Nothing says "commitment to high quality" quite like getting some model to front your Wii yoga game. Oh wait, I didn't mean "commitment to high quality," I meant "cheap marketing gimmick." My mistake.

Falling on the celebrity scale somewhere between Daisy Fuentes, star of an upcoming pilates game, and Connie Talbot, future star of a singing game, Anja Rubik is a model who appears to have no yoga credentials at all: there's no reference to yoga on her wikipedia page and not even a picture of her doing yoga on her (which has dozens of boring model pictures of a long-faced blonde along with a handful of interesting cool/creepy pastels).

Apparently publishers are pretty desperate for celebrities to attach to their video games. If you're a hot model looking to hook up with a video game publisher, feel free to drop by my apartment and I'll help you with my, uh ....... contacts in the industry?

I think it’s great that Sega is committed to putting out games for core gamers. With so many publishers pumping out tedious mini-game collections or bland casual games, it’s nice that someone is really taking the Wii seriously as a gaming platform, especially since even Nintendo often gives short shrift to core gaming.

Now that I’ve praised Sega, I’m going to go ahead and trash their new first person shooter, The Conduit.

Read the review.

This time of year I find myself previewing a lot of games, so I created a 2009 Wii Game Preview Guide with links to this year's previews.

Some people love working out at the gym. There is something about the sweat and strain that just makes them feel good. I am not one of these people; I work out not because I enjoy it, but because in between workouts I feel stronger and less prone to aches and pains. EA Sports Active is just like working out in the gym; it makes me sweat, it works my muscles and it’s not the least little bit of fun.

Read the Full Review

In an Wired article titled Top 10 Raw Deals for Gamers, item 3 refers to Nintendo sitting on quality games. Their first example: Fatal Frame IV: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse. I was horrified to discover that Nintendo has the publishing rights to this game yet has no plans to bring it to the U.S.

This is outrageous. Co-developed by Tecmo, who developed the other games in the terrific Fatal Frame survival-horror series, and Grasshopper, the innovative folks behind Killer 7 and No More Heroes, Fatal Frame IV is exactly the sort of game those of us complaining about the dearth of good Wii games want to see. Nintendo keeps claiming they care about "core" gamers, but this is a pretty clear indicator that they are more interested in mediocre casual games than in making the Wii a platform for all gamers. (Core gamers are far better served on the Wii by Sega, who has put out several strong games).

Someone has created a petition demanding the game's release outside of Japan (they refer to it as Project Zero, but it's the same game). I don't know how much good petitions do, but I still signed it.

For shame, Nintendo, for spiking one of the most promising Wii games available.

Referred to variously as deadly, dangerous and absurd, CTA Digital's bowling ball peripheral for the Wii has certainly garnered a lot of attention from the gaming press, mainly it seems because journalists are amused by the prominent liability waiver on the item's web page.

At first I thought I'd just ignore it - it's only a mildly interesting curiousity - but I don't want this to be the only gaming site in the world without a picture of the Wii bowling ball on it, so here you go.

Some games should not be played alone, and that is particularly true of any game with “party” in the title. Case in point: puzzle game Boom Blox Bash Party. Sit on the couch by yourself playing the single player mode and you might dismiss Bash Party as a middling casual game, but invite a few people over and the game becomes something quite different; an excuse to mock your friends.

Read the full review here.

Shacknews list of this week's Wii releases is comprised of a mysterious selection of games I know nothing about, including Ghostbusters, Divas on Ice and Let's Tap. The last one sounds like a tap dancing game, but I have a vague memory that it's actually a game where you tap a board with a Wii remote on it or something.

Courtesy of The Consumerist, a warning that Gamestop is overcharging for the MotionPlus. Thought you'd like to know.

If you know anyone with Parkinson's Disease, you might want to get them a Wii. An eight week study found that when people with Parkinson's played sports games on the Wii, their physical condition improved, as did patient's moods. A lot of study participants even went out and bought a Wii.