They’re not up to par in today’s console or PC graphics, but they do look about the same as what I remember in the first few C&C games in the ’90s — which isn’t all that shabby. No exact release date yet, but it will launch in October and it will have 12 levels to play through, and two maps for skirmish mode. [Kotaku]

Some of us managed to survive boring high school math lessons by playing Tetris on TI-89 calculators, yet we can’t get more than 30 seconds on a Pre for another month? I understand that it’s a demo and that by now everyone and their dog knows how to play Tetris, but this doesn’t even qualify as a teaser.

Thirty seconds is pointless for a demo of any kind, on any platform. What are you supposed to do? Get acquainted with the splash screen? Such a short period of app usage or gameplay isn’t going to going to get anyone who wasn’t already interested in the full version any more excited about it.

Dear EA, please give us a demo that actually demonstrates something other than the fact that brevity isn’t always wit. Actually, screw the demo. Just give us the game already. [iSmashPhone]

This isn’t a complete review – I’m only two days into my 30 day workout. Fortunately the third day is a day off, because this thing actually gets you working. At least if you’re slightly pudgy like me. Last night I was sweating like I’d run a marathon, when all I’d done was spend half an hour doing some low-impact exercises in front of my TV.

The game begins with having you set up your profile. Height, weight, age are all important here, so the game can (hopefully) measure your calorie burn accurately. Then you begin the 30 day workout.

There are three difficulty levels available. I opted for medium. On the first night, it involved a fair amount of running on the spot, a little bit of balancing on the Wii balance board, some lunging and some bicep curls using the included elastic strap.

For all the exercises, you’ll need your Wiimote in your right hand and the nunchuk attached. There’s a thigh strap that you put on and squeeze the nunchuk into for certain exercises, but it always needs to be attached.

Before you do an exercise for the first time, you’ll get a video of your “trainer” doing the exercise so you can know what you’re doing.

There are different exercises each day, although some do double up, and all of them are extremely low impact, so it’s unlikely you’ll really injure yourself here. That’s not to say you won’t feel it if you tend to not do a lot of exercise generally – you will.

At the end of your training session – both of mine so far have lasted about half an hour – the game encourages you to fill out a “journal” chronicling your diet and other exercise to better track your performance. It’s probably worthwhile to complete this after each session, but I can imagine it will get dropped off pretty quickly for people without a lot of time.

As I’m only two days in, I’m still a little pudgy. I’m not sure I’ve lost any weight, and the amount of calories I’ve burnt off over two nights was essentially undone by the beer I had afterwards. But I’ll persevere, and hopefully end up all the better for it. Stay tuned…

I’m trying to get my hands on one to test out the 30 day challenge mode, which offers a variety of exercises over a 30 period designed to improve your fitness. Because God knows I could use some incentive to try and shed a few of these nerd kilos I seem to have collected over the past year or so…

[EA Sports Active]

I’ve personally found most racing games on the iPhone to be seriously difficult to control, with the steering controls sending me veering back and forth across the track with no chance of winning. NFSU feels tighter, with a quick twist of the iPhone putting you into drift mode rather than sending you careening across the track. I actually got the hang of it pretty quickly. You accelerate automatically, with one finger anywhere on the screen acting as a brake. A quick swipe up is a nitro boost, while a quick swipe down puts you in Speedbreaker mode.

The graphics are really solid, with no noticeable framerate hiccups and reasonable load times. They’re easily as good as the graphics you’d expect to find on the PSP. The music is a bit too aggro for my taste, but your mileage may vary. Overall, it’s definitely one of the best looking games I’ve seen on the iPhone.

The game has a storyline that involves standard-issue undercover cop stuff that has you infiltrating a street racing scene that has vague ties to smuggling or some such activity. Full-motion video comes up between races to move the story forward via mediocre acting, but they never quite explain why cops actually arrest you when you yourself are an undercover cop. In any case, the trials where you need to take out cop cars are much more difficult than regular races, as they make you both ram cops and beat time limits, which was hard for my lousy-driving arse to do. There are 8 different modes overall that you’ll encounter throughout the game, keeping things nicely varied.

There’s a good amount of content here, with many races and game modes and a system in place to buy newer and better cars as you advance. It doesn’t feel like a half-game made for the iPhone, and you could put many hours into this thing if you’re a completist. For fans of racers who are looking for a solid game with good graphics and solid controls, this one is definitely worth the scratch.

[Need for Speed Undercover]

The good news: EA will be bundling games you might want, like Tiger Woods 2010, with the Wii MotionPlus dongle. Now for the bad news: UPDATE: Make that more good news!

Early UK pricing puts these games at £29.99 without the dongle and £49.99 with the dongle. Obviously, international pricing doesn’t always translate properly, but that’s about a $US30 difference in “real money” (the state of our economy balances my inherent xenophobia to the point of using finger quotes when promoting the US dollar).

Meanwhile, the Wii MotionPlus standalone dongle will only cost $US20 when it arrives June 8th.

We doubt that EA will be charging a premium over Nintendo’s pricing for Wii MotionPlus (they’re probably just going to charge $US20 extra for their games bundled with the peripheral). But some savings would certainly be appreciated. Otherwise, why bundle at all? (Actually, that question isn’t rhetorical. Shortages on Wii MotionPlus peripherals could easily drive EA’s game sales. So it’s good for them, not so good for you.) [Kotaku]

UPDATE: GameStop is showing Tiger Woods 2010 to run $US50 without the dongle and $US60 with the dongle. That would be a savings of $US10, which would be notable.

Watch how MotionPlus matches movement 1:1 between the real golf swing and Tiger’s golf swing. The swing itself is still on a track (it doesn’t appear, for instance, that you could make Tiger swing the club like a baseball bat). But our guess is that’s a choice EA has made to keep the game’s learning curve low.

Plus, the game does acknowledge a slight twist of the wrist to draw or fade with “100%” responsiveness, making this EA video the first time we remember any function related to the Wiimote promising “100%” of anything. Now with the control situation sorted, I can finally return to wishing the Wii had the graphical power of the Xbox 360. [Joystiq via CrunchGear]

The game will cost only $US60, compared to Wii Fit’s $US90, and it won’t require the balance board to use it. Instead, you’ll use an elastic leg strap to do exercises with. My prediction: it’ll be as low-impact as the Wii Fit, and it will sell like hotcakes. Oh, America. [EA Sports Active via Boy Genius Report]

Since the E3 announcement of Wii MotionPlus and WiiSports Resort, Nintendo has been silent as to the new control platform’s development. But according to EA, things are moving ahead as planned.

EA has announced the first wave of third party games that will support Wii MotionPlus controls: Tiger Woods 10 and a new tennis game.

What else might we decipher from EA’s announcement? Well, Tiger Woods 09 came out in late August of ‘08. Extrapolating EA’s yearly release schedule, we see Wii MotionPlus being available by August ‘09 (when we’d expect Tiger 10 to come out). But do we actually know? No, no we don’t. [Kotaku]

On the rumour front, Tech Radar is claiming that Sega’s next Virtua Tennis title will also support Wii MotionPlus.