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Mario Strikers Charged Wii online play, other details
It's been a long time coming, but the Wii's first online-enabled sports game, Mario Strikers: Charged, is getting on towards completion. French gaming mega-site JeuxFrance sat down with the developers at Next Level Games to get some details on how online gameplay will work on the Wii. Among the interesting features: Ranked matches will pair players based on win-loss records, but those records will reset at the end of three month "seasons." Unranked matches will make use Mii-specific friend lists, so multiple users on one system can have different friends. The player that earns the most ranking points every day will have their Mii featured on the log-in screen as the "player of the day." Ranking points are earned based on wins and number of goals. Disconnects will be punished with negative ranking points. Online matches can have four players at most (no four-on-four networked play). Ranked matches can be one-on-one or two-on-two, with each team sharing a system. Three-on-one and two-on-one matches are available in unranked games. The full interview also reveals many new characters and features for the sequel, including a new mega-shot that can be worth up to six points. Six points in one play? Sounds like somebody confused American football and European football again.[Via 4 Color Rebellion]
Overcompressed bitstarved HDTV frustrates World Cup fans
It's an unfortunate but familiar circumstance for many high definition television owners, after spending a lot of money on a new HDTV, hooked up the cable/satellite/antenna and settled in to watch the big game, only to get a blurry, blocky mess. While American soccer futbot football soccer fans have commented that they "can finally see the ball" during the World Cup broadcast, Korean watchers are flooding the nations three major broadcasters with complaints that they can't see anything thats moving quickly.The broadcasters have been testing a new multicasting system, MMS to broadcast more channels within the same frequency, lowering the bitrate from 19Mbps to 13Mbps. It looks like viewers noticed the difference, with threats to sue and other complaints posted on the internet. The Korean Broadcasting Commission is going to vote tomorrow on whether to continue the MMS test or not. Korea, we've got our fingers crossed. Whether or not someone will sue ESPN for their poor color commentary during games remains to be seen.
Sneak preview of *football on Sky TV
The other football. Maybe some of our European friends will be giving HD more respect once their favorite sport is being broadcast in high definition. Last weekend it seems Sky showed a few UK journalists a preview of their high definition broadcasts of soccer, and they came away very impressed.This isn't really surprising, if HDTV has a single killer app, it's sports. Football, futbol or otherwise, once you've seen your favorite players in HD there isn't any going back. [Via HDTV UK]
