Always bet on shoes

Google is the type of company that makes people feel like their best friends are in charge. They even joke around with their users, playing a creative April Fool's joke on them annually.

Lately, though, it seems that Google's gone a little screwy (Buzz, anyone?). And their big April Fool's prank this year was to remove all of the vowels from their GMail homepage. Clever! Of course, not every idea can turn out amazing. They probably still have their heads screwed on, right?

Let us introduce Google's next big idea: a game collaboration with Nintendo called Ando Kensaku. As far as we can tell, this is a full retail release scheduled to hit Japanese store shelves on April 29. There has been no announcement for a Western release.

Here's the premise: let's say that you search for "chairs" on Google. Then, maybe you search for "shoes." Which of these do you think would get more results? Can you imagine the fun of competing with your friends to guess which is more popular? (By the way, it's "shoes" by a landslide.) Of course, it's not all chairs and shoes, but you get the idea. It's not all strictly Google Fight, though; the game will have various statistics-based modes and the ability to track real-time Google trends. There will be offline functionality that pulls from around 10,000 preloaded words and phrases, and alternate modes include the use of special items, statistics, and things like collapsing stairs and fizzing booms.

Admittedly, this sounds like it would be a fun WiiWare time waster, worth about 500 points. It's not far in premise from the "Everybody Votes" channel, which is mildly entertaining. Google and Nintendo, however, are pricing this retail release at about $52 USD.

Whether Google are completely insane or the most innovative geniuses in modern gaming, we'll have to wait until April 29 to see. Until then, you and your friends can play a free demo of the game by typing words into Google and then looking at how many results you get.

[source redorbit.com]