Nintendo Wii Fanboy

The big news over at DS Fanboy got us thinking about how Sega has been using the Wii to unleash updated Dreamcast titles on us. Titles such as Samba de Amigo and House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return. Since the DS got the Cadillac of dream remakes/updates (we're still not sure yet), we were wondering what dream title, from the most dreamy of past consoles, would you want to see remade for Wii? Virtua Cop? We call dibs. Jet Grind Radio? Nice choice. Shenmue, right?

The above off-screen video may not be of the highest quality, but you do get a taste of the multiplayer action to come. See, blog Blue Hero Gaming recently got their hands on Samba de Amigo (where's the Wii Fanboy love, Sega?) and decided to write their experience with the title. When combined with the video, it's quite the nice little package.

So, who's pumped for Samba de Amigo?



[Via Go Nintendo]

In spite of its untimely demise, the Dreamcast still lives on in gamers' hearts due to a small library of now-classic titles, ranging from the grandiose, such as Shenmue, to the bizarre, like Space Channel 5. Falling closer to the latter on the weirdness scale is ChuChu Rocket!, a unique Dreamcast puzzler that's noteworthy for being one of the last great games to come out of Sega's Sonic Team (I mean, really -- Shadow the Hedgehog?), and for taking the Dreamcast online with four-player multiplayer -- no small feat in 2000. Just like Katamari Damacy, ChuChu Rocket! succeeds on the strengths of simple-but-addictive gameplay and irresistible charm.

ChuChu Rocket! makes no attempt to hide what it is -- a pure puzzler, free of all frivolities and unnecessary dead weight like a story. The concept is quite straightforward -- your only goal is to guide a group of mice (or, in some levels, just one mouse) into a rocket. In many cases, this involves avoiding cats who are roaming the puzzle terrain, waiting to make a mouse sandwich out of your little ChuChus. Both the mice and the cats move in the exact same fashion -- they head in a straight line until they hit a wall, which will cause them to turn right. It's a little like watching a group of lemmings, but, thankfully, the mice move just a bit faster.

We don't normally see any reason to post rumors from the GameFAQs forum, but this time there's a magazine scan involved, so that's ... marginally more plausible. GameFAQs poster Saikobooru found a blurb in the Swedish magazine Gamereactor (or at least a convincing-ish fake of a scan from Gamereactor) stating that, like other Sega classics NiGHTS, The House of the Dead, and Sega Bass Fishing, Shenmue will make a return appearance on the Wii.

According to this rumor, the new Shenmue will be more like the House of the Dead on Wii than NiGHTS: in other words, ported versions of the two games rather than a new game, with some new minigames added. And now you can commence the inevitable debate about whether Shenmue is boring or the best game ever.

[Via NeoGAF]

With some great PS2 games getting upgraded for the Wii (Resident Evil 4 and Okami), as well as some Dreamcast games getting another spin on the system (House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return, Samba de Amigo), we were wondering if there were any games that you'd like to see get their own Wii edition? There's a lot of games to choose from out there, so you have to have at least one on your mind!

Is there a game that could benefit from the Wii treatment? Is it just something that would make good use of the Wii's motion-based controls, or a game that could really use the new audience?

On this week's release list, the Dreamcast-to-Wii port Sega Bass Fishing is likely on a lot of minds. It was a pretty fun game when it initially released on Sega's now-dead system, so without a required peripheral and some additions to the game, it's looking like quite the package.

What do you all think? Is the game just another cash-in? Are you looking to get your game on with something else this weekend? What are you playing?

Every (other) Tuesday, Mike Sylvester brings you REVOLUTIONARY, a look at the wide world of Wii possibilities.

Fans of Midway's Ready 2 Rumble Boxing series are no doubt anticipating the spiritual successor in EA's Facebreaker. When you're madly swinging Wiimote and Nunchuk in abuse of cartoony pugilists, you probably won't give any thought to how you could have been doing this nearly a decade ago. While our Nintendo allegiance may make it easy to dismiss claims that the Wii concept was outright "stolen," in Iwata's own admission, it was built from technologies already in existence. And some of those technologies had even used for gaming prior to the Wii. Read on as we examine how the Wii carries on a legacy of hardware past and dreams cast.

eBay seller funky_fruits put one of the rarest items we've ever seen on eBay: a one-of-a-kind Wii prototype system, complete with pre-production controller. Produced well in advance of the final system's design, this item features unique properties like "Sensor Bar port for detection of anyone coming within 5m of Nintendo Wii™ prototype - automatically vaporises intruders," "Accessory port on bottom of Wii Remote which can also control your TV and VCR," and "Wireless Free."

How could we possibly be disappointed by an item that is so powerful that "Everything is just shoved into memory because there is so much of it - blinking fast"? Because the auction has been ended early by the seller. Nintendo must have gotten to him and threatened to vaporize him like they did the 10 scientists who originally created the system while living in a deserted Japanese airfield.

A NeoGAFfer named ram reports that Sega's arcade/Dreamcast fishing game Sega Bass Fishing (known in Japan by the much catchier name Get Bass) will see a 2008 release on the Wii. Apparently, rather than a new game, this will be a port of the original with new content (including changing weather conditions and 15 different locales). The very Dreamcast-like screens he posted would certainly support that conclusion. We don't know what the source is for the information or the screens, unfortunately.

Considering how well the Dreamcast fishing controller works for Wii-like tennis, we wonder if Sega will have some special insight for fishing with the Wiimote and Nunchuk.

Every Tuesday, Mike Sylvester brings you REVOLUTIONARY, a look at the wide world of Wii possibilities.

Traditionally, consoles have had to carry over hardware from previous generations in order to offer backward compatibility. This can be thought of as a burden, as the costs of including that hardware might be better used increasing the specs and features of the system for the benefit of new games.

This generation marks a change in the method of operations in providing backward compatibility. The Xbox 360, Playstation 3 (in select models and territories), and Wii use a process known as software emulation to provide backward compatibility with their predecessors, so that they don't have to include that old hardware. What emulation does is allow one set of hardware to mimic the functions of another set of hardware. Emulation isn't a new technique, and it isn't exclusive to consoles. In fact, many people have been using it for years to play games on hardware other than for which it was developed.

Just like online gaming, the Dreamcast already did it. While experimenting with the Dreamcast fishing controller, The GagaMan from The Dreamcast Junkyard discovered that its motion sensors worked perfectly with the fantastic Virtua Tennis. In fact, he claims, the controls are more nuanced and sensitive than Wii Sports Tennis. On top of that, you can actually move your character around with the analog stick. We wonder if things would have gone differently for the Dreamcast if anyone had figured this out back then.

Probably not. But at least we can pick up a fishing controller and try this ourselves!

Old school gamers rejoice; vertical shoot-em-up Karous is headed for the Wii. Karous was released a couple of months ago on the Dreamcast and currently stands as the last game released on the system.

We've already talked about how many classic shooters are available on the Virtual Console, so it's nice to see a new release joining the party.
The cel-shaded shooter is hardly a genre classic, but does add something a little different to the Wii's library. Who knows, if sales figures are good, a few other shmups might find their way over. Radiant Silvergun on Wii, anybody? Now we're dreaming ...

There's no release date yet, nor any confirmation of a U.S. release. Keep your itchy trigger fingers crossed.

Honestly, for us, one of the worst things about the Dreamcast was how the controllers had the wire coming from the bottom. Of course, one could push the wire up through the groove on the controller, but it shortened the already length-taxed cord available. We began to feel the same disappointment and fear upon seeing the Wii's Classic Controller, as well.

But we are not alone! Someone else feels our pain and has taken it into their own hands to correct the issue, also providing step-by-step documentation on how they did it. They even say it takes all that of 5 minutes to do! Rock!

So, who is else is going to do this to their Classic Controller?