Nintendo Wii Fanboy

EA is finally bringing NASCAR to Wii, but not in the way you might hope. Instead, the game will be a kart racer full of "cartoon mischief." Titled NASCAR Kart Racing, the game will feature 14 licensed NASCAR drivers, as well as 10 original drivers that EA came up with on their own. There will be a total of 24 different tracks to race on, some based on real tracks and some totally made up.

The game will feature multiplayer, although it's only 4-player split-screen, and ship on February 10th, 2009. Head past the break for the list of licensed drivers that will be included in the game and check out our gallery below for some screens.

Did you miss us last week? We sure missed you all! Being stuffed with Turkey and passed out on the couch is no substitute for gaming with friends. So, we're happy to get things back to normal around here. Won't you join us? Head past the break to find out how.

Remember Sunsoft's plans to start releasing manga over WiiWare? After several months of hearing diddly-squat, we've finally got confirmation that Princess Ai will be the first title delivered through the service. On January 6, Japanese Wii owners will have access to the first three chapters for 500 Wii points. Subsequent chapters will be released in pairs for 200 points a time. At fifteen chapters long, that means Princess Ai will set you back 1700 points, a pretty competitive price when compared to the paper-based version.

Better still, one of the comic panels released by Sunsoft reveals subtitles in English -- Siliconera speculates that this could mean Sunsoft plans to localize its WiiWare manga viewer in the west. If that goes well, who knows what else could come our way?


[Via Siliconera]

Following up this week's announcement that Sam & Max: Season Two would be releasing on Wii, Atari was kind enough to shoot us over some new screens and a trailer for the upcoming compilation. As one would expect, it's business as usual for the duo, with the above trailer showcasing the wacky hijinks one should expect in a Sam & Max game. So, watch the trailer above, then head into the gallery for the new screens.

How important are MadWorld's black-and-white visuals? According to producer Atsushi Inaba, the game looked "kind of subpar" when Platinum Games tried coloring it in. "MadWorld is very much based on American-style comics, so we added some color to see how it was going to look," Inaba told 1UP. "Adding color really didn't do anything for it. We got rid of it."

And by "got rid of it." Inaba means completely. A Technicolor version won't even be available as an extra, so if you were kind of curious about seeing MadWorld with added pinks and greens, tough cheddar. We advise consoling yourself by reading 1UP's full interview with Inaba and director Shigenori Nishikawa -- especially as it features hot new screens of the game's "Asia Town" level.

We've no idea what the future holds for Nintendo. Their next console could be HD, might have a better storage solution than 512mbs of memory and possibly will bring peace and love to all mankind. Of course, this is only speculation on our part and now Atari's Phil Harrison is joining in on the action.

He sees a future of downloads. One where walking into a store and buying a disc copy of a game is an impossibility. Not due to the fact that discs no longer exist, but because the young ones of today won't want their games in that way. Phil thinks "there's a generation of kids being born today and probably already alive who I'm pretty confident will never buy a physical media product." Phil went on to elaborate that he thinks they'll "never buy a DVD, they will never buy a CD, and they will never buy a game in a box."

We're not entirely sure that such a future is so close to becoming a reality, personally. For one, there comes a certain satisfaction from actually holding something in your hands that downloads could never achieve. Second, that would mean the next generation of consoles would be affected by this and we're not willing to drink the Kool-Aid and say that all three major console manufacturers, as well as the plethora of third-parties involved, would be committed to offering all titles as downloads. Third, have you ever smelled the inside of a freshly opened game? It's like new car smell, but way better.

There was a time when innovations like the analog stick and rumble feedback were thought of as gimmicks that would never catch on. Some thought that 3D rendering would be limited to a few niche games, while the majority would stick to two dimensions. In the eyes of value-critical consumers, the Dreamcast looked like a crippled game box going up against the DVD-based, multimedia-rich PS2. But in time, all things change.

Going into the next generation, buying a remote pointer-less console may seem ... well, pointless. There are a lot of change-resistant "hard core" gamers out there pouting over the inevitable evolution of their controllers, but there's just no denying it anymore. Motion-sensing controllers are the wave of the future.

Thanks to the Japanese launch of the Wii Speak Channel, we can now see a bit of a preview of what's coming up for the rest of us (tomorrow in Europe, ??? in North America) in the world of talking at our TVs. Nintendo has opened their Wii Speak Channel page, featuring screenshots of the Channel's features, like the "puppy" feature in the screen above!

Well, actually, it's the photo sharing feature, which allows photos loaded from an SD card to be shown during chat. Also pictured: the Channel's voice message function, which allows players to record voice messages for Wii Friends and send them to the Message Board. This results in a text message on special a Wii Speak Channel background with the note "This message was recorded by your friend using the Wii Speak Channel." We always get an Animal Crossing vibe from special "stationery." If you'd like to see more of this Channel, a video is also available at the Japanese site.

[Via Famitsu]

The updated drum kit for Rock Band 2 apparently has a mystery port located in the back. This port, which was speculated to be used for a second kicker, won't actually be used for that. This, of course, has led to all kinds of speculation about what it's function actually is. Could it support something new, like the Guitar Hero rumor we heard awhile back? Harmonix isn't saying, for now.

[Via Engadget; image courtesy of Joystiq]

Nintendo of Australia took a shortcut with their release of Animal Crossing: Wild World on the DS: it's a direct copy of the US version -- "ESRB rating and all," as Vooks says. That shortcut has come back to haunt them with the release of Let's Go to the City.

Vooks' Daniel Vuckovic attempted to use the DS Suitcase to transfer his Wild World catalog and character to the new game. Instead of a catalog loaded with playroom furniture and Mario accessories, he was presented with this error message, as well as a similar one on the DS.

This is significant for two reasons that we can think of: first, it's definitive proof that the DS Suitcase is region-locked. If your copy of Wild World is imported, the gates to your Wii town are firmly closed. Second, it means that Animal Crossing: Let's Go to the City is basically missing a feature in Australia. Nintendo is just having terrible luck with this DS Suitcase thing!

Yesterday, we brought you gameplay footage of Ready 2 Rumble Revolution, featuring a few of the game's off-putting celebrity caricatures. Now we've got a trailer packed full of ugly funhouse-mirror versions of people you probably don't like anymore! Our "favorite" is Nicolas Cage in Elvis regalia. We spotted a School of Rock-era Jack Black easily enough, but we don't actually recognize a lot of the other ones, except as "ugly boxer."

The graphics in the trailer actually seem pretty good, which makes it that much more of a shame that they're used to display these guys. The good news is that we won't feel bad about punching them repeatedly in the face.

As promised, Amazon kicked off their all-Wii Gold Box deals last night, with $25.98 copies of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. The Gold Box deals so far include:

• $10 Namco Museum Remix (gone, but that's probably okay!)
• $40 Disney Sing It bundle with mic (expired, but that's probably okay!)
  
• $10 Trauma Center: New Blood (out of stock!)
• $20 We Ski (gone!)
• $35 Wario Land Shake It! (already claimed!)
• $50 DDR Hottest Party 2 bundle

The announced Gold Box deals aren't the only discounted Wii offerings at Amazon today. As part of their "15 Days, 15 Deals" promotion, they've marked down all kinds of Wii games and accessories to ridiculous prices. We've wanted to buy a Balance Board cover for a while, but held off out of an interest in not feeling stupid for paying twenty dollars for one. $2.98 sounds about right! The promotion also includes $40 Active Life: Outdoor Challenge, $20 We Love Golf, and discounts on the Wii Fit Energy Pack (see our impressions!), replacement Wii AC adapters, and maraca shells.

And hey, while you're at Amazon, why not pick up today's MP3 Daily Deal, The Muppets' Green and Red Christmas, for 99 cents?

Minor hardware revisions are common in electronics. As parts get smaller, cheaper, and draw smaller amounts of energy, companies swap out the internals for identically-functioning new versions. It's no surprise that Nintendo is looking into alternate accelerometer chips to provide the motion sensing functions of the Wii Remote, or that companies who manufacture accelerometers are clamoring to get their devices into the controller, thus ensuring a constant demand for their chips. Nintendo is currently looking at samples sent from many different manufacturers.

According to a Nikkei Tech-On! article, one of the companies, Kionix, may make it possible to increase the sensitivity of the accelerometer's motion-sensing. Nintendo has yet to make any decisions. "It is difficult for manufacturers to be selected as a new supplier," an employee of a sensor company told Nikkei.

[Via Gadget Lab]

The latest Dead Rising: Chop 'Til You Drop trailer is a lot like watching someone else play the game -- someone else just dying to show off all their moves, that is. See Frank on a skateboard! See Frank break necks! See Frank fight bosses! See Frank take out multiple zombies with one shotgun blast!

While we can't help but wonder if this is the real footage yet, there is a shot with a lot of zombies packed in at the end of a hall. Great, right? Lots of zombies! Just what we want! Except they, uh, really don't seem interested in you. Instead, they are very intent on scratching. Mosquito bites, maybe. Who knows.

Ready 2 Rumble is making a Balboa-esque comeback on Wii, but here's the catch: Ready 2 Rumble: Revolution will follow an example set by Celebrity Sports Showdown, by having only caricatured celebrities as fighters. That means no Afro Thunder, Boris "The Bear" Knokimov, or any of the other original cast.

While fighting as a moobed Simon Cowell wouldn't be our first choice, if the game is as fun as the Dreamcast titles were, we'll suck it up and get throwing haymakers. What do you personally make of AKI wheeling in the slebs? Would the fact the original line-up is totally missing color your decision to buy Ready 2 Rumble? And who did you use back then? We were Angel Rivera experts.