Thanks to Thomas N for the tip!

This information comes from Nintendo of America’s Twitter account…

“Holiday Treat: You’re hearing it here on Twitter first! Mario Party 2 (N64) will be available for Wii via the Virtual Console on Dec. 20!”

You know, it’s pretty crazy that less than twenty titles from the N64 are available on the Virtual Console. You’d think that in four years, Nintendo would be able to release more games than that! On the bright side, we’ll finally be seeing Mario Party 2 next week… It’s just a shame these N64 games aren’t released more often.

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The Madden franchise has taken a two year break on the DS. However, the series is going to be making its debut on the 3DS early next year, as “Madden NFL Football” will be one of the system’s very first titles. EA North Carolina designer Tony Marinello talked about the game in issue 262 of Nintendo Power. One of the topics discussed included the horsepower and graphical ability of the handheld. Here’s what Marinello said:

“It’s a pretty powerful handheld. The graphical processing unit on it is really sweet. You’ll notice we’ve got some rim lighting effects, for example, and environment maps on the helmets. Plus we’re using a lot of the assets from the ‘next-gen’ versions of the game.”

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Source 1, Source 2

This information comes from Jonathan “Bidds” Biddle, the design director at Curve…

“We have lots of ideas for a sequel, and would love to work on 3DS, but, as the game’s publisher, that is for Nintendo to decide. It’d certainly be interesting to see how the 3D effect would work when you’re tilting the device, and how we could detect that on the hardware.”

Man, Fluidity was a huge surprise for me. I thought the game had the potential to be entertaining, but I was hooked from the moment I started the demo. Of course, after playing that, I downloaded the full game and have enjoyed the heck out of it thus far. I’d love to see a sequel, whether it’s on WiiWare or 3DS!

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“Yeah, we probably can’t talk a heck of a lot about that right now. I wouldn’t feel comfortable.” – High Voltage’s Kevin Sheller

It’s real unfortunate that The Grinder seems to have disappeared off the map! First it was pretty hyped, then it was a PS360 as well (albeit a top down shooter), and we haven’t really heard much about the Wii version since E3 2009 when it was first announced other than that we’re looking at a Halloween 2012 release date. Eugh… That’s far away.

Via EuroGamer

While it was originally supposed to come out late this year (right around this time!), developer High Voltage Software moved its next big title to early 2011 with no explicit release date. Now, however, we’ve got word as to what that date is.

IGN has confirmed via speaking with HVS that the game is going to come out on February 15th, 2011 in North America. Mark your calender, Wii shooter fans!

Via IGN

– Will have new characters
– Aero is one of the new characters
– “Free Running” has been “powered up”
– Can run through a massive open field that has height variances
– Reactions, sub events, gimmicks are being “powered up”
– Different fields, including massive unexplored ruins
– Team is looking into multiplayer elements
– Vote on the voice for Aero’s voice here (ends January 11)
– Vote on whether or not Aero’s name should actually be Sephira here

Thanks to Thomas N for the tip!

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