Paul Henry Smith is one smart dude. He has created the Fauxharmonic Orchestra, a simulation of a real orchestra, brought to you by the Wiimote, Balance Board, and his brain. We're not classical buffs by any means, but what we're hearing (and seeing) is pretty impressive. We have on criticism, though. It looks like Paul is wearing his shoes in the video. Dude, you're going to scuff your very expensive peripheral!
Otherwise, kudos, Paul, on a job well done.
Gallery: Peripherals that paved the way for the Balance Board
If Animal Crossing: City Folk has whetted your appetite for motion-based fishing, Hudson would like to remind you that they have, like, a whole game coming out about just that. A second one, in fact! Fishing Master: World Tour has a bit more in-depth fishing, as you would expect, and interesting backdrops to stare at while you're failing to catch anything.
There's a longer trailer over at the official website, as well as video footage featuring each of the game's fishing venues. Keep practicing catching sea bass in Animal Crossing (or the first Fishing Master, we guess), and maybe you'll be able to hit the leaderboards when World Tour.
Nintendo fans have been practicing parkour with their very own platforming princess since the 8-bit days. Now it seems another traceuse is stepping in on the territory Samus pioneered. On the surface, it doesn't seem as if Mirror's Edge has very much in common with the Metroid franchise. Yet,the respective series heroines' exploits can be experienced and enjoyed in either first person 3D or 2D sidescrolling viewpoints.
Mirror's Edge 2D is currently in the beta stages of development with its destined platforms still unannounced. It hasn't yet got any of the fascist oppressors seen in the 3D version, but they'd only get in the way of the acrobatics that are on impressive display here. Rarely do we get to control such fluid and graceful 2D animation, and it makes the treat all the more delectable when you get to do it with a Wii Remote.
We're not going to lie: Tatsunoko vs. Capcom looks like the greatest thing since sliced bread. We're seriously in love with the game, even if we can't understand any of the weird Japanese squiggles that permeate the entire title. That won't stop us from importing the game, however. Because if there's one thing we've learned, it's that the movement for a dragon punch breaks all language barriers. That and we want more Joe in our life. Also, Roll takes out the trash.
Head past the break to check out the video of her doing just that.
Although it doesn't take much to explain Prope's minimalist Let's Tap, Sega sent out this promotional video demonstrating its gameplay. This clip highlights the Rhythm Tapping, Tap Runner, and Visualizer modes, offering brief glimpses of other modes, including what appears to be a tapping-based shmup. For more Let's Tap
The overall message, delivered by a family playing together, is that it's quite possible for people of pretty much any age to enjoy Let's Tap together, which is, of course, the goal of many Wii games. Few other Wii games manage such a cool and futuristic look, or such a genuinely unique and interesting input method.
Apparently the family in the video enjoys Let's Tap so much that they purchased two copies, because the game only comes with two of those fancy boxes!
We're so pleased to present this upbeat, non-disgusting trailer for Cooking Mama: World Kitchen. However, even this innocuous "As Seen on TV" style video is not without controversy: certain statements are made regarding your mama. Specifically, her ability to cook, contrasting with the abilities of the game's fake cartoon mama. The trailer disclaims these statements, but it's possible that by then the damage could already be done. Consider yourselves and your mamas warned.
Hopefully we can look past this shocking material and enjoy the gameplay footage and cute presentation. Because it is really cute, and it would be a shame if some kind of awful publicity marred such cuteness.
Usually we leave it up to our own Mike Sylvester when it comes to doing crazy things with the Wiimote, but he might have some competition in Mgestyk Fusion. See, the sensor bar kind of limits the scope of the Wiimote's ability to work in 3D spaces. Mgestyk Fusion replaces the sensor bar with a web cam and, as you can see in the video above, really helps Nintendo's controller to be all it can be. The set-up will be available to witness in person next week at the Montreal International Games Summit. Until then, we'll just have to settle for the video above.
Warning: this trailer for Castlevania Judgment, out this week, may have the unexpected side effect of making you want to play Castlevania Judgment. Until now, we've been insulated by our Castlevania fandom -- we love Castlevania so much that it's painful to see it as an anime-style 3D brawler/fighter with silly character designs (Eric Lecarde doesn't just look like a little boy -- he is a little boy for some reason).
But between the top-notch CG and the surprisingly exciting gameplay, we fear that Konami has us under a spell. Oh, look, there's the castle. There's Alucard doing something badass. Oh, they're playing "Vampire Killer." There is officially no hope for us.
Hey, look! It's an offbeat action/puzzler all about your quest to spray everything with various liquids! You might think we've been here before (uh, except for the spraying), and you might be right. Not that this means we're making any predictions about the fate of Tecmo's SPRay. Nope, we're just going to sit back and insist that you look at the footage. That we can recommend. The voiceover? Not so much.
Let's Tap may be most widely known for its wacky input method (see: the title), but the more we see of it, the more we realize that its brilliant music is the true draw, and that the tapping is great mostly because it allows us to interact with that music.
These three videos feature Let's Tap's "Rhythm Tap" mode, a Taiko no Tatsujin/Donkey Konga-style rhythm game played with the high-tech "cardboard box" peripheral. This mode would probably be an entertaining diversion at best if not for the fact that the songs featured in those videos are awesome. Of course, one of them is the Let's Taptheme, which we already love.
For those of us who missed celebrating our favorite fall holiday with fake anthropomorphic jerks, Halloween is back in Animal Crossing: City Folk. We just have to ... wait almost the whole year for it, thanks to the November release of the game.
Your animal neighbors, dressed in identical pumpkinhead costumes, will accost you and demand candy. If you fail to comply, or try to pass off some junk out of your pockets as candy, as the IGN demo player has done here, you get a trick! For being stingy, the residents slapped a pumpkin head on him and changed his clothes.
In the little IGN player doodad, there's another video featuring a player picking fruit in the winter. Animal Crossing winters are so lovely!
You all know how we love puzzle games. This new WiiWare title that just released in Japan, Bomb Tapper, looks like gaming bliss. Josh over at WiiFolder was kind enough to put together some footage of the title, which we've gone ahead and embedded past the break due to player limitations. We're not sure of the odds this could ever make its way to North America, but we're willing to do unsavory acts in the hope that it would sometime in the future.
EA has officially announced their fitness game, titled EA Sports ACTIVE. The game will support, but not require, the Balance Board, and will include two leg straps for the Wiimote and Nunchuk, as well as a resistance band. EA's Peter Moore described the game's focus as a "Western cardiovascular approach," contrasting with the stretching and balance exercises in Wii Fit. Speaking to GameSpot, Moore suggested that ACTIVE will become a "product line," which we already knew because it is "a game published by EA."
Players will also be able to create "playlists" of exercises, a feature conspicuously missing from Wii Fit. In addition, Active will provide real-time feedback on exercise performance, including calories burned and such. The whole thing sounds like a smart companion piece to Wii Fit.
This promotional video for Tatsunoko vs. Capcom has a little of everything. There are introductions of many of the characters, with voice clips and brief gameplay footage; demonstrations of the gameplay, including the various kinds of combos that can be executed, like the Hyper Combo special attacks; and even footage of many of the minigames, including Ryu's fireball game, Ken the Eagle's shooting gallery, and Hakushon Daimao's math quizzes!
We'd expect a nice overview from an eight-minute-long promo, and this footage does not disappoint. We were especially glad to see the two giant robot characters, Gold Lightan and PTX-40A, singled out, because hey, that's a pretty weird thing to have in a fighting game.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time has received a lot of attention for its bizarre cross-platform release: the same game will come out on the same day on both the DS and the Wii, and it will look the same. So, yes, by virtue of looking good for a DS game, it will be a not-that-great-looking Wii game. But the point is that it can be played anywhere.
And that's what this trailer gets across: any combination of DS players and Wii players, in any location with Internet access, can play Echoes of Time together. If you feel like blowing a bunch of money, you can play it on both systems.
