Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Warning: you are now entering a Wii Fanboy nostalgia zone; if we get wrapped up in jabbering about our wholesome childhoods over the next 200 words, you've been warned. The cause of this trip down memory lane? The announcement that Tomy would be bringing a Pop-Up Pirate game to WiiWare. Yay!

Pop-Up Pirate Wii will emulate the pop-ular children's board/party game, in which players would hold their breath (that bit is optional, but helps) while inserting plastic swords into a plastic barrel containing a pirate. If you chose the wrong slot, the pirate would spring out, startling everybody. As dull as it sounds now we've written it down, it was all the rage back in the '80s, before those damn computer videogame whatchoomacallits came along and ruined everything.

Like other board games of our childhood that relied on a steady hand (such as Buckaroo and Operation), we're not yet certain that a videogame version will capture the same ridiculous levels of tension, but still, three cheers for Tomy for at least trying! The chunky, colorful visuals are a great start, in our opinion.

Also on Nintendo of Japan's WiiWare page: Simple Series Vol. 2 The Number Puzzle Neo. If ever a series was designed especially for WiiWare, the cheap-but-cheerful Simple series would be it. Both of these will launch next Tuesday in Japan for 500 Wii Points each.


[Via Siliconera]

We've seen screens, dabbled a bit in gameplay footage -- now it''s time to get a word in edgeways from Glenn Stotz, introduced as a Naruto "product specialist." A paid Naruto fanboy, perhaps? And here we are watching the series for free like suckers, when we should be raking in the cash. Le sigh.

Stotz talks about Clash of Ninja Revolution 2, which is a pretty ambitious product with a deep storyline and a huge range of Wiimote gesture controls. It's a fighting game at heart, but we wouldn't mind a fighter that actually tries to present some semblance of a plot. Watch the interview and you'll see that Naruto is a perfect license for doing exactly that.

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Believe it.

If all-out battle royales are your thing, you might want to check out the above trailer for Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution 2. It seems to meld the finesse of a fighting game with the brutality of a brawler, and evidently does a pretty good job of it. Hopefully, the key to winning battles won't just be spamming the Shadow Clone Jutsu over and over again -- we are looking for a nice, balanced fighting experience.

If you look closely, you'll be able to see a few on-screen indicators of particular Wiimote movements in combat. Gone are the days of pushing complex sequences of buttons rapidly to execute attacks -- fighting games have evolved somewhat to recognize fluid movements as a valid form of control. It works -- believe it.

As a plucky young ninja, Naruto does heaps of fighting. More fighting than a mob of pre-teens looking to grab that last copy of Pokemon Rangers 2. The difference here is that Naruto -- the anime -- is pretty cool, and occasionally spawns a few decent products -- the games. Today's Naruto game is none other than Clash of Ninja Revolution -- the sequel.

We heard about Clash of Nnja Revolution 2 a while back, and it was better-than-bad news, considering the original isn't too shabby. It's not amazing, but hey -- sequels are designed for improvement ... right? If you think the screens in the new gallery below show a promising future for Naruto games on the Wii, let the public know. As a Pokemon-esque anime phenomenon, it's pretty gosh darn entertaining -- and we want awesome games to come along for the ride. Believe it!


[Via press release]

The ESRB well isn't totally dry, luckily: just a few days after the announcement that new game reveals would be curtailed, several unannounced games have appeared. Most notable is Penny Racers Party: Turbo-Q Speedway from Tomy, which is likely to be Choro-Q Wii, the party-game-filled version of Takara Tomy's toy-based racing game series.

The ESRB database has revealed some other new releases: Gameloft's Wild West Guns, likely a WiiWare game; PDC World Championship Darts 2008, which was released earlier this year in the UK; N-Space's bean bag game; and Beer Pong.

On the Virtual Console front, SNK's top-down ninja shooter, Ninja Commando, has been rated for release. Totally sweet!

Tomy continues to dish out Naruto games faster than you can blink, this time promising a Clash of Ninja Revolution sequel for the Wii. Although the odds of a sequel were likely, news of the game was recently confirmed in the latest issue of Shonen Jump. Developer 8ing promises that the fighting game will have even more characters than before, including Choji and Kiba. Is there anyone else that you Naruto fans are hoping will make an appearance?

Shonen Jump also reports that there will be destructible and explosive objects added in to make the fights more interesting, as seen in Naruto Shippuuden: Gekitou Ninja Taisen EX2. Furthermore, the westernized version will have exclusive story elements and environments not seen in the Japanese game.

The only other news we have on Clash 2 for now is that it will support multiple control schemes, including the GameCube and Classic controllers.

[Via Siliconera]

Have you been needing a Naruto fix, Europe? Nintendo announced today that Clash of Ninja Revolution will be hitting European stores on March 28th.

The game might not get the ramen-filled welcome that it received here in the U.S., but if you're looking for a fighter and have no plans to freeload Brawl, then Naruto might be your best bet.

The press release also boasts that the "European version of the game features the largest number of playable characters from the Naruto series and introduces several prominent and popular characters for the first time." We're not sure if this means there are extra characters for Europe, though, or if that's just a poorly worded way of telling us about the features available in Clash of Ninja Revolution. We suspect the latter.

[Via press release]