You know the storyline.  You know the tricks.  But how is it still so fun?  New Super Mario Bros. Wii is another smash hit in a long line of Mushroom Kingdom mayhem courtesy of Nintendo.  Staying with their desire for accessibility, Nintendo took all the ideas and concepts that made the original Super Mario Bros. 2D platforming franchise a success and used that as the base for New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Read More...

After a nice long coma from all the turkey I have eaten, I am back to bring you this week's Nintendo Download. While you are out shopping or in front of your televisions, Nintendo brings you 10 downloadable games to make sure you have one hell of a Christmas, or the start of one hell of a Christmas. First is Chapter 4 in Tales of Monkey Island for Wiiware, along with a few other titles. The DSiWare is serving up some magic with PopCap's popular title Bookworm and EA’s Foto Face: The Face Stealer Strikes. Read More...

There are two things that people love and totally go gaga over: Special Editions and Free Stuff. Today, Nintendo announced that this holiday season, the Nintendo DSi will have BOTH starting on Black Friday. Starting on Friday, the DSi will be sold in two new special edition packages that will contain the portable device in one of two colors -- White or Metallic Blue -- as well as have 5 DSiWare titles pre-loaded. The metallic blue DSi has a Mario theme with various games and apps, while the white DSi goes for a more Brain Age slant. The people down at Nintendo of America have squashed any notion of a slow-down or over-saturation of the portable device market. Read More...

Alright ladies and gents, it's that time again where we bring to you this week's downloads from Nintendo. But this time we have a nice surprise for you as they bring you 5 demos for you to try before you decide to buy them for the holiday season. For zero Wii Points you will be able to download BIT.TRIP BEAT, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord, NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits, World of Goo and Pokemon Rumble. They have more for you, as you swing into action from the Virtual Console with Indiana Jones’ Greatest Adventures and duke it out with Street Fighter II: Champion Edition. Read More...

Its that time again folks where Nintendo brings to us a butt load of games for this week download. On the WiiWare side Nintendo wants you to gear up for Excitebike: World Rally, ready to cross the street with Frogger Returns, enter the magical world with Dragon Master Spell Caster. For the DsiWare Bomberman Blitz is ready to blow things up, 5 Electroplankton games are ready for you to download. Virtual Console brings you Wonder Boy III and Cybernoid. Here is the list and their description. Read More...

Last week, Nintendo announced that "for the first time" Link and Zelda will team up to save Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. When I first came across this bit of news, I honestly didn't think much of it. Don't get me wrong -- I'm looking forward to the next adventure with Link on the DS -- but after playing it at E3, I have had modest expectations on new gameplay. The more I thought about this new bit of news, the more excited I got. After 20+ years of waiting to be saved by Link, Zelda is coming to the forefront to assert herself as a dominant character in the series. Read More...

When I looked at the list of downloadable content this week for Nintendo, I was shocked to see eight titles listed for the three "platforms" available. For so long, the Big 'N' was releasing one title a week on each platform: WiiWare, DSiWare and Virtual Console. Many people, including myself, asked why Nintendo was holding back, especially in light of the fact that first party titles haven't exactly been busting down retail doors in a short period of time. Unfortunately, when looking at what the public received, you begin to understand why the big push. Looking at the DSiWare selections this week, your attention is drawn immediately to the first party photo application, Sparkle Snapshots. Read More...

The state of gaming as of right now is about to get a whole lot better. With the 2009 fiscal year ending in October, it's finally time to say goodbye to a fairly bleak year, and say hello to a really good year. For the purposes of this article, I am writing about the fiscal years: 2009 means October of 2008 to September of 2009 with 2010 meaning October of 2009 to September of 2010 Sure, 2009 had it's hits: Fallout 3 Left 4 Dead Dead Space Rock Band 2/Rock Band Beatles/Guitar Hero World Tour/Guitar Hero 5/Lego Rock Band/Band Hero Fable 2 Call of Duty: World at War KillZone 2 Halo Wars Resident Evil 5 Batman Arkham Asylum Halo 3: ODST They are all just some of the great games of 2009 but most of them came out right at the beginning of fiscal year 2009 (and the end of calendar year 2008) Fiscal year 2010 got started off with a bang with Uncharted 2, Ratchet and Clank: A Crank in Time, Borderlands, Assassin's Creed 2, and Forza 3, (not to mention the PSPGo, who was released on the very first day of fiscal year 2010) but will include: A New Wii? Project Natal? Sony PS3 Motion Controller Left 4 Dead 2 Modern Warfare 2 Halo Reach Splinter Cell Conviction Bayonetta Crackdown 2 Gran Turismo 5 God of War III BioShock 2 Mass Effect 2 Metal Gear Rising Max Payne 3 Deus Ex 3 Dead Rising 2 The Saboteur MAG Final Fantasy XIII/XIV Star Wars The Old Republic Those are just a few of the really exciting games that 2010 will have in store for us. Read More...

Nintendo is by far the most kid-friendly system company, but how does is stack up against other things that kids love? A recent study done by Smarty Pants that tested “brand awareness, popularity, and love” of various brands among kids in 2009 puts Nintendo right at the top. Nintendo, which for some reason counts as 2 different brands, takes the top 2 spots: Nintendo Wii Ninendo DS Oreos McDonald's M&M's Doritos Nickelodeon Kraft Macaroni&Cheese Cheetos Disney Other game related brands that make the list:     14. Sony Playstation     31. Sony PSP     42. Read More...

Alright class the subject for this week is gravity, and we all know what goes up must come down. This week Nintendo has released 3 more wares for the Nintendo DSi, Virtual Console and Wiiware. First up for the Nintendo DS we have Pinball Pulse: The Ancients Beckon. If you haven't guessed already, it is a pinball game exclusively for the Nintendo DS. Next we have the classic beat 'em up game known as Final Fight 2 for the Virtual Console. And finally for the Wiiware you get to enter the arena to see if you will become the champion in Gravitronix. Read More...

There are times when you are playing a game that you simply say “They got it right.”  It could be during a puzzle or moving through open spaces or fighting enemy AI, but usually it only happens once or twice, or if you’re lucky, several times.  Imagine playing a game that gives you that feeling in almost every one of the 220 puzzles packaged into that tiny Nintendo DS cartridge.  Welcome to Scribblenauts.You play as Maxwell. Read More...

Today Nintendo announced that the Nintendo Wii will drop $50 to $199.99 this Sunday the 27th. This coming on the heels of the PS3 Slim release and XBox 360 Elite price drop to $299.99. They also announced a traveling expedition of games to be played at some smaller events, as well as the release date of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. After three years on the market, it normally wouldn't be such a surprise, but what makes it so is that this is coming from Nintendo. Read More...

Another week of download releases by Nintendo means another week of low-hanging fruit for criticism on the choices for DSiWare downloads. Also included in this week is another Commodore 64 game for Virtual Console. At this point, I wish there was a defensible position to take on some of these choices for DLC. We have five releases this week across the three platforms. The lone Virtual Console title, Last Ninja 2, is from the Commodore 64. Read More...

Well well well, Looks like the rumors are now leaking from the higher up's. During a Fincanial Times interview at the Tokyo Game Show with Yoichi Wada- President of Square Enix, he mentioned that the three platforms (XBox 360, PlayStation3, and Wii) will join the same playing field by 2011. He expects Nintendo will release the new Wii that year which could contain similar features (see HD) as it's competing consoles. Also he made mention of a possible new controller scheme for the Wii system. Since he was in a chatty mood, he also spoke about the rival systems and their adaptation of Motion sensing technology, saying that “Present game machines already have a lot of functions: they are a network terminal, a Blu-ray or DVD player, and a gaming machine. Read More...

INTERPLAY TO UPDATE CLAYFIGHTER FOR PLAY ON Wii&Nintendo DSi BEVERLY HILLS, CA, September 10, 2009 - Interplay Entertainment Corp. (OTC BB:IPLY) today announced it will update Clayfighter for play on Wii™ and Nintendo DSi™. Clayfighter will be developed for Interplay by StudioBlack Games' Eric Hart, original programmer of Clayfighter for Super NES™. Interplay CEO Hervé Caen commented, "We are very enthusiastic to resurrect Clayfighter's crazy characters and unique humor. Eric Hart's involvement in the previous Clayfighter titles makes StudioBlack the logical choice to give this classic franchise a well-deserved makeover. Read More...