There is a party like Mario Party

Mario Party 8 was supposedly recalled, yet it’s still new at #5 this week. Why? Maybe because approximately 26 games are sold per week at this time of year. I don’t know, frankly. The top three remains Potter, More Brain Training and Shrek, with Wii Play up a couple to complete the top five. Mario …

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E3: pretty pictures

I think we’re just about done with E3 for another year, but before we forget all of it, let’s see some lovely bright Wii screenshots – Mario in his bee costune in Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart, and NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams. And to balance that, how about the first couple of screenshots of Silent …

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E3: round ‘em up

E3 – it’s all done and dusted for another year. As usual a load of announcements have gone almost unnoticed. That’s where this round up comes in. They’re pretty chummy these days, so it’s odd that Nintendo haven’t lent Ubisoft the Excitebike name for their online-enabled Nitrobike on Wii. What’s odder is that it’s actually …

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Project C.A.N.N.E.D.

The latest issue of NGamer has fallen through subscribers’ letterboxes. Inside the magazine, which sports a nice laminated Boogie cover this month, they confirm that Project H.A.M.M.E.R. has been canned. This would explain why it wasn’t at E3. It always looked a bit rubbish, anyway.

There ain’t no party like a Mario Party

A little bit of news to kick off this week’s new game round up: although already shipped to retailers, Mario Party 8 has been recalled by Nintendo due to a fatal bug. Game have removed all traces of it from their website while Amazon have confirmed that it has been temporarily withdrawn. I wonder if …

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And Europe gets…

…the 60GB PlayStation 3 with two first party games and two SIXAXIS controllers for the familiar price of £425. This is, of course, after the US got a $100 price cut on the 60GB model, and a new package containing an 80GB model with MotorStorm for the original price of $599 earlier this week. No …

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E3: the interesting stuff

There were a lot of war games on show at E3 – it isn’t humanly possible to even start listing them. Plenty of cartoon and movie licenses, tedious-looking first person shooters and complex-looking racing games too. But it’s not all bad, as this round up of mild innovation proves. THQ have a Nintendo-exclusive in the …

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“My sash says Ultraman”

Watch this video of EA’s The Simpsons Game and you’ll see a handful of videogame parodies, from Frogger to We Love Katamari. Yeah, it’s amusing, but not laugh out loud funny. Watch it through to the end though, paying special attention to the formats it’s being released on… Last week Matt Groening gave the ending …

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New PSP: the same but smaller

Its official: Sony have a new model PSP on the way, due worldwide in September. And no, it doesn’t feature two screens. You can connect it up to a TV to play games and watch UMD movies on a somewhat bigger screen though. The new model – which as you can see looks exactly the …

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A Tingle to the Past

Like a school boy who has a girl’s pencil case, it’s all too easy to take the piss out of Nintendo Europe’s Stars catalogue. But we shouldn’t. Not just because bullying is bad, but because it isn’t a total farce. Recently – well, a few months ago – 1,000 people got free copies of Spectrobes …

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Zap a zombie

Nintendo showed a Wii Zapper light-gun accessory back when the wonderful white box itself was first properly unveiled. They’ve since decided to evolve it a bit and give it a dust off, the result being an elongated unit which the nunchuk can click into at the rear. It reminds me of the Dreamcast light-gun, which …

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Won’t somebody think of the E-numbers?

Good news! Viva Pinata: Party Animals has been announced at E3. Bad news! It’s a collection of colourful mini-games. Odd news! It’s not being developed by Rare, but rather Ty the Tazmanian Tiger creators Krome. We know that Rare are working on Banjo-Kazooie, but it seems strange that Microsoft have taken their franchise away from …

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The future is grey

Almost two years on from the famous ‘artist’s impression’ CGI Killzone 2 video, Sony have finally decided to show the world what the real deal will look like. What’s surprising it that it doesn’t look that much different, with several sequences – jamming guns, the troopers on fire and a drop ship blowing up before …

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Tempted yet?

So Sony have finally cut the price of the PlayStation 3 in North America, and a similar announcement for Europe is widely expected on Thursday from E3. Yes, it’s E3. No, we didn’t realise either. The 60GB model is down $100 to $499, and the original price of $599 will now buy the new 80GB …

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Acting’s Nicole Kidman

Adverts starring acting’s Nicole Kidman have doubtless contributed to the positive movement of the second dose of DS Brain Training, which is up three to #2. It’s still Potter at #1 though, and Shrek retains #3. It’s a way down the chart before you happen upon the sole new entry, that being Ninja Gaiden: Sigma …

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