Everyone’s Nintendo Channel is out in Japan and this video from NintendoWorldReport.com shows you what’s up. Prepare for lots of Japanese text and almost just as many loading screens:

Real all about it over here at NintendoWorldReport.com, there’s alot of cool stuff going on with the new upcoming channel.

IGN got their grubby hands all over Mario Kart Wii and had alot of interesting things to say about the game including their thoughts on the steering wheel controller pack-in:

we played Mario Kart Wii exclusively with the steering wheel peripheral exclusively during our short hands-on time with the game. This peripheral did, admittedly, have a large learning curve due to the fact that you have to learn where the “dead zones” are. Since the Wii Remote isn’t attached to anything but your hands, you’ll need to feel around where the center point is, as well as learn just how far you can rotate left and right before your kart stops turning. The only “force feedback” comes from the Wii Remote’s rumble, and admittedly the vibration isn’t muffled at all when in the steering wheel controller

I’m starting to think that given the choice I would probably use the Wavebird controller once again. They then discuss a few gameplay elements including the new way of boosting during a powerslide:

Mario Kart Wii changes things around a bit by not requiring players to rapidly steer in the opposite direction of a powerslide to generate the boost power. Instead, the boost power builds automatically during a successful powerslide, and the longer you hold it the more boost you’ll get out of it. As soon as you let go of the powerslide trigger (the button on the back of the steering wheel controller) your kart will jolt forward with a surge of energy. No more waggling the stick/control pad back and forth to generate boosts this time around.

Sounds cool. The part where they discuss the power-up’s is great also as they talk about a couple of new ones, even one that they didn’t get to see but was talked about.

We even saw the power-up that turns your player/kart into Bullet Bill from the Nintendo DS game that puts your kart on a high-energy auto-pilot. A new power-up popped up during our playtest: a POW block that will hover over your players’s head, and you’ll need to jump three times in a specific rhythm to get rid of it…or you’ll spin out.

Check the link for the whole writeup, it’s 4 pages long and full of great Mario Kart Wii information.

In case you haven’t seen enough teaser videos for Wii Fit, here’s a good preview from GameTrailers.com showing off the game and it’s balance board.

GamesRadar not only had a chance to check out NiGHTS, but they’ve finished the game already and have their impressions posted. There’s a few surprises and a few spoilers even towards the end and I’ve grabbed a few quotes below that sum up their views on various aspects of the game:

..it’s in the sky that NiGHTS has always excelled and, fortunately, this is where the majority of the gameplay is to be found. The mechanics have been stripped down considerably since the bewildering original, so now you don’t have to search out 20 blue chips then get to the end. Instead, in the game’s primary levels, you must simply chase a bird through the course until you grab it and retrieve the key to NiGHTS’ prison three times. Passing through hoops replenishes your dash attack bar, so you’ll get there faster by flying accurately.

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A new feature we saw was a section called ‘My Dream’ which is an area you can customise, hidden away behind a door in the main hub level. The landscape in My Dream begins as a flat square, but the Nightopians (A-Life creatures like the Chao in Sonic Adventure) you evolve in the game will make the environment change as they grow. Nintendo WiFi Connection will make the weather here echo the real weather at the time of play. You can also invite other players to your space, allowing for some social gaming possibilities.

The Wi-Fi link will also allow for multiplayer races. These can take place on one console via split screen, between friends on WFC or in a random match against a player you don’t know. Sounds good.

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All in all, very promising. But we do have one nagging concern. Apart from NiGHTS’ voice, it’s the control that really worries us at this stage. Basic flight is not as responsive as before and you’ll often find yourself overshooting a right-angled hoop just because of the delay. It also feels a tad ‘digital’ with the analog stick on the nunchuk, although we didn’t have a Gamecube controller with us to test it as the team’s been playing it. There’s still time to sort it out and you can work around it, but we did feel half the battle was against the controls in the preview build.

Sounds great, I can’t wait to check it out! Another must buy for the Wii in my book.

Joystiq has posted their impressions of Super Smash Bros Brawl up and overall the person writing the article enjoyed it although he has never played a Smash Bros. game before. He did find it to be “frenetic” and packed with crazy power-ups and stuff going on all the time, but in the end he does seem excited for the final product to arrive.

Here’s a portion of the write-up, visit the link to get the full low down:

Super Smash Bros. Brawl felt frenetic. To me, it seemed like too much was happening on-screen to play with precision. But apparently people wring ever moment of control out of this fast-paced game. Just not the first time they play.

In my games, Brawl always had a lot going on. A power-up poured out 2D sprites lifted directly from Advance Wars. Another caused a Nintendog to briefly paw playfully at the screen, for no reason other than to annoy us. I just laughed at the puppy as I was knocked off the platform to my loss.

I like my fighting games with more of an immediate sense of cause-and-effect and without this power-up focus. But I could see the appeal of Brawl. It had so much happening that I was always entertained. And the sense of humor and strangeness — Mario versus Sonic in a fighting game — also hooked me.

Nintencast.com has a preview up for Battalion Wars 2 for the Wii and it’s shaping up to be a must own in my book. I’ve enjoyed the Advance Wars games and military games like this in general and with the inclusion of online co-op with friends, it’s a no brainer. I could only wish Nintendo got the voice chat in gear to make it a bit easier to communicate with friends while playing, but that’s not even close to being confirmed, more of a pipe dream.

Here’s a portion from their writeup, be sure to click on over and read it all.

Imagine a game that combines Advance Wars, superb level design, glorious 3D graphics and addictive gameplay; the outcome? Battalion Wars of course. Released back late in 2005, it was one of the last games to appear on the Gamecube, and it delivered what was one of the best real time strategies for any home console. Players controlled their own character as well as an entire battalion consisting of soldiers, tanks and aircraft. Sounds confusing, well it wasn’t. Kuju created a great control scheme implanting the C-stick to select the different parts of your battalion and by pressing either Y or X would send them to attack the enemy or defend different areas. Each level was incredibly well designed and it could take ages to master. Fast forward to 2007 and Kuju are in the final stages of the long awaited sequel Battalion Wars 2 (Also known as BWii - see what they did there). So what have Kuju done to improve on the already great Gamecube game?

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Last but not least is the inclusion of the Co-Op mode. This can be done with either 2 players playing through on one Nintendo Wii console or it can be done wirelessly through the Nintendo Wifi Connection. This is a fantastic addition to the game since it will be the first time players can control battalions with a friend on all 15 co-op missions. Hopefully Nintendo will include full voice chat for the game, since it would seem impossible to do co-op online without any communication as you couldn’t discuss tactics or battle plans; perhaps this is why the game is taking so long.

The fine folks over at Silicon Era have their impressions of Dewy’s Adventure posted and while they enjoy the game overall, it’s not without its issues. They go over the graphics, sound, gameplay, and how the game controls in the writeup and in the end they can’t seem to stop playing it due to it’s charm and “just one more level” appeal.

Here’s a couple of their impressions, I’ll probably have this one in my GameFly list very soon.

The main draw of Dewy’s Adventure is the unique control scheme. You don’t directly control Dewy himself. Instead you control the level you’re on. By tilting the Wii Remote (held sideways, like in Excite Truck or Sonic & the Secret Rings), you can cause the entire level to respond in kind, tilting in the direction you move the Remote, causing Dewy to slide around the level. You can also make Dewy jump into the air by pressing the 2 button. By pressing up on the D-pad, you can raise the temperature of the level, causing Dewy to turn into steam. While in steam form you can hold the 1 button to make Dewy rise into the air and create an expanding storm cloud, and release it to cause lightning to strike all enemies within the cloud. This works much like Midna’s lock-on attack in Twilight Princess.

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But Dewy’s Adventure isn’t perfect, it has it’s flaws. The controls can also be frustrating at times. The majority of damage you take throughout the game will more than likely be from falling off the edge of stages. Oftentimes you’ll tilt just a little too far, and Dewy will just barely slide over the edge. It almost feels as if Dewy is sliding around on ice all the time (and this only gets worse in the actual ice levels). The game’s difficulty seems to be all over the place. While the normal stages are easy, as are the enemies, the bosses of each world can get quite difficult. This makes it a bit hard to tell just what audience Konami had in mind for the game.

Nintendo World Report has posted their impressions of Soul Calibur Legends and it’s quite a mixed bag of opinions when it comes to how the game looked and played. Here’s a few quotes from the writeup, be sure to visit the link for the whole thing.

At heart, the game plays like a scrolling beat ‘em up set in the Soul Calibur world. Most of the time you’ll be running and slashing your sword, with moves looking very similar to the ones you saw in the fighting game. Controls are very much what you’d expect. Players move the Wii Remote left to right to get the horizontal slash or up and down to get the uppercut/vertical slash. Hitting the B button causes you to jump, which opens up another set of combos and attacks. Dashing/dodging can be achieved with a quick flick of the Nunchuk in the appropriate direction. The controls feel very much like Twilight Princess “plus”; nothing groundbreaking, but they are competent and respond well. The best thing for Soul Calibur 2 fans is that, despite it being a completely different kind of game, it actually feels nicely familiar.

For the single player option of the demo, only Seigfried and Mitsurugi were playable, and a quick press of the C button let you change between them instantly. Their moves were exactly how I remembered them from SC2, with animations looking almost identical. Whether this is being faithful to the series or just laziness on behalf of the developers remains to be seen.

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The one level I played in the demo was visually uninspiring, with very simple backgrounds and textures. They even had slightly less detail and crispness than the GameCube fighter. Granted, the levels are bigger and probably require more horsepower, but they definitely felt a step backwards. However, this is early code, and there is plenty of time to spruce up the graphics. I really hope they do.

The folks at Eurogamer.net and Game Life have had a chance to check out NiGHTS for the Wii while they were at the Tokyo Game Show and they both have their hands on articles up. Here’s some portions from each article where they discuss graphics, gameplay, the state of the game, and what NiGHTS is all about. Click over to the links for their full write-ups.

From Eurogamer.net:

The basic concept is somewhere between racing and action, and despite the (not particularly fancy, but certainly artistically satisfying) visuals, you move across the world along set routes, shot from the side to give the game a 2D feel. As you move left to right (often diagonally) with the analogue stick, you must collect orbs, fly through hoops (often having to loop the loop) and track down a flying bird off in the distance ahead of you. The idea is to tackle the bird, toss it out of the way and retrieve a key, which allows you to continue onto the second “lap” of the course when you complete the cycle.

As you work through each lap-based bird-chase, the route changes, sending you underwater, in-between tight rocky clusters, bouncing off clouds and even down a sort of rollercoaster. The perspective sometimes shifts to behind, giving you the job of manoeuvring across the screen to reach hoops and orbs as though you’re flying down a tube. Other level objects include weird orange hanging-light things that either speed you up or change your path - I couldn’t quite figure it out - and a range of obstacles, which you want to avoid contact with because they add seconds to your time, which in turn reduces the likelihood of your successfully completing a lap. On the plus side, you can press the A button to produce a burst of speed, which is useful for closing the final few metres to the gallivanting Nightmaren.

From Game Life:

In the level I played, I had to use the A button to make Nights dash quickly through the air and catch up to birds who were carrying keys, then fly back around the “track” to cages in the air that I could unlock by flying into them. The control felt smooth, and looping through the air is as fun as ever, although pressing Up and Down to rise and fall takes a bit of getting used to since the camera isn’t directly to the side of Nights.

After you unlock each cage, the path on which you fly changes. In the third and final bit, you enter a cave and the viewpoint shifts to directly behind Nights. This makes the control a little more natural, as up, down, left, and right now correspond exactly to Nights’ position on the screen.

The stage ends with a boss battle. A giant horrible fish monster starts chasing Nights around a tight circular path. You have to make Nights do a loop in the air, which causes a burst of energy that damages the monster. At this point he turns into a giant pile of colorful bubbles, which you can loop around to destroy.

Sounds great and even though I didn’t spend too much time with the original NiGHTS, I’ll definitely be picking this one up.

GameSpy has a preview up of Manhunt 2 since its reworking to get an acceptable rating that will actually make it into major retailers and overall, it sounds like the underlying integrity of the game has remained intact. It’s still very gory and visceral, it’s just not as direct in showing you what is going on, somewhat leaving it up to your imagination to fill in the blanks of what is actually going on. Scary movies sometimes use this technique (being obtuse in what is going on, leaving it up to your brain to imagine the horror) and it can still be a frightening experience on a psychological level.

Here’s a couple of quotes from the preview that talk about changes in the game:

Although the new level helped highlight a few things, such as the resounding brutality of environmental executions (read as: knocking a man down, kicking him by way of groin into position, picking up a sewer access lid, smashing his head apart with it, dropping the corpse into the sewer, and then putting the manhole back in place), the variety of opponents (including a few police officers we saw beating another of our attackers to death), and the way the game’s levels all hinge around actual storytelling, with each level leading to the next organically, the star of our demo was the new “look” for executions.

Now, executions apply a high-contrast filter to the screen, as well as a color filter, taking the whole scene to a surreal level. It’s still chillingly brutal — this is a Halloween release in date and spirit — but the appearance gives the whole thing a distance from the “reality” of the game. It may not be quite what we saw a few months ago, but it’s still looking to be a solid piece of horror for fans of the genre and the series.

I’m still just as excited for the game and actually I’m just happy it’s even coming out. I’m not bent out of shape about the changes they had to make that if done properly, can still lead to a rather disturbing game.

We had a get together last night with some family and friends and had a blast playing Bomberman from the Virtual Console on the Wii for a few hours. We’ve got a PS3 also but it hardly gets any play, especially when we have friends over for party games. We normally bust out Wii Sports, Wii Play, Wario Ware, and other fun party games, and it seems like Mario and Sonic at the Olympics will make a great addition to our collection.

Eurogamer.net got to check out the game in action and come away with an overall good first impression of the title. They cover a few things concerning controls and how they work, the graphics, the events, and more in the write-up. Check out the clip below which goes over what will make this a game that all kinds of people will enjoy no mater their skill level or video game prowess:

None of the events seem too complex, though, or as difficult as playing Track & Field with a dance mat. Mario & Sonic is undoubtedly designed to appeal to players of all ages and abilities, just like Wii Sports. And just like Wii Sports last year, this game will surely be making a popular appearance in living rooms across the country come Christmas day.

The simplistic nature of Mario & Sonic could come as a disappointment to hardcore fans. It’s about casual gameplay and the appeal of the characters rather than their individual abilities. Those who have waited decades for our heroes to debut in the same game might have preferred a platformer, something which revolved around combining Sonic’s speed with Mario’s jumping skills.

With every video that I see showing off Metroid Prime 3, I get more excited! I can’t believe the game is almost here. I’m blasting through my 3rd walkthrough of RE4 and it will be fantastic to jump right into the FPS space boots of Samus when the game gets here. Watch this Metroid Prime 3 preview video from GameTrailers.com and check out how clean the game looks graphically and let that imagination run wild as you watch a few different scenarios unfold. The preview also gives you some idea as to how the controls will work in the game, which so far have been highly praised by those that have played it.

Here’s a great video thanks to GameTrailers.com showing off Capcom’s first major entry for the Wii (besides the remake of RE4 Wii) called Zack and Wiki. The title is a mix of an adventure along the lines of Zelda and a point and click adventure like say King’s Quest, Police Quest, and the like. Throughout your travels, you use the Wii Remote extensively to progress through the game by solving puzzles and performing various actions. Check out the preview below for one of the best games coming to the Wii from a third party: