The unnamed man took his DS and the game to Guam where he said vows with to Nene Anegasaki, one of three virtual girlfriends featured in Love Plus. Tomorrow, the couple will have a reception held on Niconico Douga at around 12 p.m. (no time zone given, check local listings on the site, if you can read Japanese.) The media has been invited to attend; slides will be shown from their time dating up through the wedding.

I’ve heard of dudes marrying a mannequin before so, this not in fact the most weird-slash-creepy-slash-pathetic thing I’ve ever heard. But my forced nonjudgment about this really needs its own word. Begrimaced? Bittersad?

Some Dude Married His Love Plus Girlfriend [Tiny Cartridge via Gizmodo]

I sat down at Nintendo’s Redwood City office to get a good look at the single-player mode for myself (since all I had to go on were Nintendo Power previews and Stephen Totilo’s experience) before diving into the multiplayer mode. I was given a choice: I could replay the same demo Nintendo Power and Totilo had already covered, or I could be one of the first to see the second dungeon in the game – the Snow Temple.

What kind of correspondent would I be if I didn’t go for the latter? A copycat, that’s what!

What Is It?
The Snow Temple was described to me as the “second” dungeon in the game once Zelda and Link are sent to the Tower of Spirits to restore the Spirit Tracks of Hyrule. The level began outside the snow-covered structure with the train parked out front and Zelda hovering beside Link.

What We Saw
The temple had about three floors and judging from the main room that requires puzzle solving, I’d say I completed three quarters of it before having to stop to play some multiplayer.

How Far Along Is It?
The game comes out December 7. I was playing on a normal-sized cartridge that could well be a final version of the game.

What Needs Improvement?
My Snow Temple For An Item-Toggling Button: Link started this dungeon with the Whirlwind item and earned the Boomerang about halfway through. To use an item, you’ve got to select it from a menu so that it appears in an icon in the upper right-hand side of the lower screen. Tapping that icon activates the item and then you do whatever is required of you to use it (blow in the mic for the Whirlwind, draw a path on the screen for the Boomerang). There came a point in this dungeon where you had to use the boomerang to create a path of ice over water (by crossing its path through an ice torch and back across the water) – and then quickly change to the Whirlwind to activate a switch out in the middle of the water. Because the ice path melts quickly, your timing has to be spot on and it can get pretty fiddly when you’re trying to bust out the Whirlwind, aim it and THEN blow into the mic. I died at least twice, wishing in vain that a tap of the shoulder button would switch between items.

Dude, Where’s My Zelda? As soon as I set foot in the Snow Temple, Zelda shrank and faded away with a sigh. It turns out she can’t go with you or help you within the Temples and you can’t talk to her for advice the way you could with other companion characters in other Zelda games. This turned Spirit Tracks into an experience that was an awful lot like Phantom Hourglass. Phantom Hourglass was good, so that’s not an automatic minus – but I think people were expecting the all-new Zelda gameplay to be a consistent feature instead of an area-specific thing.

What Should Stay The Same?
Shallow Learning Curve: Truthfully, I never beat The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and it’s been ages since I’ve touched it. But it really didn’t take long to master the stylus-only controls and the menus weren’t at all difficult to navigate and interpret. People who missed out on Phantom Hourglass are going to be just fine adjusting to Spirit Tracks.

Sure Rings My Bell: The entire temple was based on moving three bells into a main room together so that Link could trigger them in a sequence to open a door. This objective was communicated entirely through visuals (little panels with bells on different note lines, panels on the floor, etc) and all of the puzzles were familiar slide-the-block, clear-the-room-of-monsters affairs that I know and love in Zelda games. I got so caught up in the familiar, simple gameplay, I didn’t mind dying twice and getting stuck three different times.

Final Thoughts
Despite not having beaten Phantom Hourglass and not really liking The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (yeah, I said it – you wanna fight?!), playing Spirit Tracks felt like coming home. That’s probably the best feeling I could ask for from a game, especially so close to the holidays when I long for that feeling and have all this extra time to play games.

LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues spends much of its time focused on the brickification of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but it also gives players a taste of Indy’s original adventures. Better still, it gives Indiana Jones fans a chance to build their own LEGO levels this time around.

Can a new, coop-friendly split-screen system and the ability to design your own levels make up for the fact that the game reanimates Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Lets see.

Loved
Two Players, Two Screens: One of my big qualms with previous LEGO games was that when you started playing coop — and that’s always been the best way to play — the screen became a leash. If one player went too far in a direction it started pulling the other player around with them, sometimes to their death. This time around, once you hit the limits of the screen it splits, allowing the two players to go their separate ways. The way the screen splits also shows which direction the other player is in. It’s a neat design concept that typically works quite well.

Build Mode: While LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues spends most of its time focused on just about everybody’s least favourite Indy film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it also introduces the ability to design and play through your own LEGO levels to the franchise. The system is fairly straight forward: You select and throw down LEGO bricks you’ve unlocked through gameplay to create sets based on what comes with the game. Not only does that include AI-programmable enemies and creatures, but traps that you can tie to different bricks. It’s a robust little system tied to a fun aesthetic. My only disappointment is that you apparently can’t share your creations with friends online. A pretty big bummer.

Another Take: While more than a third of the game is devoted to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the game also includes abbreviated takes on the first three movies. Interestingly, instead of just porting over chunks of these LEGO adaptations from The Original Adventures the game seems to completely reinvent them. While Indy purists may lose sleep over these in-a-nutshell adaptations of the first three films, they’re clever, punchy and fun in a way that makes playing the story a second time worthwhile.

Wide Open Spaces: Every LEGO game has a sort of jumping off point, a hub from which gamers embark on the multiple stores and adventures of the particular game. In the original LEGO Indy game it was a university, this time it’s the storage warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Sort of. The top menu has you select one of the eight containers (some start boxed up and have to be unlocked) to decide where your adventure begins. There are crates for the first three movies and then three crates for Crystal Skull and finally a crate each for the build mode and another for “Super Bonus” levels, which are essentially time trials. But when you jump into a movie, the game drops you into a fairly expansive area that than has to be explored to find the storyline. While you wander around these large set pieces you also discover hidden items, challenges and fun little things to do. It’s a neat addition to the LEGO gaming experience.

Vehicles: Always a pleasure in LEGO games, this time around the world gives you access to cars, motorcycles, bikes, tree-cutters, horses, camels, rickshaws and, my favourite, planes. There’s nothing like flying over a LEGO land and jumping out to parachute to your favourite play area.

Completest: As with all previous LEGO games, LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues comes with quite a few reasons to play, replay and replay the game again. There are special LEGO pieces to collect, time trials to unlock, Easter eggs to discover. And it’s all a lot of fun to do.

Funny Story: Played in tandem with my eight-year-old, the game had Tristan in stitches. And it wasn’t just him. Sure, I’d still like to see a LEGO heart ripped from a mini-fig’s chest, but the alternative to all of that Indy violence can be quite funny at times.

Hated
Not So Invisible Walls: The worlds of LEGO Indiana Jones 2 are much, much bigger, but they’re not without their limits and unfortunately those limits aren’t disguised very well. Go too far and your mini-fig will just float back to the map.

The Camera Controls… Still: How can Traveller’s Tales, who have single-handedly reinvigorated, reinvented the LEGO gaming franchise, still not have the in-game camera worked out? I’m sick of dying simply because the perspective is throwing me off. Fix this already.

What Next: I love the huge explorable, hidden, area-filled worlds of LEGO, but I hate having to wander around in them for half an hour trying to figure out which path, which cave, which ladder will take me to the next step in the story. A map or maybe a better indicator would be much appreciated.

I wasn’t really looking forward to LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues. Of all of the LEGO games the first Indiana Jones was my least favourite, though I still quite liked it. And this time around, I wasn’t really anticipating playing through my least favourite movie in the series. But the game delivers on so many levels, adding a much needed split screen and a fantastic build mode, that I’ve been delighted with the experience.

If you didn’t pick up the first LEGO Indiana Jones game, I think it might even be worth skipping and instead going straight to this one.

LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues was developed by Traveller’s Tales and published by LucasArts for the DS, PC, Playstation 3, Playstation Portable, Wii and Xbox 360 on November 17. Retails for $US49.99/$AU89.95 (Xbox 360/PS3). A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played through all sets and campaigns both alone and with my son on Xbox 360. Built several levels alone and with my son.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Because if anyone from Nintendo of America had bothered to watch the latest episode of Modern Family, they may have seen this kid. “Oh great!”, they probably thought at first. “Free advertising!”

But the more observant of staffers would have noticed the odd colour of the cartridge stuck in the back of the DS. And then the cartridge’s funny shape, smooth on one side, a hole on the other.

Yup, the hole where a microSD card goes. Meaning it’s very likely the kid (don’t watch the show, don’t know his name) was using either an R4 cart, or a similar device. We don’t know for sure — I am also not involved in the show’s production — but take a look for yourself.

Which doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a pirate! After all, the R4 isn’t just for pirating games; it’s also for enabling homebrew, a noble endeavour if ever there was one.

Not that Nintendo would care to make the distinction.

[thanks Greg!]

These are “FuruFuru” figures, which basically means “bobblehead”, only more subtle, with everyone’s proportions in order. There are two available — the good Professor and Luke — and you can import them for just under $US30 each.

Steep, yeah, but on the bright side they’re not asking you to solve any stupid match-stick puzzles in the checkout process.

Professor Layton FuruFuru Figure [NCSX, via Go Nintendo]

Nintendo’s Kensuke Tanabe, overseer of all things Metroid, tells the UK’s Official Nintendo Magazine that the company is “always planning to make new games in the Metroid Prime series”. And while Metroid: Other M is pencilled in for a Wii release next year, the Prime series may return to the Nintendo DS for future iterations.

Tanabe says, “We cannot deny the possibility of realising it on DS or DSi.”

That backs up statements Tanabe made to Kotaku earlier this year. The Metroid producer said during an email interview that Nintendo “will keep considering multiplayer for the Prime series”, a feature included in 2006’s Metroid Prime Hunters for the Nintendo DS.

Metroid Prime Still Has A Future [ONM UK]

Last Friday, Reggie Fils-Aime sat with Kotaku and got to discuss the unusual: Releases, within a month of each other, of new games in his company’s two star series (no offence, Pokemon).

The Mario hype train was already trundling along by the time we spoke, charging through a Sunday release of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, a game Nintendo is marketing heavily as a four-player twist to the most classic of its video game franchises.

Fils-Aime, who chatted with me in his suite at New York’s Waldorf Astoria, was ebullient. “I really do believe that New Super Mario Bros. Wii will satisfy even your most jaded, even your most competitive player,” he said. “I’ll tell you, there’s nothing like playing New Super Mario Bros. with three of your friends. You’re picking each other up and throwing each other into the lava pits and the crevasse. This game is the most fun.”

The biggest concerns I had seen from Kotaku readers prior to the game’s release has been among those who believe their lives don’t allow for co-op shared-couch Mario adventuring. They’d either have to play the game alone or lament its lack of online play.

Fils-Aime maintained that the game is “superb” for single players, but he admitted desire for online options. Nintendo’s multiplayer racing and fighting series, Mario Kart and Smash Bros., did have online on the Wii. New Super Mario is the odd one out.

“This was a decision made purely by the developers,” he said. “They believe this experience, in the same room, to be elbowing your friends and family members as you’re playing the game [is ideal]. It was really their decision. I personally would have loved for it to be online capable as well, but having played the game, I really can’t fault it for not being online multiplayer.”

In just a few weeks Nintendo will release a Zelda game as well: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. Fils-Aime refers to it as the game he is “personally looking forward to most” this Christmas. Despite that enthusiasm it’s among the Zelda games Nintendo has kept most quiet about. The company announced it in March, showed it at E3 in early June but offered little news about the game since, before publicising in recent weeks that hero Link would spend this adventure alongside an active Princess Zelda this time.

Why keep so quiet about this game for so long?

“We believe that to tease fans over an extended period of time really doesn’t do the gamer just service,” he said. “So, we have always been mindful of: When’s the launch date? When’s the right time to share information? How do we break information? In particular, with this game, given the Zelda dynamic — which you find out about right at the start of the game — we really wanted to keep that secret and have it be a big reveal. That is something very new and very different in a Zelda game, [having] Princess Zelda essentially playing along with you. That’s essentially what drove the strategy for how we reveal the information, when do we reveal the information and the fact that it had to be fairly late.”

I related to Fils-Aime the discussion that the blog Press The Buttons started regarding the different box art for Spirit Tracks in Europe, Japan and America. For the American gamer, the box is darker and Link looks a bit tougher than he does on the package being sold in other regions.

“We just thought the package art we developed with [Nintendo's Japanese headquarters office] NCL that highlights the train and highlights the Phantom… was a great representation of the game,” he said. Does it show that Americans want a tougher, more aggressive Link? “Not at all,” he replied. But he did note that he was proud that Zelda sells more copies these days in the US than in other regions, meaning Japan and Europe.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii is in stores for the Wii now. The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks will be released in North America on December 7 for the Nintendo DS.

There will be two bundles available, each with five games included on the system. One includes a white DSi with three Brain Age Express titles, Clubhouse Games and Photo Clock. The other has a blue DSi with Mario vs Donkey Kong: Minis March Again!, WarioWare: Snapped, Dr. Mario Express, Mario Calculator and Mario Clock.

Both are advertised at $US169.99. It’s unclear whether it’s an offer that will be extended beyond Black Friday; we’ve contacted Nintendo, and will update if we hear back.

Kotaku AU Note: And we’ll contact Nintendo Australia to find out if anything similar is happening here.

Nintendo DSi Preloaded With DSiWare Games Coming On Black Friday [Siliconera]

They reckon that, with the rumoured machine due to launch late next year, it’s going to be powered by the second iteration of nVidia’s Tegra chipset, not the original as was first suggested. For reference, the Zune HD – capable of stuff like this – runs on the Tegra, while Nintendo’s new handheld would be running on the Tegra 2.

nVidia reckon the Tegra 2 has four times the power of the Tegra. So look at what the Zune HD can do then imagine something… better.

Course, we still have no idea what Nintendo have planned for their next handheld; it could be another two-screen device, it could be a return to the single-screen days of the Game Boy, it could be something else entirely. But hey, whatever it is, it’s nice to know (if this info checks out) that we’re looking at a substantial upgrade from the current DS tech.

Oh, and if you’re interested, the Digital Foundry piece also has some less concrete stuff on Sony’s supposed PSP2 as well.

In Theory: Nintendo DS2 vs. Sony PSP2 [Digital Foundry]

[Thanks Sam T!]