Olympic Champion Shawn Johnson is Ambassador for Nationwide Wii Competition
REDMOND, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– The Wii™ system has revolutionized the way people play video games by bringing simple-to-use motion controls and a physically active brand of social fun into millions of households worldwide. Now Nintendo of America is urging players of all ages and backgrounds to step out of their homes and into the active-play spotlight during the first-ever “Wii Games: Summer 2010” national competition. Beginning July 16 with a large-scale kick-off event in Liberty State Park in New Jersey and culminating in a national championship event in Los Angeles Sept. 3-5, the Wii Games: Summer 2010 competition will include tournament events in 24 markets across the nation. People are encouraged to come together to have fun, interact with the games and one another, and vie for top scores as they get active with Nintendo’s groundbreaking motion-control video games.
Open to kids, teens, adults, seniors and families, the Wii Games: Summer 2010 events will be focused on five activities: Basketball and Bowling in Wii Sports Resort™, the Hula Hoop® challenge from Wii Fit™ Plus, the platforming adventure of New Super Mario Bros.™ Wii and the high-speed racing thrills of Mario Kart™ Wii. Between mid-July and mid-August, tournaments will be held on five consecutive weekends at eight Six Flags theme parks in California, Texas, Illinois, Georgia, Massachusetts and New Jersey, highlighting Nintendo’s ongoing relationship with Six Flags. Additional tournament events will be held at 16 shopping malls across the country. Participants can compete for prizes or just show up to have fun with the immersive, interactive elements that Wii games are known for.
Sin and Punishment: Star Successor
– IGN gave it a 9.0
– Not on anyone’s radar, not a lot of traffic for it on IGN
– Game is addictive
– If you stay near the ground, you can get a higher score
– Just a name on the leaderboards from your profile
– Super hardcore
– Pointer controls work really well
– It looks good graphically
– 60 FPS
– Great bosses
– Unique art style
– Second-player just adds another cursor
– Hardcore gamers will have a good time with it
WiiWare
Jett Rocket – 311 blocks
Robin Hood: The Return of Richard – 269 blocks
Pong Toss Pro – Frat Party Games – 128 blocks
Virtual Console
Mario Tennis – 217 blocks
DSiWare
Battle of Giants: Mutant Insects – Revenge – 125 blocks
Maestro! Green Groove – 91 blocks
Date or Ditch – 67 blocks
Animal Color Cross – 59 blocks
Ancient Tribe – 49 blocks
Brain Drain – 44 blocks
Tournament of Legends, which is currently a Wii-exclusive gladiatorial/fantasy brawling gaming, could head to other platforms, according to lead designer of the game Pat Dolan. When asked about it being Wii exclusive, he replied “It is right now!” followed apparently by some sort of maniacal laughter. I think… Additionally, he said that the company behind the game (High Voltage Software) is looking into Kinect and Move as possible alternatives to the Wii control schemes.
Sakurai on how long he’s been waiting to bring Pit back…
“So, the revival of Kid Icarus actually began in Smash Brothers. We brought him back for Smash Brothers and I personally did all that design work. We made a decision to upgrade and re-envision what the character was like with some more current trappings. From that time I certainly had an interest in the franchise. Now this time around, the project actually began with an original game idea, and the match seem to be a good one for the mythology and the character Kid Icarus. So it just so happened that the game idea and the franchise matched in the project then start it from there.”
Sakurai on what idea led to the creation of a standalone game…
“So the original idea was a game in which you had air combat and ground combat and then end up with a boss battle. It was that kind of flow, sort of a hybrid of a shooting game and a third-person game with those two things. Now the idea is that Pit as an angel who can’t fly and provides this scenario where [the goddess] Palutena grants him the ability to fly for just five minutes. That seem like a good match with this gameplay idea, and in trying it out in initial testing phases, it seemed to work pretty well. I definitely knew that there was this very strong demand for revival of the franchise overseas and I thought that this was an idea that was crystallized and would satisfy that demand.”
Videos
Blue Dragon: Awakened Info Video
The Last Airbender Info Video
Arc Rise Fantasia Info Video
Jett Rocket Info Video
Pong Toss Pro Info Video
Robin Hood: The Return of Richard Info
Demos
Dragon Ball: Origins 2
Rooms DS
Battle of Giants: Mutant Insects
Deca Sports DS Cheerleading Demo
Deca Sports DS Ping Pong Demo
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth
Bakugan Battle Brawlers
James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club: Games of Passion
– New York City is run by criminal mobs
– John Tanner saved Senator Ballard’s life, has to take charge of a crusade against crime
– Tanner has to take out five kingpins (a drug dealer, a human-organs trafficker, a pimp, an arms dealer and an over-greedy trader)
– Tanner is helped by his friends, fights against crime with his car
– Fill Rage bar by jumping
– Execute takedowns on enemy cars
– 20 story-based missions
– Takes place between Driver 1 and 2
– Meet new allies
– 50 cars to unlock
– 70 challenges and tracks across the city
– 7 challenge types (including Time Attack, Elimination Mode, Road War)
“Nintendo 3DS is scheduled to launch by the end of Nintendo’s current fiscal year, which runs through March 31, 2011.” Charlie Scibetta, senior director of Corporate Communications
Ugh…This is starting to get extremely annoying. You’d think Nintendo would be able to comment on a remark made by their own North American president! I guess we’re back to square one…The 3DS will launch before the end of March 2011, and that’s all we know for sure.
