via ign

Hot on the heels of criticism over the Wii's software price-point, Warioware: Smooth Moves will retail for AU$79.95 when it goes on sale on January 25. And, according to Nintendo Australia's PR honcho, Vispi Bhopti, this is just the start.

Vispi explains, "With the Wii and DS, we're examining the audience demographics to figure out the best price-point with which to expand the market. We did that with our Touch Generations! games, and we're going to be doing the same in the future with some Wii titles."

These titles include the upcoming ball-rolling platform puzzler, Kororinpa, which is scheduled to retail at AU$79.95, as will Wing Island and one other. However, Excite Truck, which is out on February 22, will sell for $99.95.

This admission should go some way towards satisying the raging undercurrent of Nintendo fanboys Australia-wide. Hopefully, this might even spur some third parties to lower their prices, too. ...

via ign

Look, we're not going to lie to you. Virtua Tennis 3 plays an awful lot like previous Virtua Tennis games. This isn't a title that reinvents the wheel. It doesn't swap racquets out in favour of blazing tennis guitars (*note to self: patent tennis guitars*), transforming rallies into duelling solos. Nor does it shift the setting to aboard a space zeppelin, where the tennis rock operas of the future are sure to be played out, instead opting for more humble Earthly locations such as New York and Melbourne. No, the Virtua Tennis 3 story is much like the one by Charles Darwin; a tale of evolution. It may not be a brand new game - far from it in fact, but with each iteration Sega come closer and closer to tennis perfection.

The meat of the game lies, once again, in the World Tour mode, so we'll give you the guided tour. Player creation options aren't staggeringly complex, but you'll certainly be able to put together a freakish looking creation… should that be your goal. Which, if you're anything like us, it probably will be. Basic options include choosing height and weight, then selecting skin tone, eye colour, hair, hair colour, eyebrows, eyebrow colour, beard and beard colour. Perhaps the option that gives you the most power is the face shape tool, breaking your player's face into three categories - eye shape, nose shape and mouth shape. Each can be adjusted using the right analogue stick. You'll have your half man, half puffer fish up and playing in no time. Once you're happy with your player's look, there are a few other decisions to be made, most importantly whether you're left or right handed, and which animations you'd like for serving, receiving and hitting the ball. Pretty standard stuff really.

With that out of the way, you're whisked off to the globe hub map to choose the location of your secret lair. Sorry, home base. From here you can access your mail (gee, thanks for giving me a wristband for winning my first tournament, Coach!) and the calendar, where you can check out a week by week breakdown of the tournaments you may want to play in. As you'd expect, the World Tour mode kicks off with your player ranked 300 in the world, with no stats to speak of. Fortunately, there are a whole host of training mini-games to take part in, each designed to hone your skills in a particular area. Several of these return from previous games, while others are fresh off the designer's notepad. Each training session takes up a week, as does resting - which you'll need to do from time to time when your stamina levels get low enough.

Full article at link above ...

via ign

Last March, EA released what it had hoped would be its answer to the open world genre dominated by Grand Theft Auto. It featured some interesting new ideas like the ability to take over fronts and build up your empire, along with of course a very strong storyline taken straight from the films. It wasn't perfect, but EA wasn't finished. With the Xbox 360 release half a year later, the next-gen version of The Godfather saw the addition of new content, online rankings, new abilities and more, making it something of an expanded edition of the original release.

The game is now headed to the PlayStation 3 and Wii by the names of The Godfather: The Don's Edition and The Godfather: Blackhand Edition, respectively. The two games will be identical content-wise aside from the PlayStation 3 version's online leaderboard rankings, the same that we saw on the 360. Other than the differing control mechanisms, the two versions will feature the same new additions over the 360 version, making these the biggest Godfather releases yet.


The Don's Edition for the PS3 will make use of the SIXAXIS' motion sensing functionality for use with interrogations and some melee combat. If someone is on their knees, you just pull the controller in an upwards manner to lift them off the ground. Moving the controller from side to side will yank them around, and pushing it forward and then releasing the grab buttons will shove them away. The rest of the controls are as we've seen in past versions of the game - steering and general movement is done with the analog sticks.

EA looks to have not only added some new features to The Godfather for these releases, but tweaked some old mechanics as well for easier play. For example, while you're still able to cycle through weapons one-by-one, a quick-select wheel has been implemented that works something like what you'd find in Ratchet & Clank.or Trauma Center. As well, the skill tree has been expanded a great deal to encompass Enforcer and Operator branches. Essentially, these give you more control over various upgrades to your character while also providing more specific bonuses, like the ability to heal faster or call in a hit squad faster.

Speaking of the hit squad, that's one of the cooler new elements that we saw on display. While you're still able to hire someone to stick with you on a mission, you're now able to call in the Corleone hit squad, a group of four men that come to your assistance and lay waste to anyone around you. They'll stick with you for a while, allowing you to take a small army into a mission to take down a rival family.

Similarly, the cops can now also fight for you. You can bribe them in the same way that you could before, where they'll look the other way while you take over an establishment, but you can now pay the entire police force to take to the streets and help you take out a rival family. Combined with the hit squad, you're able to take exponentially more help with you on a mission than before.


A series of new environments will also make their way into the game. Rooftop areas will now be rather common, with plenty of shootouts taking place high above the city. A couple new transportation hubs will find their way into the games as well, namely a train station and a shipyard. Taking these over will earn you a lot more loot than a barber shop or something similar, making them prime targets on your way to the top.

Lastly, the variety in The Godfather has been greatly expanded for the Wii and PS3 versions of the game. Each family will now have their own unique compound, unlike before where they were essentially copies of each other. More pedestrians and vehicles will fill the roads and sidewalks in the game, and more unique models for each will help spice things up. Oh, and speaking of cars, you'll now be able to take them and their passengers out with the new car bombs, one of the unlockable skills you can earn. Cool stuff.

The Godfather: The Don's Edition and The Godfather: Blackhand Edition are set to make their debut on March 20th. ...

Well, the official Sony webpage has pulled the February release of MotorStorm and replaced it with "Spring". While that, to some, may say "oops", don't worry. What happens in March? Oh yeah, Spring. IGN contacted Sony to give this vague release date change a little more focus. Do you wonder what they found out? Let's raise the curtain and shed some light on the situation.

Sony says: "The team is doing some additional fine tuning and getting the online features squared away so they are taking a bit more time. It'll come out in March, though we [won't] make the specific date public yet." If you read any impressions on the Japanese release of MotorStorm, you'll have heard of a barren game with no additional options other than "race". So, let's give these developers the benefit of the doubt and allow them the honor of tweaking online play and whatever other options so we get the amazing off-road madness we so desperately desire.

via ps3fanboy ...

The giant monster genre doesn't get enough love these days. Fortunately, the fine folks at SouthPeak Interactive are taking advantage of the PS3's dirth of quality monster fighting games and unleashing Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia on the unsupecting populace.

"The top-down shooter allows up to four players to battle a monster invasion in a suburban setting. In addition to a cooperative mode, the game will feature multiplayer onlinebattles for up to 16 players."

This one hits on April 3rd.

via ps3fanboy ...

New from Mollusk

Added another game : Mental Pong. Basically, the commands change every 10 points, good luck
If you don't have a DS Motion, it goes into stylus mode

Download and Give Feedback Via Comments ...

Another update from the CnC DS project

...

via wiifanboy

According to the latest news in the horrible tragedy that saw one woman trying to win a Wii die from chugging H20, after several from the station were fired, word comes in that, during the contest, the on-air personalities stated they knew that it was dangerous. After a listener called in to warn them, one of the DJs commented "Yeah, we're aware of that," being backed up by his on-air co-pilot who said "they signed releases, so we're not responsible. We're OK." What's even worse is that during the show, the DJs even commented on a similar case that ended in death for a college student.

As of now, the family of Jennifer Lea Strange are planning on filing a wrongful death suit against radio station 107.9 KDND-FM. ...

Heres an excerpt:


Full article HERE ...