title of the Wii's FaceBreaker to FaceBreaker K.O. Party, we couldn't help but moan, groan, grumble, and sneer. Not every Wii game needs to have the word "party" in it, and we do enjoy things that aren't party games from time to time (shock, gasp!).

While the video above does ease our fears a bit, it's clear that the focus of K.O. Party is on the multiplayer. Then again, it's a fighting game, so that's okay. Producer Trey Smith talks up the Wii version a bit, and hints at some of the features exclusive to K.O. Party. The part that caught our ears was the "one-to-one" responsiveness, which would be amazing if true. As much as we enjoy Wii Sports: Boxing, flailing around like idiots does not make a good fighter. Smith also boasts about the visual style, which does look nice (although obviously not as nice as its HD counterparts), as well as the multiplayer, of which there will be two different modes.

As for the exclusive unlockable character, that's a neat bonus but won't make or break the game -- unless, of course, it happens to be Little Mac, which is unlikely but would make us die happy.

[Update: For unknown reasons, GameTrailers no longer has the video up! We summarized most of what happened above, but if the video shows up again, we'll put it in.]

Next Page >

Name	Date
SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1	July 15
Strong Bad's Game for Attractive People	July TBA
Rock Band Track Pack Vol. 1	July 15
We Love Golf	July 15
Wii Fanboy goes to E3	July 15-17
Order Up!	July 22
LEGO Batman	Sept. TBA
Star Wars: Force Unleashed	Sept. 16
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Sakurai: I had to cut characters from Brawl	News
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Born for Wii: Castlevania	Born for Wii
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Ninja Gaiden 2 gets patched, sorta Design a GRiD livery for the game's upcoming DLC Dungeon crawler goodness: New Sacred 2 footage	Marble game accessory modeled after Goatse LEGO Batman screens, or how to desexy the ladies Another Week in Japan: Hardware and software numbers 6/23-6/29
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Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Marble game accessory modeled after Goatse

LEGO Batman screens, or how to desexy the ladies

Another Week in Japan: Hardware and software numbers 6/23-6/29

Friday Video: A drive down Mario Kart Memory lane

Red Steel costs little green

WRUP: Rockin' out with Aerosmith edition

We're all shook up from Wario Land videos

VC Friday: Bubbles and Pokemans

Happy 4th from Wii Fanboy!

Wii Warm Up: Retro Man 9

Let the goddess of the sun keep your head warm

Wii leaves India alone and in the dark

New Active Life screens leap, skip, and kayak our way

O RLY? Sega confirms maracas for Samba de Amigo

FaceBreaker details make the game sound like a knock-out [update]

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