More Details on Pokemon Black/White

As reported yesterday by NaviFairy, the new Gen V starter Pokemon have been revealed. But more Generation V details have been emerging, aggregated by Serebii.net. Though not specifically related to the game, a new trailer for the 13th movie, Master of Illusion: Zoroack has turned up, which shows Zoroack using his shape shifting powers and Celebi accompanying Ash and friends. I've personally skipped the movies since Mewtwo Strikes Back, but a time travel plot (Celebi) and a shape shifting character (Zoroack) in the same movie is totally relevant to my interests.

But the movie actually does relate to the game, somewhat! The movie implies some sort of relationship between Zoroack and the three legendary beasts, Entei, Suicune and Raikou, and they also share a special relationship in the games. In Japan, moviegoers will be able to download a Mystery Gift containing Entei, Suicune and Raikou, who will be 'shiny' and know moves they are normally unable to learn. Since the Pokemon movies don't get theatrical releases in America anymore, it's likely that we'll get this promotion via a GameStop or Toys R Us download. The shiny legendary trio is intended to be traded over to Pokemon Black or White they can be used initiate a battle with Zoroack, where he'll cycle through illusions of the three beasts and only become catchable when he appears as himself. There hasn't been much said about how you'll trade them over, but my personal speculation is that it'll take advantage of the DSi's ability to eject games cartridges without crashing by ask you to eject your copy of Black or White and insert your copy of Diamond/Pearl/Platinum/HearGold/SoulSilver so that it can 'rip' them from the game in a manner similar to how Pal Park imports GBA Pokemon.

Zoroack's transformations come from his ability "Illusion" which is different from Ditto's "Transform" in that it's a passive ability, meaning it happens automatically or under certain conditions, rather than being selected like an attack. It's unclear how this affects gameplay, but it maybe that you'll be able to send a Zoroack out in battle and trick your opponent into thinking you're sending out a different Pokemon. Zoroack's evolutionary line can also learn an ability called Trickery where it attacks the opponent using the opponent's stats, instead of it's own stats. It can also learn a new move called "Claw Sharpen" which simultaneously raises Zoroack's physical attack power and accuracy.

A few weird details about the starters have also emerged, but I doubt they're of interest to anyone... The grass snake Pokemon, Tsutaja, is 0.6m tall, weighs 8.1kg and has the ability Overgrow, like all grass starters, which raises grass moves in a pinch. The fire pig Pokemon, Pokabu, is 0.6m tall, weighs 9.9kg and has the ability Blaze, like all fire starters, which raises fire moves in a pinch. The sea otter Pokemon, Mijumaru, is 0.5m tall, weighs 5.9kg and has the ability Torrent, like all water starters, which raises water moves in a pinch. Aren't you glad I told you that?

Wii Zelda Will Come Out "When It's Perfect"

I think we all suspected that we wouldn't be playing the new Zelda in 2010, despite the announcement to that effect. The game hasn't been officially been delayed or anything, but Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime, recently released some familiar statements about the new Zelda game in an interview available on the Nintendo Channel.

"Right now, it's still in development, but the key message that Mr. Miyamoto and Mr. Aonuma is telling us is that it really has to be perfect when it launches. That really is what the Zelda fan is expecting. So for all those Zelda fans out there right now, what I would say is, enjoy Spirit Tracks and know that the Zelda title for Wii will come out when it's perfect."

Right, so probably 2011.

Reggie: Zelda Wii will be released when it is perfect [Nintendo Everything]

Mega Man 10 Robot Masters Revealed

New CoroCoro scans have showed up on 2ch revealing the names and visages of Mega Man 10's robot masters, as well as some explanation to their probably self-explanatory powers:

Commando Man: Attacks with a powerful explosive wave.
Blade Man: Attacks with three swords.
Nitro Man: Can transform into a motorcycle.
Sheep Man: Splits up and creates lightning strikes.
Solar Man: Absorbs attacks and attacks with solar energy from his head.
Chill Man: Fires an icy shot.
Pump Man: Has a water-themed shield weapon.
Strike Man: Throws a powerful fastball.

Some things to notice about them: Pump Man's pump handle looks like a ponytail, Strike Man's head looks like a baseball, Sheep Man is supposed to be an "electric sheep" of which androids may or may not dream, Nitro Man bares a resemblance to Turbo Man, and Blade Man's head and arms seem to make up the three blades with which he attacks.

CoroCoro Reveals MM10 Robot Masters Official-Like, with Pictures (Updated) [The Mega Man Network]

Nintendo's Low Eco Score Was Due To Transparency

Greenpeace recently gave nintendo a 0.3/10 score in a report on tech companies' impacts on the environment. However, they weren't very transparent about the fact that they were also grading companies on transparency. If you look at the break down of Nintendo's score (scroll to the very bottom) much of the categories score 0 points for "no information" and the categories with further descriptions mostly describe Nintendo's public statements about it's environmentally friendly programs and then grade it poorly for it's lack of public statements about follow through with these programs.

Nintendo responded to Greenpeace's low score, saying:

[Wii] is notably the most energy efficient [console] of its generation.

We would like to assure customers that we take our environmental responsibilities seriously and are rigorous in our commitment to comply with all relevant laws relating to environmental and product safety, including avoiding the use of dangerous substances in our manufacturing processes and ensuring the safe disposal and recycling of materials.

We consider the environmental impact of our products over their entire life cycle, from planning to disposal. In the planning phase, for example, we make every effort to design energy-efficient products and select materials for component parts and packaging materials with careful consideration for the environment. We also consider the importance of reducing environmental impact at end-of-life disposal by clearly indicating the materials used in each product to make recycling easier.

We also work to eliminate harmful substances from our products right from the initial stages of material selection and have established strict environmental control standards, with our 340 production partners all co-operating with us in our efforts.

After reading Nintendo's response and looking at the actual break down for the score, it seems to me that Greenpeace's methodology is toxic. Claiming a company isn't environmentally friendly because of a lack of available data doesn't seem very fair--isn't it the responsibility of the researcher to find this data? Even so, bundling in a lack of data or inaccuracy of data with the results of a statistical study doesn't seem very sciencey to me.

Nintendo to Greenpeace: We do care about the environment [Joystiq]

Video: Super Mario Galaxy Rip-Off

This game, called "Duludubi Star", is a pretty blatant Chinese rip off of Super Mario Galaxy released in 2009. While it's no The Great Giana Sisters it's pretty impressive in it's ripoffery. Comments around the video have spotted numerous other copyright infringements within the game itself: The character's voice is stolen from Klonoa, the hub world theme is James Brown's "Sportin' Life" and someone else claimed to here the Ponyo theme. This truly is an amazing work of plagiarism.

Super Mario Galaxy rip-off, in video form [Nintendo Everything]

Nyko Wand+

Nyko just revealed the Wand+ at CES. The Wand+ is a follow up to Nyko's "Wand" announced at last year's CES. "Wand+" includes all the same lawsuit resistant tacky design of the Wand, but now includes built-in Wii Motion Plus functionality. At $40, that's $20 more than a Motion Plus accessory, and about the same price of a remote by itself, so it's $20 less than a Motion Plus + Wimote. But you own a Wii, you probably already have those things by now--maybe the biggest selling point is that it doesn't extend the length of the controller like the standard Motion Plus.

It's also compatible with other Nyko accessories, such as the gun attachment--notable for actually remapping the controller buttons, not just using plastic levers to push the buttons like other Wii guns. And of course, their wireless nunchuck. Nyko seems to be developing it's own little cottage industry of alternate Nintendo control schemes. I personally prefer the traditional Wii Remote's design, but I could see this product being useful, especially for people who don't already own a full set of Wii Remotes.

Nyko reveals Wii Wand with built-in MotionPlus, more at CES [Joystiq]

WoW Cougar Arrested

A 16 year old boy in Ontario recently ran away from home for a few days to be with a 42 year old woman he met in World of Warcraft, whom he described as his soulmate. The boy lied about his age to the woman, telling her that he was actually 20 years old. The woman was married with four children.

Though they met on WoW, they had been talking mostly on MSN for the past year. The parents knew about the relationship (though the extent of their knowledge and approval is unknown) and monitored the kid's computer usage. The kid had a history of WoW addiction and had been to counseling and was now only allowed to play as a reward for good behavior.

Over the Christmas holiday, the woman traveled from Texas to Ontario to be with the kid. He asked his parents if he could meet her and they said no. But he snuck out at 2 am anyway and met up with her at a hotel. With the help of the local authorities the kid and woman were spotted within the next 2 days. The parents decided not to press charges, as the age of consent in Ontario is 16.

However, when she returned to Texas, she was charged with "two counts of online solicitation of a minor and one count of child enticement" as the age of consent in Texas is 17. She's currently in jail with bail is set at $310,000.

Both age of consent laws and international jurisdictions are complicated subjects, so I'm going to reserve comment on the legal aspects of this story. But in terms of morality and justice, this is one of the few instances of a news story about video games and crime where parental negligence doesn't seem to be a factor.

Sometimes people just act irrationally when they think they're in love. Online relationships can often be mesmerizing and addictive. Speaking from past experience, I know it's easy for hormonal teenagers to go overboard with online infatuation.

For our younger readers who may find themselves in similar situations, just remember that you don't really know a person until you've interacted with them in real life on a daily basis, even if you've spent years talking to them online. A person's online-self may seem worth making drastic real life changes for, but their real life self is going to invariably very different. Sometimes it's better to keep online relationships online, especially if their fruition could land one of you in jail.

Teen runs away to meet older WoW soulmate [WoW.com]

Ace Attorney Coming To WiiWare Next Week

Capcom just announced that the WiiWare version of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for will be available for download next Monday, January 11th. The game will cost 1,000 Wii Points and include the first 4 episodes, with the 5th episode, Rise from the Ashes, available as a DLC add-on beginning in May. Justice For All and Trials and Tribulations are due out in February and March, respectively.

Also coming to the Wii is a playable demo of the upcoming Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth title. Capcom doesn't know the exact date yet, but it should be out in "a few weeks" and likely before the game's February 16th release. The demo will be downloadable through the Nintendo Channel's DS download feature.

8-Bit Left-4-Dead Available For Download

In November we posted a video of an upcoming Left-4-Dead fan 'de-make' called Pixel Force: Left 4 Dead. The 8-bit version of the game has just been released and you can download it here. It plays somewhat similar to the NES game Commando with an option for 2 player co-op. You can choose from the original 4 survivors and play through 8-bit versions of the original 4 campaigns.

Pixel Force: Left 4 Dead was created by indie game maker Eric Ruth who also made a game based on The Angry Video Game Nerd. Given Valve's history of cooperation with indie game developers it's likely the project won't be taken down, but it's always good idea to download things like this as soon as possible--you never know when copyright law will rear it's ugly head.

"Unity 3D" Makes Indie Game Development Easier

A friend of mine recently showed me this amazing program called Unity 3D, it's basically an IDE for making 3D games with minimal coding. Said friend showed me the program because he works for a real game developer that makes real publisher-backed console games and they're considering switching their development process over to Unity. It's actually a pretty amazing program and worth looking into for any aspiring indie game developers reading this--if you can get past the tighten-the-graphics-on-level-3 feel.

So how does it work? How much does it cost? Can games developed with Unity actually get published? Good questions! Games developed on Unity can be published--many top selling iPhone games are made with Unity and there's at least one example of a published Wii game that was made with Unity. The biggest Unity-developed game is probably Cartoon Network's MMORPG, Fusion Fall. You can see a more complete list of games made with Unity here.

How much does it cost? Would you believe that it's kind of free? You can download the basic version of Unity for free, but Unity Pro, Unity iPhone, and Unity Wii all cost significant amounts of money. Also, if your game is sold for a profit, Unity gets a cut (Edit: Unity has different licensing tiers for different types of companies and platforms, but they don't take a percentage based on profits). But business is business--if you're an artist intending to give your game away for free, Unity is your oyster. Plus, it'd probably be a good idea to get comfortable with using the free version before deciding to shell out hundreds of dollars on the licensed versions.

So how does it work, exactly? I've only just started poking around the program myself, but the Unity website has some pretty impressive video tutorials showing off what it can do. Unity lets you easily jump in and out of Photoshop and Maya 3D to edit textures and 3D models and has built-in wizards for creating lighting, particle effects and hit detection. You can use C and even Javascript for scripting more complicated gameplay functions.

Unity 3D runs natively on both OS X and Windows. You can download it for free right here and start building stuff with it right away. And my mom said I'd never get ANYWHERE with these games!

Koopa Troopa Electric Guitar

A reddit user rocked our world today with pictures of his friend's hand made Koopa Troopa guitar. File this under excellent ideas and excellent execution. At first I was a little turned off by the sheer boringness of Koopa Troopa compared to all the other Mario characters they could've chosen--but then I realized the ho-hum expression on the Koopa's face is sort of what makes it so awesome. I love this guitar.

Get iPhone Bust-A-Move For Cheap/Free

Last night while browsing the iPhone App Store's stream of "recently released" apps, I saw a free version of Taito's Bust-A-Move in the App Store. Alas, I can't find any official confirmation of it's release, but the game is downloaded onto my phone and if you search for it you can download it onto yours too. The free version of the game features classic Bust-A-Move gameplay and even a wireless multiplayer mode to play against other iPhones locally.

The paid version of the game is currently discounted to $2.99 (usually $4.99) until January 4. It also includes paid DLC for a Puzzle Mode, Cooperative Mode, and 3 new Puzzle Packs, for $0.99 each. Paid DLC cannot be purchased from the free app. Surprisingly, the paid app also includes a story mode, but it's nothing to write home about.

Bust-A-Move for iPhone features two different possible control schemes. With one control scheme you touch anywhere on the screen to aim the bubble shooter and then press the shooter to fire. With the other you pull the shooter back like a slingshot and release to fire. It may also show you a 'preview' of where your bubble will land depending on the difficulty level. It works out pretty well and it's a perfect fit for the iPhone.