8-BITS: Not Safe For Wombles Edition.

Welcome to 8-BITS, home to professional lemming boxing. As mentioned in yesterdays post, Microsoft had a little shin dig today to announce some new games, so all pretend to be surprised when I tell you they showed off Viva Pinata 2 and Banjo Kazooie 3. From what we know, Viva will improve on the ground work laid in the 2006 game no one brought, while Banjo will be another Rare collectathon that no one cares about. In rather more mature and relevant news, Gears of War 2 is said to be, and I quote, "bigger, better, and far more bad-ass". Now that we all know that, we can all breath a sigh of relief.

Someone who needs relief in a slightly different department is my main man Uwe Boll, who was recently quoted saying that he would be the perfect person to make a Grand Theft Auto movie. Bless his little heart. Seriously though guys, why has that Internet petition not stopped this guy yet? Speaking of the rather popular GTAIV, rumour has it that Sony may be able to fix the problems the game is having on PS3 with a firmware upgrade. If punching hookers is not your thing though, perhaps your interest would be more tickled if I showed you the first ten minutes of Metal Gear Solid 4? I shouldn't have to point out that this video has "spoilers", but a new Banjo Kazooie idiot is bourn every minute.

In the downloadable content department, news has broken that the first episodic episode of Penny Arcade Adventures will be arriving on Xbox LIVE Arcade on May 21st! Coming a day earlier on May 20th is WiiWare in Europe. Nintendo Europe has announced eight launch titles for the service, which include some that are not yet available in America, including Dr Mario and Star Soldier R.

And to conclude this non-refundable episode, I bring you what might just be the worst ever advert for a home video game console. The Kotaku page contains a censored, safe for work version, but you can access the full NSFW version through a link on their page if you dare. Sleep tight.

8-BITS: Rumorang Edition.

Welcome back to 8-BITS, your family friendly meat grinder. Today marked a very special day in the Nintendoites calendar, because WiiWare has been launched! Currently six games are available for download, which include Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Lost Wings, Defend your Castle, Pop, a blackjack game and TV Show King. While you can see various impressions and reviews of these games around the 'net, I do want to point you in the direction of this video, which should give you an idea of why you need to buy Lost Winds. Today! WiiWare will arrive in Europe in just a week’s time (mark May 20th with a big red circle), so don't light those torches and pitch forks just yet.

Speaking of Europe, what we did get this week was a Virtual Console update. This week’s offerings are the NeoGeo classic Metal Slug, and the rather not so classic Cho Aniki for the TurboGrafx CD. To roundup the subject of WiiWare, during an interview with Fumiaki Shiraishi of Square-Enix about the size limitations (I'll make this quick, they say it’s not a problem, which is a LIE), we get this juicy little quote sure to erect fanboy interests. "I'd like to make an ActRaiser sequel. That would be kind of fun."

In non-Wii news, it has been announced that the UK will get a Metal Gear Solid 4 Limited Edition after all. For just £79.99 you get the game (well duh) a six-inch-tall Snake action figure, a soundtrack CD and a "Making Of" Blu-ray featuring interviews with the Kojima Productions team. The package is exclusive to Play.com.

You like rumours right? I like rumours! First up we have word that Guitar Hero IV will have drums, vocals, bass, guitar and the option to create your own song tracks. While the last item seems far fetched, I'm going to draw the line right now and say that all the peripherals need to be compatible with Rock Band. Multiple guitars? Sure, some people can live with that. But when we get into having multiple drum sets for different games, we're going a little too far down screw you lane.

Also in the rumour department is word that Scene It? 2, Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise, Banjo-Kazooie 3, Lips and Ninja Blade will soon be announced by Microsoft. While the first three seem like good bets (though I predict Viva Piñata to be a platformer and Scene It? will suck), quite what Lips and Ninja Blade will be is still a mystery. Speculate away!

And finally tonight, the director of Pirates of the Caribbean has been confirmed for the Bioshock movie. Snazzle razzle!

Button Mashers Roundup (12th May).

This is Button Mashers, the only Internet Blog with a superfluous third nipple. Tuesday over at 'the Blog' saw 'lil TetsuoTrunks take on Kingdom Hearts II with a rather large pair of scissors. Usually I too would issue some sort of response to such livid fanboy crushing comments about the story telling in Kingdom Hearts, but even I have to admit that he really is on to something. Despite playing through the travesty of nature that is Chains of Memories and nearly completing Kingdom Hearts II, I really have about as much cohesive knowledge of what’s going on as a bag of salt. It all looks cool an' all, but someone honestly tell me its not all nonsense?

Moving on to Thursday and iamaredmage returns from some personal drama to bring us a discussion on a proposed bill that would require retailers to ask for age identification for Mature rated games if they suspect the customer is under age. As iamredmage points out the reaction from most American gamers over this bill is hysterical. The UK has had laws against selling 15 and 18 rated games to minors for years and you know what? It can work. Sure it doesn’t protect against stupid uneducated mothers buying GTA for their kids, but it does prevent a large group of kids getting hold of adult games. And what’s wrong with that? These games are rated for a reason and not having those ratings legally binding is like saying "yeah... twelve year olds shouldn't smoke, but I'm not going to stop you."

Finally on Saturday TetsuoTrunks brought us a short piece on Metal Gear Online. From what I've seen and heard of the game (despite now having access to a PS3, they took the damn beta download down before I could get it), he is most likely right in the fact that MGO is nothing special. Where I think the game will succeed is in the "Metal Gear" type modes, such as the game where two players get to take the role of snake and the MK2, while a red and blue team try to track him down while fighting each other. Traditional death mach’s and other such FPS style game play however, doesn’t seem like it would fit into the world of MGS, and its control schemes. Is this a problem? I don't think so. MGO really is just an extra thing for the Metal Gear enthusiasts. Metal Gear Solid 4 is where it’s at, and if you really need more after that then hey, go check out MGO. Being a lovely grunt just wont match the fun had being Solid Snake, but did you really need to be told that?

Clidus Cam Episode II: Mario Kart Wii.

In this episode of Clidus Cam myself, Alex, Biccy (Dave) and TetsuoTrunks discuss our experiences with Mario Kart Wii online, including the controls, new items, tracks, bikes and more.

(Message Board Discussion)