What to see and when
E3 is coming, and KINECTaku will be reporting on all the Kinect news throughout the show from 6th to 9th June, but you'll also be able to catch the live keynote over at the official Xbox E3 site.
Kitchen sink also rumoured
The controller for Nintendo's new console, currently codenamed Project Café, gets more and more feature-packed with every rumour. The original rumours revolved around a 6" touch screen, but now a source close to industry magazine Develop has apparently revealed a new feature: a camera.
Controller stays on Earth
With its mix of shooting and space flight, Lightbox's aerial shooter Starhawk looked like a perfect fit for PlayStation Move, but the developer has confirmed the upcoming title won't support Sony's motion controller.
Interesting happenings afoot
You may remember Nintendo revealing that Nintendo Points will be useless on the 3DS, with a new cash-based currency system coming into effect for the console's eShop. It now appears, however, that Nintendo is going for a total rebrand of its currencies, with the European Wii Shop Channel now accepting eCards.
Plenty of Nintendo fan ire has been drawn by the lack of an F-Zero game for the Wii, and with Wipeout exclusive to Sony consoles there's a huge gap in the market for sleek-looking futuristic racers. WiiWare developer Shin'en Multimedia is hoping to fill that with its upcoming WiiWare title FAST – Racing League, due to reach Europe on 27th May. On the surface, the game shares much in common with Nintendo's renowned high-speed racing franchise: its rollercoaster-style tracks fly by at high speed, though it intentionally stays below the same kind of eye-melting pace that GameCube achieved with F-Zero GX, and with good reason: it has a trick up its sleeve. Your ship can be "phased" between black and white in a neat nod to Ikaruga. Passing over an energy strip of the same colour as your ship will grant you a huge speed boost, with colour-coded ramps letting you hit big jumps and strips on the ceiling pulling you upward for alternate routes. If you're not in the right phase, you'll slow down if you pass over a strip, and passing over a jump pad or under a ceiling strip of the wrong colour does nothing, so judicious use of phases is the order of the day. In the demo version we played only four of the 12 tracks were available, varying from a rocky canyon to a metallic raceway, with that trademark Shin'en sheen that made Jett Rocket one of the best-looking games on the service. The frame rate is smooth throughout, and will no doubt earn Shin'en many more well-deserved graphical plaudits. It's only a week until the finished version of FAST — Racing League hits WiiWare, and from our brief hands-on playtime it's looking like Shin'en will have a considerable hit on its hands. The addition of phasing has plenty of potential for interesting course design, and the full game also includes unlockable content not available in our preview. We'll have a full review not long after FAST — Racing League is released on WiiWare, but in the meantime check out the first video footage of the game in action: [youtube:-852FRy9dhk]
Get behind the wheel
Continuing our exclusive look at upcoming WiiWare physics-racer MotoHeroz from Trials HD developer RedLynx, we have a look at the cars you'll be racing around in when the game launches on WiiWare this summer.
Gaming in a snip
Chillingo's portable sales hit Cut the Rope is on its way to DSiWare, according to DS-X2.
Will low price = higher sales?
From today, the Nintendo Wii will be available across the UK in two varieties: white with Mario Kart Wii and a Wii Wheel, or black with Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort. The console's price has changed too, dropping to around £129.99, but many retailers are taking the chance to sell the machine even more cheaply.
Forget sore thumbs
The trend for steadily increasing variants of the iconic NES controller is approaching critical mass, as Dutch students have just set a new record for the largest functioning game controller with an NES pad measuring nearly four metres wide.
Chrono Trigger finally reaches Europe!
There's only one headline game this week: the long-awaited European arrival of another legendary Super NES RPG from Square.
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