Nintendo Wii Features

Top 10 Wii Games of 2010
Okay, seriously, the Wii means more than “inferior port plus waggle” this year.

By 1UP Staff

While the Wii has had to contend with the “good first-party and a ton of waggle-enabled shovelware” reputation in the past, it looks like 2010 will help shake said reputation. Besides known first-party superstars like Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid: Other M, we have some solid third-party games like Epic Mickey and No More Heroes 2 slated to hit shelves in 2010 as well. Heck, even the download-centric Wii gamer has something to look forward to. And not on this list, due purely to “wow, we don’t know much about it,” is the fabled “next Zelda game” that Miyamoto hinted at.

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Dev: Nintendo | Pub: Nintendo

As Nintendo personnel will happily tell you, Mario Galaxy 2 marks the first time in a long time that they have designed two big Mario games for a single hardware generation, so it’s no surprise that they went the direct sequel route to follow-up one of 2007’s best games. We don’t know a lot about the sequel just yet, but it marks the return of Yoshi and seems to be incorporating a lot of variety into the already varied Galaxy formula, so we’re excited.

Epic Mickey

Dev: Junction Point | Pub: Disney Interactive Studios

A Mickey Mouse platformer for the Wii that has a “paint the world to save it” premise that sounds a little bit like Okami? That idea alternates between sounding inspired and concerning. Though, one name has gone a long way to ease our skepticism: Warren Spector. He’s been a producer on such games as Thief, System Shock, Ultima Underworld, and Deus Ex. Now, take that experience of working on action-RPGs with freedom-of-choice mechanics, and apply it to a subject he loves — old-school Disney animation — and suddenly, Epic Mickey sounds like something worth paying attention to.

Metroid: Other M

Dev: Team Ninja | Pub: Nintendo

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WTF Moments of 2009
In a year filled with head scratchers, we pick the most inane.

By 1UP Staff

Thank God that’s over. Like many years, 2009 has been a roller coaster ride of highs and lows. Microsoft and Sony both tried to out-Wii Nintendo by announcing new control input devices at E3. Nintendo, on the other hand, rolled out a device to detect if their players were even still alive. Between all the bluster and insanity this year has had to offer, there’s a lot of crazy sh*t you might have forgotten. That’s why we’ve put together this list (in no particular order) of the moments that had us reaching for a shot of sweet release just to dull the pain.

PSPgo announced sans UMD at higher price

It’s usually nice to see hardware get an update a few years down the road once its flaws have become apparent and correctable. It’s somewhat less nice when that update actually removes functionality that’s been taken for granted and somehow actually costs significantly more than what we’ve had kicking around for years. Which was merely the first step down an increasingly ludicrous path.

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Top 10 Most Anticipated Games of 2010
We think the year’s going to be just fine thanks to the games on these lists.

By 1UP Staff

You know, 2009 would have been an awesome year if the stuff we were looking forward to didn’t get delayed. While 2009 ultimately ended up being one of the better years in gaming (Uncharted 2! Modern Warfare 2! Batman: Arkham Asylum! New Super Mario Bros Wii!), it’s interesting to see how much of our expected awesomeness ended up slipping into next year. We might gripe about the fall release schedule, but we’re about to hit it again with the flood of quality postponed titles hitting shelves in early 2010. Here is our daily breakdown (with a system highlighted per day in alphabetical order) of the ten games we’re anticipating the most for 2010. Occasionally, a multiplatform title will show up on one system instead of the other; that is usually reserved for a specific system preference, or to the pseudoscientific “what games are you anticipating most?” email thread within the 1UP office. This is just our own collective Top 10; sound off on the message boards about the ten games per system that you’re looking forward to most.

PC

PS3

Wii

360

DS

PSP

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The Best of 1UP 2009
The best features, videos, podcasts, and reviews from 1UP, all in one convenient location.

By 1UP Staff

We put out a lot of content in a year, and it’s hard to condense that down to the best of the best, but that’s exactly what you’ve got right here. The biggest news stories, buzz-generating reviews, and thought-provoking features all in one easy-to-access location. You can also catch-up on a few of our can’t-miss videos and podcasts. But one of the things we’re most excited about is still the site iself. From the front page to our blog editor, we made some big improvements to the site this year. We’ve not only got the highest quality gaming content on the web, we’ve got one of the best-looking sites to check it out on.

Jump to: Features | Retro Features | Top 5s | Cover Stories | News Stories | Editorial Blogs | Videos | Podcasts | Interviews & Profiles | Reviews | SuperGuides | Community Blogs

Features

Musical Miscreants
Videogames pilfer tunes from other sources, and we’ve put together comparisons of some of the most egregious examples.

Learning Through Play
Videogames can throw you into a learning environment that’s often richer than the classroom itself. We explore the untapped potential of games in education.

Harbingers of Doom
From development problems to launch disasters, we explore games and consoles that seemed destined for failure.

Why Gamers Still Play Pokemon
We offer some insight into why, 13 years after the game debuted in Japan, the Pokémon juggernaut shows no signs of stopping.

Sequels We Want
Great old franchises shouldn’t die! We plot perfect comebacks for classic favorites.

101 Free Games 2009
Put off finding a new job, or get fired from your current one, with our fourth annual list of the best games money can’t buy.

Fear and Mistrust in Videogames
Lying, backstabbing, and a brief history of videogame bastardry.

Hey Covers, You Suck! Part 5
As long as publishers pump out crappy, budget games, we’ll keep finding even more of the worst videogame box art.

Delay of the Game
2009 saw a significant number of notable titles get pushed into the next year. We explain why each major title got delayed.

Hardcore Gamers vs. Madden
Why do “hardcore gamers” shy away from one of America’s most popular sports franchises?

The Weird World of Japanese “Novel” Games
They’re less than games, but more than boring — we explore why Japanese gamers still love text-heavy adventures.

Essential RPGs
Regardless of your system of choice, here are the very best RPGs from this generation and last.

Fine Foods of Beat-Em-Ups
An artistic tribute to the pavement-based delicacies in our favorite retro action games.

Learn Japanese Through Videogames
These games won’t replace your “sensei,” but they’re a great supplement to dedicated language study.

Developer Roundtable: The Forthcoming Motion Control War
Four developers give their thoughts on Natal, Wii, Sony’s device, and the future of motion-controlled games.

The Role of Elevators in Gaming
Videogames have used elevators in a variety of ways — some practical, most tragically realistic. We examine several case studies of elevators in games.

Why WWII?
We try to figure out why the second World War gets such disproportionate representation in gaming.

Talking Heads
All of the empty boasts, badly inaccurate expostulations, and flatout wrong predictions from industry luminaries.

Best Ever Scary Games
Whether they’re cheap scares or more thoughtful frights, we look back on some of the greatest examples of spooky games.

Thirteen Things about FFXIII
We dig into the Japanese FFXIII demo for observations, opinions, and speculation.

How PC Gaming Ended Up On Your Couch
The PC, as a gaming platform, has seen better days, but the gaming culture it championed still rules the day.

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Videogame Holiday Card Roundup 2009
We dig through the holiday card pile to share some of our favorites with you.

Harmonix
They share the holiday spirit with us in Rock Band fashion.

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A Quick Guide To Getting Fit on Wii
Find the right Wii fitness title to get in shape in 2010.
By Alice Liang

Don’t let anyone lie to you — getting in shape, and staying there, takes effort, time, and dedication. I wouldn’t trust any program that promises results for anything less. But the most difficult part of any fitness regime isn’t the actual workout (although it probably feels that way when you’re panting and sweating), it’s maintaining the required lifestyle changes. You need to commit to a schedule and keep it.

But working out doesn’t have to be a chore; with the recent surge in fitness videogames, it’s become clear that a healthy workout can be loads of fun. Traditional methods, like personal trainers or gym memberships, require travel and can be expensive. The best part of working out with Nintendo Wii is that it’s right there in your home, available for use whenever you want. Sure, you could also use workout DVDs, but the Wii’s motion-sensing capabilities give your workouts that extra level of feedback and interactivity. And when you’re getting in shape, you need all the extra motivation you can get.

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The Fine Foods of Beat-Em-Ups
An artistic tribute to the pavement-based delicacies in our favorite retro action games.

By Ray Barnholt

Videogames get enough crap for being excessively violent, but today’s games aren’t as bad as they used to be. Back then, the average walk-and-punch beat-em-ups would also encourage our nation’s youth to eat food off the ground, thanks to the health-regenerating food that would appear out of broken barrels, telephone booths, or fire hydrants, and then lay on the filthy ground as hooligans got the snot beat out of them inches away. Absurd at first, it was soon a widely accepted part of the genre, and really, the unwavering dedication of those game developers is worth remembering and respecting. Here, now, is a selection of the best foods from the beat-em-ups of the ’90s. They’re reflective of a simpler time, when tables and silverware were mere novelties for the common man.

Appetizers

Apples (Streets of Rage 2 | Sega | 1992)

Plump, fresh apples from northwest Washington state, served one-at-a-time on a saucer. Though fresh, placement on city streets may lead to catching scurvy.

Cheese (Alien Vs. Predator | Capcom | 1994)

Farm fresh sampler of American cheese on bare plate. May include whatever saltines we had left in the back. Goes great with our complementary bread!

Salad (Cadillacs & Dinosaurs | Capcom | 1992)

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Building Blocks
How the Games We Play as Kids Shape Our Tastes

By Nadia Oxford

Video games, like so many things, can make an indelible impression on us early in life. Though we may not necessarily realize it, the games we love as kids can condition us to gravitate towards certain titles as adults. Many of us who have grown up alongside games since the days of the NES or Atari 2600 still love to experience the medium’s cutting edge. But sometimes it feels good to forego exposing ourselves to a new experience in favor of playing games that re-connect us with our roots.

The games industry has recently taken to defining gamers as “Core” and “Casual,” which is as useful as classifying movie-goers as “People Who Dig Explosions” and “People Who Dig the Weepy Stuff.” Realistically, the choices we made on the NES and further back has shaped us into a very diverse-and very lucky-generation of gamers.

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Rules of War
Stepping back from the front lines to examine how war has defined how we make games.

By John Constantine

The rule is that war is a given in video games. The second game ever made had the word right in its name. MIT’s Model Railroad Club made Spacewar! to indulge their predilection for Sci-Fi pulp first and foremost, but that game nonetheless fired the medium’s first weapons, and saw the first players trying to gun each other down in combat. Those guns have never left games, and they have arguably done more to define the art of making games than anything else. Video games have been more defined by humanity’s compulsion towards armed conflict than any other cultural force. War and the instruments of war are the model for game rules and what a game program does when we interact with it. In turn, video games have, like any artistic medium, redefined the way we perceive war throughout the west.

You can understand why. The central pleasure of all gaming is manipulating a digital body, some shape outside of your own in the physical world. Making something on a screen move is the first hook in games, and changing the environment is the second. A gun, any projectile you separate from your in-game body, enhances your influence in the game world, intensifying your connection and response to it. War as game has been naturally proliferated by basic design impulses, as it was in the board games that preceded video games. By placing you in opposition to a threatening force, you are given a goal and control over the means to destroy or hamper that force guaranteeing your survival and dominance. Even beyond the nuts and bolts of play, war has provided the ideal aesthetic and emotional subject matter to engage a player. War entails dispassionate strategy but also complete emotional engagement, action as well as drama.

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The Life and Times of Nintendo
We look back at the landmarks that have made Nintendo gaming’s most successful company.

By Chris Kohler

It would be difficult to argue that Nintendo is not the most important and influential game company of all time. No matter what you think of its personalities, its business practices, or its products past and present, Nintendo has been the central player in the relatively short history of the industry. Where other game makers enjoy a single era at most in which their products or philosophy were an unqualified success, only Nintendo has had three: The domination of the 8-bit era, the worldwide phenomenon of Pokémon, and the more recent blindside victory of Wii and DS.

And yet, the company is a bundle of contradictions. It constantly reinvents itself with the times, embarking on massive shifts in strategy to capture new markets — or stoically resists change even as the rest of the industry passes it by. It develops wild new game concepts — but is ultraconservative about expanding its development umbrella. It occasionally fails in the sphere of public opinion and marketshare — but still generates bigger profits than any other company.

And on occasion, it gets very, very lucky.

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