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Pokepark Wii: Pikachu's Adventure opening in Europe this July
The latest Pokemon spinoff game, Poképark Wii: Pikachu's Adventure, is being localized for Europe, according to a press release from Nintendo. As you might have surmised from the title, the game stars Pikachu and takes place in a Pokémon theme park. As Pikachu attempts to collect the shards of the "Sky Prism" that protects the park, he and new Pokémon friends take part in the park's various attractions. Yes, Pikachu's idea of "helping" is to have fun on all the park's rides. Pikachu is kind of a hedonist. The attractions include Poke-themed activities like Rhyperior's Bumper Burn, Bulbasaur's Daring Dash, Salamence's Air Ace, Venusaur's Vine Swing, and Gyarados' Aqua Dash. Poképark Wii will be released in Europe on July 9. We don't want to ruin the surprise, but if we had to guess, we'd say this game will be announced in North America at some kind of large industry event being held soon.
Exclusive Pokewalker path available as Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver DLC
Done with everything in Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver? Of course you are -- it's been like two whole weeks. Luckily, Nintendo is supplying some new downloadable content, in the form of the Pokewalker route "Yellow Forest." To get it, you have to enable "Mystery Gift" and connect to Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection between now and May 5 to download the route. The Yellow Forest, as you might guess from the name, is loaded with Pikachus. In fact, if you get enough steps on the Pokewalker, you can get a special Pikachu with the Surf or Fly abilities! ... You're already downloading this, aren't you? We could type anything here and you'd have no idea. Or we could even just leave in the middle of [Via 1UP]
MMO! Pokemon does not choose you
If you've been waiting for a Pokemon MMO to come out, we're afraid we've got some bad news for you. In an interview with What They Play, Pokemon series director Junichi Masuda confirmed that they're not considering going in the MMO direction at this time. As he stated in the interview, "Trading is a core concept of Pokemon. So when you're trading, you meet with a friend and decide which one you want and which one they want. I would like to emphasize real-world communication. You don't see each other online." That said, we've heard rumblings from some of our readers about Ether Saga, which appears to be based on a pet-collecting and fighting system - although we'd note we haven't played it and can't judge just how similar the two might be in practice. Perhaps the creators of Pokemon will reconsider their no-MMO decision down the road. Sure, you may not see people face-to-face when it comes to online gaming, but handled properly, MMOs can be a great way to meet new people and potentially make friends you wouldn't have met otherwise. [via GamesIndustry]
Nintendo's next step may be into the playpen
A patent filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office today tells the tale of an edutainment-laden future for Nintendo, reports Siliconera. According to the patent, the console maker's next property (properties?) may feature a mess of different learning tools aimed at young children, defined in the patent as, "toddlers and pre-kindergartners, and/or people with disabilities." The various ideas presented within the patent range from matching animal sounds with animal pictures to lessons in daily chores to building your first laser gun. Alright -- fine -- we made up that last one.Littered throughout the images included with the patent are a couple of familiar Nintendo characters (Mario and Pikachu), though, according to Siliconera, the report specifically mentions "television and/or licensed cartoon characters like Pikachu, Dora the Explorer, and Bob the Builder." Though this patent may have been filed, we want to remind you that none of these plans are by any means final and for all anyone knows, could be nothing more than what they are now -- ideas. One thing is for sure, no matter what happens, we all now know that Nintendo believes children to wear totally badass future shoes. Check out the gallery below for an extensive visual tour of what may very well be the next step Nintendo takes.%Gallery-48249%
Show and Tell: Lunch in a box
We've spent a little time admiring amazing lunches before, but we haven't yet donated our weekly time in the community spotlight to the fine art of bento-making ... until today. Yes, friends, today we're going to make you hungry with these fantastic Nintendo-themed boxed lunches. Slice up some carrot and mold your rice into a ball, then head into our gallery and check out some amazing gamer bento.%Gallery-38877% Show and Tell is all about fan stuff, so long as it's Nintendo-related. We love to see your collections, your crafts, your frosted creations, your t-shirts and swag of all sorts.Just snap a few pictures, tell us what's up, and send it all to showmeit [at] dsfanboy [dot] com. We'll take care of the rest. Not a handy type, but found something neat? Send us a link instead.
DS Daily: Favorite Pokemon?
With the Pokemon bundle releasing soon (or, like, now, as some lucky folks already caught it in the wild), we figured it'd be pertinent to ask what your favorite Pokemon is. So is it the fan favorite Pikachu? We heard you like Mudkips (lol). How about the awesomely bizarre Hitmonlee? Which is it?
Pikachu! Use Deafening Racket!
Kaseo's Yellow Mouse Orchestra is a cacophonous array of circuit-bent Pikachu toys wired up to a MIDI controller, allowing Kaseo to turn the critter's trademark self-namechecking to create musical compositions. The result sounds oddly chiptune-like, despite being made from voice samples. The video above is a pretty listenable rendition of another Y.M.O. (Yellow Magic Orchestra) song. Hit the "source" link to hear a live performance, which is a lot less coherent.The Y.M.O. is just one of the components of Kaseo's army of cyborg Pikachus. He also has a spikey Bent Pikachu Limited Edition, whose squeals have been turned into reasonably evil-sounding industrial-esque noise.[Via Boing Boing Gadgets]
Super effective Pokemon bento
Some people are just gifted, like the Japanese mother who is responsible for these brilliant Pokémon-themed lunches. We've seen some neat Nintendo-themed bento before, but comparing those to today's specimens is a bit like holding up a Monet next to the scuffed chalk drawings on the sidewalk out front. They're just in different leagues.Hit the break to see the tastiest Pikachu ever. There's another of these, and tons that aren't made of Pokemans, at the source.
Bury The Shovelware: Pokemon Dash
Nintendo's big E3 press conference has come and gone. While the mainstream media outlets will praise titles such as Wii Music and Wii Sports Resort, the hardcore gamer has reason to feel underwhelmed. Whenever the Big N fails to please its base, one might wonder how the seemingly impervious Nintendo could fail to deliver on expectations. However, like all that is human, the house Miyamoto built is not without its blemishes. When "mistake" and "Nintendo" are mentioned in the same sentence, those who aren't hurling bricks at the heretic are known to immediately think of the Virtual Boy. Nonetheless, Nintendo has had its fair share of publishing misfires involving some of its biggest licenses. Often, the company will allow its intellectual properties to be used in games developed by second or even third parties. Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, and Metroid have all had titles outsourced. Like a mother bear protecting her cubs, Nintendo tends to insist on quality development. They will publish these games themselves in part to assure the consumer that the title is worthy of its featured IP (otherwise, things can get ugly). Nintendo is a business, however, and businesses need to make money. And what's one of the quickest ways to turn a profit? That's right: slap a well-known franchise onto a subpar piece of shovelware. The exemplar piece can be found in Pokémon Dash, a disastrous "scratch-your-DS-into-submission" racer.
Can you find the Pikachu?
A yellow and black custom DS Lite has popped up on eBay, and reportedly sports an engraved Pikachu for all those Pokémon fans out there who can't get their hands on the real yellow Pikachu Lite. The problem? Said engraving isn't visible anywhere in the provided photos! For all we know, it could actually be some Mudkips on that DS. But that's okay -- we heard you like Mudkips.Regardless, it is pretty (but not seriously yellow), but we're not sure it's $160 pretty, which is the Buy-it-Now price. We like it when they start at the low, low price of $0.99.
Games that could be MMOs: Pokmon
The Pokémon brand is one of the largest and most successful franchises the gaming world has ever spawned. There are no less than 10 videogames, 1 trading card game, 12 movies, an animated series, 10 soundtrack CDs, a bunch of manga -- but no official MMO.Why this hasn't already happened is beyond the imagination of this blogger. C'mon, a world in which thousands, if not millions of wanna-be Pokémon trainers are working hard to be number one, constantly pitting their captive critters against each other, and every iteration of the game franchise is only one-on-one? This isn't rocket science; it's not even science fair volcano science. But if we were to imagine a Pokémon MMO, it would look something like this:
Another (slim) chance to own THAT Pikachu DS Lite
Many of you will no doubt recall the gorgeous and very, very yellow limited edition Pikachu DS that remains painfully unattainable to us. With no official release planned for the hardware, we began to give up hope on ever owning one, but it looks like Nintendo could be offering another two Pikachu Lites to winners of a new contest being held to promote Pokémon Mystery Dungeon twosome Explorers of Darkness and Explorers of Time.You can enter once a day between now and May 21st, when a couple of lucky winners will clinch themselves a treasure chest containing the most beautiful DS Lite known to man, a Wii, a HDTV, and more Pokémon goodies than they can shake a stick at. Head here to learn more.[Via press release]
The DS Life: Sleep Mode
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/nintendo/The_DS_Life_Sleep_Mode'; The DS Life is a weekly feature in which we scour the known world for narrative images of Nintendo's handheld and handheld gamers. If you have a photo and a story to match it with, send both to thedslife at dsfanboy dot com.Like many other three-year-old boys, Kristopher divides his playtime among toy cars, toy trains, and toy things with buttons and lights. When his dad's iPhone isn't available for him to appraise with his tiny, curious fingers, he flips open his Nintendo DS Lite, a hand-me-down from his mother (she now owns a newer edition/color). Of course, we don't expect to entertain you with just photos of some kid and his DS -- no, we have something much more hilarious planned for you! Jump past the post break and into Kris's crib!
This Pikachu video is shocking
Ah, science. We're not exactly sure how this experiment works, at least this blogger isn't (being a history major and all), but we still love it. Why? Because Pikachu gets to shoot out electrical bolts in real life. We always knew the little critter had it in him, but what other Pokemon characters' powers would you like to see recreated scientifically? Also, if any of you Bill Nye types want to explain the workings of Tesla coils, go right ahead.[Via GoNintendo]
Pokemon Center's Sleeping Pikachu Festival
Yet again, a Japanese Pokémon Center store is stocking a series of exclusive items that will drive foreign Pokémon fanatics crazy to eBay. From February 9th to the 29th, customers who can show staff that their Diamond/Pearl Pikachus have learned the skill Rest will receive a free sleeping Pikachu screen-cleaning strap. In addition, many heartbreakingly adorable sleeping Pikachu items will be available in the store, including plush dolls, t-shirts, and coffee mugs.It's pretty hard to resist the cute sleeping mascot even if you don't like Pokémon. We're lucky that it's currently impossible for us to blow a bunch of money on this stuff.
Pikachu is the name of the Pokemon on this DS
While this is a yellow Pikachu DS Lite, it's not the yellow Pikachu DS Lite. But unlike that other one, this custom job from viper640_0 gives you assurance that the Pokémon featured on the top is in fact Pikachu, and not some biter. Only trust verified Pokémon art on your consoles!We must admit that the little Pikachu is cute, and that the gold-and-black DS combination is a lot better than some custom paint jobs. We just didn't necessarily need the huge caption. Oh, wait, maybe this is Pikachu's DS, lost in POWER SELLER VILLAGE! We should buy it and return it to him.
Gotta assemble 'em all!
Uh-oh. You see, this is exactly why we should never be let loose on the streets of Japan with pocket money to spare -- yes, it's yet more Pokémon tat that we desperately crave, but will probably never own. These 3D jigsaw puzzles of Pikachu and Piplup will set you back a modest ¥2,100 (just shy of $20), and are constructed from sixty pieces each. If anybody finds an importer who can get these to us, you know where the comments field is.[Via Go Nintendo]
Keep sharp objects away from this Nintendo balloon art
When we usually see balloons, we get an urge to kick them. Or squeeze them. Or rub them on our clothes to create static and annoy other people. Or pop them. But that's not the case with these superb examples of balloon art. When we see these, we want to build a special cabinet to display them in, and pray that they never, ever, ever deflate.They're the work of gifted Flickr user TwystNeko, who seems to be quite the expert at manipulating rubber and air. As well as this Mario, s/he's fashioned other Nintendo-themed balloon masterpieces, which you can see after the post break, including an a-maz-ing Mega Man.
Five gifts that PAL gamers should import this Christmas
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/nintendo/Five_gifts_that_PAL_gamers_should_import_this_Christmas'; Gaming sites are inundated with holiday gift guides at the end of the year, listing the best and most popular games that everyone pretty much already has (or knows about). Well, we're not going in for that this year. Our gift guide will help you find the best gifts in categories the other sites won't cover -- because we just made them up. Nintendo's indifference towards PAL regions is infamous, but there's arguably less room for complaining when it comes to the DS. See, the DS is (and we do not use this phrase lightly) an importer's dream. It doesn't faff around with region-specific software, there's a huge library of diverse and interesting NTSC-only titles, and the games themselves are cheap. As in, cheaper than they'll be when they arrive in the UK/Europe/Australia six months from now. Frankly, we can't think of a good reason for you not to import. Which brings us to our latest anti-guide, featuring the five DS-related gifts that PAL regions won't be seeing until 2008 at the earliest -- if ever. All deserve to be imported without hesitation, so read on fellow PAL folk, and prep that credit card!
Get the Pikachu DS Lite, plus some games or something
Finally, American gamers have a shot at the yellowest DS Lite ever, thanks to the Pokémon Center. Unfortunately, if you're enough of a Pokémaniac to want one of these, you probably already have Diamond and/or Pearl, both of which come bundled with the unit. Also included: a Pokémon Diamond/Pearl "scenario guide" and a Pokédex book, also known as "bundle bloat."All that extra stuff, plus the usual rarity tax, means that you'll be $345.95 in the hole for choosing this DS Lite. But that's about what you'd pay for just the unit on eBay, without having to buy it from some dude who is probably ripping you off in a unique way.[Via GoNintendo]
