Catching Up on the News

My vacation is over and as I've been diggging through the video game news of last week I've realized that a lot happened last week. So here's a quick rundown of some of the stuff I'm just now reading about:

WiiWare (original downloadable games) for the Wii launched on Monday, May 12. Because of that, there were no games added to the Virtual Console and it doesn't look there will be any next week either. But WiiWare appears to be a hit as both LostWinds and Defend Your Castle are getting high marks.

Microsoft held their 2008 Spring Showcase and revealed a ton of new games and release dates. First, a Viva Pinata sequel titled Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise was announced. It will be released late this year. Microsoft also revealed release dates for the Xbox Live Arcade release of Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness (May 21, which is next week!) and Too Human (August 19). Finally, the final title of the next Banjo-Kazooie game was revealed as Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.

Harmonix revealed next week's downloadable songs for Rock Band and they will be all of the songs that will appear as bonus tracks on the European edition of the game. As usual, each song will be available for $1.99 (or 160 Microsoft Points) each. Here's the full listing:

"Beetlebum" - Blur (cover)
"Hier Kommt Alex" - Die Toten Hosen
"Countdown to Insanity" - H-BlockX
"Perfekte Welle" - Juli
"Manu Chao" - Les Wampas
"Hysteria" - Muse
"Rock N Roll Star" - Oasis
"New Wave" - Pleymo
"Monsoon" - Tokio Hotel

Speaking of music games, Konami (the creators of the music game genre) have announced Rock Revolution for the DS, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360. The PS3 and Xbox 360 versions will be very similar to Rock Band as they will includes vocals, guitars and drums. The Wii version will feature "air guitar" and "air drums" with the Wii Remote. All four versions will be released in the Fall.

Finally, Konami has also announced that they plan to celebrate Dance Dance Revolution's tenth birthday with three new games: Dance Dance Revolution X for the PS2, Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 2 for the Wii and Dance Dance Revolution Universe 3 for the Xbox 360.

I'm sure I missed a lot more than that. I'll keep digging and "Catching Up on the News #2" might even appear some time later.