Well, he’s not quite Clyde Radcliffe but he’s a definitely up there!

Yep, ‘Mayhem in Monsterland’ returns as one of the greatest C64 achievements wangles its way onto the Wii by way of the Virtual Console.

How John and Steve Rowlands managed to create this slick NES-style platformer on the Commodore 64 is anybody’s guess, but it served as a fitting tribute to the machine which was, by 1993, wobbling on its last legs. But now, thanks to the Wii, for a meagre 500 points (roughly £3.50) you can once again enjoy this little gem on a telly where it belongs.

Read the original Commodore Force (Zzap! 64) review here!

TIGSource have announced the winners of their Bootleg Demake game-in-a-month competition. The idea was to take a well-known recent game, and present it as if it were a bootleg on older hardware.

Congratulations to Superflat with his NES demake of Silent Hill 2, Soundless Mountain II:

Top #10 Entries:

1. Soundless Mountain II (superflat)
2. Gang Garrison II (mrfredman, MedO)
3. Aquarium (Oracle)
4. Little Girl in Underland (The Ivy)
5. House Globe (Oxeye Games)
6. S.T.A.C.K.E.R. (Pishtaco)
7. Squish (Terry)
8. Fillauth (Oxeye Games) / Macarena of the Missing (Noyb)
9. Sexy Seaside Beachball (lemmy&binky)
10. Advanced Set the Rope on Fire Cartridge (Blueberry)

There were a whopping 68 entries in total. Other notable entries include Overscan, a side on 2D version of Rez and Large-Scale Vehicular Stealing, a NES-style version of GTA IV.

All 68 games can be found and downloaded here!

Source: TIGSource

Fabulous news, everyone. At some point during 2009, we can expect to be playing the sequel to one of the most controversially polarising games of all time. Its reviews ranged from reasonably high…

Okay, so it doesn’t win the award for most action-packed adventure on Wii, but it is a beautiful, innovative and very different kettle of fish. A breathtaking experience.

…to embarassingly low…

soothing and relaxing but it lacks a crucial element: fun.

…but frankly, the low reviews were all wrong. It’s completely amazing, the sequel is definitely going to be amazing, it is (of course) Endless Ocean 2!

Swim with whales in Endless Ocean! Wow!

Check out Nintendo’s forthcoming line-up on Eurogamer here!

Round #20 of our pixel challenge, ColourThis, kicks off today. The rules are simple - you are provided with an outline and all you have to do is colour it, making anything you like out of it. The more creative and original the design the better, and the winner is chosen for the creativity of their entry rather than their pixel skills.

The winner of the last round provides the outline and chooses the winner of the next.

This round’s outline is…

It’s a tricky low-res outline this round, so get your creativity pencils ready and download this image, rotate it, flip it, colour it in, and then submit it in this thread!

Last round was a tricky outline, so hats off to Nyu001 and his Ninja:

Check out previous winners here!

Well, we’ve been rather looking forward to this game ever since we found out about the pet dog. And then there was the lovely sunset screenshot that all looked rather spiffing. But all those things are looking set to be eclipsed by the magnificence of this town pub:

Introducing…

The Cow and Corset!

Truth be told, I’m not certain whether it’s amazing or slightly alarming in the same way that the Orangina advert with the erotically dancing deer and octopus was.

In other news, Fable 2 also offically has slightly scary monsters…

…so I’ll be sticking to the towns and playing with my dog, thanks!

Round #19 of our pixel challenge, ColourThis, kicks off today. The rules are simple - you are provided with an outline and all you have to do is colour it, making anything you like out of it. The more creative and original the design the better, and the winner is chosen for the creativity of their entry rather than their pixel skills.

The winner of the last round provides the outline and chooses the winner of the next.

This round’s outline is…

So download this image, rotate it, flip it, colour it in, and then submit it in this thread!

Last round was won by Nickenstien with his amazing Space Squid:

Check out previous winners here!

Well, we’ve all had plenty of time to play with the Spore Creature Creator and determine that it is, as expected, completely brilliant.

Of course, there’s a limit to how long you can sit there making cute little critters when there’s no actual game to shove them into, before you get a bit bored.

But rest easy, there’s not long to go now until the thing’s finally out (5th of September, says Eurogamer) and we can start manipulating our creatures from primordial goo to galactic civilisation.

The trouble is, there’s always a danger that when you anticipate something too much, that it ends up being a smidge of a disappointment - after all, there’s no way that a game can possibly live up to fans’ wild speculations… or can it?

After all, Will Wright is not without a track record of pulling something completely amazing out of the bag. And he seems awfully nice too!

Anyhow, it would appear that Eurogamer can confirm that the game’s going to be a little bit special in their Hands On preview. And, more importantly, they confirm that Will Wright is lovely.

As you know, CGEmpire is the go to place for impartial games industry coverage.

We bring you (Wii!!!) regular and unbiased coverage from all (Wii!!!) platforms, because we hate fanboys and people who (Wii!!!) go on about one console like it’s the only important (Wii!!!) thing in the world.

Okay. We try! We really do! Just it’s so damn hard when Nintendo keeps pulling things like these out of their hats!

Introducing:

Wiiiii!

What is it? Well as all us Wii fans know, the Wii Remote, whilst being an extremely fun way to interact with the game, is a little bit of a fudge. It’s not terribly accurate — as all the Wii naysayers are quick to point this out — and is more a way to make you feel involved with the game than to provide accurate movement of your arms in-game.

Well no more!

Taken from Nintendo’s website:

Nintendo’s upcoming Wii MotionPlus accessory for the revolutionary Wii Remote controller again redefines game control, by more quickly and accurately reflecting motions in a 3-D space. The Wii MotionPlus accessory attaches to the end of the Wii Remote and, combined with the accelerometer and the sensor bar, allows for more comprehensive tracking of a player’s arm position and orientation, providing players with an unmatched level of precision and immersion.

Every slight movement players make with their wrist or arm is rendered identically in real time on the screen, providing a true 1:1 response in their game play. The Wii MotionPlus accessory reconfirms Nintendo’s commitment to making games intuitive and accessible for everyone.

Nintendo will reveal more details about the Wii MotionPlus accessory and other topics Tuesday morning at its E3 media briefing.

So there you have it! Super ‘triffic!

The Edinburgh Interactive Festival showcases the continued popularity, growth and influence of video games and brings together the games industry’s key decision makers.

Games publishing, hardware and development alongside Government, TV, film, press and other entertainment industries as well as students seeking to work within the creative industries are all represented.

David Yarnton, Managing Director/General Manager of Nintendo UK, said: “We’re very proud to continue our support of EIF for the third year running. Edinburgh Interactive Festival raises our industry’s profile into the wider cultural arena and celebrates the input, talent and creativity from all with a common interest in video games.”

The Edinburgh Interactive Festival 2008 will take place from Sunday 10th to Tuesday 12th August in the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.

Registrations are open at the EIF2008 Website.

Register before Tuesday 1st July 2008 - £120 (ex VAT)
Register on or after Tuesday 1st July 2008 - £149 (ex VAT)
Scottish based developers and companies - £99 (ex VAT)
Students - £75 (ex VAT)

Fair enough, 3DStudio Max 2009 has been out for a little while, but today was the first time that I’ve opened a little MaxScript in order to do some scripting. Imagine my surprise when I discover that somebody at Autodesk has actually invested some time in making the MaxScript IDE whizzy!

Bless that programmer! For feast your eyes at what he has done:

1. Handy tab bar for handling multiple documents. Woo!
2. Pointless grey vertical line to show you where your tab indents are. Wow!
3. Syntax highlighting that actually works without you having to refresh all the time. Whee!
4. A status bar with stuff you probably never need to worry about on it. Gosh!
5. Those collapsable between-the-bracey buttons that you have in Visual Studio to make really long code, shorter. Neat!
6. Line numbers to make you feel a bit more like a programmer. Yay!

So there we have it! A comprehensive list of all the reasons why you should upgrade to Max2009 immediately!*

*note: it’s entirely possible that some of these features were in Max2008.