Check out the action below in Mad World’s completely uncensored Holiday Trailer!

Let’s Go To The City? Let’s Not Bother, more like. I’m starting to tire of the same dialogue from the animals gathered around the fountain in the town square - even if Chow Down Meltown does sound like a good name for a bistro. And it’s a bit odd that they all change every time I exit a building - like they were all waiting for me to venture inside and then legged it so they didn’t have to speak to me on the way back. And the auction house is possibly the most pointless thing in a Nintendo game since the controls in DK Barrel Blast. Or the tracks in DK Barrel Blast. Or DK Barrel Blast in general. So far, in my four weeks of playing the game, I’ve seen one - one - item in there, which I bid on, and the stupid gyroid that runs the place still can’t tell me if I’ve won or not. And Redd’s run out of stuff until Christmas Eve, and I wanted to go in and give him a piece of my mind after he flogged me a dodgy painting. Again. Not happy.

Thankfully, things are going pretty well in Meltown - Nook has upgraded his store to the two-storey Nookington’s, and I’ve now earned enough points to get my hands on a Yoshi egg (which wriggles and yelps ‘Yoshiii!’ when you prod it). The HRA is officially in love with my house, and my new asymmetrical stripe top seems to be going down well with the locals. I’ve made two perfect snowmen so far and received two special pieces of furniture for my troubles. Oh, and I got a hat that makes me look a bit like Kapp’n. Gar!

Best of all, I’m now bezzie mates with Brewster in the museum’s coffee shop - ’pon the advice of WiiWii.tv reader Richard Schroeder (thanks, fella) I ventured in there for his finest pigeon blend for seven days in a row, and he expressed an interest in storing my gyroids for me. Rather than taking up valuable cupboard space, I can now pass them to Brewster, and can look at my collection any time. He’ll also tell me if I have any duplicates so I can sell them on to Nook. Well worth the 200 bells a day for a cup of java, methinks.

It’s little touches like this - and seeing Prince having a cuppa in the Roost the other day was another pleasant surprise - that makes your village feel more alive than ever before. But it’s disappointing to see Nintendo has left out as much as it’s put in. The GBA holiday island from the GameCube game? Nowhere to be seen. Surely it couldn’t be too much effort to allow DS owners this additional bonus. Of course, the more glaring omission is the lack of portable t-shirt creation tools - which the DS would be perfect for. Designing a top on your bus ride home and then importing it to your Wii? Makes perfect sense to me - especially given that the DS is more suitable for such a task than the GBA was. Nintendo might have had its hands bitten with the whole connectivity malarkey, but given that it allows the DS to be used as a suitcase to travel between villages, surely this isn’t too much of a stretch for the hardware?

(Incidentally, it doesn’t allow travel between villages from different regions - I transferred my items from my US copy of City Folk to travel to my father-in-law’s PAL village, and couldn’t transfer the info over. Bah.)

With DLC still yet to be announced by Nintendo - will it happen at all, or was that always just going to be a possibility rather than a reality? - it’s still arguably too early to effectively review Animal Crossing. It’s certainly got the most potential for expansion of any Wii game. Let’s just hope that Nintendo makes good on its early promises - even if it’s just a few pieces of Ikea-branded furniture or a Coke machine in the museum. The caffeine might help Blathers stay awake, after all…

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Let’s Catch comes from Yuji Naka’s Prope - it’s a WiiWare accompaniment to retail title Let’s Tap, though it bears absolutely no resemblance to the box-tapping weird-em-up. It’s available for a slightly-expensive 1000 points on the Japanese WiiWare service and takes up just 91 blocks of your Wii fridge.

It’s a game that’s about throwing a baseball to someone and catching it. And throwing it and catching it again. And again. And again. And…you get the picture, I’m sure.

It might not sound like the most compelling of concepts, but there’s something altogether charming about Let’s Catch - a gentle innocence that sucks you in. It’s oddly addictive, as you turn the remote perpendicular to the telly and gently lob the ball to your AI chum. You get points for each successful throw and catch - both you and your partner, so don’t give them any tough catches. Throwing requires you to hold A and B and flick the remote forward - naturally you can twist it to throw the ball to either side, while the speed of the flick affects the pace at which you throw the ball. Catching simply requires you to press A and B at the right time - but the timing for perfect catches is incredibly exacting, and you must press both buttons simultaneously. The more perfect catches you take, the more your points tally will rise - chain ‘perfect combos’ together and your tally will rise more rapidly (and you’ll usually be given an extra ball). You’re initially set a target of 400 points and given a certain number of balls to achieve that total. That then moves up to 1000, 1800, 2800 and 4000. Your AI partner levels up as you get better, eventually up to a maximum of three stars, whereupon you can swap to a new partner, who’ll either throw harder or faster, but who will often help you get more points once you get good. If you drop the ball, you have to go and fetch it (waggle the remote to run quicker) and will lose a ‘life’. Initially you’ll get five, but later partners only allow three mistakes. Though perfect catches cancel out a mistake each, so you can pull yourself out of trouble with some well-timed catching.

That’s about it for the main mode, save for a UFO that pops up every now and again, forcing you to time your throws a little more carefully. There are multiplayer variations on the same theme, and a couple of other games, one involving you knocking out numbers on a board (which is where your throw strength and direction plays a more significant part) and another where a bomb changes hands, its timer going down by 1, 2, or 3 for catches which are merely good, normal or bad as opposed to perfect. Whoever is holding the bomb when the timer ticks down to zero loses one of their three lives.

Let’s Catch looks like it could be a good laugh in multiplayer, but I enjoyed the hour or so I spent with it this afternoon on my own. The gently lilting background music is particularly praiseworthy - giving a sweetly relaxing feel to this innocent virtual pastime. At 1000 points it’s definitely overpriced, but would be worth a look should it make it to Europe at a lower price point.

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Well, this week is a huge one for fans of the Wii’s Virtual Console. Phantasy Star IV is making its debut on the VC. While the game has been available in Europe since November, we here in the states can get a taste starting Today, Dec. 22. “The End of the Millennium” marked the final chapter in Sega’s proclaimed RPG series, and in my opinion, it was the best of the four. The protagonist of the story, Chaz Ashely, was one of the first game characters I remember caring about, other than our beloved Mario of course. Chaz, Alys Brangwin & Co’s. adventures in Motavia were robust and worth a play through again. It was set 1000 years after the events of 3 so, it has a much different setting, while retaining classic Phantasy Star gameplay. The title is available on the VC starting tomorrow for 800 points.

Also releasing on WiiWare this week are: Tiki Towers & Fun Fun Mini-golf. Tiki-Towers is a game that will have you controlling monkeys to build towers out of bamboo and vines. You’ll battle enemy chiefs who are hell-bent on destroying your towers. The game can be played in single player or two player co-op and costs 500 points. Fun, Fun Mini-golf is, you guessed it, a golf game. You play putt-putt with up to four friends and will cost 900 points. Both of these will also be available starting Today, December 22.

EA has done what’s known in the trade as a Roman Bednar, sneakily nodding home a never-saw-that-coming winner in injury time to steal the top slot in the All-Formats Top 40 from Call of Duty: World at War and Mario Kart Wii in third. It’s a moral victory for Nintendo’s mascot, though, as he was competing on a single console against two releases across multiple formats. Still, FIFA’s rise - up a whopping 89% in sales from last week, besting Mario Kart’s 40% improvement and COD’s 13% rise (which put it just 3000 units ahead of MK) - is title-winning form.

Elsewhere, Nintendo has five games in the All-Formats Top 10, with Professor Layton enjoying something of a renaissance thanks to recently replenished stock. One can only wonder how the prof would have fared had his game been more readily available everywhere.

Wii Fit, Wii Play and Brain Training are the other Christmas crackers for Nintendo, placing tenth, sixth and fifth respectively. Shamefully, awful racer Need For Speed Undercover is in fourth spot, with Lara and Bond taking up the final two slots, with Tomb Raider Underworld shimmying into ninth, while Quantum of Solace sneaks into seventh position.

Further down the charts, Wii Music and Animal Crossing are both disappointing slightly, at 32 and 33 respectively. Hopefully the fact that Nintendo’s two biggest Christmas games have been comfortably outsold by games released much earlier in the year should send out a message that their Wii range for the festive period wasn’t up to their early 2008 line-up. Still, with such evergreen titles remaining near the top of the charts for so long, I doubt Iwata, Fils-Aime, Dunaway et al won’t worry too much.

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A clear attempt to do something a bit subtle and arty for this Wii sequel to one of the DS’s most underrated games, but for me this just doesn’t work. What kind of boxart has the main character cut in half at the top of the picture? Too much space reserved for the writing at the bottom, too. Bah. Let’s hope the Japanese public don’t judge a book by its cover - I’d like this to sell well, so CING can carry on making those compelling adventures I love so much.

Still, this obviously means it’s not long before Another Code: R - Kioku No Tobira is out in Japan - indeed, it’s due out on January 22nd - but with Nintendo’s PAL release schedule for the first-quarter of 2009 looking a little barren, it seems as if it’s going to be April at the earliest before we see this…if at all.

UPDATE: I’ve just heard from Nintendo UK - it has confirmed, indeed, that there’s “nothing announced at this time”. I’ll just have to cross my fingers that it’s being localised as I type this.

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Although it’s apparently suitable for ages 10 and up, the above trailer is more than a little creepy, so make sure you’re not watching it in front of any impressionable youngsters. I’ll bring you more info on LIT soon, but for now this is certainly an intriguing prospect for Nintendo’s download service. More original content like this please, WiiWare devs!

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Fun! Fun! Minigolf is perhaps the most convincing argument yet for a Wii storage solution and an upping of the size limit of WiiWare games. In its current state it’s more of a playable demo than a complete game, and at 900 points is really not worth the bother.

I’ll give developer Shin’en - creator of DS shooter Nanostray - its dues; this is one of WiiWare’s most technically-accomplished titles to date. Its courses are bright and lively, with little background animations adding to the visual appeal - indeed its presentation is superior to many of the cheap minigame compendiums you’ll find for around £20 or less at retail.

Press A at the title screen and you’ll simply be given the option of selecting the number of players between one and four. Thereafter you can select from one of four avatars for each player - two male, two female - and thereafter you pick your course - America is easy, Asia intermediate and Europe hard. The first course is a nice, simple introduction to the game, and allows you to get accustomed to the swing mechanic, which is simple and effective - flick the controller forward to meet the ball as a circle passes across it - middle it and you’ll get a straight shot, or you can curve it to either side. You can have practice swings, too - just hold A and swing forward as soon as you’re ready and once you think you’ve determined the force of swing to get the power you want.

While the courses look nice, the design is unfortunately left wanting. After the gentle introduction of the American stage, Asia has a couple of one-shot deals - get it wrong and you have to start again. Europe is even worse for this, with one hole which is incredibly difficult unless you hit it at a very specific point. What makes this even more annoying is that you can’t play the percentages - a soft shot which remains in the course will often be classed as ‘out of bounds’, even if it’s still possible to hole from the next putt - there’s a relatively small area around most holes where you have to putt into - anywhere else and you’re screwed and have to start again. What’s particularly odd about the European course is that it offers several holes in a row where each shot is either perfect or out of bounds, and then finishes off with two very simple holes that are nigh-on impossible not to par.

It’s true to life to a certain extent - I’ve played crazy golf enough times to know there are plenty of courses as irritating as this - but that repeated ’out of bounds’ announcement when your shot rolls down the ramp after falling agonisingly short of the perfect length once again is a remote-chucking moment like little else on Wii. And while the ball physics aren’t bad, it’s most perturbing when your seemingly ideal set-up shot winds up out of bounds thanks to the ball actually gaining speed from rolling around the edge of the supposedly flat course. Oh, and ‘albatross’ doesn’t just have one ’s’, does it?

It’s a pity, as with a little more content - a few minigames here, a couple of extra unlockable courses there - this could have been one of WiiWare’s strongest titles. As it is, Shin’en has focused on presentational polish over content, and when the few courses that feature aren’t exactly perfect, 900 points suddenly looks a little steep.

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5. Super Smash Bros. Brawl Online System - Super Smash Bros. is Nintendo’s newest kick-ass franchise. Compared to Nintendo’s ol’ reliable stand-bys, the Smash Bros. series is relatively young. When we caught word that the series would be coming to the Nintendo Wii, we jumped in excitement. Plush Link, Donkey Kong, and Mario dolls were hugged, Super Smash Bros. was revived on the Nintendo 64 in celebration of the news. All was right in the world.

Gamer’s minds tend to move very quickly; we were excited for awhile but then we began to question. How would SSBB be different on the Wii? Will there be an online multiplayer option? What new characters will Nintendo add to the already large roster?

First, SSBB on the Nintendo Wii was quite a bit different than past iterations of Super Smash Bros. The largest additions being the Space Emissary mode. Then the addition of the online multiplayer mode, which is what’s on today’s list.

Being able to battle other Smash players around the world was a definite must for SSBB. While Nintendo obliged us this privilege, it was executed very badly. First, the mode was bare bones. Unlike Mario Kart that had a point system for their races, SSBB had no online leaderboards, tournaments, or anything special. It was pretty much, login, wait for fight, fight, then rinse and repeat.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl Online Could Have Been So Much More

Ok, so it was bare bones, but atleast we still go to duke it out online right? If you ever got SSBB to connect properly then you had a chance to battle online. I’d say that I’ve tried to connect to multiplayer about 10 times throughout the year on SSBB. 2 of those times I actually got to the fight screen. Once I was there, only 1 of those times did I even get to fight at all. That one lone fight didn’t even last the entire match, as I was disconnected before we could finish.

Considering how excited I was, and other gamers were excited for SSBB Online, it was so disappointing to see how stripped down, and broken the system was. When Mario Kart: Wii released, it made SSBB’s online gameplay look about a decade old. SSBB is Nintendo’s hottest franchise at the moment, and releasing the game with a broken online system never should have happened.

4. Nintendo Wii Q3 & Q4 Game Lineup - Going into the beginning of 2008, Nintendo had been pretty adamant about getting their popular franchises released on the Nintendo Wii. When Mario Kart: Wii released back in April, we had already seen most of Nintendo’s big franchises represented on the Nintendo Wii.

Here’s a list of Nintendo’s big first party releases going into April:
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Wii Sports
WarioWare: Smooth Moves
Super Mario Galaxy
Super Paper Mario
Super Smash Bros. Brawl

That’s quite a list indeed, and in my opinion really spoiled us. After Mario Kart: Wii released, Nintendo hit a dry spell in terms of huge franchise releases. We saw Wii Fit release, but it was mainly popular due to the balance board. Going into Q3 and Q4, its been a barren wasteland, save for Animal Crossing: City Folk. Which for most has been a bit of a disappointment.

The dry spell has effected gamers enough, that some have lost faith in the House of N. While I haven’t sold my Wii, or gone to the extremes of giving up on Nintendo, I definitely feel the dry period. It’s probably been since Wii Fit came out, that I’ve heavily played a Nintendo first party release.

Looking into 2009, I’m hoping for a Renaissance year for Nintendo. They’ve already got me sold on Punch-Out! Which really isn’t that hard to do (If you read this blog frequently, then you know what I mean). While the future looks bright, the present has me kind of bummed. I’ve still got Mario Kart: Wii, and World of Goo to tide me over until ‘09 atleast.

3. Animal Crossing: City Folk (PLUS Commercials) - Let me preface this by saying that I’ve never been a huge fan of Animal Crossing games. I never really understood what made the games so appealing. It might be because no one I knew wanted to really try the game with me. Or I had gotten so pampered on Harvest Moon games, that any sim-lifestyle type game had to have some kind of farming in it.

After seeing the showing at E3 this year, I started to think maybe Animal Crossing on the Wii was going to be different. The Wii Speak announcement was pretty sweet, and they looked to be bringing Animal Crossing to the city.

What we got from the release of City Folk, was an all too familiar game. Nearly every aspect of City Folk was present in titles before it. You really had to look hard to find anything new, which was a major letdown for me. The Wii Speak is a cool add-on, but I believe to be rendered useless with Animal Crossing. There’s not much that needs to be said if you visit others. Unless you truly believe people play Animal Crossing like the atrocious commercials. Don’t worry I’m not going to harp on those anymore.

2. Wii Music - At last year’s E3, when Miyamoto walked out on stage in a conductor’s uniform I didn’t know what was going on. I was scared, excited, was waiting for a massive live orchestra to belt out the Super Mario Bros. theme song. Instead what I got was a glimpse into Miyamoto’s latest pet project. Wii Music.

After seeing Miyamoto conduct music to the Legend of Zelda theme, I was instantly interested. Just what was this thing Miyamoto was cooking up? Would I be able to create my own music using the Nintendo Wii? Would a conductor’s outfit come with every purchase?

Fast forward to 2008, my interest turned to extreme doubt. All it really took was 4 Nintendo execs, and some mohawk donning drummer named, Ravi. I’ll save that video for later.

Then Wii Music finally released, to little critical fanfare. While most, myself included thought Wii Music was somewhat fun, it was also shallow. Using your Wii Remote, and nunchuk to play guitar might be fun for a couple of minutes. But when that gratification wears off, where’s the incentive to keep playing? Is there an online mode that you can compete with others? How about being able to create your own music? None of that or anything close to those additions were present in Wii Music

Easily one of biggest disappointments of the year.

1. Nintendo’s E3 2008 Conference - The E3 Nintendo conference is the first event I’ve covered on Wii Blog. Ok, so I wasn’t physically there but I did have a live stream going and posted live updates which saw a large amount of people showing up.

I had been excited for E3 all week long, and was especially excited to see what Nintendo had to show off for the upcoming year. What I got in return was quite possibly the most disappointing spectacle I’ve ever been witness to, in terms of E3 showings.

First, the conference started out very odd. Cammie Dunaway was the first person to take the stage, and really set an odd tone for the rest of the conference. Besides sharing her name with a hot and deadly Street Fighter character, there was nothing too appealing to me about her.

Once the conference got going, it just felt like every announcement was a let down. When Animal Crossing: City Folk was announced, they just attached the Wii Speak announcement to it. I was really excited to hear about Wii Speak, and they didn’t mention one thing about it during the conference besides it being bundled with AC: City Folk.

Wii Music, was easily the biggest letdown of the show. I was expecting the game to be really fun, and have a slew of modes in which to jam out on. What I got instead was one of the most god awful performances in the history of ‘performances’. Here’s the video of the Nintendo execs, and Ravi the mohawked drummer butchering the Super Mario Bros. theme song.

I hate to show the video, but you have witness first hand the butchering to understand why it disappointed me so much.

So, was there anything besides what I mentioned that really disappointed you this year? Are you a positive thinker, and are looking to ’09’s lineup for relief? Was there something I mentioned that you don’t see as a disappointment, and makes me a complete fool for even mentioning it? Either way, let me hear from you.

I’m not sure if I just didn’t do enough research before hand, but the trailer mentions the hero of the game’ s name for the first time. ‘Just Jack’. Pretty catchy.

Enjoy the video after the jump.