The 3-minute animation that opens The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has leaked, and you can watch the whole thing right here. It’s a beautiful, watercolor-on-parchment style animation, though the English translation of this Japanese version is typically broken — and kinda cute.

Skyward Sword drops on November 20th in America for Nintendo Wii, while Europeans get it on the 18th. The story, a prequel to Ocarina of Time, finds Link a native of the floating islands of Skyloft, where he grew up with childhood friend Zelda (who’s not a princess this time out). One day young Link discovers the Skyward Sword, which takes him to a second land beneath Skyloft that’s ruled by the Demon Lord Ghirahim. Using the sword, Link travels back and forth between the two lands, to solve the mystery of why the two worlds were separated. Per usual, Zelda will also disappear, forcing Link to have to find and save her.

You know, again. For something like the 15th time, in fact.

Expect a significantly more refined Wii Remote control scheme than what was used in Twilight Princess.

There’s a battle blazing right now, on one side of the spectrum is the Xbox 360 which managed to finally dethrown the Nintendo Wii for four months, after years of dominance, then there’s the Wii, the little system no one saw coming. Now to show us the true battle of those company’s is Doctor Octoroc with his “Firewall” – SNES Style FF4 ‘Evil Wall Battle’ Parody

Every gamer will notice he has chosen to use the SNES Final Fantasy style gameplay, which gives a pretty good representation of the battle…at least in my twisted mind.

My favorite part occurs when the Xbox 360 with Bill Gates’ face built in starts hurling system specs at the approaching various Nintendo characters which include Megaman, Zelda, Mario, Link and Samus.

Here’s the gameplay video:

It obviously wasn’t a battle of processing power or the Nintendo characters would have went down with a slight breeze.

So there’s a press release making the rounds today about how Microsoft’s new Xbox motion controller Kinect has sold one million units in its first 10 days. This is big news for Xbox because Microsoft has made big noise about wanting to sell 5 million Kinect units by the end of this year, and they claim that these initial numbers put them on track for that.

But I can’t help wondering how this news stacks up to Kinect’s motion-controlling competition. First-week ticket sales mean everything at the box office, so why not apply that same prognostication factor to gaming? One million units in ten days is a great pull quote, but did Kinect manage to do better in its first week than Nintendo or PlayStation? And more importantly, what does this mean for Kinect’s future?

If you do the math, and in terms of “first week sales,” Microsoft‘s numbers equate to approximately 700,000 units in its first week. My research shows that in the U.S., Sony sold approximately 60,000 Move units (defined as an Eye Camera and one Move controller) in their hardware’s first week. As for the Wii console, when it first launched back in 2006, Nintendo claimed that it sold 800,000 units in the first eight days — which equates to approximately 525,000 in the first week.

Now it’s important to remember the importance of supply-and-demand when it comes to early sales. Sony and Microsoft both offered ample supply in their first week of sales, but Nintendo’s numbers were hampered by the fact that they had a nation-wide shortage of initial hardware units available. Early adopters had to work hard to even find a Wii console in those first months, when retailers sporadically received scant shipments which would usually sell out within minutes. So Nintendo could have sold more — a lot more — Wiis if they had had more units available at launch.

But here’s how first-week sales in the U.S. break down, in approximate numbers:

Nintendo Wii: 525,000
PlayStation Move: 60,000
Xbox Kinect: 700,000

The clear winner is Kinect, and it points to a strong future for the peripheral. But this doesn’t necessarily mean Kinect will outsell Wii in the long run, as that’s a very lofty goal; Wii has got a gigantic 4-year head start, and has demonstrated incredible staying power, with over 36 million units sold in the U.S. and some 76+ million sold worldwide.

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Doctor Who is officially coming to the Nintendo Wii and what better way would there be to play the game than with a sonic screwdriver, the very same device carried by the Doctor in the BBC t.v. series.

I for one have a problem with many Wiicessories that are made of crappy plastics or in some cases styrofoam that my cat for some reason likes to eat.

This Wii-Mote accessory however is actually sculpted around it’s very own WiiMote, making it give off the appearance of a sleeker device, while at the same time providing a more realistic authenticity that’s sturdy to use and even features a top side light to give off the true sonic screwdriver effect.

This remote is definitely better than just some protruding add-on for a motion controller.

The sonic screwdriver is set to released in December over in the UK, two months after the Doctor Who Wii game arrives, unfortunately there are no plans to release the controller in the United States.

Can everyone say Amazon.co.uk, that’s where I buy all my hard to find gaming merchandise and most of it even manages to pass through customs.

Here’s a closer look at the gaming controller:

The age of innocence has come to an end at Nintendo, ladies and gentlemen I present to you the Mojowiijo, a device that not only has the worse name in the history of Wii motion based controllers, but which also provides the most nefarious use, sex toys.

That’s right, with these true “beauties”, I use that word loosely, you can have two vibrating toys that can even attach to your PC, removing the Wii from the equation all together, but then the creators wouldn’t have bragging rights for having created the toy people have talked about, but didn’t have the balls to create.

In the meantime, have fun with your plastic vibrator and what I assume is an uncomfortable clamp that will cause you to lose all your dignity around your man region while playing Super Mario Galaxy. In the meantime I’ll be interested to see how Microsoft Kinect responds.

The attachments won’t be released  for a while as they are still in beta, which raises the question, who’s testing them? Princess Toadstool?

Another day, another Wii peripheral. But this family-friendly add-on doesn’t come from Nintendo, it’s from game developer THQ. (Which is interesting in and of itself, since THQ is best known for hardcore titles like UFC, Red Faction, and DarkSiders. But I digress.)

The uDraw GameTablet is quite simply, a tablet for drawing on your screen. Pop your entire Wii Remote into the tablet’s side slot, and you’re off. A corded stylus allows you to work your artistic magic with proprietary uDraw games from THQ like uDraw Studio, Dood’s Big Adventure, and Pictionary (with more on the way).

S0 just how well can you draw on this thing? The video after the jump will show you.

Artist David Kassan — best known for his finger paintings done on the iPad — puts the uDraw GameTablet through its paces in this time lapsed video.

The tablet, which comes bundled with uDraw Studio, arrives in stores on November 21st, and is set to retail for $70. Additional games will run about $30 a piece.

GoldenEye was a game that had no right to be a success. Historically, games made as tie-ins or companions to movies turn out terrible because publishers have to rush their production in order to release them alongside the movie they’re based on.

GoldenEye was one of the few exceptions to this rule. Its killer multiplayer modes all but defined online play for consoles. Activision is bringing it back to the Wii with a sorta/kinda remake-slash-upgrade thing. Daniel Craig lends his voice (and how awkward must that have been — remaking a game based on a movie starring a different Bond?), and now Activision is sweetening the pot by offering a bundle that includes an all-gold version of that oblong, bulky thing Nintendo calls its “classic controller pro.”

If you were on the fence before, will this push you over?

The full game bundle featuring the game and the gold controller is retailing for $69.99 when the game releases this Fall. Activision also notes that GoldenEye will support the Wii Zapper peripheral that turns your Wiimote and nunchuck into a two-handed rifle, for point-and-shoot gaming.

GoldenEye upgrades the original game with enhanced graphics, audio, and refined controls, allowing players to play with up to seven of their friends in multiplayer mode in four-against-four matches that can display a special four-player splitscreen. There are forty playable characters, eight classic Bond villains, ten maps, and more. The trailer and more screens are below.

What I’m wondering is… With the game being big enough of a deal to remake with today’s improved technology, why stop with the Wii — the weakest of the current generation of consoles? Yes, I know the original GoldenEye was an N64 game, and that’s why they’re remaking it for the Wii.

But why not go all the way and make X360 and PS3 versions? They’d sure sell a heck of a lot more copies. Do they really think the gamers that played GoldenEye back in the day only own Wiis now?

I must say, contrary to an old post about the Wii Fit in FG before, I personally find  the Wii Fit a fun (and geeky) way to exercise!

Like most Wii Games, you start out by making your own Mii (if you don’t have one yet). And then you step on the Wii Balance Board for the Wii to be able to extract some personal data like your weight and BMI. If you are sensitive about your vital statistics, you can put a password on your Wii Fit account so that other people won’t be able to see your weight. It even has a pet stats for your pets! Unfortunately, you can only weigh your pets and your pets definitely can’t participate in the exercises and game, hehe.

After that you get to choose a training from four different categories: yoga, strength training, aerobics and balance games.

The aerobics and balance games are very fun and you can choose from a variety of games like Hula Hoop, Rhythm Boxing, Stepping, Running, Soccer Heading, Ski Jumping, Skate Boarding and Snow Boarding.

Here’s a less embarrassing video of my fiance playing the Soccer game.

I would have preferred posting the extremely hilarious video of him playing Air Humping Super Hula Hoop but I don’t want to scare people away, hehe.

The yoga and strength training exercises were just too boring to do though but it had potential, if you had the time and discipline to make your own work out regimen.

After each activity or exercise, the Wii Fit will give you a score of how much calories you burned. The numbers are probably not accurate, but it is a nice basis on how much effort you’re actually putting in for exercise.

However, if you are serious work out fanatic, don’t expect too much from the Wii Fit. Nothing beats a regular work out at the gym. But I personally think that it’s a great way to keep your blood circulating and your heart pumping after spending a day in front of your TV or computer playing video games.

[ Images and video by GeekGirlManila ]

Ready 2 Rumble: Revolution

This new, third instalment on the Nintendo Wii should be the perfect party game. Unfortunately, the game suffers the same problem as the boxing in Wii Sports – simply put, I didn’t find the game accurate enough to translate the variety of moves I was trying to pull off – or indeed that featured in the move list of the manual!

The 20 caricatured fighters in the game offer parodies from a variety of arenas including sport, music and movies. The over the top moves are fun but you could well argue that we’re a bit past all of this pastiche, cheap characterisation.

Character creation does feature in the game, which is one of the highlights. It’s a stronger element as you can craft the type of character you wish.

Ultimately, Ready 2 Rumble: Revolution comes across as a tired old game that has extraordinarily broken controls. The Nintendo Wii tactile system of nunchuck and Wiimote has been used to amazing effect for games like Resident Evil 4. So how this game has got it quite so wrong is beyond me.

Available: Now
Price: $45
Score: 4/10

The House of the Dead: Overkill

Survival horror as it’s never been seen before! A pulp-style take on the classic Sega light-gun shooter series. Back when the famous Agent G was still fresh out of the academy, he teamed up with hard-boiled bad-ass Agent Washington to investigate stories of mysterious disappearances in small-town Louisiana. Little did they know what blood-soaked mutant horror would await them in the streets and swamps of Bayou City.

The game has a wonderful grindhouse style that’s quite unlike anything else and doesn’t take itself too seriously – which is completely to credit! Whilst simple, it does provide some great fun. But, it’s the language that has allowed the game to become World Record setting!

Guinness World Records, the global authority on record-breaking, today announced that recently released The House of the Dead: OVERKILL (SEGA, 2009) has broken into the Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition for most swearing in a video game with a whopping 189 uses of the f-word.

Setting a record in this brand new category, the title recognizes The House of the Dead: OVERKILL as the most profane video game in history. During three hours of relatively limited dialogue, the campaign features 189 uses of the f-word, which equates to just over one per minute and three percent of all words spoken in the game.

Video Games Records Manager for Guinness World Records, Gaz Deaves, said: ‘This record category pre-existed for movies, music and television, but The House of the Dead: OVERKILL is the first video game to be awarded the title in the Gamer’s Edition. It’s a mark of the times.

The new record will be shortlisted for inclusion in next year’s Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition. The 2009 Gamer’s Edition, which includes high scores and interesting facts from the world of video gaming, also dedicates a separate section to video game controversy; among the many nations listed in the chapter, Greece stands as the first country to ban all video games for an all-encompassing ban on electronic video gaming lasting two months during 2002. Mexico banned Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 in the state of Chihuahua because the state’s governor was offended by the game’s portrayal of the region and its people. The longest ban in gaming history is awarded New York City, whose mayor imposed a ban on pinball machines, which stood for 34 years from 1942.

Jonathan Burroughs, writer of The House of the Dead: OVERKILL, stated: ‘It is a dubious honour to receive such an accolade working in an industry where so often the fruits of your labours are derided and dismissed for being puerile or irresponsible, but in the case of The House of the Dead: OVERKILL a little puerility was the order of business. Parodying the profane excess of grindhouse cinema was Headstrong Games’ objective and I am flattered that this record acknowledges that we not only rose to that challenge, but entirely exceeded it.‘

The House of the Dead: Overkill is available now for around $50. Watch out for the review coming soon!

MadWorld

Varrigan City is where the game takes place. It’s a city that has been seized by terrorists and turned into their own sporting arena; where “kill or be killed” is the only rule. Welcome to Death Watch…. As players battle enemies they must master the use of various weapons and items found within their environment, such as a chainsaws and street signs, and compete in minigames designed to push the players over the edge.

A new calendar website has now begun the countdown to the launch of the game and will include exclusive videos, screenshots, a competition and more in the coming days.

The game features irreverent humour and over-the-top violence. A variety of set-piece finishing moves that involve being extremely creative with the interactive environments (a bus lined with spikes or flaming pits) will often score higher points than simply bashing your opponents into a pulp.

Madworld delivers a visceral gaming experience that is sure to be an instant classic on the Wii. The game is set for release on 20/03/09.