For those that don’t know, the upcoming Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers is getting a major makeover. The look and feel is more what we’ve seen in Final Fantasy 7, 8, and 10. Really beautiful!

Below is a really nice trip-hoppy/electronica track from the game.

For those that don’t know already, Wii MotionPlus will allow the Wii to have true 1:1 motion. The hardware attachement will be shipped with the sequal to Wii Sports. However, the hardware will also ship with various EA games.

An additional surprise to me is that Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 will include disc golf. Please view the video below to get a quick look at how Wii MotionPlus is used in disc golf.

 
Tiger Woods TGA 10 Disc Golf Video from Revogamersnet on Vimeo.

I’ve been playing de Blob for the Wii. There is an interesting addiction about the game. Playing the game has the same temptation you get when looking out to winter’s first snow in the morning and seeing pure white snow untouched by anything. It’s that drive to run out and mess it all up. It’s has the same drive you get when getting a package in the mail and pulling out the large bubble wrap. After popping one, you just must pop another. Or maybe I’m just crazy.

In de Blob you must color a black and white world with bright paint. It’s a similar genre to the Katamari series I guess. I find myself unable to leave a spot uncolored. I find myself at the end of a level and noticing a white spot. I’ll go out of my way to go all the way back to the beginning to get that missed spot. If you are obsessive like me when it comes to these things, de Blob is the perfect treatment game for you. It’s also soo gratifying to roll paint all over the place making an absolute mess. I felt the same way when I played Elebits for the first time. I could care less about actually playing for score in Elebits. I just loved going into a perfectly clean and organized room and tossing, lifting, tilting slamming everything all over the place making an absolute mess! Knocking over a shelf of china and watching it smash to the ground is sooo refreshing after a hard day of work. The sound of glass smashing. Games like this really cater to my issues gaming needs.

I guess most gamers enjoy destruction by explosion. Destruction doesn’t always have to be explosions. Don’t get me wrong I love them but they are kind of overdone at this point. I mean come on, we are at a point where we are creating superheros, who’s are to explode.  However, Blast Corp was a very nice game that embraced this same idea with explosions.

Nintendo has announced in it’s press release a Wii MotionPlus accessory. As explained in the article this will provide true 1:1 motion control. I find this very exciting. Yes, this means you can have a Star Wars Light saber game where the movement of wiimote matches exactly on the screen. This is of course, if it is in fact true 1:1. This also means a new Legend of Zelda game could have 1:1 sword controls. In other words if you lean the wiimote to the left, the sword in Link’s will lean to the left, If you lean the wiimote to the right, up, or down the sword  in Link’s hand will match those movements. A well crafted game could take traditional fighting games to another level. Instead of simply pushing up, up, down, down, you could just act out the sword motions for each combo. This would also allow room for a more personalized experience with combos. It will be all about how well you’d be able to wield the wiimote.

I was shocked when I first read the Wii would have built in 512 MB of hard drive space. Compared to the Xbox 360’s 20 gigabyte drive, this is hardly anything at all. However, I gave them the benefit of the doubt when I also read the Wii would support SD cards and include two usb ports. However, to my horror, I found that you can not use the SD cards as an active hard drive. Meaning, you can’t run any games or saved games directly off the card, nor can you use any usb hard drive for that purpose.

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For those that don’t bother looking at the free Nintendo Channel available for download via the Wii shop channel, this is a video that explains how the Wii Fit board works.

I really don’t understand how there are game review sites and blogs out there that are claiming that using Wii Fit cannot get you in shape. That’s almost impossible. If you bother putting the energy it takes to turn on the power put in the disc and start up Wii Fit, you’ll find that you’ll be doing real exercises. For instance, one has you lying on your back working your abdomen muscles by lifting your legs and arms to meet in the air. For those that know, this is a V-crunch. How can you make the claim that doing 15-30 reps of V-crunches a day will not eventually lead to a loss of fat if not tight abs? You dont need a gym to get a 6 pack, you only need a floor and the will power to do it. So does that mean game reviewers are going to say using the floor wont get you fit either?

Although Iwata stated that Wii Fit’s purpose was to make you more aware and not necessarily make you fit, the latter is a given if done intelligently. You can’t do crunches a day and NOT get a result. However, if you use Wii Fit and you are shoving Fried Chicken, Cheeseburgers and French fries with Ranch Dressing in your mouth, then yes, you are wasting your time. Nintendo did not include instructions on how to diet, so it’s pretty clear to me that if you want to get fit you have to learn how to do that part on your own. It’s not Nintendo’s Industry to tell you how to eat right. Given that, I imagine Iwata said that Wii Fit is not intened to make you Fit as a CYOA statement (‘Cover Your Own Ass’). However, Nintendo did create software that states “look if you do exercise daily, we will measure it for you and even make mini games out of it”. Unfortunately, neither Nintendo nor NASA has the technology that will make people do exercise on a daily basis. I’m sure there are millions of people that would prefer Wii Fit be nothing but an In-Home-Do-It-Yourself liposuction kit.

It’s almost a no brainer that Wii Fit will be a hit. It was only a few years ago, Nintendo would have been ridiculed for coming up with such an idea. Now, it wouldn’t surprise me to see numerous knock offs of Wii Fit by the end of the year. There are many game review sites that believe Wii Fit will not do that well. I strongly disagree. The target audience was practically standing in line before the game was ever dreamed up.

People spend not hundreds but thousands of dollars on exercise equipment they will only use once. The biggest culprits are those who buy treadmills. For this reason, if your serious about getting a treadmill, buy one used; it’s virtually brand new. Forking out $250 for a Wii and an additional $90 for Wii Fit is a bargain. Spending $350 as opposed to $3500 along with a promise that exercise will be fun! Come on, this game is going to be in just about every Wii owners living room.

Personally, I plan to get Wii Fit as soon as I can. I have a feeling it may be a little hard to find so I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Finally, Wii Ware made it’s debut yesterday. What is Wii Ware? Wii Ware is a service that allows you to purchase and download games and applications immediately in the comfort of your own home. Many Wii owners probably aren’t aware that their new white box can even venture into the online world. The games available right now are:

LostWinds $10
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My life as a King $15
Pop $7
Defend Your Castle $5
TV Show King $10
V.I.P. Casino Blackjack $7

From what I’ve seen so far, these games are far superior than anything on the Wii’s current Virtual Console store. Which really isn’t surprising since Virtual Console games are older generation games.

Originally to be released the same time Wii Ware came to the US, the Nintendo Channel arrived earlier. From this channel you’ll be able to watch game videos, view newly and upcoming released games, and best of all Nintendo DS Demo Downloads. So far you can download demos wirelessly to your DS for Brain Age 2, Flash Focus, Crosswords DS, Jam Sessions, Disney Friends, Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, Cooking Mama 2 and Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword.

Another nice feature is a game recommendation system. You’ll be able to rate games and it applies your answers to the demographics you provide in a short survey. This data is used to provide recommendations made by people that play the games. The system only uses data that shows that you have played the game for at least an hour. Finally, game ranking scores made my millions of gamers (not just one single person such as, me deciding that GTA IV should be a 9, oops I mean 10, *snickers). Nintendo put together a very nice video about the channel here.