This week's WiiWare release is a mini-game collection called "Family & Friends Party." As its name implies, it's meant for you to play with your family and friends. But for ten bucks, is this "Party" worth it? We tested it to find out. Read more...

Earlier this year, I complained about the lack of skin color choices for the Wii title "Carnival Games."

I was bothered that a casual, family-oriented game didn't include any skin tones other than pale, Caucasian ones for its character customization.

2K Play marketing director Christina Recchio admitted the exclusion of a skin color palette was a problem. "We knew it should've been in the first one," she said. "Unfortunately by the time it had gone to manufacturing, it was something that couldn't be changed in the original product. But when we were developing for the DS, it was the first thing that we put in there because we knew we needed a larger variety."

But how could such a thing happen in the first place? Read more...

Are you surprised at how well mini-game collection "Carnival Games" has sold? So were the folks at publisher 2K Games.

"It definitely exceeded our expectations," 2K Play marketing director Christina Recchio said when I asked her about the success of the carnival-themed Wii game. "2K Play did not forecast a million units since it was an original property and a fairly new system."

During a demo for the franchise's new installment "Carnival Games: Mini-Golf" yesterday, she told me that, despite negative reviews, the original title has sold over 1.5 million units since it was released a year ago -- and it's still selling.

Recchio added that I didn't get my requested press copy of the July-released DS version yet because it's also "over-performing." "It's nice to know that the retailers are asking for more and more products, so we're very excited about this franchise," she said.

As for why exactly the "Carnival Games" franchise has done so well... Read more...

 
In the tradition of the Multiplayer contributors thinking a little bit out side the box with the way they use video game controllers I have conducted an experiment.I have followed in the steps of our fearless leader, Mr. Totilo, (playing "Wii Fit" while sitting) as well as our resident rocker-chick, Tracey, (taking on "Rock Band" all by her lonesome) and gone ahead and tried to explore "Zapper Compatibility."The Zapper's been catching a little bit of (well-deserved) flack since it was released a few weeks ago, mainly because it is simply a piece of plastic that houses your Wii controller. That's it.

As a consumer (as well as a Nintendo fanboy), I find it slightly offensive that games are being marketed as Zapper compatible, implying that games needs the Zapper to work. They don't. Some games may play a little bit better inside of the little plastic shell, but it's not a necessity. To test my theory, I tried to find out if a game that we have all come to know and love, "Wii Sports" is actually "Zapper Compatible." (Watch the results above).

I also gave one of the Wii's biggest games of the year a try using the Zapper, with intergalactically bad results. But that video just isn't quite ready for public consumption yet. Stay tuned.

I'll admit it: I was a little girl once.

A little girl who not only played "Super Mario Bros" and watched "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" but also one who played with Barbies and loved sappy romance flicks... like "Dirty Dancing."

My sisters and I would try to re-enact that final, epic scene in the movie, where "Baby" Houseman would run into Patrick Swayze, er... Johnny Castle, and he'd lift her up into the air like a soaring bird (it's a good thing we had pillows). It was a classic coming-of-age story. We watched it so much, the VHS tape broke.

So when a build of the "Dirty Dancing the Game" for the PC came to my mailbox last week for me to preview, my first thought was that it would be great for my nieces, who are now around the age I was when I first fell in love with that movie. But I hadn't seen the film in years, and I tried to remember what it was actually about... a timid girl going to summer camp and coming out a full-fledged woman, de-virginized by her dance instructor and harnessing the uncanny ability to undulate sexually, shamelessly in front of her family and friends. And wasn't there an illegal abortion in there somewhere? (My 7 year-old mind must've blocked that out entirely.)

With that, I figured I should give the game a whirl. For nostalgia's sake. And for the sake of my nieces, who would potentially play this game. Twenty years after the film's release, would the game take me back in time? How would it incorporate the more mature themes in the movie? What I found was quite different than what I expected...

Read more...

Sputtering, coughing, sloooowly progressing, the MTV Multiplayer Mini-Game Interview Series somehow manages to reach the far reaches of Edmonton today, with a quick interview about card-playing.

Space-age card-playing in the BioWare-developed "Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic," that is. Pazaak.

Who comes up with these things? And why? And how do they make sure the game doesn't get dull? Sure this interview topic is a tad dated, but, hey, this is the one you readers asked for.

BioWare's Preston Watamaniuk, assistant lead designer on "KOTOR" and lead designer of "Mass Effect" recently explained things to me over e-mail.

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Is "mini-game" a four letter word? It certainly is a pair of them. I've found that developers are cautious about the term.

I first learned this in August when the product manager on the soon-to-be-successful "Carnival Games," uh, Wii mini-game collection, told me: "We don’t like to characterize these as mini-games."

But if you think that's a touchy term, then what about "mini-game collection"?

You know, the term we use to classify "Wii Sports," "Wii Play," "Mario Party 8," "EA Playground," "Carnival Games" and a bunch more? What's the reputation of that phrase, now that it's become synonymous with one of the biggest genres on the Wii?

A couple of weeks ago I posed the question to David Luntz, the guy behind "Ninja Reflex," the six-mini-game martial arts Wii title he will be co-publishing with EA in March.

I was curious what he thought. Were publishers still really into mini-game collections? Did they think -- did he think -- there may be too many of them out there on the Wii already? Was he worried it would be hard to stand out?

One thing Luntz said stood out:

I think some games that just set out to be a mini-game game for that purpose... it's sort of like somebody wanting to write a book because they think writing a book will look cool. "Oh, I'll write a novel. That'll be fun." It's sort of like the cart before the horse. It should be the idea that drives the design and the structure of the game should follow out of the idea.

Take that, Miyamoto! Oh, of course he wasn't talking about Miyamoto. But perhaps you see games out there that deserve that comment?

I like "Ninja Reflex." I had fun playing it and was surprised to hear the game getting trashed on the 1upyours podcast a couple of weeks back. The head of EA's casual games division, Kathy Vrabeck, recently told Nex-Gen.biz that the hardcore gaming press doesn't even really understand these games.

OK. Well, whoever I am, gaming press, mainstream press, whatever, I'm trying to understand. Read on to see what Luntz and I were able to figure out.

Read more...

Over at MTVNews.com I have a meaty write-up of "Ninja Reflex," a Wii (and DS) game coming out in March from Nunchuck Games and EA.

Nunchuck Games is headed by David Luntz, former head of Z-Axis, and, he told me, someone who has appreciated the values of the martial arts.

We talked for some time about what he wants people to get out of the game -- beyond just a fun mini-game experience. And he was even kind enough to share some photos he took during a six-week research trip in Asia, where he watched and studied with practitioners of several martial arts.

An excerpt from the MTV News story:

He saw, at last, how he could make a game about being a ninja that was different from all the other ninja games out there. After all, the world already has "Ninja Gaiden," "Shinobi," "Tenchu," sequels to those games and plenty more. But his ninja game — the newly announced "Ninja Reflex" — would be different.

"Those games are, although awesome games, I felt that that road of 'Let's go around and kill people' had been fairly well explored," Luntz told MTV News in an interview last week. "My focus was less on the killing aspect of martial arts as on the path of skill."

Luntz wanted a game that emphasized the ninja traits of moving with undetectable speed, a test of reflexes beyond any first-person shooter, racing game or anything else that requires a gamer's finely honed ability to twitch. The Wii's motion control could do this, he thought, and time players down to the milliseconds.

I played the game last month and had a lot of fun with it. Catching flies with chopsticks makes for a wonderful remote-only Wii mini-game.

For more on Luntz's trip, more pictures and much more on "Ninja Reflex," check out the rest of my story at MTVNews.com.

What if I was wrong about Nintendo? What If a lot of us were?

As a reporter my job is to ask questions, observe and share my findings. In the process I develop an understanding of facts, a sense of the patterns I see. Sometimes, though, I realize what I think I've figured out is incorrect.

That's how I'm feeling about Nintendo these days. I'm ready to chuck one of my main ideas about the Wii. I see a different pattern than I used to, a new understanding, one that suggests a much more radical aspect of the Wii than I had previously considered.

My old Wii idea: Nintendo's console is a party console, destined to by full of party games -- mini-games. Hence this blog's running tally, in the right hand margin of total mini-games on the Wii.

My new Wii idea: Nintendo's console is a party console, destined to mark the end of Nintendo-crafted single-player game designs. I fully expect the next "Zelda," the next "Donkey Kong," even the next "Mario" role-playing game to be designed in such a way that at least two players will be able to enjoy the main game mode simultaneously.

I've got sales figures, analysis of old games, advertising hints and more to back this up. Let's see if you agree.

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You know the painting of a pipe that allegedly isn't a pipe?

This one.

Well, I was thinking of it yesterday when Global Star Software product manager Andrew Brown told me that, "Carnival Games," the title his Take 2-owned publishing line is releasing next week for the Wii, is not a collection of mini-games.

"We don't like to characterize these as mini-games," Brown told me, before he gave me a chance to flick and twist the remote in such activities as balloon darts, skee-ball and a hammer-swinging test of strength that determined I was a "contender."

The "Carnival Games" box boasts that the Wii title includes "over 25 games." Yet I felt I had slightly offended Brown by using the "mini-game" moniker.

"Do you consider Rayman Raving Rabbids a mini-game compilation?" he asked me.

Read more...