Filed under: News, Fan stuff

For the uninformed, ARG stands for "Alternate Reality Gaming". That's really just a silly hype-word, we think, but here we go. Your task: follow the sequence of clues to various past posts in both Nintendo Wii Fanboy and DS Fanboy. Should you manage to defeat our ingenious riddles, post a comment on the final post to declare your victory to the world. Heck, we'll even go back and give you a star for doing it, too ... the feature is temporarily out of service, but our tech guys should have it back up and running soon.

Below are the sales figures for this week, and contained therein, the first clue.

- DS Lite: 319,708 10,078 (3.25%)
- Wii: 108,237 22,798 (26.68%)
- PS3: 70,942 20,771 (41.40%)
- PSP: 48,962 20,032 (69.24%)
- PS2: 37,730 7,270 (23.87%)
- Xbox 360: 17,168 18,175 (51.42%)
- GBA SP: 1,867 29 (1.53%)
- Game Boy Micro: 1,491 64 (4.12%)
- Gamecube: 1,152 583 (102.4...

So, you think you got all your Disney games down pat? Well, think again as our source has reported that a Wii game from Buena Vista is in the works. And what exactly is this game? Let me give you a hint: Better stick to the status quo.

You see, it's entitled, High School Musical and yeah, it MAY just be related to Disney's hit made-for-TV-movie cough . If it is, then it may just bop to the top since, after all, the movie, and the soundtrack were a hit. Anyway, no further details have been disclosed except that the game is slated for a July 31, 2007 release.

Honestly, I can't help but wonder what kind of game it would be. Hopefully, it will break free and deliver something that fans are looking for. After all, it's interesting to see the start of something new.

What better way to keep the little ones occupied while you do whatever it is you do around Christmas—binge drinking perhaps—than the Norad Santa tracker?
As is the tradition every year, Norad uses their fancy satellites, which are supposed to warn us about incoming North Korean nukes, to track Santa's progress in delivering Wiis and PS3s to good little boys and girls.
So if half of our population is gone on the morning of December 25 thanks to some Kim Jung Bombs, you know who to blame. – Jason Chen
Norad Santa

Got Pets? Got Gadgets? Get the two together and you could win $50 in our Fuzzy Wuzzy Modo contest: we are looking for the cutest pictures of Pugs with iPods, Cats with cell phones and Walruses playing with your Wii. Well, perhaps not the latter, but just to give you a taste, here's an entry we have received from TV Genius of his cat Natalie pondering if the cable of the nunchuck Wii controller can be used to strangle him...
To enter, post your photo on flickr or some other photo hosting service, and email the url to petgadget@solanocountyfoa.org by the 2nd of January. And don't forget that this is a pet and gadget photo contest: your dog may be the cutest thing evar, but if he isn't chewing on a cell phone, you won't win.
And while you're taking photos of your pets and gadgets, think of animals less fortunate than your own: by clicking on the link on the right, you can donate to Solano County Friends of Animals, a rescue group in the San Francisco bay area that works wi...

Filed under: News, Virtual Console
Don't forget, there are new games on the Virtual Console today in Europe. Though we've already posted the full list of VC Europe games through the end of the year, it's a good day for reminders.

Available today:

Donkey Kong Jr. (NES) - 500 points
Soccer (NES) - 500 points
Tennis (NES) - 500 points
Space Harrier II (MEGA DRIVE) - 800 points
Toe Jam & Earl (MEGA DRIVE) - 800 points
Military Madness (TURBOGRAFX) - 600 points

To buy or not to buy -- that's the Friday question for European Wii owners!Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Inspired by Lifehacker's Zeitgeist, I took a trip down Google Analytics lane to compute Gizmodo's top 10 most popular stories of 2006.
10. USB Powered BBQ—WTF?
Note to George Foreman: There is a huge and untapped market for in-office grilling solutions. At least judging from the popularity of this mod, which uses 30 USB ports spread out over five USB PCI cards to power a grill that cooks 1 ounce of steak (or bacon—it's hard to tell from the photo). The YouTube video of the USB BBQ is, sadly, no longer available.
9. Exclusive Microsoft Zune Details
The first grope of the Zune music player, as leaked to Gizmodo's Jason Chen, revealed all kinds of juicy details about the buttons, the interface, the FM transmitter and that magnetic headphone thingy on the back. Second base.
8. Zune: First Full Review
A little feel just wasn't enough for you, was it? So Jason had to go all the way and slide the Zune down his pants. We also lear...

And now, for a report on how portables are doing in Japan. The DIMSDRIVE Research groups has just concluded a study which involved a net-based survey sent to a monitor group of 7,508 people last November.

The survey asked the subjects various questions on portable consoles, like which features they most often used or liked, or what age group they belonged to, or what portable console they planned to own.

Now according to some of the more interesting results:
A large portion of those questioned said they liked Brain Training genres (like Brain Age) the most (54.6 )Of this proportion, most of the players of brain training games were 60 and female (71.4 )Between the PSP and DS, the test group favored getting a DS (Lite) on the near future......while still preferring to own a PS3 as a non-portable console system over a Wii.
Do be reminded that this is just a snippet of a larger population, and might have inconsistencies elsewhere. Furthermore, the groups favoring...

Screwattack recently posted a video for viewing, and it'll be dealing with the worst ways they've seen video game sprites die. You guys might recognize classic titles like Metroid and Super Mario Brothers, along with contemporary favorites like Halo 2 and God of War making it in the list.

Apart from mentioning some of the titles, we won't spoil what sort of in-game events made screwattack's list. We do note that this isn't exclusive to playable characters; expect equal merits for both friend and foe in-game. Who says Darwin awards are just for real people? Once again, enjoy the vid.

One thing though: we noticed the vids didn't mention any games for the next-gen systems like the Wii, PS3 or Xbox 360. If you guys have seen anything you think merits being said (Like getting Road-Killed in Gears of War), do let us know.

Filed under: Fan stuff

Seeing this post over at Joystiq got us thinking. We wanted to know how most people played Wii. Would they choose to get up and be active in the game, or do they instead play more traditionally in a sitting position. We then thought we'd ask you all to vote in a poll so we, and you, could see what the majority of Wii Fanboy readers think.

How do you get your Wii on? I prefer to keep it OG and sit I stand tall when I get my game on I play riding on the back of the family horse Pepe I don't have a Wii and am contemplating jumping off a bridge Free polls from Pollhost.com ...

Filed under: Fan stuff

More dozens than a baker could ever count of images for SSX Blur have hit the intertron and we here at Wii Fanboy really think they could look better. Granted, we have not yet seen the game in motion, so final judgements are nowhere near close to being made on our part (we roll honest here, folks). What we thinks doesn't matter though, it's all about you guys!

So, do the new screenshots get you excited or instill a sense of apathy on par with our own? We've included several more of them past the jump for your viewing pleasure.







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