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SPOGS for WiiWare: Racing Dirty for Profit and Pleasure

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Nintendo Power announced a new WiiWare title: SPOGS Racing. Your objective? Do serious damage to other racers and in the process steal their parts to upgrade your own ride. Yes, that's right, apparently parts in this game are hot-swappable! You get an instant boost when you pull it off. For a WiiWare title it sounds nice enough, with more than 12 courses, 6 weapons to do your dirty work with, multiple control methods, and 3 different modes. No word on the price or the time of arrival.

If such a game is well executed, one can only imagine that racing might become a secondary objective, Super Dodgeball style. Has anyone seen the dodgeball? … What? There's a dodgeball in this game? Imagine running people down, grabbing their stuff, then turning around completely to run down another player for their stuff… all so you can pound them some more. Finish Line? What Finish Line? It's wishful thinking, but we can hope.

Of course, we here at Nintendo Wii Fanboy cannot publicly endorse larceny, reckless endangerment, cheating or vandalism. However, we neither reject nor denounce the same. Since Wii Fanboy is part Irish, let us leave you with this: If you must be a vandal, then tear down the unteardownable*. If you must be reckless, never look back. If you must cheat, cheat death. If you must steal, steal the heart of the one you love.

*It's only not a word if you choose not to use it.

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Microsoft Europe Targets Wii Price Point

The 360 has had a few hard times amidst its frequent successes. Hardware failures galore, the transformation of the HD DVD add-on into a $200 paper weight, renewed competition from the once impotent PS3, and the Wii's great success in holding that top spot on the sales charts month after month.

This March, Microsoft Europe is expected to fire back. The 360 Arcade (the version with no hard drive) will drop from €200 to €150, €30 cheaper than the Wii. Microsoft hopes to combat some of the Wii's success with casuals through entries to their XBLA service and casual retail titles like Scene It, which debuted a less threatening controller (where'd they get that idea?) than their standard gamepad. They hope their barebones Arcade SKU and a bargain basement price tag will really get things moving.

With SSBB hitting Europe this Summer, a price cut may not do it for the near term. But in the long run, Microsoft has clearly recognized the threat the Wii poses and is trying to counteract it. Is a price cut enough to help Microsoft topple the Wii?

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DS Gets Six Axis Motion Controls

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The DS has already dallied in 3 axis motion control, but now thanks to Astro Arts, Japanese DS users will get some PS3-style six axis action going on (children, avert your eyes). Even the Wii is green with envy, seeing as how it only detects motion on 5 axes. "Yaw" is not just a redneck 2nd person plural pronoun anymore.

The game is The Starry Night Navigator. It looks to be an Astronomy Trainer for DS, because you can never have too many trainers. Not only does the game sound like a fantastic idea in itself, this sounds like a great way to control it. The accelerometer and gyro appear to be included inside the NDS cart, not a separate GBA cart like the DS Motion Pak linked above, so it can't be used with other commercial games.

Although this may never make it to the US, we wish it great success, and hope more games (and the DS2) take the hint. How would you like to see this tech put to use? Flight sims, a Wooden Labyrinth (where you tilt a board to move a ball through a maze), first person movement controls, maybe DS Fit?

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