We’ve added a big page of release dates for Wii games to the site, with extensive lists of games coming out in the coming months for United States players. Check it out and let us know which games you’re excited about.

Here at WeKnowWii, we’re into making our Wii gaming experience top-notch by making YOUR Wii gaming experience top-notch. This week, we purchased a Wii Component Video Cable from SuperMediaStore.com. What we should have done was fork out the $39 bucks for one of the Monster Cable Brand component video cables, but we wanted to see what the difference in quality was with the cheap ones.

Well Wii Fans, we were quite disappointed. There are a lot of grounding issues in this component cable. This issue can be fixed with a little solder and some time - unfortunately, time is something we aren’t surplussing in mass supply.

This is, however, good news for our WeKnowWii.com fans - we are giving away this brand new Wii Component Video Cable for FREE! If you comment on our blog, we will enter you in the contest for this cable. Who knows - perhaps it will work perfectly for you! Make sure that you comment before February 8, 2008 by noon. The winner will be contacted via email, and shipping is on us.

Accessory company NYKO has produced a solution for a “problem” that apparently exists with Wii users - the really small cable that goes from the wiimote to the nunchuk. NYKO has created a wireless transmitter that takes that cable completely out of the loop and makes the Wii completely wireless. Once again, NYKO has brought  another innovative product to the world of Wii.  From the NYKO website:

The Cord-Free is a unique wireless adaptor for the Wii Nunchuk that easily converts your wired Nunchuk in to a wireless peripheral for your Wii remote. The ergonomic sleeve easily holds and organizes the Nunchuk, cable and batteries providing a compact, clean and convenient conversion system for the Nunchuk. Once the Nunchuk is inserted in the sleeve, you can now enjoy full wireless freedom with all your favorite Wii games without the hassle of any wires tethering your hands together.

Well, Wii Gamers, if you have the desire to take every single cable out of the loop between the player and the console, this new item from NYKO is your solution. What this writer has to ask about this new product, all of its awesomeness put aside: what kinds of excellent games are you playing that require no wire?

IGN reports that Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution for the Wii has been put on indefinite hiatus. According to a forum post, Firaxis Games does not have the manpower to put out four versions of the game (for PS3, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, and Wii), so they are dropping the Wii version.

This is a shame. Civilization 2 is one of my favorite PC games, and I’d love a game for the Wii like this one, where strategy is a bigger focus that shooting or jumping.

2008 IGF finalist World of Goo is now slated to be released on the Nintendo Wii, PC, Mac and Linux platforms.

According to a blurb on developer 2D Boy’s website, the title will hit PC and Wii in 2008, and will be coming to Mac and Linux at a later, unannounced date.

Normally this is the kind of information that would fly under the radar, but as you can see from the above video, World of Goo is a seemingly inventive, adorable amalgam of Lemmings and Worms wrapped in a strikingly well implemented physics system. Plus, to use a technical term, it’s wicked cute.

World of Goo Official Site (2D Boy, via WiiNintendo)

Any of you Nintendo 64 fans remember 1080° Snowboarding?  Nintendo has released 1080° Snowboarding this week for Wii’s Virtual Console.  Any of the old-school snowboarding gamers might remember this title as one of the first “truly realistic” snowboarding video games, with the famous Shigeru Miyamoto on the design team for 1080° Snowboarding.  You might know Shigeru from such classic titles as the Mario Brothers and Super Mario series, Legend of Zelda, as well as a ton of the super-selling games for Nintendo’s Wii.  Oh heck, here’s a full list of Shigeru’s games for Nintendo.

1080° Snowboarding allows players to choose from one of five characters (male and female) that each offer their own flavor of unique attributes and tricks.  The player is also able to choose from a selection of boards before heading down the slopes.

From the official Nintendo 1080° Snowboarding website:

Once you’ve got the gear, six different modes of play, including Match Race, Trick Attack, and 2-Player Versus, await. Pick a course and get ready to experience a sensation of speed that’ll make you forget all about the cold—but it might just send a shiver down your spine. Throw in hidden characters and boards, varying weather and snow conditions, multiple paths through each course, and a variety of tricks to master—topped off with rock-solid play control—and you’ve got a recipe for winter fun that you can enjoy any time of the year. It’s all the fun and excitement of the sport, without the bruises and frostbite!

This classic Nintendo 64 game is available on Wii’s Virtual Console via the Shop Channel.  Remember, you’ll need some Wii Points to purchase games from the Shop Channel, so go get a card!

Dassault Systèmes has announced that it has released its Virtools package of prototyping and full game production tools for the Nintendo Wii, giving developers for the console access to the Behavior Engine and the VSL compilation, as well as new Wii dedicated functionalities.

Dassault says the Wii solutions are “add-on libraries of building blocks specifically dedicated to Wii game prototyping and game development. Game developers will be able to test on the console anytime during the development, using the power of Virtools 4 and its 500 building Blocks and accessing the Wii Remote information from a Virtools application running directly on the PC.”

The company says its Wii-dedicated package will aid in the prototyping and production of not just retail Wii games, but also those for its forthcoming download service, WiiWare.

It also notes that developers will be able to prototype with the WiiMote and tweak the gameplay directly on PC, as well as test output on the console at any point during game development.

“Virtools Wii solutions give the developers the opportunity to validate game design decisions much faster and focus on gameplay production and optimization, creating games with outstanding graphics and cutting edge interactivity,” said Dassault.

thanks Gamasutra!

A current rumor of interest is the fact that a Wii user supposedly sent their console in for repair and it came back with the Repair Disc version 1.3 still in the drive.

I’m not sure if this rumor is a hoax or not, because the disc photo could have been easily doctored. The image originally surfaced on #wiidev on IRC/EFNET. If it is real, I’m sure someone will be posting pirated version on the net in the near future. Nintendo is extremely secretive with their software, so I’m sure they will not be happy about this.

Thanks to Gaming Today for the article.

For those of you who don’t know of the classic game for NES (that’s just recently available for Wii’s Virtual Console), you have to check out the screenshots over at Gamespy. This is a classic game. We’ve posted about it twice now, so take that as your cue to go get some Wii Points and purchase it on your Wii’s virtual console!

January 26, 2008 - The 2008 Australian Open comes to a close on Sunday, and so does Nintendo’s Wii Championships, which have been running for the duration of the event at Nintendo’s tent, with the aim of finding the ultimate Wii Sports tennis champion to compete against tennis ace Mark Philippoussis.

Nintendo Australia ran a promotion on Mix 106.5 mornings this week with Sonia Kruger and Todd McKenny, and one lucky listener was given the chance to go to the Australian Open in style, competing head-to-head with Philippoussis, Kruger and McKenny in Wii Sports tennis on the big screen.

The showdown will take place on Sunday, January 27, at 5.15pm at Garden Square inside Melbourne Park, and prior to that, the two lucky - and undoubtedly well-versed - winners from the Wii Championships will duke it out on the big screen to decide the champion, who’ll then team up with Philippoussis, against Kruger and McKenny.

Courtesy of Aussie-Nintendo.com

In Wii Sports, the more you play and the better you become at achieving higher scores, the more you are rewarded for your progress. Score more than 1000 points in an event - you reach “Pro Status,” and it comes in the form of a label on your Mii when you are playing the game in which you achieved Pro status.

At the end of each round of golf, for example, that you play on your own (two player games don’t count towards your Pro status), you are given points based on your performance. If you had a particularly bad round, you might have points taken away. Achieving Pro status on the Wii comes with a bit of a challenge as well - if you happen to have a couple of rounds in which you had poor performance and you lose several points, you can lose your pro status as well. You can always regain it by doing well and raising your point value. What the Wii giveth, the Wii can taketh away!

There are also some cosmetic embellishments that come with Pro status - the one glaring example that we’ve noticed is with bowling. Once you achieve Pro status in bowling, you are given a star-studded bowling ball to hurl down the lane.

Good luck!

It’s party time and you picked up some extra Wiimotes for the shindig. How do you connect them to your system? Easy.

1. Turn on your Wii.
2. While you’re on the home screen, press any button on the remote. Did the four lights on your remote blink blue? If so, your remote is not synced with the system.
3. Press the 1 + 2 buttons at the same time. If you’ve synced before, this should solve your problem.
4. Lights still blinking blue? Open the small panel on the front of the Wii console near the power button.
5. Press the small red button inside the panel.
6. Open the battery panel on your remote.
7. Press the small red button inside the battery panel.
8. Only one light should be illuminated on your Wii remote. If not, repeat steps 5 and 7 until only one light remains.

Source: How to Sync a Wii Remote Controller

Have a question that we might know how to answer? Let us know.

One of this week’s new releases for the Wii is Endless Ocean: Dive, Discover, Dream. It promises to be a “vast undersea adventure”, according to Nintendo’s press release:

It’s like a virtual scuba vacation in the tropics that includes interaction with hundreds of different animal species, relaxing swims through brilliant coral reefs and exploratory dives on wrecks of ships and warplanes.

Judging by videos by players on YouTube, this looks like a relaxed game, with nice graphics and beautiful music. It likely won’t offend anyone in your family, and you might learn a thing or two about undersea life.

Through Saturday, you can buy two Wii games for $30 at BestBuy.com. The games are regularly priced at $19.99, saving you $10. The are eleven titles to choose from, including Mercury Meltdown Revolution, which I enjoy and recommend, especially at this price point.

Star Tropics was released for the Wii Virtual Console!

As far as I am concerned, this is one of the top three old NES games EVER, and you can very soon look forward to some screen shots and more in-depth information about the game. If you’ve never heard of Star Tropics, or have never played this fantastic classic NES title, check out the Wikipedia article for some in-depth background info.

You need Wii Points to purchase this game, since it is a Virtual Console title. Get a Wii Points Card here!

On Monday, January 21, The Nintendo Company announced a new round of Virtual Console titles for the Wii console. Among those mentioned was Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers. Super Street Fighter II boasts some new characters as well - T. Hawk, Deejay, Fei Long, and Cammy will soon be fighting in your living room!

The Super Street Fighter II game retails for 800 Wii Points. You need Wii Points to purchase these Virtual Console games through the store on your Wii.

The Adventures of Lolo 2 for the NES is a sequel of the original, The Adventures of Lolo. The second entry, retailing for 500 Wii Points, Lala is captured by The Great Devil and challenges Lolo to rescue her.

More announcements as soon as we get them!

Game Developers’ Conference Executive Director Jamil Moledina unrolled an announcement that there will be not one, not two, but three Nintendo-centric talks at this year’s conference. Brawl, Wii Fit, and WiiWare are on the agenda, and the staff at WeKnowWii is getting ready to ride the torrent of news that we know is coming about the conference this year.

Check out Jamil’s notice about the Nintendo talks.

Wal-Mart has the Nintendo Wii Customer Choice Bundle available for pre-order starting at $677.38 (plus tax and shipping), guaranteeing it will ship on or before January 25. The bundle includes the console, an extra nunchuk and remote, another accessory of your choice, Mario Party 8, and six games of your choice from their list. If you choose six of the pricier games, this deal could work out well.

If you’re patiently waiting for a standalone console, I’d recommend signing up for the SMS and e-mail alerts at WiiAlerts.com. We found our Wii as a result of a text message from them.

The big news in the Wii world today is that the highly-anticipated Super Smash Bros. Brawl game release has been delayed until March 9th. On the game’s official site, the developers ask for your patience during the extended wait:

I deeply apologize to the people who have looked forward to playing the game for so long and ask that you hold on just a little longer. Thank you for your patience.

Hopefully good things will come to those who wait.

This week, two new Virtual Console games are available in the Wii Shop. You can purchase these games with your Wii Points from the Wii Shop Channel.

From Nintendo’s Press Release:

Pac-Attack (Super NES®, 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone, 800 Wii Points): Pac-Man makes a rare appearance outside of a maze environment in Pac-Attack, a fun and quirky puzzle game. This unique entry in the genre puts its own twist on established conventions and adds one of gaming’s most iconic characters to the mix. The goal is simple: Keep your screen clear of falling blocks and ghosts by lining up blocks horizontally, causing them to disappear. Clearing the ghosts, though, requires the help of a hungry Pac-Man (who just happens to swing by every so often for a snack). It’s up to you to get all of the ghosts lined up for him, because Pac-Man will keep eating them until he is stopped by a block or he runs out of ghosts. In addition, his range of movement on the playing field is limited to horizontal or downward—thus adding further strategy. There are three game modes to choose from: 1 Player Normal, 2 Player VS., and the challenging 1 Player Puzzle. Feel like gobbling up some ghosts?

Riot Zone (TurboGrafx16 CD-ROM, 1 player, Rated E 10+ for Everyone 10 and Older - Tobacco Reference, Violence, 800 Wii Points): Riot Zone is a side-scrolling fighting game that follows two heroes as they fight to take down an evil organization. The crime syndicate Dragon Zone has kidnapped Hawk’s girlfriend and it’s up to him and his partner detective, Tony, to get her back. Join them as they jump “fists first” into the grim Kowloon district. Play as Hawk or Tony and fight through all five stages in the deadly Kowloon district. Smash down the Dragon Zone goons in areas like the Harbor, Abandoned Warehouse and the Ghetto. Both characters have unique skills and attacks. Hawk is a master of karate, while Tony is a hard-hitter. That being said, both guys are massive and possess killer techniques. The hard-boiled action is enhanced by the game’s realistic sound effects.