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Have a Wario Party with Rabbids at Amazon
If you've been denying yourself the opportunity to play Balance Board games from a hilarious seated position for budgetary reasons, today's Amazon "15 Days, 15 Deals" special will appeal to you. The retailer has discounted a few Wii games including Raving Rabbids TV Party. Also among the reduced-price games: Wario Land: Shake It! for $40. It may not be playable with one's bum, but it certainly shares juvenile humor with Ubisoft's silly minigame collection.Decent price drops are also available for the Perfect Shot and Ben 10 Alien Force. And, uh, Game Party 2 and Block Party, just in case you need something to be angry about.%Gallery-26293%%Gallery-23883%
Amazon's Black Friday deals are worth staying home for
The Black Friday game deals that Amazon has revealed so far are among the most compelling anywhere -- and that's not even taking into account the fact that you don't have to face the teeming masses of retail zombies to get your hands on them. All you need is a finger hovering over the F5 key and a credit card nearby.Amazon sent a partial list to Kotaku, with the promise that there will be lots more cheap games to buy come Black Friday. The standout among the Wii offers is the Animal Crossing/WiiSpeak bundle for $40, but we'd feel like victorious Black Friday navigators if we managed to score a $26 copy of de Blob or a $30 Wario Land: Shake It.Oh, and they'll have Wii systems and copies of Wii Fit starting midnight (we assume PST, since that's when Amazon usually updates their deals).
Fanswag: Wario Land goes to ...
Another giveaway comes, another giveaway goes. Our latest fanswag, involving Wario Land: Shake It!, has concluded and it's about time we crowned a winner. Who's lucky enough to win our copy? The winner is: Adam N, who is a big fan of Wario Land 3 Congrats, Adam! To the rest of you, we wish you better luck next time. Thanks for entering, thanks for reading and be sure to keep an eye on Wii Fanboy for our next giveaway, which will start up shortly!%Gallery-26293%
Circuit City does buy one, get one 50% off sale on Wii games
For those of you with some extra money burning a hole in your pocket, know that Circuit City has a sale running from now until this upcoming Saturday. When you purchase any Wii game at full price, you can get a second game for 50% off. The sale also works with Wii Play, if you're not among the folks who've already purchased the bundle. Need some suggestions? Mario Kart Wii is a good choice (and you can play with us at Game Night!), as well as Wario Land: Shake It! (which we're pretty fond of). There's also ... actually, just head on over there. The list of games is fairly long.[Via GamerDeals]
Reminder: Wario Land is up for grabs
Heads up, folks! Today is your last day to enter in our latest giveaway for a copy of Wario Land: Shake It! If you've missed out up until now, you've missed a full week of being able to enter in the contest, but have no fear, for we select our winner via random drawing. You could still win!Head on over to the original contest post here to see what you have to do to enter for your chance at this great game!%Gallery-26293%
Fanswag: Wario Land: Shake It!
Do you like free stuff? Of course you do, who doesn't? Well, we're giving away one copy of Wario Land: Shake It! for the Wii (valued at $50). Want to enter for your chance to win this great game?To enter, simply leave a comment between now and Sunday, October 12th at 11:59PM ET, telling us what your favorite game featuring Wario is. It can be one of his own games, or any other he's in. You can leave one comment per day. We'll select a winner the following day via random drawing.There are a few things you should know before entering. Entrants must be current and legal residents of the United States or Canada (excluding Quebec) and at least 18 years of age or older. Read up on the rest of the official rules right here.%Gallery-26293%
Wii Fanboy Review: Wario Land: Shake It!
Back during E3, I talked about how Nintendo had to actually kick me out of their demo area, because I wouldn't stop playing Wario Land: Shake It! and, to be honest, that was true. The game was absolutely amazing when I got my hands on it. Would my favorable impressions be the same when I got my hands on the final product? Well, now that I've had a few days to plow through it, I'm ready to determine that.%Gallery-26293%
Point/Counterpoint: 2D vs. 2D
Arguably the two most eagerly awaited Wii games of September have something slightly unusual and wholly awesome in common: they're both 2D. Mega Man 9 and Wario Land: Shake It! have each been widely lauded for daring to ignore the third dimension, but they're still quite different in terms of how they use 2D.Mega Man 9 rejects all modern graphical conventions, taking the player through a timewarp to 1988 with its intentionally blocky, charming sprites. Conversely, Wario Land: Shake It! is straight from the Metal Slug school of design, in that it uses painstakingly detailed, beautiful hand-drawn art. Which do the Wii Fanboy staff prefer? Read on to hear both sides of the argument! NEXT >> #ninbutton { border-style: solid; border-color: #000; border-width: 2px; background-color: #BBB; color: #000; text-decoration: none; width: 100px; text-align: center; padding: 2px 2px 2px 2px; margin: 2px 2px 2px 2px; } .buttontext { color: #000; text-decoration: none; font: bold 14pt Helvetica; } #ninbutton:hover { text-decoration: none; color: #BBB; background-color: #000; }
It's a WARIO World: Transformations
We couldn't help ourselves--Mario fashion is so last Friday. In case you didn't notice, maybe because you were too busy getting domineered by the formidable boss roster of Mega Man 9, a little game called Wario Land: Shake It! landed at retailers on Tuesday. And you can bet we've been shaking it all week (besides listening to Charles Martinet ham it up, of course). What better way to welcome this momentous release than to dedicate our humble gallery to the big scoundrel himself? It is appropriate that we have transformed this feature to accommodate Wario's oversized rear end. Transformations are Wario's speciality; whether he is provoked by status-changing characters or influenced by elements of his environment, Wario relies on his many forms to effectively navigate level design. Adopting forms that range from animal to mechanical, this rude evil genius is unquestionably a Master of Disguise. Let's take a look back at the numerous transformations Wario has undergone in our new gallery chock full of yellow, purple and poor manners. It's-a WARIO World is a weekly feature in which the ubiquity of Nintendo's EVIL GENIUS is celebrated: We'll incessantly ruminate about mustache wax garlic pizza, debate the curious whereabouts of the princess MY treasure and covet troves of gold. Check back here every Friday to find out what strange and wonderful thing has got us tipping our caps shaking our butts.
Nintendo passes gas to promote Wario Land: Shake It!
It's no secret that Nintendo is the richest company since Ebenezer Scrooge found two nickels and rubbed them together. As part of a promotion for Wario Land: Shake It! and just to be nice, the company footed the gasoline bill for several individuals at a downtown LA Mobile gas station. They also hooked some lucky folks up with copies of the game, as well as Wii consoles. You can check out a video from the event above, as well as some pictures of folks taking advantage of the kind gesture in our gallery below.%Gallery-32718%
Metareview: Wario Land: Shake It!
Talk about dividing opinion. As we type these words, Metacritic features just ten reviews of Wario Land: Shake It!, yet already the top and bottom scores are separated by a yawning gulf of 30%. Two things most critics seem to agree on: Shake It! is beautiful, and Shake It! is short. The rest is clearly up for debate: IGN (84%) published one of the warmest reviews to date: "It's got its share of modest shortcomings. It's not very innovative -- you've seen all this before in other platformers. The lack of a proper widescreen mode is downright annoying. And the core game is over a little too quickly for my liking. But, you know, it's still a really fun experience thanks to excellent control and fantastic level designs, not to mention a beautiful visual presentation." Eurogamer (70%) noted that the title didn't measure up to Nintendo's rich tapestry of platform games: "A game which is good, but not great, and certainly not up to the standard of Nintendo's best 2D platformers." GamePro (80%) mentions the "c" word, as dreaded by most blog-reading types: "Despite its simplistic gameplay, the game is still worth playing, especially for the casual Wii gamer. It's fun, it's simple and it's charming, which pretty much describes most Wii games that hit big with that audience." Finally, Jeremy Parish of 1UP (58%) heaped scorn on the mustache-twirler's return: "Shake It!'s failure to innovate is particularly infuriating, because it'll only serve to confirm in most people's minds the notion that 2D graphics are synonymous with dated, uninspired game design [...] the staleness of this game's action has nothing to do with the visuals and everything to do with the fact that the dizzyingly imaginative designers who helped make those earlier titles so memorable have moved along to the WarioWare and Rhythm Heaven series." %Gallery-26293%
Wario shakes up YouTube
Well done, Nintendo. If you hoped this fourth wall-shattering commercial for Wario Land: Shake It! would make the blog rounds, then you succeeded. We don't usually post about media of games that are already on store shelves, but this was just too good to pass on. We can't really say much more for fear of spoiling the surprise involved, so click here and get watching. But come back, please. Gets lonely here, y'know.%Gallery-26293%[Via 4cr, thanks JR!]
Metareview -- Wario Land: Shake It! (Wii)
Mario's evil Twinner, Wario, would have been right at home in the "Me Generation" of the '80s, where, as Charlie Sheen's Gordon Gekko pronounces in Wall Street, "Greed is good!" The rotund, gassy, gold-obsessed anti-hero spends his latest adventure – and first platforming outing on Wii – seeking out riches with the aid of several Wiimote-centric play mechanics, including – you guessed it – shaking the controller. Here's how its mix of novel controls and 2D visuals (which you can see for yourself in these videos) shook reviewers: IGN (84/100): "A really fun experience thanks to excellent control and fantastic level designs, not to mention a beautiful visual presentation." Nintendo Power (80/100): "There's some great puzzle solving and a lot of visual and gameplay variety among the levels, and it has the kind of fun controls that make you want to pick up the controller just to run around. In a gaming season that appears short on epic hardcore games, Wario's latest-and possibly best-treasure hunt is worth its weight in gold." Eurogamer (70/100): "A game which is good, but not great, and certainly not up to the standard of Nintendo's best 2D platformers." Edge (60/100): "Nintendo is famed for sprinkling around mechanics other developers would build entire games on, but here the effect is quite irritating."
Retail and download releases for the week of September 22nd
Click image for more screens Well folks, just as stated, we've got a new Mega Man game to play this week. What's even better is that along with the sure-to-be-awesome Mega Man 9, we've also got some solid retail releases. And there's a surprise or two with this week's Virtual Console releases, as well. Head on past the break for the info. This week is going to be chock full of gaming goodness.%Gallery-30253%
Wario Land: Shake It (at Six Flags)
Unbearably long queues, bawling kids, and exorbitant prices: it takes a lot to make a visit to any theme park bearable. Is a chance to play Wario Land: Shake It and win some neat prizes enough? Let's hope so, because over the coming weeks, the platformer will be appearing on demo kiosks at ten Six Flags theme parks. At two of those locations (Six Flags Magic Mountain near Los Angeles and Six Flags St. Louis) on September 27, the player who completes a specific level in the fastest time will win a holiday to New York and a "Bottomless Coin Sack," containing a Wii, the game itself, a DS, and a gift certificate for Six Flags merchandise ( ... yay?). Hit the break for a full list of participating parks and dates.%Gallery-26293%
Top 5: RETRO REVIVAL PLZ!
As the release of Mega Man 9 looms closer, the so-called "old school gamers" are about 17 pixels away from exploding out of their skin with anticipation. This is the retro gamer equivalent of a "Phan" witnessing a Phish reunion. The kid inside all of us, having been smothered behind flabby beer guts for years, is beginning to crawl towards the surface. I imagine there's quite a few younger gamers who scratch their heads at all of the love for comparatively prehistoric graphics and gameplay. However, if one were to wipe off the thick coat of nostalgia emblazoned onto the games of long ago, they'd often find enjoyable and satisfying titles. They're not definitively better or worse; just different from much of what is released today. Some prefer that, and they're hungry for more. The biggest hurdle for those folks is commercial success. Not too long ago, retro revivals were rarely considered serious. After all, it would be silly to have Mega Man 9 released on a retail DVD disc. Yet with the success of downloadable services, the floodgates are now blown wide open. The slightly less hyped but similarly retro-themed Gradius: Rebirth was just released in Japan, and cowboy hat-clad developer Igarashi has stated that he's "very much looking into [WiiWare]." Perhaps the style of retro gaming is seeping into the bloodstream of major retail releases. Despite the beautiful hand-drawn graphics and cutscenes of Wario Land: Shake It!, the gameplay is heavily grounded in 2D. Perhaps we're experiencing a retro-renaissance, if I may quote Mr. Greenhough. With this in mind, here's a few more dusty franchises we're nominating to be reborn through the birth canal of Nintendo's online service (wow, gross). These range from the unexpected to painfully obscure, so don't be offended if your favorite was not included. A small note: I excluded some IPs due to either a retro-esque presence on the GBA/DS or because they are likely destined for WiiWare. These include Mario, Castlevania, Contra and Metroid. NEXT >> #ninbutton { border-style: solid; border-color: #000; border-width: 2px; background-color: #BBB; color: #000; text-decoration: none; width: 100px; text-align: center; padding: 2px 2px 2px 2px; margin: 2px 2px 2px 2px; } .buttontext { color: #000; text-decoration: none; font: bold 14pt Helvetica; } #ninbutton:hover { text-decoration: none; color: #BBB; background-color: #000; } The Top 5 is a weekly feature that provides us with a forum to share our opinions on various aspects of the video game culture, and provides you with a forum to tell us how wrong we are. To further voice your opinions, submit a vote in the Wii Fanboy Poll, and take part in the daily discussions of Wii Warm Up.
Wii Warm Up: The (new) hype machine
57 days divided the announcement and Japanese release of Wario Land: Shake It!. For Captain Rainbow, the gap between unveiling and launch was just 50 days. Disaster: Day of Crisis is a slightly different case. While it was originally revealed at E3 in 2006, it was only late last month that Nintendo acknowledged it still existed, before announcing this week that Disaster would strike ... next month.We don't recall it always being like this. We still remember the agonizing wait for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (period from announcement to store shelf debut: 35 months), and the constant brooding over screenshots and tidbits. This still happens with some Nintendo releases, but increasingly the company is announcing titles close to release. It may sound bizarre to criticize this tactic (because hey, less waiting time is better, right?), but now we barely have a chance to get excited. In fact, we nostalgic old fools sort of miss the days when we'd get hyped up for a game for years. Are we weird?
Nintendo finally admits E3 was a disappointment
During an interview with VGChartz, Nintendo's resident wrist-hurting, Shaun White-introducing marketing lady, Cammie Dunaway, commented that Nintendo's E3 showing was a bit of a disappointment. You don't say?"I would say the message is we were disappointed with our performance at E3," commented Dunaway. "There were titles like Wario which we think will be really fun titles that we should have show cased." Yes, we'd have to agree. It was certainly the best game we played at the show. But what about this Pikmin 3 business? "We were excited that Mr. Miyamoto made the commitment that Pikmin is coming," she said. "It would have been nice if we could have said that on stage. But, we think it was a good recognition for us that we care for our core fans, and not just the new people who are now discovering Nintendo." E3 2008 was a pretty big deal. We had lots of hands-on impressions, as well as new screens and video to talk about. Check out our live impressions from Nintendo's keynote here, as well as some of the big news right here.
Jamming to Wario Land: Shake It!
Click for image that isn't cropped If you're the type of person who is big into the music in games, then we've got a post for you. Combine the visual excellence and tight controls (which don't overuse motion control, by the way) with this audio assault and we're sure Wario Land: Shake It! is going to be the Wii title to top this year. Well, actually, the bar was set way back in January, by a little-known game called No More Heroes. We're sure Wario will give Travis a run for his money, though.Head past the break for the video.%Gallery-26293%
Wario gets his shake on in these latest trailers
It's no secret that we're madly in love with Wario Land: Shake It! and its amazing gameplay. When one of us got to check the game out back at E3, we found it to be the title of our dreams. Seriously, there wasn't a single bad thing we could say about the game. As of right now, we're counting down the days until its August 25th release.After you've watched the new trailer above, head past the break for some more.%Gallery-26293%
