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I happened to pre-order from GAME, and the pre-order arrived at my door in a shiny red Royal Mail van this afternoon, so I have been able to play it before it's technically released in the UK!

And what a game it is! The new tracks are pretty much all simply amazing, with some real classics dotted throughout the cups, and the retro tracks look really good too - especially with the graphical upgrades for the DS and GBA ones which really work well! Everything looks crisp and tasty and the game plays really smoothly with a great frame rate.

The real decider is the "Wii Wheel" - it comes free with the game and your Wiimote simply slots into it. It is very sturdy and feels good in your hands, although does take a little getting used to. According to my stats, I've used the Wheel 53% of the time, with the other 47% being used by the old GameCube controller, which does seem to feel more 'natural.' That aside, the Wheel is very good, much better than I expected.

Moving to online,  the modes supported are wide and varied, and they take up to 12 players on one race. There isn't much waiting in-between races and if you have to wait to join a race then you can watch the progress live. Track choices are made through voting and there is absoultely NO LAG AT ALL. Which is awesome, especialy in a 12-player karting melee! Battle mode is also online, although has been ruined; the only bad point of the game.

This game is amazing. Buy it tomorrow morning ASAP!

9/10 

The BBC have today announced that the iPlayer will become compatible with the Internet Channel on the Nintendo Wii.  An early test version of the Wii compatible iPlayer is available from today, with a final version expected later this year.  Once the service is ready, Nintendo will message send out a message out to Wiis notifying them that the iPlayer service is ready.  The iPlayer will only be available to UK Wii owners, and will require Wii owners to have brought the Internet Channel. 

By making the iPlayer compatible with the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo are allowing people to catch on the TV they've missed throughout the week on their television as opposed to a computer, which is great news.  Even better news is that the BBC have said that they are looking at ways to make the iPlayer service a totally free on Wii, i.e. removing the requirement for the Internet Channel, so us Brits may soon be getting a new Wii Channel.

Atlus have today announced a new Trauma Centre game for the Nintendo DS - Trauma Centre: Under The Knife 2.  The game is a direct sequel to the original game, dealing with the aftermath of the GUILT virus.

From the official press release

"GUILT is no more. Dr. Derek Stiles and Nurse Angie Thompson faced humanity's greatest threat and triumphed. Now, in the aftermath, they find themselves in unknown territory, forced to deal with the disastrous consequences of the killer virus. Join them as they scramble to address questions left unanswered and put an end to the mystery behind the disease."

For those of you who found the original game too difficult, the second version includes a new "Easy Play" mode with clearer directions and improved tools, which should make the game more accessible.  For those of you who found the original too easy, the game also includes some harder modes, and new operations to get your heart racing (but hopefully not the patient's...)

The Game is scheduled for release in the Americas on 1st July, with a European date yet to be set.

For more information on the game, including a video trailer, visit the game's official website at http://www.atlus.com/tcutk2/.

Before I go on, I'll make it clear but this article should be placed purely in the RUMOUR category.

Currently, the general consensus is that Brawl is going to be coming out in the Summer or Autumn this year.  N-Revolution magazine however disagrees, and has given the game a release date of 30th May.  Even more reassuring for the optimists out there, the magazine lists that date not once, but TWICE!  The same magazine also gives "Pilot Wings Wii" and "Disaster: Day of Crisis" release dates of the 27th June.

My take is that N-Revolution likely does have information on these game's release dates but are under embargo from Nintendo, meaning that they're not supposed to publish this information.  For this reason, I suspect that these dates could well be the dates Nintendo is targeting to get these games out but, since no official announcements have been made, it is very easy for Nintendo to move these dates about.

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Recent reports on ONM's website have told us that Sonic is storming back onto our Wii's after last year's pretty successful (yet shockingly named) "Sonic And The Secret Rings." According to Sega, Sonic is going back to his 2D roots. Of course, we're not going totally back to the 16-Bit era with this game as it blends sweet 3D graphics and gameplay with the side-scrolling platforms. The trailer looks pretty sweet and ONM are promising an exclusive playtest so, for a change, this Sonic game may be something to look out for!

Scott

WiiWare, Its out In Japan folks, celebration? Only if you live in Japan. Anyway a huge bonus to Wii Ware is that It supports Wi-Fi, but one game is different to all the rest - Final Fantasy. It seems to support Nintendo's brilliant Idea of *shudders* Pay to Play, however there is no downloadable content available yet for the game so we'll have to wait and see.

So without further ado, here is the list of games available to lucky Japanese Wii owners at launch:

• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King (1500 Wii Points) - WiFi
• Lonpos (1000 Wii Points)
• Okiraku Ping Pong (500 Wii Points)
• Kotoba no Puzzle Mojipittan (1000 Wii Points)
• Dr. Mario (1000 Wii Points) - WiFi
• Saku Saku Animal Panic (1000 Wii Points)
• Star Solider R (800 Wii Points)
• Tenshi Solitaire (500 Wii Points)
• Pokémon Ranch (1000 Wii Points) - WI-Fi

Cobros

Nintendo have today released a new video trailer for Mario Kart Wii.

The first half of the video doesn’t tell us much more than we already know, however the more interesting stuff comes in the second half of the video, which concentrates on the online capabilities of Mario Kart Wii which all we knew about until today was that they existed, and upto 12 players could race at once.  Anything beyond that was just an educated guess.

Racing online has the three of the four WiFi options from the DS version - Worldwide, Continental and Friends, and what they do should be obvious from their names.  When racing Worldwide (and presumably Continental), as players are selected, their Mii's appear over in the appropriate location on the globe.  Even better, the video only takes 5 seconds to find all 12 players, just a little bit quicker than the minutes to find 4 players on the DS version.

Are you feeling spoilt yet?  If so, you're going to feel even more spoilt as the video also showed off the Mario Kart Channel.

There are four options here - Friends, Ghost Data, Rankings and Competitions.  Ghost Data has two further sub options - Ghost Race and Downloaded Ghost Data List.  The Ghost Race option appears to download a random piece of ghost data over WiFi which you then challenge.  I'd assume that this is not truly random but instead picks a ghost data that you have a reasonable chance of beating - no chances of a new player getting the best time set worldwide on Rainbow Road.

The Rankings is also divided into two further options - Time Trial and Competitions. Time Trial displays the top ranking players Mii's on a globe not dissimilar to that of the Weather Channel.  These can be shown for your continent, or worldwide. The Competitions
We saw the Competition Rankings option in the video however it's contents were not shown.  The application of even the tiniest amount of thought would say that the Competition Rankings are related to the Competitions option on the Mario Kart Channel but that leads on to the question of what the Competitions section is

Whilst it should be very easy to determine what exactly competitions are from the name, the real question is how Nintendo will implement it.  Will these be competitions set up by Nintendo from time to time and only happen once in a blue moon, or will gamers be able to set up their own competitions?  Unfortunately, I suspect that the true situation will be the former given Nintendo's conservative attitude towards WiFi but I do hope that Nintendo do go that extra step

What do you think competitions are going to be then?  Head over to our forums and discuss the issue at http://wiirate.co.uk/forums/t/327.aspx.

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Want to play Mario Kart Wii a week early. If so, GAME are running Mario Kart Wii tournaments throughout 30 of its stores on Saturday 5th April - a week before the game's release. The tournament requires 4 competitors to get the fastest lap in an unnamed course, and these times will then be entered onto a leader board. The fastest time from each store and two winners from an Official Nintendo Magazine competition will win a £250 voucher and an all expenses-paid trip to Mercedes Word on Saturday 12th April to compete for the ultimate prize - a Mario themed VW Beetle.

For those of you who don't get a top time, not only do you get the chance to play the game before its release, but you will also get a certificate with your lap time on, and you'll be entered into a prize draw for a £50 GAME voucher.

So now the all important question, is this being run at my local Game store?  You'll be able to participate in this event at the following GAME stores, in alphabetical order.

Basingstoke
Blackburn
Bournemouth
Braehead
Cardiff
Cheltenham
Cribbs Causeway
Dundee
Edinburgh
Gateshead
Glasgow
Hanley
Kingston-Upon-Thames
Leeds
London, Hamleys
London, Oxford Street
Luton
Manchester
Merryhill
Milton Keynes
Newcastle, Fenwicks
Nottingham
Portsmouth
Reading
Romford
Stevenage
Taunton
Thurrock
Trafford
Wigan

Luckily for me, my local store is included, and I know exactly where it is but, if you have worked out which one is your nearest store but still don't know exactly where it is, further details about each store (including addresses), can be found at http://www.game.co.uk/lowdown.aspx?lid=8889.

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Well we were all excited to see our blue lights this morning as Nintendo (finally) decides to give us a update for our white boxes of glory. But when we seen the message, well it wasn't what we wanted to be honest. "There is a new Wii Menu update" great, but only a few lines down we discover it's not that good. If a new update is contained on a disk, a update icon will appear. That's all Nintendo have said, but according to CVG some background work is in the update, improving reliability and performance. Yes it's nice to see you are doing something, but come on Nintendo get a proper update out.

Nintendo have today announced that the Commodore 64 games will soon be coming to the Wii's Virtual Console, and in a twist to the norm, it appears that Europe will be the first (and possibly only) region to get these games.  The best part is the cost - at only 500 points (~£3.75) they're a bargain (although many titles were originally cheaper that this).  With access to a bank of over 4,000 games, we can hope the rate of new games added to the Virtual Console game bank will increase from the pitiful 1 or 2 a week we've been used to recently.

Stay tuned to OWN for updates on when the first Commodore 64 games (and other Virtual Console titles) are released.

(The Commodore 64 was released in Europe in early 1983 as a Home Computer, however quickly gained a reputation as a Home Entertainment system. Even to this day, the Commodore 64 is the best selling personal computer of all time, having sold over 30 million units.)

Today was a great day in the Nintendo universe, 2 big games dated. The first is Wii Fit, we all know this, little white board? Invisible hoop? Look like a idiot? That's the one, it's been out in Japan for a while now. But the big announcement is Mario Kart Wii, not only was it dated but we have a load of info and screenshots from the kind folk at Nintendo. As a celebration they went mad and released.... 178 screenies, yes 178 screenshots, more commonly known as A LOT. There has been a flood of information as well but the main points are that there will be a channel to accompany the game. As for new characters, from the screenshots I can see Baby Peach in a Buggy Kart, and on the mini map, a Koopa head, but I cannot see if this is a Parakoopa or not. Probably the thing that will please the most members is the Mii usage -you can use your Miis as online avatars and they also pop up as spectators. But the big one: you can play as your Miis.

I cannot really fit all of this info in so I suggest you follow the link, check the Info and look at all 178 of those screenies. Enjoy. http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/article.php?id=3422.