Nintendo Wii Fanboy

If you had a dragon, what would you do? The most amazing creature in existence in under your control, so you'll surely embark on epic adventures across the world, right? You wouldn't make it ... fly through rings, would you?

Apparently, that's the extent of Codemasters' creative efforts thus far on the upcoming Dragonology for the Wii. Based on the popular books chronicling and categorizing everything to do with the mystical world of dragons, Dragonology will let you create a character, hit the skies and undertake many ring-flying, egg-collecting and photo-taking adventures.

The above screen requests the player to fly through a set of rings "more challenging than the first," which implies more than one ring-flying course. Which is more than one too many. You can check out more screens from a promising IP here, but the end results is looking a bit flat already. It's just that .. ring games are usually lousy, sometimes average. Never superb.

If the time is just crawling for you until Sky Crawlers comes out, at least there's now an official website for the game to keep you busy. The site is in Japanese, but it's not too hard to click on buttons and hope for the best.

There's not much to see at the moment, though, except for the snazzy screens we've conveniently added to the gallery below. So, those of you who are afraid of the cold, harsh arms of the internet don't even have to leave the safety of Nintendo Wii Fanboy for now.

Reminder: Make sure to click on the "Hi Res" button when viewing the photos, or else you're just a fool.



[Via NeoGAF]

We have one word to describe Sky Crawlers: Gorgeous. Yes, looks aren't everything, but we're too busy mopping up our own drool to care about such technicalities. Also, since the game is being made by the same people behind Ace Combat, we're going to bet that the gameplay in this will be just fine. At the very least, the controls sound solid. Simply enough, you move your plane around with the Nunchuck, and then point and shoot with the Wiimote.

The best shots of the game are in our gallery (below), but some more Famitsu screens are posted after the break. So, click away if you're looking for some nice Wii eye-candy.

*Note: The pictures look best when viewed in their full resolution, so make sure to click here to see them in their glory. If you prefer, you can also click on the "Hi Res" button in the gallery.

Remove Petit Copter from the equation, and pickings are awfully slim when it comes to Wii flight sims. So what's a budding Biggles to do? Pray for a Wii update to the absolutely flawless* Pilotwings 64? Well, that's one option (and something we do on a daily basis anyway), but Bandai Namco is hoping to provide another in the form of Sky Crawlers, a flight game based on an animated film that's to be released on August 2nd in Japan.

The latest edition of Famitsu has the first shots of the title, in which the Wiimote doubles up as your throttle, and the nunchuk is used to steer. Even though the film is based on a fantastical premise -- youngsters fighting a war organized by adults as a form of entertainment -- the game features realistic visuals.

In summary, we're keen to see more of this, particularly as it's developed by the same team behind the Ace Combat series. With any luck, we'll be able to banish the craptacular likes of Wing Island from our memories forever.

* Seriously, don't argue with me here. Like, seriously. I have maimed for less.

Aksys appears to be the default U.S. publisher for Arc System Works's Japanese releases. In addition to the wonderful DS games they're localizing, they have picked up Sonic Powered's mini-flight sim, Petit Copter. The American release will be titled MiniCopter: Adventure Flight. This is the first American release for a game in the Petit Copter series, which has entries on the PS2, Xbox and other systems.

Now that we know we'll get to play it, we're somewhat more interested in the title than before. The graphics are pretty rough, yes, but flying around in an oversized world, manipulating objects and carrying out objectives with air missiles and suction cups at least sounds unique. Of course, we'll be a lot more "somewhat more interested"
in a budget-priced MiniCopter.

It really does seem to be flyboy day around here, doesn't it? Well, when you've got a theme going, don't break it. At least, that's our philosophy. We've been talking about Blazing Angels all day, so we thought we'd switch gears and talk about a different, yet related title: Heatseeker. This week's video shows off not only footage from the flight simulator, but also offers a glimpse of the controls. Check it out after the jump.

In an innocent little e-mail sent to all members of the press attending E3, the expo's media relations team provide a list of some of the games that will debut at that annual nexus of flashing lights, blaring noise and ludicrously dressed women. Hudson Entertainment happens to be on the list, along with a brief description of their Revolution game, cleverly entitled "Flight Game".

"Flight Game"  - Nintendo Revolution - Take to the skies in a way never before experienced on any home console. Using the Revolution's "Gesture System" built into their innovative controller, Hudson's new "Flight Game" allows total plane        control as players pilot their planes through various acrobatic flight maneuvers ranging from sky artistry to bomb drops.

My claim? Flight Game is actually Pilotwings. The evidence? Well, it isn't difficult to make a connection between the above description, the Pilotwings rumors of the last few weeks and the recently announced relationship between Nintendo and Hudson regarding Virtual Console games. Add that to Nintendo's past habit of handing classic franchises to other Japanese developers (see: Sega and F-Zero GX), and it becomes a fairly reasonable claim to make.