Half-Life developer: Wii more valuable than 360, PS3

Half-Life creator and founder of Valve software, Gabe Newell, strongly hinted at plans to develop games for Nintendo Wii, calling his current exclusion of games on the system as “an obvious hole in our strategy.”

Necessity is the mother of invention, or so the saying goes. More specifically, a need or problem encourages creative efforts to meet the need or solve the problem, as in the case with Wii’s unique approach to controls and dated technology when compared to Xbox 360 and PS3.

Half-Life developer Gabe Newell seemingly likes the challenge.

“I think the Wii represents more of a challenge because of its input. You can think of the Xbox 360 as pretty much a PC and a PlayStation as kind of a PC. The Wii gives you a bunch of problems that don’t fit into that model,” Newell told Game Informer.

“I think it’s more valuable. I think it’s more interesting than just graphics chip - CPU combination. It’s the machine I have at home. The fact that we don’t have anything in development on it even though it represents big opportunities as a whole is an obvious hole in our strategy.”

While originally written-off by a large number of publishers, the Wii has since garnered increased attention from game makers due to its popular commercial appeal

Manhunt 2 gets away with it - released on Halloween

The game will be released in North America on October 31 following the submission of a modified version of Manhunt 2. What’s been cut we don’t know yet. Nor do we know what the deal is in Europe but we’re on at Rockstar to find out.

“Manhunt 2 is important to us, and we’re glad it can finally be appreciated as a gaming experience,” said Sam Houser, founder and executive producer of Rockstar Games. “We love the horror genre. Manhunt 2 is a powerful piece of interactive story telling that is a unique video game experience. We think horror fans will love it.”

Take Two chairman Strauss Zelnick, added, “Manhunt 2 is an extraordinary game, and we eagerly anticipate its release in North America.”

Manhunt 2 is the debut title from the newly formed Rockstar London studio, which is developing the game in conjunction with series creator Rockstar North. The Wii version is being developed by Rockstar Toronto.

Along with the Mature rating, the ESRB also assigned the following content descriptors to Manhunt 2: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content and Use of Drugs.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Diddy Kong Confirmed

Donkey Kong’s pal has finally joined the battle! Unfortunately, screenshots fail to truly capture the way he moves.

He scrambles around the battle, using whimsical fighting moves while wielding both his Rocketbarrel Boost and Peanut Pop Gun!

Clusty for Wii

Clusty is one of the most unique, if not the best, search engines available. More stylish than Google, and more simplistic than Ask, Clusty is the first truly new search technology I have seen since Google was created. You’ll have to try it for yourself to see just how good the search engine is, but Vivisimo, the company behind Clusty, does have something to say on its behalf:

Clusty is a whole new way to search the web.

Clusty queries several top search engines, combines the results, and generates an ordered list based on comparative ranking. This “metasearch” approach helps raise the best results to the top and push search engine spam to the bottom.

But what really makes Clusty unique is what happens after you search. Instead of delivering millions of search results in one long list, our search engine groups similar results together into clusters. Clusters help you see your search results by topic so you can zero in on exactly what you’re looking for or discover unexpected relationships between items. When was the last time you went to the third or fourth page of the search results? Rather than scrolling through page after page, the clusters help you find results you may have missed or that were buried deep in the ranked list.

And with a name like Clusty, it’s gotta be good!

The great news is that Clusty has a streamlined, optimized version (which can be found at http://wii.clusty.com) designed specifically for the Nintendo Wii’s Internet Channel. This sleek simplification of a great concept features a Wii-style interface, coupled with some fancy AJAX mouseovers and categories of results along the left (see attached screenshot).

So far, most of the websites optimized for the Internet Channel have been gaming websites, so it is good to see non-gaming websites step up and become Wii-friendly. Hopefully the majority of the internet will follow suit, but it is not likely.

Nintendo Wii DVD Whispers In The Air

When it comes to Wii getting DVD playback, it appears that it’s a question of “when” and not “if”.

The official website for the console has been updated recently with new hints at the capability (via ars technica).

Q: Can the Wii console playback music CDs and DVDs?

A: The Wii console released in the end of 2006 does not have the feature to playback music CDs or DVDs.

Obviously, this seems to hint that there is going to be an upgraded console offered for sale in the future which plays both CDs and DVDs.

Nintendo actually confirmed this late last year, but there hasn’t been much talk of it lately.

“If movie playback is so important, people can wait for the later model next year. For most consumers it’ll be about the games, so they’ll likely not want to wait to purchase the new system,” the company was quoted by Engadget as saying in November of 2006.

There’s only few months left in ‘07…will we see this new model before we ring in the new year?

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Knibble.com on the Wii Internet Channel

Wii owners can point their Internet browsers to the Wii area of Knibble and play over 5,000 “Wii-friendly” games.

“Wii gamers can access the Knibble Wii gaming site by simply selecting the Wii Internet Channel and entering wii.knibble.com. They will be directed to the Wii-optimized Knibble Wii site and can choose from thousands of casual games. With the low availability of Wii-optimized content available on the Wii Internet Channel, Knibble Wii promises to become a leading site for Wii gamers.”

Read the full article here

The Return of Aran’s Fiercest Enemy

Nintendo of America yesterday posted a new “Aurora” video to its Metroid Prime 3: Corruption Preview Channel and the new trailer offered the first peek at what may be Samus Aran’s greatest enemy threat in any Prime game to date. According to the video, the Aurora Units are supercomputers created by the Federation.

Direct from the new video: “20 years ago, a team of Federation scientists announced the birth of an organic supercomputer. Its name was Aurora. Since that historic date, thousands of Auroras have been built and installed. Originally designed for scientific purposes, the Auroras are now used in government, business and military roles as well. They are given male, female or gender-neutral personas based on the needs of desires of the staff and the facilities they are to serve in. A vast network links all existing Auroras allowing them access to a tremendous database without fear.”

Also revealed in the new video are 3D blueprint schematics for a “Future Aurora Complex.” Footage shows a brief sweep of the schematics from the left to the right, ultimately revealing the brain of the Aurora Unit, which is encased in a protective shield and further blockaded behind a series of pipes. Newcomers to the series may think nothing of this unit, by long-time Metroid fans will immediately recognize the Aurora as Mother Brain, the legendary end boss from the original Metroid.

Mother Brain’s history within the Metroid franchise is long and in some ways difficult to understand. According to the original game’s storyline, in addition to official Nintendo manual details, the character is the leader of the Space Pirates and therefore Aran’s ultimate enemy. However, she is also sometimes referred to merely as the supercomputer that handles the operations on Planet Zebes, home to the Space Pirates. In some cases, Mother Brain has been seen as an ally to the ancient Chozo, but the character has in practice always proved to be a fantastic danger to Aran. The end sequence in the original title remains one of the most spectacular and challenging in any old-school NES affair, and the encounter with Mother Brain herself is nothing short of classic, hence the big deal of her potential debut in the Prime series.

New Mario Galaxy scans show Boo costume, cubed planets

New scans from the latest issue of Famitsu have popped up on the NeoGAF forums with new pictures and information on Super Mario Galaxy (which, as we all know, was originally just two Super Mario Star Clusters duct-taped together).

Shown in the new scans are cube- and torus-shaped planets, Mario in his bee costume and also a few images of Mario as a Boo. According to translations found on Go Nintendo, Bee Mario can use his stinger and Boo Mario will be left alone by other Boos (though one of the Boo Mario images show him apparently getting hurt by another Boo).

Also according to the translations — we haven’t verified the information ourselves, so we can’t confirm its validity — is that six worlds will be in the final game, each with multiple planets. Also, as per the usual post-N64 Mario game, Galaxy will feature 120 stars you can collect.

Super Mario Galaxy is hoping to move a few units when it’s released November 12 in North America.

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Wii’s most popular VC games

Siliconera’s Spencer Yip put together the handy-dandy spreadsheet you see above featuring the most popular Wii Virtual Console games, available for review now following the recent Wii update. The list shows Japan on the left and the US on the right. Nobody seems to know how the popularity of these games is determined, after Siliconera made their list, it changed for Wii Fanboy, then again when we checked. Hopefully the system will become clearer in time.

Look at all that Mario in the Top 10, with a heavy dose of Link for the US. This will certainly be an interesting chart to watch as more games become available. Maybe it will finally spur Xbox Live Arcade to get one. It would be interesting to know what’s popular on XBLA, at least we know it wouldn’t be Mario all the way down.

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Pokémon Trainer joins the Super Smash Bros. Brawl

The regular Super Smash Bros. Brawl updates just keep getting better as a Pokémon Trainer has been revealed as a playable character. While we’re slightly bummed about not coming to blows with Ash Ketchum, the Pokémon Trainer in Brawl doesn’t do his fighting directly. Instead, he warms up the bench and issues commands to his three Pokémon: Squirtle, Ivysaur and Charizard.

This isn’t like say, Marvel vs Capcom or Street Fighter EX 3 where you could control all of your characters at the same time. The trio is cycled in and out with a special command and in classic Pokémon fashion. All of the Pokémon share the same damage meter, but they all have their own individual stamina which will prevent players from sticking to just one.

Check out the update yourself for all the awesome, albeit, painfully embedded screenshots.

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