GoNext

Gib$Ru$-- A cool TF2 community

2009-01-14T20:27:00.003-04:00

Gib$Ru$ is a TF2 guild which I've been part of for some time now. After the community was shut down my leader Tony Montana, some of the guys started it up again, and its currently in its developmental stages at www.gibsrus.org.

So if you want to check out the community, or join it, head over to the website!

Gib$Ru$

Meet GoldTeefNukka: The Drunken TF2 Demoman

2008-06-27T20:59:00.000-03:00

Gib$Ru$ clan captain, GoldTeefNukka, plays some Team Fortress 2 on the Gib$ Dustbowl Payload server. Alas, he shows up wasted.

Here are a few short minutes of Gold making a fool of himself on the server.

Let this be an example of why gamers should not play TF2 drunk.

If you want to play with GoldTeefNukka, and other Gib$Ru$ personalities, check out the following servers.

Orange Maps: 67.213.67.93:27015
2Fort 24/7: 67.213.67.78:27015
Goldrush 24/7: 67.213.67.92:27015
Gravelpit 24/7: 67.213.67.84:27015
Dustbowl Payload 24/7:
67.213.67.83:27015
Dustbowl 24/7: 67.213.67.91:2701
Fastlane/Turbine: 67.213.67.84:27015

Gib$Ru$ Dustbowl Server in TF2-- Where Everybody Knows Your Name

2008-06-02T19:44:00.002-03:00

Being an avid Team Fortress 2 player, and a member of the Gib$Ru$ guild, run by [Gib$Ru$-CEO]t0nY:M()nT@na*, I decided to take my hobby to a new extreme. Making an in-game video.

The video shows a friendly side to the guild's Dustbowl server. It truely is the best server, (in my opinion), in the guild. Some of the best players in the guild play on this server. Its similar to the Mos Eisley Cantina in Star Wars. You never know whom you may meet.

Check out the promotional video below in both Youtube, and Vimeo formats. If you're a TF2 player, check out the servers, and consider joining the guild down the road for great server benefits, and the chance to be part of a great TF2 community.

Team Fortress 2: Dustbowl to Cheers Theme Song from Sean Joudry on Vimeo.

The Sims 3: More of the old?

2008-04-24T11:17:00.003-03:00

Now I’m not going to lie. I’m a bit of fan of ‘The Sims‘ series. I first played the game at a friend’s house back in grade 4, and was amazed with the concept that I could play god. I could watch a couple give birth to a child, (well, not so much give birth, as have a baby magically appear out of near thing air). Then I could watch that baby grow into a child, miraculously skip the hell that is ‘teenage life’, and turn into an adult. Here I could proceed to make him or her make out with as many sims as possible, marry various people in the neighbourhood, and then put them in a room with no doors soon after and have them die. Ahh yes, the memories.

A couple of expansion packs were released for the original Sims title, and they sold pretty well, which resulted in numerous packs coming out, including the most pathetic, ‘The Sims: Makin’ Magic‘, where the characers could pretend to be the little twits in the Harry Potter series, except they lacked any spells that could kill other sims, which would be the best spell of all.

It was inevitable, as the Sims was the best selling PC-game of all time, a sequal was coming at some point. The game was very amusing for me, and I enjoyed killing my sims just as much as in the previous game. Although, after a couple of months of playing, I realized something. EA, (the publisher of the game), had lied to me. These sims weren’t like you or I, they were the same old, poorly computer generated personalities that we saw in the original game, with a slight facelift. Its kind of like the Liberal Party of Canada. No matter how many times you change the leader of it, its still the same, party with the same old bullshit.

I stopped playing the game soon after for that reason, and because I had come to realize that if I couldn’t manage my own life properly, I shouldn’t be focusing on the virtual lives of data on an LCD monitor.

After milking the living shit out of ‘The Sims 2‘ by bring out expansion pack after expansion pack, somebody at EA said, “Hey, these expansions don’t seem to be selling as well as they used to. I think its time for CODE SEQUAL”. And with that we have the announcement of the upcoming title for the PC, ‘The Sims 3‘.

When I heard the annoucement for this title, I became very excited, as I wanted the personalities in the game to become more realistic than they were before, and I wanted more realistic graphics. EA is saying that the characters in the game will be much more realistic than before, and have deeper personalities. Upon reading this, I quietly sung the Final Fantasy victory song to myself. I was excited to see the screenshots of actual gameplay, and after wating a minute for the damn pictures to load, (seriously EA, get some more bandwidth), I was incredibly dissapointed.

“Oh god, what the hell happened here?”, was what I first thought to myself when I saw this “Asian” esque screenshot of a character in ‘The Sims 3′. The character has been hit with the ‘Uncanny Valley’ effect, which is the theory that the more photorealistic computer-generated characters become, the creepier they begin to look. I’m sorry, but I don’t want my sim making out with this chick in the game. She looks so ‘android-like’. Hell, she looks like she game out of the 2nd Sims game. If it weren’t for ‘The Sims 3‘ logo in the bottom, right hand corner, I would think that somebody made a damn good mod and improved the graphics slightly.

I see that EA is really trying to make as much money as possible with the third iteration of ‘The Sims’. Despite changing game engines, the graphics look only slightly better than the previous game. I know, they have a lot of time to fix the graphics, but common if you are working at EA, you’re going to want to release the best looking screenshots that you can, and I’m afraid this might be them.

The screenshots give me a vibe that this game is going to be more of the same old Sims that we know, and have maybe even become sick of. They say that the characters will be more realistic when it comes to their personalities, but they’ve said that before. Supposedly, the character creation is more in-depth, and maybe it will be, but will I really be able to create a sim that looks exactly like ~~Jennifer Anistion~~ Jessica Alba for the in-game version of me to make out with? I doubt it.

I hope that my senses are wrong when it comes to this game, but EA has failed to deliver recently, and the effort they put into The Sims series is abysmal. I guess we’ll all find out whether I’m right or wrong in 2009 when the game is set to be released.

Amazon confirms Gears of War 2! Includes release dates of other big games

2007-12-16T19:46:00.000-04:00

While browsing Amazon I came across a page for Gears of War 2. Amazon is actually a very good source and reliable source of information I find. The site says that it will be coming out on November 15, 2008. I imagine It will more then likely be pushed back though. Interestingly enough the other GoW (God of War)will be launching number 3 on November 15 as well, so this creates a few questions. As well, Soul Calibur IV (a.k.a: Breasts with swords)Will be released on June 1, 2008.

EA announces $195 million dollar Loss last quarter

2007-11-03T15:20:00.001-03:00

The new generation of gaming is not being too kind to videogame giant ‘Electronic Arts’, as it lost $195 million dollars last quarter. The company also had to get rid of 350 employees.

The company, which is the world’s largest video game publisher, came under criticism for not putting enough effort into Nintendo’s console, the ‘Wii’ when it first launched. The company predicted the company to be a flop, but realized they were wrong when it edged past Microsoft’s Xbox 360 in August as the top selling console of the three between Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony.

Now, after missing out on a lot of profit during the ‘Wii gaming drought’, which continues to this day as a time in which there are few games out for the Wii that are of quality, EA is trying to play catch up. The company has redrawn plans to create more games for Nintendo’s little white console, as well as the DS.

EA has always relied on creating games based on movies, and also creating numerous sequels or expansions for their intellectual property that was created back in the early 2000’s. An example of this would be ‘The Sims’ series, which has at least one expansion released a year.

Halo 3 Countdownsite- Just stop it with the count down sites!

2007-06-15T22:30:00.000-03:00

If you've been on the bungie forums recently, you would have heard of some weird events. Players have been getting emails with a strange poem. Some one has managed to dicpher everything and after visitibg a long chain of sites, he has discovered this site. http://206.16.223.65/ . Recently Bungie has said that they were planning to release big news, and maybe this is it. Hopefully it wouldn't lead to another countdown like the God of War site.

Inside of the Wii

2007-01-06T22:45:00.000-04:00

We all know that the Wii is a small little white box, but whats in it? What makes it tick? What does it look like? Check it out, we found these while surfing around a 'MySpace' type site, Nexopia.

EGM Scores and Rumors from January issue

2006-12-11T18:48:00.000-04:00

The guys over at the NeoGAF forums have posted a bunch of scores for games and rumors that are in the January issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly.

Wii
Zelda (Platinum) Jeremey - 10 Crispin - 10 Shane - 10 Game of the Month
Downhill Jam - 7.5 8.0 7.0
Madden 07 - 6.5 6.0 4.5
Red Steel 5.0 4.5 6.0
Wii Sports - 6.5 5.5 7.0
Excite Truck - 7.0 7.5 6.5
Elebits - 7.0 4.0 4.5
Trauma Center - 6.5 7.5 7.0
Rayman RR - 7.0 7.5 7.5

PS3
Resistance (Silver) Garnett 8.5 G. Ford 8.0 Joe 9.0
Genjii - 6.0 5.0 4.5
Untold Legends - 4.0 5.0 5.0
NBA 07 - 6.5 5.0 5.0
Ridge Racer 7 - 8.0 6.5 6.0

PS3 vs Wii winner - Wii (I'm shocked. Haven't read this article yet, but they all pick Wii.)

XBOX360
Gears of War (Gold) - Shoe 10 Bryan 9.5 Andrew P. 9.0
Sonic 5.5 3.0 3.5
DOA Extreme 2 (SotM) - 4.0 4.5 4.5
Viva Pinata (Silver) - 9.0 8.0 8.0
Tony Hawk P8 (Silver) - 9.0 8.5 8.0
Call of Duty 3 - 6.5 7.0 7.0
Rainbow Six Vegas (Silver) - 8.5 7.0 8.5
Phatasy Star Universe - 8.0 7.0 6.5
Superman Returns - 3.0 6.0 5.0
Marvel UA - 7.0 8.0 7.0

Handheld
SOCOM - 6.0 6.5 8.0
Thrillville - 5.5 5.0 3.0
Sonic Rivals - 3.0 6.0 3.0
Vice City Stories (Silver) - 9.0 8.5 9.0
Portrait of Ruin (Silver) - 8.0 9.0 9.0
Kirby Squeak Squad - 7.0 7.0 6.0
FF V (Silver) - 9.0 9.0 8.5

Rumors
-Sticky Balls - New Katamari for Wii, PS3 and Xbox Live arcade.
-Turning War Around - Microsoft is crafting a brilliant plan to flip flop Gears and Halo every year, so expect Gears of War 2 in 2008 and a new Halo game in 2009.
-Count the COMs - three new SOCOM games are in the works. One on PSP and two on PS3.
-Mii Crossing - Mii's will be your avatar in the next Animal Crossing. All the shirts and accessories you collect will cross over to other games.
-Hudsun is releasing a TG16 pack with 3D remakes of Bonk, Adventure Island, and Super Star Soldier for the PS2
-Rare is working on a Viva Pinata Kart racing game.
-NFL may drop EA once it's contract expires in a few years.

Link

Virtual Console games hacked and pirated

2006-12-11T16:55:00.000-04:00

Well, it was only a matter of time before this happened. A group of guys have figured out how to crack the SNES Virtual Console game 'F-Zero', and, get this, they have posted it online available to download via bittorrent. The size of the file seems reasonable at 3.8MB, which is about the size of most SNES roms that you can get off of emulation websites. Here is some info about the torrent that is avaliable to download here:

iND presents,

F-Zero.SNES-VC.NTSC.Wii-iND

Size : 3 487 808 octets
Support : SD Card / Wii
Protection : Nothing

Needed:
          - Nintendo Wii
          - SD Memory Card
          - Saved Channel *Included*

Instructions : Access your SD card and place the file named 'private'
onto the drive. Take the card out of your system and
place it in the Wii. Navigate to your Wii memory management settings
and find the section that is labeled 'Channels'. You will find two tabs
inside, one for your Wii and the other for the SD card. Select the SD
tab and you will find the saved channel present. Copy it to your Wii
and you will be done.

UPDATE: We've tried it here at GoNext and we jumped the gun. Sorry to report this guys, but its true. The games WILL be hacked at some point, but Nintendo will come out with a patch for it as soon as it happens.

Third Party device charges DS Lite using the Wii

2006-12-11T16:32:00.000-04:00

A new device is coming out for the Wii that will allow users with a Nintendo DS Lite to charge their unit using the Wii's rear-end USB ports.

This is the first time that the USB ports for the Wii will actually be used. If you are a Wii owner, then you have more likely than not, never touched the USB ports. They kind of just sit there as of now. If you have ever been curious, and tried plugging in an optical mouse, you would find that the bottom light brights up, but doesn't do anything.

It has not been confirmed, but you can probably charge the unit by plugging it into a computer. As of yet, there have been no announcements for a North American release.

Stretch before using your Wii!

2006-12-10T13:49:00.000-04:00

If you suffer from "Wii-Elbow", then why not try stretching before jumping around the room like a maniac? Follow these simple instructions, and you shouldn't be walking around with a hunched back after playing Wii-Sports for 50 minutes.

Thanks Sicka

Boxart for Sonic and the Secret Rings

2006-12-09T16:16:00.000-04:00

Hey guys,

Here is the boxart for the North American version of Sonic and the Secret Rings for the Wii.

The game, which is the first Sonic game for the Wii, will come out sometime next year. The game was previously called "Sonic Wildfire", but since that sounded to cool, Sega had to change the name to something as lame as "the Secret Rings".

Oh well.

Sorry about inactivity on GoNext

2006-12-06T21:21:00.000-04:00

Sorry about the recent inactivity on GoNext.

We have had a couple of problems recently in our personal lives, along with both of us here playing with the Wii, and we haven't been able to get to the website as much as we wanted to.

Well, we're back and we will try and update as much as possible.
Thanks for all of the support.

Sony Heads get mixed up

2006-11-30T17:06:00.000-04:00

First I'd like to apologise for our 2 week hiatus. Now onto the news.

Fresh off the release of the PS3, worldwide several important members of Sony are leaving their positions and moving to others. The list includes Ken Kutaragi, Jack Tretton, Kaz Hirai, Akira Sato and David Reeves. Kutaragi is now chairman of Sony. Hirai is filling the position and is now the president of SCEA.

Command and Conquer coming to the 360

2006-11-16T17:08:00.000-04:00

The upcoming game in the Command and Conquer series, Command and Conquer Tiberium Wars, which was previously stated for release only PC will also be coming to Microsoft's home console, the Xbox 360.

The game will be available in 2007.

Nintendo: Wii News and Weather will not be avaliable at launch

2006-11-16T16:20:00.000-04:00

In a recent press release from Nintendo, new information came out about the Wii's Weather Channel and the News Channel. And the info isn't good.

Everything does not seem to be going as planned for the Big N as they have announced that the neither the Weather or News channels will be available to use on launch day. Instead, the channels will be rolled out in the upcoming 2 months.

The "Forecast Channel" will be launched on December 20th. The News Channel, which will be powered by the associated press, will come out in '07 on Jan 27. Yes, that is more than two months after the launch of the system.

Obviously, things are not going as well as Nintendo had hoped. About the Opera web browser, the press release said:

"More information about the availability of the browser will be released in the coming weeks"

Hopefully the browser is available at launch and not 2 months later.

Press release below:

Nintendo’s new Wii(TM) video game system not only changes how people play games, but redefines how they interact with both the system and their televisions. With the Wii Menu, Nintendo offers a gateway to new experiences through a collection of interactive channels people can use to customize their gaming and entertainment options.

The Wii Menu serves as the main portal to the different functions of Wii, and is designed to evolve throughout the life of the system. Some functions can be used right out of the box and more will roll out during the next few weeks and into next year, with content continually changing over time. Wii goes on sale in the Americas Nov. 19 at an MSRP of $249.99.

“The diversity of the Wii Menu has something for both gamers and non-gamers,” says Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime. “The options exist to help introduce current non-players to Wii and help us bring gaming to the masses.”

On launch day, players who want to play a Wii game or a (TM) game simply pop in the disc, aim their motion-sensitive Wii Remote(TM) at the Wii Menu and click on the Disc Channel to start the game. It’s that simple. But some of the real fun with the Wii Menu comes with customization. The Mii(TM) Channel lets users create caricatures of themselves (or anyone else) that can be used first in Wii Sports(TM), a collection of five sports games packed in with the Wii system. Up to 10 Mii characters can be stored in a single Wii Remote, and players can carry them to a friend’s house and populate multiple Wii systems.

Using the Photo Channel, users can explore their creative talents by developing a slide show or showing off their best shots in an easy, fun way. With an SD memory card from a digital camera, users can display their photos on their televisions and perform basic editing and manipulation.

The Wii Shop Channel serves as Wii’s online storefront, where visitors can redeem Wii Points(TM) to download games or other items. Users need a high-speed Internet connection to access the Wii Shop Channel and choose from at least 12 classic Virtual Console(TM) games that will be ready to play on launch day. Some of the games a player can download include: Donkey Kong(R) (NES(R)), based on the arcade game of the same name; SimCity(R) (SNES(TM)),
where players get to build a city from the ground up, being responsible for each decision they make; Super Mario 64(R), the first-ever true 3-D game, which changed the face of gaming forever; Sonic the Hedgehog(R) (Genesis(R)), the fastest blue hedgehog on Earth whips through hair-raising loop-de-loops and into dizzying dives; and Bomberman(R) ‘93 (TurboGrafx16(TM)), the exciting, powered-up version that followed the original Bomberman(R).

More Virtual Console games will become available weekly every Monday following launch and by year’s end, gamers will be able to pick from a library of 30 or more classic games from the Nintendo Entertainment System(R), Super NES(R), Nintendo(R) 64, Sega Genesis(TM) and TurboGrafx16 consoles. Users buy Wii Points at retail or with a credit card in the Wii Shop Channel and redeem their Wii Points to download the classic games. NES games start at 500 Wii
Points, Super NES games start at 800 Wii Points and Nintendo 64 games start at 1,000 Wii Points. Sega Genesis games start at 800 Wii Points and TurboGrafx16 games start at 600 Wii Points.

The Wii Shop Channel is also where users will go to download the Opera browser that will let them surf the Internet from the comfort of their couches on Wii’s Internet Channel. More information about the availability of the browser will be released in the coming weeks.

On Dec. 20, Nintendo will roll out the Forecast Channel. Users will be able to access free local weather information, which is continually updated. Users can access worldwide weather information by browsing a 3-D globe. Weather information will be supplied by Weathernews. A high-speed Internet connection is required to access the Forecast Channel.

Then on Jan. 27, the Wii Menu News Channel will make headlines with the latest news from around the world provided by the Associated Press. A high-speed Internet connection is also needed to access the News Channel.

For more information about Wii and the Wii Menu, visit Wii.com.

Nintendo Wii Commercials

2006-11-15T07:48:00.000-04:00

Here are the commercials that aired last night for the Nintendo Wii, the first one aired during 'Dancing with the Stars', we are not sure about the second one. We have to directly link to the last one because for some reason, we do not have permission to embed it. Damn Google.

There are supposedly 4, we will bring you more as we get them.

Click here for second

New Pokemon Revolution screens

2006-11-15T07:31:00.000-04:00

Pokemon Revolution for the Wii will be one of if not the first game for the Wii that will have online play.

So without further ado, here are some links to the pics. Thanks to GoNintendo for the headsup.

It appears in the 'Roster Screen' that there will be Wii-DS compatibility. Even more excitingly, it should be wireless.

Build Character Screen
Roster Screen
PokeShop
Battle Pictures
Competitor
New Stadiums

Wii: The Movie - The Official Trailor

2006-11-14T21:08:00.000-04:00

This video is, put simply, amazing. The Nintendo Wii will launch on Sunday, and this video will make all fanboys, and just gamers in general, squeal with glee. The guys who made the video make the Wii seem like the holy grail and that the world's future depends on it. Bravo to the guys who made this.

Thanks to reader Josh Gilfoy for the heads up!

Asterix & Obelix XXL2 Mission Wifix box art: are they allowed that?

2006-11-14T17:01:00.000-04:00

Above is the boxart to Asterix & Obelix XXL2 Mission Wifix for the Ds. I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict that this game is gonna be crap. Besides the pointless addition of an X to wifi, I also noticed something interesting about the art. There are four characters who strongly resemble video game icons. We have Lara Croft, Pacman, Sonic, and Mario complete with FLUDD. Lets just hope there is no courtroom drama to follow.

Yay! Wii Accessories!

2006-11-13T11:58:00.000-04:00

EBgames has a bunch of accessories for the Wii on their website. They're pretty interesting too.

First up, as you can see below, there is an SD card out with the name 'Wii' on it. Thats all, nothing special here. The only reason that is has the Wii on it is to try and get people who don't know much about videogames to buy it. This is because some people may worry about compatibility with the Wii, but if the name of the console is specifically on it, they will feel much better.

Second up we have a stand for the Wii, and the Wii-mote and nunchuck. It looks pretty slick from the photo, even though the photo appears to be a prototype picture because everything looks mildly photoshoped. It looks pretty good, hopefully the plastic won't be cheap and have a crappy feel to it. The product sells for $19.99, which isn't bad if you want to be able to keep all of your Wii things together.

Who really gives a crap about the following item. Its just a case to put game disks in with the word 'Wii' on it. Most people would rather keep their games in their respective boxes anyways, so this is kind of foolish.

Here is a case to hold the Wii-mote in along with some SD cards. Nothing much to see here either.

We also have to mention this 3rd party nunchuck, as seen in a previous post. This one is confirmed as it can be seen on the Walmart website. To quote the previous article we wrote about this,

"Its not just a nunchuck in itself, it also comes packed in with a stand that will hold the Wii console, SD cards, the nunchuck, and it also appears to be capable to hold the Wii-mote behind the nunchuck. It doesn't look very slick though. It looks kind of sloppy and cheaply made, but it is nice to see that metal will hold the nunchuck and Wii-mote instead of cheap plastic."

Last we have a Wii 'Sling' bag being advertised on Barnes & Noble. This is actually a pretty good idea! The size of the Wii is very small, making the system very portable, so why not have a specific bag to hold the system in, along with all of its games? The only problem with it is that you're basically advertising that you have a Wii in your bag, so prepare to get mugged.

3rd Party Wii nunchuck!

2006-11-13T09:42:00.001-04:00

There is a 3rd party nunchuck coming to the market, and this one we can confirm, mainly because of the fact that it is on the Walmart website.

Its not just a nunchuck in itself, it also comes packed in with a stand that will hold the Wii console, SD cards, the nunchuck, and it also appears to be capable to hold the Wii-mote behind the nunchuck.

It doesn't look very slick though. It looks kind of sloppy and cheaply made, but it is nice to see that metal will hold the nunchuck and Wii-mote instead of cheap plastic.

3rd party devices are usually cheaper than 1st party ones, but not in this case. The device will sell for $26.82 USD, the official Nintendo nunchuck is $19.99. I guess that, to be fair, you do get a stand to hold the Wii with it, so it isn't a bad deal. The only problem is that this nunchuck may not be as responsive as the Nintendo one, making this a bad buy.

Link
Source

Nintendo interview about Virtual Console

2006-11-12T10:40:00.000-04:00

Computer and Videogames recently had an interview with Nintendo asking them about the Virtual console. Check out the interview here, or below.

Do N64 games on Virtual Console have the rumble feedback compatibility?

Nintendo: The rumble feature is not supported on N64 games downloaded to the Virtual Console.

Multiplayer games - will these now incorporate an option to allow the second/third/fourth player to connect over the internet to play, as some PC emulators have made possible?

Nintendo: All games will be faithful recreations of the original versions so they will not feature new functions like multiplayer or internet play if the original title did not.

Will the Wii iron out all slow-down that existed in old games, including the 2D formats? It would be great to play all the old games at a silky-smooth framerate, but some retro gamers, for some reason, consider the slowdown to a part of the game's old-school appeal.

Nintendo: The Virtual Console games faithfully reproduces the original game in all areas, including content, movement and expressions. Principle programming, characters, sound etc. have not been changed.

Being as the Wii classic controller cannot be used to play GameCube games, will Nintendo continue to produce and sell GameCube controllers?

Nintendo: No plans have been announced to date. But Nintendo GameCube accessories are still available from all good retailers.

How configurable will controls be? The N64, with its C-buttons, effectively had six face buttons. The VC controller only has 4. How will this mapping work?

Nintendo: Controller layouts will be determined on a game-by-game basis and detailed in the electronic manual.

Will their be any price difference between buying Wii Points through the online Wii Shop Channel and via retail stores?

Nintendo: Wii points will cost the same online as they do in retail. They can be purchased on the Wii Shop Channel using all major credit cards. 2000 points cards will cost €20 (£14) both online and in shops.

Will there be a published release schedule of VC games or will they just come out as and when?

Nintendo: More Virtual console games will be announced at a later date. New Virtual Console titles will be added in 2007 and beyond creating a constantly growing library of games.

How large (in storage terms) will VC games be? At present what is the average size for games on each of the formats?

Nintendo: Games vary in size but approximately NES games will be 1MB, SNES 5MB and N64 32MB.

How will VC games be organised on the channels page? Will each game be an individual channel or can users group say all the titles of one format (SNES) or all the titles of one series (Zelda)?

Nintendo: Each VC title downloaded will be displayed as an individual channel. Users may move these channels around to suit them.

Microsoft to buy Capcom?

2006-11-12T10:29:00.000-04:00

According to the lastest issue of EGM, Microsoft is looking to buy the Japanese game developer, Capcom.

Capcom, which has been around for over 25 years, would give the Xbox 360 a large advantage over the other consoles. This would be because they would have exclusives such as Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, Mega Man, Street Fighter, along with a couple other small brands. Having Resident Evil all to themselves in Japan would definitely help out Microsoft who has never been able to break into the Japanese market well.

Capcom has shown Microsoft a good amount of support recently with the release of the zombie killing game 'Dead Rising', along with the upcoming game, 'Lost Planet'.

Rest assured Sony and Nintendo fans, Capcom would not sell out to Microsoft. If they ever did, then that would mean that the apocalypse is coming.

Nintendo fans may remember when Microsoft bought Rare, the creator of games such as the 'Banjo-Kazooie' series, along with Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, among others back in the early 2000's. But to be fair, Nintendo didn't want the company anymore, so they sold out too. Because of the fact that Microsoft owns Rare, no original games made by the company will appear on the Wii's Virtual console system, like Banjo-Kazooie.

[Update] In response to comment #6,

"Who cares. The games will all still be good, its just that MS will have access the Japanese market. Quit your winging, MS haters! You really want to change things, petition games to be developed for the Mac."

Any company buying out a game developer is not good for the industry overall. Capcom currently develops for all of the consoles, but if Microsoft buys out Capcom, Resident Evil and so on will all be exclusives to the Xbox 360. If Nintendo was planning on buying Capcom, it would still be rather depressing.

Nintendo screws the earlybirds

2006-11-10T21:09:00.000-04:00

A bunch of major gaming network's received a pleasant surprise today, and that surprise was the Wii.

Even though these guys get their Wii first, don't be too jealous, because they can't do everything that they want to. Nintendo seems to have placed a failsafe in with the Wii console. Just in case somehow gamers got their hands on the Wii early, they would not be able to access any of the online features. It appears that the Nintendo network will only be up and running on launch day, November 19. This will stop any retailers who sell their Wii units early from giving the consumers any advantage over the guys who play the game fair. This means no Virtual Console, News Channel, Weather Channel, Console Messaging, or Opera Web Browser. But yes, you can still play the games.

This is typical of Nintendo who just loves to keep secrets from the public, making the hype build up more and more. They're pretty damn good at marketing, you have to give them that. Interestingly, when the Wii 'Update' disk that updates the Wii's firmware was put into the console, it 'froze' for a couple of minutes, only to say that it could not connect to the network. This would mean, more likely than not, if you do not have access to WiFi internet, then you will not be able to update the system. This would mean that the only update has to do with the internet.

It was previously announced that the Opera web browser would be available to those who buy a Wii before June of 2007. Although the browser is not pre-loaded onto the console when you take it out of the package, you will be able to either get it off the Wii shopping channel, as previously stated, or it may possibly be automatically downloaded from

Universal releases Castlevania poster

2006-11-10T09:31:00.000-04:00

According to /FILM, Universal has released a teaser poster for their upcoming project, Castlevania, based on the very popular video game series.

We can not verify whether or not this is definitely the poster for the movie, so for now, take it with a grain of salt. It is strange that Universal would put the name of the director along with the other movie's that he did at the top of the teaser posted in large font. Teaser posters are usually meant just to say, "We're coming..", and it regularly just the name of the movie and a picture. Who knows. What do you guys think?

PS3 Is Losing Launch Titles

2006-11-10T00:59:00.000-04:00

Oh Sony, how can you let this happen! If you've been with us since the early days, would know that one of our first stories was the complete list of launch titles for the PS3. Well call us liars, but the list just got smaller. The latest Sonic game will be late, NBA 07 has been scrapped all together, but the most disappointing delay was Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, the launch title I was most excited about (sorry Resistance.)

World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Launch Date Announced (For Now)

2006-11-10T00:44:00.000-04:00

If you are a loyal citizen to Azeroth like I am, then it's more then likely you are highly anticipating the game's first expansion pack, Burning Crusade. The game is expected to be released on January 16 in both North America as well as Europe. The game is being released in a standard edition, as well as a limited edition, packed with a bunch of extras. The expansion includes two new races, the Drenai and Blood Elves, and a higher level cap of 70, among other things. Blizzard is hoping to release one expansion every year, but with all the delays of Burning Crusade, I doubt that it will happen.

On another note, the population of Azeroth has exceeded 7.5 million. It's only a mater of time until WoW out sells The Sims and becomes the highest selling game of all time.

Do you want a PS9?

2006-11-09T11:25:00.000-04:00

With the launch of the PS3 just around the corner, lets look to the future, because we know that Sony sure is. Lets look way into the future, lets look, at the Playstation 9. Here is a video of what your future has in store. The Wii can't beat this.

More Virtual Console games!

2006-11-09T09:15:00.000-04:00

Here is a list of more games that will be coming out for the Virtual Console sometime in the near future. Here they are.

* Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (Super NES; rated E for Everyone)
* Kirby's Super Star (Super NES; rated E for Everyone)
* Mario Kart 64 (Nintendo 64; rated E for Everyone)
* Starfox 64 (Nintendo 64; rated E for Everyone)
* Super Metroid (Super NES; rated E for Everyone)
* Kirby's Dream Land 3 (Super NES; rated E for Everyone)
* The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time (Nintendo 64; rated E for Everyone)
* Excitebike (NES; rated E for Everyone)
* Ice Climber (NES; rated E for Everyone)
* Dr. Mario (NES; rated E for Everyone)
* Mario Brothers (NES; rated E for Everyone)
* Ice Hockey (NES; rated E for Everyone)
* Soccer (NES; rated E for Everyone)

=The list is starting to look better, and thankfully, some more SNES and N64 games were added.

Source

New Necro-Nesia for Wii screeens and video!

2006-11-09T08:47:00.000-04:00

Here are some new screens for Necro-Nesia, a Resident Evil type game that will be coming out for the Wii.
The game looks very, well, interesting. Check out the video below, and tell us what you think.

It looks kind of choppy so far, and at the very start of the video, you can tell that there is an invisible wall there, which always ruins the experience. Combat in the game also looks very annoying and if you don't have the Wii-Mote strap around your hand, you will end up throwing the Wii-mote across the room.

Source

First PS3 Review

2006-11-08T22:17:00.000-04:00

Gamespot has posted it's first PS3 review today. The game reviewed was Genji 2, the sequel to last years Onimusha Esq samuari adventure. Lets just say it wasn't very impressive. The game got a 6.4, ouch. They say that the game feels slightly rushed. So remember, all crabs have a weak point that you have to stab.

Link

EA will publish Hellgate London

2006-11-08T16:42:00.000-04:00

Namco-Bandai has decided to let Electronic Arts co-publish their highly anticipated title, Hellgate London, which is coming out for the PC sometime next year.

Pretty much the only thing that EA has to do is marketing, sales, and distribution, which is making the CD's and getting them out to the stores. Everything else will be handled by Namco.

The game was announced in 2004 and has been greatly anticipated since. Many team-members who worked on Blizzard's Diablo series are working on Hellgate, which adds even more to the hype.

Press Release here

Another PS3 commercial: SixAxis

2006-11-08T16:06:00.000-04:00

We hate to post one video after another, especially for you guys out there on dial-up, but here is another PS3 commercial. This one is very interesting though. Sony is pushing their controller in this one, hoping to amaze people who have not heard of Sixaxis's special abilities. And it is done very well, good job Sony!

FIRST Farcry Vengeance Wii video

2006-11-08T07:45:00.000-04:00

Here is the first video for the Wii version of Farcry.

The game is an announced launch title and many fans of the PC version and Xbox game will enjoy this version. You guys say what you think of the video, we don't want to get into it this time.

Source

New Virtual Console titles announced

2006-11-08T07:35:00.000-04:00

IGN has posted a list of some upcoming Wii Virtual Console titles.

* Duck Hunt (E for Everyone)
* Hogan's Alley (E for Everyone)
* Kid Icarus (E for Everyone)
* Kirby's Adventure (E for Everyone)
* Pilot Wings (E for Everyone)
* Pro Wrestling (E for Everyone)
* Punch-Out (E for Everyone)
* Wild Gunman (E for Everyone)

We cannot verify whether or not they will be coming out at launch, but more likely than not, you will be able to pick them up, or download them, by the end of the year.

Interestingly enough, Duckhunt was on the list. It is likely that you will use the Wii-Mote to play this game. Strangely, no N64 games were on the list. The only game for that console that we know of available to download to this date is Super Mario 64.

Source

Pokemon Wii video.

2006-11-07T07:56:00.000-04:00

Here is a very quick post to show you all a battle out of the upcoming Pokemon game for the Wii. The graphics look pretty good, but the gameplay seems a little dull.

THQ to make Pixar game

2006-11-06T18:42:00.000-04:00

THQ today announced that they would be creating the game for the Disney-Pixar movie 'Ratatouille'.

The developer of the game of the game, Heavy Iron Studios, has made game 'The Incredibles', based on the Disney-Pixar movie of the same name. They also made a sequal to the game that was not based on the movie. They also made 2 SpongeBob Squarepants games along with a Scooby-Doo based game and 'Evil Dead'.

The game will be coming out in the Summer of 2007 when the movie launches.

Final Fantasy XII- Hands on impressions

2006-11-06T16:07:00.000-04:00

With most games, after you play them for 15 hours, you're pretty close to the end. That is not the case with Final Fantasy XII. On the contrary, 15 minutes is barely scratching the surface. I'm estimating there's still about 60 hours left in the main storyline + another 30 hours to complete the side quests.

If you've played Final Fantasy Tactics or Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, then you've already been to the world of Ivalice, where FF XII takes place. There are six races in Ivalice; Humes, the adorable Moogles, the female only rabbit/ human hybrid Viera, the reptilian Bangaa, the rarely mentioned Nu Mou, and a new race, the pig-like Seeq. Your party will consist of six members; five Hume, and one Viera. More on these characters later. Six is rather small for a party in a Final Fantasy, and I think it wouldn't of hurt to at least have a Bangaa in your party. As well, it's disappointing that the Nu Mou have only been briefly mentioned one time in the story so far. Another unique thing about Ivalice are the Judges, elite warriors that enforce the imperial law.

With all Final Fantasies, the story is the best part about XII. In brief, two countries are fighting a war. You play as Vaan, an orphan that wants to become a sky pirate, kind of reminds me of Zidane. One of the members of your party is a princess named Ashe, believed to be dead, she is trying to reclaim her throne, which is currently being ruled by the antagonist Vayne, kind of reminds me Seymour. It's up to you to bring the princess back to her rightful position. Along the way, there is much political corruption. That's pretty much it, no love, not even the eminent destruction of the world. Besides Vaan and Ashe, your party also includes Penelo, Vaan's childhood friend, Basch, a knight who is accused of being a traitor, Balthier (my favourite,) a well manored sky pirate, and his partner Fran, a Viera.

One of the biggest changes to XII is the new Active Dimension Battle system. This is pretty much a combination of the ATB system and the combat in FF XI. Pretty much, there are no more random encounters, yet it's still not in real time. Monsters roam the world, and you get to decide if you want to fight or not (unless they're aggro.) When you target a monster, a time bar fills up, you get to use an action, such as Attack. When ever you defeat more then one monster of the same type, you start a chain. The longer then chain, the better items you'll receive. Eventually the chain will become so long, your party will gain small amounts of health and beneficial status effects. Since you can only directly control one character at a time, you can program your allies AI with Gambits.

In my opinion, purchasing more Gambits is pretty much pointless, except for a white mage. Each character begins with 2 Gambits, and gain gain up to 12. Each Gambit consists of a target and an action, for example: Nearest enemy- Attack. You can also prioritise Gambits, it's wise to always have healing your top priority. Instead of spending Gil and License Points on Gambits, it's easier just to tell them what to do manually. I understand why they put it in, and it is somewhat cool, and very deep and complex, but if you select your gambits well enough, the game starts playing itself, and that's not fun. The programing in Kingdom Hearts 2 is better in my opinion.

If you're familiar with the law system from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, then this will make a bit more sense. Due to the Judges, everything requires a licence to use, just like you need a license to drive a car. So if you buy a new shield, you'll need to buy the licence before you can equip it. This is also how you obtain the right to use Magick, Gambits, Quickenings (Limit Breaks), and Espers (Summons.) The License Board is fairly similar to FFX's Sphere Grid in concept. The License Board consists of two grids: one for weapons and armor, the other for Magick, Augments, Technicks, and Accessories. Espers and Quickenings are scattered throughout both grids. You're character starts off with only a few purchased Licenses, and all the rest are unavailable. Every time you purchase a license, the surrounding licenses become available. You purchase each license with License Points. You gain LP from killing monsters, just like Experience Points. Unlike experience points, the amount of license points you get from each monster is roughly constant. Almost every monster, whether it is level 5 or level 50, gives you 1 LP. The exception to this is rare monsters or bosses who give more LP. This is where the problem lays. If you're grinding to get enough LP to be able to equip that new sword, it's much easier to go to the first area and kill all the weak monsters then it is to fight monsters at your current level. This being said, the license board will be filling up rather quickly . It is also easy to get the more powerful licences early in the game. My Fran, who is lvl 13, can use all of the most powerful weapons in the game. a good thing about the Licence Board is that it allows you to fully customize your party. Do you want Vaan to be a fearsome tank or a devastating mage? It's up to you.

In the game, there are five types of Magick: White, Black, Time, and the new Green and Arcane. I can't help but notice the lack of Blue Magick. White Magick is of course for healing, and BlackMagick is offensive spells. Time Magick, which has often been sorted into White Magic, can speed up your allies, or slow down your enemies. For some reason, Break and Float are in this category. Arcane Magick is entirely random. Not only does it not go with the color scheme, but Square probably got the idea to call it arcane from Warcraft. The abilities in this category seem more like Technicks then Magick. Technicks are miscellaneous abilities, such as being able to steal or revealing your opponents stats. There are also some offensive Technicks like 1000 Needles.

Quickenings are the new Limit Breaks for FF XII. A character obtains Quickenings from the License Board. There are 18 Quickenings scattered throughout the board, and only one character can use each license. Each character can earn a maximum of three Quickenings. It doesn't mater which licence you use, the character will gain the same Quickening. Each of the Quickenings you earn are more powerful then the next, but the more powerful ones require more MP. A huge benefit is when you obtain your second and third Quickening, your MP will double and triple respectively. Depending on on the lvl of the Quickening, you havce to pay more MP. For example: if you use a lvl 2 quickening, you have to pay 200% of your MP. The way you use Quickening are interesting. After you select a Quickening, a timer appears at the bottom right corner. Above it are the names of everyone in your party who also have Quickenings. If their names are in white you can press the characters corresponding button to create a chain of Quickenings. The longest chain I've done was 13. If all of your parties names are gray, you have to press the R2 button, this creates new results. You continue this until you get a white name, so it's almost like roulette. The longer the chain, the quicker the timer runs out. After you run out of time, depending on your results, a Concurrence will trigger. These are powerful finishers that happen depending on what lvl of Quickenings you used in a chain. For example: if you use two lvl 1 Quickenings and three lvl 2's, Torrent will activate. Getting long chains is hard at first, but you eventually get better. Quickenings are also rediculously powerful. I killed all of early bosses at full health with a single quickening. They are also easy to get. In one point of the License Board, three Quickenings are within the licenses of each other. My Vaan had all three of his Quickenings by lvl 15. And by lvl 19, all my characters except for Basch had all three. Now that I'm fighting some more difficult bosses, Quickenings being used by my party are only doing about 1/2 of their health, which makes me question how useful they will be later in the game. A cheep way to get around this is after you use a Quickening, switch out one of your party members for another that has full MP. Then use that characters quickening, then repeat as much as you can. You should be able to pull off a maximum of four Quickenings. Oh yeah, the animation for the Quickenings are gorgeous.

The summons in this game are known as Espers. I've only just obtained my first so I can't go into much detail. Each Esper is based off of one of the Zodiac beings and either a previous FF boss, such as Zeromus, a Totema from FFTA, such as Famfrit, or a demon from the original FFT, such as Zalera. You gain an Esper after you defeat it in battle, then you have to purchase it's License. Only one character may purchase each Esper. Like Quickenings, it costs a certain percentage of your MP to summon an Esper, depending on how powerful it is. When they are summoned, the other two party members leave. The Esper follows you wreaking havoc for 1:30 or until it dies. When the time is up, the Esper leaves with a devastating attack.

Probably one of the best things about FF XII is the beautiful graphics. In some cut scenes, I had a hard time distinguishing between whether it was in game or CG. Another good thing about the game is the currency. In very other RPG I've played, the equipment you find in dungeons is far better then the stuff found in stores, and monsters drop enough helpful items to get you through. All these things make stores nearly obsolete, and your money just piles up. With all the mandatory things to buy (weapons, armor, items, accessories, Magicks, Technicks, and Gambits), you'll be spending a lot of Gil. You get just enough Gil adventuring to buy a couple nice things, then when you run out, you go off on another quest., only to return richer and buy more things. The game does a good job of balancing the player on the fine line dividing poor and rich.

If you plan on buying this game, be warned: It will take a looong time to complete. Hopefully it will take long enough to help fill in the waiting time For the Wii.

Picture of Zelda disc

2006-11-05T16:39:00.000-04:00

We're a little late posting this, but here is the disk for 'The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess'.

5 year old doesn't like SixAxis

2006-11-05T16:29:00.000-04:00

This isn't good news. A Kotaku writer's son tried out the PS3's motion sensing controls and said that he prefered the thumbstick over the motion sensing controls.

This is really bad news for Sony when a 5 year old isn't fond of the controller, but once again, hes a 5 year old, so its not like he is a pro at reviewing games or anything. We'll just have to wait and see how the controller is going to be.

There is no doubt that if Sony's motion sensing component is done right, then driving games will be amazing! With the Wii, you are tilting a stick side to side, but with the PS3, it will feel like you are kind of riding a bike. Yes yes, you can get the 'Steering Wheel' component for the Wii, but the PS3 racing games will be amazing, especially with the great graphics and effects.

Source [Kotaku]

Mario Party 8 Videos!

2006-11-05T13:33:00.000-04:00

Here are a couple of videos of Mario Party 8. The game looks good and you can tell that there is a graphics upgrade, although it is very minor. The Wii-mote integrates into the game very well. As long as the game can go online, this game is going to be a smash hit. Hell, even without online play its going to sell like crazy.

PS3 controls gone bad

2006-11-04T15:07:00.000-04:00

When it was announced that the Playstation 3 controller, since dubbed 'SIXAXIS', had motion controls, many yelled "Foul" at Sony for what many gamers felt was a cheap rip-off of Nintendo's Wii controller.

Sadly, it doesn't look like the motion sensing components of the PS3 are going to be put to good use. As you can see above in the screenshot, this is how you will play Virtua Tennis 3 on the PS3. Sega just wants people to think that their motion sensing controller is a good idea, but this is just dumb, and its going to be more complicated than anything to try and control the characters on the screen tilting the controller everywhich way. The controller could have been put to good use, but this just looks, sadly, too complicated. You are not emulating what it is like to play tennis, you are just swinging the controller forwards and backwards.

With the Wii controller, you just whack the controller against the air, just like a real tennis racket, and your character on the screen will do the same, but with the PS3 controller, you push the controller forward, and backwards. Is this really necessary? If you can't do it right, then just don't try. People were wondering if the Wii would exhaust the gamer, it looks like the same question will be asked for the Playstation 3.

We presume that Virtua Tennis 3 players will also have the ability to play the game the 'old fashion' way by just pressing the buttons and moving around the analogue stick. If you can't, then this game is sure to be the first most frustrating game on the PS3. We'll have to wait and see what its like. But from what it looks like, this isn't going to be an easy game to play. But.. well... it unique alright.

Whats next? God of War where you make Kratos attack by tilting the controller sideways and then pulling it upwards? Hopefully a game will come along at some point that will make good use of the motion sensing features, the same goes for the Wii.

Xbox 360 Headset pics- In the wild

2006-11-04T12:00:00.000-04:00

NoOnesWatchingYou has posted some pics of his Xbox 360 headset working, and it looks pretty cool, even better than it did in the promotional pictures. It looks very comfortable to wear too. Go to the site and check out some more of his pics!

Source

New PS3 Commercial!

2006-11-04T10:09:00.001-04:00

Here is the new PS3 commercial, except this one actually makes sense!

Nintendo World '06 video lineup

2006-11-04T09:50:00.000-04:00

Hey guys,

Here is a wrapup video of all of the games showed at Nintendo World 2006. A bunch of new games are shown in the video. Games include: Harvest Moon, Day of Crisis footage, Project H.A.M.M.E.R, new Mario Galaxy footage, Smash Bros. Brawl, Battalion Wars 2, Mario Party 8, Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles, Two new puzzel games, Sudoku, new fishing game, new Bomberman, The Dog Island, and more footage of other games.

Wii Startup Disk photo

2006-11-03T19:03:00.000-04:00

Joystiq has a photo of the Wii Startup Disc that we reported on earlier last month.

It appears that we were correct and it is a simple firmware update. Although what do you think the Wii will be like without the firmware update? We'll make sure we test it out once we get our Wii on Novermber 19th.

New Super Smash Bros Brawl trailer UP

2006-11-03T07:45:00.000-04:00

To see the new Super Smash Bros Brawl trailer, head over to HERE.

It looks pretty good, but realtime gameplay isn't anything amazing, it is actually kind of hard to tell the difference between the Gamecube and the Wii version. The backdrops over all look pretty good though, strangely, all of the ones they showed looked fairly dark.

Also, there appears to be destructible environments! Check it out.

[UPDATE] Here is is

EA sequals for next generation

2006-11-03T07:26:00.000-04:00

EA has said which games they will be producing sequals for in the next generation, and it is a pretty interesting list.

The Wii will get its very own 'The Sims' game for itself, which is sure to be a hit. It might even possibly resemble the PC version since the Wii-mote could be used as something like a mouse. The Playstation 3 will get "The Sims 2: Holiday Edition", which is also coming out on the PC, so its gameplay should be interesting to see. And our best friend, the PC, will be getting 'The Sims 3' by 2009. Another Sims game, 'SimCity', will also come back to the table. This game will most likely be called 'Sim City 5', but we cannot verify that, because EA may not want to call it that, or may not make a true sequel to the city building series.

Another Lord of the Rings game will also be coming to the next generation, most likely all of the consoles and the PC. A sequel to 'Black' will also be coming out at some point. 'Army of Two' and 'Crysis' have both been delayed until after March, 2007.

EA thinks PS3 is gonna be hard to get

2006-11-03T07:15:00.000-04:00

Electronic Arts recently said to GI that there it will be hard to get a Playstation 3 this upcoming Christmas. "We're thinking that with PlayStation 3 in North America, the range is probably 500,000 to 800,000."

This is very interesting news. If a developer knows that a console will not be in the hands of enough gamers, then they are less likely to spend high production costs on creating a game for it. This may be the same case for EA.

We also found it very interesting that a week or so ago, they stopped by GoNext and watched the somewhat disturbing PS3 ad.

Wii comes to South Park

2006-11-02T21:03:00.000-04:00

Weeks ago, South Park aired an episode based on "World of Warcraft." To keep with the trend, this weeks episode was based on Cartman obsessing over the Wii, and the desperate attempts he makes to get one early. Unfortunately, it's a two part series.

Watch the show here.

Mario Party 8 for the Wii screenshots

2006-11-02T20:49:00.000-04:00

Here are a couple of screenshots for the upcoming game, 'Mario Party 8', for the Wii. And to start off, sorry they're so small, but its either this or nothing.

The graphics appear to break the horrible ones in the previous games. Interestingly enough, it appears that Samus makes an appearance in the game. This is good news, because the same old characters game after game were starting to get repetitive. Strangely, if you look at the screenshot at the very bottom, you can see a scene which resembles the environment that 'Super Mario Galaxies' is based in.

So far, there is no clue to when the game will be released, but once the first one comes out, you can expect another one to follow year after year. Maybe at some point, Nintendo will try refreshing the series by calling it something different. Like 'Nintendo Party' maybe?

Curiously, to the second screenshot to the bottom, you can see a 4 and 2 way split screen. This enforces the obvious fact that the game will have multiplayer play, but does it also mean that it will have online play? Lets all hope so because this game was meant to be played online, and Nintendo hopefully will realize that.

Source

How Twilight Princess begins..

2006-11-02T20:45:00.000-04:00

DefectiveReject, a member of the NeoGAF forums, has posted up some info about how 'The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess' begins.

WARNING: THERE ARE SPOILERS

-----
Spoiler alert: the following article contains information on the gameplay and storyline in the first few hours of Twilight Princess.

Playing a new Zelda adventure for the first time is one of those rare, special moments in gaming; and they don't come any more special than The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Since it was revealed at E3 2004, fans have been clamouring to get their hands on Twilight Princess; savouring every titbit of info. Today, you've found yourself a feast!

Below you'll find the first part of our Twilight Princess hands-on impressions, based on the Wii version which hits shops on December 8. While we've yet to complete the game, we've seen enough to know that this Zelda will fulfil all your expectations - and then some!

New beginnings

Twilight Princess begins, appropriately, at dusk. As the day's light fades, the view pans down on a pond in a woodland glade. There sits Link listening to an older man explain how Link will be entrusted with delivering an important package tomorrow to Hyrule Castle.

The scene fades to the next day and we see Link's treehouse home in Ordon Village. A villager arrives and gives Link an urgent mission: round up the goats! Link isn't a hero yet; he's merely a farmhand.

We're now in control of Link for the first time. You move him around with the Nunchuk's Control Stick and press A and B on the Wii Remote to perform actions. Pressing C on the Nunchuk switches to first-person view and you can simply point the Wii Remote where you want to look. Locking onto items and enemies is handled by holding the Nunchuk's Z button.

We have no weapons yet, so all we can do is talk to people. As we walk through the village and chat to the locals we hear stories about mischievous monkeys causing trouble in the area. A young girl tells Link that his fishing rod is almost ready, so we make a mental note to come back later.

We find our horse Epona (you can change the name if you wish) being washed by a pretty girl about Link's age named Ilia. Growing nearby are reeds that you can pick; blow into them and you'll hear a familiar melody (Epona's Song from Ocarina of Time) which calls your horse to you.

The goat-herding minigame is a nice introduction to controlling Epona. You must round up the beasts by coaxing them into their pen and you can even make a cowboy-style 'Whoop!' by hitting A. After each goat is returned, 'Goat in!' humorously flashes on the screen.

When we're finished, we're in such a cowboy mood that we giddy-up Epona and make a daring leap over the fence, heading back to town. There we meet Ilia again but she spots an injury on Epona's leg and she chastises us for hurting the horse with our showjumping stunt. Link doesn't speak but from the look on his face, especially his emotive eyes, you can tell how foolish he's feeling at this moment. If you thought the cel-shaded Link from Wind Waker had lots of character, his new realistic look is even more expressive.

Lost and found

We head back to the village and pay a visit to the shop, where we see a nice Slingshot for sale. Problem is, the shopkeeper is too worried about her lost cat to sell anything today. We won't spoil how we found the missing moggy but we can tell you it involved a crazed monkey, a baby's basket, an eagle and a fish.

With the cat safely returned we can buy the Slingshot. Back at our treehouse we also find a wooden sword has been delivered by one of the villagers, so we try out both of our new weapons on a scarecrow outside. A group of local kids looks on, awestruck, and we already begin to feel a little bit more like a hero, even if our clothes are still those of a farmhand.

No sooner have we finished practising sword-slashing and Slingshot-aiming with the Wii Remote (which feels fast and very intuitive) than we're called into action. Some of the hero-wannabe kids have become lost in a cave after chasing another wild monkey inside, so we set off - picking up a lantern and some oil on the way from a friendly man with birds in his hair. How odd.

Inside the cave are Deku Babas (the man-eating plants seen in previous Zelda games). They look much more menacing than ever; their sharp fangs dripping with green goo. We creep through the tunnel, our lantern cutting through the shadows with its golden light.

Beyond the cave, past a poisonous swamp covered in a dark shadowy fog, we find the kids and bring them home. But we have little time to celebrate, as suddenly a horde of monsters crashes into the village and snatches Link's friend Ilia, leaving Link unconscious.

When we awake, the village is surrounded by a wall of darkness that looks almost alive. As we walk over to investigate, a huge hand reaches out of the blackness and pulls us in.

The dark side

In a dramatic cutscene Link struggles in the grip of the shadowy creature until suddenly a Triforce symbol glows on the hero's hand and the monster flees in fear. Link falls to his knees, apparently in pain, and he cries out before morphing into a wolf. Unconscious, he is dragged away and thrown in prison. Meanwhile a mysterious figure looks on.

Link wakes up still in wolf form and chained to the floor of a small cell. Already we have a visitor: Midna. Immediately we don't trust her, even though she offers to help Link escape. Maybe it's her imp-like appearance or the way one sharp tooth protrudes from her lip when she grins (which she does a lot). But for now, we have no choice but to go along with her escape plan.

Once we're free of the chains and out of the cell (clue: what do dogs like to do with bones?) we're off, running through a waterlogged labyrinth with Midna on our back, battling impressive liquid-like enemies that shimmer on the surface of the water before leaping out and attacking us.

Controlling the wolf feels great. It's fast, nimble and reacts to the same controls as when you're a human but with different results. Flick forward with the Wii Remote and wolf Link makes a powerful dash attack. Sometimes you will grab onto enemies with your teeth, when you can repeatedly hit A to gnash and thrash them around. Very cool.

As we go, Midna helps us get used to our new furry form by offering advice. By pressing left or right on the +Control Pad we can activate our Sense ability that allows us to see (or, in some cases, smell) things that humans can't.

Midna is a creature from the dark world so she has special powers in this place, such as a magical hand that extends from her head - useful for reaching far-off objects and to pull herself and Link upwards.

As we head out of the cell blocks we realise we're in the basement of a ruined castle. Midna leads us to the rooftops and we get a great view of the twilight-infested land, as shadowy creatures swoop overhead. Eventually we reach a tower where we see our first human-looking figure since we arrived in the dark world. As the hooded person turns, we suddenly realise where we are.

As the figure removes its hood we see the familiar pointed ears and blonde hair of Princess Zelda herself; meaning this desolate place is Hyrule Castle or, rather, what's left of it. Zelda is about the same age as Link but her face bears the burden of a kingdom in ruin. The cheeky, tomboyish Zelda of Wind Waker she is not.

Via an impressive cutscene Zelda tells us how the castle fell into the hands of a heavily armoured, cloaked figure she calls 'the King that rules the twilight' who covered the land in darkness, trapping the people in a state of limbo. In the flashback scene we don't see the evil King's face but we have an inkling that an old enemy has returned.

But Zelda's story is cut short. Guards are approaching and Link and Midna must flee…

Zelda opening video

2006-11-02T07:27:00.000-04:00

Here is a video of what appears to be what you will see when you boot into 'The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess'. It looks very slick, especially at the end where you see the wolf howling. Doesn't it give you chills?

E3 is back baby!

2006-11-01T20:03:00.000-04:00

Earlier this year, E3 was brutally murdered to the dismay of millions of gamers around the world.

Well since then, the priests have been working hard and have finally revived our dear old E3, and he is back and better than ever with another name, and birthday. E3 has now essentially been re branded as "Game Pro Expo". Has a nice ring to it doesn't it? It rhymes very well too.

The Expo will not take place in the regular May that E3 did, but will instead be in October of each year, on the 18, 19, and 20. But, luckily, the Game Pro Expo still be in the same body, the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Source

Walmart has $500 Wii bundle

2006-11-01T18:25:00.000-04:00

WalMart as a very special bundle for its customers. Its the "Nintendo Wii Customer Choice's Bundle"

The package includes:

The Nintendo Wii Hardware
Nintendo Wii Remote Controller
Nintendo Wii Nunchuck Controller
Nintendo Wii Points Card
4 Wii Games

The total price is $533.56. The bundle is kind of dumb though considering you won't save much money, depending on how much the games are selling for without the bundle. At most, you might save 15 bucks depending on exact game price, but how many people out there are going to buy 4 games on launch day, along with an extra controller combo?

This is just WalMart's way of suckering in Nintendo fans who can't get a Wii anywhere else, so they make them buy it with 4 games and other stuff with it. This is where WalMart makes the most money, in their games. When selling the console, they only make about $7 or so. They make over $10 by selling a game and other add-ons.

Link

The BIGS screenshot

2006-11-01T18:20:00.000-04:00

Here is the first screenshot for the upcoming 2K game, 'The BIGS', which is a baseball game that will be coming out for the Wii, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, and PSP earlier next year.

This screenshot is specifically for the Wii.

Link

New Halo 3 scans

2006-11-01T18:11:00.000-04:00

Famitsu has some more Halo 3 game screen shots in their latest edition of the magazine. The game is looking great too! It is very interesting that a Japanese magazine like Famitsu is putting an Xbox 36o game in their magazine, considering Microsoft has never done that great in the country.

Source

Halo 3: Legendary Edition picture, and pre-orders!

2006-11-01T17:59:00.000-04:00

In the latest edition of Famitsu, a popular gaming magazine in Japan, there were pictures of the 'Legendary' edition of Halo 3. This is basically just a version for hardcore Halo fans out there.

In the picture, it appears that there is a well built case, as well as Master Chief's helmet. We don't know exactly how it is going to work though, whether or not stores will just hand out the helmet and the the case to go with it. More likely than not, the helmet will go over the game and case, and they will attach somehow.

Also, Gamestop has commenced taking pre-orders on the game. The release date that they are stating is November, 2007. To pre-order the game, you have to pay $5 as a pre-order fee. That is just for the basic game. To get the collectors edition of the game, you have to lay down $10, and the 'Legendary' edition, as shown above, you have to put down $25. With a pre-order price of $25 dollars, you can be assured that the game will not be cheap. It could cost up to $100.

Link

Wii: Inside the box

2006-11-01T17:13:00.000-04:00

We all are waiting for the day that we can get our own Wii box and open it up ourselves, but until then, enjoy these pics from ATOMIX, a Mexican gaming magazine.

After looking at the pictures, it appears that the Wii and controller will be packaged in different 'mini boxes' inside of the case. You can see that in the boxes labeled 1 and 2.

Link

Hudson announces 40 V.Console games next year

2006-11-01T07:41:00.000-04:00

Hudson Entertainment has announced that they will be releasing 40 or so games for the virtual console next year. They have said that the games will cost a minimum of 600 Wii points, which is about $6.

The games will be released on the Nintendo consoles, and the TurboGrafx 16

Link

The PS3 and Xbox 360 equal in power?

2006-11-01T07:25:00.000-04:00

In a recent interview with the San Jose Mercury, the president of Silicon Knights, Dennis Dyak, said that the PS3 and the Xbox 360 were essentially equal in power.

"The 360 and the PS3 are equal in power in my eyes. Maybe the PS3 has more processing power. The 360 has more available memory. It's pretty much a net, net. The public perception of the PS3 was that it was much more powerful. To developers, they look even."

This is very interesting considering at the start, everyone was going on about how great the PS3 looked, but the 360 is catching up, especially with games like 'Too Human', which Silicon Knights is currently developing for the 360.

When Dyak was asked who he thought would win the next console war, he said this.

"It's a tough one. Microsoft is looking really good. Everyone is looking pretty good. At the beginning, everyone thought Sony would walk away with it. We won't know for sure for two years."

Interestingly enough, he doesn't appear to be too fond of Nintendo, since that was the only company he didn't mention. I guess he doesn't want to come "out of the closet" and support Nintendo yet.

30 Virtual Console games 5 weeks after launch

2006-10-31T21:26:00.000-04:00

Go Nintendo has received a press release that says how many virtual console games will be out within the first 5 weeks of the Wii's launch.

It is a rather disappointing list. There are:

12 NES games
2 SNES games
1 N64 game
10 Sega Genesis games
5 TurboGrafx 16 games

And, yes, we did not get that wrong, there will only be two SNES games and one N64 game. The two SNES games are rather disappointing too, F-Zero and Sim City. The one N64 game will be, obviously, Super Mario 64. It is rather strange that Nintendo is offering more Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx 16 games than their own ones. Maybe they are trying to start off strong with the other two company's consoles.

NES games will start at 500 Wii Points, SNES 800, N64 1000, Genesis 800, TurboGrafx 16 games will be 600. I love the fact that "start" is thrown in there, which makes us here at GoNext think that some games will be more than others. This might happen if Nintendo can not get a good deal with 3rd parties and have to give them a little more money or something such as that. Or enhanced games that Nintendo may have redone.

Lets all hope that the SNES and N64 games are released more steadily in 2007. Check out the full game list below.

"Virtual Console talk: NES games start at 500 Wii points, Super NES games start at 800, and N64 titles start at 1000. Sega Genesis games start at 800 Wii points, TurboGrafx 16 titles start at 600 points. Take note of the wording…all purchasts start at a certain point. It leads me to believe that certain titles may be more.

List of Virtual Console games available by the end of December…

NES - Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Ice Hockey, Pinball, Soccer, Tennis, Urban Champion, Wario’s Woods, Baseball, and Solomon’s Key.

SNES - F-Zero, Sim City

N64 - Super Mario 64

Sega Genesis - Sonic the Hedgehog, Altered Beast, Golden Axe, Columns, Ecco the Dolphin, Gunstar Heroes, Space Harrier II, Toe Jam & Earl, Ristar, and Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine

TurboGrafx 16 - Bonk’s Adventure, Super Star Soldier, Victory Run, Bomberman ‘93, and Dungeon Explorer"

Link

Splinter Cell for the Wii is awkward

2006-10-31T19:26:00.000-04:00

There is a new video of 'Splinter Cell: Double Agent' for the Wii is online. And after watching it, the game just looks awkward.

In the top right-hand corner, you can see the player's hands and the controller with it. Throughout the entire gameplay, it just looks like a big pain in the butt, and I would rather play it with the Gamecube or 'Classic' controller over the 'Wii-mote'.

Check it out and tell us what you think.

Link

Wii/Gamecube comparision of CARS

2006-10-31T17:07:00.000-04:00

Below, you can see screenshots of the the Wii version, and the Gamecube version of Cars. You can cleary see a graphical difference. It looks pretty good too, its nothing "HOLY CRAP" amazing, but on a Nintendo console, it looks pretty cool.

Source

Xbox 360 wireless headset is SLICK

2006-10-31T16:54:00.000-04:00

Microsoft has announced their wireless Xbox 360 headset to be used on Xbox Live, and we have to admit, that it looks really slick.

All you have to do is hook it around your ear and talk into it, its that easy. With a wireless controller, and a wireless headset, nothing can stop you!

Link

Final Fantasy III site up!

2006-10-31T16:45:00.000-04:00

The website for Final Fantasy III for the Nintendo DS is up. And the site is very well done.

Check it out

Thanks to GoNintendo for the heads up

2K hitting for the Wii, but not with GTA

2006-10-31T16:32:00.000-04:00

A while ago, a lot of websites were reporting that Nintendo was in talks with 2K to get their support of the Wii console. A lot of speculation began that maybe Nintendo was trying to get a version of the popular crime based game, 'Grand Theft Auto', onto the Wii.

Sadly, GTA will not be showing up on the Wii anytime soon, but 2K is putting some effort into the system, this time it will be in the form of a baseball game. The game will be called 'The BIGS', and it will be released during the summer of 2007 on the Xbox 360, PS2 and 3, PSP, and the Wii. So it isn't an exclusive for the Wii, but at least developers are jumping on board to support the console, instead of snubbing it for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

Don't be surprised if they end up dropping production of the PS3 version of the game. This holiday season may decide that, it all depends on if 2K is confident in the console or not. If the PS3 version isn't dropped, it would not be a huge surprise if the PS2 one is.

Here is an article from the Game Press:

NEW YORK, NY - October 31, 2006 - 2K Sports, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (Nasdaq: TTWO), announced today a unique, new sports title that adds more explosive excitement to baseball video games than ever before - The BIGS. This over-the-top baseball action title puts an entirely new spin on Major League Baseball as it blends outrageous visuals and intuitive gameplay mechanics to bring fans a brand new MLB video game experience.

“The BIGS is sure to turn a few heads as it pioneers a completely different way of playing an MLB video game,” stated Greg Thomas, President of Visual Concepts, a 2K Sports studio. “2K Sports is always looking to deliver the most innovative and eye-catching sports video games to fans and The BIGS is one of 2K Sports’ most dynamic titles to date.”

Developed by Blue Castle Games, The BIGS brings blazing graphics to huge proportions with larger-than-life MLB player models and ballparks. Featuring fantastic pitching, batting, and fielding animations, gamers can also take advantage of spectacular power-ups with outrageous special effects. As a standard for all major 2K Sports titles, The BIGS features online play for up to four players, making it a grand slam for online baseball battles.

At the helm of The BIGS is Dan Brady of Blue Castle. Dan is best known as the creator of and Technical Director on the EA Sports MVP Baseball series of games. Joining Dan at Blue Castle is a number of experienced baseball developers, including Jason Leigh - the Lead Designer of MVP baseball. “This is an extremely exciting time for fans of baseball videogames, as Blue Castle Games has assembled an absolute all-star lineup for this game,” stated Greg Thomas.

The BIGS will be available for the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PLAYSTATION®3 and PlayStation®2 computer entertainment systems, the PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system, and Nintendo’s Wii™ home video game console. The BIGS is slated for release in summer 2007.

For more information, log onto www.2ksports.com

New Super Smash Brothers Brawl trailer on it's way

2006-10-31T08:15:00.000-04:00

We start off today with some good news. Nintendo is going to release a new Super Smash Bros. Brawl trailer during their "Nintendo World 2006" tour. It has been confirmed that the trailer will reveal a new character. It's not known yet if it's going to be a Nintendo character or one from a third party. I'm personally hoping it's cloud Strife. The tour begins on Friday (Nov. 3) so we may see the trailer quite soon, but since Nintendo didn't show the first trailer at their E3 press conference, but instead revealed it later in E3, so who knows when we'll be seeing this trailer.

Halo movie has been officially postponed

2006-10-31T07:46:00.000-04:00

Its final, coming in a press release through 1up, the Halo movie has been postponed.

"As was previously confirmed, we deeply regret that both Universal and Fox did not choose to move forward with financing the Halo film under the original terms of the agreement,...At this time Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, along with their partner, Microsoft, have mutually agreed to postpone making a feature film based on the Halo video game universe until we can fulfill the promise we made to millions of Halo fans throughout the world that we would settle for no less than bringing a first class film to the big screen."

Too bad Halo fans. But this should only be for a little while. I'm sure another studio will pick it up in a couple of months.

Wii Steering Wheel boxart!

2006-10-31T07:38:00.000-04:00

Ubisoft has updated their online store, and this time, they have added on the box art for their steering wheel for the Wii-mote. It looks pretty cool.

The wheel will sell for $19.99 and will go on sale in November according to the website. This wheel is sure to be a hit since it will work with any racing game.

Link
Source

Metal Gear Solid- PSP bundle

2006-10-31T07:29:00.000-04:00

Sony will be releasing two special editions of their PSP handhelds, packaged in with a copy of 'Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops".

The packages are set to release on December 22 for $248 American for the cheaper package, and $338 for the other one, that as far as we can tell, just includes a prettier strap and case for the PSP.

The handhelds will be a camouflage instead of the regular black color.

Link

Confirmed: Japan will get Wii with DVD

2006-10-31T07:21:00.000-04:00

GameIndustry.biz is reporting that Nintendo has told them that there will be a DVD enabled Wii released later in Japan.

From the article:

"Speaking to GI.biz, a spokesperson declined to comment on when the new machine will hit the shops, but did confirm, "There are currently plans to release a version of Wii in Japan featuring DVD playback. He added, "There are currently no plans to bring this model to Europe or the US.""

The article also commented on the rumor about CNN being the news provider for the Wii, but Nintendo has called these rumors false. The same with the rumor from EDGE magazine saying that the Wii was originally going to launch at $200.

Cooking Mama for the Wii video

2006-10-31T07:03:00.000-04:00

Thanks to an anonymous commentor on our recent "Cooking Mama" story, we have brought you a video of the game. It looks MUCH better than I previously expected. My only problem with it is that it looks like everything is pretty much planned out for you. Such as where you have to cut, and do things like that. But if you can make a bunch of real world recipes in it, it is sure to be a hit.

Canadian FutureShop, Wal-Mart, and Superstore not pre-ordering Wii

2006-10-30T20:17:00.000-04:00

FutureShop, the Canadian version of BestBuy, will not be pre-ordering the Wii, or at least the stores that we have talked to. When we asked them how many units they planned on getting, they did not yet know. They said that they plan on getting the Wii units 2 days before launch day, on November 19th.

The Wal-Mart that we talked to also said that they are not pre-ording, and when asked if they will start selling on launch day, they said "That's the plan." The employee who we talked with did not sound to confident, but I'm sure that a major chain like Wal-Mart will make the November 19th launch day.

For those of you up in Canada, we also talked to a local Superstore, and they said that they will be getting their consoles on launch day, but once again, no plans on pre-ordering.

This is good news for Canadian gamers who can make it out on Sunday, but can't get around to pre-ordering the unit. I guess there are going to be a lot of people camping out.

Wii Sports, put simply, fails

2006-10-30T19:49:00.000-04:00

Matt from IGN has updated his blog and this time he is talking about Wii Sports.

The news about the Wii isn't good. Here is a little exert from is blog:

" Take, for example, Wii Sports Tennis. You don't control anything except the swing of your player's racket. The movement of these Mii-alike athletes is all done automatically by the game. You simply swing the Wii remote back and forth to make your on-screen character do the same thing. You can even control the power of your shots. Nothing to it and true enough, most of the time it all works and feels just fine. You swing the racket and your motion is reflected on the tennis court. However, ether I'm completely missing something or sometimes the directions and motion of your swings goes ignored. You might swing your racket to the left, for instance, and the ball will go flying off to the right, anyway. "

He also has many more complaints. Make sure to check out his website.

Link

You can now cook on the Wii

2006-10-30T17:59:00.000-04:00

Majesco today confirmed that "Cooking Mama: Cook Off" will be coming out for the Wii. This means that gamers will be able to slice and dice, all using the Wii-mote.

This is great news for Nintendo, which hopes to grab casual gamers and non-gamers with more simple games. This game will fall under that category, and will hopefully help Nintendo sell a couple more consoles. Coming to a nursing home near you soon!

From Majesco:

"Making special use of the Wii Remote, Cooking Mama: Cook Off is an entertaining blend of mashing, slicing, chopping and stirring as players create more than 300 real-world recipes from 10 different nations. New realistic graphics and real-time cooking effects lend authenticity to player creations and help budding chefs determine when food is overcooked. Best of all, Cooking Mama: Cook Off offers 2-player kitchen competitions to determine who can cook the best meal the fastest. "

Xbox 360 dashboard update!

2006-10-30T17:40:00.000-04:00

Microsoft will be updating their Xbox 360 dashboard TOMMORROW on October 31st. Here is a list of updates for the system.

New Features

HD 1080p video mode support over VGA and component cables.
Xbox 360™ HD DVD Player support.
Stream WMV video from a Windows PC running Windows Media Player 11, Zune software, or Windows Media Connect.
Play video from storage devices such as USB flash drives, Xbox 360 Memory Units, etc.
Play video from CD or DVD data discs.
Xbox 360 Wireless Headset support, including battery level indicator in the Xbox Guide.
Video support for 50 Hz HDTV modes (DVD and HD DVD only).
Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel support.
Set up automatic downloads of newly released Xbox Live Arcade trial games.
Support for upcoming release of XNA Game Studio Express (separate download and subscription required.)
Stream music, pictures and video from a Zune device.

Xbox Live Arcade

Lightning-fast enumeration and listing of all Xbox Live® Arcade games on the console.
Find games quickly with two new sort options: Recently Played and By Category.
Have all new Xbox Live Arcade games at the ready with auto downloads. Auto downloads optionally adds newly released trial versions of games to active downloads when you enter Xbox Live Arcade.
View full achievement info in Xbox Live Arcade, including icons, achievement point details, and descriptions.
Friends leaderboard: Compare yourself with friends and view leaderboard details right from the Xbox dashboard.
Tell a friend: Send a message to a friend about your newest favorite Xbox Live Arcade game.

DVD Player

Optionally disable notifications from Xbox Live while watching DVD movies.
Improved support for audio streams on incorrectly authored DVDs.
Better handling of unreadable discs.
Updated count-down timer.
HD DVD player support.
Added zoom support for non-anamorphic content.
Added support to Family Settings to block Unrated Content

Video Player

Improved support for extended all black scenes in WMV content.
Added support for Windows Media Video 9 Advanced profile video.
Screen saver now becomes active when videos are paused.
Now shares UI and player controls with DVD player.
Improved video playback while downloading from Xbox Live.
Added skip controls (forward approx. 30 seconds, back approx. 7 seconds).
Improved messaging around unplayable video content.
Added time elapsed and time remaining displays.
Improved playback of high bit-rate HD content on fragmented hard drives.
Improved visual quality of video playback.
Added selectable display modes: default and letterbox zoom.

Localization

New locale setting for China
Improved German translations in console settings.
Improved German translations in memory area.
Improved Japanese translations in Family Settings.
Added localized text for all supported languages in pictures area
Improved Spanish translations in camera effects.
Improved locale-specific decimal denominators.
Added localization support for title menu and main menu in the DVD player.
Added localization support for “Attempting to Read Media” system message.

Memory Area

Added support for Xbox 360 HD DVD Player content..
Added new page for viewing content size by category.

Other System Improvements

Updated support for new Daylight Savings changes coming in 2007.
Improved support for games to better handle host migration in multi-player matches.
Improved Xbox Live Vision camera support for changing room lighting while zooming.
Background downloaded videos appear in video area
Improved Xbox Live Vision camera support while using VGA.
Playing photo slideshows from PC now maintains picture folder hierarchy.
Improved user experience when playing and deleting videos from the Games or Media areas.
Improved handling of invalid characters during Xbox Live signup.
Better handling of watermarks in gamer cards.
Improved text for Windows Media Connect..
Improved UI performance in Media Center Extender
Improved connection support for Buffalo WZR-G108 wireless router when using Xbox 360 Wireless Adapter.
Redownload of deleted Arcade Games no longer re-enumerates all games on the Arcade page.
Improved visual display of text in themes.
Improved support for CD playback after signing up for Xbox Live and losing network connectivity.
Improved support for long names of items memory area.
Improved handling of gamer pictures downloaded from Xbox Live.
Improved background download notifications when downloading many small items from Xbox Live.
Improved support for custom backgrounds after returning to the Xbox Dashboard from the Account Management area.
Improved network reliability between Windows Media Center Extender on Windows Vista and Xbox 360 consoles using Xbox 360 Wireless Adapter.
Improved voice chat quality in Xbox Dashboard and in-game chats.
Improved messaging when failing to connect to Windows Media Center Extender.
Improved USB keyboard support when using a USB hub.
Improved consistency of user experience when deleting various types of content.
Improved handling of low storage space for background downloads.
Improved handling of Picture streaming from attached Digital Cameras over MTP protocol
Improved error messaging for optional iPod support download when storage devices are full.
Improved handling of multi-key repeating for USB keyboards.
Expanded Family Settings to include support for blocking unrated DVDs and videos.
Added ability to clear space from storage devices in download areas.
Added support for low-speed and full-speed USB keyboards.
Improved CapsLock behavior for USB keyboards.
Improved look and feel in Xbox Live Marketplace and Xbox Live Arcade areas.
Added redeem code option to Xbox Live signup.
Removed system message at the start of new downloads. Messages will be displayed for completed items.
Added support for CCV credit card validation field in Xbox Live Marketplace purchase areas.
Updated “More Information” instructions in the Xbox Dashboard for connecting an Xbox 360 console to a Windows PC to stream digital media content.
Added auto-scroll to long text descriptions in Xbox Dashboard UI.
Improved support for DVD insertion while playing a video file.

Link

Microsoft reveals an Xbox 360 with 60GB hard drive!

2006-10-30T17:31:00.000-04:00

At a Microsoft press conference today, Microsoft made a little mistake.

While showing the Xbox 360, curiously enough, in the top corner of the screen, you can see that it says that the hard drive that the Xbox 360 is using contains a 60 GB! This is a a giant leap over the 20 GB hard drive that launched with the top of the line '360' unit.

Microsoft may be coming out with a 60GB hard drive version to rival the top of the line Playstation 3 which has a 60 GB hard drive as well. This new version will most likely come out once Microsoft cuts the price in the current 360's, so this new one will not be too expensive.

This is just another way that Microsoft is shoving it to Sony.

A Silver PS2 is coming!

2006-10-30T16:47:00.000-04:00

Those of you out there who have not yet picked up a Playstation 2, now is the time.

Sony today announced that they will be releasing a limited edition Silver colored PS2 console. The console will also come with a silver controller, which looks very slick.

Sony hopes that with the combination of the PS3 and PS2, they will be able to combat sales of Nintendo's Wii, and Microsoft's Xbox 360. The Sony Playstation 2 was the best selling console of the last generation with 111 million units sold.

Source

Scans from Nintendo Power Wii launch guide.

2006-10-30T16:40:00.000-04:00

A member of the Nintendo Forums, METROID_FAN!, has scanned more than 20 pages of Nintendo Power that includes pretty much a launch guide for the system. Its great to look at. Check it out!

PS3 will kick up electric bill

2006-10-30T16:28:00.000-04:00

According to the guys over at Newlaunches, the PS3 has been confirmed by Sony to take up a whopping 380 watts of electricity. This is a giant leap compared to the PS2 which took up 45 watts, and the Xbox 360 which takes up 160 watts.

So first of all you have to pay the $600+ for the console, then add an extra couple of bucks to your electric bill every month. It is said that no press is bad press, but I don't think that this can apply to the Playstation 3.

Nintendo still has a few tricks up it's sleeves

2006-10-30T16:27:00.000-04:00

Just when you thought you knew everything there was to know about the wii, Nintendo reveals that there is still more to know. They will more then likely reveal these new tidbits of info on launch day, or the week leading up to the 19th. What can it be? Is it going to be something astounding like when they revealed the wiimote? New online functions? That mysterious boot disk? A built in sun bed? Maybe even the functionality to play DVDs. Who knows what it is, but you can bet it'll probably sell a few more wiis

Devil May Cry 4 looks great!

2006-10-30T07:55:00.000-04:00

Some new 'Devil May Cry 4' pictures have been floating around and we have them here too. They look VERY good, and they look like real-time gameplay.

New Sega game for the Wii

2006-10-30T07:39:00.000-04:00

JeuxFrance has just started a new rumor. That Sega will be creating a new game for the Wii. They said, "It should be noted that according to our sources, Sega should reveal a new play soon "that everyone waits" on Nintendo Wii."

This comes after information in EDGE Magazine said that Sega moved developers from their Playstation 3 section over to work on the Wii, so this would make sense. JeuxFrance said that Sega will be revealing a game that "that everyone waits (for)". That would mean that the game is fairly popular.

But what game would be coming out next? Doubtfully another Sonic game. It could be another game in the Phantasy Star series, or even Full Auto. Virtua Fighter could also come out, but I doubt that Sega would want to come out with a fighting game for the Wii until somebody else does it great first.

Who knows, maybe even Jet Set Radio. We will find out in the upcoming months.

Xbox 360 price drop isn't close

2006-10-30T07:32:00.000-04:00

An article from the SeattlePI says

"A Microsoft spokesman said last week that the company has "no plans to adjust the price of the Xbox 360 this year."

Unless the company alters course, that would rule out a price reduction for the upcoming holiday shopping season.

"They'll hold off dropping the price as long as they possibly can," said Matt Rosoff, analyst at independent research firm Directions on Microsoft.

In contrast, Microsoft reduced the price of the original Xbox by $100 six months after its debut. But this time around, the situation is different. In addition to the PS3's price difference, the Xbox 360 has a yearlong head start."

This is bad news for Nintendo fans who were also planning on buying a 360 this holiday season, or soon after. I guess that the 'Wii-60' package will be put on hold for most Nintendo gamers.

Necro-Nesia updates

2006-10-30T07:19:00.000-04:00

Necro-Nesia, the creepy game from 'Spike' that resembles 'Resident Evil 4', has updated their website.

It truely is an amazing website to play around with. Its very well built and has a really cool feeling to it. On the page, you see a little nunchuck down in the corner that you use as a flashlight, its very amusing.

The game is set to release at launch in Japan, and as of now, no US launch date has been announced.

'Playstation Store' VIDEO and more news

2006-10-29T18:58:00.000-04:00

This just in guys, we have a video of the 'Playstation Store' that will be featured on the Playstation 3. This is rich, they think that the PS3 will have the largest online network. But I guess time will tell.

In the store you can get demos for the latest retail games, watch trailors for movies, you can buy PS1 content on the PS3, and also said something about playing PS3 games online without buying the disk from retail. We don't really know what they mean by this though, if they mean you can buy PS3 games online, or just certain levels.

Also, this is AMAZING, but once you buy content on the store, you can download it as many times as you want. You can also go to your friends house, log into your account, and download the content on up to 5 different systems.

They also said downloadable games will be 14.99 and less. We presume that they were talking about PS1 games. Which is fairly cheap, but still more expensive that the N64 games that the Wii will be offering for about $10. The store will also show what other people are downloading and what games are most popular.

If you catch anything different, drop us a line, blog.gonext@gmail.com

World of Warcraft TCG: first-impressions

2006-10-29T18:33:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday I managed to get my hands on a starter deck of the World of Warcraft trading card game. The game is based off Blizzards insanely popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft (and not an anime for once.)

To win a match, all you have to do is deplete your opponents health. Fortunately for all of you WoW fanboys (and girls) Upperdeck is taking care in making this game. The card art is done by famous artists, such as Todd McFarlane, the creator of Spawn, and Gabe from Penny Arcade. The first thing that struck me was the impressive carrying case that the starter decks come in. These babies are made out of plastic instead of cardboard, and open up like a book to reveal clips to hold the rule book and on the opposite side are depressions with a plastic cover to hold your cards in. Inside each starter case is a rule book, three over sized hero cards, a pre-constructed deck based off of one of the nine classes, and two booster packs. Unfortunately you don't know what deck you've got until you open the case. I was fortunate enough to beat the 1/9 odds and get a shaman deck, but my friend wasn't as fortunate. another thing is that since the giant cards are random, you only have 1/3 chance of getting the over sized counter part of your deck's hero.

Another problem is that the decks are for "starters" and only contain 30 cards plus a hero, half the tournament standards. This is where the booster packs come in. Each pack comes with an impressive 15 cards, and times that by two, you have 30, and 30+30=60, the tournament amount right? Wrong. There will only be a few cards in the pack that match your hero's faction or class, meaning you'll have to buy more packs before you can even think about tournaments. A cool thing UDE is doing is that they're throwing in "UDE points" cards into each pack, and you can redeem these cards online to gain cosmetic upgrades to you're WoW character.

The cards themselves are well made and are rater thick. UDE is also releasing "raid" decks, the first being Onxia's Lair. These decks are incredibly powerful, and require more then one player to defeat. The next expansion, "The Dark Portal," will introduce cards from Burning Crusade, such as Blood Elves and the Drenai. And finally, yes, there is a Leeroy Jenkins card.

Wii Boxart Template

2006-10-29T16:56:00.000-04:00

The guys over at WiiStyle managed to find a blank Wii-boxart template. Its pretty interesting to look at. Head over there and check it out!

Link

Third party nunchuck-- With a 'D-Pad'

2006-10-29T12:59:00.000-04:00

BigBen Interactive, a company that makes accessories for consoles such as the PS2, Xbox, and Gamcube, are launching into the world of the Wii with a strange peripheral attachment for the Wii-mote.

The device looks almost exactly like the Wii's Nunchuck, but instead of having an analogue stick, it has a 'D-Pad', and it is black. One question remains with this device. How are gamers supposed to play 'Zelda' with a D-pad? It is possible, but not convenient

[EDIT] Just to answer the question of some of the guys at the Nintendo forums, we do not yet know when it is coming out, or if it is necessarily coming to the US. We here hope that it isn't. For the price, we bet that it will be about $15 dollars, considering that the official Nintendo one will be $20 or so, and this one appears cheaper to make. Oddly enough, it doesn't appear that there is a wire to attach it to the 'Wii-mote', it could be because the device is wireless. As you can see on the side, there is a 'On' and 'Off' switch.

[EDIT] We here don't like to be proved wrong, but we will admit it. The device shown above is actually built for the "ShootPad", not the Nintendo Wii. I'm sure that you can see how we were sure that the controller was for the Wii, and I'm sure that lawsuits from Nintendo will soon follow, (joking.. We think).

Jack Thompson has a new target

2006-10-29T11:49:00.000-04:00

Jack Thompson just doesn't know when to quit. He is now targeting Mortal Kombat Armageddon because the player can create a generic white man with grey hair and a business suit and name him "Jack Thompson." This can be done in the create a character mode. Jack wants Midway to stop selling the game all together. But of course, since he's always on the cutting edge of gaming news, he would have known about last years Soul Calibur 3. Soul Calibur 3 also featured a custom character mode where you could recreated the likes of, oh lets say, Jesus, and have him get the crap kicked out of him. Way to stay on the ball Jack!

Even though I'm very against his accusations, I can understand his reasoning behind getting GTA: San Andreas banned. After he wanted to get the "T" rated game Bully baned, he just seemed like a prick, but this officially makes Jack Thompson seem insane. Yeah I said it, just try to sue us Jack!

Only one color of Wii

2006-10-29T11:39:00.000-04:00

In a recent interview, Nintendo’s Planning General Manager Mitsuaki Hagishima, said that Nintendo has no plans to release the Wii in different colors, but they will with the Wii-motes. He said this in a recent issue of Nintendo Dream in Japan.

This would make the Wii like their competitor Microsoft, who is only offering the Xbox 360 in white. The Playstation 3 will be coming in three colors, Black, Silver, and White.

The different color Wii-motes will be offered so that gamers will not confuse their controllers with their friend's ones. It is strange that the Wii will not be coming in other colors considering that the in previous videos, black was shown.

Fanboys camp out at Toys-R-Us

2006-10-29T10:42:00.000-04:00

Here is a video of a bunch of Nintendo and Sony fanboys camping out to pre-order their consoles at Toys-R-Us. It must have been very ackward standing there with a bunch of 9 years olds and their parents the next morning who were waiting for the new 'Tickle-Me-Elmo.

Red Steel Multiplayer video!

2006-10-29T09:48:00.000-04:00

Here is a video of the Red Steel multiplayer for all of you guys who were wondering how it would work. (Don't mind the wierd music)

'Wii Play' game, with screenshots!

2006-10-29T09:07:00.000-04:00

Nintendo of Europe has updated their website with screenshots and more information on a new game, 'Wii Play'.

In Wii Play, the star of the game is you! Create your own personal Mii character with the Wii console's built-in Mii Channel and then play as yourself in this compilation of nine simple, fun games like target shooting, table tennis and fishing.
Wii Play comes bundled with a free Wii Remote, so a friend can instantly join in the action in any of the included games. You can play at home or save your Mii on your Wii Remote and play with it on a friend's console, or use any of the six ready-made guest characters.

Wii Play's nine different games are the perfect introduction to what the Wii Remote can do:

Shooting Range
A modern version of the Nintendo classic Duck Hunt. Shoot the targets on the screen simply by aiming your Wii Remote.

Find Mii
Can you spot a face in the crowd? Use your Wii Remote to point out the correct Mii characters as quickly as you can.

Table Tennis
How long can you ping pong? Use your Wii Remote like a paddle to bat the ball and try to beat the computer or human opponent.

Pose Mii
Twist the Wii Remote to rotate the Mii characters and quickly slot them into the correct positions as they fall down the screen.

Laser Hockey
Tilt and turn the Wii Remote to bash the puck into the opponent's goal, in this high-speed arcade-style game.

Billiards
In this version of Nine Ball, aim the Wii Remote at the screen to line up your shot, then pull back and push forward to strike the ball.

Fishing
Move the Wii Remote like a rod: dip the hook in the water, wait for the fish to bite (the controller will rumble) and pull back hard to land it!

Charge!
Take the bull by the horns! Steer your wild steer by holding the Wii Remote sideways, as if gripping reins, and topple scarecrows to score points

Tanks
Take control of a tank with the Wii Remote; aim the cannon, bounce shells off walls, and blast your opponent to bits!

Information
•Includes free Wii Remote

•Features nine different games, all playable by one or two players

•Each player can create a Mii character and use it as their in-game persona

•Save your Mii on your Wii Remote and use it on a friend's console

•Compete with friends to earn high scores and earn bronze, silver and gold medals
----

We cannot guarantee if this game will be coming to North America, stay tuned for details.

[UPDATE] IGN has some short videos over at their site.

Wii news from EDGE magazine

2006-10-29T08:46:00.000-04:00

Here is some of the latest news about the Wii coming out of EDGE:

Sega has moved development staff away from the PS3 to the Wii over the summer.

Nintendo is planning to launch a DVD enabled Wii in Japan later next year.

CNN will provide news for the Wii's News Channel in both American and Japan. They will be separated by category and country.

Wii Sports will be the Super Mario 64 of the Wii

There are still numerous Wii Channel slots left open, which will most likely be filled in firmware updates.

Nintendo would have launched the Wii at $200 but they were pressured to raise the price by retailers. (It doesn't make much sense really, but supposedly it was because of margins and junk like that.)

Also, just an interesting little fact, in an interview with Laurent Fischer, the marketing director at Nintendo of Europe, he said he's not worried about people downloading ROMS and playing the games on their computer, because most people want to play it on their TV with a good controller anyways.

Truth be told though, you could just hook your laptop up to the TV and get a PC controller at the store, but most Nintendo fans will buy the games from the Virtual Console anyways.

EB has a 'Wii' little screw up

2006-10-28T17:57:00.000-03:00

Select EB Game stores has a count down timer outside of their store. This is to keep the Nintendo fan-boys out of the store checking in everyday. The timer counts down how long it will be until the Wii is released to the public.

Well, EB in Glasgow messed up with their timer. The timer (as seen below), said "Out Now!!!", this obviously caused large groups of people to run into the store, and then walk back out in disappointment.

Good job guys, good job.

Our email account is up!

2006-10-28T13:47:00.000-03:00

It took long enough, but here at GoNext, we finally set up an email account.

Hit us up at, blog.gonext@gmail.com . We would appreciate any tips, pictures, or news that you have and would like to give us an help us out. We will make sure to acknowledge you for any help that you give.

We would have used gonext@gmail.com, but someone already had it taken. Sadly.

Thanks, hope you hear from you!

://The GoNext Crew