As great as New Super Mario Bros. Wii is, it's on a console, requiring a TV, and thus cannot fill every leisure moment I may have to spare. Since the review copy Konami sent arrived yesterday, I've been squeezing WireWay into those spaces.

WireWay is a neat little idea for a game that I wouldn't be surprised if you hadn't heard of—it's been a pretty low-key release, an odd fit for its hyperactive attitude. I personally spotted it months ago, but apart from one preview and the usual ship announcements, nobody's talking about it. As such, you probably don't know (though you may be able to guess from the screens) that it's a game built around slingshotting a little guy—Wiley's his name—around levels.

Doing this intelligently not only gets you to the end of the level, it lets you collect a bunch of little stars called Elan; these are both health (the meter on the upper screen) and score. When you fill up your gauge, you get to access "wired up" mode, which turns all the slingshot wires in the level into super wires, sending Wiley flying far and fast. It's not terribly useful in the beginning (particularly considering that it empties your gauge and thus leaves you vulnerable to a death if you make a wrong move) but as the levels get more and more complicated it's proved useful—even required for certain goals. I've seen a bit of this already in the second world, which I completed last night.

There's a score-attack component at work here; it doesn't take much to clear the levels, but collecting all the Elan and getting it done quickly is necessary if you want to achieve higher ranks and medals. There's also hidden ticket pieces in each level stuffed out of the way that unlock various customization options for Wiley, from looks to the sounds he makes when bouncing off walls. Fun and creative boss battles—something I've begun to expect from Konami titles lately—cap off each world.

I'll bring you a full review in the near future, but in the meantime, if you'd like to pick up WireWay for yourself, it's been on shelves for a couple weeks.

After the guy in front of me finishes with the trial version of Space Invaders Extreme for the 360's Live Arcade, the booth attendant takes the controller from him, carefully buffs it off with a moist sanitation cloth, returns the game to the main menu, and offers me the seat. He asks if I know it. I tell him yes.

"It's Space Invaders," he says, and that's basically all any of us need to know about Space Invaders Extreme.


The game came out on Live six months ago, which seems to be a kind of trend at the Games Japan Festa here in Osaka, Japan: a charming opportunity to play some games without totally losing your goddamned mind.

I'm having a get-together for select family, friends, and coworkers this Sunday. It's my own brand of Mario party that doesn't actually involve the so-named series—instead, we'll be digging in to New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

I've not said anything about this game here yet, but I've been following it with keen interest since its E3 reveal. I grew up with the original Super Mario Bros.; I did have chances to play the sequels at friends' homes on NES and SNES, but never actually owned any of them until I, now grown, got into the Super Mario Advance series on the GBA. But the original still holds a special place in my heart and, as I'm finding, many others' as well... people who I didn't expect.


It's interesting to see people both younger and older than I light up when I bring up NSMBW. Some of them did keep up with Mario throughout his 2-D adventures, others didn't really get past the first. But all of them know how to run, jump, and throw fireballs. From an impact perspective, SMB was NES's Wii Sports. It may have been one of a scant few games owned for a NES; it was one of only a half-dozen or so in my own childhood home... but even if the collection was much thicker, SMB remained one of the most memorable titles.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii is like a childhood dream come true. I think most of us took turns playing at some point, wondering what it'd be like to be able to play together. I remember thinking when the original DS New Super Mario Bros. was revealed with its two-player mode... how much fun would that have been to play through the game together with a friend, like we always wanted to do? It wasn't meant to be then, but here it is now.

I'm really looking forward to my own Mario party this coming Sunday. I wasn't at E3, so I haven't laid hands on the game yet; it'll be new to me too. As new as Mario can be, at least. If you're having a similar deal, tell me how it went. I'd love to hear your stories.

Just two days left. Here we go!

The review copy Need for Speed Nitro that EA sent came bearing not just the usual fact sheet and contact information, but a letter from producer Joe Booth. In it, he tells the story of how Nitro is not another Wii downport, but a game created specifically for the Wii. He suggested that I not just look at the game myself, but seek out some of the "Wii audience"—grandmothers and children, I guess—and get their stories of how the game plays.

Well, Joe, I did actually let my own 7-year-old daughter in on the action; she loved it. But something else happened, too. I suspect you may have had very reasonable expectations that your typical games journalist would pan Nitro for not being the incredibly deep and serious hardcore racing experience he prefers, and thought it best to write your letter to try to work around this situation. What you may not have expected is that your game in my hands—hands that will pick a racing game that is first and foremost fun to drive over one that's loaded down with a huge stack of features—made a complete end-run around those expectations, because I absolutely loved it from minute one.

Fragile: Farewell Ruins of the Moon—as I used to know it—has been on my mind recently. I'm not really quite sure why; maybe I've just sort of been in a melancholic mood and thought that its emotional tale and beautifully eerie environments would have been just the thing... if only I had it to play.


What I did have was a chance to inquire after the title with XSEED's Jimmy Soga, who has helped provide us (and by extension, you, dear readers) with an insightful window into the world of the games his company publishes more than once—most recently, with our conversation with Little King's Story's Yoshiro Kimura. This time, I just wanted to ask Jimmy himself a little bit about how Fragile was coming.

As it turned out, Fragile was on XSEED's mind as well. We got the news last week that it had been renamed Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon, and got a peek at the first English shots of the game. To go with that news, read on for a little bit about the newly-christened Fragile Dreams.

The Art Style games may have dried up and the Flipnote Studio excitement cooled, but there's still some pretty neat stuff on DSiWare from time to time. I haven't been telling you about them as much as I would have liked to, dear readers, so I'd like to fix that little problem right now, if I may.

Let's kick off with the latest and greatest that I've been playing: Pinball Pulse: The Ancients Beckon. Developed by pinball wizards Fuse Games, who are sort of looking like a Nintendo "second party" these days between Mario Pinball Land and Metroid Prime Pinball, this is—unlike their previous Nintendo-published efforts—a classic single table game with a ton of cool features. I'm definitely not a pinball wizard myself, having never accomplished much on a real table, but I love the way this one feels and can easily play it for an hour. Great value for the 500 points, and I'm hoping there's more Pinball Pulse in the works.

On the non-game front I've also really had a fun time with Art Academy, though just First Semester right now—hopefully when I have more time I'll finish that one and give Second Semester a spin. For a guy who can draw a little but is really no artist, Art Academy's lessons are pretty cool. They revolve around a pretty slick natural-materials paint program that comes with pencils, paints, and a photo grid that lets you draw from photos on your DSi Camera. Fantastic package, and in my mind worth the 800 points.

As amused as I was at the five 200-point Domo games, which I later learned were based on an old GBA game, they didn't turn out to be so great. Their playability ranges from old-school rough to just bad. Hard-Hat Domo is probably the best of the bunch.

DSiWare may be heavily weighted towards Nintendo's own offerings, but those offerings are generally pretty good. It's been a pretty cool service, and I'm curious to see what's around the corner next.