The first trailer is a developer diary discussing the “Re-imagining” of GoldenEye 007 and the second trailer is an edited version of Blood Stone’s Istanbul trailer.

Just like the previous U-Sing game, Girls Night is a SingStar-like title designed for young female gamers. However, this time round, the focus is on the top female artists and bands. There’s Blondie, bands from the 90s such as The Cardigans and more recent hits from younger artists like Katy Perry and Lady GaGa. All up there’s 30 songs on the disc, and many more to download with the assistance of the Wi-Fi Connection and a couple of Nintendo points cards. The only real issue with the tracklist is that it mainly consists of hits from the 00s, but then again this is forgivable when it is considered that newer songs would appeal more to young Wii owners.

Blondie soon found out she was losing her mind.

In comparison to the SingStar titles, and even the previous U-Sing title, U’ve got talent, there really isn’t much on offer within Girls Night. There’s a single player, two player and jukebox mode. The single player is very straight forward. Players select a short or long version of the song they wish to play and then choose one of the three difficulties to play the song on. Then they play it. The only real drive the game gives players to continue playing this mode is to try and enhance their singing skills or to beat past scores they’ve set on certain songs. To be honest though, the more causal players will probably use this game like a music album rather than a video game, meaning it could potentially have a longer lifespan than other Wii games if it’s in the right home.

Although there only is a small amount of content within Girls Night, just about all of it has been copied from SingStar. There really is no stopping U-Sing. In-game or in general, Girls Night pretty much takes every single ‘good’ aspect of the SingStar series and claims it as its own. The menu layout, the way songs and artists are displayed in the track selection area, and most obviously the little bars that track players’ vocals and how well they are singing. It’s all there, and once again, it has all pretty much been ripped from SingStar. Unlike SingStar though, U-Sing Girls Night hasn’t entirely nailed the karaoke genre. In particular, the quality of the supplied microphones does not seem to rival the build of the Sony’s ones, and then there’s all those minor errors due to the lack of polish, making U-Sing fall short of becoming the best karaoke game on the market.

Visually U-Sing isn’t much. For most of it, it’s just like watching a really bad line up of songs on an early morning session of Rage. The Wii’s lack of HD means the majority of videos won’t look as good as they could, but a lot resemble their original and (in the case of the 90s tracks) gritty-looking television counterparts – though some of the more recent songs in the game do look much better. Sound wise, the musical backings are fine, but rarely will players be able to hear themselves through their television or sound system speakers, and if they do, it’ll usually just be a few muffled sounds.

In a nutshell, U-Sing Girls Night is the Nintendo Wii equivalent of SingStar, just nowhere near as polished. Although the title features 30 #1 female artist songs, it falls short of Sony’s long-running karaoke series due to its limited single player mode and few online options. Even if MindScape just threw in a couple of online leader boards, it would have drastically extended the life of this title regardless of its obvious flaws when compared to SingStar. A great alternative for lovers of karaoke would be to go out and buy a PS2 with two official microphones for roughly $100.00 and about 5 or so SingStar games for $20.00 – $30.00 each. And seriously, if you really are interested in checking out this type of game then you probably should consider the PS2 and SingStar option that was just suggested as U-Sing Girls Night with two microphones retails at $119.95.

Graphics: C+

Decent enough, but they really could’ve been better. The only positive thing in this department is that the Wii’s lack of HD means that the majority of older videos have a true old and gritty feeling to them.

Sound: C

Possibly the most vital aspect of this type of game. And it really only just succeeds in most areas. The in-game sound is good enough, the quality of the mics is passable and the game’s tracklist is a matter of opinion.

Gameplay: C

Like the rest of this title, the gameplay is also good enough. The few features it has are all pretty much copied from SingStar, but have much less love put into them. The lack of online leaderboards doesn’t help either.

Overall: C

If you already own a PS2 and a few SingStar games then stick with that. If you haven’t tried a game like U-Sing Girls Night out before, then maybe consider purchasing a PS2 and a copy of SingStar. If Wii is all you’ve got, then U-Sing Girls Night will probably satisfy your sudden need for a karaoke game.

Create will be powered by players’ imaginations and reward those who are able to construct outstandingly creative creations.

VP and General Manager of EA Bright Light, Harvey Elliot said Create will be fun and challenging for families.

“We wanted to design a game where the entire family can explore, decorate, and solve challenges where no solution is wrong and the only limit is the imagination.”

The more Create is played, the more rewarding the experience will be for the player. Those who take time to explore the game, solve all the level-based challenges and customise the in-game worlds will unlock many rewards and master the already easy-to-use control system even quicker.

The PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC and MAC version of the game will also allow players to share their creations, solutions and challenges with the Create community. On top of this, players who own these particular versions of the game will also be able to download and remix solutions or set new challenges for their friends.

Electronic Art’s Create will be released November, 2010.

The loss of money is attributed to poor performing DS sales with DS hardware sales down 44.7% year on year to 3.15 million, while DS software sales dropped 22.9% to 22.42 million. Wii hardware sales were up 36.6% reaching 3.04 million, however Wii software sales fell 9.3% to 28.17 million.

The biggest selling games were the period are as follows:

Super Mario Galaxy 2 – 4 million

Wii Sports Resort – 3 million

Wii Sports – 2.7 million

Wii Fit Plus – 1.8 million

Pokemon Heartgold/Soulsilver – 1.7 million

New Super Mario Bros. Wii – 1.1 million

Nintendo also announced today that they will be revealing the release period and price point for the Nintendo 3DS on September 29.

This single man also found out that PokéPark Wii: Pikachu’s Adventure was due out the very same month as the two games above, and that Dragon Quest IX was expected to wash up on Australian shores a bit earlier than these three other titles. What a man!

So here is the system and release date of each game:

Dragon Quest IX – DS, August 19
PokéPark Wii: Pikachu’s Adventure – Wii, September 9
Art Academy – DS, September 23
Metroid: Other M – Wii, September 30

Welcome to the very first TNB podcast! The crew and I have decided to make this particular podcast an E3 2010 special and then from here onwards we will record a more regular Nintendo podcast on a monthly basis for the site.

In case you don’t already know, I’m Liam (kksl1der) and the other guys with me in this E3 2010 podcast are Ben (BB2K), Michael (punkgorilla) and Oliver (TwistedConspiracy).

There are two ways to listen to this podcast. First you can simply left click on the link below and the podcast will play from your browser, or you can right click on the link below and save-as, to download the podcast and then listen to it in your media player or on your iPod or MP3 player.

Click here to listen to TNB Podcast – E3 2010 Special

And if you just want to hear our opinions about the juicy bits of Nintendo’s press conference at this year’s E3 then check out our podcast schedule and fastforward our podcast to a section of your choice:

0.00.00 – Intro – Overworld theme (Super Mario Bros. 3)
0.02.00 – Nintendo’s E3 press conference
0.16.09 – 3DS discussion
0.23.38 – Music – Dragon Roost Island (Zelda Reorchestrated)
0.26.07 – Nintendo’s announcements after the press conference
0.32.50 – Music – Planet Tallon IV (Metroid Prime OST)
0.37.01 – Microsoft’s and Sony’s E3 press conferences and elephants
0.43.05 – Miscellaneous E3 announcements and news
0.57.47 – Site news and what we’ve been playing
1.12.20 – Wrap up and outro – Underground theme (Super Mario Bros 3)

Special thanks to oodark for creating a cool TNB podcast banner for us.

This completely fresh start is everything Red Steel 2 needed and everything that the few fans of the original Red Steel could have wanted. The game combines the eastern-samurai culture with the western-cowboy culture to create something that most will either consider as ‘plain wrong’ or ‘highly awesome’. However, the most notable change and probably the best thing about this game is that Ubisoft Paris has fixed up the majority of problems which were continuously encountered throughout the original game. You can’t exactly play out any epic battles like you see in all of those cool samurai flicks, but Red Steel 2 comes pretty close. The sword fighting system gives players the option of an automatic or manual lock on, a tough or easy swing requirement and a punishing or forgiving accuracy system. These options not only make the game more accessible to newcomers, but also give experienced players more of a challenge. Thanks to all of these options, the sword fights in Red Steel 2 are now actually fun. So if you hadn’t figured it out yet, sword fighting is the main ingredient of Red Steel 2. Basically, everything in the game revolves around a mysterious hero and his shiny katana. Actually, come to think of it, the hero’s katana is so important in this game that the majority of unlocks are new katana-related techniques, the fights force you to attack and defend with a katana (how predictable), and most of the environmental objects within the game usually require a good slashing from… you guessed it, your katana.

Winguardian Laviosa!

So you’re all probably dying to know just how much the combat system has improved since the original game. Well, considering you can now whip out your katana at any time, it is splendid. The Wii MotionPlus really helps things as well. Even though the sword fighting system is still on-the-rails, players’ movements are now more likely to be detected in the correct way. So the majority of the time even technical movements will be detected onscreen correctly. No more blaming the controls if you suck. So with all that said, the sword fighting system is pretty-much spot on, but how is the gun play? It’s just as spectacular. The Wii MotionPlus makes fire fights considerably easier. Players are able to effortlessly aim and shoot at enemies with a handful of different guns. And when I say handful I mean it literally, because sadly there aren’t very many guns in Red Steel 2 at all. However, the few that are in there have all been beautifully crafted and are great fun to play around with. There’s the standard magnum, the double barrel shotty and also the Tommy gun. Each of these guns feel great to use and all of them fit right into the wild west and eastern samurai theme. Yes, even the Tommy gun. To help round off all of the fabulous firepower in Red Steel 2, Ubisoft Paris has decided to include upgrades for the guns as well. So players can improve the accuracy, reload time and fire power of each of these weapons as you progress through the game – provided you have enough money. And really, that shouldn’t be much of an issue, because in this game money is everywhere. And I mean everywhere! Walk around a corner, you’ll see money, kill an enemy, they’ll drop money, slash some trash, you’ll find money. It’s everywhere. It makes destroying crates, barrels, vending machines and lockers totally worthwhile. And just scavenging around for money will no doubt become one of your major pastime activities in Red Steel 2.

And when I'm finished with you, I'm going to use this sword to heat up my burrito.

As wicked as the sword and gun play is, the story seems to have been left behind. Even the most enthusiastic Wii players won’t really give a hoot about why the main character is going around killing a tonne of western-samurai rebels. The reason is that this kind of story is so overused nowadays, and unless it is done really well, or slightly differently, nobody is likely to care. You take the role of the stereotypical lone wolf protagonist who’s been banished from his city, which then promptly becomes overrun by rebels in his absence, and now requires his particular ass kicking skills to put things right. Sure, there are a few interesting scenes in there, but the main support characters suck, and in general the voice acting is quite bad for today’s standards. The good thing about the story though is that it is supported by some stunning cutscenes. In general though, Red Steel 2 is sporting some of the best visuals ever seen on the Wii. The original featured some pretty stock-standard graphics, but this one has gone for a cel-shaded style, and boy does it look good. Not only does it suit the Wii’s style, but it also maxes out the Wii. And what’s even better (yes, there’s more) is that there is no slowdown, or drop in frame rate, during even the most intense fights. The sun’s rays shine off your katana, enemies’ armour shimmers in the distance, and the dusty western environment has been perfectly recreated – all in this beautiful cel-shaded style. What does suck, though, is the door loading scenes. Ubisoft Paris has attempted to hide the loading with these door scenes, but it just seems to have made them even more noticeable because it forces the player to stare at a door at close range for up to 10 seconds while it “opens” a new area. You can’t even watch tumbleweeds roll by. Speaking of tumbleweeds though, the sound effects in Red Steel 2 are pretty good. The tumble weed sound in particular is very accurate (or was that real life…). Overlooking character voices, the sound effects for sword fights, the guns and the west in general are great. The music is also very appropriate from start to finish, and provides a nice fusion of eastern and western tunes.

Besides the story though, the other rather big problem with Red Steel 2 is that the game’s objectives don’t really develop, they just seem to become harder, and also a bit mindless over time. Player’s will regularly receive missions from their friends (who never seem to do any work themselves, the bastards) to go and clean up a particular section of the city. Often all this ever involves is slashing a few guys then turning on a few mechanical devices. Sure, in between you can have fun shooting and stabbing guys in different ways, but if you aren’t feeling very creative then you can just simply swish your Wii Remote left and right at enemies until the cows come home, and continue to progress nonetheless. It not only makes many sections of the game repetitive, but also many upcoming events very predictable. That is, it invariably follows the general structure of finding new bad guys in some part of the city who need a good killing, pressing a few buttons to activate some machine and then returning home. Repeat 500 times over until all the side missions and main game is complete.

He had only one weakness - no eye holes.

Despite the very average storyline and dull mission objectives, Red Steel 2 is still one of the best third party titles on the Wii. With the assistance of Wii MotionPlus, Ubisoft Paris has managed create an engaging sword and gun play experience that is arguably taking interactivity within video games to a whole new level. Any Wii owners who have been hungry for a true ‘core’ experience need not wait any longer. Red Steel 2 is the game that will satisfy your grumbling tummies. However, before all of you Nintendo fanboys get on your high horses and start gloating about how this new age first-person game is exclusive to Wii, one more issue needs to be addressed. If you were to place Red Steel 2 in amongst other consoles’ first-person offerings, sadly, Red Steel 2 wouldn’t be a standout. It would most-likely just be considered as an ‘average’ first person game.

So in summary, Red Steel 2 will definitely impress any Wii fanboy, but I sincerely doubt those who play first-person games on other consoles or even PCs will consider it a stand out title within the first person genre. The true fact is that Red Steel 2 is a stand out title on the Wii because Wii owners are so deprived of first person games.

By Liam Doolan

Graphics: A

It’s official – Ubisoft Paris has released one of the best looking games on the Wii so far.

Sound: C+

The tumble weed and katana clashing sounds are great, but the voice acting is very irritating and quite amateur at times.

Gameplay: B

Solid, average and repetitive mainly.

Overall: B+

Red Steel 2 is a ‘good’ game overall. The storyline is bland, the missions are rather repetitive, but it is a standout title on the Wii because it has stunning graphics, true core game play, intelligent controls and is one of the few playable first person games on the Wii.

Dead or Alive

Super Street Fighter IV

Ridge Racer 3DS

Samurai Warriors 3D

Paper Mario

PilotWings Resort

Mario Kart

nintendogs & cats

Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracle

Resident Evil Revelations

Kingdom Hearts

StarFox 64 3D

All the important gameplay and story information about Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater is pretty much already available thanks to its release on PS2, but the exact specifics about 3DS features are still unknown at this point in time. 

For more shots of this impressive looking 3DS title, head over to the game’s official website.

Originally, Nintendo planned on revealing the remake at a later date, but when a staff member from 1up uncovered images of the game on Nintendo’s E3 server, Nintendo quickly decided to announce the game themselves via their American Twitter account.

Judging by the screenshots, the remake is currently looking to be a pretty solid port of the original game with a visual overhaul.