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Joystiq hands-on: Mario Party 8 (Wii)
Like the early days of the DS, the Wii still hasn't really found its own identity just yet. Still lacking a Brain Training or a Nintendogs, minigames are de rigeur on the system at the moment. Certainly the Wiimote is well suited for minigames, and it's been hoped that it will breathe some new life into a rather tired Nintendo franchise. Yup, Mario Party 8. Joystiq got to play an incomplete version of the "ocho" at the Osaka leg of Japan's World Hobby Fair. Six different minigames were on display: Lasso the barrels: Swing the lasso (Wiimote) in a circle, once you've got some momentum going, throw the lasso forward, grabbing a barrels for points (don't throw Wiimote). Some barrels are worth more points than others. Ball tilt: Balls fall from ceiling. Direct bouncing balls to their correct container by rotating the wiimote. Green on the left, and purple on the right. Drink shaking: Simply shake the Wiimote up and down; fastest shaker wins. Target shooting: Just as in Wii Play, shoot targets with your Wiimote. The high score zone constantly changes so you have to think fast. Jet ski jumps: Move your jet skier to the ramps to pick up coins. The challenge comes from the difficult controls. Crank turning: Turn a crank as fast you can. Exactly the same as the similar WarioWare minigame. Overall, the minigames were solid and fun, if not a tad on the simple side. If the board game side of things (not shown in this early version) is a winner, this could be a fun party game, if not an inventive one. They don't have their Brain Training yet.
Third-party publishers are wary of the Wii
So, like we predicted, many third-party publishers are rather anxious about jumping into the Wii scene. Many feel as though Nintendo's own games compete directly with their own. To an extent, they're correct: trying to compete against games like Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros Brawl is almost impossible, no matter how good a game is. But looking at the relative dearth of titles recently, it seems as though there's quite a bit of time to release a decent title.On the flip side, this is a conducive environment for smaller studios, such as Crossbeam Studios and NIBRIS. But can these games match the quality of the big boys? Only a magic 8-ball time will tell.
Release dates hit for Super Paper Mario, Mario Party 8
That's right. Super Paper Mario, a positively charming title once scheduled for the Gamecube, has been confirmed by the latest issue of Nintendo Power for an April release. The game, which will use the controller retro-style (read: on its side) to emulate that classic Mario feel, will use the A button to flip-flop between the 2-D and 3-D perspectives. Truly, we haven't seen a game of this particular dimensional scope since Yoshi's Story! For a bit more information on the title, check here.Also, Mario Party 8, the first Wii entry in the seminal series, will be dropping on March 5th, according to Nintendo's official site. Along with Sonic and the Secret Rings, March and April are actually turning out to be some decent months for the little white box. With Wario Ware: Smooth Moves this past month and Wii Play on February 12th, we're set for awhile. You?[Thanks to Ali, Naruhodou, and Castellanos!]
Survey shows HDTV preferred over live Super Bowl experience
Unsurprisingly, surveys these days can often have very interesting results, which may not necessarily represent the general population in a factual manner, but nonetheless, if the "Big Game Survey" is to be believed, more people would rather watch the Super Bowl on an HDTV than actually going to the event in-person. Conducted on behalf of Circuit City, the survey found that 48-percent of all respondents would rather catch the big game from the comforts of their couch compared to just 26-percent who would rather cheer from the nosebleed seats. While it wasn't directly stated where the other 26-percent fell, we can only assume that those were the folks who'd rather pressure-wash their entire house than suffer through four hours of non-stop partying over a game of pigskin. Nevertheless, it's certainly not a surprise to find that sports offerings glue Americans to their couches like no other type of programming can, and the survey also found that around 60-percent of men (and 49-percent of women) were more likely to throw down for an HD set solely because of the Super Bowl (and hosting a subsequent party). While we'd probably have no qualms accepting an all-expenses-paid trip to see the biggest NFL game of the year, we have to assume that folks were taking total cost into account when answering the questions, and considering the dough you'd likely lay down just to get a seat for this primetime event, wouldn't you rather bring home a svelte HDTV instead?
Lost Planet launch event recap
Does Capcom know how to throw a party or what? Trashed cars. Mangled computer parts. Free booze. Some Lost Planets. Ryan Olson has captured images from and insights into the launch event over on his blog Red Herring.Olson's own impressions of the game were mixed (similar to the general consensus). He was turned off by the "lethargic" character movement, but moved by Lost Planet's visuals, particularly the smoke effects. Anyone else in attendance last night? Who's picking up Lost Planet today?
Siemens' Party Dishwasher keeps the wine glasses sparklin'
In today's world, locating a dishwasher to meet your precise needs is becoming a reality, as we've got ones that work on countertops, sans water, and with icky toys, but now Siemens is offering up one for the night owls who'd rather jazz it up at home than head out on the town. The aptly-named Party Dishwasher sports a sleek, silver finish and your standard under-the-counter boxy design, but what it lacks in originality outside, it certainly makes up for inside. Designed specifically for party-throwers who'd rather blow around $900 for a new kitchen appliance than order up a extra dozen or so Merlot glasses, this machine touts a 29-minute rapid wash cycle that can blast the bacteria off of whatever partyware that's dirty so the late arrivals will have fresh glasses (while the early birds' thirst). Additionally, the built-in varioSpeed technology reportedly cuts the wash time of even normal, non-party serving cycles "in half," and it also allows you to use whatever choice of detergent you have (or have on hand, anyway), and then automatically detects the right temperature and amount of water to both conserve resources and finish faster. Of course, all these niceties do come at a price, but whether it's all worth the €679 ($884) is certainly debatable.[Via Appliancist]
European midnight launch events
And the Europe-themed news keeps on coming. The Blizzard Europe team will be having some events of their own to celebrate the expansion, with copies to sell and developers signing. Locations are as follows: UK: HMV 150 Oxford Street London W1D 1DJ Phone: 020 7631 3423 Doors open: 11:00PM, January 15 FRANCE: FNAC 74 Ave des Champs ElyséesParis 8e Phone: 0153 53 64 64 Doors open: 0:00 - 04:00, January 16 GERMANY: Media Markt 10627 Berlin-Charlottenburg Krumme Straße 48 Phone: 030 31992 0 On sale: 0:00, January 16 SWEDEN: EB Games Gallerian Hamngatan 37 Stockholm Phone: 08 411 21 51 Doors open: 0:00, January 16 WHEN: Monday, January 15/Tuesday January 16, 2007 | On Sale at 0:00 As much as I won't be going to California for the US events, the extent to which I won't be going to Europe is even greater. What about you guys? Any of these convenient for you?[via Kotaku]
Macworld 2007 party roundup for Wednesday, January 10th
Macworld certainly isn't all work and no play, so I thought it would be handy to round up any parties and gatherings that are happening *off* the Macworld Expo grounds. For simplicity, I checked Upcoming's Macworld tag, though we have heard of at least one other non-listed event (and I would bet there are plenty more). If you have a gathering going on this week, let us know at tuaw.com/tips (use relevant subjects like: "Party at Macworld Wednesday!" and "Party at Macworld Thursday!" etc.) and we'll include them in our daily roundups, updating as we receive new tips through the day. For now, here is a list of Wednesday's gatherings: Spymac.com Annual Reader Meetup, 5:30-6:30 pm Macworld Expo Web Developers BoF 6-7:30 pm Mac small business dinner 6:30-8:30 pm DialyTechTalk's open Macworld party at 9 pm MyDreamApp/MacHeist party at 7-11 pm
Midnight launch event confirmed
We posted a few days ago to tell you that the Fry's in Anaheim were having a midnight event for the launch of the Burning Crusade, and now we have official confirmation. Blizzard will be celebrating, selling, and signing copies at four California locations: Fry's Fountain Valley (4500 copies available) Fry's Anaheim (4500 copies available) Fry's Sunnyvale (4500 copies available) Universal Citywalk Gamestop/EB Games (1500 copies available) Lining up at each of these locations begins at 6 AM on the 15th, and wristbands will be distributed to make sure you get your copy. More details, including store addresses, are available at Blizzard's page. I won't be making it out to my state of birth for this particular party, but I do plan on going to a midnight event at my local GameStop.So which of you are lucky and dedicated enough to be attending one of these shindigs?
Engadget Chinese parties it up, Taiwan style
In the grand Engadget tradition of nerds gathering together to ogle tech and consume alcohol -- well, we can only assume alcohol was involved, due to TMX Elmo's apparent popularity -- Engadget Chinese pulled off quite the party the other night, with appearances by all three new-gen consoles and plenty of other toys. Peep a few pictures after the break, or just hit up the read link for the party in all its machine-translated glory -- just like we know those EC kids best.
Shadowrun has online party system, further damages Epic's claim [update 1]
Xbox 360 Fanboy has done us the good service of plucking the juicy details out of Major Nelson's recent blogcast featuring Shadowrun Lead Designer John Howard. What we learn is that the development team is implementing a friend-linking party system for its online Live Anywhere launch title. It's about time. No studio has attempted this since Bungie debuted its 'Party System' in Halo 2 (back in 2004).Epic would have you believe that the lack of support for party systems is Microsoft's doing. But with Halo 3 and Shadowrun both confirmed to support this feature, Epic's excuse isn't holding up. Our guess is that a Gears of War team-play patch for ranked games (and maybe an apology) is definitely in the works.Update: Shadowrun forgoes TrueSkill for 'party' play, Epic told the truth
Pink PSP party photos
If you ever wanted to be a Japanese chick magnet, then you better start dressing up in all pink. Sony threw a very pink party in Roppongi, Japan to celebrate the recent launch of the pink PSP. The crowds gathered, men and women. The women were there for the new shiny pink toy. And the men? Most likely for the shiny pink booth babes. [Via Kotaku]
Microsoft targets your kids with Viva Piata party
Historically, Xbox has failed to penetrate the Japanese market. Microsoft has also been slow to make Xbox appealing to another important market: kids. But Rare's Viva Piñata looks to change this, becoming Microsoft's first big attempt at reaching out to the younger folk -- heck, it's even got a Saturday morning TV tie-in on Fox.This weekend, Microsoft is hosting a Viva Piñata party for the entire family, complete with life-size Piñata characters, Viva Piñata dance lessons, a carousel, and of course, gameplay stations. So is the Piñata craze catching on? Does Microsoft have a killer one-two punch for the holidays? That is, Viva Piñata for your kids, Gears of War for yourself?
Wii component connection on the cheap
For those of you who find adventure to be the spice of life, we've got one worth $6.71 USD. See, these Hong Kong cables, available for pre-order from superufo.com (they release on the 30th), look the part and are available at an insane price. Still, we've always been told if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. Applying that lesson, we cannot bring ourselves to order them. Any of you willing to take the plunge or have you already made your own? Maybe third party products aren't your thing and you're going to wait out Nintendo's stock?[Via Joystiq; thanks to all that sent this in!]
It's finally here: Nintendo Wii Fanboy Times Square Footage
Sorry for the delay, folks! You know how those Mac users always muck things up, them and their video editing and whatnot.Seriously though, a very special thank you to Doug Keller, who devoted his time and effort for no real reason at all. Rock on, Doug. Expect some sillier clips from the event in the near future, but for now, sit back and enjoy the excellent and oh-so-professional reporting by yours truly. All right, so an Anchorman I'm not.(And yes, Nintendo fanboys seem to have mysterious issues with counting down. It's weird, we know.)
Nintendo's Wii launch party (Universal Citywalk, LA)
We attended (and holy schnikes, are we tired of "Wii! jokes) the launch of the Nintendo Wii at the Universal Citywalk EB Games store in Los Angeles last night, and lived to tell about it.When we arrived at about 7PM, a Citywalk employee told us there were 500 people in line. We did our own informal count-type math thingy, and came up with at least double that number. The EB Games execs and Nintendo folks assured us that they'd have enough to go around, but wouldn't confirm any numbers for us. One loose-lipped EB Games grunt told us that they had just over 1,000 units, and that everyone who had a wristband would be getting one. After re-checking the line and finding out where the bands stopped, we realized there would be some unhappy people going home early this morning.Everyone waiting in line was surprisingly in very good spirits. There were tons people gaming on their DS handhelds, and a lot of picto-chatting going on. Some folks were even playing Life, the old-school board game. As far as entertainment went though, the pickings were fairly slim. Universal Citywalk is already a cacophony of neon, pumping techno music, and video screens. It was about times 10 for the the Wii launch last night. They had a DJ spinning on a stage, and at one point a group called "Antigravity" performed a sort of "Cirque du So Lame" style show. Yawn.The real fun to be had was in talking to all the people and finding out their stories. The first guy in line, Jonathan, was dressed as Mario and wrote his own song about the Wii (part of which can be heard at the end of the video). He was a real character, and runs his own gaming blog called GameJew, check it out. We asked around and only found one guy who was selling his on eBay. Not only that, he was selling it to help pay for a PlayStation 3. Traitor! We also spoke with Jacqueline, who it seems had either drank an entire case of energy drinks, or eaten a shoebox full of sugar. Check out the interviews with them in the vid as well.We were really surprised how calm things were, especially given the size of the crowd. After the first Wiis went on sale, we watched a few people fork over their dough, and then decided that with only four registers it was going to take a hell of a long time to get through everyone, and we didn't really need to see the last Wii sold, did we? We wandered back out through the crowd, watched people play with the Wii, followed the SegWii (a Wii mounted on a Segway) around, and eventually vanished into the wee (Wii!) hours of the morning.Anyhow, check out the video and stay tuned for more Wii news, FTWii! (Sorry, couldn't resist).
GamerBUS provides mobile Xbox 360 LAN parties
If you're incensed about wasting your weekend (and part of last week) cruising around in futility trying to locate a Playstation 3 or Nintendo Wii, the GamerBUS can provide the ultimate painkiller -- provided you live around the Virginia Beach area, that is. If you've got 63 friends or so, and you're not claustrophobic, you can pack your posse into the 37-foot customized RV and get your game(s) on. Sporting a bevy of comfortable seating options, sixteen Xbox 360 "gamer stations" (pictured after the jump) with their own 23-inch Philips HDTV, and all the CAT5 cable / electricity you could ever need, this redefines the party on wheels. Essentially offering a mobile gaming LAN, the bus operators will gladly wire up a 16-person system-linked round of Halo 2 (or a variety of other titles) while you provide the Cheetos and air fresheners. Although weekday hours boast an understandable discount, weekend rates range from $125 to $150 per hour, depending on how long you occupy the vehicle. Notably, no connection has been drawn between this newfangled gaming service and the Va Beach entrepreneur trickster hitting it big on vulnerable ATMs.[Via Digg]
Times Square Madness [update 1]
[Update 1: Our apologies. The Nintendo World Store is not located in Times Square; the event in question is that of Toys R' Us. The initial stock is around 5k, far exceeding that of the two thousand or so people in line. If any local New Yorkers want to pick a system up tomorrow, you should have no trouble.]Nintendo Wii Fanboy is on-hand at Times Square, New York for the launch party of the Nintendo Wii. Upon arriving at around 1:45 PM, 150 people were waiting in line ahead of us. As of now, at 7:45 PM, approximately 1200 people are currently waiting for the festivities to begin at 8 PM.The store purportedly has five thousand units for sale, almost immediately ensuring a stress-free and calm environment. Everyone seems to be friendly and jovial, just as we had hoped. Some pre-partying from TRU has been impressive: jury-rigged "Seg-Wiis", Segmay machines rigged with LCD monitors and a Wii system to show off Excite Truck and Wii Sports. Some swag includes Wii hats, Wii beanies, free demo DVDs, and some extra goodies apparently being given away in a few minutes.We apologize for the lack of pictures, but there'll be plenty of video coverage sometime early tomorrow. If time permits, we'll update a little later as well ... good luck, everyone!
Japanese hardware sales, 16 October - 22 October: Nintendo All Hallows Eve Edition
Satoru Iwata (dressed as a vampire): DS Lite perform amazing feat in global market! More hundred thousand units in time of week! Much party enjoyment, everyone, so scary is coming! George Harrison (dressed as Link): Ugh, these tights are starting to chafe. Perrin, wanna trade costumes?Perrin Kaplan (dressed as a slutty cat): Um ... no. But you should ask around, really. Has anyone seen Matt? He looks so damn good in that costume ....Matt Cassamassina (dressed as Mega Man, special guest to the event): Perrin. Storage closet. Now.Perrin: Rawr.Iwata: They are doing the fun, yes?George: Uh, yeah. Where's Miyamoto-san, by the way?Iwata: There. (points)George: The dinette set?Shigeru Miyamoto (dressed as a dinette set): Ah! You see, this is the inspiration for my next masterpiece. Get ready for the next generation of fun!George: Sunnuva bitch. Miyamoto, stop doing shrooms, and...ah! Finally, someone normal. But why aren't you dressed up, Reggie?Reggie Fils-Aime: What do you mean?George: It's Halloween. You need a costume. You're just dressed normally.Reggie: This is my costume.George: ...Reggie: Bitch.George: ...Reggie: Now get me a sandwich.George: Friggin' ... fine ....- DS Lite: 116,941 12,454 (11.92%) - PS2: 22,380 2,347 (9.50%) - PSP: 20,271 1,332 (6.17%) - GBA SP: 2,421122 (5.31%) - Game Boy Micro: 1,660 54 (3.15%) - Xbox 360: 1,287 456 (26.16%) - Gamecube: 638 15 (2.30%) - DS Phat: 130 143 (52.38%) - GBA: 37 25 (67.57%) - Xbox: 6 3 (100.00%)[Source: Media Create]
Party in a box: Fuzion Frenzy 2 images
There are some of us (you know who you are) that have fond memories minigame festival that was Fuzion Frenzy. Others among us felt that it lacked the substance of, say, a Mario Party. It's interesting, then, that Microsoft has approached Hudson -- developer of the Mario Party series -- to create Fuzion Frenzy 2. We don't know if the game will feature an overall hub or board like the Mario Party titles, but we can at least be guaranteed that there will be tons of minigames. These screens show off some of the characters and what appears to be a casino themed world. Hopefully, Hudson has learned something from their recent effort and won't forget to include local multiplayer.Anyone looking forward to this one?
