Joystiq

12:07PM Balance Board is on the floor in front of us.


12:12PM Two new games to announce today. First up is Tetris Party. Casey from Tetris Online is at the podium; the game is-up-and-running. It's developed by Hudson. We're getting a history lesson on Tetris.

12:14PM He says they challenged Hudsom to "take Tetris to the next level!" 18 new modes, some motion control based, some incorporating Balance Board. Tony, the game's producer, is demoing Field Climber mode. Blocks need to be placed so that a little guy can make his way up them.

12:16PM Next up is Shadow mode. It's a variant of puzzle play. You're given a silhouette that you need to fill in. You can skip through pieces, but are only given 10 skips. This can be played competitively. Another mode is Stage Racer. You actually take a block ? in this case a "T" ? and "drive" it downward through a course trying not to get hung up on anything.

12:21PM There's a new co-op mode that uses a wider well. Both players work together in the same well to clear lines and create Tetrises. Dual Spaces uses the same screen setup but is ... turn-based. Players attempt to fill in the "white space" before their opponents can. Wii Balance Board support is optional. Leaning forward-backwards controls drop speed. "Squatting" rotates pieces. The blocks are really large in this mode, but can be scaled smaller once you get the hang of it. The producer looks a little ... odd playing this way. Price announced: 1200 Wii points.


12:22PM Real Networks and Ninja Bee are showing Boingz It''s a "2D-3D puzzler platformer." The Boinks are elastic creatures. You use the Wiimote to grab, stretch, and flick them around the level to reach exit gates.


12:26PM Boingz is physics-based an actually a bit reminiscent of LittleBigPlanet. The game is "designed for the Wii." Reeeally? Seriously, though, it looks like a retail release. There's a timed mode to challenge more hardcore players.

12:29PM Marc Franklin is back at the podium. He says that "dozens more games" are on the way to WiiWare. World of Goo launches Oct. 13. And that's a wrap! (Yes, really.)



Another conference? Yes, Nintendo is hosting a second fall media summit conference. What else does the company have under its sleeve? We're told there will be a couple of announcements and then live demos.