- When asked what they liked to do the most, the eight teens, which was split 50/50 when it came to gender, and aged between 14-17, all answered that they like to hang with friends. They all enjoyed gaming, but it wasn’t a priority, so they weren’t hardcore gamers to say the least.

- Every single one of them had access to a Wii. Either they owned one or had a family member that has one. All the girl games, plus one guy owned theirs. Of the remaining dudes, two of them had a Xbox 360 as their main console, while the last one mostly payed games on his laptop. Three of the girls also had 360s at home, though it was not specified if it was theirs or a family members. No one had a PS3.
Read More »

I started a new feature last week with the Force Unleashed. We’re on the release date of a big Nintendo Wii title, I will post the review scores of that game. This week is de Blob’s turn. I will try to continue to update the review scores as more come in.

Just wanted to update my list of de Blob Review scores. Do not forget to check out purenintendo’s review below.

IGN- 8.4/10

Game Informer- 7.75/10

Nintendo Power- 8/10

Nintendo World Report- 9/10

GamePlayers- 10/10

Game Informer- 7.75/10

1 up- B

GameSpy- 4/5

Euro Gamer- 8/10

Happy birthday Nintendo! Some of you are reading this and are wondering; 119? Wow, how is Nintendo that old. Well my young padawans, the answer can be found for you below. Enjoy reading about the long history of Nintendo after the Jump. How about three mighty big cheers for our favorite company!

Read More »

Wii

de Blob - 92%
Order Up! - 80%
Ferrari Challenge: Trofeo Pirelli - 83&
Samba de Amigo - 71%
Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon - 84%
Rock Band - 60% (the review team love the game on Xbox 360, but feel its too neutered on Wii to be worth getting if you have a 360 or PS3)
Madden NFL 09 All-Play - 87%
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 All-Play - 85%
Twin Strike: Operation Thunder - 74% (good, clean budget fun)

Wii Virtual Console

Super Mario RPG - 95%
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels - 88%
Chase HQ - 68%
Dig Dug - 62%

WiiWare

MaBoshi: The Three Shape Arcade - 85%
My Aquarium - 21%

DS

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood - 93%
Spore Creatures - 66%
Jewel Quest: Cradle of Rome - 81%
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials & Tribulations - 85%
Zubo - 84%
Lego Batman - 80%
Dungeon Maker - 70%
Spongebob SquarePants: Drawn to Life - 51%
Pipemania - 82%
Gauntlet - 53%

Link

Wario Land: Shake It!

Pro:
- well-designed levels
- fun moves (especially motion controlled actions)
- side puzzles/bonus missions provide extra difficulty
- animation is great
- good bosses

Con:
- slow-paced
- few enemies can do much damage to you until late in the game
- most of the challenge is in the bosses
- clunky menu navigation
- mediocre music

Samba de Amigo

Pro:
- controls work extremely well; two remotes benefit from rumble

Con:
- may take a few songs to get used to the new pointing mechanics for series vets

Sonic Chronicles

Pro:
- interesting environmental puzzles
- EBA-type stylus moves provide a lot of excitement in battles
- witty dialog
- characters were fun
- team attacks make combos of characters interesting
- benched players level up
- decent character customization

Con:
- EBA-type stylus stuff gets tedious in minor battles; regular attacks don’t do any damage to many enemies
- may annoy you, but won’t bore you
- 15-20 hours

Link

Hey everyone!  New poll coming your way tonight–this time about today’s release of GTA: Chinatown Wars screens from Nintendo Power.  I’ll be honest, I was wanting a full 3D game…but I have to admit it still looks like a lot of fun.  The gameplay looks to stay true to most GTA games, and the new touch screen functions like carjacking look pretty good!  

Add the fact that Nintendo Wifi is planned and we have a pretty awesome DS game!  Hopefully we’ll get some video of the game in action soon!

This is taken from tthis past issue of Nintendo Power:

“Although some of these games may slip beyond Christmas, as far as we know just now Wii gamers can look forward to the likes of Animal Crossing: City Folk, Guitar Hero: World Tour, Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels, Wii Music, WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2009, Sonic Unleashed, Shaun White Snowboarding, Call Of Duty 5, Tomb Raider Underworld, MySims Kingdom, Dead Rising, Skate It, Rayman Raving Rabbids 3 and maybe a few other surprises that some big developers may still have up their sleeve (wink, wink).”

Hmmm… Nintendo may have one or two conferences coming up Oct 2, and there also may be a little show called the Tokyo Games Show a week after that. Here’s hoping we get something out of that.

Link

Reviews
Wario Land: Shake It! (Wii) - 8.0
Spore Creatures (DS) - 8.0
Samba De Amigo (Wii) - 9.0
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood (DS) - 8.0
Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise (DS) - 7.0
Line Rider 2: Unbound (Wii) - 5.0
De Blob (Wii) - 8.0
Kirby Super Star Ultra (DS) - 9.0
Bleach: Dark Souls (DS) - 8.5
NHL 2K9 (Wii) - 7.0
SimCity Creator (Wii) - 6.0
Myster Case Files: Millionheir (DS) - 6.5
Time Hollow (DS) - 7.0
Lock’s Quest (DS) - 7.0
Line Rider 2: Unbound (DS) - 6.0
NBA Live 09 All-Play (Wii) - 4.0
Tornado (DS) - 6.0
The Legend of Kage 2 (DS) - 8.0
Drawn to Life: Spongebob Squarepants Edition (DS) - 7.0
Naruto: Path of the Ninja 2 (DS) - 6.5
Populous (DS) - 7.0
Unsolve Crimes (DS) - 4.5
Prey the Stars (DS) - 5.5
Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 2 (Wii) - 8.0
Exit DS (DS) - 7.5

Link

True GTA game - sandbox gameplay, open-world environment, gritty crime narrative.
- M-rating
- Isometric camera angle
- Cel-shaded polygons w/ black borders
- good touch-screen implementation - “tasteful” minigames, streamlining interface
- UI based on a PDA - hub for email, contacts, map, music player, GPS, stat-tracking
- stats uploaded to Rockstar Social Club website via Wi-Fi
- finger-sized icons
- missions designed for shorter periods of play, arcade quality
- aiming with control pad, auto targeting with R button
- subtle autosteer
- if you fail a mission, you can jump back to the action sequence
- chain gun, flamethrower
- good portion of Liberty City is modeled in the game (different routes than console games)
- no probems with load times, draw-in or frame rate
- lots of pedestrians, cars, etc on screen
- Wanted system - objective is to disable police cars any way possible
- real-time weather effects, 24-hour day/night cycle
- lots of radio stations to listen to (more instrumentals than vocals)
- 800,000 lines of hand-optimized source code (hey, the people like the info, right?)
- no details yet on multiplayer/Wi-Fi features

Link