Earlier this year, Platinum Games and Sega announced MadWorld, a grisly Wii game with a focus on vehement, outlandish violence, and beating your enemies to a pulp that would make of Tropicana jealous. Today at GC, Platinum Games has brought us some new details on the game, as well as a trailer showcasing the sadist ways of the game’s main protagonist.

Like all bad asses, you play as Jack, a guy with a generic name and a motorcycle, complete with flames riding out of the back, because its not a motorcycle without outlandish flames tapering down the backside.

Like the best protagonists, he wears goggles on his head that you’ll probably never see him wear, he’s had one of his limbs (specifically his right arm) replaced with a chainsaw, making it pretty damn hard to write with anything other than his enemies’ blood, and of course he’s built like a fucking brick house.

Chances are, he’s got a spitfire mouth full of witty insults about your mother and a lexicon that would surprise even Kevin Smith. Marcus Fenix, eat your heart out. Read more…

Back when Rock Band first debuted, Xbox 360 users were pleased to find out that their Guitar Hero instruments were compatible with their Rock Band sets, and vice versa. Unfortunately, PS3 users became accustomed to getting the shaft when Activision refused to let the Fender Stratocaster to work with any of the future or past Guitar Hero titles.

Today, Neversoft announced at Leipzeig that all GHWT instruments will be compatibile with their Rock Band companions. Neversoft’s Brian Bright even went into details on how drum compatibility would work, due to the difference in the amount of pads- the orange pad, the crash cymbal, will map to the blue pad, but if a note is there already, it will map to the green pad instead. Yeah, I don’t get it either. Read more…

Announced at Nintendo’s lackluster E3 conference and remembered as that game that was somehow related to the internet’s most famous soccer mom breaking her wrist, Shaun White Snowboarding is a snowboarding game sponsored by pro boarder Shaun White. It utilizes the Wii Fit’s gyration/motion-sensing technology to make you feel like you’re actually jumping up and down on a $90 box thing jumping off of the Alps on a snowboard. Well, in the Wii version, that is.

Not being one to show the least visually-appealing version, today Ubisoft released the first trailer and screenshots for the Playstation 3/Xbox 360 versions of the game, which you can see in the gallery after the jump. Read more…

Sega has announced its Leipzig GC line-up, and they’re trying to make a song and dance out of Samba De Amigo. More interesting is the promise of the world premiere of a new title and the attendance of Headstrong Games on their booth.

Headstrong, rebranded from Kuju Entertainment at the end of July, is working on an as-yet-undisclosed Wii title for Sega, so it’s a fair bet they are not turning up to Leipzig just to soak up the atmosphere or see how it compares to E3.

So what could it be? Much as I would love it to be another Shenmue, it seems like it might be another Dreamcast classic – Jet Grind Radio. Sega filed this handy trademark, dated 24 July 2008, which gives us hope that they’re returning to the franchise.

They promise we’ll find out for sure before the event. Here’s the rest of their line-up, sadly devoid of any other Dreamcast greats begging for a resurrection: Read more…

Man-on-top Simon Jeffrey has rounded on developers for drowning Wii in below-par tat, but is confident that publishers – starting with Sega, naturally – can put that to rights.

Chewing the fat over at Venture Beat, he says:

“There is a lot of crap coming out for the Wii in general. But if it’s not a good game, it doesn’t sell. That flood of crap will die down as publishers become more coherent.”

Let’s hope this isn’t a case of Simon Jeffrey misspeaking again. He also lets loose on the tug-of-war between Sony and Microsoft for Wii ‘graduates’, putting everyone’s favourite game – Mad World – on the frontline for reaching out to the more hardcore Wii audience.

“No one is doing that. With Mad World from Platinum Games, we are trying to show that millions of Wii gamers want to move on to mature games. They don’t have to have an Xbox 360 to do that.”

There’s more to come from Sega when it comes to Wii – Jeffrey just loves the accessories:

“We are fans of the Wii Zapper. Our Ghost Squad game keeps selling. We have more Zapper games going. The same for the Wii Balance Board, although we have nothing announced yet.”

Never say never. Nothing may be announced *yet*, but Leipzig GC is only round the corner. Read more…

Is it April already?

Not being content with releasing Dead Space, Rock Band 2, Crysis, and the million other games coming out this holiday season, EA has announced that they’re developing Celebrity Sports Showdown to be released this fall. Apparently, they’re also not happy with how completely unsaturated the Wii casual sports market has been thus far.

If for some reason, you ever felt the need to play as your favorite C-list celebrities and beat up Sugar Ray Leonard, well, then you’re in luck! And if Avril Lavigne gets Under Your Skin, EA’s giving you the chance to Let Go of all your inhibitions, and do The Best Damn Thing you could possibly think of- kick her ass. I’ll stop with the puns now, I swear.

Hit the jump for the full press release and list of ‘celebrities’ that made the cut. Read more…

Monster Lab is special, but it seems that every time I try to tell this to a cute gaming chick, they lose interest after the words “mini games” and start staring at the moustache I’ve been growing all summer. And I’d be like, “Listen, we can talk about how manly my Daniel Day Lewis mustache is later, let me tell you about how clever Monster Lab is.” So stay with me, because Monster Lab has some incredible promise, especially for those who are mostly disappointed in Nintendo’s first party holiday line up. Read more…

Plenty of studies have shown that playing Wii Sports or Wii Fit is good for you, to varying degrees. Some people don’t believe it, some people are willing to pay money to have someone teach them how to do it. What makes this study more authoritative? Well look, they used crazy breathing masks and machinery! That must make this one more scientific than the rest. Read more…

MediaWatch UK, self-appointed guardians of decency in entertainment, have suddenly registered Wii’s Mad World on their radar – and they’re not too chuffed about it.

“I hope the British Board of Film Classification will view this with concern and decide it should not be granted a classification,” says John Beyer, MediaWatch UK president. “Without that it cannot be marketed in Britain. What the rest of the world does is up to them. We need to ensure that modern and civilized values take priority rather than killing and maiming people.”

“It seems a shame that the game’s manufacturer have decided to exclusively release this game on the Wii,” he added. “I believe it will spoil the family fun image of the Wii.”

It’s not really a shame though, because Wii is in need of more decent third-party titles. Meanwhile, UK national the Daily Mail has got hold of this and is now in hysterics, claiming that parents are “horrified” yet they utterly failed to consult any parents on the matter. Great journalism, that. Read more…

Main man Satoru Iwata lets slip that Wii Music is Nintendo’s last original idea for Wii. But he’s not worried about having to pile money back into R&D. There’s still most of the world to conquer. Read more…

From the “perpetual next-gen” department comes this totally expected tidbit. The old news: Nintendo’s working on a follow-up to the Wii. The new news: Confirmation comes directly from President “It print money!” Iwata.

Iwata told Forbes magazine, “We are always preparing for the next hardware. We are under development. But the hardware is a kind of box that consumers reluctantly buy in order to play our games.” Read more…

Later this year, gamers will get a chance to get goo on their Wii. Read more…

Earlier today I got a chance to play the first Castlevania game for the Wii, Castlevania Judgment.

Judgment is the first Castlevania fighting game ever, placing generations of vampire hunters, including the Belmont Clan, against Dracula’s most fearsome cronies.

When I first took a look at the game, I wasn’t really impressed too much with the graphics. But after I thought about it, for a 3D Wii fighting game, they weren’t too bad. Read more…

I was lucky enough to get my hands on another one of Nintendo’s newest games revealed at E3, Wii Sports Resort. Read more…

Castlevania: Judgment has been under heavy scrutiny since Konami announced the series would enter the realm of fighters. Screens revealed bt the company should put some of those fears at bay as the game looks quite solid for a console without many fighting titles. Read more…

To combat the whole “least energy efficient” label it’s recently been slapped with, Tom’s Hardware Guide has tricked out the Nintendo Wii with an enviro-friendly solar sucker.

Of course, for solar-powered anythings to be effective, they need to get some sun. The simple solution then is to just throw this bad boy on wheels.

There’s a pretty picture of it to the right, which you can click to enlarge if you just can’t quite get a close enough look at it. Read more…

This kid looks like he’s totally having fun, right?

Looks like someone is thinking of the children! Yesterday Nintendo of America and Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation promised 500 new “Fun Centers” in hospitals around North America for this year, giving kids a chance to escape the sick room and have some good times chilling with a Wii. Read more…

There is some discussion surrounding the possibility of Nintendo being set to unveil a new F-Zero game for the Wii at the E3 Summit 2008. Codenamed F-Zero Z, the futuristic racing game is expected to be developed in-house by Nintendo, rather than giving it to an outside developer (the last installment, F-Zero GX, was developed by Sega).

Some features for the F-Zero Wii game include all tracks from F-Zero GX, an online multiplayer mode and a weapon system. Read more…

After saying that only “geeks and otaku” have a problem with the Wii’s internal storage space and then apologizing shortly after, Nintendo Europe’s marketing director Laurent Fischer has said they recognise the problem and are working on a solution to fix it. Read more…

A few new details and scans have popped up for the new Wario Land game coming out for the Wii. Read more…