Nintendo Wii Fanboy

So, let's say someone just handed you the keys to a game design studio, and with it came a never-ending pile of cash, with which you could buy the rights to any characters or franchise. Hey, it's a fantasy scenario; we can't have road blocks like laws getting in the way here. So there you are, king of your own gaming castle. What do you direct the legions of programmers to work on?

Ah, new screens from MySims Kingdom, the game in which you build a town of anthropomorphic critters, dig up fossils, and spend your time fish-- no? Oh, that's Animal Crossing. Right. MySims Kingdom is the WiiWare game in which you take on the role of a young king tasked with rebuilding your father's king-- no? That's a Final Fantasy title? Blast! All these games look alike, and with the new medieval/fantasy theme MySims Kingdom is taking on for the sequel, it's looking a lot like My Life as a King.

In fact, instead of directing you to look at the screenshots (which, surprisingly, look a lot like MySims, which means they're cute, but not terribly fresh!), we've prepared a minigame for you after the break. If you happen to prefer the screens, check 'em out in our gallery below -- and hit up Famitsu, where they recently featured some others.

Did you forget about Call for Heroes: Pompolic Wars? Don't worry, so did we.

This PC port was supposed to come out at the end of last year, but disappeared off the face of the earth instead. We know many of you are RPG starved, though, so you may be glad to know that media for the game has finally surfaced.

IGN has some screens of Data Design Interactive's upcoming Wii game, but we're not sure when to expect the title. As you can probably deduce from the images, Call for Heroes also fits into the fantasy genre, and involves fighting demonic hordes to save the world -- your usual fantasy fare.

Yet, you may find yourselves weary of this game; after all, DDI is the company responsible for traumatic titles such as Ninjabread Man and other shovelware. The PC version (which released last summer) also got an average score of 25% on Metacritic, which is a pretty bad sign.

You can judge for yourself whether or not this game looks good, though, by checking out the screens posted after the break.

Thanks to the success of Harry Potter and those Lord of the Rings flicks, Hollywood has seen that the fantasy genre is quite the gold mine, laboring day and night to extract every precious bit of money from those that go to the movies. It's just the way things are now.

Enter The Spiderwick Chronicles, the latest film with a fantasy setting. It revolves around three siblings who have just moved to the creepy Spiderwick Estate after their parents go through a rather nasty break-up. As one might imagine, these grounds aren't what they appear to be, as its home to more than just the family that recently took up residence.

We would put our journalistic integrity at risk by making a full-fledged post out of this stuff. Seriously, check the link: "confirmed reports" of Brawl and Galaxy release dates, new Mario Kart and Zelda for the Wii, a new original IP similar to Final Fantasy VII ... it's a Nintendo fan's wet dream. While we can't completely discount the fact that it's real, being constantly exposed to this drivel has to make one just a bit jaded.

Rumors are fun, there's no doubt ... even if we know it's fake, it's nice to imagine. But who writes this stuff? What kind of odd psychological thrill do they receive, and why are Nintendo fans so willing to ignore the obvious and go along with it? Some of it is impressive (see the Nintendo On video), but it seems that Nintendo is eighteen times more susceptible to ridiculous rumor-mongering than the nearest competitor. Ah well ... it's kinda fun ... we guess. Your thoughts?

It seems that Square Enix isn't quite convinced about the whole Virtual Console thing. In an interview with Nintendo Dream magazine, Square's Shinji Hashimoto was dubious about the prospects for Final Fantasy games on the Virtual Console, stating that the Japanese audience (which is, of course, the audience that matters) needs physical media for their games. And like the responsible, friendly, consumer-oriented company that Square Enix is, they are happy to provide physical copies of Final Fantasy games. Over, and over, and over, and over again. Of course they don't want to sell a $5 copy of NES FF1 when they've got the PSP remake coming out.

We aren't that upset, since they've already released the best game in their library (in Japan and Europe, at least). Go ahead and argue with us. You know Actraiser is way better than Final Fantasy.

[Via Game|Life]

'Cross the sultry plains of Elmer'terath Plains, a cold dust blows at the feet of the barbarian, Golgawii. He sniffs the air, reveling the fresh scent of blood. He did not think much on it, though, for he was a barbarian, and muscles are always inversely proportional to intelligence.

He had just traversed the ultimately inconsequential Amriel mountains range in the far north of the Dractonian lands, in which the Eighth War of The Ages of the Third Rule of the Kings of Men was waged between the elves, ocrs, dwarves, dragons, faeries, gnomes, trolls, ogres, and various other creatures found in Shrek. It totally ushered in a new age.

Golgawii grasped his magical pendant, which contained supermegaawesome power. He received it after trading in his magic ring carved from the Stone of Ancient Wisdom using the Blade of Strength in the ...

Will Tolkien's soul stab us after this? Maybe. The Wii triumphed in an upset victory over the top seeded PSP, which is excellent, and the disqualified DS Lite predictably demolished any possible competition. Enjoy the remainder of the (real) tournament, everyone!

- DS Lite: 121,471 12,959 (11.94%)
- Wii: 67,070 22,575 (50.74%)
- PSP: 43,769 12,406 (22.08%)
- PS3: 21,635 10,480 (32.63%)
- PS2: 13,321 1,264 (8.67%)
- Xbox 360: 2,910 423 (12.69%)
- Game Boy Micro: 727 85 (10.47%)
- GBA SP: 557 122 (17.97%)
- Gamecube: 367 127 (52.92%)
- DS Phat: 159 40 (33.61%)
- GBA: 9 4 (30.77%)

[Source: Media Create]

According to German gaming site GameFront, Square-Enix will have Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles on-hand at Jump Festa, a gaming/anime/manga event held in Japan, taking place on the 16th and 17th of this month. The only information missing is just what version, or versions, of the game will be at the show. Will we see the new DS game or that installment that is Wii-bound? We'll update you as soon as we receive confirmation.

[Via Go Nintendo]