David Marseilles
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Nintendo Hearts The Conduit

High Voltage Software sent out a press release today announcing that The Conduit would be featured in Nintendo's own booth at PAX.

The Good News: Nintendo's recognizing one the best games in the queue for Wii.

The Bad News: In exchange High Voltage had to agree to turn the game into an on-rails shooter and turn the aliens into candy peeps and the guns into water guns.

Okay, we don't actually know that High Voltage made those particular compromises, but naturally, we're concerned about any involvement Nintendo might have. On the one hand, them taking a close interest in The Conduit could lead to exceptions to the archaic game-breaking Friend Code infrastructure Nintendo clings to. On the other hand, if this is an indication that Nintendo is interested in publishing The Conduit (after all, they aren't known for heavily promoting 3rd party games to the exclusion of their own), it might lead institution of Friend Codes in a game-breaking way. WiiHD is always hopeful that Nintendo will change their ways, even a little. But we're not holding our breath.

So we do want Nintendo to heart The Conduit, just not in an Elmyra Duff kind of way. A little TLC is okay, but SIDS is not.

Via Nintendo Wii Fanboy | Permalink

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David Marseilles
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Civ Rev Tips: James Bond Edition

WiiHD's Civilization Revolution tutorial was fairly well received, so we're going to begin to give you some more pointers to up your game play. If you enjoy this post, let us know with a comment, and we'll consider turning it into a series.

Civilization Revolution is a complex game with different ways to win and many different successful strategies that depend on the civilization you're playing with, the civs you are competing against, and the situation you're in at the moment (as well as obviously, the difficulty level). There is no single strategy that will win you the game every time, especially in multiplayer against real people. There ARE however, some tricks that when used correctly, give you a much needed edge. Although WiiHD plays the DS version, these tips apply to all platforms.

Tinker, Tenor, Tailor, Spy

One of the most useful units in the game is the spy. Under the right circumstances, they can be the most potent units in pursuit of Economic and Cultural Victories. Especially in those instances where another Civilization is far ahead on those conditions. Spies can let you turn their strength into a weakness, and your weakness into a strength. I've come from far behind in Deity Difficulty games with this plan of attack. Here's how you do it.

I'm sure you know by now that you can steal Great People and Gold, but doing it piecemeal and risking the loss of spies is no way to win. What you need is a battle plan. First you need a target. To target the right Civilization, you need to decide what victory condition you're going after. Hit the Who's Winning section and see who's ahead in Cultural or Economic Achievements. Now you need a target City.

As a default, Capital Cities are a great place to go. There are usually a number of Great People settled there, and they usually have a large population. But they aren't Always the fastest growing city or the one with the most Great People, nor are they always the easiest to access. Cities that are close to your own border and connected by land can be the quickest, if not the richest targets.

Continued after the break (click the permalink to see the rest of this post).
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David Marseilles
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KORE (Wii) Is Alive

Back in May, the news came out that an abandoned original Xbox title, The Kore Gang, was getting a new lease on life on a new console: Wii. An announcement doesn't make it true, but now we've seen a little piece of it with our own eyes. The newly monikered KORE (a name change WiiHD approves of), showed off its first footage on Friday.

Revamped and redesigned, KORE is a platformer that has three heroes protecting the center of the earth from the baddies with a little cybernetic assistance. Now we know, platformers aren't the cool genre anymore, but they're still chock full of potential fun. Even so, platformers aren't the easiest game for a developer to really nail. Nintendo has always been good at it, but by and large, it's a rough genre to really innovate in and provide fun that feels fresh.

That said, we wish the game the best of luck. Take a gander at the new footage after the break.

Via Joystiq | Permalink

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David Marseilles
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Fortunz Favor the Bold

What is "fortunz?" It's a derivative of my nickname on a number of forums and games: fortunzfavor. The is a throw back to a quote from Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid: "Fortune favors the bold", or to say it another way, fortune's favor is on the bold. This domain, fortunz.com, coincidentally is also a great name for a contests site. Since launching WiiHD's blog this June, I've been bringing you gaming contests as a sort of side attraction. Well, it's no longer just a side show.

WiiHD's Contest SuperSite has now spun off into it's own little corner of the blogosphere: fortunz.com. No longer is it just for gaming related swag, but for contests and giveaways of all kinds. After the break, there's a sampling of contests that have been put up this past week.

We're working on providing new features and better coverage, so check it out, and if there's anything special you'd like to see, just let us know. While you're at it, let us know what you think of the site as it is.

fortunz.com | Permalink

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David Marseilles
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Tenchu 4 Kitty Gameplay

Ninjas? Check. Bloody Assassinations? Check. A stealthy bag of tricks including ninja kitties? Check. Wait, what?

Tenchu 4 is a Wii exclusive, and the first video after the break demonstrates that not-so-innovative remote stealth gameplay. What makes the gameplay mechanism fraking awesome is that the remote unit is a kitty cat. The game hasn't been high on WiiHD's attention list, but the cat footage is tough to pass up.

The simple retrieval mission demonstrated below is hopefully not the extent of kitty shennigans possible with this game. WiiHD wants the ability to direct cats to locations strategically near enemy ninjas' sleep quarters, and then to have them do what cats do—sleep. Defeating an enemy ninja is just a day job. Recording the look on his face when he steps on a sleeping cat right after waking up and uploading it to youtube is sweet victory.

Watch the footage after the break.

Via Kotaku | Permalink

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David Marseilles
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There's More Than One Dark Side of the Moon (DS)

With Civilization Revolution out of the way, Moon is quickly becoming WiiHD's most anticipated DS title. Eerie, moody, suspenseful and brimming with action, it has elements more closely associated with Microsoft's gaming division than Nintendo's. One of the advantages to being on top, as the DS is in the portable wars, is getting a little bit of everything.

The point of this post is to let you get a gander at the new Moon trailer. It isn't big, but it doesn't really need to be. It's after the break (would that WiiHD's plumber would keep his moon after the break too), so see for yourself.

Via DS Fanboy | Permalink

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David Marseilles
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WiiHD's Homebrew Guide Translated to French

Hundreds of blogs have linked to WiiHD's Homebrew Guide since we put it together back in June. 10s of thousands of readers have used it, and our video guide has been viewed over 56,000 times. Since we wrote it, there's been a marked uptick in homebrew coverage and howtos by other major outlets, in part because Wii Homebrew has been generating more newsworthy wares, but also in part because our Guide struck a cord.

Now, we just noticed that one of those linking blogs had translated our Guide into French, which, as far as we know, is a first. Since WiiHD no parlez vous francais, we can't really say if they did it by hand, if they did a good job, or if they just punched the text into babelfish and produced a garbled machine translation. Any of our readers speak French? If so, let us know in the comments what quality it is. If it's decent, we may post a link to it in the actual guide for any French readers who would rather have it in their native tongue.

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David Marseilles
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Mushroom Men (Wii)

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's a meteor with strange properties about to land in the middle of a jungle and give rise to sentient mushrooms and cacti and aggressive and violent insects in the area of its impact! *pause for breath*

So begins the saga of Mushroom Men, who, after their rise to sentience, quickly divide into 4 different nations and, as nations are wont to do, they go to war. There are 4 Mushroom Nations. You are one of the Bolete, one of two non-poisonous Mushroom Nations. The two poisonous nations are looking to wipe out all other Mushroom Tribes so they can be the only Mushroom Men.

Your part in this game will be to guide Pax, one such sentient mushroom, along the way to solve the mystery of the origins of the Mushroom Men, while hopefully stopping a war, bringing glory to your nation (the Bolete) and saving the entire world of Mushroom Men from self-destruction. Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars is a 3rd person action adventure title for Wii due out this November.

The game has a very appealing look and sound, so be sure to check out game screens and video after the break.

Via Press Release | Permalink

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David Marseilles
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Play DVDs on Your Wii (updated)

Have you been waiting on Nintendo to release a DVD supporting version of the console? Forget them. One of the talented members of Team Twiizers (The same people who brought you the Twilight Hack and the Homebrew Channel) have enabled DVD playback on un-modded Wii's with DVDX.

Check the comments section see other users' experiences. Most of them report success. Some report problems like slow playback or an inability to get past the DVD menu (there could be issues with specific DVD setups—not all menus are created equal). Use at your own risk.

WiiHD's real DVD player has been on the rocks for a LONG time, so this is a welcome arrival. It would stink to have to buy new hardware for an old format when BD superiority is just around the corner anyway.

Update: Footage of the hack in action after the break.

Update2: Joystiq has posted their own video guide to getting the hack up an running. See it after the break.

Hackmii Via Gizmodo | Permalink

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David Marseilles
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BioShock Wii

BioShock was one of the biggest games of 2007, and 2007 was no small year for gaming. In an interview with Gamasutra, 2K Boston tech director Chris Kline started talking about Wii and BioShock. In the same thought. Not entirely negatively!

I think there is an appetite out there; it's just a matter of finding the right way to bring it to them.

I don't think there's anything preventing the game complexity of BioShock from being on the Wii.

He condescendingly mentions the need to educate Wii gamers when it comes to core games, but other than that, it's a much more positive perspective than we're used to hearing from developers that aren't already devoted to Wii. A lot of what has prevented core games from getting Wii ports, and what has prevented Wii projects from getting big budgets and AAA teams has been the acrimony of developers and marketers convinced that nothing but mini-games can sell on Wii. Having now built an install base larger than the 360s in a year less time, reality seems to be dawning on developers. They can't ignore Wii anymore.

So does this mean BioShock is coming to Wii? The comment had more to do with mechanics than the franchise specifically, so while anything is possible, you shouldn't hold your breath. I think the attitude displayed by the comments does increase our odds for BioShock 2 though (BioShock 2 Developer 2K Marin has a job posting seeking Wii experience).

Gamasutra Via GoNintendo | Permalink

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