First of all, thanks to the Infendo readers that handed me my hat, ass and ego last night in Brawl. A few of you have some skillz, that’s for sure. Additionally, I officially feel pity for those of you who lost to “JBLFT” (David, my friend, I’m looking at you!). Also, is it so wrong that I love the Ice Climbers?

Anyway, since I’m pretty Brawled out, I thought the morning would do well with the infamous NPD numbers. If you’re a fan of Nintendo, prepare for more of the same (HONESTLY, who is left to buy all these hundreds of thousands of DS’s anymore?!) … (more…)

Remember when the Wii was first announced and you heard about Japanese club Nintendo subscribers getting dummy remotes that simply had TV remote functionality? Do you remember wishing you could have one of those to? Well now Japanese Wii owners can!

When I got back from LA this week I was delighted to find a new TV Guide channel available on the Wii shop (free as always) that gives you a guide to all the channels and shows in your local. Not only that, but you can use your Wii’s to “stamp” the shows you are interested in so the rest of the family knows when your TV time is. Oh and you can also use it to tell friends (or Nintendo corporate) what you’ve been watching.

As an added bonus the new channel can actually let you switch TV channels using the Wii remote and even control the volume, but only if you have a fancy Japanese brand-name TV (which I don’t).

However, as someone without real cable, digital channels or a fancy satellite system, it’s great that I can have just as functional a TV guide as would come with a much pricier system!

While watching a morning exercise program (okay I won’t lie it was actually part of the Hello Kitty show) that involved a bunch of tired looking children and someone dressed as Hello Kitty dancing and running in place, there was an unexpected commercial break to talk about some new attractions at Puroland (the Hello Kitty theme-park). The gist of the commercial was that there were to be a number of attractions featuring kid-detective Conan from his well known anime series (often called “Case Closed” in the states.”) One of the attractions listed in the commercial featured a DS and so I thought it would be something along the lines of Nintendo’s Shigureden Museum, where patrons are handed a special DS to be used for a certain portion of the exhibit. At the end of the commercial, however, a person in a Conan suit pointed at the me, and demanded that I bring my very own DS to Puroland.
I tried to tell him I’d left the DS in LA last week and was waiting for my parents to mail it to me, but the commercial had ended. I decided to look online for more information and while scant on the actual game content, the official site does say you will be able to download the game “Detective Conan: Kitty no Namida wo Sagase! (Find Kitty’s Tears!)” if you bring your DS. Not only that, but if you don’t have a DS and the Puroland commercial didn’t convince you to immediately run out and buy one, then you can borrow one from the park for free as long as you leave your credit-card as collateral. Of course free download or not, you still have to pay the park ¥4,400 just to get in, so unless you’re a big Conan and/or Kitty fan, you might want to save the money and buy yourself a DS game that doesn’t delete itself when you turn off the system!

…In more ways than one!
So far trying to get into a Super Smash Bros. Brawl online match has, for me, been a complete coin toss. Once I had people ready to join a battle, the rest of the times no one joined, and before anyone could I was booted. Though the waiting room (where you get to beat up on the punching bag for a few minutes before the match) is lots of idle fun- my rigorous training never came to fruition! Frustrated, I tried to see if the watching-mode worked and surprisingly it does! (more…)

I was tasked with comparing Wii, 360, and PS3 battery performance for a GamePro feature that was published today. I say tasked because it was required that I played more than 110 hours of video games in a short period of time, the most I’ve ever played since high school. But I digress, the Wii Remote lasted longer than expected, and as you know, is highly customizable for even better performance. Check it.

EDISON, N.J., Jan. 31 — March to the beat of your own drum as Majesco Entertainment Company, an innovative provider of video games for the mass market, today announced Major Minor’s Majestic March for the Wii(TM) home video game console. Developed by NanaOn-Sha, Major Minor’s Majestic March marks the return of the creative team behind the renowned PaRappa the Rapper franchise — legendary game designer and multimedia musician Masaya Matsuura and famed New York artist Rodney Alan Greenblat.

“There’s something magical about marching bands that truly captures the imagination. The concept of leading a virtual band that’s reliant on your musicianship is a perfect fit for the interactive capabilities of Wii,” said Gui Karyo, Executive Vice President of Operations, Majesco. “The combined musical and artistic superiority of Matsuura and Greenblat make them a natural choice to deliver this innovative title exclusively to the Wii audience.”

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Chertset, UK - January 31, 2008 - Electronic Arts Inc. (Nasdaq: ERTS) announced today that FaceBreaker™ - an all-new intellectual property - is under development at EA Canada and will be released for the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360™ video game system from Microsoft and the Wii™ in 2008.

“We’re very excited to announce FaceBreaker, an all-new franchise from EA SPORTS that is fun, fresh and innovative,” said Peter Moore, president, EA SPORTS. “FaceBreaker reinvigorates one of the great genres in sports videogames. Arcade boxing takes me back to my roots in this industry, and this game signals our shift to adding more approachable fun to our product lineup. In no time at all, you’ll be picking up the controllers and knocking your opponent around the ring, smashing faces, and having a riot.”

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Oof .. better keep enjoying the gems we got in November.  December continues to fail us on the release schedule:

DS
Luxor: Pharaoh’s Challenge

Wii
Pimp My Ride
Showtime Championship Boxing
Super Swing Golf Season 2
Winter Sports: The Ultimate Challenge
Indianapolis 500 Legends
Kawasaki 4X4 Quad Bikes
Kidz Sports Basketball
Myth Makers: Orbs of Doom

I told Blake once I arrived in Japan I would do a guide to buying the Wii- which was still quite sought-after when I left the US. After a few months I finally waded through the necessary bureaucracy to get my own apartment and so I figured what better day to grab a Wii than “Black Friday,” the worst shopping day of the year… (more…)

When I hear the word “ninja”, two things immediately come to mind- smoke bombs and the 80’s. Yep, those were the years when every kid wanted to be a master of ninjitsu after viewing a movie, TV show, or anime involving a man (or woman) dressed in dark colors and wielding a sword and throwing stars. Meanwhile, video game developers where also busy cooking up games of the same subject matter in the arcades.
Tecmo was one of those developers, and in 1988, they released a brawler of sorts called Ninja Gaiden. A year later, they ported the game over to the NES, but took care to change the style of gameplay for the better. They replaced the “beat ‘em up” theme with a simple “slice ‘n dice” approach and had the players concentrate their efforts on timed jumps and using some pretty nifty ninja skills.

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It’s a real shame that I didn’t play Metal Gear on the NES when I first had the chance. See, back in 1996, I briefly had a (barely functional) NES, that someone secured for me, free of charge at a second-hand store. I got about 9 or 10 games that came with this deal, and one of them was Metal Gear. However, my older brother dissuaded me from ever playing it, because he figured that I wouldn’t like it. Two years later, in 1998, I’d quickly remember the NES game that I missed out on because I started seeing commercials for Metal Gear Solid (MGS). So now, let’s fast forward to 2003. By this time, I had already completed MGS and I just got finished watching the ending to MGS2: Sons of Liberty. I felt that while I was waiting for another sequel to be made, I owed it to myself to track down a copy of the original Metal Gear. After finally finding the game and popping it into my NES, I began to see what I had missed out on.

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Game trailers has a video up of Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata talking about Wii’s Mario Kart trick system and also the inclusion of bikes in the game. The footage isn’t great but it’s exciting to see some of the new game-play elements, and in the end of the video Iwata does confirm a spring 2008 release.

Okay, so I play a lot of DDR. I have to bike probably a couple of miles just to get to the closest game center that has a DDR machine and I still sometimes go three times a week. Obviously I was excited to hear that there was going to be a DDR release for the Wii, but I didn’t get my hopes up too high, especially when I found out the game was being showcased at TGS in the “Kids Corner.” (more…)

I’ll be honest: as Mac user I’ve always felt a certain affinity for “Arkanoid,” or “Breakout,” since it was originally written by Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple computer. Nowadays you can play some version of it on any platform from cellphone to RCA-cable contraption, but for the true Atari experience you do need the original dial. (more…)