WiiWare Roundup

As the release of games on WiiWare gets closer and closer, more and more exciting news starts to flood out about the games that are being released. It’s quite a good bit of information and it’s scattered all over the place, so MyWiiNews is going to run down a few of the new major details coming out right now including the most important so far: online Tetris.

Let’s start with the launch games. While we don’t have any word on what games will be released in the U.S. when WiiWare launches on May 12, we do know what games will be available in Japan where it launches in about two weeks on March 28. They are as follows:

Okiraku Ping-Pong Wii (Arc System Works, 500 points)

Word Puzzle Mojipittan Wii (Bandai Namco, 1000 points)

Sakusaku Animal Panic (Konami, 1000 points)

Star Soldier R (Hudson, 800 points)

My Life As A King: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Square Enix, 1500 points)

Angel’s Solitaire (G-Mode, 500 points)

Dr. Mario & Bacillus Extermination (Nintendo, 1000 points)

Everybody’s Pokemon Ranch (Nintendo, 1000 points)

Lonpos (Genki, 1000 points)

We can speculate that My Life As A King will be there at the U.S. launch since its release has already been rumored pretty heavily, and Dr. Mario is also a very strong lock along with Star Soldier R. I’d also put money on Everybody’s Pokemon Ranch coming out near launch, if not on it, since Pokemon sell like wild fire and the game appears to fit right into what Nintendo is aiming for WiiWare. It looks like we’ve got plenty of quick and great gaming coming our way once WiiWare launches.

Of course not every game is going to be a launch title, and there’s plenty coming out for WiiWare after the launch too. We’ve already told you about Defend Your Castle, LostWinds and Project Bang but there are plenty more like Eternity’s Child and World of Goo; both of which look absolutely gorgeous and incredibly creative. The list of games coming to WiiWare is growing daily, including a game where you pop bubble wrap. WiiWare is going to be the place for games that you won’t find anywhere else, though I don’t know if popping virtual bubble wrap will be as much fun as the real thing.

Now for the really big news: Tetris will be landing on the WiiWare service some time this summer! Sure, there have been hundreds of versions of Tetris pumped out over the years by a myriad of different companies, and  you can already play the decidedly addicting Tetris DS online with friends, but Tetris on WiiWare has two main things going for it. One is that it will have point and click controls that could make moving those blocks around the screen far more interactive (though let’s hope you can still play it with the D-pad too), and two it is being designed by Hudson, the same people who brought us the insanely addictive Bomberman Live on XBox Live. Hudson has a proven track record of making simple, fun, online gaming that anyone can play, so Tetris looks to be awesome. It’s kind of hard to mess up Tetris anyway, and really, what Nintendo system is complete without a Tetris game on it?