Skip to main content

Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

GC: Mario Strikers, Battalion Wars on Wii, Pink DS dated

But no Wii date or price.

Nintendo's Leipzig conference saw the announcement of two new Nintendo Wii titles and the confirmation of the pink DS Lite's European release date, but not a whole lot else.

The two new games were Mario Strikers Charged - a Wii-controlled evolution of the Mario Smash Football/Super Mario Strikers title on GameCube - and Battalion Wars II (or BWii - clever!). Both are playable at the show, but the latter wasn't demoed during the conference.

Mario Strikers Charged was, however, revealing the game to be very close in style, control and gameplay elements to its predecessor, although the game's "super shots" can now be defended by directing a pair of on-screen goalie gloves at fast-appearing footballs. Mario, Donkey Kong, Bowser and Peach were selectable captains, and the stadium we saw was called Thunder Island (hey - just covering the bases).

Meanwhile, Nintendo confirmed that the "Noble Pink" DS Lite will be released in Europe on October 27th, and said it was designed to appeal to "fashion-oriented women" amongst others.

However hopes that the Wii release date or price would be unveiled were dashed - in fact, never even referenced - during a regionally focused presentation that saw repeats of trailer reels from E3 and GDC.

There were also on-screen demonstrations of Wii Sports Tennis, and DS title English Training, where English phrases were read out and the idea is to respond by writing out what was said letter by letter - one for Germany and other non-English-speaking markets, then.

For more on Nintendo's conference (including the exciting adventures of Mystery TV Man, check out our live-text commentary log.