While Americans have been clamoring for Club Nintendo’s prizes to come to our fair country for a while now, only now has Nintendo followed through and given us some prizes for our years of Nintendo fanship. And boy was it worth the wait. If you have enough “Nintendo Coins” to be considered a gold membership (6 games registered, 300 coins), you’ll be able to download a snazzy Club Nintendo 2010 calendar. However, if you’re determined enough to be a Platinum member (12 games registered, 600 coins), then you’ll be elligible to choose between two prizes- an authentic repica Mario hat, which you can see after the jump, or a WiiWare download for Doc Louis’s Punch-Out!!

While I’d be plenty happy with the cool hat, the WiiWare version of Doc Louis’s Punch-Out!! seems way more interesting. A one-on-one WiiWare version of Punch-Out!! that only features Doc Louis sounds great, especially since you don’t have to own Punch-Out!! for the Wii to play it. I’ve always wanted to fight that guy. He keeps offering me some of his chocolate bar, but I never get to taste hte sweet chocolately goodness. Well now it’s just you & me in the ring, Doc. Winner takes all- provided I get enough Nintendo coins.

That chocolate bar is mine.

Read more…

Not really feeling the direction of the new Punch-Out!! for the Wii? Not into using the Balance Board or Wii Remote-Nunchuk combo? Well, check out this video to see how two guys made their own Punch-Out!! boxing dummy using the original Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! for the NES. I gotta admit, it’s some pretty neat shit.

And in the first corner, weighing in at $34.99 with a release date of May 18th, 2009 … Amazon’s Exclusive Heavyweight Contender Kit, complete with the following:

• King Hippo Crown Mini Replica
• King Hippo Desktop Punching Bag
• King Hippo Boxer Shorts (Size: Large)
• Doc Louis Remedy Chocolate Bar

Directly across the ring, weighing in at $89.99, also with a release date of May 18th, 2009 … The Amazon Exclusive Little Mac Boxing Glove!

• Full size replica of Little Mac’s green boxing glove
• 15” x 11” wood frame
• Engraved plate with the Punch-Out!! logo
• Limited Edition

The best part about both of these packages is that neither actually include the freaking game (also available on May 18th, 2009). My advice is, buy the game on it’s own, grab a bar of chocolate at the checkout and punch the cashier in the face. You will feel a lot better and your wallet will thank you even if Amazon.com doesn’t.

Here’s a video directly from the Game Developer’s Conference with someone demonstrating how to play the new Punch-Out!! for the Wii. The person playing makes it seem pretty easy to get use to, which is great news because you know how motion controls can easily be a hit or miss.

But remember you don’t actually have to use the motion controls with either the Nunchuk or Balance Board, but could instead just flip the Wii Remote sideways and play old-school NES style. I’m overly excited to finally dust off my Wii and put it to good use when Punch-Out!! for the Wii comes out May 18.

According to the Nintendo.it Italian press release translated a few moments ago, it appears that the upcoming Punch-Out!! remake for the Nintendo Wii console will offer three ways for gamers to interact with the title.

The first will allow the use of the Wii Remote and Nunchuk to reproduce the on-screen moment, while the second control system will allow the gamer to turn the Wii Remote on its side and play the game as many of us did on the original NES. The third option will include the addition of the Wii Balance Board, giving well equipped Wii owners the added bonus of dodging punches by shifting their weight to either side of the board.

The Wii Balance Board seems interesting enough, however those without it don’t stand to lose much as you will most definitely be able to dodge punches by tilting both the Remote and the Nunchuck to one side or the other as well. The translated portion of the press release is available after the jump. Read more…

A new trailer surfaced today courtesy of Rawmeatcowboy over at GoNintendo and the return of Little Mac looks better and better with each new glimpse. I bought the Nintendo Wii when it first came out but returned it shortly after that because I just wasn’t playing with the damn thing. Punch-Out!! may be the title that gets me to open up my wallet to the Nintendo Corporation once again.

The dark backdrop against the brightly lit characters in the foreground works well in my opinion and the overall animation is very well done. In the end it may not offer many surprises that the original didn’t have but sometimes its better to keep things simple. Read more…

Cammie Dunaway, for the uninformed, is Nintendo’s exec VP of sales and marketing. You might remember her from Nintendo’s E3 conference – you know “Puppies are cute!! Wii Sports Resort!! Frisbees!” Yeah, that’s her. Anyhow, if it wasn’t obvious enough, Ms. Dunaway’s not exactly in touch with your average Game Fuel-drinking hardcore gamer, but in a pleasant little Q&A with Wired she made it even more clear that she doesn’t really know much about games, but that’s okay, because she thinks games are super and Nintendo’s super, too. (I’m being snide, but I have to admit there is something winning about her relentless positivity.)

Nevertheless – when asked what she knew about the Punch Out franchise, Dunaway replied:

I know that it was really popular 15 years ago, and that it’s been sitting there with latent demand. It’s got the … who’s the big character … Big Eddie.

She meant King Hippo. Mash the jump for more tidbits. Read more…

If you remember, we previously reported that website n-europe.com claimed to have confirmation of a Nintendo Wii Punch-Out announcement at E3 08, but all we got was a heaping helping of Wii Music.

Well, Nintendo has finally unleashed the news, and while I would have preferred to see it a few months ago, I guess it’s better late than never. Not much is available in the way of news regarding the game at this time, but it is being touted as a 2009 release.

Have your way with the game’s first trailer and several in-game screens after the jump. Read more…

According to n-europe.com, the latest installment of NGamer contains information from a “secret source” confirming the existance of two new Nintendo Wii games will be making debuts at E3. The direct quote from NGamer’s E3 2008 section is below:

“And if all goes to plan (and our sources haven’t played a mean trick on us), that hands-on coverage will be of Animal Crossing and Punch-Out!! Wii, aka Nintendo’s great hopes for 2008.”

Additional details in the article reveal the following information about both titles:

Punch-Out!! Wii will included balance board support for things like dodging and weaving opponents, as well as the expected Wiimote and Nunchuck controls for various punches, blocking, etc.

Animal Crossing Wii has apparently been finished for some time, and has been confirmed as a non MMO. In addition, the game feature Wi-Fi sharing and multiplayer gameplay similar to Wild World.

Source: n-europe.com (via: GoNintendo)