A kiddie show, football, and a couple of overlords in this week’s Nintendo News Wrap Up.

Introducing The Magic Roundabout

The world of Magic Roundabout will be brought to the DS and Wii for those in the PAL territories. Seriously, anyone knows what the Magic Roundabout is about?

Madden NFL 09 Sold At 7-Eleven Stores at Midnight, August 12th

EA partners with 7-Eleven to promote Madden 09. The store will offer collectible Slurpee and Big Gulp cups, Madden Meals featuring Frito Lay potato chips, and a free online Madden Fantasy Roster Builder based on Madden NFL 09 player ratings. 7-Eleven stores across the nation will have Madden NFL 09 branded signage.

Miyamoto ‘Banned’ From Talking About Hobbies

Nintendo’s lead game designer is banned from talking about his hobbies because he might unconsciously talk about ideas for upcoming Nintendo games. I guess this censorship is necessary.

Overlord 2 Announced; Overlord Also Heading To Wii & Nintendo DS

The Overlord franchise is coming to the Wii and DS consoles. Both games will be developed by Climax Studios.

Q&A: an interview with Sega’s Simon Jeffery on monkeying around with iPhone games and the Wii

Sega’s president talks about the company, his thought on the iPhone and Facebook, and their relationship with Nintendo. He also talked about future games based on Marvel comics like Thor and Captain America. Nice!

Nintendo announced that it is set to release to the US market a Limited Edition Pokémon Pack on August 17. The retail pack contains:

•  a Limited Edition Onyx Nintendo DS Lite with silkscreen of Dialgo & Palkia from Pokémon Diamond & Pearl;
• Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness special animated episode DVD;
•  Pokémon Dialgo & Palkia Carrying Case; and
• Collectible mini-poster featuring Grovyle from Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness.

Amazon is already accepting pre-orders for the Limited Pokémon Pack with a retail price of $129.99. Fans of the series would surely be racing to grab one. Yeah, they want to catch ‘em all!

BioWare is set to port to the Nintendo DS their games such as Mass Effect, Jade Empire, and Dragon Age. The developers have big plans for the Mass Effect franchise. Not only are they considering a DS version of the game but they are working on the sequel as well.

My only concern with Mass Effect for the DS is to how its game play would translate into the portable console. I think that a direct port of the Xbox and PC version is impossible. Maybe a couple tweaks of its combat system would be made.

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The All Play tag is right on target. EA did a good job on making Madden 09 fun for everyone. Now every gamer can enjoy a game of football on the Wii. Madden 09 has a simpler control and user friendly interface that casual gamers would like. Hardcore gamers would be thrilled to know that Madden 09 is fully customizable just like the previous versions.

All Play is an improved version of last year’s Family Play. There’s still the only Wii Remote All Play mode that feels like an interactive manager mode. All you have to worry about is passing and kicking. The rest of the game is computer controlled.

If you want more control of the game, plug in the Nunchuk to control your players. This might sound complicated but surprisingly it’s not. Open receivers and running backs are automatically selected once you’ve chosen the target area of your pass.

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The Nintendo Wii has successfully conquered the gaming console market. Its sales number is still on the rise after two years of release. Gamers are already speculating on what Nintendo have in its drawing board. Will there be a Wii 2 in the near future?

Talks about Wii 2 began when Nintendo President Satoru Iwata revealed that his company is working on the next generation hardware. There was no mention of specs or features that they’re working on. Would it be a graphics upgrade or do they some innovative ideas in the works that would change how we play our games?
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An explorer, Fit still fit, a CEO, a President and detectives in this week’s Nintendo News wrap up.

2K Play and Nickelodeon Announce Dora the Explorer Debut for Wii™

Everyone’s favorite explorer will be making her Wii debut this fall. Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Snow Princess and Go, Diego Go!: Great Dinosaur Rescue will be launch simultaneously for the Wii while the DS will have The Wonder Pets!: Save the Animals!

Wii Fit Defeats SoulCalibur in UK Charts

For the third consecutive week, Wii Fit is number one in the UK gaming charts. Number two is Mario Kart Wii. New entry to the UK chart is SoulCalibur IV which is currently at number 3.

Exclusive: Q and A with THQ’s Brian Farrell

THQ CEO talks about his company’s lackluster performance, new games underdevelopment and the Warhammer MMO.

Wall Street Journal Interviews Iwata

The Nintendo President talks about new peripherals and other future titles for the Wii. He also tackled the Nintendo DS.

Nintendo Wii looking Hardy for 2009

The Hardy Boys are coming to the Wii. The Hardy Boys: The Hidden Theft is the first Hardy Boys game for the Wii. JoWood also hinted that they will be branching out to the DS as well.

Straight out of Super Mario World, Flickr user standard issue has uploaded these photos of a Piranha Plant.

According to Wikipedia’s List of Mario Series Enemies:

A Piranha Plant, known as Packun Flower (???? ????, Pakkun Furaw?) in Japan, is a Venus fly trap-like enemy, almost always portrayed as a leafy, green stalk topped with a white-spotted red globe, almost bisected by a white lip mouth with razor-sharp teeth. Piranha Plants typically hide within pipes, periodically emerging and ensnaring unwary passersby. Others live entirely outside pipes, being either rooted in the ground or even walking about on rootlike legs.

No explanation was given by the uploader as to where or how he got hold of a Piranha Plant. Maybe he got it from Koopa Shop of Horror.

3 more photos after the jump.

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Since the Nintendo Entertainment System or NES came out, I am a Nintendo gamer. The NES revolutionized the gaming industry. It allowed third party developers to come out with games even though Nintendo did have strict restrictions.

Great games such as Contra, Super Mario Bros, Zelda and Metal Gear just to name a few, were released for this gaming console and it kept me entertained during my childhood years. Then Nintendo came out with their SNES console that had better graphics and audio.

Then GameBoy was released and it started my addiction to Tetris and Doctor Mario. The GameBoy is the first of many things when it comes to portable gaming consoles. It was the first handheld console that had high quality games in cartridges. Although it is in black and green, the games were entertaining. It is also the first portable console that allows multiplayer battles with its multilink port.

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Sometimes I want to play multiplayer games with my DS but I can’t find friends to play with. Good thing I found OneClickWiFi. It is an online community where you can find match ups on Wi-Fi supported multiplayer DS and Wii games.

Once you get to the site, you can register for free. Once registered, the site can match you up with other online gamers for your chosen game. You can also open a room so that you can discuss the game with other gamers. This site connects Nintendo gamers from all over the world.

I like this service. The community is still young and when I visited the site, there were 15 users online and you might have a hard time finding someone to play with you right now. Hopefully the community grows soon.

Visit OneClickWiFi today.

In game that is. This is because Rockstar Games will be releasing Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. This GTA version will be exclusively for the Nintendo DS. The Chinatown is still part of Liberty City.

Chinatown Wars will be using the DS touch screen to navigate in the game. Players will have to uncover the truth regarding the crimes and corruption within the Chinatown district. It is suspected that the Triad Syndicate has something to do with it.

I can’t wait to get my hands on this one. Imagine GTA on a portable console. Gamers will surely be caught playing the game nonstop.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars will be coming this December. For more details regarding the game, visit Rockstar Games site.