It’s hard to believe, but it’s been nine years since the original Super Smash Bros. brought some of the most iconic Nintendo characters together for frantic battles, and roughly seven years since its sequel Super Smash Bros. Melee was released. Perhaps even harder still to believe–and a testament to the series’ popularity and longevity–is that these games are still being played religiously to this day. But no matter whether you’re a diehard Smash Bros. fanatic or a neophyte brawler, you’ll be pleased to know that Super Smash Bros. Brawl includes a plethora of impressive characters, features, and game modes, and is more accessible and fun than ever before.

EIEIO 2008: Red Fly Studio’s Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars video gameIf Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars were just a slideshow of concept art on a DVD, there’s a pretty good chance that it would be a successful retail product. Artist Frank Teran’s highly stylized and “campy“ comic book-esque concept art for Red Fly Studio’s upcoming Wii game is simply that cool. Fortunately, there’s what appears to be a pretty slick game behind the art, and we had our first chance to see it in action at this EIEIO 2008 in Austin last week.The Spore Wars follows the adventures of a naïve young bolete named Pax as he ventures outside of his village to explore the extraordinary and terrifying world of Mushroom Men. Plant and animal life has been transformed by a mysterious green dust that fell from meteor that passed over the Earth, creating a tiny, yet brutal war taking place just under the radar of the humans.

We were shown an unfinished version of the game’s second level — a shed inhabited by the vicious Kudzu tribe and a horde of dangerous, bloodthirsty rabbits. Hit the jump to find out how Pax uses spore telekinesis, a DS stylus, and a thimble to topple the dreaded king of the rabbits, the deadly and jackalope.

As the demo began, we were shown that Pax’s entrance to the shed is being blocked by a bottle of anti-freeze. Along with most things in the world, the scale compared to the bolete is enormous; but by using Pax’s telekinesis, the gigantic object doesn’t cause too much trouble. As the on-screen cursor passes over the object it changes, indicating that the spore power can be used. Pax is easily able to lift up the object and toss it aside, clearing the path to enter the shed.

Inside the shed is a war zone, with a number of insane, rabbits on the loose causing trouble. The rabbits While Pax can go head-on with the killer mammal, it turns out that telekinesis is used for more than simply getting around the environment. In fact, it looks like a lot of Mushroom Men’s environmental objects are able to be manipulated. In one instance during the demo, Pax knocks uses his power to roll a bowling ball into a unicorn trophy (which, by the way, is a totally sweet trophy to have). The trophy them plummets to the ground, crushing the rabbit below. For the violence-inclined, it should be noted that you only see the aftermath — no rabbit guts here. After all, Red Fly are shooting for an E-10+ rating.

Despite the lack of violent rabbit death, Pax does have a number of melee and defensive maneuvers at his disposal. Movement is controlled with the Wii Nunchuck, and Pax can roll and dodge to evade enemy attacks. Melee attacks are controlled with a quick flick of Wii Remote, and special attacks can be performed using various button combinations. The game’s producer, Ryan Madsen, notes that the team are experimenting and considering other control options, as well.

“We’re still investigating different control mechanisms and continuing to develop them to make sure they’re not tiring, or not too tedious,” he says, conscious of the common Wii control pitfall. “That’s something we’re definitely interested in, especially since we all play Wii games as well.”

Of particular note is the game’s weapon system — by finding pieces scattered throughout the world, the player can craft up to 40 different weapons, each of which falls into one of four categories: slashing, piercing, bashing, and “bad ass.” For example, combining a DS stylus and a thimble creates a nifty bashing-type weapon; a DS stylus and a straight razor would be slashing. A bad ass weapon, however, will be far more potent and requires rarer parts for its creation; pumping gasoline through a football bobble head using an aspirator, for instance, creates a flame thrower.

Despite its title, The Spore Wars is certainly not all about combat. Red Fly is adding a number of platforming and environmental navigation elements to the game, as well. The “Cap Glide” will let Pax use his mushroom cap to glide slowly to safety, or reach otherwise out of reach platforms. The sticky-hand toy can also be used as sort of a grappling hook, turning Pax into a bolete “Bionic Commando” of sorts. Both can be used in conjunction to reach new areas, of course – jumping and gliding, followed by a well-timed use of the sticky-hand can open up more of the level.

Red Fly also demoed an early revision of one of this particular level’s boss battle, the Jackalope, king of the rabbits. Transformed by the meteor dust, the normally weird-assed mythical jackalope becomes a monster, throwing apple cores at Pax and rushing forward with its sharp antlers. By swiping the apples away with a well timed melee attack, Pax is able to goad the rabbit-deer-monster-thing into running head-first towards rocks in the environment. Once the jackalope is stunned, it’s easier to get the jump on him, and finishing him with attacks becomes a cinch.

Visually, Red Fly seems to have done a great job bringing the concept art to life. The simple, yet highly-stylized design fits perfectly on Nintendo’s system. Based on what we saw, it looks like Red Fly hasn’t tried to overstep their boundaries on the Wii hardware, graphics wise. Characters pop and the environments seem to be full of life. In this early version, there did seem to be a bit of slowdown present during some of the more hectic encounters, but there’s no reason why this won’t be smoothed out before release.

Overall, Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars is looking to shape up like an impressive action-platformer for the Wii. Without getting time with the Wii controllers in my hand, it’s hard to say whether or not the game makes appropriate use of the Wii’s unique controls. But really, this new IP doesn’t need to do anything revolutionary with the hardware — simply being an original idea brought to life on Nintendo’s hardware might be enough.

Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars is set for a Fall 2008 release.

http://www.destructoid.com/eieio-2008-red-fly-studio-s-mushroom-men-the-spore-wars-74712.phtml

March 06, 2008 - WayForward Technologies has announced a new game heading to WiiWare from their studio, entitled LIT. The game “utilizes the unique features of the Wii to bring a tense and unnerving adventure to the Nintendo Wii audience,” according to WayForward’s press release.

John Beck, CEO of WayForward Technologies said “this is the first time in recent memory that our team has felt the freedom to begin experimenting on consoles outside the confines of established IP, budget, or publisher dictates.” He also commented that the “scope and business model for WiiWare really make this possible.”

The game is centred around Jake, an under-achiever at high school, as he attempts to traverse the classrooms of his school which have been overrun by creatures. The only way he can do so is by using any available light to create safe paths. The main objective of the game is to escape the school entirely, and rendezvous with Jake’s girlfriend Rachael, who will occasionally contact him via the school’s phones.

The game will feature boss battles as well as ‘horror combat’ “to create a uniquely unsettling Nintendo Wii experience.”

Adam Tierny, LIT’s director, commented that “It’s incredibly exciting to be working on an original game for the WiiWare platform.” He explained that a “horror theme seemed to make sense” after the decision was made to make a game based on light vs. shadow.

“We decided to make it an action-puzzler because of how infrequently horror and puzzling gets combined in games, and to squeeze out the greatest amount of gameplay possible from a limited file size.”

WayForward also worked on Shantae, a Game Boy Color game released by Capcom in 2002. There’s currently no pricing or release date set for LIT.

http://www.aussie-nintendo.com/?v=news&p=22520 

Fancy some new information about Mario Kart? Well lucky for you there’s some brand new information. Well, what are you doing reading this get reading below!

With around a month to go now until the launch of Mario Kart Wii, we can bring you details of the title’s online options. As on the DS, you can choose between playing random players Worldwide, Continental or by racing against Friends in your friend list. You can join groups mid-race, in which case you can spectate any race going on until you join the start of the next. Up to twelve players will be battling it out online against each other!

The globe from the Forecast Channel is used in-game to highlight the location of all players present. This is where you can text chat with your friends by making a selection from dozens of predefined messages, letting you suggest exactly which kind of race you want to play: from Battle to Grand Prix, and from Team play to your circuit of choice. The Host then decides the race settings, but the track selection is based on the votes of all players combined.

The game also allows you to install the Mario Kart Channel on your Wii console, which then becomes viewable without the game’s disc inserted. You can check out rankings, which shows your your stats for each track and a comparison of your results to those of your Friends and other players worldwide, represented by their Miis. You’ll be able to send/download Ghost times for people to, and for you to race against - of those close to you in ability, or the very cream of the crop. The Channel will also bring you Competitions, where Nintendo will be regularly inviting players to complete challenges similar to the Missions of Mario Kart DS. The Channel also allows you to check your ranking in running Competitions as well as Time Trials. You can also go here to register Friends and see if any of them are currently online. Neat!

http://www.n-europe.com/news.php?nid=11579

Thousands of Wii owners woke up this morning to see their Wii disc drive flashing blue, signalling the arrival of a firmware update to version 3.2.

Don’t get too excited though. The patch doesn’t improve the menu or interface and adds no extra functionality to the machine. Nintendo has confirmed it’s just a quick upgrade to the things that make the pretty pictures appear on the screen.

“This update does not affect any prominently-used features or menus; however it does provide some behind the scenes updates that will improve system performance,” it explained.

Still, it’s nice to see the blue light still works, though.

So don’t forget to update your Wii!

Nintendo’s done a deal which will see another famous platform added to the Virtual Console collection.

February 21, 2008 - Nintendo of Europe has announced that Wii owners (initially just those from Europe - and perhaps Australia?) will have access to Commodore 64 games via the Virtual Console service beginning later this year, with International Karate and Uridium to be the first to appear.

Retailing for 500 Wii points each, Nintendo said that the C64 collection “will be bolstered by regular updates to the line-up from the Commodore 64 back catalogue.”

Bala Keilman, the CEO of Commodore Gaming, said, “By working with Nintendo of Europe, we are ensuring that future generations of gamers can play some of the best and most popular titles that kick-started the computer games revolution and so keep the C64 legacy in gamers hearts.”

Laurent Fischer, Nintendo Europe’s MD of marketing and PR added, “With over 184 classic titles now available to enjoy, Virtual Console on Wii is a great way for users to access a breadth of classic retro games. We hope that this great choice of games will bring nostalgia to our gaming fans, while an entirely new generation of video game players can experience a host of classic games for the very first time.”

Source

Straight from GDC ‘08, Nintendo have announced that Wii Fit and WiiWare will be hitting the US in just 3 months.

 SAN FRANCISCO–On the morning the Game Developers Conference has begun to shift into high gear, Nintendo has stolen some of the thunder surrounding anticipated announcements by Microsoft. The company has announced release dates for two of its most anticipated projects for its wildly successful Wii console–Wii Fit and WiiWare.

According to Japanese game giant’s US arm, Nintendo of America, Wii Fit will go on sale on May 19 across North America. (It will hit the UK and Europe earlier, on April 25.) The game, which has not yet been officially priced, will have players engage in exerciselike activities–including yoga and low-impact calisthenics–via its balance board peripheral. Players can track their health and exercise progress through a new Wii Fit channel, which will launch alongside the game.

Gamespot

With Mario Kart Wii set for release in just a few months in Japan, Nintendo has revealed quite a bit more information about the game, according to IGN.

Mario Kart Wii will allow players to tuck the Wii remote into the plastic steering wheel, but the game can also be played with the Wiimote and the Nunchuk, with the classic controller or even the Gamecube pad. Players will also be able to get a speed boost by flicking the Wiimote while airborne to pull off tricks.

There will also be a range of new power-ups in the game, including a POW block that will hover above your head and squash you unless you can perform three jumps rhythmitically; there is also another power-up which is a rain cloud that will allow players to keep boosting as long as it’s there, but will also zap the player with a shrink-ray lightning bolt if used too much. The Wiimote speaker will also make a noise when power-ups are coming your way, so if a shell is right behind the player, then the player will well and truly be informed of it.

The presentation should be nice and familiar to anyone who has played a Mario Kart title before. The three GP modes are back, 50cc, 100cc and 150cc. The distribution of bikes and karts will shake things up though, with 50cc exclusively karts, 100cc exclusively bikes and 150cc containing both. Players will also be able to use their Miis as racers and the game will track stats locally and online through an in-game Mario Kart channel. The online support doesn’t end there - it will be possible to download ghosts, enter tournaments and complete weekly challenges.

To round things up IGN reported on some of the tracks which are returning. Peach Beach and Waluigi Stadium return from Double Dash, Yoshi Falls and Delfino Square return from Mario Kart DS, with Mario Raceway and Sherbet Land from Mario Kart 64. Shy Guy Beach from the Mario Kart GBA game and Ghost Valley 2 from Super Mario Kart also return.

Source, and screens HERE

Check out a while load of Okami Wii screens here.