Wii Gaming News

Welcome to Space Camp, where you’ll receive the training and tools to become an astronaut. Experience weightlessness in a training pool and develop your navigation skills in the training simulator. You’ll need your newly acquired skills, because during a training session, you get rocketed to the moon! With your faithful robot sidekick ARP, you need to maneuver through a daring lunar journey, work on the half-completed Moon Base, scour the lunar surface for elements and secrets, and refuel your ship for the ride home. Get yourself back to earth for a hero’s welcome!

• A secondary AI character in the form of a small robot named ARP follows the main character around, interfaces at certain times and gives hints on what to do next if the player gets stuck.
• Space Camp for Wii is filled with fun Wii specific mission and a cool environment to explore, all wrapped up in an enjoyable character-based adventure.
• Wii specific controls enables you to dig up space rocks, shake training simulators and drill in the lunar surface with the Wii remote.
• Play with a friend in story mode, or compete against three friends in the robust mini-game tournament party mode.
• Customize your character as a boy or girl, pick skin tone, and earn or find new space suit pieces and other clothing to update your character’s appearance as the game progresses.

Release Date:Tue, 26 May 2009

The Munchables are hungry creatures, taken over by Don Onion and his evil space pirates. The only hope for their planet’s survival is for the Munchables to eat the most enemies and grow large enough to defeat Don Onion and the 8 Enemy Bosses. The more you eat, the bigger you get, and you’re going to have to be big to beat Don Onion. You can power-up yourself to eat the array of vegetables, fruits, and even chocolates that are in your way! The planet depends on the Munchables for survival. No pressure.

• Addictive Gameplay – Once you start eating, you won’t want to stop. Your character grows bigger and bigger the more you eat and so do your enemies.
• Quirky Characters – Eat crazy characters like Eggplanter, Space Shroom, and Rice Baller. Over 150 different enemies will try to stop you from saving the planet. 8 Enemy Bosses.
• 2 Modes of Play – You can play in regular mode and in time-attack mode.
• Accessorize your Character – Over a dozen different customizations can be made for your main character.
• 2 Player Action – Join a friend to help you defeat Don Onion and the Space Pirates.
• Extras – 27 different songs included, played by the Munchables band. And 5 different movies that show you the world of the Munchables.

Release Date:Tue, 26 May 2009

Journey through the undiscovered jungles of South America, in Up the video game. You can control Russell, Carl, Dug the talking dog and a female bird named Kevin, or you can play with a friend through the entire game. Aided by Russell’s wilderness knowledge, the four characters must work together to navigate treacherous jungle terrain, combat exotic animals and avoid being captured. Each character has special abilities that help in their journey. During the game, you will explore exciting environments, overcome obstacles and battle beasts in an effort to stop Muntz from capturing Kevin.

Release Date:Tue, 26 May 2009

Back in January, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada said that Final Fantasy XIII would hit North America “in April 2010 or later.” Much of the ensuing speculation has put an emphasis on “the later,” but Square Enix does indeed seem determined to have FF XIII localized by next year.

1UP user Neo Donut brought our attention to these new advertisements in his blog, which recently appeared in Los Angeles. As originally posted on Square Enix Members (via the FFXIII.net forums), the new billboards promise a 2010 release date for North America.

As posted on SE Members, “With E3 right around the corner, it’s pedal-to-the-metal mode for us here at Square Enix, which means very late nights (or early mornings, depending on how you see it) and more fast food than you can imagine. There are some big things planned for you, so we’re all excited about this year’s E3.”

S.T.A.L.K.E.R fans will have quite a few new locations to explore in the upcoming Call of Pripyat. And as one might expect from the title, many of them center on the real life district of Pripyat.

“We will present a complete set of new locations in Call of Pripyat,” public relations head Oleg Yavorsky told Rock, Paper, Shotgun. “This includes the Pripyat river basin and its rusty fleet standing still for over 20 years now, the Kopachi village completely buried after the accident, Jupiter factory located on the outskirts of Pripyat, the railway station Yanov, and, to crown it all – an entire district of Pripyat, modeled in its real scope.”

“I think Call of Pripyat will be the most photo-realistic, and hence, atmospheric S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game of all three.”

Before you fire up the grill this Memorial Day, Nintendo has plenty of new downloadable goods to choose from. The Virtual Console’s lone offering this week is the Genesis classic Clay Fighter, which took the stop-motion animation to a very literal place. It costs 800 Wii Points ($8 USD). Joining it on WiiWare are two new games that take advantage of their retro namesake. First up is Bubble Bobble Plus! for 600 Wii Points ($6), which recreates the original Bubble Bobble stages as well as adds a new multiplayer “Arrange” mode, “Super Mode” puzzles, and “Ranking” mode. Players can also purchase Expert Mode DLC separately. Adventure Island: The Beginning is also available for 800 Wii Points ($8). You can explore Adventure Island and find or buy items to increase your attack power, and it supports 1-2 players.

DSiWare this week is filled with less conventional choices. American Popstar: Road to Celebrity from Gameloft is a port of the popular cell game from 2007. The adventure game takes you on the journey of a pop star and includes music-based mini-games for 800 DSi Points ($8). Finally, Nintendo adds a new Photo Clock for 200 points ($2), which is exactly what it sounds like. You can use it as a photo album to display your pictures in different orders it keeps track of the time.

[Images courtesy of VG Museum.]

The News: The Associated Press reports that Sony Corporation is planning to cut their number of parts suppliers in half next year. It’s part of the company’s overall plan to turn around the recent financial losses from the poor economy. The company will cut from 2,500 suppliers this year to 1,200 next year. The remaining suppliers will get more business, which Sony plans to leverage for better prices on parts.

Our Take: This is a move for Sony as a whole, not the PlayStation division in particular, so it’s hard to predict how it would impact that arm of the business. This is certainly bad news for certain suppliers who relied on Sony contracts, but should help Sony’s health as a whole. In the long run, it’s this kind of move that might lead to cheaper manufacturing costs and price drops.

The long awaited new trailer for Modern Warfare 2 is finally here.

After teasing the trailer during the NBA playoffs a few weeks ago and teasing it further on a recent episode of Game Trailers TV Infinity Ward have finally released their brand-new trailer for Modern Warfare 2.

In what sounds like the setup for what would surely be an awesome Sci-Fi Channel original movie, a Union Square GameStop store in New York City was surrounded by thousands of angry bees, trapping employees for hours.

As local news station ABC7 reports (via Joystiq), the store evidently had a large bee hive running up its wall, and something (although it’s not clear what) disturbed them. And it disturbed them so much they began swarming the store unrelentingly.

“When I got here, there was already like a thousand bees in there…then they came out…there were more…they were like — in a pack,” said “bee watcher” Jay Lorenzo to ABC7. And here’s the best part (and you know a story is pretty incredible when “thousands of bees terrorize GameStop store” isn’t even the best part): ABC7 reportedly called the police for help, who told them to call the fire department. The fire department told them to call 911. 911 said call 311… and they told them to call Mayor Michael Bloomberg. You have to love city bureaucracy.

Having already revived Tecmo Bowl on the DS last year (to middling results), Tecmo now plans to bring a more simplistic brand of gridiron action to the Wii with Family Fun Football.

As the name telegraphs, the game is planned squarely for the casual market. There will be 10 unique teams (no NFL license, of course, given EA’s exclusivity) that have varying player attributes. The game will also offer a simple playbook that “makes it easy for everyone to learn and understand the game of football,” and in a Mario Kart-style nod, random power-ups will be awarded throughout games through a slot-style system, which temporarily increase a player’s speed, strength, passing, and interception abilities.

And of course, because this is a casual Wii sports game, there is the legally mandated inclusion of 10 mini-games, although none were detailed in the press release. Players will also be able to unlock the option to play as Miis, as well.