#content {background-color: #f7fedf;padding-bottom: 10px;font-size: 13px;line-height: 19px;color: #333;}#feature_intro p, .game_entry p {padding: 0px 10px;}#hed_dek {padding: 10px 0px 0px 10px;}.hed {font-size: 230%;color: #000;font-weight: lighter;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;}.dek {font-size: 120%;color: #666;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;}.arrow {float: left;width: 36px;height: 28px;background-image : url(http://www.1up.com/flat/Features/arrow_big.gif);background-repeat: no-repeat;margin: 5px 0px 0px 10px !important;}#feature_intro img {margin: auto;}#content h2 {background-image: url(http://www.1up.com/media?id=3777955&type=lg);background-repeat: no-repeat;margin: 20px 10px;padding: 10px;color: #fff;}.game_entry {width: 604px;margin: 0px auto 20px auto;padding: 10px 0px;background-repeat: no-repeat;}.gameinfo {margin: 0px 10px;float: left;}.spot {margin: 0px auto;}A Quick Guide To Getting Fit on Wii1UP explains how to find the right Wii fitness title for you.By Alice LiangDon't let anyone lie to you -- getting in shape, and staying there, takes effort, time, and dedication. I wouldn't trust any program that promises results for anything less. But the most difficult part of any fitness regime isn't the actual workout (although it probably feels that way when you're panting and sweating), it's maintaining the required lifestyle changes. You need to commit to a schedule and keep it.But working out doesn't have to be a chore; with the recent surge in fitness videogames, it's become clear that a healthy workout can be loads of fun. Traditional methods, like personal trainers or gym memberships, require travel and can be expensive. The best part of working out with Nintendo Wii is that it's right there in your home, available for use whenever you want. Sure, you could also use workout DVDs, but the Wii's motion-sensing capabilities give your workouts that extra level of feedback and interactivity. And when you're getting in shape, you need all the extra motivation you can get.
Top 5 Fat GuysWho can fill Santa's pants and save Christmas?By Scott SharkeyLet's say that, hypothetically, something terrible happens to Santa Claus. I'm not threatening him or anything, but there's the very real possibility that he could, at any moment, be kidnapped by ninjas. And maybe, for some contrived reason, only a videogame character would be able to fill his enormous red pants and save Christmas. It's hardly improbable, really. Everybody from Elmo to KISS has to save Christmas at some point. So often, in fact, that I'm beginning to suspect that all this is just an elaborate scheme on the part of the jolly old elf to get out of his single annual day of actual work. Here are the five guys who would probably make for the best hour of crappy holiday television.... And no, Mario won't work for this. First, he's more stocky or big boned than actually fat, and second, his voice is just way too high to pull off a convincing "Ho Ho Ho."5. Rufus - Street Fighter IVThrough the wonders of technology, he definitely has a realistic bowl full of jelly going on. Who would have thought that the astounding Bouncical Boobular technology that's been spreading smiles for so many years could be turned to such an evil end? Truly, physics is a double-edged mammary. It might take a while to get used to leaving buckets of popcorn out on Christmas eve, but Rufus would do if everyone else was busy that night.
Unless you've been reading the previews, you might be surprised to learn that Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers abandons the multiplayer, role-playing game trappings of the previous Crystal Chronicles games for a single-player adventure. Interspersed within all the action you'll find lots of motion-sensing minigames and a wide-open world to explore. Those frequent bright spots keep the game from dragging too much, because the tedious combat and lack of direction can quickly sap your desire to keep playing.Similar to the first Kingdom Hearts, another of Square's popular action titles, the camera in Crystal Bearers is horribly unresponsive. It's easy to center the camera behind the main protagonist, Layle, and see where you're going. But when the game throws a platforming section at you or pits you against an oversized enemy, you're at a distinct disadvantage. Unlike similar Wii titles, pointing your cursor at the edge of the screen doesn't move the camera at all, even in first-person view -- you have to use the Wii Remote's D-pad. And when you're simultaneously running around while dodging enemies or environmental obstacles, trying to focus on a boss's weak point, and grabbing items to throw, camera control becomes unintuitive and overly complicated.
Sony Online Entertainment continued their slow trickle of information on DC Universe Online today with the first-ever look at Mr. Freeze. The developers of the superhero MMO passed along a handful of mockups of the frosty Batman villain, along with an image or two of what he'll look like in-game.Fans will likely be relieved to hear that this rendition of Victor Fries more closely resembles the Mr. Freeze of the animated series and comic books rather than Schwarzenegger's infamous portrayal of the character in Batman & Robin. Though you kind of have to hand it to the Governator; out of context, all of those horrible, ice-related puns are actually pretty hilarious.No word as of yet when we can expect DC Universe Online to arrive on store shelves, but we'll keep you updated as more info becomes available.
If your small child needs a bizarre monster to play with, Swedish developer Zoink Games has come up with the perfect solution. A trailer was released today for WiiWaa, a game that controls via a Wii remote placed inside a stuffed toy. Controls appear entirely performed by shaking and flipping the little monster, apparently absent of button presses. Since it's from a small dev house in Sweden, we may not ever see it in the U.S. But after watching that trailer, who isn't looking forward to a domestic release? The game is probably meant for younger children than the one shown in the commercial, and toddlers may enjoy it. Theoretically you could play the game without using the doll. But then you'd just be waving your Wii remote around in seemingly random patterns, and that would just look stupid.
In case you haven't heard, NASA is taking a cue from the military's video game recruitment strategy by developing their own MMO, titled Astronaut: Mars, Moon, and Beyond, to attract potential candidates. And if that sounds like something you're going to have to see to believe, it won't take long -- GamePolitics reports that a demo for the MMO will be released early next year.You can see a slideshow teaser for the demo, which will be titled Moonbase Alpha, on the game's official website. The MMO will be set in 2035, when NASA apparently assumes humanity will have started building settlements on other planets and celestial bodies. Oh, but space exploration won't just be all fun and games! The MMO will also be designed to promote "science, technology, engineering, and mathematics learning," and NASA intends to allow it to actually offer course accreditation to players.Astronaut: Mars, Moon, and Beyond is being made with the Unreal Engine, and co-developed between three publisher: Wisdom Tools, Project Whitecard, and Virtual Heroes -- who are, in fact, the developers behind America's Army.
A new post on the PlayStation Blog has announced that Zipper Interactive's 256-player shooter MAG has gone gold, meaning it's complete and ready for manufacturing for its January 26 release. Even more exciting, the post also reveals an open, worldwide beta will begin January 4, and run for a week until January 10.Various stages of beta testing have been going on for MAG since the initial private beta started in August, but this latest phase will be open to anyone and everyone with a PlayStation 3 and a network connection. So if you've been unlucky enough to be excluded from beta access until now, you'll finally get your chance to try out MAG next month.Players in the U.S. will be able to begin downloading the client starting tomorrow (although servers won't go live to play until January 4), so all you have to do to set yourself up is follow the steps below:
From now through 11:59 p.m. EST on January 3, almost every single game in the GOG.com is on sale. Deals range from 25% to 40% off on each game that wasn't released in December, with those games not being apart of this deal. That still leaves 171 games to be discounted on top of the normally cheap prices on GOG, including Duke Nukem 3D ($3.89), Psychonauts ($7.49), Evil Genius ($6.99), both MDK1 and MDK 2 ($7.78), Fallout and Fallout 2 ($3.89 each), and plenty more.If you can't get together a few bucks to buy any of the games you might have on your GOG wishlist, you can still take advantage of the holiday specials. GOG is giving away both Tex Murphy 1 and 2 absolutely free until December 24. Not too shabby."2009 has been an amazing year for GOG.com, during which we've expanded our catalogue to more than 170 games and brought in lots of new users from around the world," said GOG managing director Adam Oldakowski. "This Holiday Sale -- along with the free Tex Murphy 1+2 giveaway that's still going until December 24 -- is a way for us to give back to the loyal fans that have made our site such a success. It's a great opportunity for them to grab the games they have on their wish-lists and to clear their gaming backlog in advance of 2010, when we'll have lots of amazing announcements that will further cement GOG.com's position as the best place to get classic PC games."
Heavy Rain is a highly anticipated game, but one of its main architects thinks it's moved beyond being a game at all. In an interview with Destructoid, Quantic Dream co-CEO David Cage said of the title, "Heavy Rain is not a video game anymore in my mind, because it breaks with most of the traditional paradigms, but it's fully interactive." This followed a discussion of how to define the game, with Cage describing it as a "journey." The phrase "interactive movie" came up, but Cage shies away from that terminology due to preconceptions about what it means. "Heavy Rain is about playing with a story almost in a physical sense, changing it, twisting it, discovering it, making it unique, making it yours," he said. "The player is in control second to second, he tells the story through is [sic] actions. All this is done in a very fluid, seamless way, with no cut scenes, no big flashing sign to make decisions, and this is what makes the game really unique," he said. "If the format becomes successful, we will probably have to find a different name for this type of experience."We understand what Cage is getting at, but there's always a risk of overselling your game when you start to talk about it in such lofty terms. Even if Heavy Rain is a proverbial game-changer, paradigms have been shifted before, but they were still regarded as a natural part of the medium's growth. Our recent hands-on preview and 4 Guys 1UP Podcast discussed the game in detail; but for lack of a better option, we're still calling it a game.
Today's downloadable updates mark Nintendo's 500th Wii game to date, and the company is marking the occasion with one of the more widely requested games for the service: Super Smash Bros.. The original N64 title kicked off the popular franchise character throwdown that spawned two sequels, along with one of the best game commercials of all time (above). It's available for 1,000 Wii Points ($10). Also gracing the Virtual Console is the original arcade version of the notoriously difficult Ninja Gaiden. It's up for 600 points ($6).WiiWare this week isn't quite as keen to prey on our nostalgia, but comes with plenty of options at the very least. Eco Shooter: Plant 530 is a "guided first-person shooter" for 1,000 points. TV Show King 2 is a trivia game that also lets you make your own questions for the mix, and it costs 800 points ($8). Palluriko is a platformer starring a bouncing protagonist, for 1,000 points. And the (redundantly-titled) seasonal application Happy Holidays Christmas lets you make Christmas e-cards and send them to other Wii systems, for 500 points ($5).
