Wario Land: The Shake Dimension is the latest entry in the ever popular Wario Land series. It began on the original Game Boy as a fun 2d game with an original twist on the traditional platformer, requiring the player to manipulate Wario’s physical form in order to pass puzzles.

It’s great that the gameplay from the previous titles remains fully intact in the latest iteration. It’s not so great, however, that the graphics and production values have remained the same, despite the series’ big break into the current generation of home consoles.

What really makes me angry is the amount of praise this game is getting. While it may be a fairly decent game, it wouldn’t be out of place on the Nintendo DS or even the GBA (with the addition of the Wario Ware: Twisted peripheral of course) and yet they have the nerve to charge consumers thirty pounds for the pleasure of playing it, making it a full priced title retailing for the same as, say, Super Mario Galaxy…

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Got a full day in which to sit and absorb the main events from E3? Well guess what, you can do so right here. With thanks to Gamespot, who actually live in America, rendering it much easier for them to actually be there. Obviously.

Ahem, the videos!

Mini-review: Watch the last 2 minutes, it’s the only bit of decent news in the whole show…

Mini-review: Nintendo in self-indulgent stories about their own families shocker!

All in all, not particularly exciting, strangely. We’ll be bringing you any videos from the show floor that catch our eye as we dig through the flood of content hitting the intertubes right now.

Have a fun day with that! I’ll just be here in the corner if you need me.

With E3 well under way today was Nintendo’s turn to flaunt their wares, but first they decided to hit back at microsoft’s announcement of out selling both Nintendo and Sony in the console war, by claiming they were actually the one’s outselling Sony and Microsoft. We expect a similar announcement from Sony very soon.

Nintendo did finally get around to making the following announcements:

Wii Games

• Animal Crossing: City Folk, the first Wii game to take advantage of new hardware WiiSpeak.
• Shaun White Snowboarding, designed for use with the WiiFit balance board.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars, a standard beat em’ up with lightsabres.
• Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party, simply more mini-game madness
• Call of Duty: World At War
• WiiSports Resort, a beach sport game supporting another piece of new hardware Wii Motion Plus.
• WiiMusic, play a variety of instuments how you like, in your own time.

Nintendo DS

• Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades
• Spore Creatures
• Pokemon Ranger 2: Shadow of Alma
• Grand Theft Auto: China Town Wars

Hardware

• WiiSpeak, a set top microphone that will pick up all voices in the room allowing for group to group communication without the need for headsets. Only currently supported by Animal Crossing: City Folk.
• Wii Motion Plus, A small unit that plugs into the bottom of your WiiMote that enhances motion detection and more accurate interpretations of the movement on screen. Currently only supported and supplied with WiiSports Resort it also includes an extended sleeve for your WiiMote.

Nintendo also unveiled plans you gradually change the DS into essentially a PDA, so that it can be seen as necessary to carry with you as a mobile phone, with the ability to access train timetables, local restaurant guides, etc.

More E3 news to come.

Been watching the idiot box recently? Well, my WAG has and occasionally my ears will prick up when I hear the ‘Wii noise’ or the words “Grand Theft Auto”.

The former is potentially one step too far in the direction of casuality. The ad lasts about 20 seconds and focuses on a family living room with Dad leaning side to side. the voice-over tells us that Wii Fit will “help with balance” among other things. Visually, the only game footage we see is pretty much a chart telling Dad he’s fat, and the coordinates of his centre of gravity. Now I’m sorry, but what the hell Nintendo? Who are you aiming this at? It isn’t Christmas (although Mother’s Day is coming up I believe?) You’re either assuming people (read: women) will latch on to your connotations of weight-loss and fitness (certainly not helped by the title’s misleading name), or you’ve just dropped the ball in terms of marketing.

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Do not adjust your set.

This is not a drill.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is pencilled in for a June 27th release. It’s only been five months, after all. Oh gosh you can taste the sarcasm. However, the Australian release is STILL unconfirmed.

In other news, Nintendo has done their whole release schedule for the foreseeable future, and as much as some of them are not surprises, it’s surprising in itself that some of the games listed in the release schedule have in fact already been released. I spotted a few April 18th’s on here. Seriously.

Highlights:

• Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness (4th July)
• Etrian Odyssey (6th June)
• Wii Fit (Tomorrow: 25th April)
• WiiWare Service (May 20th)
• Everyone’s Nintendo Channel (May 30th)

I was genuinely looking for an ‘Also, cocks.’ on the release schedule. A lot of them are so vague, going into quarters, or occasionally months. Although Iron-Man IS stated as a Spring 2008 release.

High Voltage Software is the speaker of this almost unbelievable claim, with it’s gaming engine called Quantum3. According to VideoGamer.com, it’s the result of 15 years of work, with all sorts of tweaks and tricks that are in the Wii’s hardware specification.

“The Wii platform is capable of a lot more than what consumers have seen so far. We’re hoping to raise a new bar,” said HVS’s CEO.

The first title to use this engine is the FPS The Conduit. Take a look at the tech demo here to see the proof.

Honestly, I can’t see this happening myself. The Wii has never been the system for hardcore gamers, as it just doesn’t have the power, and hasn’t been geared towards the gamer demographic. Despite how sweet the visuals are above, remember this: The Wii only transmits HD at 480i/p, and 480p is only if you have bought the component cable. The PS3 and Xbox 360 are capable of doing more than double this (quadruple if you consider the real-time application of it), at 1080i/p.

If they can get this sort of performance on the Wii, then the weakness of being less powerful is, for all intents and purposes, thrown out of the water. Despite the lower resolution, it still looks good, and that’s what people want. I just hope all the stuff that has to be added in (player, weapons etc) do not clog it down to an unplayable state

World broadcasting icon BBC has announced that they have secured a deal with Nintendo, aiming to make it possible for people to find traces of television in their Wii. More specifically the deal will let Wii owners to use the BBC iPlayer with their waggle.

From the BBC News site…

The iPlayer on the Wii is currently being tested and the BBC expects to release more test versions in late 2008. An early version of the service is available from 9 April. It is only available in the UK to licence-fee payers.

The iPlayer will be accessible via the internet channel on the Wii console. The BBC said a message would be sent to Wii owners to alert them to its availability.

The news comes as the BBC releases the latest viewing figures for the iPlayer…

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Online store ChoicesUK.com have a great offer on Guitar Hero 3 at the moment.

You can pick it up for the exclusively low prices of £57.99 and £59.99 delivered on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 respectively.

Here are the prices they’re offering

PS2 - £44.99
Xbox 360 - £59.99
Wii - £56.99
PS3 - £56.99

If you want to take advantage of this offer you should act fast before they sell out or before the offer finishes.

Source: http://snipurl.com/gh3deal