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Revolutionary: Playing. Creating? Sharing!
Every (other) Tuesday, Mike Sylvester brings you REVOLUTIONARY, a look at the wide world of Wii possibilities. Custom level creation in console games has come a long way. It used to be, if you wanted to share a track that you built in Excitebike, you had to invite friends over to play your creation on your cartridge, until you powered off your NES and the track was lost forever. Nowadays our levels can be saved to internal storage, and shared by removable media, or across the internet to survive for posterity. It's a feature that's fully supported by all consoles this generation, and big games are highlighting it amongst their bullet points. System sellers like Halo 3, LittleBigPlanet, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl are trojan-horsing the concept of custom level creation into the consciousness of the console-consuming collective. Former Sony exec Phil Harrison popularized the term "Game 3.0," but we'll be taking a look at how it is playing out on Nintendo's platform.
Wiimote used to control Nokia N95
Just in case you've somehow managed to control everything else in your world with Wiimotes, why not your lovely N95? Thanks to a team at the University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg, Austria, users with an S60 handset can now control games with Nintendo's fun-lovin' controller. WiiConnect, which is a Bluetooth driver for S60 phones, "enables you to play party games directly on / through your mobile phone," all while taking advantage of the accelerometer and rumble functionality. As an added bonus, the team also crafted WiiRider, a motorcycle simulation that utilizes the Wiimote's features. We know, you're already eager to know how much this time waster is gonna cost ya, but we've got excellent news: it's being provided as freeware in the read link below.[Via MobileCloseup]
Nintendo Media Summit: Pokemon Battle Revolution impressions (Wii)
The Wii has done many things right (like selling), but one of the common complaints has been the complete lack of online multiplayer gaming. That's all changing though, with the very first online multiplayer Wii title in North America, Pokemon Battle Revolution, arriving on the 25th. The latest in a long-line of incredibly successful Pokemon titles, this is the first Wii Pokemon version and looks like it may be the biggest one yet.The game takes place on an island called Poketopia and has ten different Colosseums to battle in, with the ultimate goal to become the Poketopia Master (of course). The gameplay is classic Pokemon but appears to be taking it to a larger scale than ever through the use of heavy DS integration. Though the game can be played with the Wiimote, the Nintendo folks strongly suggested the DS as the preferred method of control (of course they did). It was fascinating watching people connect their DS to the Wii via WiFi and, upload their captured Pokemon from Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl, and have them battle it out on the big screen. It was the GameCube / Game Boy Advance connectivity promise, given new life through wireless tethering and a killer app.%Gallery-3415%
Spring 2007 to bring Wii price drops and color choices?
Well it seems the bevy of Nintendo news just isn't slowing down, as the past 24 hours have seen DS / DS Lite power adapters recalled, Wiimote straps deemed unworthy, the truth (right?) behind how much loot Nintendo's pulling in on each Wii sold, and now we've got a potential price drop on our hands. Not even waiting for the backlog of lines that form each morning as Wii hopefuls stand vigilantly and await their prize to calm down, the big N just might have next year all mapped out already. While we've heard whispers of Microsoft knocking a few bucks off the Xbox 360's price, we aren't exactly sold on Nintendo cutting into those (questionably) sweet profits so soon after launch. Nevertheless, a very talkative Toys 'R Us manager apparently let a "few details" about the Spring 2007 plans "slip," insinuating that Nintendo would be "relaunching" (saywha?) the Wii for $200 and in a variety of colors to boot. Notably, this is about the time the firm will start pushing its WiiConnect24 service, but if sales keep up, the company shouldn't have to lower prices to entice folks to hop on in. While we can't entirely dismiss the (admittedly exciting) claims, we've really nothing substantial to go on here, and until we get confirmation from someone other than a retail store overlord, we're taking this one with a dash of salt.[Via Digg]
