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I'm waiting to see what teams and game modes make the cut before I take the plunge. Would also be nice to see some new editing options available as I spend more time recreating old teams than I do playing! Still for £15 I'm pretty sure I'll pick it up eventually, and I have a Nintendo fantasy team from my 2010 save file ready to play against y'all

It's £15 on Shopto right now! Who are the featured teams this year by the way?

I'd like to see Retro bring this or a sequel to 3DS, there are so many levels in DKC R that would have looked incredible in 3D. Hopefully any sequel will lose the 'shake to dash' controls and just stick to pressing a button to run. I've lost so many lives cos the original controls are so firmly imprinted in my brain!

Is this going to use the nunchuk? Using the D-Pad really put me off finishing the first one.

The City was the biggest disappointment for me personally - it was more like a small hamlet than a bustling City. Love the look of this, but I can't help but pine for the top-down view of the Cube version

I preferred the simplicity of Excite Trucks over Excite Bots. It all got a bit too crazy with so many things happening at once and too many gimmicks for my liking. Also the tracks are nearly all identical to the first game - I was hoping to have more original tracks (with some of the old ones thrown in as bonuses). It's still great fun though, and a real shame it never got released here.

If the original developers get some money out of this then I'll buy it regardless of how it compares to the original.

Is that my old copy of Mario All-Stars I see? Good collection you got there!

I did exactly the same thing! Man this game is good

I can't get over how incredible this game is! It's like they've taken the best bits from FF 12, Bioware RPGs and classic Square RPGS, crammed it into one glorious package and added some of that Nintendo magic. Definitely one of the best Wii games out there, I'm only ten hours in but it's already one of my top ten games of all times. If it gets any better it'll be challenging Tales of Symphonia as my fave game.

This isn't a bizarre or unexpected move by Nintendo - they've done the same with every console and handheld they've ever made bar the n64, gb color and virtual boy. It's a very basic principle in business. Once a succesor is announced they always bring out a slightly revised, cheaper to make model so they can focus their main production lines on the newer format while still mopping up any one yet to pick one up (wii may have sold 70+ million but there are still twice that number of potential purchasers).

JimBob - it's quite the opposite; nintendo are saving time and money removing components. They still need to make wii units up to and beyond the wii u launch, now they'll just be using less production resources to make them. Anares - we still don't know how nintendo are going to market wii u to the mass market, but keeping the wii branding isn't a bad move, look at the PlayStation and Game Boy brands. I agree they need the need to differentiate it a bit more (calling it wii 2 probably would have been a simpler way to show this is an upgrade), but having familiar designs doesn't mean people won't be able to tell them apart. All this is conjecture at this stage anyway and hardly worth getting worked about!

Why are people getting so angry over this?? It's pretty normal for manufacturers to bring out slimmed down versions of console late in their life, and how many casual gamers (clearly the demographic Nintendo are going for) play cube games or actually care that backwards compatability's been removed. Nintendo will be switching production lines to making Wii U units pretty soon, by trimming down the Wii they can make them quicker and cheaper and continue to sell them for the next year or so, alongside Wii U. Look at the long-tail sales of PS & PS2 and you'll see Nintendo are trying to do the same thing: get casuals to buy cheap low-end unit, in a year or two they upgrade to high-end console. The way some people out there have reacted you'd think Nintendo have just set fire to a bag of puppies or something. Chill out, put down your angry stick, play Xenoblade.

They helped me, but maybe cos they were in fear of being hit by my lvl 3 hammer...

I listed my faves on my blog a while back, but basically my top choices are: Wario Ware Zelda Minish Cap - Link's Awakening just edges this in terms of my fave handheld Zelda, but this is still an incredible game. The miniature game mechanic was used brilliantly and it had some great original items. Advance Wars Tales of Phantasia FF6 Metroid Zero Mission - Never got into the original or played much of Super Metroid (something i've now rectified) so this was my first 2D Metroid experience. Bought it to pass the time while I was on my way to playtest Battalion Wars and completed it within two days as it was so compelling. The end-game is terrific and a great addition. Mariokart Super Circuit - I wasn't a huge fan of MK 64, and this return to mode 7 just clicked for me. Plus it had all the snes tracks as an unlockable bonus so what's not to like? Pokemon Sapphire - I know this gets some flack from fans, but I personally have great memories of exploring Hoenn. I miss the poffin mixing, secret bases and talent shows, which I thought were great little side quests. Golden Sun - Never got to the end, but feeling compelled to after playing Dark Dawn. I really hope this and the sequel are part of the 10 free 3DS GBA games.

It's a good idea to get the Harvest sprites on side as quickly as possible. They're basically cheap/child labour and they don't have a union or demand dental plans or proper health & safety measures or anything! They're situated just behind the church (I've a feeling you have to get the rear church door unlocked via an event or something?). Give them grasses and stuff like that everyday and they'll soon be willing to break their backs to please you. I had one to water crops, one to harvest, and another to feed the animals. I think they did better at certain jobs depending on the colour of their funky sprite costumes, and they level up and get better with time & practise. In the meantime, turnips are usually the cheapest seeds and the quickest crop to grow to get money. Forage EVERYWHERE, looking for coloured grasses, fruit (grapes in spring?) and flowers which, if you don't put in your shipping box will make good gifts for the townspeople. Try and get a chicken as soon as poss and you'll have a steady stream of eggs to ship every day by summer, and can hatch spare eggs in the incubator to produce an army of chickens. You can also sell any spare hens, so keep three producing eggs and sell off the spare one, once you've incubated the egg and it's fully grown (takes approx 30 days). The fishing rod can come in handy if you spend an hour a day (in-game time ) fishing in your farms stream. If the mine is open in spring you can get good income by breaking rocks and shipping gems; using the hoe on bare soil can reveal stairs to go further down the mine and get better items.

In case anyone is interested, ToV is on the 360 marketplace for £19.99!! Unbelievable price for an unbelievably good game!

Developing games? No. Developing free aps that can act as good adverts to attract casual gamers to try out a core game? Yes!

I worked for Blitz games for six months in 2003/04, working on Pac Man World 3 and Possession (which never got a publisher), and that was a horrible experience. Working 8am till 9pm weekdays and any other hours I could spare at the weekends. The team was great fun, but the work itself was soul destroying - we all knew we couldn't hit the release deadline without all pulling 60+ hour shifts, and the whole game was a mess. The sad thing was the guys working on it from the start were genuinely taented and had some really great ideas but Namco kept shooting them down, and giving us ridiculously tight milestones. As a developer you have to take so much shit from publishers, critics and even gamers just to make ends meet. No one in the industry wants to work on shitty licences or release a game that's crap but they pay the bills (while destroying your very soul...), and as for buggy games, blame publisher deadlines. Bottom line is: If you are serious about getting in to game development think carefully about whether you want to work in a faceless office churning out crap for long hours and low pay.

I've got H.45-47, very close to LukeLee and David.Dakota!

Cool, I got VIP tickets - row H! See you all down there!!

Ah right, cheers for the info guys!

Bugger, i'm holding off playing this until I get through Golden Sun Dark Dawn...Can you download quests without starting up the main game like prof layton? I don't want to miss out on any potential crate-carrying questy goodness.

Shop to £29.86 (game-only) Game £49.99 (controller bundle) Show Nintendo you care!

Yep - Shopto.net have got the game on its own