Here’s the complete summary of highlights from IGN’s latest Wii-k in Review:

  • Super Smash Bros Brawl – My Music. Can customize soundtrack on each stage – plenty of songs from all franchises. Insane list of composers. Matt expects the hype to continue to grow and Nintendo to just blow the game out, especially since this will very likely be the only Smash Bros. on Wii.
  • Bozon doesn’t expect Brawl to have 4 player online, but all three do expect online play to be in the game. Might struggle due to 60fps and so much going on – if anything, there could be 2 player onine at 60fps. Matt doesn’t believe the game will ship without online.
  • Brawl vs Halo 3 sales: Melee nearly kept on the original Halo’s sales. Wii install base has already passed 360 and Brawl looks epic. Fran expects Halo 3 to convinvingly beat Brawl in USA (Matt expects it to be a lot closer than expected), but worldwide Smash Bros. should come out on top due to Halo’s severe under-performance in Japan.
  • Worms: Space Oddity – set in space environments. Modified physics to suit environment. Using IR, but some weapons also feature gesture control (eg: point grenade, then use motion to throw it). Worried this might hurt the game like overuse of stylus did hurt the first one on DS. Has online – 4 player. Also has WiiConnect24 for downloadable items.
  • Mario Kart Wii – It looks pretty good, but seems to feature a lot of DS stuff. “Speculation” about 16 players online.
  • Fran believes there’s too much worthless scanning information in Metroid Prime 3. Doesn’t like the first area of the game, but really likes the controls. Matt replies by saying the game is a lot better and different after the first area.
  • Trauma Centre: New Blood – have first footage today. Features co-op – some operations designed for co-op (eg: have to perform actions at same time). Good stuff.
  • Rockstar has delayed Manhunt 2 coverage by a few days – should be able to provide coverage later next week.
  • Super Mario Galaxy – Gravity is a major component to the game. Planets have different gravity levels and this will play into the puzzles. Hopefully this is taken far since the physics based puzzles are awesome. Fire Mario is back. There’s a haunted house level, water levels, etc. Should have some big levels rivalling the size of 64 and Sunshine. Hope Galaxy will have higher levels with greater falls. Excited because Galaxy seems to have a lot of the sunshine platforming levels.
  • Battalion Wars 2 – can use naval forces as well – subs, ships, etc. Subs hard to target, ships move slowly. Adds lots of strategy. 3 multiplayer options. Great style but apparently the controls have come together (a lot better since the early controls of last year’s version).
  • Should have some Zack and Wiki coverage next week – will be able to show the game in motion.
  • TGS – Nintendo is not going to be there but 3rd party Wii titles will. Tecmo showing a few things, SEGA, Square, Capcom, etc as well along with other parties.
  • Nintendo keeps alluding to a seperate event sometime down the line. Still wondering what Reggie meant by the WiiConnect24 September surprise.
  • Nintendo still hasn’t got back to Matt about his editorial on the lack of a headset for Wii, but should be up next week. Will also sometime write upon about the lack of a hard drive.
  • A “dark” Wii game that is kind of “spooky” (and has a resemblance to a previous game that Matt won’t divulge in) will be announced soon since the game recently got a publisher.
  • New Smash Bros. boxart – Matt believes it doesn’t mean anything – probably just a placeholder. Not completely official and Nintendo claims they have not released any boxart.
  • Matt believes Metroid Prime 3 will still sell well despite Nintendo’s efforts to ensure the opposite. However, from their experience, they don’t think it will reach as many people as it could have. Not enough people know about it.
  • Nintendo games are the best selling games on VC. Stuff like Street Fighter is still doing decently well.
  • Matt would be surprised if we got an RE4-type Wii game. Capcom are busy with RE5, and are really into graphics which the Wii cannot provide for them. Very much doubt they would bother downgrading RE5 – it’s working on a new engine and would take far too much effort.
  • Believe that devs are starting to take Wii seriously. “Dark game” is targeted towards Wii and could turn a few heads. Zack and Wiki looks awesome. Even Medal of Honour 2 is promising and takes advantage of Wii in many ways. Plus more impressive games on the way.
  • Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 – because RRR was a launch game, this would have helped its sales. RRR2 is funnier, controls seems about on par, seems a bit like a “pack update” rather than a huge improvement. Going to be more depth to the shooting mode. Matt thinks it will still sell pretty well but probably not as well as the first.
  • Nintendo will probably focus on Japanese-developed VC games for little while longer, but US publishers will likely start putting VC games up soon enough.
  • Matt called Julian Eggebrecht today. They would love to work on Wii and if the opportunity would arise they would do it in a heartbeat (maybe Pilotwings?). Willing to make a new Rogue Squadron game. Could maybe update the Rogue Squadron games from Gamecube, or preferably make a new Rogue Squadron game.
  • Matt not a fan of split-screen gaming for FPS, so not disappointed that games like MOH: Heroes 2 doesn’t have split-screen even though many others are.
  • Konami – don’t really know what is going on with the Castlevania franchise on Wii. Apparently something in the works for PS3 and 360 but probably not Wii. There were rumours of Metal Gear on Wii but not anymore.
  • There will be certain developers that prefer to work on PS3/360, especially those who love content, storylines, atmosphere, etc, and thus they won’t want to work on Wii since it cannot fully express their ideas. In contrast, there will also be developers that prefer to work on Wii, especially small companies such as Atlas with Trauma Centre. Hoping that companies will start to put A teams on Wii – confident they will, especially with good sales of stuff like Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition.
  • Matt thinks the best 3rd party game right now for Wii is Zack and Wiki. Believes Factor 5 would be the most promising developer to work on Wii that currently isn’t.
  • Worried about Zack and Wiki’s sales. The name isn’t good and may hurt sales, and though the style is awesome, it may be perceived as “kiddy”. Capcom have an uphill battle, and retailers aren’t giving Capcom an easy time about it.

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