The results are in...almost. The finalists for the Golden Joystick Game Of The Year, which has been around since 1982 and which has become one of the most prestigious gaming awards, have been announced. This year, the voting record has been broken, with over 400,000 gamers voting for the game of their choice since September. Now you get the chance to vote for the game of the year in the final stage of the Golden Joystick awards - which title will you crown best game of 2006? Here are the choices:

• Animal Crossing: Wild World
• Call of Duty 2
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Special Edition
• Half-Life 2
• Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend
• Mario Kart DS
• New Super Mario Bros.
• Pro Evolution Soccer 5
• Resident Evil 4

All voting can be done through the Golden Joystick's website and the awards ceremony will take place at the Park Lane Hilton, London in the Grand Ballroom on Friday, October 27. Get your votes in now!

I have always wanted to play a brand New DS Lite on an airplane, a mile high in the air.  I have just found out I will have my chance to fulfill my life long dream.  Japan Airlines (JAL) will now be supplying custom made DS Lites for their Executive or First Class passengers.  These bad boys have had their WiFi capabilities removed, so they would not interfere with the airplanes navigation systems and other fancy expensive things.  Two of the four playable games on your travels will be Mario Kart DS and DS Golf. The  flights from Tokyo to LA, NY, Chicago, San Francisco, London, Beijing and Guanghzou, will be the ones you will be able to enjoy your Dual Screened pleasures. This unfortunately is not a permanent arrangement, the extra entertainment will only last until August 31st.

Thanks for the tip Steve.

October is one of the months I hate most because it's starting to get cold again, and when it's cold outside, you wouldn't want to go anywhere else. You'd just want to stay in and maybe watch movies or play video games or even do the laundry.

But with Mario Kart GP hitting arcades this coming October, I just might be tempted to visit the Mushroom Kingdom, er, the nearest arcade, bringing my saved game along. Mario Kart GP is bound to be exciting because it will be featuring Namco characters such as Blinky and Mr. and Mrs. Pac Man.

This game which will be released this October is going to feature four-player karting and has an integrated "NamCam" which will allow players to plaster their faces into the characters in the game. So if I'm pissed off with one of the players there I can see the look on his face when I beat him at Mario Kart GP.

October might just be the coolest month - in more ways than one...

The Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service has amassed one million unique users just five months after it was launched to the public. It offers free online multiplayer service for a host of Nintendo DS games. The company's website displays a chart for each of its games; there's also an overall chart that shows the number of users who log on each day for the past two weeks.

Nintendo's data from April 10 to April 23  shows an average of 264,400 unique users daily, and usually peaks above 300,000 users on weekends.  And if you're wondering how your favorite DS games are performing, here's the breakdown:

Animal Crossing: Wild World 116,901 (44.2% of total)
Metroid Prime: Hunters 70,954 (26.8% of total)
Mario Kart DS 59,544 (22.5% of total)
Tetris DS 15,842 (6% of total)
Tony Hawk: American Sk8land 1,159 (0.4% of total)

Surprisingly, Mario Kart DS has been outperformed by Metroid Prime: Hunters, which has been out only for a month. Mario Kart was released the same time the Wi-Fi service was launched in November 2005. Not surprising is the fate of Tony Hawk: American Sk8land, which only managed to bring in over a thousand users. It would be interesting to see how Ubisoft's LostMagic performs when it gets released this week.

Whether Mario jumps to the top of the charts or Tony Hawk turns things around, only one thing is for sure, Nintendo is well on its way to reaching the 2 million mark.

Final Fantasy XII (PS2) bucked the bad luck that plagued its production with high opening week sales numbers. It raked in over 1.7 million in sales duplicating sales of its precursor, 2001's Final Fantasy X. But DS titles dominated the top10 with 7 including Animal Crossing DS and the Training series. The frog themed, tongue-twisting Chou-Gekijou-Ban Keroro Gunsou: Enshuu Dayo! Zenin Shuugou, a new DS game broke into the top at no.10. The hits for the week of March 27 are:

No.	System	Title	Publisher
1	PS2	Final Fantasy 12 (1,764,266)	Square-Enix
2	DS	Animal Crossing: Wild World (70,932)	Nintendo
3	DS	DS Training For Adults: Work Your Brain More (67,222)	Nintendo
4	DS	English Training (39,940)	Nintendo
5	DS	DS Training For Adults: Work Your Brain (39,718)	Nintendo
6	PS2	Sengoku Musou (2 25,295)	Koei
7	DS	Mario Kart DS (17,928)	Nintendo
8	DS	Children of Mana (17,574)	Square-Enix
9	PS2	Guitar Freaks & Drum Mania V (17,520)	Konami
10	DS	Chou-Gekijou-Ban Keroro Gunsou: Enshuu Dayo! Zenin Shuugou (15,650)	Bandai

Parasytic over at the official Nintendo forums has created a video of what he claims to be unreleased maps for Mario Kart DS.  Here is what he had to say:

“I guess a LITTLE explanation is required for this...
There are several courses in Mario Kart DS that are unfinished and completely unavailable (beta). They can be played with a little bit of hacking, but not at all perfectly. The textures are missing, so the courses are displayed almost pure white. The only thing that can help guide you along is the minimal shading (or following the CPU racers).

Below is a video I captured to show the Mario Circuit (GCN) course as it appears in Mario Kart DS. Sorry about the super-white visuals, but it's the best I can do without any textures! “

Download: [Mario Kart DS Unreleased Tracks Video]

Source: Nintendojo
 

Those who were lucky enough to play Mario Kart DS against Reggie at Bellevue Square's McDonald's in Bellevue, were also treated to some new Revolution tidbits.

According to Reggie, Sega is intrigued by the Nintendo Revolution's "backwards compatibility," however he stopped just short of a confirmation that classic Sega games will be included.

He also stated that the Classic Controller expansion for the Revolution's controller will look similar to the GameCube's Wavebird.

Although this news isn't the "surprise" everyone is waiting for, the ability to play classic Sega games would without a doubt, be a huge addition to the Nintendo Revolution.

I have some very exciting news for you. Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo's Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing, will be playing Mario Kart DS this Monday at the Bellevue Square McDonald's in Bellevue, Washington. NOA_Reggie will be connecting to Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection at the McDonald's hotspot, so even if you don't live nearby you'll be able to connect for a chance to compete against the Regginator.

– What: Race NOA_Reggie at the Bellevue Square McDonald's or at a McDonald's hotspot near you.
– When: Monday, December 19, 4:00 -- 5:30pm Pacific Time
– Where: Bellevue Square McDonald's, Bellevue WA

[Read, via Nintendo.com forums]

Are you a Mario Kart DS fan?  Do you require your fix of Mario Kart, even when you don’t have your DS handy??  Well..  you might want to get some psychiatric help….  Fall all of you who said no to the last question, (and are sane), you might want to check out the little Mario Kart DS comic from the official European Nintendo website.

Check out the comic [here].

Source: n-centeral

Parasyte over at GSCentral has discovered some very interesting things whilst tinkering with his Mario Kart game. Nintendo began remaking extra courses for Mario Kart DS, including Mario Circuit named "old_mario_gc" from Double Dash, an early beta Waluigi Pinball (presumably) named "luigi_course", and several more.

Of course, these courses don't contain textures, but Parasyte is working on it, so hopefully we'll have screenshots in the future of these secret courses, and with any hope, some of us may be able to play them.

This is really interesting news, Parasyte has stated he will NOT release this as it can lead to cheats which will ruin online game play.