Wii owners rejoice, or let out a big sigh, whichever you prefer. Nintendo has announced today that its releasing 3 Metroid games for the Wii, for the price of one game. Sounds too good to be true? Nintendo releasing multiple new games from their beloved franchises? Well it is too good to be true, the game collection, titled Metroid Prime Trilogy, is simply that a re-release of the whole Prime series for the Wii. Of course you’ll get a few perks like Wiimote integration into the Gamecube titles and real widescreen format.

Its good news if you’re a really big fan of the Prime series or if you never played the first two on the Gamecube but for the rest of us, well these remakes sound like a story we’ve already heard, in more than one way. You know, considering how much remakes the Wii is getting you’d think Square-Enix would be a perfect match for the console.

[Metroid Prime Trilogy]

Poor suckers who only own Wii’s exclusively were made to feel a little left out and like pieces of rubbish when Capcom announced Marvel vs. Capcom 2 would be releasing for the Xbox Live marketplace and the PS network, but not the Virtual console (blame Nintendo and their file size restrictions). But now they can perk right up and rejoice, because Tatsunoko vs. Capcom is breaking out of Japan and is heading for the US and the UK! Can I get a “Yaaaaay!”

After a good 6 months of shedding tears over never getting the opportunity to play this game, Capcom have done what we thought was impossible and gotten the game green lit for a US and UK release. Still no word on if Australia will see the game. But given Capcom being full of awesome as of late – I’m sure gamers down under will be in on some cross over battle action.

Capcom have noted that the game may see additional features not included in the Japanese release of the game. Notably the possibility of extra characters and the all important online play.

If Capcom do not add online for the US release, then I will spit in the face of a Capcom employee. Not any of the ones who helped get the Western release though. Just a miscellaneous one who looks weedy enough that he won’t be able to beat me up. You cannot release a beat ‘em up in this day and age without online play. Unless of course, it’s released on Wii. I guess we best gets to praying again that Capcom include it. Sure, the Wii version would have those bastard Friend codes and be kept in check by Nintendo’s “No communication” policy. But it can’t be any worse than Street Fighter IV. Nobody talks on that game during matches, nobody wants to add you as a Friend or a contact, and the match making and lack of a proper lobby system is crap anyway. So Wii owners will hardly be missing out.

This is great news. Day 1 purchase for me. I may even buy some component cables so I can witness the awesome in ‘not true HD, only up-scaled to 720, but still better than composite signal’ glory.

Red Steel 2 will be the cover story of the June issue of Nintendo Power, it will reveal all the details on the next installment of the Red Steel series. The cover artwork and table of contents, available online, only reveal that the game will take full advantage of the Wii MotionPlus and that the style of the game has taken a rather unexpected turn towards the… old west?

If the only known artwork, seen above, is any indication of the direction of the game we might be looking forward to a western or western-steampunk-ish game. This can only mean one thing: goodbye to the awesome Jpop songs of the first game, one, if not the only, remarkable thing about Red Steel. Lets just hope the MotionPlus can deliver on the promise of awesome sword fighting that the original fell short of achieving.

Anyone up for some machete VS katana swordfights?

[Nintendo Power / Via Kotaku]

Nintendo’s catching up with the times and finally releasing a video service component to the Wii. Called Wii no Ma (Wii House), its actually a bit more ambitious than a video channel. The service also introduces a virtual home for your Mii, kinda like Playstation’s HOME but stripped down. There’s video voting, sharing with the DSi, calendars and even video coupons that you use at businesses with your DSi.

The weirdest feature of them all seems to be the ordering of services via the Wii, like a Wii shop channel but for actual products. Maybe inspired by World of Warcraft’s /pizza command? Who knows! This also opens up the possibility for adding clothing and color options to the Mii system which is something that’s badly needed.

The Wii House service goes live in Japan on May 1 and no content list has been released so far, much less is known about a western deployment of the service. Nintendo is further pushing the Wii as a sort of family central with this new component but honestly it all looks a little bland to me. What’s your take?

Dead Space Extraction Producer Interview c/o IGN

Still holding on to a Fall 2009 release, producer Steve Papoutsis discusses further details on Dead Space Extraction in this video interview care of IGN. He assures us there is a co-op mode where friends can instantly grab a controller and play; this leads me to speculate there will be squad based gameplay. Coupled with a high level of detail in the graphics engine and the uniqueness of Wii mechanics, Extraction will allow a more immersive first person experience than previous titles.

Steve also mentions the Dead Space as a franchise, now existing on every platform, a graphic and animated film. I’m just waiting for a fan made live action movie*.

[Joystiq]

*the last line is hinting at a comment direct to me…the only way you’ll understand is if you read them and comment yourself! :)

Ah, that old familiar logo and that old familiar sound. It certainly brings back some good memories.
If you haven’t heard already, Mac is back! The NES classic Punch-Out!! is receiving the royal treatment and is being made over for the Wii to be released on May 18, 2009 (according to Gamestop).

Earlier today Gametrailers posted a new clip that reintroduced us to a few familiar faces (Glass Joe, Von Kaiser, King Hippo) and lifted the veil on a new opponent: “Disco Kid.” Little is known about this new character, but he sure does look like an average Joe amongst a sea of odd-balls.

The game is shaping up nicely, and with only a couple of months to go before launch let’s hope Nintendo’s old-school remake has what it take to go 8 rounds with the press when review time comes. This is definitely one to keep on the radar.

[Game Trailers]

Wii owners can re-joice in that Capcom hasn’t left them out on some Resi action – because Resident evil: The darkside chronicles is on the way! (Yay!)

The darkside chronicles will feature scenario’s from Resident evil 2, something that fans were majorly pissed were glaringly omitted from The umbrella chronicles. It’s unknown at this point, but its highly likely that Code: Veronica and possibly Degeneration will see their scenario’s played out in this game – seeing as Leon and Claire seem to be the focus of this game. Read more!

It is safe to say that Ultimate Shooting Collection from UFO Interactive is far from the Ultimate Shooting Collection that most shoot ‘em up (shmup) fans dream of (a compilation disc that features Radiant Silvergun, Ikaruga and Mars Matrix to name only a select few). However, in a time where most shmups seem to be XBLA or PSN bound it is nice to see a publisher paying some respect to the genre starved Wii. Even if those shmups just so happen to have been previously released on last generation consoles.

Ultimate Shooting Collection for the Nintendo Wii features three top-down shmups from Japan-based developer Milestone: Radio Allergy, Karous and Chaos Field. Chaos Field as some may recall was previously released a few years back on the Nintendo GameCube, whereas Radio Allergy and Karous; this is the first time they are setting foot on US soil…’er flying around in US air space. But like Chaos Field, all three have been previously released in Asian territories on the Sega Dreamcast. So in essence, it really should be called Milestone Shooting Collection. At any rate it is what it is so let’s move on and take a deeper look into the depths of bullet hell.

Read more!

As if Namco Bandai’s Klonoa remake isn’t incentive enough for you to get your Nintendo Wii modded, now there’s even more reason to do so. Vanillaware, the development house behind Princess Crown, Odin Sphere and GrimGrimMoire, have set April 9th as the Japanese release date for their Wii exclusive action RPG, Muramasa: The Demon Blade.

A US release date has yet to be set, but you can bet that it will be later this year.

[Siliconera]

See that game cover above? I know what you must be thinking…“Is Keanu Reeves staring in a new game?” Thankfully, no, at least not yet. But, please don’t judge this game by the box art. The Conduit is currently being developed exclusively for the Wii by High Voltage Software. Newly released footage looks amazing and really shows the “Quantum3” game engine, which was specifically developed for the Wii to create the same illusory functions as the PS3 and Xbox360 despite hardware limitations.

This futuristic FPS is set to be released sometime in Spring 2009. Since there is still some time before the release there’s no need to get mixed up in the plot, suffice to say it has conspiracies and guns. Watch the newest eye-candy and development videos after the jump!

Read more!