Wii Rally

The first official MotoGP licensed game for the Wii has been released for sale. MotoGP turns the WiiMote into handlebars, giving players an experience in two wheel racing.

Players can join and compete with their racing heroes in three classes - 125cc, 250cc and MotoGP. Players can play in tutorial mode to get acquainted with the game. Then they can take part in career mode where their goal is to become the MotoGP champion. There is also quick race mode where players can choose their favorite track to just have fun without the worry of advancing their career.

MotoGP will also feature a head-to-head option with the addition of AI controlled bikes to add more of a challenge to the game.

MotoGP retails for $39.99 and is rated E for Everyone.

An exclusive for the Wii based on the Toy Story franchise will be available this fall. Toy Story Mania is the first game to place the characters from the beloved Disney/Pixar movie into a carnival setting.

Wii gamers are probably familiar with these carnival games that are a set of mini games. In Toy Story Mania, the games will be inspired by the Toy Story attraction at Disney World and Disney Land.

The game will also consist of mini-games that are original and not based on the attraction. All games will be hosted by Toy Story characters.

Toy Story Mania will be released this fall as well as 3D versions of the movie followed by Toy Story 2 in 3D next February. All this is leading up to the release of Toy Story 3 in 3D in the summer of 2010.

A very huge gauntlet was thrown down today in San Francisco at the Game Developers Conference. Touting it as ‘the most powerful gaming system in the world,’ the OnLive gaming service has a very high bar to reach this winter when this new way to play games is released.

This new service gamers can use on their PC or TV with an HDMI connection. They only need to download a small file on their PC. Games are run on the server farms of OnLive - meaning no lag in gaming and games start up in mere seconds. It will be a subscription service and players will have to buy games and/or rent to play them on a daily basis.

Steve Pearlman and the rest of the 100 team that has spent the last 7 years developing OnLive believe it to be a competitor and even superior to next gen consoles like the Wii. That is a very bold claim especially for a game service that will cost you money but won’t give you any tangible in return. The good thing about console games is that there is a used market for unwanted games. At least you can recoup some of your money. With OnLive, that option will not be available.

I find it incredibly hard to believe that a game service that uses a keyboard/mouse/generic USB game controller can compete with the Wiimote/Nunchuk. Wii gamers prefer Wii games for a reason. I don’t think a PC-like game service is going to be able to dethrone the Nintendo Wii.

One new Wiiware and two new Virtual Console games are now available at the Wii Shop.

WiiWare

Pop’Em Drop’Em SAMEGAME (Hudson Entertainment, 1-4 players, Rated E for Everyone, 500 Wii Points) SAMEGAME is a simple puzzle game where the goal is to clear all the blocks off the grid. Clear larger clusters of blocks for more points. Increase the difficulty of the game by working on a larger grid. Up to 4 players can play at one time.

Virtual Console

Bomberman®’94 (TurboGrafx16, 1-5 players, Rated E for Everyone—Comic Mischief, 700 Wii Points) Bomberman has arrived on the planet to return peace to it after it has been split into five pieces. All nine members of the Bomberman family are available for play and Rooi even shows up with special abilities to lend a helping hand.

DETANA TWIN BEE (TurboGrafx16, 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone—Mild Cartoon Violence, 700 Wii Points) Twinbee and Winbee are on a mission to save the world from evil alien invaders. They will have to do battle through six stages featuring goofy enemies. Stock up your arsenal with powerful attacks like Big Shot, Twin Attack, and Burst Attack to save the day.

Each Monday, Nintendo releases new games to the Wii Shop. WiiWare are games that are original for the Wii. Virtual Console games are classic games previously released for other systems.

Wii Play - which is a nine mini games - reaches an impressive milestone. The game has sold 10 million units in the United States. Wii Play was released in February 2007. Wii Play is now the top selling software game for consoles and portable systems in the United States.

One of the reasons that so many Wii owners buy Wii Play is because the game comes with a Wiimote. So it’s a good way to get a game and another Wiimote for around $50. Wii Play is a fun game and is a wonderful introduction into playing games on the Wii. Each Wii Play game teaches you a different technique using the Wiimote. Players can use their Miis in each game.

The nine games include billiards, shooting range, and my personal favorite, Charge! Wii Play is for 1-2 players and is rated E for Everyone.

Ever since we bought Rock Band 2 for the Wii, we have been meaning to buy a USB hub since each controller uses a USB port instead of a Wiimote.

This weekend we are having guests, so we really want to be able to play all parts to the game at one time. With computers having plenty of USB drives, there seems to be less selection with USB hubs. But I was able to find one in the laptop accessory section for $15.

I haven’t tried it yet but am sure it will work fine. It will be a lot easier to plug in the controllers to the hub instead of trying to plug it into the back of the Wii.

I am looking forward to playing Rock Band 2 using all of the controllers. It should make for a rockin’ good time.

After having my Nintendo Wii for over a year, I finally bought a rechargeable docking station. Since we now have four Wiimotes, I spent more and bought a four docking station. It’s from React. Each charge is suppose to last about 12 hours playing time. The base is lit up blue and is red when a pack is charging. When it’s done, the base is once again fully blue. It’s a small docking station and won’t take up much room. The blue lights do make it interesting.

I immediately notice how much lighter the Wiimote is with the battery pack in it instead of two AA batteries. Amazing. I was hesitant to spend $50 on this but knew it was something we needed. We are having guests later this week and have four fully charged Wiimotes will be a must. To buy good batteries would be around $10. We play enough of the Wii to get our money’s worth from rechargeable packs.

The battery packs are suppose to be good for thousands of charges and last on average 7 years. The way consoles hit the market, it might outlast the vitality of the Wii.

This is the only four rechargeable dock I’ve seen locally and thought that it would save us money. Time will tell if we made the right buying choice but for now we are very pleased with the Reacto charging dock.

While many gamers are looking forward to Friday the 13th for the release of Resident Evil 5, Wii owners do have two games. Sadly Resident Evil 5 is not on the short list of new games for the Wii.

There’s Wii Ski Snowboard that is the latest game in the Wii Ski franchise. This game will have you doing trick skiing, daffy ducks, helicopters, and other cool named moves. Wii Ski uses the balance board and features beautiful scenery and a replay mode to relive those awesome tricks.

Sonic has a new adventure for the Wii. It’s called Sonic and the Black Knight. This is another installment of the Sonic storybook series that was kicked off with Sonic and the Secret Rings. Sonic and the Black Knight introduce swords play to the franchise that makes use of the Wiimote and Nunchuk.

It’s no Resident Evil 5 but at least they look like two fun games for the Wii.

After looking through the upcoming Wii releases, I was struck by the phrase “New Play Control.” It looked to be in front of several familiar titles. And after a little research it makes sense why that’s the case.

New Play Control is a program that brings GameCube games to the Nintendo Wii. These games now support 16:9 widescreen. They will also be retooled to use the Wii controllers like the Wiimote and Nunchuk. Upcoming releases include:

Pikmin
Mario Power Tennis
Pokemon Platinum version
Punch Out

The Nintendo Wii does play older GameCube games so there doesn’t seem to be much incentive to buy a repackaged version of games. Maybe some will like the format for newer televisions. But the game would have to have a lot of replay value to buy it again.

Some games will have updated content but for the most part with be the classic GameCube version.

There are a few games that I would be interested in getting like Pikmin. I never played the GameCube version but have heard that it is a fun game.

The good news about these games is that the pricing will be reasonable. Pikmin for the Wii will retail for $29.99. So for those who are interested in playing these games with Wii controls, at least the pricing will be in line with what the GameCube version would set you back.

Nintendo of America is working on several upcoming titles for the Wii. There have also been several third party games announced with tentative release dates for the Wii.

Wii

Excitebots™: Trick Racing - April 20

Donkey Kong® Jungle Beat™ - May 4

Punch-Out!!™- May 18

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Lately I’ve been doing a lot of the Wii Fit yoga. I must admit that it’s becoming my favorite part of Wii Fit.

When I first bought Wii Fit, I stayed away from yoga and stuck mainly to the balance games. Then I branched out into the aerobics. But now I’ve been doing some of the yoga poses and actually enjoying it a lot. I feel better after doing yoga and like that I can get exposure to doing some poses in the comfort of my living room.

Another advantage to Wii Fit yoga is knowing that I’m doing the poses right. Now only does the trainer show you exactly what to do but by using the Wii balance board, you will keep in check your balance and weight distribution. It’s been a really good way to get acquainted with yoga without embarrassing myself.

So far I’m down almost half a pound this week. Wii Fit yoga is definitely helping with weightloss and with feeling better throughout the day.

Samba de Amigo was one of my favorite games to the Sega Dreamcast. I was so excited when it was made for the Nintendo Wii and have enjoyed playing it. I do find the controls to be a little hard to control and frantic. Thinking that my game experience could be improved with a set of maraca controllers, I finally bought a pair last weekend.

You place the Wiimote and Nunchuk into the maracas. When you shake the maracas, they rattle like maracas. They are a fun accessory especially if you really like Samba de Amigo. Have they improved my game? Possibly.

I still have some problems hitting those bottom colors but I think that might be more of my technique than anything else. Having the maracas does feel more authentic and therefore does add some fun to game play.

So if you enjoy Samba de Amigo, you may really enjoy having a set of maracas.

This weekend I had to go shopping for my nephew’s 9th birthday. So, of course, I had to go by Toys R Us. Look what my husband spotted on the candy aisle.

My husband had to have the green one because it’s a one up. I liked the red. There isn’t a lot of room inside the tin. The mints are color coded and shaped like a mushroom. Too bad they don’t taste nearly as cute as they look.

I figured we spent $5 on two cute tins instead of two packages of mints. The tins are really cute. I’m not sure what we will use them for. They will probably just adorn the desk and look pretty. Maybe I will get a few more to make an obstacle course and use them with the Mario Kart RC toy. Now that might be fun

We have been playing a lot of Rock Band 2 for the Wii. One song that I absolutely adore is Duran Duran’s ‘Hungry like the wolf.’ It has always been one of my favorite. I remember having the album (yes the album - not a CD) when I was a teenager. I remember singing this song in my bedroom and staying up late on Friday night to watch music videos. I was always thrilled when this one was played.

So I have sung this song many times, so I decided to try it on Rock Band 2. I’m not a singer by any stretch of the imagination but have wanted to give singing a try for Rock Band 2.

So here is my score on my first try at the song on medium.

I was so thrilled! I didn’t do nearly as well on the other songs I attempted.

The next version of the Nintendo DS is slated to be released April 5th. It’s called the Nintendo DSi and will have some new features that make it so much more than a video game system.

The new DSi will have two digital cameras. One is located on the outside of the case and one will be inside the case. This will allow people to share take photos of the world and themselves. The pictures can then be used in games. You will also be able to share your photos with your friends. The DSi will also have improved sound and audio. Users will be able to play their MP3s. The DSi is designed so that players can listen to music on SD cards even when the DSi is in shut down mode.

The DSi will play most DS games. There will also be DSiware games for sale much like WiiWare games that will begin at 200 points.