via IGN


Following Nintendo's surprise announcement of Wario Land Shake for the Wii yesterday, new details have come our way on the game.

Wario's latest adventure looks like it's being designed with both casual and hardcore gamers in mind. A side-scrolling platformer, the game makes use of 2D artwork to depict its characters and stages. The game promises a total of 20 stages, taking you through all the expected environments, including jungles, deserts, and caves.

Controls have been kept simple, with the Wiimote held horizontally and most of the action controlled with the D-pad and the 1 and 2 buttons. Nintendo is including some waggle controls as well. Shake the Wiimote up and down, and you can make Wario perform a few extra moves, like shaking coins free from an enemy you've grabbed onto. The Wiimote can also be tilted to control vehicles.

As revealed yesterday, Wario Land Shake will hit the Japanese Wii on July 24. A release outside of Japan has yet to be announced. ...

via Games Industry


Nintendo has announced that the Wii's Nintendo Channel is set to launch in Europe and Australia tomorrow.

The channel will be free of charge and available through the Wii Shop Channel. On it, gamers will be able to watch videos, search for games, access downloadable demos for their Nintendo DS and recommend games.

"By accessing Nintendo Channel, you will be kept up-to-date on all the latest information for past, present and future games on all Nintendo platforms," the said in a statement.

The launch of the Nintendo Channel follows on from that of WiiWare, also available through the Wii Shop Channel, which launched earlier this month. ...

via Eurogamer


Following Splinter Cell: Conviction's disappointing no-show during last night's Ubidays press conference, Ubisoft has moved to quell speculation by claiming the game simply needs more "polishing".

Speaking to Eurogamer in Paris earlier today, global development boss Christine Burgess-Overmard insisted: "The team is still working on it". Nevertheless, speculation on the status of the high-profile project has been mounting after a lengthy information blackout since its unveiling a year ago, further fuelled by a recent magazine report suggesting the game was undergoing a major overhaul.

"Splinter Cell is one of our major IPs, so we don't let them go out before they're perfect, and it's not yet perfect," Burgess-Overmard explained. "So the team is polishing it so we can have a great game to offer the consumers." However, when pressed on a timeframe for the next reveal, she refused to be drawn, adding: "Not yet. When it's ready."

Splinter Cell: Conviction - at least as it was presented last year - focuses on a now-fugitive Sam Fisher stripped of his usual techy toys and forced to use crowds and his environment to avoid detection. ...

via Computer and Video Games


THQ has delayed the release of Saints Row 2 by two months due to product quality and marketing considerations.

The game will now be released on October 14 instead of August 26, meaning it will miss the publisher's fiscal second quarter.

THQ is counting on Saints Row 2 and Red Faction Guerilla to be sales drivers during the current fiscal year after failing to meet its revenue and profit targets during the financial year ended March 31, 2008.

Bob Aniello, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, told Reuters that Saints Row 2's delay will not affect the company's financial outlook for its 2009 fiscal year.

Saints Row 2 is the sequel to 2006's Xbox 360 exclusive Saints Row, a wholly owned THQ intellectual property which sold over a million units. Developed by Volition, the open world action series offers a free-roaming experience in the Grand Theft Auto mold. ...

via Eurogamer


A scan from this week's Famitsu has popped up online, revealing two new characters who'll crop up in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

Or rather, two old characters who'll return - since we're talking here about Mai Ling (from Metal Gear Solid) and Rosemary (from Metal Gear Solid 2).

That's a bit of a double edged sword, really. Mai Ling, a naval officer with a curious habit of regaling you with utterly nonsensical Chinese proverbs, was a hugely popular character, even after an ill-advised change of voice actress in the Twin Snakes remake.

Rose, on the other hand, was Raiden's astonishingly annoying, whiny girlfriend, who seemed to exist solely to moan irrelevantly at him in incredibly over-long codec sequences. Less of that, please.

Details on the characters' roles in Metal Gear Solid 4 are scant - Famitsu's article falls back on simply reminding readers what they got up to in previous games, which is an approach we've blatantly nicked for this piece as well.

Metal Gear Solid 4 is apparently the last game in the Solid Snake story, although certainly not the end of the Metal Gear franchise, and will appear in the UK on June 12th. ...

via Games Industry


Nintendo's Wii Fit is the best-selling game in Australia for the third week in a row following its release according to data supplied by GfK Australia.

New releases Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures and Haze reached the fifth and tenth spots, respectively. Grand Theft Auto IV continues to be a strong seller, with the 360 version outselling out the PS3 version.

The Top Ten best-selling titles in Australia for the week ending May 25 were:

1. Wii Fit (Wii)
2. Grand Theft Auto IV (360)
3. Wii Play (Wii)
4. Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3)
5. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (PC)
6. Hanna Montana (DS)
7. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii)
8. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock bundle (PS2)
9. Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 (Wii)
10. Haze (PS3) ...

via Joystiq


Mandatory game installs have become an expected burden for PlayStation 3 owners, a tax paid in time for the pleasure of playing games on Sony's latest console. And while the time spent watching the bar creep across the screen has ranged from modest to absurd, we're still not accustomed with having to wait at all. It's a sentiment echoed by the developers at Bethesda, as the company recently let slip that the PS3 version of its radioactive RPG Fallout 3 will not include any upfront installation at all.

"The answer to that is no, there isn't," Bethesda marketing guru Pete Hines recently told Joystiq concerning Fallout 3 on the PS3. "That doesn't mean we don't use the hard drive, just that it does it in the background as opposed to a large, upfront install." As far as how much hard drive space the game will require, the exec wouldn't say exactly. Hines did mention that the RPG will require "a similar amount" of HD space as Oblivion, making us expect to fill up the PS3's juicy interior with about 4-5 gigs of atom-splitting data when the game ships this fall. ...

via IGN


Yuke's Company of America announced today that Double D Dodgeball has received certification for a release on Xbox Live Arcade. The title will be exclusive to the Microsoft download service and will arrive this summer at a cost of 800 Microsoft Points ($10 US).

Double D Dodgeball will bring the much loved playground game to XBLA with four ball types, multiple playing surfaces, eight player online matches and several different playing modes. It will also feature both Eastern and Western rules.

"With Double D Dodgeball, we've been able to capture the spirit of classic playground dodgeball that we all grew up with, integrate a defined set of rules known in the East and West, and take it to Xbox Live," said Ken Koyama, Manager of Product Development at Yuke's Company of America. "Instead of meeting up on the hot playground, you can go on Xbox Live Arcade and blast your friend with ball from the comfort of your couch."

You may be wondering what the heck the difference between East and West rules are. The press release accompanying the announcement has those details:

West Arena
Traditional method where two teams square off in an arena separated by a center line.
Hit an opponent to knock them out.
"Out" players are sent to the sidelines located behind their team's side of the court.
Return when a teammate knocks out an opponent.

East Arena
Arena contains a center line, and an outfield located around the outside of the court.
One player from each team starts in the opponent's outfield and can throw balls at the other team.
"Out" players are sent to the outfield. Hit an opponent from there to reenter the match.

Double D Dodgeball has been rated "E" for Everyone by the ESRB. ...

via Eurogamer


US retailer GameStop continues to scatter information around about an upcoming Special Edition release for Gears of War - revealing last week that it exists, and this week, telling us what's in it.

Actually, what's in it isn't necessarily all that exciting. According to a full list published by TeamXbox, the new edition will come with new content for both Gears of War and its upcoming sequel, Gears of War 2, but only two elements of that are actually playable - the two multiplayer map packs for Gears of War, now included on the game disc.

The rest is just a smorgasbord of trailers, gamer pictures and themes - some from the first game, some from the sequel - including Cliffy B's "Emergence Day Message" video and a selection of teaser and gameplay trailers from Gears of War 2.

One for the absolute completists, then, rather than a must-have for Gears of War fans - assuming, of course, that it ever comes to these shores. With Microsoft in the USA still not confirming the existence of the special edition, we've also heard nary a word here in Europe. We've contacted Microsoft to ask what's going on, so we'll let you know when they get back to us. ...