A feature on Game music of the day: Snake Rattle n’ Roll (Wii) from Games Radar:

Fight through eleven levels of deadly feet, car tires, and sharks on a quest to get fat… with music based on the American Graffiti soundtrack? …

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A feature on Pokemon Monday – a Feebas for all! (Pokemon Battle Revolution) from Games Radar:

Welcome to Pokemon Monday, GamesRadar’s new podcast 100% devoted to all things Pokemon. This week we have a Miltank over the new cover legendaries and talk beauty with Milotic… …

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A feature on Unwanted conditions that games can cure (Wii) from Games Radar:

Insomnia! Obesity! Sneezing! Games can remedy them all. Just make sure you give yourself a really big dose. …

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A feature on Misleading game box art (Manhunt 2) from Games Radar:

You devious son of a bitch, box. You promised me woman, explosions, grizzly bears! And now I’m tediously flicking through menus in a glorified micro management sim. That’s right, some covers like to oversell the experience of their actual game. Screw giving potential players an accurate depiction of what the title’s about, there’s bi-quarterly sales figures to hit. …

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A feature on Game company names that could mean something else: Reader entries (Wii) from Games Radar:

A couple of weeks ago, I was in a quite silly mood, so I started thinking about game companies whose names might imply a very different kind of business altogether. You know, stuff like Infinity Ward building massive hospitals, and Platinum Games making really expensive Monopoly sets out of precious metals. Don’t judge me, it was a Friday afternoon. But anyway, I made a feature out of the idea. And you seemed to like it.

But one thing I love about you lot is that however silly we tend to be, you can usually go one better. So when I asked for your suggestions for more, I got a torrent of abstract comedy gold. So I’ve made some of them into entries for another feature. Which you have now already been reading for nearly two paragraphs. So click on, and read the rest. …

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A feature on Think you’re hardcore? Then there’s a good chance you’re not (Wii) from Games Radar:

So, ‘hardcore’ then. It’s been the battle cry of “proper” gamers ever since the Wii arrived. Hardcore gamers are the ones with the serious appreciation of the medium. The ones who aren’t swayed by flavour-of-the-month industry fads. The ones who seek out real, stimulating game design talent while the mainstream casuals are falling at the feet of whatever bland, babiez-packed toss they’re currently being told to like.

Except they’re not. A hell of a lot of those who label themselves hardcore gamers don’t do any of that at all. In fact they do exactly the opposite, on all counts. In fact a lot of ‘hardcore’ gamers have a less committed appreciation of the medium than the average Wii-owning soccer mom. And here’s why. …

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A feature on The Top 7… Historical figures defamed by games (Wii Fit) from Games Radar:

History’s filled with exciting people and events, which has made it something of a goldmine for videogame premises over the years. However, not a lot of people actually pay close attention to history – and even if they did, sketchy records and opinionated historians have large chunks of it fairly murky. That means games, like other forms of history-exploiting media, can get away with bending the truth, leaving out key details or just creating wildly fictionalized versions of factual events.

Sometimes, though, they take it a little too far, and portray real people as slavering, irredeemable monsters for the sake of entertainment. So let’s take a loot at a few of the most egregious examples and try to set the record straight… …

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Some Wii features from 1up:

After more than three years, The Sports Anomaly is going out in a blaze of glory.

Clocking in at more than three and a half hours, Todd Zuniga is joined by Greg Ford, Mike Suszek and Andrew Fitch as well as David Ellis, Chris Baker and Bryan “The Fragile Eagle” Intihar for interviews with Madden 11 developers Mike Young and Ian Cummings, Backbreaker demo impressions and a Star Wars draft.

Yankees legend Babe Ruth reportedly said, “If there was a podcasting Hall of Fame, the Sports Anomaly would go in on the first ballot, there’s no question about it.”
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Some Wii features from 1up:

EA Sports has gone ahead and renamed its NBA Live franchise, and now it’s unveiled its new Wii-exclusive hockey game, NHL Slapshot. Bearing the likeness of NHL legend Wayne Gretzky, Slapshot includes a miniature hockey stick peripheral that will hold both the Wii remote and nunchuk while you use the stick to emulate hockey movements like wrist shots, slap shots, and poke checks.

“I think we wanted to wait [to do a Wii hockey game] until we could get it right,” NHL Slapshot producer Joe Nickolls told Canoe.ca (via Joystiq) in an interview. “The Wii is kind of a challenging console because it’s so different from anything else.”

“The stick is the key differentiator,” added creative director David Littman. “Just the motions of the wrist shot and the slapshot and checking somebody, to be able to actually do those in your living room, it’s hockey in your living room as opposed to just playing with a controller.”
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Some Wii features from 1up:

Sony answered the wishes of many gamers when they re-released the two PlayStation 2 God of War games on PlayStation 3. It now looks like God of War might not be the only series of PS2 games to be given the HD treatment on PS3, if a survey question from Sony is any indication.

A reader sent the above image, from a Sony survey on God of War, to Kotaku. It asks for suggestions on any other games PS2 games that they’d like to see be “upgraded with similar features to God of War Collection.” The reader came up with a fine list of suggestions, including Metal Gear Solid, Grand Theft Auto, and Yakuza.

If Sony were to do another HD collection, it seems likely they’d go with first-party titles, but that still leaves open quite a few options, including Ratchet & Clank, Jak and Daxter, and Gran Turismo, not to mention Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, which are rumored to be coming in a collection early next year. Should Sony go with a third-party series, the number of choices for an HD collection would be hard to count. Whichever way they go, more HD collections seems like a good thing — especially for PS3 owners without a system that supports backwards compatibility.

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