Nintendo Wii Fanboy

This Samba de Amigo trailer starts off badly. And by "badly," we mean terribly. For the first 34 seconds, it's just a bunch of bratty kids hamming it up with some of the worst having fun acting we've ever seen. The occasional glimpse of the game and that chimpanzee from an earlier video helps a little, but it's still fairly risible.

Then, the trailer totally turns it around, instantly grasping victory from the jaws of defeat. How? Because the chimp, for some unspecified reason, starts breakdancing. Suddenly, this becomes the best videogame trailer of 2008. Hit the jump for a second video featuring the simian handing out a thrashing to (and then planting a kiss on) Dad.

Source: Chimp beats puny man
Source: Chimp breakdances

"Monkey Madness Wii targets kids ages 6 to 8 years," reads the opening line of the press release for Ubisoft's new monkey sim. "Like hell it does!" say we. Okay, so maybe it does, but we can't help being drawn to Ubisoft's newest pet game (and at least it's not Monkeyz). Fact: monkeys are adorable and awesome. Everybody thinks this, so no wonder Ubisoft settled on making a game about them. We've had it with labradors and kittens, frankly.

In Monkey Madness Wii, kids we will be able to adopt a monkey and then befriend, train, feed, play with, and photograph our simian chum. There's a range of ridiculous outfits to dress George in (we've already settled on a name), and George's personality will be shaped by how you treat him -- he could be meek, courageous, loyal, indifferent, or something else. We can even cross-breed George with other species of monkeys to create "fantastical hybrids," which sounds a tad disturbing, but we plan on George being an amorous little bugger.

We haven't even touched on the neatest feature of Monkey Madness Wii -- the ability to upload George to your Wii Remote (using the Wiimote's 6 kilobytes of on-board memory) and take him to a friend's house to play with the monkeys on their Wii. Clever! In fact, this is wasted on chil'n, and we'll say it now, readers: DO WANT. Now, can you resist a monkey gallery?


[Via press release]

Seriously. Best Buy is having a small-yet-appreciated discount on a few of the Wii launch titles. The following reductions should have already taken place:

• Red Steel - $29.99 (formerly $49.99)
• Super Swing Golf - $29.99 (formerly $49.99)
• Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz - $39.99 (formerly $49.99)

Perhaps not the finest of titles, but the significant price-cuts to RS and SMB might convince gamers who were on the fence to take the financial plunge. Any of you guys out there going to finally pick one of these titles up? Can we come to your house and play with you (we work for cookies and the occasional mixed drink here)?

[via GoNintendo]

So the Wii has opened up new gameplay possibilities, new control methods, more immersion, and all that. But, unless the Nunchuk is involved, it's also opened up one of your hands. This has created the possibility for completely immersive snacking, wherein you don't have to stop playing even for a second while you stuff your face full of delicious, crunchy tacos (and, possibly, non-taco food items), totally sabotaging your Wii Sports exercise program.

We want to know-- are you guilty of the crime of convenience? Have you succumbed to a sudden banana craving after picking up hundreds and hundreds of them in Super Monkey Ball? Or have you refrained from eating during gameplay, afraid you'll accidentally transfer some Cheeto dust onto the Wiimote?

Watching the videos for Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz makes us realize that the Wii is all about bringing people together and having fun. True, we already knew this but it never really sinks in until we see it in action.

Take this new mini game -- who would have thought that jump rope could work effectively in a game? We can see four people struggling to try and keep the rhythm of the rope and we know that there are going to be a lot of cheaters out there wanting to use their actual feet to get you out of the way. We are looking at you younger/older brothers and sisters, boyfriends, girlfriends and way competitive friends!

Jump rope doesn't require any button presses, just a flick of the wrist up when you have to make your character jump. The rope changes pace -- some of the players got caught when it went from slow to fast and back down again. Check out the video to see what we are talking about.

Sega announced today that its popular Monkey Ball franchise would be hitting the Revolution in Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz. The most notable new feature at the moment is the ability to make your monkey jump at anytime by flicking the Revolution's remote upward, assumably in the same manner as the Super Mario Sunshine mockup Revolution video demonstrates. The party games are making a full comeback as well, with players being able to use the remote in minigames such as "Whack-a-Mole."

In the spirit of the announcement, news site 1up has posted a preview and small interview with Sega's Toshihiro Nagoshi. When asked about transitioning the game to the Revolution and utilizing the unique features of the remote, Toshihiro was obviously tight-lipped, what with E3 fast approaching, but did say  "Once you get your hands on the game you'll realize how natural it feels...instead of tilting the controller lever, players will be tilting the controller itself to tilt the game board."