Nintendo Wii Features

Feature

Sex in Games, Five Years After “Hot Coffee”
How the Grand Theft Auto scandal changed videogames and the state of digital intimacy, with thoughts from the developers of God of War and Heavy Rain.

By Anthony John Agnello

“No wonder these games are falling into the hands of our children, and no wonder so many parents feel everyday like they are fighting this battle with their hands tied behind their backs. We need to do better. We need to do everything we can to make sure that parents have a line of defense against graphic videogames and other content that go against the values they are trying to instill in their children.” So said Hilary Clinton, then senator of New York State, in an impassioned speech wherein she decried the Electronic Software Ratings Board (ESRB) as incompetent, and declared that she would author a bill to make the sale of Mature-rated videogames to minors a federal crime. The speech was made on July 14, 2005, just two weeks after the “Hot Coffee” mod for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas started blazing its way across the internet, making headlines as it went.

Of course, the term “mod” is somewhat misleading, as “Hot Coffee” didn’t add new content to Rockstar Games’ sandbox hit. Dutch hacker Patrick Wildenborg’s patch for the PC version of the game altered just the tiniest bit of code, making accessible a whole new minigame built into San Andreas by Rockstar North. For those who don’t remember, here’s what unlocking “Hot Cofee” gave you access to: Player character CJ Johnson can date a variety of a women in San Andreas’ fictional Californian cities. In the retail version of the game, these dates end with CJ dropping off his lady friend at her house. Depending on how close you are with that girlfriend, she may invite CJ in for coffee. The camera shifts to the exterior of the house while CJ and his girlfriend get audibly amorous.

More Nintendo Wii Games

Share This

Feature

How to Anger a Gamer in 12 Easy Steps
Hell hath no fury like a video game comments troll.

By Michael Drucker

Throughout the years of our lives, we gamers have faced many injustices. But none can rankle a hardcore gamer more than the dread factual error, or the mispronounced name, or the beating of a dead horse (figuratively, of course). Here are a dozen tried and true ways to make you or a beloved gamer friend twitch with anger.

This article originally appeared on UGO. You may read the original here.

12. Refer To All Video Games as ‘Nintendo Tapes’

“I saw an ad for a new Nintendo tape called Red Fred Revenger and my son loves cowboys, so I’m thinking of going to Blockbuster and seeing if they have it for the Game Boy DS.”

11. Imply Only Children Play Video Games

More Nintendo Wii Games

Share This

Feature

Top 5 Enemy Plants
Organisms that use photosynthesis to transform carbon dioxide… into pure evil.

By David Wolinsky

Not that anyone outside of Cartman needs more reasons to hate hippies, but it’s obvious that none of them are gamers. The proof? They were off hugging trees while these games were showing the rest of the non-patchouli-smelling public the dangers of the Green Menace — plants that feed not only on sunlight, water, and great pH balance but also our blood. Remember these chlorophyll-having bastards the next time some sandal-wearing longhair hassles you for using a can of spray paint.

5. Plant Man (Mega Man 6)

Plant Man’s M.O. is to take root for all of plantkind, lull humanity into a false sense of security with an unpredictable attack pattern, and then dissuade us from clipping its power source with an unusable barrier weapon you get when snuffing it out. Originally programmed to tend a botanical garden, Plant Man presumably has some sort of immunity to the instant-death spikes usually found in pits since they’re also on his flashy outfit — not to mention thorny roses — but mankind gets the last laugh, since MM6 hardly warrants attention otherwise.

4. The Thorian (Mass Effect)

One of the upsides of us completely destroying Earth is that someday, when we colonize Mars, nobody will have to mow the lawn or do yard work anymore. As Mass Effect shows, though, we’ll still have to deal with allergies in the form of the mind-controlling Thorian, which makes slaves of anyone who inhales its spores — and renders them unable to speak about their affliction via mind-splitting intergalactic headaches and unbelievable amounts of sinus pressure. In space, no one can hear your congested scream.

3. Plant 42 (Resident Evil)

More Nintendo Wii Games

Share This

Feature

Least Popular Character Tournament
Which character sucks the most?

By 1UP Staff

Hey, remember all those “best videogame character” polls that proliferated across the plains of the Neolithic intertubamajigger? What was actually being settled was probably more like “most popular character,” or it wouldn’t have always come down between Sephiroth and Vincent or some such shit. But those unscientific polls served a purpose… Probably! And we’re serving that same, most likely entirely insustantialable purpose in our quest to find the worst character ever.

Except, in the interest of honesty, we won’t actually call this reversal a “worst,” “most useless,” or “shittiest” tournament. We’re just going to establish who, out of all our own personal choices, is the least popular. I’m sure we missed a whole bunch and completely screwed everything up with what we picked and our initial seeding, to say nothing of our stubborn refusal to bother with losers brackets, but hey, that’s what comments are for. Let us know all about how you’ve lost all faith in 1UP on account of we left out that one character from Persona that I don’t give a crap about. It’ll be awesome.

Vote in today’s poll on the homepage!

More Nintendo Wii Games

Share This

Feature

The Biggest Games of Fall 2010
We pick 30 upcoming heavy hitters that you really should keep an eye on.

By 1UP Staff

Ever year, it gets more out of hand. More sequels, more technology, more money needed, and barely enough time to experience it all. Going into Christmas 2010, the lineup of big — or even just plain interesting — games is once again boiling over. We’ve selected a total of 30 games that we not only consider the biggest “big deals” of the year, but also ones we think you should pay the most attention to. Does this mean some games aren’t here, like something in your favorite franchise that you’ve already declared to be the best game of the year? Maybe, but consider this a somewhat cherry-picked selection of titles.

Halo Reach

Microsoft | 360 | September

The fifth mainline game in the Halo series is going to be more than a re-tread of FPS tropes that Halo itself helped make canon on the console; it may not have a number attached to its name, but this is still a big deal. For one thing, in addition to the added multiplayer options (including a revamped Firefight mode), Reach will also introduce space combat into the series. The mechanics aren’t too terribly different from piloting a Hornet, but Jeremy Parish points out in his preview, “You have a full sphere of motion, with no fixed horizon.” It’s a fitting end to what may be Bungie’s final Halo project. As Parish says, “It’s clear that Bungie is planning to say farewell to the franchise that’s dominated the studio for the past decade in style.

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Activision | 360 / PS3 / PC | November

With CoD originator Infinity Ward out of the picture (for the time being, anyway), alternate developer Treyarch takes the mantle this year in Black Ops, and it looks like the company doesn’t want to be taken as just the B-team anymore. The result is a new, non-World War II CoD that deals with black ops missions in places like Vietnam and Afghanistan, with plenty of explosions, daring feats, and dudes yelling over gunfire. In all seriousness, there’s a lot of questionably similar plot elements in the campaign, but knowing the series, it’s going to be multiplayer that will keep Black Ops in the limelight until the next installment: Features include a four-player co-op campaign, revised Create-A-Class, tons more achievements, and we’ll bet on a new mode or two. As Thierry Nguyen writes in our original preview, “While Call of Duty: World at War did show that Treyarch is a damn fine developer that can get out of Infinity Ward’s shadow, it’s encouraging to see that the studio is putting its all into Black Ops, and that it has the capability of actually surprising us.”

Vanquish

Sega | 360 / PS3 | October

Vanquish looks like a sexy, shiny, future version of Gears of War, but calling it a knockoff would be unfair. This is, after all, the newest brainchild of Shinji Mikami, main man behind Resident Evil — who left the series after RE4, which Gears probably took a camera angle or two from, anyway. Taken on its own, Vanquish’s high-energy action (including but not limited to hero Sam Gideon’s rockstar knee-slide move) and politically-influenced plot (Russia steals a US space station that harnesses solar energy that can also be weaponized) make for one very different third-person shooter. Even if, as Matt Leone wrote, “It seems quite a bit less ridiculous than what we’ve seen from Platinum thus far, with games like MadWorld and Bayonetta, and what we last saw from Shinji Mikami in God Hand.”

Dead Rising 2

Capcom | 360 / PS3 / PC | September

More Nintendo Wii Games

Share This

Feature

Inside Samus’s Ninja Training: A Metroid: Other M Interview
Nintendo’s Yoshio Sakamoto and Team Ninja’s Yusuke Hayashi talk about Samus’s next mission.

By Jeremy Parish

In anticipation of the next chapter of the Metroid series, Other M for Wii, we recently spoke with producers Yoshio Sakamoto (from Nintendo) and Yusuke Hayashi (Tecmo’s Team Ninja) on the nature of this unusual collaborative effort between two very different development teams, the challenges of updating the Metroid legacy, and the science of creating an NES-style game in 3D.

1UP: The first time we spoke was a year ago at E3 2009, and you had just announced Other M moments before. Now that it’s well along in development and nearly ready to be published, I’m curious to hear your thoughts on its development process of the game — how creating Other M has been different from what you’re accustomed to.

Sakamoto: Of course, this is the first time that we’ve been working with Team Ninja to produce this Metroid game. [And] there have been some different approaches and different thinking about game development on each side, but we’ve always found ways to turn that into areas of inspiration and find novel solutions to implement our plans. It seems like everyone had a different kind of proficiency that all fit together to create one beautiful Metroid game. It’s really impressive. Now that we’re almost finished and I look back on the game, I have to say the results are even better than I expected.

More Nintendo Wii Games

Share This

Feature

Why We Play Metroid
Fans open up about their love for Nintendo’s sci-fi action games (and their solemn heroine).

By Nadia Oxford

Once upon a time, way back in the mists of gaming history, the gentle narration of Nintendo localizer Dan Owsen reassured us that the last metroid was in captivity, and the galaxy was at peace. Now we know better. The war between the bounty hunter Samus and the life-sucking jellyfish bred by the malicious space pirates who orphaned her still rages. Samus may suffer under the weight of her seemingly endless battles, but as gamers, we can only feel a passing twinge of sympathy. Truth is, Samus’ struggles translate into some pretty wicked-cool games–some of the best action-adventure games the industry has to offer.

What makes Metroid one of Nintendo’s most popular franchises? Why is it that the mere showing of the premiere trailer for Metroid: Other M saved Nintendo’s 2009 E3 Press Conference from crashing and burning? To hear the fans talk about their girl Samus and the worlds she saves, the Metroid series expertly blends exploration, subtle storytelling, and an immersive atmosphere in a way no other game series matches. When Samus tells you that she’ll see you next mission, it’s always worth sticking around to see where you’ll end up next.

But nothing in the universe is constant, and some fans are worried that the bounty hunter may venture too deep into unfamiliar territory and lose herself forever.

More Nintendo Wii Games

Share This

Feature

Must See E3: The Biggest Events of E3 2010
1UP’s guide to all of the biggest announcements and reveals from this year’s E3 show!

By 1UP Staff

Let’s face it, trying to keep track of all of the big events at E3 is near impossible — the show is simply packed full of so many great announcements and games to see. Heck, we’re going to the thing and even we are having a hard time keeping it all straight. So this year we’ve put together this handy schedule of the biggest items that you should plan for during the show. While it’s far from everything we’ll be covering from E3 — there’s a lot more that didn’t make this schedule — it’s a good way for you to plan out your week. So keep this page handy during the show; we’ll be updating it with links as they become available.

Note that all times are PST.

Monday, June 14 |
Tuesday, June 15 |
Wednesday, June 16 |
Thursday, June 17

Monday, June 14th

10:00 AM
Microsoft Press Conference

Live Video Stream + Live Blog of all of Microsoft’s biggest Xbox 360 announcements!

2:00 PM
EA Press Conference

More Nintendo Wii Games

Share This

Feature

The Top 11 Greatest Mario Video Moments
Mario’s funniest moments caught on film.

By 1UP Staff

No, this isn’t a celebration of Mario’s in-game triumphs — it’s a look at how the series’ influence has jumped to home-made videos, TV shows, and movies (with Mario and Luigi duetting on the marimba). Here now are our top favorite Mario moments captured on video.

Mario Ice Capades

In some ways we’ve saved the best for first. This clip from a 1989 NBC Ice Capades special features hosts Alyssa Milano and Jason Bateman (the self-proclaimed “Video Prince”) in full-on ’80s cheese mode, while Mr. Belvedere gives his all in the role of his life, King Koopa. Most shockingly, Luigi comes out as a stone-cold killer when he mercilessly exterminates fuzzy koopas and goombas with some kind of electroshock gun we don’t remember seeing in the games.

Super Mario Bros. Super Show intro

Also from 1989, the “hip-hop” intro to the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, an actual television program that was probably viewed by actual people. Starring the WWF’s own Captain Lou Albano. Did Mario just call you a paisano? He did.

More Nintendo Wii Games

Share This

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

More Nintendo Wii Games

Share This