Classic Summer Leisure activities is this week’s Wii Virtual Console theme

This week Nintendo put up some classic summer games for the Wii Virtual Console. While I can’t see how the second one is a leisure activity (except for the people that play WoW), the selection of games is pretty decent. So this week’s Virtual Console titles are Kirby’s Dream Course (Kirby Golf), Shining Force (defeating hordes of enemies), and Devil’s Crush (pinball).

The games go live in 23 minutes, so check out what interests you. And here are Nintendo’s descriptions of the games:

Kirby’s Dream Course (Super NES, 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone, 800 Wii Points): Step up to the tee for the wackiest golf game of your life. This one- or two-player game features a floating golf course in the sky. High above Dream Land, players can pitch and putt the ever-popular puff ball, Kirby, through a maze of three-dimensional obstacles on a zany checkerboard course. Players must aim for the multitude of enemies that are spread throughout each fairway. Kirby must hit all the enemies to make them disappear, and the last one becomes the hole. Sink Kirby into the hole to advance to the next stage and clear all 8 courses – 64 holes in all.

Shining Force (Sega Genesis, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone – Mild Fantasy Violence, 800 Wii Points): In ages long forgotten, Light fought Darkness for control of the world. Finally, the Ancients defeated the evil ruler of the dark forces known as Dark Dragon and cast him into another dimension, though he vowed to return in 1,000 years. As time passed, all memory of Dark Dragon was buried, and the land of Rune enjoyed 10 centuries of peace. Yet, as promised, the dark ruler returned, along with hordes of evil creatures that ravaged the land. As chaos erupted, several strongholds of Good still held out, awaiting a hero who could wield the Powers of Light.

Devil’s Crush (TurboGrafx16, 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone – Animated Blood, Mild Fantasy Violence, 600 Wii Points): Devil’s Crush is the exciting sequel to the hit pinball game Alien Crush and features even smoother ball movement and enhanced special effects. Shoot the ball onto the board with the Devil Shooter, then use flippers and nudging to keep it in play and rack up a high score. Complete certain conditions to play up to six different bonus stages. Get a “Perfect Clear” on those to earn a huge amount of points. The game’s ominous theme is enhanced by its enemies: wandering skeleton knights, sorcerers and even a giant face that changes from a goddess to a sinister serpent.

Devil’s Crush is tomorrow’s TurboGrafx-16 VC game

Hudson Soft stated that Devil’s Crush (for 600 WiiPoints) is tomorrow’s TurboGrafx-16 Wii Virtual Console game. The game doesn’t look super great, despite the title, it’s really just a pinball game, a very odd one in fact. The port of Devil’s Crush hasn’t been modified much from the original game so it relies on passwords to save (that is so GameBoy Pocket). However, there is a button combo (+ then – then 2 and then 2 again) you can press to save your data to the Wii rather than have to write down the password.

Devil’s Crush has a Pokemon Pinball style to it, rather than showing the entire board, it will show whatever part of the board the ball is on. There are a lot of objects you can interact with (like all pinball games should have) but the downside is that there is only one main pinball board and six small bonus boards. The game looks pretty decent for a pinball game but it is not something I would spend $6 dollars on.

Martha Stewart shows us how to bake a Wii Cake

Martha Stewart is featured on the cover of the latest issue of Wired magazine (who would have ever guessed she loves the wii too) with a Wii cake next to her. Apparently, she created a WiiCake (notice the frosting) and the recipe happens to be in the magazine, so you can bake one too. She decided to go with the White color, however the black version of the console would have been “a good thing”, too. I wonder if it has Wi-Fi….

Picture from Infendo.

Rockstar porting Table Tennis

In latest news with Rockstar, they have finally given into fan’s requests and decided to port Table Tennis to the Wii. The Wiimote will be the actual paddle, so this might be an interesting port of the game. Table Tennis for the Wii comes out later this year.

New screens arrive from Madden 08

EA unleashed seven new screenshots from the next installment in their (exclusive) NFL football video game franchise, Madden 08, and quite frankly, it looks fantastic- if it’s real-time, and I don’t think it is. Click the first image to see the gallery.

Peter Moore leaving Microsoft

In the last hour, Peter Moore filed his resignation with Microsoft. He will no longer be the head of Microsoft’s Xbox team. He is now going to become president of EA Sports in California where the rest of his family lives. According to Microsoft, Don Mattrick will become the new head of the Xbox team and the Games for Windows branch of Microsoft.

It’s ironic he is being replaced by Don Mattrick, who held many higher up jobs in EA until he resigned in February 2007. It’s almost like a stalemate.

I bet the PS3 doesn’t have one of these

But the Wii does. Nintendo is now sponsoring a race car in this year’s NASCAR season. The number 16 Ford Fusion is decked out Wii Style and Greg Biffle will be the driver of the car. Nintendo will be at the NASCAR races with all kinds of prizes and games to win/play. The Wii car can be racing on seen on TV on Sunday August 12th at Watkins Glen International (on ESPN at 1 p.m. EST) and the Dover International Speedway (on ABC at 1 p.m. EST) on Sunday September 23rd.

The races Nintendo will be at are:

• July 13 – 15: Chicagoland Speedway
• Aug. 17 – 19: Michigan International Speedway
• Aug. 31 – Sept. 2: California Speedway, Fontana, CA
• Sept. 21 – 23: Dover International Speedway, Delaware — be sure to check out the Wii-themed race car at Sunday’s race!
• Oct. 12 – 14: Charlotte Motor Speedway, North Carolina

No 360 for you! Recall of Premium Xbox 360s in Australia

After being verbally attacked by Sony’s Peter Dille, the Premium version of the Xbox 360 has been recalled in Australia by EB Games. The recall is because of problems with faulty Hard Drives. The bosses at EB Games HQ told managers to test each Xbox 360 they had in stock yesterday. Ones that didn’t work were to be sent back and the store had to remove Xbox 360 promotional items from their stores. All core systems are still being sold at Australian EB Games stores. Premium versions are said to be in stock again by Wednesday.

Manhunt brings a bad name to video games

It’s really odd when you hear about news that happened a year ago but no one really reported it until just now. Apparently, some 19 year old decided to try out killing styles found in the game Manhunt. And he happened to murder a 33 year old nurse by beating her with a hunting knife on April 19^th 2006. And now the parents are blaming videogames. Specifically, Manhunt.

While Manhunt is a violent videogame, it is possible that it could drive one (that has a weak understanding of reality and fiction) to do such actions. But Manhunt isn’t the only thing to blame. Of course not. The parents bought Manhunt for their son because all the other kids had the game. Now the parents exclaim that their angel of a child has been turned into a killer because of sadistic video games.

Doesn’t this seem a little odd to you? It should and it gets better. The mother stated to the newspaper where this article is featured (The News Of The World is the newspaper) that “I knew he was playing the video games but we didn’t really know what went on in them; how brutal and graphic they were.” *cough*checktheratings*cough* Just goes to show you that some people don’t read. “For a long time I didn’t even realize games had age limits on them.”.

The 19 year old was convicted two weeks ago. His sentence was not revealed in the newspaper.

Watch your language Nintendo!

Nintendo forgot to correct a phrase in Mario Party 8′s game script where the word “spastic” is used by Kamek (that weird magic koopa that appears every now and then in Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door). Specifically, the word spastic is said on the Shy Guy’s Perplex Express map when Kamek says her rhyme “Magikoopa magic! Turn the train spastic! Make this ticket tragic!” to rearrange the train cars. This isn’t the first time spastic has been used in game for a Nintendo platform, the first time was in MindQuiz (the poor man’s Brain Age).

As a result Mario Party 8 is currently being recalled in the UK on the terms the “wrong version” of Mario Party 8 was supplied to retailers. The game will have the offending word removed and Mario Party 8 will be reshipped again. Nintendo stated that they will release a statement when the games are to reship.

PAPER MARIO IS ON THE WII VIRTUAL CONSOLE!

Nintendo really came through for us this week! One of my favorite games is now on the Wii Virtual Console! The long waiting for Paper Mario is finally over! But the NES game was disappointing. I was hoping for Duck Hunt. Oh well. So the games this week are: Paper Mario, Balloon Fight, and Silent Debuggers.

The games are now on the Shop Channel, and of course, Paper Mario is totally recommended.

Here is Nintendo’s descriptions of the games:

Paper Mario (Nintendo 64, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone—Comic Mischief, 1,000 Wii Points): Paper Mario is a graphically innovative game that breaks from the confines of the RPG genre. Now slimmed down, everyone’s favorite plumber flips, spins, jumps and hammers his way through scads of exotic worlds that teem with a huge and hugely entertaining supporting cast. Players control numerous old and new characters in a complex, nonlinear story that follows different scenarios depending on player choices. A dizzying collection of spells, attacks, skills and special items can be collected by players willing to thoroughly explore the lush 3-D environments.

Balloon Fight (NES, 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone, 500 Wii Points): Control a character to pop your opponents’ balloons before they pop yours. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Don’t be fooled by this game’s simple premise or cute exterior. Underneath you’ll find a surprisingly addictive game with strategy to spare. After mastering the easy-to-learn controls, you still have to get a grip on the game’s impressively realistic physics. And if that’s not enough, there are the ever-increasing enemies and environmental hazards like lightning and water. Try the game’s second mode, Balloon Trip, if you feel like taking a break from the action and just want to see how long you can stay aloft. And hey, who doesn’t like popping balloons sometimes?

Silent Debuggers (TurboGrafx16, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone—Fantasy Violence, 600 Wii Points): Make your way through a dungeon-like space station and defeat the prowling monsters in this real-time first-person shooter. You’re a member of the elite Debuggers, a group of warriors who are jacks-of-all-trades. Assigned to inspect an unmanned space station, you have exactly 100 minutes to get in, destroy the monsters lurking in each block, make your way to the lowest level and deactivate the automatic detonator placed there. With each monster that slips by you, the core block becomes harder to survive in, so speed is key in preserving the facility and each separate block. Experience the thrill of survival as the timer ticks away and you uncover the truth of the events that occurred.