Welcome to the start of The Tanooki Wii Fit Challenge! In a grueling three month session of balance board induced health, two of your very own Tanooki staff members and one special guest will see who can yoga with the best, and who must answer to the toaster shaped Wii Fit piggy bank.

Stay tuned this week as the contestants are revealed, and catch the first update on Sunday for thoughts straight from fitness fanatics themselves. As for now, you are just one short click away from meeting the participants! Oh, the anticipation!

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If you missed out on the NES generation of gaming, good news! Now for the low price of $3,800 you can start a serious game of catch-up! The set for sale includes every NES game, as well as a system to play them on. Actually, forget playing catch-up, with one of every cartridge created for the NES, start a serious game of “caught up and am now beating the pants off all other fanboys”.

Ever since I saw this set, I haven’t been able to get the “Gotta catch ‘em all! Gotta catch ‘em all!” from the cartoon out of my head. You know, the annoying spoken chorus that may or may not be a duplicated recording of one man yelling the popular catch phrase over and over. No pun intended.

Ebay
via Gizmondo

Board game company USAopoly is bringing two beloved gaming past times together this September with Donkey Kong Jenga. One is about climbing a tower; one is about building a tower; that’s close enough to merge the two right? The interesting thing is that mysterious spinner, as well as the little Mario’s climbing up the tower. I get nervous, and develop a pretty solid case of Jenga Jitters. Not even Donkey Kong can help that.

Kotaku

Here’s a video straight from yours truly, with a little Nintendo flavor thrown in for good measure. If anyone is looking for a place to live in Montana, I suggest changing your mind. It’s not worth it.

When Shigeru Miyamoto was asked about how he and Nintendo maintain top-notch quality in their games, here’s what he had to say:

I’m always instructing my game designers on the history of the characters and worlds we’ve created. Often we’re in development and I’ll say, “Oh, this looks like a Sega game. We need to make it look more like Mario.”

Ouch. Actually, this statement from the mastermind himself isn’t intended to be a cheap shot at Sega. Shiggy just wants to make sure Nintendo games always have a specific, magical feel to them that you know is purely Nintendo. It’s that whole Miyamoto golden touch phenomenon or whatever.

Wired

I crawled out of the dungeon that my summer school has become, to bring you a little art work that I put together the other day. I’m glad to see Matt celebrating his new found freedom with a rockin’ video, and I wish I could say the same thing. Think of the picture as a post card of sorts, only with more “wish I were there!” than “wish you were here!” Full resolution image available after the break.

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It’s Saturday night and we just finished up our third podcast! While we are waiting for the podcast to upload, why don’t we check out a video that celebrates the two greatest things ever created: Tetris and Back to the Future.

Vimeo

Well, it’s certainly been a while, hasn’t it? Now that school is finally over, you can expect to see a lot more Matthew around these parts. I’ve worked on quite a few movies this quarter and I fully intend to share them all with you. I mean, if you’re cool with that…

So let’s kick off my newfound sense of summer with a short animation I made earlier this week. Enjoy!

DailyMotion

With casual gamer focus evident in games like Wii Sports, Wii Play, Wii Fit, and even Mario Kart Wii, you’ve probably even forgot about Brawl and Galaxy as reminders that Nintendo still cares about the “core gamer.” While it’s a given now that we’ll be seeing games like Kid Icarus this year along with Animal Crossing and Kirby in at least Japan, we may yet get another huge game this year (let’s face it, Kid Icarus ain’t for everyone), and it may be more original than you think. GamePro magazine’s Sid Shuman states:

“I’ve heard strong rumors that Nintendo is going to unveil an all-new game with all-new characters [at E3].”

I can’t think of a big new IP from Nintendo since Pikmin, and even that didn’t make a huge splash. If Nintendo does decide to reveal some new games and characters at E3, we’ll make sure you know.

Kombo

You know those posters that get shoved in the middle of magazines or folder into game cases, and always happen to be on the back of the only important pages, so you can’t use them anyway? While making my annual trip back to my parents’ house a few months ago, I was bored out of my skull in the desert of 56k dial-up (it DOES still exist, trust me). Sure I could have read or done something constructive with my time, but instead I started rummaging through my old stuff.

Long story short, I found all my old game boxes and magazines, put some things together, and as of this afternoon finally put the finishing touches on my wall. Or my “nerd wall” as my room mates so fondly refer to it. Eventually I hope to have a “nerd cube”, minus the floor. More pictures and juicy secrets after the break.

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