Nintendo Wii Fanboy

"Every hundred years, a comet appears in the skies above Mushroom Kingdom. The comet was so large one year, it filled the skies and sent countless shooting stars raining down. The Toads brought the shooting stars to the castle, where they became a great Power Star. It should have been a very happy time for the citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom. That was the night of the Star Festival, held once every hundred years to celebrate the comet."

So begins the intro to Super Mario Galaxy, as transcribed by IGN's Matt Casamassina. If he's quoting the game, you know he must have played it recently, and he's not the only one. Impressions are finally coming in from the Nintendo summit held last week, and they're-- gasp-- positive. Chris Kohler said that SMG "Might Save Christmas"; Kotaku's Michael McWhertor said that "Galaxy reinstates faith in Mario platforming where Sunshine disappointed." In short, bloggers and journalists like the game. Since these impressions were all posted simultaneously as the NDA's evaporated, we thought that rather than report on them individually, we'd link to them en masse. So there you go. Plenty of reading on the subject of whether bloggers think Super Mario Galaxy is a good game or not.

We've also embedded a new trailer, which proves that not only do writers enjoy Super Mario Galaxy, but paid actors do as well (as long as they are paid to)!

Read - 1up
Read - Kotaku
Read - Game|Life
Read - IGN
Read - MTV Multiplayer

In the U.S., Monster Hunter doesn't seem like much of a big deal, but it's serious business in Japan. It's not exactly Japan's Halo-- Halo 3 is actually doing a pretty good job of that right now-- but Famitsu and the other Japanese gaming sites manage to post about a Monster Hunter game nearly every single day. Such serious business is Monster Hunter that Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata celebrated Capcom's move of Monster Hunter 3 to the Wii as a strategic play on Nintendo's part to attract more hardcore gamers.

In a statement made during Wednesday's Nintendo Conference, Iwata said "I understand that some experts argue that our success is short-lived and temporary. So, now we need to make efforts to [offer] services and titles that can appeal not only to those who have never played games but also to those who play them hard."

In a delightfully hilarious understatement, publisher Enterbrain's Hirokazu Hamamura declared that "The transfer of the platform is a positive surprise for Nintendo and negative news for Sony." Yes, we'd say that a series that has sold 4.5 million copies on your systems moving toward the competitors is negative news. We think that there's almost no reason for Capcom to release a big game like Monster Hunter 3 on the PS3 when they could do so on the Wii. It costs less to develop Wii games, and there are more Wii owners to sell to. Oh, plus it sounds like Nintendo made them a very attractive deal, which doesn't hurt.

The Wii's relatively lacking online integration is the only thing that could hurt Monster Hunter, and we imagine that Nintendo will bend over backwards to help out in this case.

[Via Game|Life]

Nintendo's going to have to divert every Wii shipment straight to Japan for this one. The Monster Hunter series, while certainly doing decent business in the U.S., is an absolute sales monster in Japan. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd on the PSP sold half a million copies on its first day and became the first million-selling PSP game in Japan.

Monster Hunter 3 was previously announced for the PS3, but Capcom has now changed their plan and announced it as a Wii exclusive. Without the barrier of having to buy a new $500+ system, Monster Hunter 3 (tri-) (that's the official title-- we don't know either!) should be quite the hit. An important part of the Monster Hunter experience is online play. We expect such a feature will appear on the Wii, though we don't look forward to seeing how the game will integrate friend codes.

A lot of really cool stuff is coming out of the Nintendo conference that's going on in Japan right now, but this is the most immediately satisfying: Sonic the Hedgehog will be a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and he'll have his Super Sonic transformation. We've all been expecting this announcement, so it's not a huge surprise, but it's still a big deal.

This brings up so many questions! Like, will Sonic be able to pick up rings to regain health? Will both attack buttons just make Sonic jump? Most importantly, will he be bringing Tails, Knuckles, Rouge the Bat, Amy Rose, Mecha Sonic, Metal Sonic, Cream the Rabbit, Big the Cat, Bean the Dynamite, and all of his other friends along?

In less happy Brawl news, the game has been delayed until January 24th for Japan. No word on whether the release date has changed for other regions, but we doubt it.