The deal is this: Nintendo customers in Europe have long had their own ghetto Club Nintendo. Every time they purchase and register a Nintendo product, they get star points. A lot like Japan’s Club Nintendo, then, just without most of the cool stuff. Well, Nintendo Europe just made the process a lot more appealing: starting from today, you can trade star points for Wii points, which you can spend on all the Virtual Console games your heart desires. Feels strange saying this, but classy move, Nintendo Europe. [Wii Points Card Shop] More »
Great news! A few months back, we heard that Paul W.S. Anderson was trying to rush the Castlevania movie into production, in order to beat the impending writers strike. Now, though, the writer’s strike has hit, there’s no end in sight to it, and as a result the film’s been put on the shelf until the strike is over. Which is one very short step away from being canned altogether. Castlevania fans, get with the high-fiving. [Filmwad, via Go Nintendo] More »
The S&P 500, the US stock market’s second-biggest index of “large-cap” stocks, has a vacancy in its lineup. Dow Jones, who publish the Wall Street Journal, are on the verge of being bought out by News Corp, meaning somebody is going to need to take their place. Enter retail super-chain GameStop, who as soon as the News Corp/Dow Jones move is finalised are expected to be ushered into the big leagues. Bear their executive’s Mediterranean villas and expensive cigars in mind, then, next time you get screwed on a trade-in. [Gamesindustry.biz] More »
Two of the year’s biggest hits go head to head. Will Portal’s promise of cake win out over a dude who can shoot bees out of his arm? As the video above testifies, it was always going to be an uphill struggle for the cake against that kind of firepower. More »
While owners of Guitar Hero III on other formats are blissfully enjoying their new downloadable content, Wii owners have not. They’ve been left out! Hopefully not for much longer, though, as Red Octane have told Nintencast that they’re hoping to have some DLC ready to go sometime early next year. No idea how they’d deliver it, where you’d have to store it or how you’ pay for it, but then I guess that’s the cause of the delay in the first place. On the off chance you’re reading this, Nintendo, Wii Shop Channel purchases to an SD card would be brilliant, thanks. [Nintencast, via Shacknews] More »
This week’s European/Australian PS Store update is sad reading. Bring tissues. For while there’s a Kane & Lynch demo, a MotorStorm DLC pack and the Folklore add-on, there’s practically nothing else. No Guitar Hero DLC, for instance. No PS1 games. No PSN games. Just a bunch of rubbish themes. Disappointing, Sony. How long are you going to keep the PAL PS Store in the doghouse? Until we apologise for peeing on the rug? Well, Sony, I’ll tell you, we never peed on your damn rug. More »
IGN think so! They got hold of a copy of the game from Japan, then proceeded to sit down, play it for six hours, and post impressions. Mistwalker/Gooch fans, you can either prepare for the worst or write this up to the fact it’s a single preview based on six hours of playtime. The choice is yours: In the six hours that I’ve played so far, Lost Odyssey has been a technical mess, with framerate problems in just about every cinema and on most maps, an animation system that looks like it was ported straight from a PS2 engine, and frequent, inconsistent load times accompanied by visual stuttering as new data loads in.
Hrm. Bear in mind this is a final, retail copy of the game, not a preview build. Then again, bear in mind that you could have said nearly all of that about Mass Effect, and people seem to be getting along with that game just fine. Lost Odyssey Hands-On [IGN] More »
For all it’s waggling and squawky missed-note benefits, the Wii version of Guitar Hero III has a little problem. Its sound only outputs in mono. Blergh. Owners of the game who either noticed or care enough to care can begin leaving the picket lines outside Activision HQ, however, with the company announcing that they’ll be shipping out re-mastered discs in “early 2008″ to any and all customers interested. And yes, before your indignant routines spark into life, this replacement disc will be 100% free.
It’s an age-old question. “Will it blend”? And as is so often the age-old answer, “you bet your arse it will“. While not as spectacular as some previous attempts, I think this is my favourite, as its mesmerising how the disc looks like its turning into fairy dust as it’s spinning around in that industrial-strength blender. So pretty. [thanks Jimbot!] More »
Nyko think we do, because they’re releasing a wireless nunchuk controller and adaptor for the Wii Remote, which will be publicly unveiled at CES next month. It’ll work by plugging a small receiver into the Wii Remote’s nunchuk port, and the nunchuk itself will come with its own power button and status light. In terms of design they’ve just copied, literally, the shape and layout of Nintendo’s version, the only changes being clear buttons and the aforementioned power button and light. Stuff like price and a release date will be announced at CES, so you can spend the intervening days asking yourself some tough questions, like why you can’t just put up with a little strip of white cord instead of pining after yet another gimmick that’ll need its batteries changed every week.
