iPlayer back on Wii

More good Wii news: the BBC iPlayer is back, and on its own dedicated channel. Actually, it was announced on the BBC’s Internet Blog last week, but I missed that. Never mind, this morning it’s available to download. I’ve had a quick look around: browsing is quick and effective, and the search feature is speedy …

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WiiWare downloads at last

Finally, Nintendo has caught up and started offering demos of a few WiiWare games. Hooray! It’s very limited though, and only until the end of January. But Nintendo has a habit of coming to a party late, starting small, then doing it less half-arsed. So hopefully WiiWare will end up more like Xbox Live Arcade …

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Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter

Gimmicks over gameplay – that’s what someone has probably said at some point about a Wii game. I’ve just checked with Google, and they have indeed.

Drawn to Life: The Next ChapterDTL:TNC – an abbreviation I shan’t use again – doesn’t employ a Wii-related gimmick though. Well done, you might think. Not so: for Drawn to Life does employ a gimmick, it’s just a Nintendo DS gimmick. But in a Wii game. Which works as well as you’d imagine.

The first Drawn to Life was a DS title, and used the stylus as a drawing implement. Here it’s the flappy, imprecise Wii remote instead. With that you’re supposed to draw your character, and many other objects which fill the half-hearted platform game which passes as the title’s substance.

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M&S – but not that one

This Week’s Games They’re quite the odd couple, but having got together two years ago for a trip to the Olympic Games after years of acrimony, Mario and Sonic are still an item, and now they’re off to the Olympic Winter Games. What I’m trying to say is: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter …

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What everyone wants: a PS2

I don’t keep up with hardware sales figures a great deal, but some Sony-related facts caught my eye today. It’s all about the continuing success of the PlayStation 2. Or, if you prefer, the under-performance of the PlayStation 3 and PSP. Two salient PS2 facts: it was the only one to increase annual unit sales …

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Seventy quid for a game?

A couple of weeks ago, Activision announced an RRP of £54.99 for the snappily titled Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Seems high. This week the BBC caught up, and asked some people whether they like that price. Clearly they don’t. But at least we now know that Gary from Islington will “still buy it”, …

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Fifty five quid?!

Modern Warfare 2 will have an RRP of £54.99. It’s like the Nintendo 64 all over again. Earlier this week UK inflation dropped to 1.8%, but it was noted that computer games in particular are very much bucking that trend, costing more now than a year ago. Development costs, slower next-gen take up, and a …

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Why release a horrible looking PSP?

This Week’s Games Two games out this week scream big sales at me: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10. There aren’t many reviews of EA’s latest Potter efforts yet, but the pattern seems to be: console versions reasonable, handheld versions not. Needless to say, it looks like yet another …

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2005 Vintage

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. That’s not news. Of course it isn’t. But what effect does absence have on games? Now that’s a question, Daniel. A long haul flight was an excuse to revisit some PSP games of a 2005 vintage. How have they aged? Wipeout Pure has formed a crusty shell. There’s nothing …

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Get ready to grumble

UK Chart Better late than never? Let’s find out! Fight Night Round 4 – four of them already? – is new, and straight in at #1. Smashing the competition in the face, if you like. Below that, last week’s top four all shuffle down a place, so it’s Prototype – or [PROTOTYPE] as Chart Track …

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Formula 1 games in two stages

Codemasters have been talking to IGN about the new Formula 1 games they’ve got in the pipeline. Formula 1 2009 will be first, out in the autumn for just Wii and PSP. It’s sounding reasonably comprehensive: KERS, strategy calls and weather systems during races, a three-year career mode, smaller challenges, multiplayer – all that. Importantly, …

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Lots of games

This Week’s Games Blimey, there’s quite a lot out this week. But what does any of it mean? I’ll try to work it out as I go along. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time is for Wii and Nintendo DS, and the two versions are compatible in multiplayer. Reviews: quite good. Driving action thing …

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Zelda, now with added steam train

It’s the Game Developers Conference in America’s own San Francisco at the moment, and real websites remembered that King of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, gave a keynote today. It’s all right though, it doesn’t look like much of significance happened. Especially for game developers, who should surely have been the target audience. Never mind. But! There’s …

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House of the Dead: Overkill

House of the Dead: OverkillIt’s hard to imagine a more successful game, if you judge success by the extent to which the developers achieved what they set out to do. I am of course assuming that I know what the developers set out to do. But in this case I think that’s safe: make an unreasonably entertaining light gun game.

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The games industry needs to get a grip

Change4Life is some sort of scheme dreamt up by the Government and various charities to encourage children to be healthy. This is a good thing. The entire games industry seems to have taken offence at one particular Change4Life advert, which points out that children who do nothing might die early. This is illustrated by a …

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