Gallery: Nyko's Kama wireless nunchuks
Posts with tag super-mario-galaxy
Wii Fanboy hands-on: Nyko Kama wireless nunchuk
Continue reading Wii Fanboy hands-on: Nyko Kama wireless nunchuk
Circuit City has huge sale next week
Next week is going to be hard on your wallet. Circuit City is going to be having a big sale, according to DVDTalk, and our favorite Wii game is going to be available for insanely cheap. Supposedly, you'll be able to nab Suda 51's No More Heroes for only $19.99 (or you can try your luck at nabbing it from us). If, for some crazy reason, you haven't gotten the game yet, you need to do so next week.Aside from that, the deal is further sweetened through the retail giant offering buy one, get one %50 off on select games. These games include:
- LEGO Star Wars
- Super Mario Galaxy
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl
- Mario & Sonic at the Olympics
- Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08
- Mario Kart Wii
[Thanks, Nate!]
Super Mario Galaxy mod reaches for the stars [update 2]
Mamma mia, that's a nice mod.
We'd expect no less from the ever-so-incredible Morpheon Mods crew, who've put together quite a nice collection of Wiis for us to gawk at. The Super Mario Galaxy theme of this particular mod, though, helps it rank as our favorite of the bunch.
The LEDs are a nice touch, especially the ones in the back-lit marquee, and we approve of the various sounds they've rigged to the console. We also like the twinkling stars effect -- simply awesome.
All in all, it's a stunning mod that can be yours if you have deep pockets, since it's up for auction on eBay. This is one auction that we won't mind seeing skyrocket, however, since a portion of the profits will be donated to Child's Play!
Gallery: Super Mario Galaxy Mod
[Update: The eBay auction has been removed, for unknown reasons. If the item gets relisted, though, we'll be sure to update the post again with the new link!]
[Update 2: Yay! The auction was relisted and the eBay link above has been fixed. Or, you can just click here.]
Demystifying the physics of Super Mario Galaxy
As we've already established, we're not science people ('D' grade at GCSE Science, thank you). Bring up a subject such as photosynthesis, or the properties of sulfur dioxide, and it's likely you won't get much of a reply, short of us standing there and saying "buh?" like some slack-jawed, mouth-breathing farmhand.
In other words, Gamasutra's article on debunking the physics found in Super Mario Galaxy never stood a chance of entering our enfeebled brains and staying there. Oh, it definitely interested us, but terms such as "unit vector" and "collision mask" quickly appeared to make us feel like absolute thickos again. What we did pick up from the feature was that gravity can only exist in the real world on spherical surfaces, and that the laws of physics themselves were twisted to accommodate Galaxy's zany world of misshapen planetoids.
If you're one of those people who feels confident conducting conversations about "surface normals," give it a look.
Gallery: Super Mario Galaxy
Another Week in Japan: Hardware and software numbers 2/18-2/24
Super Smash Bros. Brawl hung onto the top spot last week, but not by much. For the first time, the king of Nintendo fighters was actually close to the game behind it, with a lead of less than 10,000 units. Considering that Brawl has dominated for a month and is already over the million mark, though, we're not surprised to see a little less dominance from the title.A lot of new software was released last week, which finally caused Super Mario Galaxy to fall out of the top thirty. Winning Eleven: Play Maker 2008 was the Wii's new game, debuting at the number six spot. Family Ski also managed to jump up five spots, despite the plethora of new titles.
On the hardware side, the Wii continues to reign in first place. The PSP and DS aren't too far behind, but the Wii is outselling the PS3 4:1 with the help of Brawl.
You can check out the listings and sales numbers -- they're posted after the break.
Continue reading Another Week in Japan: Hardware and software numbers 2/18-2/24
Another Week in Japan: Hardware and software numbers 2/11-2/17
The Wii extended its hardware lead over the PSP this week (which dropped to third), as Smash Bros. continued to dominate in software. Family Ski fell out of the top ten, but still shows some legs at spot sixteen.Predictably, Nintendo's big games (i.e., games with "Wii" in their titles) are still doing well on the charts. Super Mario Galaxy, which has been in danger of falling out of the top thirty, managed to hang in tough despite the big load of new releases littering the chart.
The Wii also had the second best showing of games this week, with six in the top thirty (the DS was first with fifteen). With the exception of Namco Bandai's Family Ski, though, they were all first party titles.
The hardware and software numbers are listed for your perusal after the break.
Continue reading Another Week in Japan: Hardware and software numbers 2/11-2/17
Wii Warm Up: 2D remakes
Yesterday's popular video demonstration of how Super Mario Galaxy would look on the SNES made us wish there really were 2D remakes of the 3D games we love. Wouldn't it be totally rad if Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 was recreated as a top-down shooter in the style of Medal of Honor: Infiltrator (GBA)? Or if Super Paper Mario was, uh ... Okay, so that example doesn't work.
What 3D titles, old and new, would you want to see turned into a 2D project?
Hardware shortage hinders Super Mario Galaxy sales
If you've been keeping a keen eye on monthly NPD data, you might have realized that Super Mario Galaxy sales have been dipping in the U.S. And by dipping, we mean plunging.Before you have a stroke, or perhaps get your fighting gloves on, just look at the numbers. While January's Galaxy sales were by no means modest (172,000 for the month), they were a huge drop from December's (1.4 million) and November's before that (1.12 million). The game also fell from it's comfy position at second place, ending up in the sixth spot for January.
So, what gives? Is it just a matter of holiday madness (not to mention, other games stepping up), or is there more to it than that?
Fortunately, there are analysts around to figure out this kind of thing, so that we don't have to. Jesse Divnich from the simExchange logically reckons that the low sales for Galaxy correlate to the low sales of Wii hardware. Because Wiis have been in such short supply, people haven't been buying them, and thus haven't been buying Galaxy either.
Damn that hardware, always keeping Mario down. Hopefully once Nintendo stops diverting Wiis to Japan, we'll see Galaxy rise again. Yet, by then, there will be only one thing on the minds of Wii owners -- you guessed it, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Although Galaxy won't be able to compete with the new game, we hope there's enough room for both to succeed in the charts.
Gallery: Super Mario Galaxy
What if Super Mario Galaxy was on the SNES?
As fans of Super Mario Galaxy, we really enjoyed this SNES-make of the game from Techeblog -- so much so, that we wish this hack was actually playable. As a bonus, the video uses a great remixed version of the power-up music from Mario 64 (and beyond).
We're enjoying this trend of making Mario games retro (or, in the case of Super Mario Bros., more retro), and hopefully this won't be the last of these hacks.
See also:
Another Week In Japan: Hardware and software numbers 2/4-2/10
We had a nice little surprise on the Japanese sales charts this week, as Family Ski showed that it has some legs. Debuting at spot twelve last week, Namco Bandai's title inched its way up while other new titles fell, claiming eighth place.
As for Brawl, the game was predictably unable to maintain its outrageous first week sales, but still sold well and took the first spot convincingly. Some regulars made their return to the top, like Wii Fit and Wii Sports, while others fell off the chart completely, like Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games.
The Wii also continues to reign as the top seller in hardware, selling more than triple the amount of PS3s. The PSP, however, is trailing closely at its heels. All in all, we think it was a good week for the Wii, but take a look for yourself after the break.
As for Brawl, the game was predictably unable to maintain its outrageous first week sales, but still sold well and took the first spot convincingly. Some regulars made their return to the top, like Wii Fit and Wii Sports, while others fell off the chart completely, like Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games.
The Wii also continues to reign as the top seller in hardware, selling more than triple the amount of PS3s. The PSP, however, is trailing closely at its heels. All in all, we think it was a good week for the Wii, but take a look for yourself after the break.
Continue reading Another Week In Japan: Hardware and software numbers 2/4-2/10
Brawl tops one million sales, has already passed Galaxy
Super Smash Bros. Brawl unleashed the mother of all Final Smashes on the Japanese charts last week by selling 820,000 copies in four days. Now, Famitsu publisher Enterbrain says Nintendo's scrapper (released eleven days ago) has topped the one million sales mark, and passed another Wii flagship title in the process: Super Mario Galaxy (released almost three and a half months ago). That's crazy.
To be fair to Galaxy, it's far from the only game to be left spluttering in Brawl's dust. Next-gen notes that Wii Fit took seven weeks to pass a million sales, that Wii Sports passed the landmark after eleven weeks, and that Wii Play and Mario Party 8 are the only other Wii titles to top a million units in Japan.
Another Week In Japan: Hardware and software numbers 1/28-2/3
As we informed you yesterday (and predicted last week), Super Smash Bros. Brawl ripped up the Japanese sales charts. Selling an incredible 820,000 copies in a mere four days, that's not a game to be messed with.Some other Nintendo titles didn't fare as well, however. Super Mario Galaxy nearly fell out of the top thirty this week. Brawl, it seems, is starting to cannibalize Galaxy's sales. Wii Fit's streak as the number one game also ended with Brawl's success. Not only that, but Wii Fit was pushed to number five by the plethora of new games released last week. Most of the other Wii games got knocked down, too, like Wii Sports, Wii Play, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, and Mario Party.
Family Ski represented the top third-party Wii game this week, ending up at number twelve. That's not too shabby, especially considering that the game was rumored to have poor first-day sales.
Oh, and did we mention that the Wii was the top seller in hardware, for the second week in a row? We wonder how long Brawl will be able to keep it at the top.
The full hardware and software numbers are listed after the break, as usual.
Continue reading Another Week In Japan: Hardware and software numbers 1/28-2/3
Super Mario Galaxy's unsung star talks player experience
When most gamers think of that sense of amazement the certain parts of Super Mario Galaxy seem to invoke, they attribute that moment to the Miyamoto touch, a direct result of the imaginative developer's attention and care. While it's a natural assumption to make, one shouldn't forget about Yoshiaki Koizumi, the director behind the critically-acclaimed platformer!In a recent interview with Next-Gen, Koizumi championed the importance of surprising players: "If you think about games only as a thing that you interact with, you're missing the possibility of immersion. The inspirations that I tend to draw on for that all come from real life itself. Hiking on a mountain and seeing a cave and thinking about what's inside -- it's that sense of wonder and excitement I want players to feel."
Well, we certainly had a lot of that with just the Gusty Garden Galaxy!
Gallery: Super Mario Galaxy
Another Week in Japan: Hardware and software numbers 1/21-1/27
Let's face it: the Japanese sales numbers for the week of 1/21 are just foreplay. What we really want to know is how Super Smash Bros. Brawl did, although rumors are coming in that the game sold a whopping 500,000 copies in its first day. All this hype even catapulted the Wii above the DS in hardware sales last week, according to the numbers released by Famitsu. We think the Wii will hold the top spot in Japan for at least another few weeks, while it basks in Brawl's glory. The Wii may have made a stir in the hardware charts, but all's boring on the software front. Wii Fit shows us its well-toned legs by remaining at the number one spot, and Super Mario Galaxy has fallen out of the top ten once again. Wii Play also slipped a bit, losing some of its former dominance.
To see the Japanese hardware and software figures for last week, look no further than after the break.
Continue reading Another Week in Japan: Hardware and software numbers 1/21-1/27
Warning: Be wary of offensive Wii games
If you frequent video game blogs or boards, you've probably heard about the Fox News debacle that was sparked by the "pornography" in the game Mass Effect. Wired decided to poke fun (or jab sarcasm) at the alarmist network, pointing out a few other games that should raise hysteria among the stick-up-their-butt crowd.And no, we're not talking Manhunt 2 or the newly announced Saw games. We're talking about the really dangerous games, like Super Mario Galaxy, Endless Ocean, and Geometry Wars (as well as some games from other consoles).
We won't spoil the whole feature, but to steal an excerpt, this is why Fox News should fear Geometry Wars: "Geometry is math. Math leads to science. Science leads to lies. Thus, Geometry Wars directly indoctrinates our children into the evolutionary lie that we're all descended from homosexual monkeys. Naked homosexual monkeys. We recommend instead the game Intelligent Design Wars, which is just like Geometry Wars, except that the credits read, "We don't know who made this. (But it was probably God.)"
We couldn't agree more. Won't someone think of the children?
