The biggest tournament of the year started about two weeks ago and like many Americans (presidents included) I filled out a bracket, but this year turned out to be a year of upsets and Cinderella teams. So for reference, here's my bracket. 

WiiWare might get some more credibility with this little retro nugget. River City Ransom 2 is officially going to be a thing. At least in Japan. Sources say that some of those who worked on the original are currently working on the sequel that I guess is 20 years in the making? That's like one and a half Duke Nukem Forevers! I can't say I'm excited for it just yet since there's no official news on a release in the US, but if it's following the Technos revival they're pushing with that dodgeball game (in stores now) I can support this move. It's also coming to the PC later which means the game will eventually be announced for Xbox Live and PSN... as they cancel the WiiWare version. 
 
Now we need another unofficial Renegade sequel so Miracle Kidz, there's your next project!

• Sackboy could eventually become Sony's equivalent of Sonic or even Mario as a character that can define the company. Sackboy is just the most recent creation Sony can call their own, but Sony has probably been the most aggressive company in the past several years when it comes to creating fresh characters to compete with Nintendo's stack of 80s and 90s stalwarts. After Sony ditched Crash Bandicoot and Spyro, they just ramped it up last generation with Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter, and Sly Cooper. This generation, the only new boy in town is Sackboy, but give him credit for being pretty good at his craft. He's a master of disguise and damn near adorable, something we need to see more often.
• The Rabbids are really more of a race than a single character, but they've managed to screw Rayman over by taking over the Ubisoft mascot scene. Yes, they're mostly about minigames, but at least a little bit of love is put into the games unlike the tsunami of half-assed minigames during the Wii's early days. Maye the Rabbid craze has faded a bit due to overexposure, but they can still make me laugh... maybe it's because they're the most French of the mascots we've seen lately.
• And finally, de Blob. THQ stumbled upon a family-friendly game that's not based on a Disney movie or rhymes with Plungemob Snarechants. de Blob reminds me a bit of Kirby with Sonic's attitude circa 1992, before Sega ruined him. I was glad to see de Blob get a sequel as well as widening his audience to the HD crowd and I'd like to see it pay off.

It's March Madness, a time of year when college students in America give a shit about college basketball. And since basketball, March, and madness was invented in America, that makes this time of year awesome by association. It's also a great time for gamblers who fill out their brackets hoping to win the office pool. And so I filled out a bracket the other day and I gotta say I'm quite confident in my picks. Let me know what you think. 
 
Link 

Anybody want to fill me in on what's been going on? 
 
And I need to wander around the Epic PM and the Photoshop thread a bit. Also, I played Audiosurf yesterday, the first time I've touched a game in about 2 weeks? Weird. 
 
Happy St. Patrick's Day and tomorrow I'll have something about brackets. Yep, talkin' 'bout brackets.

It's hard to deny the fact that the Wii has been losing momentum for a little while now since we're starting to see the Wii taking a backseat to the 360, PS3, and now the 3DS, Nintendo's latest handheld brick of cocaine. I have a feeling that Nintendo is about to kill off the Wii sometime in the next year and personally, I'm ready for Nintendo to move on and try to take on the HD console world. Yet I would like to see a last-minute push from Nintendo this year and just unleash a whole mess of games because except for Ubisoft and the inevitable sequel to Just Dance 2, 3rd party publishers are doing jack shit as they all gave up in 2009. There's Skyward Sword, the Twilight Princess/Wind Waker hybrid, and... and... is Pikmin 3 still in the works? No need to worry since that's how Nintendo has been rollin' lately. Keep shit a surprise until around E3 or some self-promoted media event to tout their latest games. Donkey Kong, Goldeneye, and Kirby were all announced to the world mere months before release. 
 
However is the Wii now more like the PS2 compared to the 360 or PS3? According to this dude from EA Games, yes. If you're not into clicking links, he calls the Wii a "legacy platform" like the PS2. In layman's terms, the Wii is old hardware. I'm sure a lot of you agree with that statement and in a lot of ways, the Wii hasn't aged as well while we're gobbling up HDTVs and iPads that can do some crazy things. Software is lagging behind as there have been few notable releases this year and very little (if anything) in the next few months, much like the PS2 during Sony's transition. Motion controls are no longer console exclusive, the Wii's online system is archaic, and something has to be done. 
 
Like perhaps a new console? The Wii is turning 5 this year and I don't see how Nintendo can wait any longer. 
 
So what is the Wii's legacy? An innovative machine that lived up to its potential or a flawed machine with a few brief moments of greatness, but overall an utter disappointment? Either way, the Wii is Nintendo's most successful home console to date and the next machine has some big shoes to fill.

BurgerTime HD is an upcoming video game that has no reason to exist as a product to be purchased in any format. Then again I'm the crazy guy who believes that Nintendo shouldn't be wasting its time on a 3DS version of Ocarina of Time. But I can't be the only one who thinks BurgerTime HD is one of the dumbest attempts at a classic revival in recent memory. It almost rivals that Adventure Island WiiWare game some time ago. 

So Giant Bomb has been severely borked today and I place all the blame on Hamz. He's been quite elusive lately... something is aloof. 
 
Let's see if this goes through.