Wario makes his return to 2D platforming in Wario Land Shake for the Wii.

Wednesday, Nintendo announced a new iteration of the Wario Land franchise, Wario Land Shake for Wii. Nintendo's announcement was followed by a FAMITSU article containing details on the upcoming game.

Wario Land Shake sports sprite graphics, featuring "hand-drawn animations." The images released show Wario in a variety of colorful settings: a desert (with pyramids), the deck of a ship, underwater, and in what looks to be a cave. The game is said to feature twenty such worlds for Wario to explore.

Ubisoft will capture the popular and successful stop smoking method for the Nintendo DS handheld device.

Nintendo may be getting players active through WiiFit, but Ubisoft is hoping to play a part in clearing their lungs with the recently announced DS title My Health Coach: The easy way to stop smoking. Developed in conjunction with experts from the stop smoking programs, the DS game aims to provide "a truly interactive engagement with the game through which he or she learns that it can actually be enjoyable to quit smoking."

Allen Carr was best known as the author of the 1985 best-seller The Easy Way To Stop Smoking. After quitting smoking after 31 years, Carr developed a network of clinics and published his method to help others stop smoking.

With no sign of a Nintendogs for Nintendo's console, Ubisoft is offering up an alternative.

Nintendo has yet to bring its successful Nintendogs franchise to Wii, but Ubisoft seems perfectly happy to step in and fill the gap with their Dogz franchise. They recently announced Dogz 2008 (working title) exclusively for Wii, the second Dogz game to make it to Nintendo's console, and another entry in their animal-oriented "Petz" franchise (other examples include Catz and Horsez). The title is due for release in Fall 2008.

For this new Dogz game, Ubisoft is planning to let players adopt from 18 different breeds, and then dress up their puppies with more than 100 different accessories. The game will include activities like playing catch in the park and jumping rope, and Ubisoft also plans to allow dogs to travel to other Wii consoles to interact with other dogs.

Game information and downloadable DS demos come to Europe and Australia alongside three Virtual Console games, but no update to WiiWare in its second week.

The Nintendo Channel, an online service providing information and advertisements for first party and third party games on Wii and DS, has gone live across Europe and Australia.

DS owners will be able to wirelessly download demos from the Nintendo Channel to their handheld console, provided they agree to share information regarding their Wii usage with Nintendo online. In notable contrast to the North American Nintendo Channel, all of the demos available initially are of first party software, including:

Wii moves ahead on The Times' list of "Coolest Gadgets."

The South African Times recently announced its yearly special of the "Coolest Gadgets for the Young." Apple's iPod was number one on the list, followed by the PlayStation 3, then Xbox 360, with the Wii in fourth place. This is especially interesting considering the Wii has 51% of the local market share and so outselling the rival consoles combined, according to The Times.

With a majority of the local market share, Nintendo's ranking is a matter of taste, and could be affected by an unknown number of affluent youth who often opt for higher priced, cutting-edge technology. Nintendo's share and ranking is also impressive because of the excessive delays in launching the system in South Africa. The Wii launched in mid-October of 2007 but has exceeded expectations.

Launching this holiday season, the Wii version will make extensive use of the Wii Balance Board.

Ubisoft announced that the humorous Rabbids will return this holiday season in Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party. It was also announced that the Wii iteration of the game will have a large focus on the recently released Wii Balance Board. Also set to come out for DS, the latest in the series will have a focus on the realm of television as the titular characters parody the medium.

More details will be revealed at E3 2008.

UBISOFT ANNOUNCES NEW TITLE – RAYMAN RAVING RABBIDS® TV PARTY

Also, the website for the game's user-generated content has gone live.

Majesco announced that their upcoming side-scrolling shooter, Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy, has gone gold. Coming from developer Budcat Creations, this game features a game editor that encompasses every aspect of a shooter from levels and bosses to bullet patterns and sound effects and much more. They also announced that the game’s website, BlastWorksDepot.com, is now live and potential players can browse through other player's creations and download them and rate them. This website also appears to let players send and accept friend requests.

Greenpeace dissected the current generation of home video game consoles in search of toxic chemicals, Nintendo was unimpressed.

Greenpeace recently announced a new study showing toxic chemicals inside each of this generation's home consoles. Techradar called it a "Playing Dirty" report and was first to provide Nintendo's response which outlined their position on Greenpeace as a whole.

The Greenpeace "Guide to Greener Electronics" first included video game consoles in November of 2007 and awarded Nintendo the distinction of being the first company to receive a score of 0 out of 10. The next quarterly Greenpeace guide gave the Nintendo Wii system some credit for energy efficiency and awarded Nintendo 0.3 out of 10.

Gameinvest develops family adventure title to encourage ocean conservation awareness.

Little is known about this music puzzle game from Portugal based developer Gameinvest. Gameplay will consist of safely guiding your fish friends through the Amazon River; solving puzzles, joining in sing-a-longs, and learning about ocean conservation. Aquatic Tales touts an original soundtrack, intuitive controls and cooperative gameplay perfect for family participation.

The game is set for worldwide release for the Holidays.

Scheduled for a Holiday 2008 release, Shaun White Snowboarding will take full advantage of the Wii Balance Board.

Ubisoft appears to be embracing the Wii Balance Board as they announced Shaun White Snowboarding today and also revealed that the game will make heavy use of the aforementioned peripheral. While it is unclear just exactly how the Balance Board will be used in the game, Game|Life's Chris Kohler did say that "you'll actually do little jumps on the board to make your character jump."

While there are also Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC versions of the game, the Wii version will be developed from the ground up. Along with the exclusive Balance Board controls, there will also be a storyline exclusive to the Wii version that will include you and your snowboarding crew (which includes your character's mentor, Shaun White) going around the world and carving up various mountains. Shaun White is working closely with the development team so they can capture his "riding style, personality and sense of humor."