Nintendo has enjoyed tremendous success thanks to the forward-thinking innovations of its DS and Wii systems, but the company’s lineup is focused squarely on the past. The publisher revealed today its first-party and third-party lineup of Wii and DS games through March of 2009, with a scattering of revamps and remakes comprising the majority of its own games.
For the Wii, Nintendo has only two releases planned, both remakes of GameCube games designed to support the Wii Remote’s motion-sensing capabilities. The self-explanatory New Play Control Mario Power Tennis and New Play Control Pikmin will both launch in March.
Nintendo UK has released a massive release date list of Wii and DS titles for Europe today. Eurogamer notes that this list features the first GameCube-to-Wii ports, dubbed “New Play Control!” titles, which include Pikmin and Mario Power Tennis. This new label sees classic GameCube titles revamped to utilize new Wii-specific control schemes. See below for the complete, huge list of upcoming European releases.
Wii Release Dates
When released for the 360, Blue Dragon was a satisfying (if incredibly conventional) Japanese RPG for a system that at the time was lacking in the turn-based glory that consumers of the Rising Sun wholeheartedly enjoy. While it was a modest success, these days the 360 has more than its fair share of JRPGs, which may explain why Blue Dragon Plus, the direct sequel to Blue Dragon, is headed straight to the Nintendo DS. And on its way to Microsoft’s competitor’s hardware, it’s learned some new tricks. Read more
Video game companies send me games: not surprising. Yesterday, Nintendo sent me a game they played for me: say what?
In my mailbox yesterday was a copy of 2005’s “Animal Crossing: Wild World” for the DS out of the shrinkwrap and accompanied with a letter on Nintendo stationery written in the voice of the game’s Mayor Tortimer, encouraging me to use this copy of the game to import all of its unlocked items and its character to “Animal Crossing: City Folk” on the Wii.
Nintendo must have known that I’m terrible at “Animal Crossing” and thought I’d need help. So they unlocked a lot of content for me. They appear to have quite accidentally gotten a bit hip-hop about all this. Whoever played this game for me back at Nintendo trained at least one of the characters to greet me with the line [censored here]: “How are you, N—a?”
Fans of the series and newcomers alike will enjoy platforming with Rare’s famous honey bear Banjo and breegull Kazooie as they fight to save Banjo’s little sister Tooty from the evil witch Gruntilda in their original classic adventure. “Banjo-Kazooie” launches on Xbox LIVE Arcade this Wednesday, December 3 at 9 a.m. GMT (2:00 a.m. PDT).
When the evil witch Gruntilda discovers that Banjo’s sister Tooty is the most beautiful girl in all of Spiral Mountain, she kidnaps her to steal her youthful good looks. Banjo and his best friend Kazooie must team up in order to defeat Gruntilda and rescue Tooty from the witch’s grasp. At first, Banjo and Kazooie perform simple moves like running and jumping to collect jigsaw pieces, dubbed “Jiggys,” but as players progress, the bird and bear will learn new moves and abilities to help them fly, swim and fight to advance to new worlds and save Tooty.
Solve the Puzzle and Save Neopia! Set sail for adventure and mystery as you uncover the truth and save Neopia from impending doom! Create your own Neopet, explore Neopia, make friends and match your wits against enemies in this unique puzzle adventure! You can even uncover hidden codes that unlock new items on Neopets.com. The adventure is waiting for you!
Appealing to both casual gamers and Neopets fans, Neopets® Puzzle Adventure is the only multi-platform puzzle adventure game based on the popular virtual community. For the Neopets fan, Neopets® Puzzle Adventure is a must-have game with its intuitive “pick up and play” gameplay, new never-before-seen areas in the Neopets universe to explore and the opportunity to redeem codes for exclusive virtual items at Neopets.com.
Hey, guess what platform exclusive games have sold over a million copies in the UK recently? Why, it’s Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit, of course.
Trade organization ELSPA has been counting the beans and both Wii titles have been selling like hot cakes made of chocolate-coated crack with porn sprinkles – making them eligible for ELSPA’s coveted Diamond sales award.
It’s regrettable I don’t have a full page to praise the genius of Sony’s “Little Big Planet.” The game offers a unique platforming experience while honoring some of the best side scrollers in gaming. LBP is loaded with wonderful art direction, charming characters and a fully fleshed out gaming experience unlike any you’ve played before.
Its mantra is play, create and share. Players have the opportunity play as a two-inch Sackboy or Sackgirl. The characters are fully customizable and very personable. You can decide what they look like, even down to their facial expressions.
