Wii Rally

Askimet is marking everything spam. It’s a problem that has been network wide but I thought it was getting better since I did get a notice of a new comment. Ironically it was a spam comment at that.

Every few days I’ve been trying to sort through the spam filter to de-spam true comments. I apologize if your comments do not immediately show up and hopefully this problem will be fixed shortly.

Nintendo of America releases a partial list of Wii titles that will be available this spring. Here is the list:

Jan. 7: Kidz Sports Ice Hockey from Destineer
Jan. 8: Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law from Capcom
Jan. 15: SAMURAI WARRIORS: KATANA from KOEI CORPORATION
Jan. 15: Furu Furu Park from Majesco Entertainment
Jan. 21: Endless Ocean from Nintendo
Jan. 22: One Piece: Unlimited Adventure� from Namco Bandai Games America Inc.
Jan. 29: Bomberman Land from Hudson
January: No More Heroes from Ubisoft
January: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Hard Evidence from Ubisoft
Feb. 8: Kawasaki Jet Ski from Destineer
Feb. 11: Go Diego Go!: Safari Rescue from 2K Play
Feb. 12: WWII Aces from Destineer
Feb. 12: Dream Pinball 3D from SouthPeak Games
Feb. 18: MX vs. ATV Untamed from THQ
Feb. 25: Agatha Christie And Then There Were None from DreamCatcher Games
Feb. 26: Baroque from Atlus USA
Feb. 26: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors from Square Enix
Feb. 27: Kidz Sports Soccer from Destineer
Feb. 27: London Taxi: Rush Hour from Destineer
February: Garfield� Gets Real from DSI Games
February: Yamaha Supercross from DSI Games
February: Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore from Konami
February: Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30� from Ubisoft
February: BALLOON POP from UFO INTERACTIVE GAMES
March 3: Destroy All Humans: Big Willy Unleashed from THQ
March 9: Super Smash Bros.� Brawl from Nintendo
March 10: Worms: A Space Oddity from THQ
March 25: Okami from Capcom
March 25: OPOONA from KOEI CORPORATION
March: MiniCopter: Adventure Flight from Aksys Games
March: Alone in the Dark from Atari
March: Ninja Reflex from Electronic Arts
March: Obscure: The Aftermath from Ignition Entertainment
March: Target: Terror from Konami
March: Nitro Bike from Ubisoft
March: Emergency Heroes from Ubisoft
March: HEAVENLY GUARDIAN from UFO INTERACTIVE GAMES
March: Rebel Raiders from XS Games
April 15: Castle of Shikigami III from Aksys Games
April: Pro Evolution Soccer from Konami
April: Wild Earth: African Safari from Majesco Entertainment
April: THE MONKEY KING-THE LEGEND BEGINS from UFO INTERACTIVE GAMES
April: Super Pick Ups from XS Games
May 6: Speed Racer from Warner Bros. Games
May 13: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian from Disney Interactive Studios
May: BlastWorks: Build, Trade, Destroy from Majesco Entertainment
May: King of Fighters: The Orochi Saga from SNK Playmore
May: THE DOG Island from Ubisoft
June 8: Wonderworld Amusement Park from Majesco Entertainment
June: Catch of the Day from Electronic Arts
June: Ford Racing Off Road from Empire Interactive
June: Cooking Mama Cook Off 2 from Majesco Entertainment
June: Rygar: The Battle of Argus from Tecmo, Inc.
June: DeBlob from THQ
June: Wall-E from THQ
Spring: Mario Kart Wii with Wii Wheel from Nintendo
Spring: Major League Baseball� 2K8 from 2K Sports
Spring: Don King Presents: Prizefighter from 2K Sports
Spring: Top Spin 3 from 2K Sports
Spring: Kung Fu Panda from Activision
Spring: LEGO: Indiana Jones from LucasArts
Summer: Deca Sports from Hudson
Summer: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed from LucasArts
Summer: Active Life�: Outdoor Challenge� from Namco Bandai Games America Inc.
Q2: Wii Fit from Nintendo

All Wiis now ship with a Wii jacket for the Wiimote. But if your Wii was purchased prior to this policy, then you can fill out a Wii jacket request form to get one of the jackets.

Happy Thanksgiving. I’m most thankful for my gaming family. They love video, board, card, RPG games. It makes the holidays such a fun time.

Hope everyone has a great day. Get plenty of rest tonight for those Black Friday sales. Once I’ve devoured some turkey and played some games, it will be time to rummage through all the sales papers for the most appealing deals.

So, eat a lot today, watch some football, and have a good time.

I’m Lynn, the new blogger for WiiRally.com. I’m a casual gamer who loves the Nintendo Wii as I think it is one of the most innovative video game consoles to come around in quite some time. While it may not be as beefy as the other next gen consoles, the Nintendo Wii packs a lot of fun. Needless to say, I’m a huge fan of the Wii, love to play the games for it, and to talk about it.

When I’m not playing games, I enjoy spending time with my gamer husband and our gamer-in-training two-year-old. I also blog for two other 451 Press blogs, SEODance.com and Homezookeeper.com.

Can’t be at E3? Well neither can I, So I’ve got the next best thing Internet video.

OK here Wii go.

First up for the Nintendo media briefing is a 2 minute video of some news stories and user videos which have used the Wii as a focal point. Nintendo begins by tooting their own horn….obviously.

After the short video a gigantic man in a beige suit [Reggie Fils-Aime, NoA President] walks to the middle of the stage and says “Hi I’m Reggie and I am Happy!”

The first segment of Reggie’s speech is about all the stuff that only venture capitalists and investors care about. You know stuff like expanding demographics, sales figures, and market share info….BORING!

Now some interesting stuff. Reggie states that by the holiday shopping season there should be over 160 Wii titles available in North America and over 430 DS titles for the same territory.

After a second video similar to the first Reggie introduces to the world the first offspring of the Wii Remote and nunchuck. The Wii Zapper a housing for your Wii Remote and nunchuck making it look like a small SMG. Reggie goes on to talk about 3 new games that are being designed around the new housing, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, Sega’s Ghost Squad a popular arcade light gun game, and the newest addition to the Medal of Honour series will also be centered around the Wii Zapper which will retail for about 19.99 USD. Reggie also mentions plans for a 1st party title that will come packed with a zapper later this year.

(more…)

OK, last week I promised you guys something special and as you can see from today’s NA VC Update today marked the 100th game being available on the Virtual Console. Now I love classic games in fact the SNES is favorite console of all time and that includes this generation. So to celebrate this milestone of declaring this week Virtual Console week here on Wii Rally. Every day I will be posting interesting little tidbits about these first 100 games.

For Example

Games starring Mario and his ilk: 8
Games starring Sonic: 2

or

The most downloaded games on the Virtual Console so far.

1) Super Mario Bros. (NES)
2) Super Mario 64 (N64)
3) Mario Kart 64 (N64)
4) Super Mario World (SNES)
5) The Legend of Zelda (NES)

Notice that they are all 1st party titles. Why is no one showing the 3rd parties some love? Come on now Konami kicks ass.

Hello everyone in Rally land things are starting to change here at 451 press specifically the gaming channel. I would like to take this time to welcome the new Gaming Editor you may already know him. BB from 1pstart is now going to be supervising all the gaming blogs so welcome to our new head honcho. On another note Wii Rally will be getting another writer, who it is, I do not know. When they will start again unknown but I do know that Wii Rally will continue to be THE place for all you Nintendo Wii goodness.

Sorry everyone I’m feeling very ill today and I mean iller than the beastie boys so there won’t be any updates today. See you all tomorrow.

Someone once said ” That it takes a real man to admit he has made a mistake” I don’t know who that someone was but I guarantee you that he had bigger balls than Stephen Colbert. Earlier this month I reported on a story I read in the April issue of EGM. The story indicated that Square Enix and BunaVista were making another entry into the Kingdom Hearts series starring Mario along with a slew of other Nintendo characters. Word has finally come out of the evil Ziff empire I mean EGM’s SF offices that the story is 100% completely NOT true. As I stated before I shall now apologize.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry for reporting a joke as fact even though it came from a credible source. I am not sorry for making the post in the first place however. This story has introduced many new readers to Wii Rally and spurred a debate that was at one point quite interesting and fun but that debate slowly degraded into a fight between the optimistic and the unfaithful. Too all those readers who were really hoping for this to be true I’m sorry I mislead you but your real beef is with EGM not me.

As a blog and a fairly new one at that it is very difficult to get news items that haven’t been reported on a thousand times. Nintendo isn’t exactly calling me day and night asking me to write about their newest game in fact all emails that I have sent to game publishers have gone unanswered that is except in the case of Thrustmaster. (thanks for the stuff guys) But still I try everyday to find something unique and interesting to write about.

So I got a news item wrong it happens all the time but at least I can be honest with all of you out there in Nintendo land instead of covering up stories that may refute an earlier story like a certain Australian owned news network (cough*Fox News*cough).
I hate news anyway it’s boring to find and dull to write no wonder most other sites out there just copy and paste press releases a level I refuse to steep to. If this means you will never read Wii Rally again then I am sorry you feel that way but go with grace. But those of you who can forgive an inexperienced yet passionate journalist then stick around because I’m just getting started.

If you still believe that Mushroom Kingdom Hearts is happening listen to the first 5 minutes of this weeks EGM* Live Podcast

Hellllllllooooooooooo 2007 show me what you got!

This should be a great year for the Nintendo Wii. Nintendo of America’s Reggie Fils-Amie has already promised that there will be no game drought for the Wii this year. For those of you who do not know a gaming drought normally occurs once a year during the summer months. Video game and consoles tend to dip a little and most tell themselves it because kids are outside playing in the sun. I however think that gamers are forced outside due to the lack of quality software but let’s not get into a “Chicken before the egg” debate here.

Droughts were especially common for first party Nintendo games. Zelda: Twilight Princess and Super Paper Mario were supposed to be GameCube titles and ended up being moved over to the Wii, not that I think anyone is complaining about Twilight Princess being on the Wii, in fact you can check out Jeremy Parish’s Review, He gave it a 10.

Now there are lots to be excited about in 2007. All I need to do is think about Super Smash Brothers: Brawl and I begin to salivate. Also, Wii owners have not even gotten a taste of what Nintendo might offer in the realm of online multiplayer. Which might come with the release of SSB: Brawls or Pokemon: Battle Revolution. Trust me folks it’s going to be a very fun year. Still I do feel kind of bad for those poor souls that shelled out almost 800$ for a PS3 all because it’s HD.

Greetings Wii gamers I am Tim Ashdown your guide to the fun filled world of the Nintendo Wii, well let me tell you all a little bit about myself.

I’m a video game design and development student from Toronto, Ontario… that’s in Canada folks. I have had a small obsession with the medium since a very young age I have long been convinced of its power and ability to entertain people of all ages.

Why write about the Wii? Well I must say that Nintendo is attempting to reach out to all the gamers out there young, old casual and hardcore alike. I plan to do the same I’ll try to watch the technical jargon though I don’t think people would like to read about how amazing the new C++ compilers are so I’ll keep the news light-hearted, fun and always interesting. If you have any comments, suggestions or tips drop me a line at tim.ashdown@451press.net. Tootles and happy gaming.