later nerdz; it’s about techgnarlogy

What a nice break. Back to the grind huh?

Zelda has some secret places.

New Super Mario Bros. tops Amazon’s top 10 games of the year.

More coming soon.

Super Mario Bros. is coming to the Wii December 25th for 500 points. In addition, these classic games will be available soon:

* Street Fighter® II: The World Warrior (Super NES®, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points): This game revolutionized the fighting-game genre with characters that had unique fighting skills, speed, special moves and unique endings.

* Super Castlevania® IV (Super NES, 1 player, 800 Wii Points): Simon Belmont uses his trusty whip to fight the powers of evil on his way to Dracula’s Castle.

* Toe Jam & Earl™ (Sega Genesis, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points): Two fun-loving aliens crash on Earth and must find 10 pieces of their spaceship so they can get back home to Planet Funkotron.

* R-TYPE® (TurboGrafx16, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points): This is a completely faithful port - right down to the character details - of the famous shooting-game masterpiece.

Games available on Jan. 1 include:

* Baseball (NES, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points): Play nine innings of fierce sandlot competition with classic NES graphics.

* Urban Champion™ (NES, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points): Don’t let the big, bad bully of the neighborhood push you around! Players fight for the right to walk the street.

GigaOM has some screenshots and analysis of the new startup by Skype/Kazaa guy Janus Friis.

GameZone has a two part interview with the EA Mythic about their upcoming MMORPG Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. The game really looks great and has some features new to the MMORPG genre. Plus, it has 25 years of Warhammer storyline. Sounds like all the ingredients for an awesome MMORPG. We’ll see. In the meantime read this interview: Part 1 and Part 2 and watch the cinematic trailer. That should hold us over until it’s release sometime in 2007.

Genesis Rising: The Universal Crusade, a space RTS that features 2-player coop mode, non-linear single player and a heavy emphasis on the RPG storyline. Not only that but it appears to be the first space game to use the latest in rendering. Combine this, with the fact that space games don’t have to render much environment (other than space) and you’re in for some pretty models. Genesis Rising is in beta now for fileplanet subscribers.

Nintendo has official responded to the nationwide class action lawsuit filed by Green Welling LLP. The lawsuit has not yet been official recognized by a judge. Nintendo’s response is as follows:

We believe the lawsuit to be completely without merit. Nintendo has a long tradition of delivering high-quality products and excellent customer service, and we take all reports from our customers seriously.

At the time we became aware of the lawsuit, we had already taken appropriate steps to reinforce with consumers the proper use of the Wii Remote and had made stronger replacement wrist straps available. This suit has had no effect on those efforts.

I don’t expect to see that going very far. Space Harrier II by SEGA has come to the Wii virtual console. You can purchase it for 800 points.

Playstation 3 is getting new downloadable content. Days of the Blade and Blast Factor will be getting updates. Dayes of the Blade will get a costume pack and Blast Factor, the Geometry Wars rip off, will be getting co-op play. The PLAYSTATION®3 Blu-ray Disc™ (BD) Remote Control is now in stores at $24.99. Go pick it up and toss that controller aside.

Supposedly the Zune is a distraction by Microsoft to give the Xbox more room to breath.

id software is running a Quake 4 map making contest. Winners will have their maps included in the next official map pack released.

The good folks over at CNET’s News.com have an interview with Ailin Graef, aka Anshe Chung in Second Life. Apparently Ailin Graef has created quite the virtual Donald Trump real estate simulator in Second Life. According to her, she owns more than 1 million (real USD) dollars in virtual land assets.

The interview was supposed to take place at the CNET theater, which I’m assuming is CNETs space in the virtual world, but the interview was interrupted when according to CNET:

[...] as the interview was commencing, the event was attacked by a “griefer,” someone intent on disrupting the proceedings. The griefer managed to assault the CNET theater for 15 minutes with–well, there’s no way to say this delicately–animated flying penises.

CNET goes on to say it’s not clear why the griefer attacked but I think it’s pretty obvious. They were a griefer. It sounds like that person was having fun at other people’s expense with no consequences. In a virtual space like Second Life people like this thrive. It’s the same in most open virtual worlds.

The interview was moved to one of Ailin’s spaces only to be crashed again. This time the griefer attacked with the animation as well as crashed the entire server.

Digg This

Let’s see. Penny Arcade’s Tycho talks a little about his (and probably many others’) perception of casual gamers as it relates to the new Wii Weather Channel. Excerpt below:

The Wii’s Forecast Channel just debuted, with the Internet Channel (i.e., Opera for Devices) arriving later this week - treats for that new or even lapsed gamer referenced by Nintendo marketing materials. I know instinctively that this person does exist, but that’s all I know. I don’t know if the Wii is a draw for that person long term, I don’t know if there’s a strong current of titles to maintain that person’s interest… To be honest, I don’t even know if a constant stream of content is as important to these shy, mysterious creatures as it is to us. I can tell you that the Forecast channel does have merit, even to the hardcore, but one must be creative in its application.

MGM is making a sequal to Wargames entitled Wargames 2: The Dead Code. It will be directed by Stewert Gillard, aka the guy who directed TMNT 3. In the movie a hacker breaks into a computer system that uses virtual reality to train terrorists. Meanwhile, MGM terrorizes the owner of wargames.com for ownership.

Finally, Ken Kutaragi of Sony is PROMISING an AV-centric PS3. Probably won’t play games, and will cost even more to purchase. Goodluck with that, Ken.

4D Rulers, a video game studio responsible for Gore and the AMP 2 3D engine has unlocked begging-mode to raise funds for a plan to save their business. If you’re feeling charitable, you can “invest” in their final plan for in-game advertisement-supported Gore 2 and receive 150% return on your investment (if everything goes correctly). Thank God the internet loves a fund raiser.

From 4D Ruler’s internet forum:

I have an idea that would make a lot of money, but I’d need at a minimum, probably 40k spread over 6 months or so to pull it off.

Guys, I have an idea that MIGHT make a lot of money, but I need your money to do it, so give it to me. It’s a PC game set in an urban wasteland with realistic weapons and kickin’ rad art. Also, everything will be on fire. Whadda think?

Digg this

The hit flash game Line Rider, created in September of 2006, is coming to the Nintendo DS and Wii. The original creator of Line Rider, Boštjan Cadež, has sold the rights to inXile Entertainment, who in turn has arranged for release in Spring 2007 on DS and Wii. Line Rider has been an internet phenomenon spawning a slew of spin off flash games as well as incredible youtube videos.

If you noticed your Wii updating this morning chances are it was downloading the update for the Wii weather channel. The weather channel lets you interactively browse the weather and other data, as well as click-and-drag around a 3D google earth style weather map.

Friday the Opera browser will be available for download.

Thanks Engadget for the photos More photos below the fold.

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Digg this

Update: While it’s obviously impossible to not call it the Wii with all of the news I cover related to it, this article should be taken in jest.

When the Nintendo Wii launched I made the decision to camp out at my local San Francisco Best Buy. It is the first console I have owned since the Sega Genesis and that was a long time ago when the only way a kid like me could obtain a video game console was from Santa.

I’ve found my loves and annoyances of the system. It’s great for friends who regularly would not play video games. Especially at parties. Zelda is the only game I bought with it. It’s a great flagship title and I really value the time I can sink into it finding every little secret and finishing the main plot. Game cube controllers have been purchased for Mario Kart: Double Dash and SSX3 and I’ve even purchased over 30 dollars with of virtual console games, mostly TurboGrafx16 titles. It’s an all around wonderful machine and the few places it slacks such as original Wii launch titles with any substance, it picks up with game cube and virtual console games. However, the one thing I really am not happy with is the name. Wii.

Atari. nes. Sega. Snes. Saturn. Playstation. N64. PS2. Xbox. Gamecube. 360. PS3.

Wii?

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Not much exciting going on, but I think I found some noteworthy newsbits. Happy Holidays everyone.

In the IPTV world, there’s the tip of the iceburg showing as Zudeo signs BBC for HD content. Zudeo is an online video player launched recently by the makers of popular java-based bit torrent client Azureus. The BBC will be providing an initial licensing offering to customers of Red Dwarf, Strange and Invasion Earth, Little Britain, Doctor Who, Fawlty Towers, Coupling, Keeping Up Appearances, League of Gentlemen and Ideal. Zudeo is positioning itself in the “IPTV” market with the likes of iTunes, the Venice Project, and juggernaut YouTube. Meanwhile, Comcast is testing VOD of movies as they release to DVD and not 45 days later and Blockbuster holds on for dear life.

In gaming news, Next Gen published it’s list of the 25 most important people in the gaming industry. It really reads more like a list of the people who make it happen behind the scenes until you get to the end. The Escapist has published issue 76 of it’s thoughtful online magazine. This issue features articles on the topic of the holiday season so if you’re the type of gamer who can hold their attention and read for more than 3 pages, check it out. Time Magazine has written “You know you’re in trouble when you get beat by something called a wii”. Bigger they are the harder they fall, I guess. The game fl0w has been pushed from December 2006 into 2007. fl0w is planned to be released via the PS3’s online marketplace and feature considerable upgrades and PS3-specific enhancements from it’s flash counterpart.

A demo of the HL2 Coop mod “Follow Freeman” was released. I haven’t played it yet but I’m going to try to find some people to play with. You can download it from a lot of places.

Like all new technologies, not long after the Google Webtool Kit is released there are people making games with it. Like the new risk-inspired kdice and previously released poker game gpokr. Check them out, download the Google WTK and make something new.

According to EGM, Katamari is coming to the Wii in 2007 as well as PS3 and Xbox Live Arcade. It is unconfirmed with any official sources.

Nintendo is replacing Wiimote straps! They will replace your strap for free. All you have to do is fill out this form with your shipping information, Wii console serial number and number of straps you need. They’ll do the rest.

TechCrunch has an interview with the Digg team concerning their latest feature update. I gotta say, I am glad their site is no longer center aligned.

I hooked up my Wii again finally. Now that the honor points are not flowing in World of Warcraft I might actually pick up Zelda again.