Gameloft has recently announced its game lineup for this year’s holiday season. They will be releasing 2 DS games and one for the Wii.

Gameloft’s soccer game is back for another year with Real Soccer 2009. The game has a real soccer feel to it with 198 professional teams, dynamic AI, and explosive graphics. The touch screen controls are simple yet powerful enough to let the player get in the action.

Gameloft joins the music bandwagon on the DS with its Guitar Rock Tour. Just from the title alone, it hopes to capitalize with Guitar Hero and Rock Band’s popularity. Players get to use guitars or drums to jam to famous the music. The tracklist include Girlfriend; Beat It; Rock You like a Hurricane; Message in a Bottle; Underclass Hero; and In the Shadow.

Lastly, Gameloft will be releasing TV Show King Party for the Wii. The whole family would truly enjoy this trivia game’s game show atmosphere. Questions would range from Music, Movies, History, Science and Sports.

Guitar Rock Tour, Real Soccer 2009 and TV Show King Party will be available starting in November.

Nikkei has reported that Nintendo is set to release a new DS version before this year ends. Among the improvements would be a better wireless functionality, larger display screen, built-in camera and music player.

The built-in camera is said to be used by some games in the future, wherein the picture will be incorporated in the gameplay. It is said that the new DS will be available initially available only in Japan to test whether gamers would welcome it.

Being a music lover, I like this new music player feature, although I need to buy a bigger SD card to store my mp3s.

There’s no official word from Nintendo yet regarding this development. I guess we all have to wait for their autumn conference where they are said to announce some product news.

Still no news on a Wii update yet. I wish Nintendo would give in with the request of a larger memory capacity for the Wii.

I’ll keep you posted once more news is available on this one. Would you be willing to buy an updated DS or will you stick with your old one? What are your thoughts about the latest features?

Wario, bands, crime, city and a company in this week’s Nintendo News round up.

Ultimate Band Hands-on
IGN staff get to play with Ultimate Band, Disney’s take on Guitar Hero, minus the instruments. Would gamers prefer playing with the Wii remote than a Rock Band or Guitar Hero guitar? Disney hopes the answer to that question is yes.

GTA courting M on DS, didn’t fit with Wii
Chinatown Wars for the DS won’t be diluted and might be getting an M rating. This should erase the fears of hardcore gamers that the game might be diluted to suit the wholesome image of the console. Read my previous post regarding GTA for the Wii.

EA ships SimCity Creator for the Wii and Nintendo DS
This is good news for SimCity fans. More sleepless nights once this game ships out.

SCi Entertainment Group plc - SWOT Analysis - Companies and Markets adds new report
This is SCI’s company profile. The company has a lot of studios under its wing including Eidos, Crystal Dynamic and Io Interactive.

Nintendo Shakes Up Six Flags Magic Mountain
To commemorate Wario Land: Shake It’s release, Nintendo will hold an interactive competition at Six Flags Magic Mountain on September 27. Winners will bring home a Wii, a copy of the game, and a DS console. Be at the venue during the said date to join in the fun.

Casual Pirate games, Runaway, more “games”, third parties and takeovers in this week’s Nintendo News round up.

Pirate Party to Party Hard on Wii and DS
Pirate fun for everyone is what Pirate Party promises to bring. It has various mini-games with single, cooperative and versus modes. When will I get out of casual gaming hell?

Microsoft Considered Buying Nintendo, Says EA Exec
EA President Peter Moore used to be with Microsoft and stated that Gates’ corporation considered getting Nintendo to stop Sony’s PlayStation supremacy five years ago. Maybe they should have bought Nintendo and then maybe we won’t have too much casual game at present.

Runaway heading to Wii, DS
Runaway: The Dream of the Turtle is the newest game of the series. It will be available this November for the Wii and DS.

Nintendo Canada And Ubi Soft Montreal Showcase 17 Lifestyle And Fitness Games
Language tutorials, cooking guides, life coach, and other fitness games… Yeah these are the “games” Ubisoft will be releasing soon. When will this torture end?

Third Party developers struggling on Nintendo’s Wii?
This has been the issue since the beginning. Nintendo still hasn’t budge on the issue of more storage capability. Nintendo should not put their success in their heads. Microsoft and Sony might find a way to snatch their crown soon.

A first-person light saber game for the Wii had all the potential to start with. When the news of it got leaked out, every Star Wars fan, including me, had their hopes high for the actual game. Well just like the animated movie Clone Wars, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was a big disappointment.

The possibility of emulating the light saber through the Wii remote and nunchuk made me want to have The Force Unleashed. Unlike conventional controllers, you get to swing the Wii remote like a light saber. It doesn’t matter where you swing it, as long as you swing it. At first it was fun but after an hour or so, the repetitive action gets to you. Read more »

Konami has three casual games that your kids will surely enjoy. Two of these games will be out in the market soon, while the third one will be available on in a not so distant future.

First up is Lost in Blue: Shipwrecked! This Wii game is part of the Survival Kids series which first came out three years ago in the DS. Kids will use the Wii remote and the nunchuk to performs skills such as fishing, carpentry and fire building in order to survive.

Then there’s Time Hollow. This DS game lets the player be Ethan Kairos and try to solve the mystery regarding his missing family. Ethan uses a Hollow Pen that permits him to roam through the past and present at the same time. I think not only kids but adults would enjoy the problem solving aspect of this game. This will be available on the 23rd of September.

Lastly, Konami is set to release Elebits: The Adventures of Kai and Zero. This DS game features the Elebits in the quest of solving puzzles in order to go to the next level. This would give your kids occupied for hours. They could play heads up matches with their friends va the DS Wi-Fi connection. Konami earlier has said the this would be released on the 19th of November but postponed the release date to something early next year.

Konami Is bringing more casual games on the table. I know this genre sells but if game developers keeps going on this pace, Nintendo will lose hardcore or non-casual gamers to other consoles. A little less casual games in the future please.

An Indie developer, Nintendo’s upcoming casual game, new regions to conquer, a rant and more in this week’s Nintendo News round up.

Independent Game Developer 7 Studios Ranks among Fastest-Growing Businesses in America for Second Consecutive Year
7 Studios is an independent video game developer that has produced hits for the Wii and DS such as Six Flags Fun Park, George of the Jungle, and Napoleon Dynamite. Go figure.

Pikmin 3 confirmed as Wii title
It is now confirmed that Pikmin 3 will be for the Wii and not the DS. They’re are also developing a new Zelda game for the Wii.

Nintendo set to push Wii/DS hard in New Zealand
Despite dominating other markets, Nintendo is having a hard time with New Zealand. A look at the New Zealand gaming chart and you’ll see a single Nintendo game in the top ten.

Nintendo Wii in India
Finally, official versions of the Wii and DS will be available in India. It’s about time. This is bad news for those engaged in the grey market though.

Nintendo, why? A lament on the Wii
Author asks Nintendo why there seems to be no more innovative games coming out for the Wii. Although the Wii successfully became the number one console to date, it seems that Nintendo is targeting the extreme casual gamer and forgotten about the rest. I concur!

Harry Potter fans are rabid these days. First there was the announcement by WB of moving the sixth movie’s showing to summer of 2009. Now EA also earns the ire of the fans when they announced the postponement of the Half Blood Prince game.

The Half Blood Prince game, which is originally scheduled for a November release, will be available for the Wii, DS, PS3, PS2, PSP, Xbox360, PC, Mac and other mobile devices. Its release will coincide with the movie’s release.

Robert Nashak, EA Casual Studios vice president has this to say about the game:

“We are creating an immersive game experience that Potter fans around the world will really enjoy playing as they fly and duel their way through the story of the film. The game will feature new Wii gestures and increased gameplay capabilities across all of the platforms.”

Read more »

Nintendo announces that it will be launching a new Nintendo Wi-Fi Network Adapter that is due to come out in the Japan market on September 18. The adapter can serve as a router or a bridge for your existing router. There’s also an auto setting in which it can detect and automatically switch to any network.

Although it is labeled as Nintendo and made for the Wii and the DS, the Nintendo Wi-Fi Network Adapter could also be used by other devices as well. Just like any ordinary wireless adapter/router, it is compatible with your PC as well as your non-Nintendo consoles such as the PS3, Xbox and the PSP.

It’s so nice that Nintendo though about the connectivity of their users but this is not what we, the Wii users, want. What I want is more storage capacity for the Wii. I won’t stop asking for this until Nintendo gives in to this demand.

The Nintendo Wi-Fi Network Adapter will be available in Japan next week for 5,800 yen. There are no plans yet to release it to the other regions.

Photo from: Famitsu.

In the time when record companies want more royalties from music games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, Metallica has announced that their latest album will be available for Guitar Hero World Tour as downloadable content. Hopefully more bands would follow in Metallica’s footsteps and offer their album as DLC as well.

Activision’s partnership with Metallica would be the first time that a music album release is simultaneous with it’s availability as DLC for any video game. The band has always been technologically savvy. In 2000 Metallica was one of the first bands who sued Napster and eventually had a hand in shutting it down. I never forgave Metallica for that one. Read more »