The days of Pilotwings 64 and Wave Race: Blue Storm are a distant memory.

Nintendo appears to be getting huge support from 3rd parties, with Ubisoft promising 7 launch titles, including the previously announced Red Steel and Rayman. PC/Xbox island survivor shooter Far Cry will likely get the Wii off to a good start with a solid online multiplayer. Monster 4×4 World Circuit and GT Pro Series will add racing action, and Ubisoft is also planning an adaptation of the forthcoming animated movie Open Season. Finally, theres Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII, which is about squadrons of WWII or something. Prince of Persia has been mentioned but not yet confirmed.

Thats not all! Midway is in on the act too. The Chicago based publisher will bring Rampage: Total Destruction, Blitz: The League, and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon! While all 3 of these are current gen titles, they have no presence on the PS3 or 360. Rampage is an update on a classic arcade game. Blitz is a football title stripped of the NFL license but beefed up with arcade play and a more true to life atmosphere. MK: Armageddon is the final installment in the legendary fighting franchise, featuring every character in the series thus far (see right).

EA’s been eerily silent on the Wii but plan on Madden NFL, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, SSX, Need for Speed, Harry Potter, and The Godfather to make it out sometime. Madden NFL and Need For Speed are the only titles from their camp likely to make it out in the launch window, but the rest won’t be far behind.

Sega’s Sonic Wildfire has slippsed to the beginning of 2007, but Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz is planned for launch.

Finally, Activision is going to port Marvel Ultimate Alliance to Wii as well, giving the Wii an awesome action RPG and comic books fan’s dream all in one.

Thats over a dozen third party games to hit on or near launch for the Wii! And don’t forget they’ve still got Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3, Mario Galaxy, and Super Smash Brothers Brawl.

Also, if you love reading tech specs, look at a breakdown of the Wii, and if you like rumors, check out the The Ultimate Wii Rumour Compilation . All that stuff is secondary to what we’re really excited about: a ton of good games.

I’ll try to compile some info on the PS3 launch too when I get more info. But honestly, just look at whats happening here. Nintendo in less than a year’s time has gone from the 3rd place purple box to the developer darling. Got to admit, its getting better. Getting better, all the time….

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I love Capcom. As much as they tend to milk thier successful franchises for every penny, (see Mega Man, Street Fighter, and Resident evil) they make solid games. When they do break from the norm, it’s always a welcome sight (I.e. Viewtful Joe, Rival Schools) even if it dosen’t always work out.

Tech Romancer is one of these games. Capcom took a risk here, and resulted in one of the most underrated fighting games ever. It’s a mech combat fighter. There is less of an emphasis on combos, and more focus on your mech’s special weapons and abilities. The fighters are sort of clunky, but that’s okay, becuase they are giant Mecha and not trained martial artists or mutant superheroes. Even the life bars are different, being placed vertically on the side of the screen and are used to measure damage. Each of the game’s mechs is based on a famous japanese anime, such as Gundamn or Voltron. Towards the end of the second round, you can preform a “final move”, which is akin to a Mortal Kombat fatality, excpet only for mechs. The Dreamcast VMU can be used to unlock minigames and earn points for the game’s hidden features. If you still have your Dreamcast, do yourself a favor and seek this game out.

Click the thumbnail on the left to find a desktop friendly promotional image for the Virtual Console. Luigi is driving the Sega Outrun car, Raccoon PacMan, ROB, and Kirby dressed as Simon Belmont all show up in this mish-mash classic characters.
If you love Emo as much as you love Nintendo, check out Nintendo Fusion Tour. No word on anything playable, but they’ll at least be showing off new games along with the music.
Kotaku heard rumblings about a Cross-Country Tour for the Wii, but now it looks more like it will be more of a secret invite-only tour. I hope Nintendo realizes the trendsetters at Powet would love to attend.

Finally, a keynote at the Leipzig Germany games conference has been booked called “Wii Prove Our Promise” for Aug. 23.

The biggest event in gaming may be gone for good.

Cost, over crowding, and undue stress on developers to get games ready for the show are all a factor in an announcement expected to be made monday morning, July 31st.

Next-Gen says the convention is to be done with altogether, and replaced with multiple yearly events for publishers. Gamespot says it will simply be shrunk to a press only event.

Until we get an official press statement from ESA’s Doug Lowenstein, enjoy the baseless rumor mongering and over excited reactionaries of the blogosphere:
4CR: E3 Gone Kaput?
Joystiq: E3 cancelled for next year and beyond
Kotaku: E3 Cancelled?!
NeoGAF: E3 Cancelled for Next Year and “Forseeable Future”?
Powet: e 3 Cancelled?

1UP’s Jenn Frank reports on the launch party for the new PSP exclusive Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection. Held at Sony’s Metreon center in San Fransisco, PSP toting fans weren’t as prevalent as hardcore arcade competition players. She’s rather amazed that arcade fighters have such a devoted following, and talks about the community as if it were some kind of fringe thing.

I’m not exactly new to this scene(see: Chicago), but I’m weirded out that a games journalist could be barely aware of the fighter community. Fighters like Tekken would fall off the face of the earth without the annual, monthly and even weekly events fans organize. I mean, you can’t play against the computer for very long before getting bored, and your non fighting game friends stop playing if you beat them enough times. Thats why these competitive events exist.

You get to like a game and you’ve gotta find people who will play with you, even if they’re not always friends. And the more specific your taste, the harder it is to get a game going. Running with Soul Calibur and Tekken players doesn’t mean they’ll play Virtua Fighter or Street Fighter III. And while DOA, Mortal Kombat, and Street Fighter have all migrated online in the past few years, the split second timing required for fighters has kept a lot of them off Xbox Live or other services. Who can blame them? Maybe as broadband speeds increase over the years this will change, but for right now, the only way to fight real fighting game fans is at events.

Car bloggers Jalopnik have snapped several shots of Transformers in LA this week.
To the left you’ll see the big honkin’ pickup purported to be Ironhide. Its a GMC Sierra, which is a big truck to start, but its been tricked out with a lift kit and some heavy duty after market tires. The photographer also mentions the front end has some cool changes too and points out the added smoke stacks. Oh yeah, and the metal embossed Autobot logo on the back bay door. Perfect.

They also saw a Crane, but who knows what that has to do with anything.

MTV News sat down with former Ultra Game Players and Xbox Magazine writer and current Bungie content manager Frank O’Conner about his ability to bait and tease fanboys.
Frank also turns in a great photo-filled journal of ComiCon. I should really call this column “This Week In Frankie”
Rumor time!!! SPoNG says a New Bungie Title that isn’t Halo will be revealed at X06, certifying that Halo 3 will in fact be the last in the series. It is said the game will still take place in the Halo universe, not unlike their Mac classic, Marathon.
Joystiq stupidly spit out A Bungie with business sense would make Halo 4 and 5 and… and made me literally sneer. Who are you kidding man? They’re going to finish the fight with Halo 3 and then move on. This is the same kind of mindset that makes terrible sequels commonplace. A Halo 4 would be horribly tacked on. Bungie has clearly mapped out this universe and history to include many, many events that may never make it into games. Not unlike Star Wars or Star Trek, they’ll find new places to set new stories with new characters without leaving the world we know. Theres a vast history of the Spartan program the Covenant and the Forerunners that we haven’t… hey… wait a minute… Forerunners… Yeah, that could easily be where the rumour came from. We’ll have to wait and see.

Wave 1 is right around the corner (and you can see the bios here!), and as excited as everyone I’ve talked to has been for the first batch, our eyes are quickly darted toward wave 2!
TFW2005‘s Kickback and his awesome inside sources have come through with some pictures of Voyager Jetfire, and deluxe Grimlock and Mirage. Since their site has been slammed with traffic lately, I’ve taken the liberty of posting mirrors of the images.