Ahhh, Monday.. Best day of the week or the absolute worst? I can never decide. Some cool things are going on around here though, on a more personal note, I passed a kidney stone! YAYYY!! If you’ve never had one, maybe you’re not an old fuddy duddy like myself or maybe you’re healthy and drink lots of water. I get them about every 4 years or so it seems and this past one was actually not too bad considering some of my past run-ins with them. I treat them like boss battles where I have to defeat the damn things by enduring the pain and eventual passing of them.

Ok, all that gross stuff about kidney stones aside, I’ve picked up a few Wii Ware titles, have you? So far I’ve only grabbed Defend Your Castle and Dr. Mario and man if Dr. Mario isn’t fun and challenging. I never did get into Dr. Mario back in the day; I was a die hard Tetris fanboy and played it until I had Tetris Eyes. That’s when you play it for so long, you’ll try to rearrange things in real life in your mind so they all fit into neat little rows. Cars, houses, signs, sometimes people.. The Wife, she’s played lots of Dr. Mario in her day and totally whopped me, but I’m getting the hang of it! I also picked up No More Heroes and got around to playing that. If you haven’t checked this game out yet and you’re age appropriate for it, definitely do so. The game has so much crazy stuff going on, you can decapitate people and slice them all up with your beam katana, there’s cool boss fights and all kinds of other video game related situations that just make your mind boggle. Putting the Wii Remote up to your ear to listen to cell phone calls through the speaker.. All kindsa stuff.

Ok, here’s some Wii Bits for the day!

- Have you found WiiFit and are you enjoying it? Well, lucky you as it seems that alot of people are having trouble finding the game. So much so that LA Times of all places put up an article discussing how hard it is to find. They say the real challenge in the game is actually find it, not the exercises within. I knew I should have picked it up at GameStop when I saw it just after release.. >:(

- If you’re curious as to what the latest Mario Kart Wii tourney challenge is all about, Aeropause has you covered as they delve into the deeper questions concerning the event. Questions like is this map on the disk, can or will it be unlocked for future play, that kind of stuff. Head on over and give it a read.

- In case you thought Nintendo was taking it easy with the WiiWare platform, Tom Prata is here to set things straight. IGN>Com has the 411 on what’s up with WiiWare after they spoke with NOA’s senior director of project development, Tom Prata and he let them know there are over 100 games in development for the platform.

IGN: How many WiiWare games do you have the queue?

Tom Prata: Currently, there are about 100 games in development for WiiWare at various stages of completion.

That’s alot of storage space to clear! C’mon just announce the external storage drive already!

- There’s a few new DS demos up on the Nintendo Channel according to the NeoGaf’ers including:
- Sight Training
- Brain Training
- Big Brain Academy
- Picross DS
- 42 All-Time Classics

- And lastly, here’s a pretty radical to the max commercial spot for the NES version of RBI Baseball from back in the day:

Ok! That should do it for today’s episode, maybe another tomorrow? I forgot to mention, I got in a wireless sensor bar from Nyko and it’s pretty rockin’. As a major “Like” point, I like the fact it’s got a timer on it so it can automatically shutoff in case you forget, but as a pretty big “Dislike”, I don’t like the overbright blue LED on the front of it. nothing a piece of Duct Tape can’t fix!

‘Till next time..

Hey, I’m about to head to bed, but ran across a couple of things that weren’t really big enough for a full news post I didn’t think, so here’s some filler! And now for the two news pieces:

- Are you excited about Guitar Hero: Aerosmith coming to the Wii? That’s actually a serious question, I’m trying to figure out if folks are actually excited for the new GH game. Any huge Aerosmith fans out there? Well, if you are wanting the game, Best Buy has it available for pre-order for a mere $50.

- Ok second bit, Okami’s been delayed until April 15th. That blows.

Ok g’night all! I’ll be humming myself to sleep with “Love in an Elevator” now.. Yuuuck..

Not a whole lot of news going on today so I thought I’d wrangle up all of these little bits of info and post them for you fine readers. How about that E3? While it might not have been as excited as an E3 where companies are launching consoles, it sure did have alot of cool things announced and shown. WiiFit looks like it’s going to be a must own not only for the fitness angle, but I can see that board being used in other games. Well, in my head I can see the board being used for other games, given Nintendo’s history with peripherals, WiiFit is probably the only game that will use the thing. Anyone want any DK Bongo’s? Or a Super Scope? Maybe this R.O.B. the Robot?

But hey back to WiiFit, I could stand to lose a good 30 lbs overall and it would be nice to do a little before and after Wii fitness test using WiiFit when it arrives. I was thinking about posting a weekly update concerning my status with the product and posting pics of my progress up as I workout with it. Sure, I could be doing pushups and situps right now but I want to make sure I get a good “Before” sample pic, ok? We’ll see how that all turns out when WiiFit comes out.

On to the news!

- If you’re looking for over 15 minutes of Mario Galaxy footage, click this link and download the video there. They say it’s shaky cam and the audio is messed up, but I am sure it’s still interesting and fun to watch nonetheless.

- Kotaku has an article up discussing Nintendo looking for more manufacturers for the Wii. Could they be looking to ramp up production just in time for the holidays? Hopefully! Magic 8 Ball says, “Ask again.”

- The Wii doesn’t have any good games!? Who said that? Well, check out this list of great games already here and coming to the Wii and you’re surely going to find one game that is fun? Show this page to anyone who can’t seem to find a reason to be excited about the system.

- If you’re wondering how Mario and Sonic at the Olympics is turning out, go check out this article at Joystiq full or words and pictures describing the game in it’s current state. Here’s a good quote:

The equivalent of gaming chewing gum, Mario & Sonic at the Olympics shows no pretense of being anything other than a collection of miniature games, and beyond the initial burst of flavor upon discovering the Wii motions needed to complete an event, it’s likely to degenerate into a bout of repetitive motion. You should know exactly what you’re getting into here.

Ouch, ooh, burn! I still can’t wait to play it.

- And lastly, check out this old school commercial for Paper Mario from the N64. I’ve always loved Nintendo’s wacky old school commercials:

Ok, more news to come as it rolls in; what did you think of E3? Any favorite games or things come about you want to discuss? Drop us a line in the comments with your feelings on E3 this year!

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July, we had a blast hanging out with some close friends enjoying some fine food and playing plenty of Wii Sports and Wii Play. Our friends sister was there and she has a Pro score of over 2k in Wii Tennis and she’s just venomous when it comes to landing perfect shots to the corners of the court, making it near impossible to defend. If you got a great Power serve off, you stood a 75% chance that you were going to lose if she was returning. If you flubbed the serve and didn’t Power serve it, your chances of giving them the point goes up to around 97%. It was LUDICROUS! Our friend’s daughter was also there and she was a huge Nintendo fan and very good at Tennis as well so we all had a great time with that one for around oh.. 6 hours? Did anyone else get together with the family and play some Wii?

I’ve been playing through Spiderman 3 a bit more and am working on our review for that, in the meantime, here’s some Wii Bits I’ve seen going around today:

- EuroGamer has their review of Scarface up and I don’t want to spoil too much, but here’s a quote that starts to go into the issue of controls on the Wii:

In making the belated journey across the console divide to the Wii, that precision has been…not lost, exactly, but fudged slightly. Before hordes of rabid Wii fans light their torches, grab their pitchforks and march on my castle, it’s not that the new control system is unworkable, just that it’s a fairly needless change dictated by the Wii itself rather than gameplay necessity.

- If you’re looking for more Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles media, check out this magazine scan showing off some of the game. Some thing we know about REUC already is that it brings various situations from past RE’s into the game, it’s an on rails shooter that supports coop, and it has destructible environments.

- GamesAreFun has the list of titles coming from Namco Bandai in the near future for all systems available. For the Wii we have quite a few interesting ones like Space Station Tycoon in Q3 2007 and SoulCalibur Legends coming in Q4 2007.

- Another review, this time one for Resident Evil 4 for the Wii coming from Wired.com. Here’s a quote I can agree with:

Originally released on GameCube in 2005, RE4 still looks amazing today. The creepy villages and backwoods shacks that the zombies call home are intense and unsettling, and the zombies look great up close. Wii Edition isn’t upgraded save for a new widescreen display mode, but it still looks better than most Wii games.

And on top of that, the game is only $30. Go buy it now if you haven’t already.

- And lastly, here’s a few videos of some Wii games I found onYouTube and thought kicked butt for some reason or another. Some Mortal Kombat and the beginning from Resident Evil4.

Ok, more news to come!

I had an interesting day yesterday as I shopped around the local mall with my son. We went into GameStop to check out their offerings and I noticed the phone was ringing off the wall nearly. Each time it rang the guy working there would answer it very politely, go over his “Thank you for calling GameStop yadda yadda yadda” routine, then I would hear a few “No we don’t”s followed by “No we can’t” and then “I would try back next week”. As I was about to commend the guy for answering what seemed to be about 7 calls back to back without breaking a sweat, he chimed in with “That’s the 15th call I’ve taken today with people asking for a Wii.” My eyes bulged out of my head for a second as I turned around from the rows of games to meet the voice from behind the counter. He goes on to tell me they take around 30-50 calls each day from people looking for a Wii which is amazing at this point in time. Here we are, seven months after the system has launched and it is still in high demand. Sure, you might be able to come across a few units here and there, but for the majority, they are still selling out faster than the retailers can get them in stock. I went on to inquire about the sales of the PS3 and the 360 and he says they sell decently, but nothing like the Wii and DS has been for them. How long can this demand last for Nintendo and if it continues at this rate, how many systems will be sold by this time next year? It’s going to be interesting this Christmas for sure as the three console makers battle it out with some fantastic titles. In the end, it’s a great time to be into video games with so many options and systems to enjoy.

I’ve got a couple of reviews coming including Spiderman 3 (which so far is a mixed bag) and Resident Evil 4 so keep an eye out for those. There’s also an small article in the works as well as coverage of this month’s Nintendo Power which has some good info in it. In the meantime, here’s some Wii Bits to keep you going!

-Want to get a bit nostalgic and read up on a brief history of Nintendo from the 80’s up until present day? Check out this article over at Next-Gen.biz called “The Nintendo Years” which does just that. Taking you from 1983 onward, the writeup covers various innovations and gameplay ideas Nintendo brought to the video game market and how they influenced it. A cool read for any Nintendo fan.

- Not alot of information on this addon device for your Wii Remote, but there’s a few pics of it here at watch.impress including the two you see below. This device snaps over your four way control pad on the Remote and gives you a thumb stick to use instead. It’s called the “RemoCon Stick” by a company called Cyber Gadget, check the link for more pics and details.

- Is Sony planning on competing against the Wii with their own PS2 system? According to this forum post which covers the August 2007 issue of EGM, they just may be. It’s rumored that Sony is producing a “waggle-wand” that will be packed in with the PS2 and sold at a low $99. What effect will this have on the Wii is hard to guess as on one hand, the Wii has a good head start, but on the other, the PS2 has around a trillion units already sold. If true, it will be interesting for sure to see how they go head to head against each other.

- If you’ve got an old NES Zapper lying around and want to turn it into a light gun that works for the Wii, just do like this guy did and rewire it! He essentially took the IR receiver out of the Wii Remote and rewired it to work in the Zapper, allowing you to play any game that relies on shooting targets with the newfangled device. He’s got pictures and everything so go check it out.

- And lastly, here’s some music from the Super Smash Bros Dojo, listen to “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Medley” by clicking play below:

Alrighty then, I’ll be around throughout the day checking on more news and writing up this article and more. Say hey in the comments and let us know what games you’re playing recently.

Well, I’m one year older thanks to yesterday being my birthday. I had a great time with the family and ended up getting Resident Evil 4 for the Wii which was a very nice surprise! I haven’t had time to check it out yet, but just looking at the box has been a blast so far and it looks awesome. A real delight was the fact the game was only $30, which is fantastic as it’s going to kick more butt than alot of Wii games that cost $50. It makes me wonder how much more successful Wii game sales could be if they dropped them all to $30. The Wii system is a great impulse buy system as it’s priced nicely at $250, it would be great to have video games once again be impulse buys at the $30 price point. It would help increase the sales of the individual games and possibly assist in broadening the market of people that play video games as the price would be much more acceptable as an entry fee. Ahh, we can only dream..

In other Nintendo related news, how about that Manhunt 2 drama? A costly mistake by Rockstar and Take Two or a carefully orchestrated public relations stunt? There’s no doubt Rockstar has been in the hot seat in the past with the”Hot Coffee” mods and all so why would they develop a game so over the top with violence knowing it would get an AO rating and thus kill itself off? This is a case of either someone didn’t quite know what they were getting into and were ignorant to the ratings board scrutiny or someone thought it would be good for the game to cause such a scene and turn out to be so controversial. Perhaps they’ve been developing various versions of the game, some high in violence and another that is a bit safer and they knowingly sent off the more violent version to cause a scene? Who knows, I’m only theorizing but the whole thing is just silly from all angles and reeks of, “Duh..” How could they not know the game was going to get rated this way? I only hope we do get to see the game on the Wii and hopefully, somehow in it’s intended and complete state.

Ok I’ve got the latest issue of Nintendo Power I am going to cover shortly, in the meantime here’s some Wii Bits!

- Bloomberg.com has an article up discussing Nintendo’s decision to move offices in the US and in it they speak with Nintendo’s spokesman Ken Toyoda who makes a few interesting comments. Namely that the Nintendo Wii sales in the United States have not “reached their potential” which I can agree with but I would fault Nintendo and their supply issues more than I would the consumer by far. The consumers are eating up the Wii here in the States and I still have yet to walk into a shop and consistently see Wii’s on the shelf. Toyoda also made comments regarding total sales of the Wii hitting right around 6 million for all territories, which seems a little low as well. Maybe Nintendo will have a follow up announcement regarding these statements to clear things up.

- Fishing buffs, have we got something exciting for you. Check out the Hooked! Real motion Fishing game over at EB Games. Sure it’s $60, but it comes with a whole fishing rod attachment device for your Nintendo Wii Remote and Nunchuk to really immerse you in the game. The Remote slides into the bottom of the rod and the Nunchuk snaps into the reel area making this the best fishing game device made since the Dreamcast fishing controller.

- According to the ESRB listing, Super Turrican 1 and 2 are coming to the Virtual Console from Factor 5, we’re just not sure when. Both of these games were great Super Nintendo games and it will be a blast to play through them again on the Wii. Here’s a screen from the ESRB showing their listings:

- As far as the VC goes, we also have China Warrior coming next Monday (June 25) according to Hudson’s own website. There is also a list of mentioned, but unreleased games for the VC here at the Nintendo forums and Breath of Fire II has been added to the PEGI (Euopean Game Information site) meaning we just might see it coming to the US shortly as well.

- And lastly, let’s get a good chuckle out over this guy dressed as a Wii Remote at a Fanime 2007 convention:

More news to come throughout the day! I’m off to checkout RE4!

Resident Evil 4 should be lurching it’s way onto store shelves right about now, I might be heading out later to see what I can find at the local outlets. I never did get around to finishing the GameCube version of it for whatever reasons, but found the game to be very entertaining and the near pinnacle of what the GC had to offer besides a few first party hits by Nintendo. The motion controls should really bring you even more into the atmosphere in the game and make for one scary trip.

We’ve got another couple of reviews coming very shortly with the next one being Spiderman 3. I’m slowly working my way through the past titles and hoping to get to some of the actual new releases within the next month or so. I would love to do more Virtual Console quick reviews and I may still do select titles, but to grab everyone each week costs a few too many peanuts! I do welcome any of you that have short and punchy type reviews of any VC titles you’ve got to mail them on into me and I’ll start a new piece where I post “Reader Reviews” of the VC games. No raunchy language, please, but submit your quick thoughts on the titles and I’ll get them posted up.

Here’s some fine Wii Bits for today!

- The recent bannings of Manhunt 2 in Ireland and the UK have taken their toll already on Take Two, possibly costing them millions of dollars. The decisions to censor the game in those areas have caused Take Two to rethink the game and perhaps cause them to tone it down to get a Mature rating or even cancel the game altogether. Canceling the game doesn’t sound like a very feasible option and I am betting they go back and tone down the game for those markets at worst.

- NGamer has some new screens from Godzilla: Unleashed showing off more action from the game. Here’s a couple of them to get you started, be sure to check them all out at the link as it seems to look better everytime I see shots.

- According to UK Reuters, Nintendo is closing in on Sony’s market value with Nintendo having a market capitalisation of 6.30 trillion yen. This compares with Sony having a 6.64 trillion yen market share across all of it’s products, not only the Playstation lineup. The Nintendo DS and Wii double punch has had much to do with Nintendo’s current success.

- And finally, check out this glitch video showing off how to get into the Shadow World in Super Paper Mario:

Ok, I’m off to play me some Spiderman 3, here’s hoping it’s fun times! Got any news, custom Mii’s, or VC reviews? Send them to me and I’ll get ‘em posted!

What are you playing on your Wii? I’m curious as to what games people are playing and if they find themselves playing more Virtual Console games than actual Wii releases. I’ve found that I play a mix of about 50% Wii titles and 50% Virtual Console games. I can’t get enough Punch-Out!! at the moment and don’t let Super Punch-Out!! come out sometime soon as I’ll be playing that even more. As for actual Wii titles, I’ve played a bit of Trauma Center recently and I’ve got a review for Blazing Angels coming very soon. After that, I’m going to give Spiderman 3 a go and see what that hubbub is all about with the web slinger on the Wii.

Enough about me, tell us about you. Post in the comments with what you find yourself playing recently or are you the type that only brings the Wii out for parties and when you have people over? In the meantime, check out these Wii Bits I’ve rounded up for this fine Tuesday:

- It really blows for those of you in the UK concerning the Manhunt 2 news, especially after NGamer gave the game a 92%. Computer and Video Games has dissected the review and brought some of the memorable quotes over so you can read all about the game you’ll never play. Unless you live somewhere other than the UK that is. Me, I can’t wait to check it out! Check out this quote from the article:

The review then goes on to explain, “Each execution has several stages, activated by a chopping motion, or a prod, or a slam to the floor, or a sawing movement” and “executions are much more physical with the Wii controls, and we found we felt more immersed in the game world in general thanks to them.”

- Next-Gen.biz has the weekly best sellers up according to Amazon.com and it’s no surprise to see Mario party 8 in #1 and Wii play in #2 still, what is cool to see is Resident Evil 4 up in the number 4 spot. Check the link out for the full listing and they also cover other consoles if that’s your thing.

- The website for Pokemon Battle Revolution is alive and kicking and it’s chock full of videos, information, wallpapers, and more to help you get up to speed on what it’s all about. In this Wii version of Pokemon, you will be able to battle friends over the internet using the Wifi capabilities of the Wii. You will also be able to integrate your DS with the Wii system and you can even bring out your Pokemon you raised in the DS versions of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl to fight in the arenas in this version. I’m currently addicted to Pokemon Pearl for the DS so that’s a cool feature in my book. Go check out the site and take in all the razzle dazzle Pokemon has to offer.

- Has Project H.A.M.M.E.R been canceled? IGN takes a look at the situation and tried to make heads or tails of it but all signs point to it’s done for. This title was one of the ones I was looking forward to along with Disaster and a few others shown at E3 2006 and it would be a shame if it was in fact canceled. Here’s a great video showing off scenes from the game as seen from various angles:

Ok, more news to come, stay tuned and be sure to let us know what Wii games you are currently playing in the comments! Any winners or losers? Let us know!

Some crazy goings on happening around here starting with my PC which has been giving me issues recently. What appeared to be memory issues was fixed when I went down to 1 gig from 2 gigs and today I wake up to the computer not wanting to boot at all. And wouldn’t you know, only after I unplugged everything from it, removed it from the bowels of the computer desk here, and tested it out in the open, it worked again! I then went about maneuvering the clumsy case back into it’s hole, hooking up all 37 or so plugs, sockets, USB devices, and monitors and it’s been working ever since. Glorious! Maybe I can make it through the day without having to replace the power supply as I have a feeling that’s the real suspect here and not the RAM after all.

I’ve got quite a bit lined up for the site in the way of reviews as we should have the Tankstick review up today and then there’s a review for Blazing Angels coming right after that. I’m slowly but surely catching up to more games that have been released in the past 2 weeks or so, I promise! There’s just some titles I didn’t want to miss out on but I do want to get my paws wiggling a Wii Remote while playing Big Brain Academy very soon.

Ok here’s some Wii bits for today, keep an eye out for that Tankstick review coming later!

- A couple of outlets have their impressions up for Fishing Master from Hudson. First, we have Wired’s take on the game where they seemed to like it overall and then we have Joystiq’s opinion of the title and they go a bit more in depth with the game and wished for a bit more realism in what amounts to an overall fun game. Fishing Master is slated to be released in the US around September.

- Next-Gen.biz has an article up discussing a video interview with Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer in which he claims the Nintendo Wii popularity is because of it’s price point. While it can be said the limiting factor for most folks when it comes to the PS3 is the high price point, I’m not sure if a low price point alone can be the sole reason for the Wii’s success. I’ve seen TV spots for the Wii that just make it so much more approachable for the casual game player as well as ads in certain shopping stores (ok, Wal-Mart) at the register of all places that just beckon the average viewer over with it’s music and simplicity being shown. I’m not saying the price doesn’t help, but that didn’t really work for the GameCube at the time. People enjoy a fun, easy to use product at a great price point and I think the Wii addresses all of these.

- Looking for more Harvest Moon screens? 1up has a few new ones showing off what’s to come from the title. Here’s a sample:

“Would you like a banana? Perhaps some corn?”

- The fine netizens over at the NeoGAF forums have posted the review scores from the latest NGamer magazine and they’ve given some surprising and perhaps a not so surprising but overall relieving scores. Manhunt 2, for example, is granted a very fine 92% which is a nice surprise and exactly what I was hoping it would score while Resident Evil 4 for the Wii takes a 96% which is outstanding. The game on the GameCube was fantastic so it should go without saying that adding the Wii Remote aiming into the mix could only bring more fun to the table. Check the link for more scores including another surprising review score for Mario Party 8. Ouch.

- And lastly, lets check out this video for DK Bongo Blast (which is now known as DK Jet and there is no word if it will be possible to even play with the bongo’s) taken from Jeux-France.com. It shows a bit of the game in action along with how the controls will work:

In other Nintendo related news around here, I’m strangely addicted to Pokemon Pearl for the DS. I’ve never played a Pokemon game but with a new son that will no doubt be into it and Pokemon Battle Revolution coming for the Wii, I thought I had better get a grip on what the heck Pokemon was about. It’s honestly been a fun ride so far playing it on the DS and I haven’t even played it multiplayer at all. If anyone has it and wants to play together and battle or trade or whatever you do over the Wireless, drop me a line in the comments! We can be trading codes in no time.

More news to come and that Tankstick review so stay tuned!

What a wild weekend we had here at the fort! Starting with a visit from a father in law from California and ending on Sunday with a day full of fun spent with our close friends Robb and Tammy. Those two are huge Nintendo fans as well so after some swimming and BBQ, I got to check out the Nintendo DS browser (which is available in stores now for about $30) and Mario Party 8 for the first time.

I found Mario Party 8 to be a blast and the browser on the DS not only very simple to get working, but also very handy to have when you need to check on some stats or emails. You can’t watch videos on the browser, but it will display pictures and text like there’s no tomorrow. It was also much easier to get browsing than the PSP’s and the touchscreen lends itself very well to the experience and ease of use. Mario Party 8 was exactly what I expected and then some as I went into it with a few negative reviews going through my head. I enjoyed the various boards, new games, twists, and motion control that was added to the game. I may be spending more time with it in the near future and writing up a review with my thoughts on it, but it’s in line behind a few other projects at the moment.

Ok here’s some Nintendo Wii news, I hope you guys had a great weekend!

- Kotaku has word straight from Reggie claiming that 40% of the people working for Nintendo of America will make the move to New York or San Francisco when the time comes. That means 60% will not be going with them and not 90% as reported by outlets earlier. He doesn’t get into the rumors of the top 3 execs not going along with Nintendo for the ride.

- Bloomberg.com has an article up that is focused mainly on the XBOX situation, but also mentions a few stats concerning the Wii. According to the article, Nintendo has sold 56% of it’s systems to buyers over the age of 18 and is expected to sell 16.1 million units in 2007, putting it way ahead of the competition. Check out the article for the the whole story as it’s got many more figures to rummage through covering all 3 of this generations systems.

- Was the Wii remote a copycat of an old Dreamcast prototype controller? GWN certainly thinks so, click on over to read their article, complete with pictures of the DC prototype controller. It even had a lightgun attachment that plugged into the controller.

- And finally, check out this cool video showing off every NES title screen:

I’ve got a review coming up for the X-Arcade Tankstick very soon, but I wanted to check out a couple more games using the setup. Namely Mortal Kombat Armageddon for the Wii and Soul Calibur II from the GameCube days. I don’t want to say too much at this point, but it’s been incredibly fun so far playing various Virtual Console titles with it. It’s a beast that’s for sure but more on that when I get the review done hopefully next week. I want to be sure and cover all of the bases with the product as there is quite a bit that it brings to the table.

About to head out to the airport to pick up a relative for the weekend, in the meantime, here’s some Wii Bits to chew on!

- Kotaku has a nice roundup of Tomb Raider Anniversary reviews culling together what people thought of the PC, PSP, and PS2 versions. Although there is no mention of the Wii version in these reviews, it is expected to be out before the years’ end and will hopefully offer improved graphics over what the PSP and PS2 can provide. So far, it’s looking to be a fun title at a great price ($30) that gets a bit back to the roots of the franchise instead of what it morphed into over the years.

- The guys at the NeoGAF forums have a post up showing off a few scans from this week’s Famitsu magazine. You can see a scan showing off a bass fishing game for the Wii along with a few upcoming DS games including DK Jungle Climber and Chibi Robo DS.

- Being a fan of rail shooters, Ghost Squad is one of the titles coming to the Wii that I’m looking forward to and IGN has an interveiw up with the producer where they discuss the game and what went into creating it. Featuring over 20 weapons, gaining experience and in turn leveling your character, various routes you can take and more, Ghost Squad is sounding better and better everyday.

- Just in case there was any question about censoring the US version of Resident Evil 4 for the Wii, Desrtructoid has the answer and it’s good news. According to Capcom themselves, outside of Japan, the game will not be censored at all and will remain true to the GameCube levels of guts and gore. Fantastic!

- And lastly, check out this Japanese trailer for Victorious Boxers (aka Hajime no Ippo) which appears to be a bit more in depth than Wii Sports Boxing and Punch Out:

Ok, more news to come throughout the day once we get back from picking up the father-in-law, till then, have you beat Zelda II from the VC? I doubt it, get back to playing!

I need to get some screens of Kororinpa, then the review is all set to post. Next up is Blazing Angels which looks to be a fun flying game, I’m just wondering how well the controls will work in the game. I’ll be seeing very soon. After flying around shooting down enemies and bombing targets, I want to get Mortal Kombat: Armageddon in so I can play it with the Tankstick controls I got in. The game works with the GameCube controls which means the Tankstick would be a perfect fit, especially since it’s laid out exactly like an arcade setup complete with arcade joysticks and buttons. I’ve played a few Virtual Console games with the Tankstick setup and it’s been a blast so far, working flawlessly.

- Nintendo has recently filed for an “invitation system” patent which entails the ability to invite folks playing other games into a game with you. This means if your pal is playing Pokemon on the Wii you can send them an invite to play some Smash Bros. instead. It would be cool if this type of system came to the Wii, but isn’t this already on other platforms, namely the XBOX 360? I’m looking for ways in which this idea is different.

- The numbers are in for Japan and in May, the Nintendo Wii beat the PS3 in sales by a margin of 5 to 1. That’s great news for Nintendo doing so well, but I wouldn’t be so quick to bash the Sony PS3 just yet. If the PS3 has any kind of lifetime like the PS2 is still enjoying, Sony can lay back and relax while the PS3 gains some legs. They are still making money hand over fist on PS2 software and hardware sales. It’s still a great situation for Nintendo to be in, selling so well in every market, not only Japan.

- Rumors, rumors, rumors! E3 is coming up and there are already words being spoken about what Nintendo might (or might not) be showing. In this case, there’s rumors that a hard drive will be coming to the system due to the size of the upcoming NeoGeo titles. This idea really isn’t very far fetched at all, an external hard drive that would plug into the USB ports on the back of the system allowing for much more storage for VC games and more. Along similar lines, I also wish they would clean up the Virtual Console GUI a bit and make a VC Channel or something that holds the games instead of having them tossed around the Channels pages. Having over 20 titles strewn about the menus isn’t as handy as having say a list or games I could sort by title or console in a tidy Channel package. Heck, give the option for both, having the tidy channel or allowing me to place the games on the main Channels pages. What were we talking about?? Oh yeah the external hard drive that might be coming! That would rock.

- 1up has their weekly thumbs up/thumbs down Retro Roundup available giving you their opinions on the latest VC games. It’s split down the middle with Toe Jam and Earl and Zelda II taking the thumbs up and Dead Moon and Milon’s Secret Castle getting the thumbs down, but check out the video of Zelda II they have up and what they have to say about the games at the link.

- I want one of these so badly! Check out these oversized plush Wii Remotes for sale at Palochka’s shop on Etsy.com. Big and soft, running $20 + $6 for shipping, you too can cuddle up in bed or on the couch to your very own jumbo Wii Remote. So.. Tempted.. To order one!!

Ok that’s about all I’ve got for the Wii Bits today, I’ll have some more updates coming and that Kororinpa review up shortly so be sure to watch for that.

Starting up the old Wii bits feature for you guys again, I always liked these but wasn’t too sure if folks actually read them as they might have gotten a little long in the tooth. I’ve got a Kororinpa review coming right around the corner soon as my editor gets around to checking it over for misspellings and grammar issues. Then there’s a Blazing Angels review after that and then as a nice surprise, I’ll be thoroughly testing and reviewing the Tankstick from X-Arcade which is essentially a monster of an arcade joystick setup that works fantastically so far on the Wii system. I don’t want to reveal too much as I’ll save it for the review, but so far, it’s kick ass and even my 8 month old son loves it! More on that later.

We’re stepping out to the zoo today, so here’s some Wii bits to keep you occupies for a while:

- There’s lots of rumors going around concerning Metal Gear Solid coming to the Wii which were recently met with the old “We don’t comment on speculation” comment from Konami. The bad news is that means it’s not confirmed, but the good news is this is what companies usually say when they don’t want to let the cat out of the bag just yet and are allowing the community to run wild with speculation. MGS could easily work on the Wii and it would be great to see Konami bringing the title over, making use of the motion sensitive controls. We’ll keep an eye on this rumor and bring any more news we hear of it for sure.

- New music has been added to the Super Smash Bros Brawl DOJO, this time we get to check out Yoshi’s Story: Ending by Kazumi Totaka and Masafumi Takada. Click play below after the song loads to give it a listen:

- There is an article up over at NintendoWorldReport.com going over their impressions of RE4 for the Wii and how well it controls. They cover things like how easy it is to aim with the the remote and how it offers feedback in various ways. Ew, they also used the word “waggle” when referring to the Wii’s controls, I hate that, yuck..

- The folks at WiiRevealed.com have found a cool shortcut in the Wii browser mentioning how you can enter “/.” in the URL field, which will take you to Slashdot.com. Can you guys find any other quick link secrets like this in the browser?

- Took me a minute to get this one, here’s “If Super Paper Mario Was a Popup Book” from 2PStart.com. I was all clicking around and trying to get it to move or something, but the joke is in the fact the game has so much dialog. Hey, it’s Monday and I’m a little slow, ok?

- If you’re looking for a Wii system still and have a Toy’s R Us in your area, word on the street is you’ll be able to find one on June 10th. Checkout the link for the full TRU ad.

- And lastly, here’s a video review of Mario Party 8 in case you’re still wondering if you should pick this one up or not:

Have a great day, I have a couple more updates before we head off to the zoo. In the meantime, let me know if you enjoy these Wii Bits features or just your thoughts on the bits themselves in the comments.