Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Wii Music was the big news at E3 in terms of Wii games about pretending you were playing a fake instrument (in contrast to games like Guitar Hero, in which you actually play a fake instrument). But it wasn't the only game in town: Disney's Ultimate Band also features the Wiimote and Nunchuk subbing in for guitar, bass, and drums. Except, instead of MIDI versions of your public domain favorites, Ultimate Band has you playing along to abhorrent covers of recent pop/rock hits. Also, unlike Wii Music's freeform nature, Ultimate Band is a game with, like, goals and points and stuff.

Although mediocre, Dancing with the Stars wasn't as terrible as we thought it would be. For a "dumbed-down Samba de Amigo," in fact, it wasn't half bad. That doesn't mean we're going to get our proverbial knickers in a twist over "part two", though.

Yes, the day has come for Activision to announce a sequel to the first game in the series, titled Get Your Dance On! this time around. You can dance as some B-list celebs such as Mel B, Apolo Anton Ohno, Joey Fatone and Jennie Garth, and pair up with instructors that only people who watch the show will have heard of.

Activision promises that the Wii version will have more refined controls than its predecessor, and will include "flair" moves that you can perform to get extra points (and to make yourself look extra silly, we're sure). Other than that, it's just Dancing with the Stars, so take it or leave it.

Okay, so Disney's Ultimate Band will eternally be overshadowed by the multi-instrumental extravaganza Guitar Hero: World Tour, and even by the irritating Wii version of Rock Band. And it's true that Ultimate Band suffers from a case of miserable cover songs. But Disney and Fall Line Studios have impressed us with smart design that plays to the Wii controllers' strengths.

Rather than merely simulating the experience of having a guitar or drum controller, producer Manferd Naber explains that Ultimate Band takes an impressionistic approach to simulating the act of playing music. You play notes in time to music as usual, but there's also an emphasis on rock-star gestures like the Pete Townshend windmill maneuver or "a belt buckle spin a la ZZ Top."

The lack of actual singing is also turned into an interestingly bizarre gameplay mechanic. As the "Frontman," players wave around with the controllers representing their hands, to "pump up the crowd." Ultimate Band may turn out less than great, but at least it's going for something original.

Any White Stripes fan -- nay, any music fan at all -- can only look at this trailer for Disney's Ultimate Band and weep, perhaps while pounding a sharp-edged rock into the side of their skull. It's not the idea of yet another music game that will probably do the same things as all the other music games (including using Rock Band's instruments). It's the absolutely abhorrent quality of the included covers that has us writhing on the floor in pain and shame. That's got us wondering if all the music will be covers, since we know of several other songs and artists on tap for the title (and more who are rumored).

Ultimate Band was initially announced as being the peripheral-free answer to Rock Band and Guitar Hero, but now that rumored versions for the Xbox 360 and PS3 have been announced, word is that there will also be a version with instruments that will retail for $170.

Drag yourself past the break to see the list known artists and songs.

Xbox 360 Fanboy found some super secret info about Microsoft's plans for a Mii-like avatar on the site of market survey firm Intellisponse. The X3F story was posted on NeoGAF, whose members then began messing around with the Intellisponse URL. And that's when Internet Magic happened. A wealth of unannounced Microsoft, Activision, and Disney games were revealed in .swf files containing game descriptions.

Some of these are clearly just pitches -- see the five million Spidey games -- but given the evidence of Ultimate Band (which we already knew about), some of them are definitely on the way. There aren't any massive megatons like the Xbox got, but unannounced games are always news! Until they're announced! We're marking it all as rumor for now, because we don't know what's real, what's proposed, and what could be some kind of elaborate trap!

The site has since been taken down, but we've got most of the text, and you can fill in the gaps with Joystiq's posts on the subject, as well as the NeoGAF thread. Kotaku has a roundup of the Spidey-related titles.

The full list follows after the break. Highlights include a touch-sensitive Guitar Hero World Tour (referred to here as Guitar Hero IV) guitar, a Marvel Ultimate Alliance sequel, a Spidey game built around the Balance Board, and -- perhaps most exciting -- a Bill Nye the Science Guy science minigame collection. Weirdest of all, and least likely to be as exciting as it sounds, is Trioxide, some kind of system for playing Wii, PS3, and 360 games on the PC with their original controllers? Streaming video, maybe?

Have you ever seen a GameCube as cute as this? Before you say "yes" and provide a million and ten links of cuter mods, just look into Wall-E's eyes. You'll make him cry! And we all know what happens when water gets on a GameCube -- it goes to console heaven. So, for Wall-E's sake, just let it be.

Based on the character in the upcoming Disney Pixar film, this adorable mod was made with children's toys, Plexiglas, tubes, rods, plastic, metal, and acrylic paint. Oh, and let's not forget the GameCube. We're not sure if it can actually move (we suspect not), but even so, we're extremely impressed.

Consider our hearts melted.



[Via Techeblog]

Not being familiar with the High School Musical movies, characters, or songs, we aren't sure if High School Musical: Sing It! has the wide appeal required to be a good party karaoke title. However, if you're a fan and have yet to pick up the Wii game (for some reason), then today's Amazon Deal of the Day is for you. That is, if you love karaoke and don't care what you're singing.

The online retailer has dropped the game's price to $29.99 for today only. If you've got a Boogie microphone or other Wii-compatible USB mic, you're good to go. If you don't, you may be stuck paying the same price for the separate components that you would for the bundle. So, really, this Deal of the Day is big news for a very specific audience: super karaoke fans (who either have Boogie or are planning to buy American Idol or another mic game) who also love High School Musical. Or people who can find a cheap used Wii mic.

These aren't exactly the best Amazon deals we've featured here, but you can't have gold every time. Perhaps your kids will enjoy these games? Or if you've got a pet robot, you could maybe feed him these discs? Not if you're actually fond of him, though.

• Driver: Parallel Lines - $14.99
• Disney's Chicken Little: Ace in Action - $15.79
• Arctic Tale - $19.99

Do robots even eat CDs? Or is that just a myth? We might never know!

[Via CAG]

We love the basic idea behind High School Musical. We think a karaoke game would be a big hit with the "expanded audience" out there in the "blue ocean." If we were the type to perform in front of people rather than hiding in total silence, we'd totally play it.

The major problem with High School Musical is High School Musical. If we're going to be singing in a game, we'd rather not sing material from a Disney made-for-TV movie. We'd rather belt out the theme from Night Trap than whatever was written for High School Musical.

Check the link for some new screens. We hope the game is more exciting than the microphone peripheral!

Disney announced a new line of video games today based on their popular Disney Princess merchandising. Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey, also being released on the PC and Playstation 2, will enable players to create their own Princess to fulfill the goal of "restoring order to kingdoms wreaked with peril." We're guessing 3D platforming, but we have no idea.

On the one hand, we bristle at the idea of "games for girls," but we can't deny that Disney Princess is already quite popular. We only hope that Disney doesn't betray their fans' love of the franchise with a junk game.

"Present ......Don't you think? you do not play almost. The son who becomes 11 years old is in me, but it is as for my finger that way in order to be able to move quickly, because it is not developed, (laughing). As for I being able to play 'pack man' extent kana."

We just wanted to share this in case you thought life would be amazing and glamorous if you had an Oscar. Right now, having never been asked to play the Pirates game, we're feeling pretty happy about our situation in comparison.

We don't want to make any value judgments, so we'll stick to the facts. A Wii game based on Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End exists in some unreleased stage, and Jeux-France posted two screenshots of it, which we have posted here for you.

The screens depict characters from the movie in what appear to be situations from the whole series. Sometimes the characters engage in combat against enemy characters. There is a display on the screen of the appropriate Wii controller motions for the situation.

We don't want to speculate too much, but we're guessing that this game will be pressed onto discs and released to retailers near the time of the movie's release (late May). Should people want one of these discs containing the game, they will be able to obtain one in exchange for currency.

[Via NeoGAF]

The first Wii game likely to ship with a peripheral in the US (not counting foam doodads) is not a Nintendo first party game. It is a licensed game. From Disney. Based on a made-for-TV movie.

Disney Interactive is bringing an adaptation of their hit movie High School Musical to the Wii as a karaoke game. The story of the game will follow the first movie, while also affording players the chance to sing the songs from the second. We weren't really aware karaoke games needed or could support stories, but we'll accept it. High School Musical is set to ship this August with an included microphone.

High School Musical is facing competition only from Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party in the race to be the first US-released Wii game with a special controller as well as the first full music game for the system. That's pretty progressive for Disney!

Disney has opened a studio with one exclusive purpose. The studio, which is called Fall Line and is based out of Salt Lake City, Utah, has an exclusive purpose in creating games for nothing but Nintendo consoles. The studio is to be run by Scott Novis, who is responsible for the recent game adaptation of the film Cars.

The move to create their own development studio occurred when Disney saw that it was spending a lot more than it wished when it was licensing out characters and content to third-party developers. Disney has spent over $200 million in the past two year acquiring or starting up game development studios, a sum that the company is expecting to double over the next two years.

So why go exclusively with Nintendo? Nintendo, apparently, is a natural partner since its users tend to be a bit on the younger side. Combine that with Nintendo's approach of easing everyone into gaming with their console the Wii and Disney and Nintendo appear to be quite the match made in heaven.