Reminder: Animal Crossing still up for grabs

Like free stuff? Well, why not try and win a game for free, on us? This week's we're giving away a copy of Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Wii. Want to get in on the action? Check out the original contest post right here. Best of luck to you all and, remember: this contest ends Sunday night and you can enter once each day. Gallery: Animal Crossing: City Folk

 

8-bit for the holidays: Gingerbread Entertainment System

With it being Christmas next week, some look to making gingerbread houses as part of the fun of the holiday. For us, we usually just relish the time we get off to actually play games, but to each their own. Enter this NES made from gingerbread you see above. We especially like the licorice used as the cord, which just so happens to spell out Nintendo. Personally, if we were going to make anything out of gingerbread, we'd probably also go with a NES. Or maybe a life-sized Boba Fett. You know, something tasteful. Gallery: Retro Mods [Via Geekologie]

 

Shine a light on Fragile's secrets

The flashlight is part of what gives tri-Crescendo's Fragile its look. The ruined environments look more otherworldly viewed through a spooky light. It makes sense, then, for tri-Crescendo to add some gameplay integration to the whole flashlight thing, to emphasize it some more. In addition to the normal flashlight, Seto finds (at least) two more portable lights as he explores: a higher-power flashlight that can illuminate farther into the distance, and reveal hidden enemies more quickly, and an eerie green light identified only as the "strange light," which can reveal hidden messages written on walls. We'd be a lot more excited about this game if we didn't have to trust Bandai Namco's RPG-hatin' US division to provide us with it. But, then, maybe we don't, with XSEED and Atari publishing recent and upcoming Namco games stateside -- the latter due to an anime licensing issue, but whatever. Gallery: Fragile

 

EA cutting 10% of its work force

Publisher EA has hit some tough times, as the company has detailed plans to restructure itself and release 10% of its workforce by March 31, 2009. That 10% comes down to about 1,000 jobs, so it's nothing small. And, part of that 10% includes EA Black Box, the developers behind Need for Speed, Skate, and its Wii port, Skate It. Black Box aren't the only ones affected, however, as EA will be closing nine studios and publishing locations overall. The remainder of Canada-based Black Box will be merged with another EA Canada studio, based out of Burnaby, BC. Gallery: Skate It [Via Joystiq]

 

Guitar Hero: Metallica is (officially) born

Well, we've certainly been talking about it for awhile now and finally it's made official. Guitar Hero: Metallica has dished out its first trailer and, well, it's definitely something. The trailer promises the band's "fiercest songs," which we hope means "tunes from the first 5 albums." You know, when Metallica was good. Of course, with this being Metallica and all, we can't embed the video past the break. Lars would cry, or something. So hit up this link to watch it. Oh, and a word of caution: Hetfield looks like a mutant in the game and there's an overabundance of lens flare in the trailer. Enjoy! [Via Joystiq]

 

505 Games reveals We Rock: Drum King

505 Games is looking to capture the attention of all the drummers out there with We Rock: Drum King. The title, which you can imagine, is a rhythm-based game focused on ... yeah, you get it. It's about drumming. Unlike other rhythm-based games on the market, this title will only require the use of two Wiimotes. Of course, it wouldn't be a modern music game if it didn't have some recognizable tracks. So far, we've got Bloc Party's "Banquet" and Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild" confirmed, with a total of 30 tracks to make their way into the final game. It's currently scheduled for release in North America and Europe during April of next year. Gallery: We Rock: Drum King

 

Oasis, Blink-182, Wolfmother join World Tour next month

Activision has revealed the January line-up of downloadable content for Guitar Hero World Tour will be fronted by Mancunian professional scowlers Oasis. On January 29, the eight tracks from 2008 album "Dig Out Your Soul" that haven't already appeared as World Tour DLC will be yours to download.* Other than that, we'll be getting various themed weeks: one on country music, one with Australian bands, and one based on, um, the works of Travis Barker. * INCOMING: Wii Fanboy opinion on modern music to show we are 'down with the kids': "Dig Out Your Soul" is probably their best album since 1995 -- not difficult to believe, because they've recorded some real nonsense since then. December 23: "Use Me" by Hinder "Because of You" by Nickelback "Light it Up" by Rev Theory January 8th: "Me and My Gang" by Rascal Flatts "Ticks" by Brad Paisley "Hillbilly Deluxe" by Brooks & Dunn January 15th: "What's My Age Again" by Blink-182 "Lycanthrope" by +44 "Low" by Travis Barker January 22nd: "Tomorrow" by Silverchair "Dimension" by Wolfmother "Outtathaway!" by The Vines January 29th: (Oasis) "Dig Out Your Soul" by Oasis (full album, each track available separately) See embedded footage of these on the other side of the jump. Gallery: Guitar Hero World Tour

 

Help Wanted: live the sumo-refereeing dream

The latest batch of screens from Hudson's Help Wanted introduce some new jobs from the game's selection of fifty. Though the screenshots are mostly self-explanatory, we've labeled all of the new screens with the job they depict. Hudson may be breaking new ground by creating the first game in which you play a sumo referee -- although we're sure we'll hear about it if there's already some sumo referee franchise! "Security Guard" seems to involve watching a bunch of security monitors and setting off an alarm at the appropriate time, which means that, though we never expected to relate this game to Night Trap, we totally can. And "Interviewer" is a game based around bothering celebrities on the red carpet. The game's central storyline involves earning enough money to buy a watch that transforms you into a giant, capable of saving the world from an incoming meteor. Amusingly, you can also get a job demonstrating products on the home shopping channel from which you plan to buy the watch. Gallery: Help Wanted

 

Ubisoft resurrecting Broken Sword on DS and Wii next year

Remember that rumor we ran awhile back about Broken Sword coming to the Wii? Well, the game showed up on Nintendo's massive list of Q1 games and it's all confirmed: the game will be releasing on the DS and Wii in March of next year. So, what else do we know? Well, based on the title Broken Sword: Shadows of the Templars (Director's Cut), we can say that it's a port of the original game. This is both bad and good, as it's another port coming to the Wii, but a port of a very good game. Considering the original released in 1996, we're wondering what kind of updates we can look forward to. Any other fans out there looking forward to this?

 

Everybody's Wii Theater dated, priced in Japan

Fujisoft's Minna no Theater Wii (Everybody's Theater Wii), essentially a video rental service, will launch on January 27 in Japan, after slipping from its original December release date. We already knew that purchasing the video viewer cost 500 Wii Points, but now we have concrete prices for renting content: A single title for two days: 300 Wii Points Two titles for three days: 600 Wii Points Three titles for five days: 800 Wii Points When it launches next month, 3,000 pieces of video content will be available. These span 150 franchises, including Astro Boy, Transformers, Hajime no Ippo, and Dogtanian. Anime currently dominates the line-up, though movies, drama, and educational shows will also be present, if a bit scarcer. A further 50 pieces of content will be released every month following the launch, and Fujisoft claims its content comes "close" to delivering DVD quality. It's just a shame we'll probably never see this here to test that statement.

 

Animal Crossing: Let's Get a New Disc from Nintendo

When Animal Crossing: Let's Go to the City was released, Australians discovered, to their horror annoyance, that the DS Suitcase feature was unusable in their region. Since the Australian release of Wild World on the DS used the exact same code as the North American version, the Wii game identified it as coming from the wrong region. Australians who would like to be able to transfer their DS characters and catalogs into Let's Go to the City are advised to contact Nintendo to exchange your disc for a new replacement, which will allow the DS Suitcase feature to work with Australian copies of Wild World. Unfortunately, of course, if you want to use your DS character, that means starting over in Let's Go to the City. Gallery: Animal Crossing: City Folk