Wii-kly Update
Two WiiWare Games and One Virtual Console Game Added to Wii Shop Channel
Did you think Grandma’s house was the only travel destination on your itinerary this holiday season? Think again. Thanks to the Wii™ Shop Channel, you’ve got some extraordinary places to see, from tropical islands and exotic golf courses to a faraway planet in need of triumphant heroes. Whether you play solo or with family and friends, these awesome new offerings are sure to deliver an extra dose of holiday cheer.
Nintendo adds new and classic games to the Wii Shop Channel at 9 a.m. Pacific time every Monday. Wii owners with a high-speed Internet connection can redeem Wii Points™ to download the games. Wii Points can be purchased in the Wii Shop Channel or at retail outlets. This week’s new games are:
Famitsu has confirmed today that a new Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers trailer is on the way. The video will be included in the Wii version of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time. It is unclear how long the “special trailer” will be, but the video should show at least a few seconds of new footage. A few weeks ago, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers was assumed to be dead before an official statement was released by Square Enix, confirming its existence.
Remember: Games like Zack & Wiki were released in Europe this year.
1 – Mario Kart Wii (Wii)
2 – Zack & Wiki: Quest For Barbaros’ Treasure (Wii)
3 – Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)
4 – Professor Layton and the Curious Village (DS)
5 – Okami (Wii)
6 – Advance Wars: Dark Conflict (DS)
7 – Soul Bubbles (DS)
8 – Guitar Hero World Tour (Wii)
9 – de Blob (Wii)
10 – No More Heroes (Wii)
11 – Mega Man 9 (WiiWare)
12 – The World Ends With You (DS)
13 – Animal Crossing: Let’s Go To The City (Wii)
14 – Sonic Chronicles (DS)
15 – FIFA 09 All Play (Wii)
16 – Dr. Mario & Germ Buster (WiiWare)
17 – Boom Blox (Wii)
18 – Space Invaders Extreme (DS)
19 – Trackmania DS (DS)
20 – We Love Golf (Wii)
21 – Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise (DS)
22 – Final Fantasy Tactics A2 (DS)
23 – Strong Bad’s Cool Game For Attractive People (WiiWare)
24 – Call of Duty: World at War (Wii)
25 – Wii Fit (Wii)
– 13 different background themes to listen to whilst you read (14 if you include ‘No BGM’!), e.g. Easy Listening, Beach, Airport and Summer Day.
– Change font size from small to large (small is probably more like a ‘medium’ – no strain on the eyes)
– Can choose to just show the current page number, or show page number and total pages (for those that want to know how long is left)
– Use either the D-Pad or L/R buttons to change pages (remember the DS is held sideways, like in Brain Training and Hotel Dusk to emulate a real book!)
– The DS orientation can be changed to suit left-handed people
– Local Wireless: Send a trial version to another DS (‘Send Trial’, ‘Send Book’, ‘Receive Book’)
– Wi-Fi: Download New Books (ten available right now – seems like there’s about 1MB of free space on the cartridge and the books are less than 100KB – took about six seconds to download a 70KB book and a further five to save it to the DS card), and Update Rankings (book popularity – ranked by users of the game or categorised by ten different user-attributed criteria, such as ‘Exciting’, ‘Shocking’, ‘Profound’ and ‘Bizarre’)
– Tutorial: tap either edge of the touch screen to change page or slide stylus across screen to flip pages back and forth. Tap the bottom of the screen to bring up a scroll bar that lets you jump to whatever page you want. Tap the top of the screen to bring up a menu that lets you bookmark the current page (automatically removed when you go back in and change the page) or exit the book.
– Books that have been read will be highlighted with an ‘R’ on its spine in the selection screen.
– Quiz feature: The in-game owl asks several questions (‘What did you dream last night’, ‘What is your favourite colour’, etc) to determine what books will most likely be interest to the user (for me the three were ‘Tales of Mystery and Imagination’, ‘The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes’ and ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’!)
– Choosing books is as simple as going to the in-game bookshelf and using either the stylus (slower) or scroll bar at the bottom (faster) to browse what’s on offer. When a book spine is tapped on, its specific menu pops up, where users can read the book, learn more about it or learn about its author.
– Search and sort functions also exist by tapping the top of the screen in the bookshelf mode. Search Alphabetically, By Length, Genre, Era, My History, Ratings and/or Description. Sort by Author or Title.
If you’ve been trying to access the site over the past few hours, I’m sure you’ve noticed that it’s been impossible to connect to Nintendo Everything. Honestly, I’m not sure why the site went down, but it looked as though the issue affected the entire server. I haven’t been in contact with two of the guys who run the technical side of Nintendo Everything yet, but I don’t think the site will go down again anytime soon. Actually, it’s a pretty rare occurrence that the site over goes down, but I’m just happy the site’s back up.
Sorry for the downtime, but thanks for sticking with us!
Best Buy
Guitar Hero World Tour (Wii) – $39.99
Carnival Games: MiniGolf (Wii) – $29.99
Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip (Wii) – $39.99
Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels (Wii) – $39.99
Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals (DS) – $19.99
Ben 10: Alien Force (DS) – $19.99
Zenses: Ocean (DS) – $14.99
Zenses: Rain Forest (DS) – $14.99
Circuit City
Skate City Heroes (Wii) – $19.99
My Fitness Coach (Wii) – $19.99
NCAA Football ’09: All Play (Wii) – $19.99
Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? (Wii) – $19.99
Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades (DS) – Free gift card with purchase
Target
Guitar Hero World Tour (2 guitars + game) – $88
Guitar Hero On Tour Box Set (DS) – $59
Tinker Bell (DS) – $25
The Cheetah Girls: Passport To Stardom (DS) – $25
Ultimate Band (DS) – $25
Bolt (DS) – $25
Spongebob Squarepants: Globs Of Doom (DS) – $25
Spectrobes: Beyond The Portals (DS) – $25
Clube Penguin: Elite Penguin Force (DS) – $25
Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels (Wii) – $39.99
Wario Land: Shake It! (Wii) – $46
“There has been a 100 per cent increase in patients complaining of Wii-itis. I’ve seen many patients aged between eight and 13 — and I’ve seen adults. It’s possible that Wii-itus may lead to rheumatism and arthritis in later life. Patients often have inflammation of the shoulder or wrist. People who are double-jointed are most likely to suffer from Wii-knee — and in extreme cases the knee cap can be dislocated or can even pop out.” – Dr Dev Mukerjee, of Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford, Essex
Wow…I don’t know if this is really true or not, but somehow I really have a difficult time believing this! We’ve all heard of Wiiitis before, but have things really the situation really deteriorated to this extent? Or do people not know when they should stop playing Wii Sports/Wii Fit?
“One thing we’d like to do is – if this game is well received – think about releasing Klonoa 2 [on Wii] followed up by a sequel after that so that players could see the entire series. We feel very proud of Klonoa. We feel that the gameplay is both unique and solid. And we’d like as many players to experience that as possible. We think it’s got a unique story and we hope that a new generation of players will play through to the end and enjoy it just as much as the fans did 10 years ago.” – Hideo Yoshizawa, Klonoa director
I actually never played the first Klonoa game, but I’m heavily interested in playing it on Wii. I’d be especially happy to see more Klonoa games on Wii, but as Mr. Yoshizawa mentions, the first game needs to be well received. Make sure you guys buy the game when it releases!
