Wii Portfolio Drives Ubisoft Full-Year Sales Up 14 Percent; ‘Expect More Shaun White’

The strength of its Wii titles was key to Ubisoft’s 14 percent sales increase in its fiscal 2008, the publisher announced today, although sales declined 5.1 percent in the fourth quarter. Thanks to what the company calls “a continued strong showing” for Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party and Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip, Ubisoft’s fourth quarter sales were € 206 ($292.52) million, while full year results came to € 1.06 ($1.5) billion. “You can expect …

Hands On: ‘Food Network: Cook Or Be Cooked’

I walked into the Namco preview event yesterday and the first demo placard I saw has the Food Network logo on it. In the past, my reaction to this would have been an apathetic “pass.” But having been recently unemployed and after learning the true value of home cooking, I was intrigued.

I have yet to play the Cooking Mama games, so I can’t say how the two games compare head-to-head, but Cook or Be Cooked is definitely a realistic take on culinary skills. It attempts to emulate the entire cooking process, starting with the collection of necessary pots, pans, and ingredients and following through with mixing, chopping, frying, baking, warming…whatever the recipe calls for. You’re doing all the prep work and cooking with the Wii remote, with the Nunchuk is used to navigate around the kitchen, as well as for additional cooking functions (like aiming a potato masher). At the end of the process you’re judged on certain aspects of your meal.

The Namco rep giving the demo intentionally overcooked his steak, which appropriately received a 0/5 review. The better your score, the more recipes you can unlock, which come directly from Food Network cookbooks. There’s even a convenient fast-forward feature so you don’t have to actually sit and watch steaks fry for five to seven minutes per side.

As it stands right now, the presentation’s a bit drab — the only Food Network personality is Susie Fogelson, judge from The Next Food Network Star. With the wide array of talent and cooking styles on the network, it’d be a shame if you couldn’t challenge Bobby Flay to a grilling throwdown, learn interesting gastronomic trivia from Alton Brown, or watch Giada De Laurentiis walk around. But what they have here is a good base to work from, and structuring the game so you have to time your cooking so that all dishes are ready at once really captures the feeling of cooking a meal at home.

What’s the most impressive thing you know how to cook? During my employment break, I finally learned how to make pizza from scratch.

First Look: ‘The Munchables’ — ‘Katamari Damacy’ Meets ‘Pac-Man’?

The Munchables is not a delicious spin-off of the everyday lunch snack (and personal favorite) lunchables, but rather Namco Bandai’s new Wii action game that cleverly combines elements of two of its own franchises — Katamari Damacy and Pac-Man — into something that feels new, refreshing and perfect for Wii gamers.

First, the Pac-Man link. Players assume control of what’s best described as a Saturday morning cartoon "extreme" version of our yellow dot-munching hero. Okay, that sounds horrible. Luckily, The Munchables’ uninspired look isn’t the reason to be paying attention — what you do with this character, however, is.

Almost everything around you is edible. Snapping up items in the environment will reward you with medals, but chowing down on enemies is the real focus in The Munchables. That’s where Katamari Damacy comes in.

Enemies are assigned different "levels" both literally and visually. An enemy’s individual level is displayed above them and, as you might expect, bigger enemies are higher level. Enemies the same level as you or less can be easily eaten, but if they’re higher, it’s more complicated. Tapping B on theWiimote allows you to charge forward and bust up enemies into smaller, digestible pieces.

This mechanic plays into the larger boss battles, too, of which there are eight — one for each of the themed worlds. The world I saw centered on dessert and asked me to take down a giant chocolate bar, piece-by-piece. The gigantic tower of chocolaty sweetness would toss gobs of himself at me, forcing me to knock them back. Hit him enough and he breaks up, letting me consume bits of him. That’s kind of disgusting, but hey, when it’s done in a cute art style, you can get away with anything! You even tally what you’ve collected during a level by bending over and…releasing.

Publishers are becoming increasingly cognizant of the fact that shorter, focused games with tight hooks work well on Wii. THQ’s Deadly Creatures and de Blob and Sega’s MadWorld, some of the best third-party Wii games in the last year, have executed on this with notable successes. I hope The Munchables can join them.

Munchables Boss Gameplay

 

 

 

Munchables Modes Gameplay

 

 

First Look: ‘Katamari Forever’ — Major Changes For The Beloved ‘Katamari’ Series

The otherworldly feel of Noby Noby Boy only reminded me how long it’s been since Namco Bandai produced a worthwhile Katamari Damacy game. Last year’s iPhone version was plagued with frame rate and control issues and my strongest memory of Xbox 360’s Beautiful Katamari’s was the expensive downloadable content. In steps Katamari Forever, the latest game asking players to roll up objects and people into an increasingly larger ball of destructive trash. Except that’s not entirely true of this summer’s PlayStation 3-exclusive. In the Prince’s latest rolling adventure, Namco Bandai’s finally changing the gameplay up.

Other Katamari games haven’t done much to change the core concept of the series: rolling up objects. Katamari Forever smartly ditches that unnecessary rule and moves the Katamari gameplay in new directions. The story sets this up, as the Prince’s father, the King of All Cosmos, was hit by a comet and lost his memory. It’s up to the Prince and his cousins to help fill in the blanks.

Katamari Forever Reveal Trailer

Players fill in these blanks by visiting 30 stages, a mix of levels pulled from previous Katamari games (consider them "remixes") and brand-new areas. In the first stage I was shown, the Prince enters a dreary, boring black-and-white world. It’s your job to bring color back to this world, thereby returning the proper memories to the King of All Cosmos. It’s not unlike last year’s sorely underrated Wii platformer de Blob.

Restoring a damaged world is a deeply fulfilling game reward. There were few experiences more inspiring last year than finishing an area in Prince of Persia and watching a cavern filled with darkness blossom with green beauty. Like de Blob, though, Katamari Forever puts those real-time changes directly in your hands.

Another stage I was shown demonstrated a hook not unlike Prince of Persia’s. Dropped into an otherwise bland desert environment, the goal was not to pick up objects, but to roll around the world planting flowers and inserting grass. If Katamari Forever can maintain the amount of a variety shown in these two stages, we could be in for the first truly interesting Katamari since the original.

There’s some bad news, though.

Katamari and Noby Noby Boy creator Keita Takahashi publicly distanced himself from the series after producing We Love Katamari. He hasn’t worked on subsequent installments and that won’t change with Katamari Forever, a Namco Bandai representative told me. Takahashi is not involved. Katamari Forever’s team includes many folks that worked on Beautiful Katamari and Me & My Katamari.

On the bright side, Katamari Forever will feature the truly bizarre and adventurous music we’ve come to expect from the series. During one of the stages shown, the text noted that one of my favorite tracks, "You Are Smart," was playing, even though I couldn’t hear it. The nearby representative couldn’t confirm specific music selections yet, but I’m told the track list will largely be comprised of Katamari classics remixed.

This first look at Katamari Forever was hands-off, with someone controlling the action with a Sixaxis just inches away. I considered kicking over my drink to create a distraction and offer to "hold" the controller while someone cleaned up the mess, but as the idea came to me, the demo was over. Maybe next time…but that’s largely irrelevant. What is relevant is that for the first time in a while, I’m excited for another Katamari game.

‘Spyborgs’ Captivate Trailer: Slicker Look, Leaner Cast Of Heroes

Forgotten about Capcom’s co-op-focused Spyborgs? Revealed to have a slicker look (shying away from the original Saturday morning cartoon feel) and trimming down a hero roster to 3 from the original 5, Capcom is looking to shift the core-gameplay towards a "core" audience. Looking great and… yes… THIS is a Wii game and for those looking for a pure, arcade brawler focusing on co-op… flag this one for further review.

Spyborgs Debut Trailer 

Guitar Hero World Tour May DLC lineup detailed

A recent Activision presser revealed Guitar Hero World Tour’s downloadable offerings for next month, and boy, is it one eclectic hodge-podge of on-rails music. One of the packs is free, too! We love free hodge-podges.

May 7: Ferret/Metal Blade Track Pack (Free!)

• “Dez Moines” - The Devil Wears Prada
• “On Broken Glass” - Chimaira
• “Grave of Opportunity” - Unearth

May 14: Pop Rock Track Pack (440 / $5.49)

• “So What” - Pink (160 / $2)
• “Stop and Stare” - OneRepublic (160 / $2)
• “Everything’s Magic” - Angels and Airwaves (160 / $2)

May 21: European Track Pack No. 5 (440 / $5.49)

• “Disconnected” - In Flames (160 / $2)
• “Oh Yeah!” - Housse de Racket (160 / $2)
• “Look Good In Leather” - Cody ChesnuTT (160 / $2)

Like always, these tunes can’t be downloaded in packs on the Wii — each song must be downloaded separately for 200 Wii Points (except for the free ones, which are, of course, free). We’ve got videos for the first three posted after the jump!

Continue reading Guitar Hero World Tour May DLC lineup detailed

Guitar Hero World Tour May DLC lineup detailed originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Joystiq hands-on: The Munchables

You could rename The Munchables as Eat Everything: The Game and actually have one of the more fittingly descriptive titles in gaming history. Much like another Namco character — Pac-Man — the star of this Wii-exclusive game is out to eat anything and everything in sight, even if there’s no real point.

Well, there is a backstory about a nefarious vegetable named Don Onion and his band of space pirates … yeah, you’re right, it’s best to just focus on the gameplay.

Continue reading Joystiq hands-on: The Munchables

Joystiq hands-on: The Munchables originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sega’s ‘Wacky World of Sports’ for Wii includes Extreme Ironing

Activision picked the wrong day to announce a Wii sports minigame collection, because Sega just outclassed it. Compare the list of sports in Activision’s Big League Sports: Summer with Sega’s new Wacky World of Sports:

Big League Sports: tennis, beach volleyball, golf, soccer, baseball and football.
Wacky World of Sports: furniture racing, card boxing, log cutting, Fierljeppen, mud sliding, tuna tossing, cheese rolling, extreme ironing, and two more.

One of the characters is also some kind of Naruto parody, but we don’t know whether to mark that as a plus or minus. Wacky World of Sports will be out in the regular world in “late 2009.”

Continue reading Sega’s ‘Wacky World of Sports’ for Wii includes Extreme Ironing

Sega’s ‘Wacky World of Sports’ for Wii includes Extreme Ironing originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Critical Reception: Nintendo/Monster Games’ Excitebots: Trick Racing

This week’s edition of Critical Reception examines online reaction to Monster Games’ Excite Truck sequel Excitebots: Trick Racing for Wii, which reviews describe as “an engaging, exciting blast.” Excitebots currently earns a score of 80 out of 100 at Metacritic.com. IGN’s Matt Casamassina rates Excitebots at 8.4 out of 10. “It’s been nearly three years since Nintendo released the Monster Games-developed Excite Truck for Wii and in so doing surprised racing fans with a compelling, …

OTX: MadWorld Demonstrates Tenuous Link Between Web Hype And Sales

There has been a great deal of speculation about the underwhelming retail performance of PlatinumGames’ MadWorld, but now research firm OTX’s business intelligence tool GamePlan Insights shows detailed data illustrating the often-thin correlation between online acclaim and real-world retail success, particularly on the Wii platform. As demonstrated by OTX Gaming Insights director Nick Williams at the Los Angeles Game Conference, with slides made available to Gamasutra, the game’s strong awareness among the hardcore online gaming …

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