Homebrew coder Simon Kagstrom has released a new update for UAE Wii, a Commodore Amiga emulator that will allow you to play Stunt Car Racer, Turrican, Midwinter and other good old Amiga games on your Nintendo Wii. The new update for the classic emulator has added new features and some bug fixes.


Download: UAE Wii v2

Another emulator has been released for the Nintendo Wii. This time homebrew developer Simon Kagstrom has released UAE Wii, an Amiga emulator for the Wii based on SDL Wii.


Download: UAE Wii v1

Bigs is back with another update for REminiscence, the Wii port of Flashback's game engine. It's not perfect yet, but this update features improvements made to the game sounds added in the last update.


Download: REminiscence v0.90

Wiibrew developer bigs has a little something for fans of DSI's old Flashback game: a new version of REminiscence, a Wii port of the Flashback game engine.


Download: REminiscence v0.83

If you're a fan of alien slaughter, you'd probably remember Alien Breed as a cult classic. Oh man, it's up there among the ranks of Zombies Ate My Neighbors (for the zombie fans) and Bionic Commando (for the militaristic Tarzan types). So guess what we heard today? Team17 is actually re-releasing Alien Breed next year, but... at what form will it take and for what console? DLC, remake, port, or what?

Some thing's brewing in the ESRB list and it could be an old classic coming back to life. We noticed that there's a game listed in as Elevator Mission by a publisher named UFO and it brings to mind a couple of games.

The first title to come to mind is a 1983 arcade release by Taito called Elevator Action which could have been renamed to go along with its jump for the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console. The Taito game featured a man who seems to be a spy fighting his way through a horde of enemy agents through 30 hostile levels. Spies do missions, so that may have been the rationale for the name change.

Yet another possibility is that this could be a resurrection of an ancient release on the Amiga system called Mission Elevator. There's not a lot of information available on that title, so we'll have to keep you pinned until we find new morsels of enlightenment on the matter.

Everyone sure is raving about the Wii Balance Board for Nintendo's up and coming health and fitness title, Wii Fit, aren't they? It seems like such an ingenious creation, we just have to give Ninty all them snaps for such a bright lightbulb moment. But let's not be too hasty. Apparently, more than just Nintendo, there's somebody else out there to whom we can trace back the development of the Balance Board. 25 years back, in fact.

But before you think that this is another "Nintendo-stole-this-idea" post, halt right there. Rather, this is an exemplification of one of the more successful revisionisms (recycling, if you must) in gaming and its corresponding technology. Ian Bogost, via Water Cooler Games, has revealed that back in 1982, an Atari VCS peripheral called the Joyboard was released by Amiga.

 

You older folks probably would remember it, or then again maybe not. Either way, what's fact is that it did not enjoy the same attention as the Fit board now is getting. I guess you can say it was ahead of its time. The design is pretty much like its modern counterpart, although of course, this one's "much less sophisticated than Fit [Board]", but essentially, they both have the same functions.

As a parting note, here's what the author had to say about this reinvention:

My point is not that Nintendo has "stolen" the idea of a balance board from Amiga, nor that their revisions are unimportant. Rather, I want to suggest that product like Wii Fit don't come out of a vacuum. Fit evolved from decades of experimentation in physical interfaces and creative game design. Game players and critics alike would do well to learn some history about their medium to help make sense of new entries like this one.

Yeah, it's all about knowing your roots, baby!

Apparently the dual-SKU model ain't just for Warhawk, too. Talking to PALGN, System 3 CEO Mark Cale mentioned that the Epyx title California Games rumored to come to the Wii, is coming to the Wii. Twice. "You'll be able to buy it online," he says, "and you'll be able to buy it as a retail product, too."

Dang. Someone reevaluate the economics of what Peter Dille said about this dual-SKU thing.

And speaking of Peter Dille, Mark also confirms that California Games will be coming to the PS3 as well. Twice. He says it can/will be bought on the PlayStation Network and as a physical retail copy. Mark doesn't mention about any extra goodies for buying a blob of optical plastic (either the Wii optical plastic or the PS3 optical plastic), however.

At this, we can also suspect that the California Games coming to the Wii and PS3 isn't just a simple port of the original, Amiga-era Epyx title, but potentially a full-blown new-gen revamp (or else why dedicate blobs of optical plastic to the title?). Potentially, it could mean motion-sensing controls, high-def graphics (depending on platform), yada yada, but no concrete details have surfaced yet.

Cale did mention that the Wii version would be "playable online through the Wii," though. So there's online multiplayer, too.

Granted, the video game console is rapidly becoming saturated with the same genres: shooters, action, sports, sandbox. Innovation did happen, but a lot of it was stove-piped, locked within the genre rather than in the greater world of console gaming itself.

Brave is a title that bucks conventions and is willing to take risks. One more recent development was bringing the traditionally PC-centric real-time strategy genre to consoles, which until games like Full Spectrum Warrior and Battle for Middle-Earth II, were rather clunky and painful affairs. But now, we have Command & Conquer 3, and Ensemble is spinning Halo Wars up to speed.

In the same vein I'm taking another PC-centric game genre and looking at its chances in console gaming. Except this time, unlike RTS games, I'm less confident about its chances - not because it can't be done, but out of the fear that just like innovation, interests in console gaming are rather stove-piped as well. And for the most part, the console is locked to shooters, action, sports, and sandbox.

Pity, really. Consoles could be a potential breakout ground for the submarine simulator.

Thar she blows up, Cap'n. Appreciation - and cynicism - for console subsims after the jump.

Dedicating to the avid gamers' world of game music devotion, the GCDC 2007 to start this coming August will also be seeing a live performance by the FILMharmonic Orchestra Prague on popular game soundtracks from Starcraft, Final Fantasy IX, Ragnarok 2, Stranglehold, Metal Gear Solid 2: Snake Eater, Secret of Mana and The Abbey Turrican 2.

Conducted by Andy Brick, the orchestra will also perform popular classics in medley form in salute to the Commodore 64 and Commodore Amiga as pioneering game platforms for the game industry, as stated by an official press release.

The performance will be held at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig on August 22, 8 p.m. and won't be an official part of the GCDC 2007 opening ceremony. Also to appear at the concert is Japanese star opera singer Izumi Masuda, singer Conny Kollet from Germany fame, and Konami-sponsored percussionist Rony Barrak.

Kollet is popular for her performances at the Symphonic Game Music Concert, of which this concert will be the fifth of the series, although many will know her for her rendering of the title song for SpellForce: The Breath of Winter.

Rony Barrak will be performing his version of Metal Gear Solid 2: Snake Eater together with the FILMharmonic Orchestra. Masuda, despite being an opera singer, is more inclined to pop-opera pieces, and could be identified as the same one who rendered the song "Distant Worlds" from Final Fantasy at the concert "VOICES: music from Final Fantasy." Tickets are already being sold as of this moment.