If you guessed the Nintendo Wii, we aren’t even going to give you credit, because it’s pretty much a no-brainer. Developed by Attractive Games LTD, Pizza Delivery Boy has the player delivering pizza to survive, unlocking faster vehicles and extra cash along the way through side missions like street racing and baking competitions. Players use the Wii remote as a combination all-in-one cooking utensil/driving wheel. It sounds a bit like Cooking Mama meets Paperboy, which translates quite nicely into the sexy fan-fiction I’ve been writing.

Pizza Delivery Boy is slated for a winter 2010 release. Finally a game that pizza delivery personnel can sit around playing, bitching about the lack of realism.

We first heard about A Different Game Company’s Ghostwire in late 2008, when the Swedish developer brought home the top prize in Nokia’s Mobile Games Innovation Challenge. The developer announced the title for the DSi earlier this year, and we saw footage of it in action soon after.

The game uses the DSi camera to overlay ghostly images over real-world locations, with the secondary camera used as a rear-view mirror in case ghosts show up behind you. The title has a tremendous amount of potential, which Majesco recognises.

“Ghostwire: Link to the Paranormal integrates cutting-edge technology with a unique augmented reality aesthetic to create a truly exciting piece of software specifically designed for Nintendo DSi™,” said Gui Karyo, Executive Vice President of Operations, Majesco Entertainment. “We are thrilled to have such an innovative product in our line-up and look forward to revealing details about the experience as we approach next year’s launch.”

Ghostwire: Link to the Paranormal is currently aimed at a late 2010 release.

I think it bears noting that I never played the original A Boy and His Blob for two reasons. First, the reader understands why I don’t comment on how well the game adheres to the original – I have no frame of reference, so I cannot comment. Second, it speaks of the popularity of the NES title that, despite never having played the game, I still understand the premise and basic gameplay mechanics. A blob lands on Earth, seeking help in defeating the evil emperor who have taken over his planet. He meets a boy, and together they discover that feeding the blob different flavours of jelly beans grants it the ability to transforms into shapes that conveniently aid in the platforming adventure they embark upon to defeat the aforementioned evil emperor.

With a basic understanding of the game in hand, I ventured into the delightful world of this new A Boy and His Blob. What did I gain, aside from a killer craving for jelly beans?

Loved
Storybook Graphics: The sharp 2D graphics of A Boy and His Blob look as if they were lifted straight out of a children’s storybook. The backgrounds are vibrant and colourful (if a bit repetitive at times), which serves as a sharp contrast to the simple style used to render the blob and your enemies. I found myself completely charmed by the game’s style.

Here’s Your Blob, Go!: If you want to delve into the story behind A Boy and his Blob, read through the game’s manual. Once you start playing there are no words; no tutorials; no encyclopedia containing pertinent information. You figure out how to play the game on your own. In other titles this might have been a negative, but A Boy and His Blob plays intuitively enough that you don’t need such distractions.

Choose Your Own Jelly Bean: Once you get into the thick of things, A Boy and his Blob affords you a certain amount of freedom in terms of how you progress. While I’m sure there are specific ways of overcoming obstacles that WayForward had in mind, judging from the predetermined set of transformations available to your blob in each level, but there are multiple ways of approaching certain problems that, if successful, leaving you feeling very pleased with yourself.

More To Love: A Boy and His Blob contains 40 levels of gameplay, which is more than enough to keep you blobbing all day long. Then every level contains three treasure chests to collect, which in turn unlock special challenge levels for you to play through. That’s 80 levels worth of gameplay, plus the joy of obsessively searching for treasure chests. I’d say that’s more than enough.

The Hug Button: The game has a button assigned to giving hugs. Every game should have a game assigned to giving hugs, not just A Boy and his Blob and Army of Two.

Hated
Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs: A Boy and His Blob pretty landscapes are rife with graffiti. Everywhere you go you’ll find quaint wooden signs, defaced with symbols letting you know exactly what form your blob should take in order to progress. As you progress through the game they get fewer and farther between, but they still make an appearance now and then, taking away from the most enjoyable aspect of the game – trying to figure out how to progress using the tools given you. An option to turn them off entirely would have been quite welcome.

Pet Pathing: The most frustrating element of A Boy and His Blob for me was waiting for the blob to catch up, which happens quite a lot. In many instances the blob simply comes when you call. In others, it feels like you have to hit the call button over and over again, like an impatient person waiting for the elevator, while the blob slowly made his way back to your side.

Even though I had never played A Boy and His Blob before, I have to admit that I came into this review with some idea of what to expect. The original was such a unique experience, that the re-creation had a lot to live up to no matter who was playing. Now I’m not sure what those of you who played the original game experienced, but I found myself quite pleased with the re-creation as a whole. The sharp and colorful 2D graphics, soothing music, action puzzle-based gameplay, and minimalistic presentation all add up to a gaming experience that can only be described as delightful, and that’s not a word that I use lightly. Hell, that’s not a word that I use ever. Enjoy it while it lasts; I’m off to stock up on jelly beans.

A Boy and His Blob was developed by WayForward Technologies and published by Majesco for the Wii on October 13th in North America. Retails for $US39.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Completed the game proper and played through at least half of the bonus challenge levels.

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Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja is just one of the many excellent arcade titles Data East created back in the day. Titles like BurgerTime, Side Pocket, and Magical Drop are all the sort of arcade games that you forget about until someone mentions them, and then you’re flooded with fond memories. Majesco hopes to help you recapture those memories with Data East Arcade Classics for Wii, a collection of fifteen of the best games Data East had to offer, with full multiplayer support so you can share them with friends and family. Other games in the compilation include Burnin’ Rubber, Heavy Barrel, Caveman Ninja, Side Pocket, and BurgerTime sequel Peter Pepper’s Ice Cream Factory. If those names don’t get you excited, then you’re probably much younger than I am.

Data East Arcade Classics should hit the Wii early next year, priced to move at $US19.99.

Sure the game is out in 12 days, but it’s Majesco’s title and they can set aside a whole month if they want to. Each week they’ll be showing off new screens, trailers and concept art for the game, kicking things off with some concept art showing off the title’s lovely hand-drawn art style, along with the official box art. Stay tuned for more A Boy and His Blob as Blob Month continues.

It’s been quite awhile, but now we’re back, playing the Nintendo Wii family party game Go Play Lumberjacks, so you don’t have to.

Go Play Lumberjacks is, oddly enough, part of Majesco’s new Go Play line of family-friendly titles. Of course, on the Nintendo Wii, family-friendly generally translates into mini-games, and Lumberjacks is no different. The game actually has quite a few nifty features, including Wii Balance Board support and the ability to unlock a whole host of secret characters, one of which is your Mii. I heard you all gasp with delight right there.

Unfortunately, too many of the mini-games amount to me standing in front of the television pantomiming masturbation, something I don’t generally do unless I am watching CNN.

Have you been eyeing a budget title at your local game store but just aren’t prepared to take the plunge sight unseen? Feel free to use the comments section to suggest more games you’d like us to play So You Don’t Have To.

A Boy And His Blob, beloved NES platformer only some of us on the team have played, has inspired a Wii successor from the makers of the crushingly hard Contra 4. Oh yes, you will struggle. The guy from the company that’s publishing the game did — and he’s beat a version of the new game already!

What Is It?
A Boy And His Blob is the spiritual successor to the the 1989 platformer of the same name. The new game was made by WayForward and sports lovely hand-drawn graphics. The game is classified as a side-scrolling puzzle-platformer. The boy can’t fight; he feeds jelly beans to the blob, which makes it transform into a ladder, a rocket ship, a hole in the ground, etc. Enemies are lurking and lots pits full of spikes are one misstep away. The game has the boy and his blob adventuring through 40 main stages, initially set on Earth and then back on the blob’s home planet where a despot has taken over. There are also 40 challenge stages.

What We Saw
I played one level that was definitely not from early in the game. I took a cue from a sign and turned blob into a rocketship. I had the boy ride him through a maze of earth and trees. But I fumbled and died. I watched a rep from the game’s publisher breeze through some opening levels and become flummoxed by later ones. This game gets hard.

How Far Along Is It?
The game is set for a fall release, and while it’s still being tweaked, I was told that it’s now possible to play it through to the end. It’s pretty far along.

What Needs Improvement?
The Difficulty: There’s no reason that a cute game has to be easy. But when a person who has played the game a lot is struggling, that’s a sign that the difficulty spikes are too jagged. I saw too many blind jumps, too many really tough leaps for any of us who still have a few strands of hair to be willing to play. As it is, this game could make me bald with frustration. We don’t want that.

What Should Stay The Same?
The Look: The game is charming, lovely, and all the other adjectives you’d want to apply to a sweet storybook-looking adventure. Blob is adorable, even when he gets red out of anger. Even cuter is when boy hugs blob. It’s probably how you looked when you were young and hugged your favourite pillow. That adorable.

The Transformations: The blob turns into some cool stuff. The old hole-in-the-floor trick — slipping a hole-shaped blob under an enemy so that it drops to a cave below — never gets old. Blob as ladder. Bob as parachute. Blob as coconut that acts like a bowling ball. I liked it all.

Final Thoughts
I’m worried that this game’s difficulty could ruin it for players who would otherwise find it delightful. It’s nice enough to play a Wii original that looks this good and has this much personality. It’d be a pity if WayForward and Majesco can’t tune down the difficulty some — even if the original was, I’m told, very hard — so that more of us can enjoy it.

Serious Sam HD is coming to Xbox Live Arcade and the PC this year, and you can have your own witty quip immortalised in the game. Between July 15th and July 30th, fans of the serious can use Twitter to send their suggestions for a witty catch phrase to @devolverdigital. The winning entry will have their line read by John J. Dick, the voice of Sam, and will also get a shout-out in the game’s credits.

“I never get any thanks for the wonderfully poetic and emotionally layered lines I write for Sam ‘Serious’ Stone,” said an overworked and underpaid writer at Croteam “So guess what? Let someone else take a crack at it and see how hard it is. These witty remarks don’t write themselves you know.”

The winner will be announced in early August to followers of http://www.twitter.com/devolverdigital. Feel free to share your ideas below, but I’d suggest submitting your entry first, as our comment system is filled with pirates.

Since official figures from such an obscure licence might be wishful thinking, this sculpt by Appy is probably as close as we’ll get to touching something from the game. Well, maybe not touching. Hugging.

Below, a bonus: his take on a Team Fortress 2 engineer (engineeress?)

[Reskiy @ Flickr, via GameSetWatch]

Scheduled for a late summer release, Serious Sam: The First Encounter HD is exactly what the name implies: the first entry in the tongue-in-cheek, over the top Serious Sam first-person shooter series, upgraded with full HD graphics that take advantage of the full power of the Xbox 360, along with four-player co-operative play over Xbox Live. The folks at Croteam are just as excited as the fans should be.

“We are really excited to update our hero and recreate Sam in stunning high definition for Xbox LIVE Arcade players,” said Roman Ribaric, CEO of Croteam. “The fans have lobbied us hard to do this, so we are stoked about bringing Sam back as big, bold and bad as he ever was.”

While the official press release didn’t name a price, we’ve heard stirrings from Eurogamer citing 1200 Microsoft points, which seems pretty fair. Keep an eye out for Serious Sam: The First Encounter HD later this summer.

Here are the original graphics…

…compared to the new improved HD graphics.