This post over at kuro5hin describes the latest Wii peripheral driving Nintendo fanboys and fangirls wild in Japan … the WiiLove.

Of course, this is just a rip-off of an idea already released years ago with Rez on the Sega Dreamcast, but it’s nice to see this style of peripheral being introduced to a new audience.

No info on release dates in North America, Europe and Australia yet.

(ah, it’s a joke, Joyce).

“Club Nintendo” will soon be available to Australian Nintendo fans.

More details at Aussie Nintendo, and The Age Screen Play Blog

Mogul Maniac was packed with the Joyboard, a joystick platform the player stood on and controlled by shifting bodyweight and staying balanced. These and the many other unusual devices produced for the VCS had varying degrees of usefulness and commercial success, but nevertheless enhanced the distinctiveness of Atari’s system.

Sound familiar …. ?? A board … that the player balances on … like, maybe a Balance Board ?

Everything old is new again (and maybe the Nintendo hardware designers aren’t as creative as a lot of people make out … they just have good memories ….)

“The first big secret is, the bad news is for storytellers is that nobody cares about your stupid story… no matter how detailed or lovingly you craft it.” — Kevin Levine, creative director on BioShock.

Then there is Cory Barlog’s blog post from a few months back:

I mean, the freaking princess is abducted…again. I have to go after her captor, Bowser, again. [...] Oh wait…the game sells millions even with the vapid story. As it has been pointed out to me every time I say it, the game is not about the story. It is about the platforming and crazy new mechanics and worlds. — Cory Barlog, director on God of War and God of War 2

The Wired GameLife blog highlighted Cory’s comments, and before you know it, the Nintendo gaming press was plastered with the headlines “God of War Director calls Super Mario Galaxy’s story ‘vapid’”. Despite the minor fanboy-furor generated, Cory’s post indicates he still appreciated the level design, art and graphics and sound, and realizes that the game is not supposed to be about story … he just didn’t get hooked.

It’s pretty clear that many games benefit, and are even driven by, a rich, engaging storyline … but when it comes to the classic Mario platformers … nobody cares about the stupid story !!

The “sometimes controversial” Jeff Gerstmann reviews the new Eidos game Kane and Lynch and gives it a mediocre score. Most other reviewers agree with his analysis.

Jeff Gerstmann is fired.

Accusations and speculation fly that Eidos put pressure on Gamespot to fire Gerstmann, since Gamespot also has some advertising deals with Eidos.

It looks like Eidos also might have put some fake or misrepresented review scores on the official Kane and Lynch site.

There are lots of interesting responses to these events, debating the state of ethics in game journalism and the state of game reviews in general.

So far there has been little comment of interest from the parties actually involved, but it will be certainly interesting to see how this all plays out. Gamespot has already lost a huge amount of credibility in my book, but lets see how they do the damage control …

Via The Tanooki (who seems to crumbled under the strain of a good hard Digg‘ing. I’ll cite the original source when I can find out who actually made it …).