Distancing itself from Microsoft's strategy of releasing anticipated online content (and, erm, Coffee Time Crosswords) during E3 2008, Nintendo has opted instead to give us Major League Eating: The Game for this week's WiiWare title.

We're letting the press release speak for itself: "This isn't just a race to stuff your face-you'll need strategy to master a smorgasbord of digestive attacks, defenses and counters. These include the Mega Burp, Gas Attack, Antacid and more. And don't forget to keep an eye on your Barf-O-Meter, because if the food hits the plate twice, you're out."

Fighting through the Barf-O-Meter will set you back $10. Here's hoping for a few surprises coming from the press conference.

Major League Eating: The Game initially seemed to be a weak concept for a licensed title. Is eating actually a game? How do you turn one tenuous "sport" into a tenuous videogame?

Mastiff has met that challenge by embellishing on competitive eating, spinning the contests into a fantasy world of power-ups, attacks, and other tested game elements. I'm still doubtful that I'll play Major League Eating: The Game after its release, but I think it'll appeal to other people, especially kids. Any title in which your 3D character loses after 3D vomiting has a built-in audience somewhere.

When independent developer Renegade Kid first announced its follow up title to last year's Dementium: the Ward, few details were offered as to what it was exactly that the studio was up to.

Titled simply Moon, the game was said to again be played from the first-person, but beyond the vantage and supposed setting, we were left wondering. It didn't take us long to tire of the guessing game however, so we arranged to speak with Renegade Kid's owner and creative director Jools Watsham to find out more about the company's latest offspring, how it differs from Dementium, and why the studio opted to go with a different publisher, in this case Mastiff, rather than Dementium publisher Gamecock. Read on to see what he had to say.

From the fetid halls of Dementium to the vacuous surface of the moon, developer Renegade Kid has proven that it isn't shy about taking its first two projects into uncharted territories. Publisher Mastiff has revealed that the dev's second project, previously known as "Project M," is in fact a futuristic action title for the Nintendo DS simply called Moon.

While we'll continue to wait for a simulation of that timeless Saturday night ritual of flashing our bare posteriors to cars on the freeway, Moon instead will take us to the lunar surface in 2058 for a first-person adventure that according to Mastiff's hilariously titled "Head Woof" Bill Swartz is "frequently violent" and "always disturbing." We'll have to take his word for it, as neither screens nor a release date have been released, leaving us to replay Dementium and squint at the screen while mentally replacing crazed mental patients with equally crazed aliens -- we should do all of our previews this way.

Shovelware has graduated to the next level: irony. Turns out Mastiff plans to debut its coveted Major League Eating license on WiiWare, when the service launches May 12. Players will literally simulate the shoveling of food into their mouths using Nintendo's patented Waggletech®. You thought busted TVs were bad? Wait till someone swallows a Wiimote.

Major League Eating: The Game features two-player offline play, plus an online mode and leaderboards. Players will be taught to use various techniques -- like the cram, toss and typewriter -- while engaging opponents with an arsenal of 'gurgitatory' weaponry, including bites, burps, belches, mustard gas and jalapeño flames. Burp-offs and hot potato challenges are also con-firmed. This can't be ... Oh yes, it's real.

It's difficult to decide if we're more intrigued or disgusted with publisher Mastiff's announcement that it has gobbled up the license to release games based on "gurgitory" competition organization Major League Eating. While we still have no idea what platforms, or frankly what audiences Mastiff is targeting, the publisher says that Major League Eating: The Game will play "like a fighting game," as players "show brilliant on-screen eating; a mastery of offensive and defensive weapons including burps, belches, and mustard gas; and of course the technical mastery necessary to avoid emptying one's stomach in a vividly colored reversal of fortune." Honestly, we can't make this stuff up.

Truth be told, it's difficult to imagine exactly how these games will pan out, though Mastiff has not yet responded to our inquiry as to whether or not the stomach-centric gameplay will be easier to swallow when soaked in water.

Timed to coincide with today's release of the Gamecock-published horror FPS Dementium: The Ward, publisher Mastiff has announced that they'll be taking over the publishing role for developer Renegade Kid's sophomore effort.

We still don't know much about the followup, except that it will also be on Nintendo DS, will use the same 3D engine as Dementium, and goes by the ominous working title "Project M." Will it be another M-rated scare fest, or does that 'M' stand for something far less frightening ... maybe Project Mittens or Project Milk (and cookies)? Oh, who are we kidding, look at that skull in their logo! It's probably Project Manhunticide.