I will definitely pick it up as soon as I can afford picking anything up again. :)

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/37798.html

Wii Motion Plus demonstration thingy for those wanting to know what the fuss is about. Red Steel 2 is confirmed to use it.

I finished Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance yesterday. What an epic conclusion. :D

Anyway, a week or so ago I stuck my head in a videogame store I just found in town (with GAME and EB Games available it's rare to go looking for other places) and they had a TON of Gamecube games they wanted to get rid of. So I got my wallet out and walked home with

Star Fox Adventures
1080° Avalanche
Luigi's Mansion
and Waverace Blue Storm

So I started playing SFA which is pretty much the first game in a long while to bring out my inner graphics whore. It's rediculously pretty. The jaggyness is absolutely minimal, the colours are sharp and vibrant, the Fox model is tech-disregardingly awesome and the fur shading and lighting are both superb. The widescreen and prog scan support and the strong antialiasing makes it look incredible on an HDTV no less!

It's got its fair share of Rare-esque problems. Puzzles are standard Zelda fare but with Rare's spin on them which is to say remove all credibility from the chain of events and have every lift and/or catapult be an animal or a vegetable. Sometimes the connection between objectives is absolutely impossible to see, but then you can just call Flappy and Spiffy or whatever his friends are called and have them help you. In fact, you do so with such a frequency that it's probably meant to be that way. Lord knows how THEY put it all together though, I suppose they're checking gamefaqs.

Combat is a bit hit and miss, heh heh heh. *changes pants*

No really, I mean it's easy enough to copy Zelda but they left out a bunch of things for no reason. The game makes you target lock whenever you've got your stick out (staff, sorry) but you can't actually toggle who to target, so it's mostly about whacking whomever the game seems the most angry at in the head until he's BRUTALLY DISMEMBERED and his carcass loses the interest of the lock-on.

This is a pretty bewildering decision on Rare's part, especially since Zelda 64 seemed to have the idea down, but whatever. It works, and you can work around it by stashing the stick away momentarily with B then haul it back up with A while pointing Fox suggestively in the direction of the guy you wish to MAUL TO DEATH.

The Star Fox bits (because the game really tends to be more of a ZEeeEELD...FOX..!) where you get to fly around are confoundingly short, as if to say "sorry I'm just gonna be a little bit Star Foxy here because it says so on the box, forgive me for bothering you with this it'll be over in a second!". I mean I'm as happy as everyone else about painful things being short (*shakes fist at Square's insistence on Gummi ship bullshit in KH*), but the irony is that there are TWO FULL GAMES of this stuff already out, you'd think that'd inspire some confidence. I'm not that far into the game yet, so they might elaborate on these things later on, and that'd be nice.

Overall it's not a brain mushing burst of awesomeness so far, but it's definitely entertaining and charming and in no way less appealing than Kameo for instance. I guess it just came out in a harsher climate with harsher competition, having to compare to the likes of Zelda. It really feels like Rare have taken components of Metroid, Star Fox, Zelda and turned it into their usual fetch quest orgy, and I'm kinda liking the result. It also has Fox McCloud in it which pretty much makes all the graphics and gameplay nonsense on top a bit redundant because it was already awesome when they had his name on a bit of paper. So yeah, I recommend checking it out if you've always been a bit interested in it like I've been but never got around to playing it.


...

I wonder what the deal is with Rare and exploding fruit...

I always liked Fire Emblem. Is there a Fire Emblem DS yet?

Well, kind of. There's a remake of the very first FE just released in japan, and that's coming out here later this year. It got a promising 9,9,8,8 in famitsu, and it's cool to finally be able to familiarise oneself with this "Marth" fellow that stars in Brawl.

Path of Radiance was my first experience with FE, but it fit like a glove after having played Shining Force 2 and 3 pretty extensively. I really liked it a lot, and I'm gonna play the direct Wii sequel - "Radiant Dawn" - in due time.

http://www.gamekyo.com/video12684_a-new-house-of-t...

Sega's announced a new, exclusive House of The Dead for the Wii. :D

How awesome is this boxart!? :D

I think you can do lots with the genre still, in terms of pacing and alternate paths and such. Apart from that, TONS of unlockables are great added value aswell, and with Sega's expansive IP library, they can toss all sorts of cool stuff in there.

I love Umbrella Chronicles, and this too is made specifically for the platform, prolly ensuring both that sort of meatier replayable experience, and also lots of more clever uses for the extra input Wii has over a simple light gun.

I'm excited. :)

edit: some additional details here: http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=21...

Yeah it really is shaping up good. I hope some of the forces behind God Hand are involved, because despite some flak that game was pretty damn cool.

http://www.gamekyo.com/news28761_sonic-unleashed-n...

Sonic Unleashed, Wii screens.

It's made by Dimps of Sonic Rush fame, will sport controls similar to Secret Rings and differ in a couple of significant-though-unspecified ways from the other versions. If big high res brother Unleashed fails, this is sure to pick up the slack.

http://www.gamekyo.com/news28758_sonic-chronicles-...

Sonic Chronicles looking hot as usual.

Oh god yes...

http://www.gamekyo.com/news28873_tons-of-new-disas...

Day of Crisis screens. Keeping my fingers crossed for this.

Yeah it does, some of the screenshots look like scenes right out of MGS4. :D

http://www.gamekyo.com/news28890_shining-force-ds-...

Dunno... what... to think.. about this.... please be good.. please.

It's obviously still some kind of modification of the formula, much like Valkyrie Profile DS, but I sure hope it's still good.

http://www.jeuxvideo.com/videos_editeurs/0001/0001...

Nice little trailer for Fragile. Still doesn't shed much light on what you'll be doing though.

New, snazzier looking Kizuna screens.

The first batch made it look a bit naff, but these seem to do it more justice.

Monster Hunter 3 screens.

I've no idea what those games are like. Anyone care to fill me in? It looks kinda Phantasy Star Onliney?