Nintendo Wii Fanboy

XGen Studios has revamped the look of Defend Your Castle significantly for its May 12th Wii Ware release, swapping out the, well, "Flash game" look of the original for a lovely "made of junk" theme. The castle has become a set of construction-paper rectangles decorated with paper flags on toothpick poles, and the enemy invaders have become doodles with button heads. Our absolute favorite detail is the user interface: the health bar is now made of fabric scraps.

We hate to make the comparison to a not-particularly-awesome game, but this style was used to excellent effect in the Napoleon Dynamite DS game. The art was by far the best thing about that game, whereas this has already been proven to be a pretty good game.

IGN's got the goods, folks: this seven-page interview reveals more about Madden Wii than every past publication on the game combined. The interview covers the exact passing controls, special moves with the Wiimote, defensive manuevers, graphical capabilities, the kicking game...it's quite a read.

Of note is that the Wii version won't be "dumbed down" as the initial 360 version was; it contains every single mode and feature that long-time fans of the franchise have come to expect. It also contains some new features, such as the "two-on-two" minigame, which re-enacts the classic quarterback/receiver vs. rusher/safety playground game complete with "Mississippi" counting. It truly is a goldmine of information on the game, and the interviewee is extremely candid on most everything...except, strangely enough, online play. He absolutely refused to speak a word about it. Hmmmm.

[Update 1: Fixed a small typo.]