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    Wii Fanboy Review: High Voltage Hot Rod Show

    January 21, 2009 - 2:43pm


    High Voltage Software's High Voltage Hot Rod Show is an arcade racer fetching 1,000 Wii Points on WiiWare. Is it worth that price? How fun is it? These questions, and more, are answered in our review past the break.

    Next on Sega's release schedule: 30 employees

    January 21, 2009 - 1:48pm


    For a "recession-proof" industry, there sure is heck of a lot of people losing their jobs in the games business. Sega of America has joined EA, Pandemic, Eidos, Free Radical, and others in this disturbing trend, asking thirty of its workers to clear their desks, all in the name of "[reducing] cost structure and ensure long-term success." Sad face.Also, concerned face. What a scary time it is to be employed in this any industry! Needless to say, our best wishes go to those who were laid off; we hope you find work soon, guys and gals!

    Winter held up by unadventurous publishers

    January 21, 2009 - 12:52pm

    n-Space's Winter harks back to the days of early Resident Evil games, featuring as it does claustrophobic corridors, a jumpy-as-hell atmosphere, and gruesome monsters. If that sounds promising, the footage above will probably only convince you more of the game's potential. Although a bit glitchy in places, this took only six weeks to create.Now here's the sad part of this story: Winter is another of the Wii's lost games. n-Space enjoyed a hugely positive response after pitching the project to numerous publishers in 2007, but Creative Director Ted Newman has told IGN that the game "got hung up with the sales and marketing groups." The game was put on hold, and n-Space instead focused on Target Toss Pro: Bags, presumably a title that appealed more to the suits.IGN's interview with Newman manages to be simultaneously depressing and enlightening, but is definitely worth your time. Understandably, n-Space is happy to bring this to market, but they'll need a publisher first. Interested, Sega?

    New for WiiWare: Bubble Bobble, Crystal Defenders, Pole's Big Adventure

    January 21, 2009 - 11:56am

    The latest issue of Famitsu reveals three awesome new WiiWare games from Square Enix, Taito, and Sega. Square Enix's Crystal Defenders R1 is a WiiWare version of their mobile/iPhone game Crystal Defenders. The tower defense game will be released on Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network soon too, but Japan's WiiWare gets it first (well, first after cell phones and iPhone) on January 27.Bubble Bobble Wii, due this month in Japan for 800 Wii Points, is a 16-bit-style remake of Taito's arcade classic, featuring play for up to four players in old stages, "arranged" stages, and expert versions of both, for a total of 400 stages. Additional new stages will be available as DLC. We have been waiting to see this game since we first saw the title!Finally, Sega's Chindouchou! Pole no Daibouken (Eventful Journey! Pole's Big Adventure) is the retro-style game at which they've been hinting with a countdown page. The Famicom-esque game, releasing on February 3 for just 500 Points, seems to be riddled with jokes about other games -- the mushroom item seen on the countdown page actually comes out of bricks and increases the character's size just like in Super Mario Bros., but in this game it enlarges the character far beyond the limits of the screen.

    Gish creator's Super Meat Boy splattering onto WiiWare

    January 21, 2009 - 11:00am


    Edmund McMillen, creator of indie hits like Gish and Independent Games Festival award nominee Coil, has announced an updated remake of one of his deep cuts, co-created with Jon McEntee: the Newgrounds Flash game Meat Boy, a platformer similar to Metanet's N series, but with more persistent blood dripping. McMillen announced the game on his blog as a release for Mac, PC, and a "secret" platform. And then the official website opened, featuring a prominent WiiWare logo. According to the blog entry, the game should be out "by the end of the year".World of Goo sent a clear message: if you are a known indie developer who likes it when people give you money and then download and play your games, perhaps you should consider WiiWare.[Via Offworld]

    Wii Fanboy Review: Family Glide Hockey

    January 21, 2009 - 10:00am

    Family Glide Hockey had serious potential. A series of cheap, simple downloadable sports games in the Wii Sports tradition is a fantastic idea -- one that, if done right, would easily be one (or more) of the WiiWare service's killer apps. Glide Hockey's predecessor Family Table Tennis actually delivered on the promise of the cheapo family sports game, giving me hope for the series. Plus, air hockey, the arcade attraction on which the WiiWare game is based, is generally awesome and underrepresented in games. The combination of good family sports game series and air hockey seemed like a natural winner. "Natural" and "winner" are two appelations that fail to describe Family Glide Hockey in any way.

    Capcom's Aussie distributor going under

    January 20, 2009 - 10:00pm

    The distributor of Capcom, Konami, Midway, and (arguably less relevantly for Wii owners) Bethesda games in Australia has officially gone into receivership.According to this page at the Australian Securities and Investments Commission website, Red Ant has been crushed underfoot by the giant, hulking boot that is the ongoing global economic crisis.Sad news indeed, and a development that casts doubt over the speedy arrival of future Aussie releases from the aforementioned companies, unless somebody else steps in. It's not as though Australian gamers have it easy to begin with!

    WiiWare manga service quietly launches

    January 20, 2009 - 9:05pm


    As promised, Sunsoft's WiiWare manga reader has just debuted on Japan's WiiWare service with Princess Ai, and Siliconera has posted a brief walkthrough to, well, reading Princess Ai on your Wii.It sounds straightforward, if a little unwieldy. Turning English subtitles (all translation work has been done by Tokyopop) on is easily done via the options menu, though this does mean you'll have to center on each speech bubble to make the subtitles appear (by pressing the A button), as opposed to smoothly scrolling through the manga.Meanwhile, the + and - buttons allow for zooming in and out, and accessing the next page is done by pressing left on the D-pad. There's also an option to listen to background music, five tracks from the newly released Princess Ai soundtrack, though how you people read and listen to music simultaneously we'll never know. Madness, we say.

    Forbes: Rock Band a 'shameless knockoff' of Guitar Hero

    January 20, 2009 - 8:11pm


    We can only assume that Forbes lives in a world with no GuitarFreaks. In the latest issue of the business magazine, a biographical profile of Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick turns controversial when it accuses Rock Band of ripping off Guitar Hero. According to the magazine, "EA also teamed with MTV to sell Rock Band, a shameless knockoff of Guitar Hero that added drums, bass and a microphone to the world of make-believe rock stars."Leaving aside the fact that Guitar Hero hardly represents the roots of its genre, such a brash statement feels distinctly at odds with the rest of the (pretty neutral) piece. There's also the role of Harmonix to consider: after all, theirs was the name behind both franchises!

    Sony's Kaz Hirai delusional, sees Sony as industry leader, Nintendo no competition

    January 20, 2009 - 7:17pm

    Sony's Kaz Hirai must be off his meds, because he's talking like the PS3 is the one out there selling like hotcakes. Okay, we'll concede that Russia may be more receptive to your products, but on a global scale, the sales figures aren't even comparable. So, what gives?"This is not meant in terms of numbers, or who's got the biggest install base, or who's selling most in any particular week or month, but I'd like to think that we continue official leadership in this industry," he said. Uh, okay, well how would you measure leadership other than success? In terms of Nintendo and their competition with Sony, Kaz had more bizarre things to say. "It's difficult to talk about Nintendo, because we don't look at their console as being a competitor," he said. "They're a different world, and we operate in our world - that's the kind of way I look at things."Kaz is, uh, quite delusional, if we may say so. Relax, Kaz. At least you have your PS2 sales to lean on. No need to create fantasy worlds for your mind to live in.[Via Go Nintendo]