The Age of Conan RPG is officially one of the fastest selling PC games ever. Age of Conan sales figures indicate more than 400,000 copies in a week, it even beats the pre-order sales for World of Warcraft’s first launch week. And the game’s not too shabby either, getting over 90% in the early reviews.

Tags: Age of Conan, sales figures

Police in Manchester have mistaken a life-size Lara Croft mannequin for a gunman. Shop owner David Williams took the dummy home to sell on eBay* and ended up having his house surrounded by armed officers. And instead of saying sorry to Mr Williams they chucked him in a cell for 13 hours and charged him with an unexpected firearms offence.

* Snog

Tags: Lara Croft, mannequin, pervert, doll, police, arrested, pest

I stayed up ‘til 1am this morning waiting for the new Nintendo Channel to appear on the Wii Shop. Sadly it wasn’t there and had to go to bed so I wouldn’t be late for work later on. When I arrived home I spotted my Wii glowing which obviously meant I had a message from Nintendo to inform me that the channel was now live and indeed after checking my Wii mail this was the case. Having spent a good part of the morning taking a look at it all I thought let you what I thought about it.

After agreeing to the terms and conditions and letting Nintendo collect anonymous usage data I was presented with a list of videos to watch. When you click on a video a fairly big viewing window appears in the centre of the screen, after a couple of seconds of initial downloading the video starts to stream, at any time you can pause or shrink the video at anytime if you so wish.

Currently there isn’t a huge list of Wii streaming videos but this is likely to change once the service is up and running. Apart from trailers for current and upcoming titles, the main highlights so far include an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto discussing Wii Fit, footage of the Wii Fit Launch, as well as the Mario Kart Grand Wii contest (that I attended) and also some clips from the Wii Ware media summit. The good news though is that all of the videos streamed really well and I encountered no buffering issues at all, considering the quality and video size (about 3 times bigger than the default on YouTube) this is really impressive.

Of course the main reason for the Nintendo Channel as far as I am concerned is the ability to download free DS demos via the Wii. I chose to download the original Brain Training and was pleasantly surprised to find that it took less than a minute which is pretty nippy. Currently there are seven to choose from and these are:

• Big Brain Academy
• Brain Training
• 42 All Time Classics (only one minigame in the demo though)
• Mario Kart DS
• Maths Training
• Sight Training
• Picross DS

The demo remains in the DS’s memory until you either reset or turn the unit off, you can then head back onto the Wii Nintendo Channel and download another. Brilliant! Overall I’m pretty impressed, in some ways I think this channel could and should’ve been installed on the Wii from launch, but its here now and that’s all that matters, if your Wii is online then I recommend heading to the Wii Shop Channel and downloading it as soon as you can, it’s free remember!

Tags: Nintendo Channel, Wii

What’s this, the ideal Christmas present for my chain smoking 10 year old child? Yes that’s right, the My Health Coach: The Easyway to Stop Smoking game is heading to a yellow nicotine stained Nintendo DS near you later this year. What a drag.

Tags: Nintendo DS, quit smoking, anti smoking game, DS, My Health Coach, Stop Smoking

Middle class readers rejoice. Family Ski from Namco Bandai has been given the green light for a UK release this summer. Just because there is a credit crunch doesn’t mean your family has to live like paupers with no skiing holiday this year, take them to the Happy Ski Resort where fresh powder, groomed runs, multiple trails, and state of the art facilities await their arrival. Grab your Wii Remote and Nunchuck which simulate as your ski poles then hop onto the Wii balance board for your ultra realistic home skiing experience with up to four players at home and 12 online. The Wii Family Ski release date is the 13th June, which I think calls for a celebration – let’s get piste!

Tags: Wii, Skiing, wii family ski, Family Ski

So you’ve been practicing Rock Band and Guitar Hero and figure you are good enough to make the stage. Bands looking for their big break should visit the official website at www.rockstarbands.co.uk, download the entry form, fill it in then return it before June 19th 2008 to ensure their entry is received and ready to be judged. Some kind of musical skill might be in order too, although a quick listen to Radio 1 might make you think otherwise. You can win a set at Glastonbury, a recording session with 80’s star Peter Gabriel and a headline slot at the famous (?) Pilton Party alongside Scouting For Girls.

According to the press release “RockStar 08 open to everyone, young old, groups or soloists, with the only stipulation being that any entrant must be unsigned and ready to lay everything on the line in the pursuit for ultimate victory”.

Tags: RockStar, RockStar 08