With the New Year soon upon us, it’s time for this blog to take a break until 7 January 2008. Until it returns, here’s hoping that you all have a great New Year and wishing you all a prosperous and action-packed 2008.

It would seem that almost everything electrical is hackable. Indeed, hackers recently started to turn their attention towards the world of consoles, and especially the Nintendo Wii. Until now, Nintendo tried to keep its hardware protected from hackers and other prying eyes, but it now, according to engadget, German hackers have managed to hack the Nintendo Wii as well.

Some hackers from Germany have just showed off their fully hacked Wii at the 24th Annual Chaos Communication Congress. Nothing fancy is running yet, all they’ve achieved so far is a proof of concept that they’ve bypassed the Wii’s protection with some encryption codes they swiped from the Wii’s memory.

Incidentally, this at least means that a bootable version of Linux on DVD is coming so for those of you Nintendo Wii owners who might have already tired of playing games, you will soon be able to hack your system as well.

Video: © jcl5m

It’s no secret that the Nintendo Wii is the main competitor for the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360. Indeed, in the world of the games console, the Nintendo Wii is probably in leading position having moved one step forward and left its competitors behind.

That’s also the case when it comes to this year’s competition for a customers’ choice award for gaming consoles. Despite being unable to meet demand, the Nintendo Wii was named the winner with a score of 8.78 out of 10 possible points. The Sony PlayStation 3 scored 8.25, and the Microsoft Xbox 360 scored 7.65.

In another competition for the best game title, the Nintendo Wii beat the competition again with a score of 8.08. The Microsoft Xbox 360 scored 6.81 and the Sony PlayStation 3, 5.71.

According to GAMER.BLORGE reviewers have summed up what they see to be the advantages of each console.

Many customer reviewers praised the Wii for its usability, child friendliness and exercise potential. The PlayStation 3’s strong points, according to the consumer reviews, included the integration of Blu-Ray which also helped Sony’s console on its price point. The Xbox 360 scored favorably with graphics and design.

Photo: © Chris Campbell

Following on from the classic PC game, Worms, now coming to the Nintendo Wii, news of another anticipated release. The stunning PC and Xbox 360 game, Portal, will be developed by Valve for the Nintendo Wii.

According to GAMEGURU, Portal is going to be a stand-alone product with extra levels extending the playtime of the game and taking advantage of Nintendo’s waggle.

I’ve played this game on PC and it’s one of the most interesting I’ve seen recently. There is no other game like Portal in the gaming industry right now, and it will stretch your brain completely. If you have seen the movie, Cube, then you’ll have an idea of what I’m talking about.

Although the game is somewhat short at just three or four hours, the feelings you’ll experience afterwards will remain for a long time.

Photo: © Adrian Purser