If you've grown tired of furiously pummeling those smiling Miis in Wii Boxing, there's hope for you yet. Speaking to Gabriel Montoya of Doghouseboxing.com, the producer of Fight Night Round 3 explains that a Wii entry into the fisticuff franchise is currently being discussed within the towering offices of EA. "We're contemplating and we definitely feel there are some exciting things we can do with the Fight Night franchise and the Wii," says Michael Blank.
"When you play Wii Boxing it is a very simple experience and I think that is what they designed it to be just to let you know that you can throw punches. With Fight Night we have an amazing simulation of Boxing and so we need to take those Wii controls and tailor it to what the Fight Night consumer might want to experience." Though nothing definitive has been announced, Fight Night Round Wii seems like an inevitability.
With SSX Blurshowing EA's willingness to embrace an alternative control set and Wii Boxing providing a solid, albeit simplistic boxing example, the way is paved. Even if it is with bloody teeth.
Just a few short days after we posted our challenge for video evidence of a perfect 890 in the Wii Sports bowling "power throws" mini-game, video evidence of the feat has surfaced courtesy of Joystiq reader Koz. Not content to just show off his skills, Koz has also written out the method that led to his perfect run in scientific detail over on the WiiModWii forums. Apparently, imported Belgian beers and a "vocabulary of thousands of cuss words to scream in anger" are the keys to success.
Congratulations, Koz (if that is your real name ... which we're pretty sure it isn't). Your T-shirt is on the way.
[Update: The original post mistakenly credited tipster el moco instead of video-maker Koz.]
The 10th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards have at long last confirmed a growing, industry-wide suspicion: Gears of War is pretty good. In a ceremony held last night at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences bestowed eight shiny statuettes upon Epic Games' monsters vs. testosterone epic. In addition to winning overall Game of the Year, it picked up gongs for Console Game of the Year, Online Game Play, Animation, Art Design, Visual Engineering, Outstanding Character Performance and Action/Adventure Game of the Year.
Wii Sports waggled three awards out of the academy, including ones for Outstanding Innovation, Gameplay Engineering and Game Design. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Guitar Hero II and Loco Roco all came away with double wins, whereas The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess made off with a single prize for Outstanding Story and Character Development (in your face, Saint's Row!). Inaugural Lifetime Achievement awards went to Minoru Arakawa and Howard Lincoln, for their involvement with the NES and the rebuilding of a shattered games industry during the 1980's.
Check out the full list of winners after the break.
In a roundtable discussion before the Wii's release, Nintendo designer Takayuki Shimamura declared that "in all of the endless testing which Nintendo has done on [Wii Sports bowling], no one has ever achieved a perfect score!" This factoid didn't last very long -- since the system's release dozens of players have posted YouTube videos of their own perfect games, complete with anti-climactic confetti endings.
But while this seemingly impressive feat has now become commonplace, another Wii Sports bowling challenge remains seemingly unachieved and practically unachievable. We're speaking of a perfect score in the "Power Throws" training game, which steadily increases the number of pins at the end of the lane from a base of 10 to a staggering 91 pins in the tenth frame. Their are 445 total pins to knock down, but the game doubles the frame score for each strike, making a score of 890 the perfect ideal.
Despite our best efforts, we could not find documented evidence of such a score online. The best we could find on YouTube was an 804, and even this impressive player used the well-known cheat to strike out on the last frame. A couple of players on EliteScores.com have claimed to max out the score, but neither submitted so much as a screenshot as proof. Gaming scoreboard Twin Galaxies doesn't even track the Power Throws minigame yet, probably because no one has bothered to send in a VHS tape of their achievement as per the rules.
So we're putting out a challenge to the Joystiq community. Can anyone out there achieve the holy grail of Wii Sports and get a perfect score in this difficult minigame? The first person to submit video evidence of the feat (without cheating!) will get a handsome Joystiq T-shirt and eternal Internet glory as their reward. Entries can be submitted using the tips submission page. Good luck!
[Update: The challenge has been met by Joystiq reader el moco, who sent in the below video to confirm the feat. Mr. moco also outlined his methods on the WiiModWii forums. Congratulation el moco, we'll be contacting you about the T-shirt soon.]
What's more useless: plastic shove-on attachments or boxing gloves with Wiimote pockets? We suppose those attachments are, but these 'un-official' Wii boxing gloves rank among the lamest of 3rd-party peripherals.
Maybe if you have a tendency to fling your Wiimote the gloves are $22 well spent; then again, Wii Sports' boxing requires players to hold the Wiimote vertically. You won't be punching with these gloves on; you'll be knocking on doors. Awkward.
"They're talking nonsense. It's ridiculous to say that graphics don't matter." Those are the words of Nvidia's VP of content, Roy Taylor, in response to those that don't believe graphics are important -- Nintendo presumably included. Of course, since Nvidia and graphics technology are largely synonymous with each other, it would have been ludicrous to expect him to say anything else (Our chips totally don't matter!) in his interview with Next Generation. "That's like saying, 'The quality of my TV screen doesn't matter.' Oh really? So then in that case, you can go watch 24 in black-and-white on a seven-inch screen."
The counter-argument to be made here is obviously that the sentiment shared by many gamers and Nintendo doesn't imply that we'd be happy to regress to terrible graphics. Instead, their stance has been that graphics have reached a "good enough" level and can no longer significantly enhance gameplay. The "24 in black-and-white on a seven-inch screen" argument doesn't quite make sense, as the primary qualities of the show wouldn't be particularly affected by switching to a 1080p television. Perhaps a better analogy would have Jack Bauer replaced by an angry, but not entirely believable sock puppet.
Taylor goes on to say that graphics can greatly improve in-game emotion, with technology aiding in creating detailed facial expressions and realistic movement. This is valid point, though it requires consideration of what experience the game is trying to convey. A title like Gears of War is absolutely made more fun by its intense and involving cinematic presentation, whereas a game like Wii Sports is less dependent on seamless worlds and nuanced characters. Perhaps a compromise can be reached by saying, "Graphics should be good enough for the intended gameplay."
What should you do when you have a former World Number 1 ranked tennis player on your late night talk show? Challenge her to Wii Tennis, of course!
That's what Conan O'Brien decided to do last night when he had Serena Williams on as a guest. We caution the little ones to avoid direct eye contact with O'Brien's scantily-clad body, as the sheer paleness reflects light and can blind you. Look closely and you'll see that the production team made Miis of the host and guest.
We won't give away the final score, but it was a close game. Video embedded after the break.
Today's most-watched YouTube game video shows a violent -- and possibly deadly -- end of a Wii Sports boxing match. (Who are we kidding? Nintendo made sure to show the loser standing up in the far corner after each bout, so surely no Miis get too hurt.)
After the break, watch a fierce KO-punch that results in a near-somersault by the opposing player. Then watch it again in slow motion.
[Update 1: We send a big nod (and the wish to never meet in a Wii Boxing ring) to The1Qwerty who created the video. Sorry we missed mentioning you when first linking the video from YouTube.]
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences has announced the nominations for the 10th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards. Though Gears of War has yet to make an acquaintance with that irrelevant temptress, Emmy, it stands a very good chance of winning a statuette that actually matters -- it's been nominated in ten different categories, including Console Game of the Year, Action / Adventure Game of the Year, and Overall Game of the Year.
The AIAS (probably not pronounced "Ahyeehuss") also fancies The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, each garnering six nominations. These, along with Guitar Hero II and Wii Sports complete the list of classy nominees in the Overall Game of the Year category. The full list of nominees is available on the official Ahyeehuss website.
Does that Wii Sports' generic disc sleeve get your blood boiling? Has it steadily climbed your list of annoyances -- sticking out like some cheap freebie demo disc in your otherwise tidy display case? Dude, then you needs to check out CDCovers.cc. The site maintains a growing archive of video game cover art.
With a little time and care (and cash), you'll have crafted an authentic Wii Sports game case. A viable solution for the true connoisseur.
Wii Sports scored a spot among our favorite games of 2006 because of its innovation and motion-tastic controls. But we'd still rather play in-depth, stand-alone versions of the pack-in sports; Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 is one of the first to answer the stand-alone challenge. I recently got to swing Tiger's virtual driver -- and putter -- with the Wii game, schedule for mid-March release.
Wii Sports Golf has grown on me as I've played it more. But the bundled title has many drawbacks, like quirky club control, lack of slice sensing, and an inability to spin the ball. As I would expect from EA's stand-alone title, Tiger Woods bests Wii Sports in all of those areas -- with a few caveats. While I only got a short session with Tiger Woods and I'm only casually a golf game fan, I'm looking forward to a golf game for the first time since, well, ever.
We mused about the subject a few months back, and now PEGA's delivering with a set of cheap plastic Wiimote attachments. For ¥2,780 (about $23), suckers can preorder the set, which includes a mock golf club, baseball bat, and tennis racket (all measuring approximately 16 inches in length). At that length (and without much weight), the attachments won't add much to the sense of realism; though they will increase the risk of actually striking someone or something while playing Wii Sports. No thanks.
A recent Mayo Clinic study may indicate that kids burn significantly more calories while playing active games (e.g., Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 2, Wii Sports) than while engaged in sit-down games. That this conclusion seems obvious is part of the problem.
Parents may now be more content than ever to plop their kids in front of the TV if they perceive that a few hours of active gaming will substitute for necessary exercise. Even if kids, on average, burn twice as many calories while on the dancepad than while button-smashing a gamepad, they're still simply engaged in virtual activity. Wii Sports might be all the rage but "touching a virtual ball is not the same thing as catching a real ball," warns Active Healthy Kids Canada director of development Jennifer Cowie Bonne, "You need those types of [real life] fundamental skills to build a foundation for a lifelong involvement in other types of physical activity." You wouldn't want Junior to grow up throwing baseballs like a pansy, would you?
Okay, before y'all fall over yourselves telling us that he's using a special cartridge allowing him to pipe in a video signal to his Game Boy Advance, let us beat you to the punch -- we know that. It still looks pretty cool playing the Wii on a GBA screen. Though why you would even want to do this is an entirely different matter. Also, just forget about that sucker being portable. For now, it's just a nifty little "Gee whiz!" feature that'll make you pine for a Wii Boy Portable one day. We can dream.
Peep the vid after the jump and imagine everything else you can play on that tiny screen, thus destroying your eyesight and/or going blind. You've been warned.
Though you may have already discovered this for yourself, it's generally impossible to emulate the men and women you see flailing about in Wii commercials. They're far too energetic, suspiciously excited and quite possibly, entirely synthetic. They're robots, okay? This chap in the video, on the other hand, is clearly human. Watch as his Wii Tennis enthusiasm gradually declines and then reclines into an armchair of lethargy.
Sweeping social statement regarding humanity at large, or an amusing jab at our favorite waggle machine? Either way, that's a brilliant Wii pun. We would have claimed it we weren't so damn tired.
If you've grown tired of furiously pummeling those smiling Miis in Wii Boxing, there's hope for you yet. Speaking to Gabriel Montoya of Doghouseboxing.com, the producer of Fight Night Round 3 explains that a Wii entry into the fisticuff franchise is currently being discussed within the towering offices of EA. "We're contemplating and we definitely feel there are some exciting things we can do with the Fight Night franchise and the Wii," says Michael Blank. 
Today's most-watched YouTube game video shows a violent -- and possibly deadly -- end of a Wii Sports boxing match. (Who are we kidding? Nintendo made sure to show the loser standing up in the far corner after each bout, so surely no Miis get too hurt.)
Wii Sports
