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A big Hi 5 for the Wellington Airport!

George Lucas has done it again. This August we will get an animated series that will explore the clone wars (duh!). The wars take place between episode 2 and episode 3 and they will help us get to know Anakin a little better.

We will learn more about his padawan learner (a girl called Ahsoka).

All of this will be revealed to us in a few (i don't really know how many) 30 minute episodes.

Visit www.starwars.com for more details.

Cheers…

Nintendo has just released the preview of Metroid Prime 3 Corruption to its New Zealand and Australian customers.

It's only been a few months late!

Better late than never though

To get it use the Wii Shop Channel -> Wii Software (Wii Ware) -> Metroid Prime 3 Preview

Contents: The preview contains a series of teasers (7 of them: Corruption, Aurora, Ped Suit, Valhalla, Dark Samus, Meta Ridley and Rundas which will only be available on the 17th of October). To view them you need to click them and then wait until the buffering is complete. The movies are quite nice, the quality is heaps better than Zelda… There is also a nice background of Samus that can be revealed by clicking a flashing button on the top right of the screen.

Cheers…
UPDATE: The preview says: “Metroid Prime 3 in stores November 8th. Next movie October 17th!” This refers to Rundas… which is just another MP3 movie preview…

Nintendo have just notified their Wii customers that they get a FREE Wii Remote Jacket that will provide "enhanced grip and provide additional protection if the Wii Remote is accidentally thrown or dropped during game play".

The Nintendo Customer Service number for Australia & NZ is (03)97309822. Wii owners will need to have their Wii Console Serial number ready when phoning.

The press release is here: http://press.nintendo.com/articles.jsp?id=13605

Cheers…

Ahmadinejad: ‘In Iran, We Don’t Have Homosexuals Like In Your Country’

Video here.

USA is way too diverse, don't you think?

Cheers…

LucasArts president Jim Ward just said: “The Wii is a great platform for The Force Unleashed, because the console’s motion-orientated controllers really bring the game to life.”

He also said: “We’ve worked hard to make the Wii version of the game unique in order to truly let you unleash the Force.”

What this translates to is that the Wii owners will be using the Wiimote as they would a light-saber… This is where gamers will no longer care about a small graphic disablement that they endure…. They will be too sweaty to notice it!

Another novelty is that the Wii version will have an exclusive duel-mode! Party on!

Will come back with details when I find more.

Check out this sites: GamesRadar, GoNintendo, CVG, Gamasutra, ForceUnleashed.net, Google News.

Cheers…

Out of curiosity: which platform will you choose for your Force Unleashed game? Will it be Wii, 360, DS?

Well all you need is an American IP and an invite to Spiral Frog!

There are more than 700 000 tracks for you to enjoy and 3500 music videos from a few independent labels and, amazingly, Universal!

• Here's how it works: users are not allowed to burn the songs to a CD.
• They will have to visit the SpiralFrog website once a month to watch ads. Otherwise, digital locks on the music will make it inaccessible.
• The songs can be transferred to up to two DAPs (obviously the ubiquitous iPod is not one of them)

SpiralFrog requires you to download a 'download manager' and also requests your age, gender and ZIP code. The information is used to determine what ads get served to you when you browse through the music catalog.

I guess we will see if it will be successful or not. Personally I do not think it will pose a threat to iTunes as long as the songs are not really free and as long they do not bring other major labels on board.

What do you think?

Cheers…

Here's a breakdown of what's new for the Nintendo fans:
1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl releases on December 3rd! Need I say more?
2. The Wii Zapper is unveiled! This Wiimote + Nunchuck wrapper will work with Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles (Nintendo says it makes Resident Evil both "evolutionary and revolutionary"), Ghost Squad, Medal of Honor (up to 32 soldiers being able to play in multiplayer mode) and others. The Zapper will be packaged with games, and launch at a price of $19.99.
3. A new channel is on the way, "Check Mii Out". Basically you submit your Miis to be voted on and engage in contests and promotions. Should be fun
4. Wii Fit The game comes with a floor mat called Wii balance board. Players will be able to do more than 40 different actions that will help them become fit (remember the DS games that makes you beautiful, yeah the one released with the DS web cam). Wii Fit will even calculate your BMI (Body mass index) and remind you how sexy you are
5. Wii balance board wait a second, this was mentioned before! Indeed but this board will also be important in other games where your whole body is part of the game! This wireless piece of plastic might revolutionize some games
5. Mario Kart on Wii will be out in the first quarter of 2008. Mario Kart Wii will alos introduce a custom wheel!  They say: "Like the Wii zapper, this steering wheel has the ability to level the playing field for new gamers."
6. Super Mario Galaxy is coming out November 12th!

If I would write more then I would be as boring as a newspaper so I will stop here!

Cheers…

Wii has a new software update… and what it brings new is a new release in the Shopping Channel.

The new, free, Channel is called "Everybody Votes Channel" and it is a nice idea… cunningly Nintendo will now be able to find exactly what  their customers like…

It is a fun, interactive, voting system which allows the users to vote for their preferred "choices" (as in cat or dog?) and see what the others think… For example one of the questions is "How do you like your eggs? Fried or Boiled?". You now have to drop your Mii on you choice and submit your choice… A nice touch is the fact that you can also say whether you think that the rest of the people think the same way like you or whether you are a "fronder" and you are against the wave OH NO you might be against the mainstream…

It is fun that you actually get to see what opinion the people in your region have… This will be a great statistic tool….

Do you think that people will not participate? I think they will because it is fun, because you use your Mii, because you can make your word heard and because you can "compete" against your friends….

One of the things that I find very interesting is that Nintendo has release another internet enabled channel but this one is just as slow as the previous ones… submitting your choice takes a considerable amount of time on a broadband connection which makes me think that "connected" games are not available yet also because Nintendo might not be ready to handle such connections…

That's it for now!

Cheers…

p.s. the shopping channel has been improved too in this release… and one more thing: Nintendo will push the results of the votes back to you… Nice…

Nintendo has updated the software for its newly released Wii.
With this occasion they have enabled the Weather Channel. Some of the features that you can find by browsing this channel include:

• settings for your local weather: choosing the location, the metric system, etc
• 5 day forecast
• global weather info (a nice touch is the capability to spin the globe)
• weather specific sounds (e.g. rain)

I was surprised to see that the console defaulted to New Zealand. Though it is not technologically difficult to implement I must confess that it was nice to see that they took this into consideration.

I wonder how well implemented the News Channel will be!

Well done big N!

Cheers…