Nintendo joins massive new UK games event (Wii)

It’s been a while since the UK had a proper, full-blown, full-fatgaming show. The London Games Festival has been doing a pretty good job over the last couple of years of course, but we haven’t really seen a big, shiney, focused extravaganza of digital excess since the days ofGame StarsLive. And that was a long time ago.

That mightchange thisyear though, as new event Game On! (gratuitous exclamation mark theirs, not ours) attempts to stomp all over the June page of the gaming calendar and make it its bitch. Headlined by HMV and organised by the UK eSports Association, the plan is to make the 20,000 capacity event the biggest consumer-friendly games fest in the country this year. And by the sounds of it they could be onto a winner.New games, so-new-they’re-not-even-finished-games, eye-popping tech and pro gaming will all be there in abundance, as now will Nintendo, having just confirmed their attendance.

27th Golden Joysticks is go! (Nintendo Wii)

The 27th AnnualGolden Joystick Awardsis alive! From today you can vote for your favourite games of the past year in the official awards long list and help us break records all over again.

If you remember rightly (and we do) 2008 was a recording breaking year for the Golden Joysticks. The final votes total stood at an amazing 856,262, the big winner of which was (deservedly) Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare with four Awards.

Above:Girls loveGolden Joysticks. Fact

UK gets its own public game event ‘Game On! London’ (Nintendo Wii)

You might say that the UK is under-represented when it comes to public-access game events – shows where you can play previews of upcoming games and take part in multiplayer game tournaments. And pick up schwag.

The Germans get the yearly Game Convention, the Japanese Tokyo Game Show, the US the Penny Arcade Expo (regular punters still aren’t allowed access to E3) but gamers in the UK – not much, except the successful, but PC-centric PC Gamer Showdown.

UK gets its own public game event ‘Game On! London’ (Nintendo Wii)

You might say that the UK is under-represented when it comes to public-access game events – shows where you can play previews of upcoming games and take part in multiplayer game tournaments. And pick up schwag.

The Germans get the yearly Game Convention, the Japanese Tokyo Game Show, the US the Penny Arcade Expo (regular punters still aren’t allowed access to E3) but gamers in the UK – not much, except the successful, but PC-centric PC Gamer Showdown.

UK gets its own public game event ‘Game On! London’ (Nintendo Wii)

You might say that the UK is under-represented when it comes to public-access game events – shows where you can play previews of upcoming games and take part in multiplayer game tournaments. And pick up schwag.

The Germans get the yearly Game Convention, the Japanese Tokyo Game Show, the US the Penny Arcade Expo (regular punters still aren’t allowed access to E3) but gamers in the UK – not much, except the successful, but PC-centric PC Gamer Showdown.

UK gets its own public game event ‘Game On! London’ (Nintendo Wii)

You might say that the UK is under-represented when it comes to public-access game events – shows where you can play previews of upcoming games and take part in multiplayer game tournaments. And pick up schwag.

The Germans get the yearly Game Convention, the Japanese Tokyo Game Show, the US the Penny Arcade Expo (regular punters still aren’t allowed access to E3) but gamers in the UK – not much, except the successful, but PC-centric PC Gamer Showdown.

UK gets its own public game event ‘Game On! London’ (Nintendo Wii)

You might say that the UK is under-represented when it comes to public-access game events – shows where you can play previews of upcoming games and take part in multiplayer game tournaments. And pick up schwag.

The Germans get the yearly Game Convention, the Japanese Tokyo Game Show, the US the Penny Arcade Expo (regular punters still aren’t allowed access to E3) but gamers in the UK – not much, except the successful, but PC-centric PC Gamer Showdown.

UK gets its own public game event ‘Game On! London’ (Nintendo Wii)

You might say that the UK is under-represented when it comes to public-access game events – shows where you can play previews of upcoming games and take part in multiplayer game tournaments. And pick up schwag.

The Germans get the yearly Game Convention, the Japanese Tokyo Game Show, the US the Penny Arcade Expo (regular punters still aren’t allowed access to E3) but gamers in the UK – not much, except the successful, but PC-centric PC Gamer Showdown.

Golden Joystick Awards reach half a million votes (Nintendo Wii)

You know when games journalists and developers start dusting off their moth-eaten suits that it must be awards time. And there’s no bigger ceremony than October’s Golden Joysticks, where all you gamers get to vote for your favourite titles of the last 12 months. Over half a million votes have already been registered, with some lucky gamers winning big prizes in the process, such as the 500,000th voter Mark Melia, who bagging himself a 700 Sony Bravia TV.

Nintendo Power turns 20! (Wii)

We’ve seen a lot of gaming magazines rise and fall the past few years, considerably more if you go all the way back to the industry’s heyday in the ’80s. The way the magazine market is today, it’s a major accomplishment when one makes it to 100 issues. Consider then, the milestone that is the 20th anniversary issue of Nintendo Power – 20 years of uninterrupted information straight from the pros at Nintendo.

This issue is special for several reasons, the most relevant to our cause being its further information on Mega Man 9, a brand new title that we and sister mag NP got to reveal this week. The cover itself is for Sega’s upcoming bloodfest MadWorld.