Nintendo Wii U: Assassin’s Creed 3 Among Games Confirmed For New Console

Nintendo fans are rejoicing at the news from Ubisoft that Assassin’s Creed 3 will be available on the upcoming console, Wii U, signaling an end to the years in which faithful fans of the franchise were excluded from some of the most popular video game titles.

Nintendo taking over the world

Games like Assassin’s Creed were mainly targeted at serious gamers while the Wii was largely viewed as a family friendly system. The new device was referred to as a “serious player in the ‘hardcore’ games market” by Nintendo-Gamer magazine.

Assassin’s Creed 3, which takes place during the revolutionary war, has been in development for three years. The game will be in stores for the PS3 and Xbox 360 on Oct. 30, 2012, causing some to speculate that the Wii U will be available around the same time.

Nintendo’s new home gaming system is yet another move to revolutionize the gaming experience. While the Wii was the first system to use a motion sensor controller, The Wii U’s controller will feature a 6.2 inch touch screen display inside the controller, opening up new opportunities for gaming with a dual screen experience. The second screen will serve different purposes for different games, with uses ranging from rifle scope to golf tee.

No official release date confirmed, but Nintentendo has said the system will be on the market for Christmas 2012. Two new announcements at the San Francisco Game Developer’s Conference on March 7 2012, Nintendo is partnering with 3D design company Autodesk and also working with gaming-physics experts Havoc.

The new Assassin’s Creed game, which is set during the American Revolution and stars a protagonist who is unsure which side to take in the battle, will also feature an online three-to-four player co-op mode. Players will explore Revolutionary settlements, ranging from the early versions of New York and Boston to uncharted forest and wilderness and kill enemies through a variety of complicated methods.

Other games to be released for the Wii U include several popular franchises that will be available on a Nintendo system for the first time, including a new “Tekken” fighting games, “Batman: Arkham City” and “Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge.” Other games for the Wii U: “Darksiders 2,” “Lego City Stories,” Ghost Recon Online,” “DiRT,” “Aliens: Colonial Marines,” and “Metro: Last Light.”

Nintendo Wii U Trailer

Nintendo unveils their next video game console, the Wii U. Check out what gamers can expect from the finally revealed Wii 2

Nintendo Wii U console glimpsed

Although the company successfully courted casual gamers with the Wii, it is now facing increased competition from Apple’s iPhone and other devices that offer simple games. It had hoped to win new gamers through a 3-D hand-held device. But sales were slow, and Nintendo slashed prices on the 3DS within six months.

The Wii U will be sold as a bundle with one touch-screen controller, which is almost as big as the game console itself. Nintendo has not said what the package or an extra controller will cost. Touch screens are expensive, often accounting for nearly half of the cost of a phone or a tablet computer.

Nintendo’s demonstrations reveal that the touch-screen controller is designed to work with older controllers. For example, in one of Nintendo’s demonstration games, four players with Wii remotes chase a fifth, who uses the touch controller. The fifth player uses the screen on the controller to guide his movements, which are thus kept secret from the other players. The other players keep track of their own movements on the TV screen. In another demonstration game, two players with Wii remotes collaborate to fight a third, who zooms around in a spaceship, controlled through the touch controller.

The integration of the older remotes and the touch controller goes even further. The existing Wii console is able to keep track of where the old-style Wii remotes are with the help of a “sensor bar” that attaches to the TV set. That’s how the Wii remote can be used to “point” to things on the screen. The new Wii U controller has its own sensor bar, so the Wii U can figure out where a Wii remote is in relation to the controller, not just the TV set.

Zelda: Skyward Sword is 2011′s Biggest Game

Link to the future

Earlier today we brought you a list of five Nintendo games to thrill you in 2011, but one big name was absent: Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, as it wasn’t really fair to put arguably this year’s biggest title against anything else.

Link’s previous adventure on Wii, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, was never developed with Wii in mind, having been designed as GameCube’s swansong. Skyward Sword, on the other hand, is set to make far better use of the Wii’s unique abilities than its predecessor.

Requiring either MotionPlus or the new Wii Remote Plus accessory, Nintendo is promising more control over Link’s actions than ever before. The E3 demonstration showed off familiar items – a bow-and-arrow, bombs and swordplay – but it’s the new items that always intrigue in new Zelda titles. Link will have access to a whip and a new flying beetle that seeks out new areas and items, all controlled with the extra accuracy afforded by MotionPlus.
Moblins hate swords. Fact.

Taking a graphical style that’s billed as “a watercolour painting come to life”, the game blends visual elements from other Link’s previous adventures. While not quite as strongly cartoon-styled as Zelda: Wind Waker, it’s certainly a change from the dusky visuals of Twilight Princess, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your point of view.

Nintendo unveils 3D games console

3-D is here - YAHOO!

More details about the console, the latest addition to Nintendo’s DS line-up, will be given at E3, the annual video games expo which takes place in June.

Although the Japanese video games giant is yet to release specific pricing or launch information, the company said the 3DS would hit shops sometime before next March. Players will not need to wear special 3D glasses to enjoy 3D gaming on the 3DS, said Nintendo.

The hand-held games console will also be fully backwards-compatible with Nintendo DS and DSi games. Nintendo has refused to give any more details about the technology involved until E3 later this year.

Nintendo said it had sold more than 125 million Nintendo DS units worldwide since the device first went on sale in 2005. The range has particularly appealed to women and older games, who have snapped up the consoles in order to play games such as Nintendogs and Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training.

All the big three console makers have announced refreshes to their hardware line-ups this year. Microsoft has confirmed that its Project Natal gaming system, which does away with the need for a control pad, will be in shops by Christmas, while Sony’s Wii-like PlayStation Move motion-sensitive controller system will be on sale by the autumn.

3D is shaping up to be one of the big trends of 2010, with a host of television manufacturers – including Sony, LG, Panasonic and Samsung – unveiling 3D televisions for domestic use, while Sky’s dedicated 3D channel launches on April 3.

Game testers wanted for LEGO Universe online multiplayer

LEGO Universe, the latest and most ambitious Lego-themed video game, has flung open its doors to those who want first go on the game while it’s still in testing.

Initially, free trials were only on offer to fans that visited LEGO’s display at the Consumer Entertainment Show in Las Vegas this January.

Now, the announcement of a public beta phase means that the full game is likely to be less than six months away. Successful applicants will be able to play on a pre-release and in return help the developers improve the game before it goes on sale.

Recently, other games emphasizing online interaction such as Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Star Trek Online, and MAG started their public beta tests between four and five months prior to launching.

The LEGO toy line started life as a wooden toy company in the 1930s, and by the 1950s had grasped hold of a new technology – plastic.

The modern recreational shift to video games prompted LEGO to involve themselves in cross-over titles following up on popular films: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Batman have all found their characters given the LEGO treatment.

One major difference between LEGO Universe and previous LEGO video games is that it’s not thought to make use of characters licensed from other franchises. Instead, the citizens of LEGO Universe are original LEGO creations.

Game Review – Dante’s Inferno (PS3 Xbox360)

In Dante’s Inferno, you play a third-person action game, as Dante, who’s ventured to the entrance to Hell and plunges inside in pursuit in search of his deceased true love, Beatrice. The version of Dante presented in the game differs from history’s Dante, in that this hero is a darker, battle-hardened veteran of the Crusades. As the game’s story goes, Dante’s beloved Beatrice has been taken to Hell unjustly by Satan himself and Dante sets out to rescue her. But to do this, he’ll have to traverse down all nine circles of Hell; past tormented and tortured souls, subjected to horrors beyond human imagining. And he may just have to confront his own demons (the metaphorical kind, though he’ll slay plenty of the real ones, too) and balance the scales for his own sins that have been committed in the past. The story is one of the most compelling parts of Dante’s Inferno the video game.

More than once the Inferno wowed me with moments of that epic scale feeling you look for in games of this genre, where it just feels great to be playing something created with such passion.