Celebrity Miis invade Japan

Nintendo sure does like to surprise us Wii owners. Quite a few of the Wii Channels have been revealed to gamers without much notice--the latest example being the hand-scratching Everybody Votes channel.

Hot on the heels of the big N's GDC announcement that another new channel will be coming our way soon, a new commercial airing in the Land of the Rising Sun has let it slip that a slew of celebrity-endorsed Miis soon will be available for download.

Comedian and TV personality Akashiya Sanma and former tennis player Shuuzou Matsuoka are the first two celebrities to be given the Mii treatment in Japan. Both will be sent to players connected to Japan's WiiConnect24 service soon. No word if others will follow suit, but it's a pretty good bet it will happen.

I wonder which celebrities will be cloned here in the States?

Hajime no Ippo: A Nintendo Knockout?

Here's a little something I haven't admitted until today: I've never played the boxing portion of Wii Sports. Oh, I've put in plenty of time on the game's other offerings (tennis, bowling, baseball and golf), but have yet to try boxing. I guess I've just read so many ho-hum reviews of it that I decided it wasn't worth my time. I'm also just not a big fan of the sport.

That said, I've been intrigued by Nintendo's full-fledged boxing game for the Wii, Hajime no Ippo, for some time. I'm not sure why--it's probably due to the anime-inspired visuals. Although early word on the street hasn't been much more positive than Nintendo's earlier entrance into the boxing ring, I've held out hope that Nintendo would localize it for the U.S. market so I could give it a go.

I doubt that's going to happen, so in the meantime all I (and you) can do is sit down and watch this latest video of the game in action. In my opinion it looks even better in motion than it did in stills.

More FFXII: Revenant Wings action, coming up!

The fine folks at Square-Enix have kindly released another trailer for their eagerly anticipated DS game, Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings. It's hard to top previous trailers for this drool-inducing game, but somehow this one does just that. I'm not sure I'm going to love how this one controls, but I know it's going to look and sound wonderful. Hopefully that's enough.

Playing catch-up

I wish I could say the reason I haven't posted as much lately is due to the fact that I've been at GDC this week, but unfortunately that's not the case. I've been doing something far less fun and glamorous: moving. We're about done now (my husband, cat and I moved from Madison, Wis. to Seattle) and next week should return to normal.

Speaking of GDC, Nintendo released some great videos of upcoming Wii games the other day following Miyamoto's keynote. Super Paper Mario is my current fave, possibly because it's coming out so soon, though Super Mario Galaxy grabbed my attention, too. I'm still not sure how this game is going to work (Mario in space seems a bit random), but I'm willing to give Ninty the benefit of the doubt.

On the DS side of things, new videos of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass made their way on to the web. It looks amazing, but I'm no so sure about the control scheme. Personally, I prefer controlling game like this with a d-pad. Hopefully Nintendo either will clean it up (some people have complained that it feels sloppy) or allow players to use either the touch screen or the d-pad to control Link.

In other news, I read a great article about Sony's LittleBigPlanet the other day that really got me thinking about the PS3 and the Wii. Obviously I love Nintendo's latest system, and little is going to change that, but I'm starting to see the light when it comes to the PS3 and Xbox 360, too. Whomever mentioned the Wii doesn't have any "artistic" games like the 360 or Ps2/3 was right--though I'm not sure that's Nintendo's fault. That said, I think the games put out for Sony's and Microsoft's current systems may eclipse Nintendo's in terms of creative artistry, and that's important to me.

Time will tell what this means for me. Will I get a 360, PS3 or even a PSP? I'll get at least one of them, eventually. For now, though, I'm looking forward to the release of Super Paper Mario and a few more great retro games on the VC.

The game that could get me to buy a PS3

Don't get me wrong: Despite the fact that 80 percent of the posts on this blog are related to Nintendo systems, I like the other guys' systems, too. Heck, I've bought both of Sony's previous non-portable consoles, and I've seriously considering getting their portable offering as well.

So far, though, the PS3 just hasn't interested me. Partially because it's so darn expensive and partially because I just haven't seen any games that made me sit up and say, "Wow!"

That changed this morning when I saw video of the upcoming "community-based" game, LittleBigPlanet.

Created by Media Molecule, a studio made up of ex-Lionhead staffers and makers of the cultish Rag Doll Kung Fu, LittleBigPlanet is best described as an open-ended, gravity-based, multiplayer platformer. That sure clears things up, doesn't it? :)

IGN.com has done the best job (in my opinion) of both summing up the version made available at GDC this morning and giving those of us who couldn't make the trip to San Francisco a glimpse of it through videos. Here's the site's write-up and here's a nice little video of it in all its Pixar-like glory.