Nerf Peripheral Styrophome-Bulleting its Way to the Wii

With the recent annoucment of Hasbro and Electronic Arts teaming up to make games there has been plenty of excitment over, say, a G.I. Joe game being made or being able to play any of those classic board games across the internet with others on your Wii. But for the inner child in all of as the most exciting part about this announcement has to be Nerf N-Strike or more specifically what is mentioned in the part of EA’s press release about N-Strike.

NERF “N-Strike” for Wii and DS, scheduled to ship Fall 08
Become the master of mayhem in the first NERF blaster action game. In a world created to be the perfect landscape for NERF pandemonium, players can wreak havoc and perfect their blasting skills or challenge friends to clashes with both single and multi-player game modes. With the brand new custom NERF blaster, players can then take the action outside as their controller transforms to fire actual NERF darts!

Can you guess which part is most exciting? I’ll give you a hint: It starts with “brand new” and ends with “custom NERF blaster.” I’ve always loved the style and feel of Nerf guns and now I can have one that works with my Wii! This is some pretty exciting news if you ask me, as it not only gives the Wii a peripheral that is actually useful, unlike those Wii Sports attachments, but allows this 25-year-old kid to justify purchasing a Nerf gun and once again have Nerf wars outside his house. From the image above it looks like the Wiimote and the Nerf shooting part thingy just snap in and out depending on what you want the gun for. Best of all, if you forget to swap the shooter out when playing the Wii, there is no way those soft Nerf darts could break your TV. At this point I don’t even care how good the game is since you’ll just be able to click in the old Nerf shooter and make your own game.

[Via Siliconera]

Ubisoft paving the way for hardcore Wii titles

For at least one game developer, the Wii is a platform that is ready and able for more hardcore titles.

In Wired.com’s recent interview between Chris Kohler and Ubisoft’s Yannis Mallat at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas, Mallat said, “there is definitely a market,” for action-adventure games on the Wii, such as Red Steel and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Ubisoft, who’s Assassin’s Creed was the ninth best selling game in 2007 — selling 1.87 units for the Xbox 360 alone — is also the developer behind the Wii-exclusive No More Heroes. The stylish and well-received No More Heroes is the game that G4’s Kevin Pereira said makes owing a Wii worth it during an airing of Attack of the Show. GameRankings.com released an overall review score of 83 percent for the flashy sword-fighting title. The information that GameRankings.com used was comprised from 25 separate media outlets.

As far as the best selling Wii games of 2007, Wii Play came in at second behind Halo 3 by selling 4.12 units. Super Mario Galaxy — which most Wii owners agree is a hardcore title — was listed as the fifth highest-selling game with 2.52 million, while Mario Party 8 rounded out the top 10 by selling 1.82 million units.

Ubisoft was one of the first developers out of the gates when the Wii launched a little more than a year ago. Their third-party developer offering, Red Steel, promised to be one of the first hardcore titles for the system. It sold approximately 1.2 million units, and even though it received mixed reviews on its gameplay, Red Steel offered an engaging story with mature themes and unbridled action, which is a plus for any standout Nintendo title.

Although it hasn’t been officially announced, Red Steel’s sequel is rumored on many industry sites for release later this year.

So with the support of a developer like Ubisoft’s Yannis Mallat onboard, how long will it be before other top developers start seeing the Wii as a serious gaming machine?

While it is easier for third-party developers to focus on the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 — due to the similar system specs for each console, as well as the potential chance for more sales due to cross-platform releases — game designers need to see that the entire Wii nation is not made up of casual gamers. With more than 20 million consoles sold world-wide, it’s time for developers to take a look at producing games that are not based around graphics, but games that offer designers a new world of opportunities for development, said Tony Key, vice president of Ubisoft, in an interview with Kohler.

While Nintendo continues to offer hardcore titles such as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3 and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, it should be only time before third-party developers start to see not only the ease and innovation in creating Wii titles, but the success in doing so.