Nintendo Wii: My waste of $250

I'll start off by saying that really do consider myself a Nintendo fanboy... Seriously, I loved pretty much every minute of my childhood that I spent playing the NES, SNES, N64, and many many hours in college even playing the Gamecube.

Back in 2007, I waited before a Circuit City opened and rushed in to buy a shiny new Nintendo Wii. I bought a couple of nunchucks and an extra Wiimote to go with it, as well as Metroid Prime 3 and Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess.

For a while, it was great. "How cool is this! Look you actually have to swing the Wiimote to swing the bat!" I played through Metroid Prime 3 and the Zelda game and they were both pretty good (well, except for the wolf parts in Zelda... I hated being the damn wolf).

Since then I've enjoyed quite a few games... But I can't see to make them last more than a couple of weeks. Mario Kart Wii was fun... But considering I'd played about 10,000 hours of Mario Kart Double Dash on the Gamecube there really wasn't much more to do on it. Super Smash Bros. was also fun... But after you get through the rather lengthy and repetitive solo campaign what were you supposed to do? Both of these games had a problem related to what I think is Nintendo's biggest failure on the Wii. Multiplayer.

Seriously, would it kill Nintendo to implement a current-gen multiplayer system? Mario Kart Wii was alright, but I had to wait 2-3 minutes between matches in order to play again... When the matches themselves were only 5 minutes long. I really think that Nintendo needs to take a page out of Microsoft's and Sony's book and implement a damn multiplayer network already.

I then got Super Mario Galaxy, and things were looking up... Amazing gameplay, creative levels... Even the Wiimote gimmicks seemed to be fun, until you beat it. That was the problem. Once you beat Super Mario Galaxy, what were you going to play next? Everything else just seemed lame. So now they are releasing Super Mario Galaxy 2.... Which is the same game with new levels. Really Nintendo? You're going to just build new levels, and then somehow shoe-horn a plot in? Kinda disappointing if you ask me.

The other thing that drives me absolutely nuts is the constant barrage of accessories you see to have to buy for the Wii. Want to play original console games? Gotta get a classic controller (unless you just want to play NES). Want to play Mario Kart Wii like it was supposed to be played? Gotta buy this $10 wheel that the Wiimote sticks in. Want to play Wii-Fit/any of the fitness games that work with the Wii-Fit Board? Gotta have that too. Now they've released the Motion-Plus Controller... So there are now small little attachments that you have to hook up for certain games! Its like I have to build a lego model in order to play a damn game. I hope that you have lots of space, because I know that I had to devote an entire drawer to just holding the various accessories I need to play the Wii.

I don't know, maybe I'm just jaded or I've been spoiled by the experience that I get on my Xbox 360 but I haven't played the Nintendo Wii in probably 8 months. Maybe one of these new games coming out (Metroid: M seems promising) will make me pick it up again, but I gotta say... I think the Wii magic is lost for me.

Zero Punctuation: The 2nd Annual E3 Hype Massacre

I am big fan of a video that comes out weekly on the Escapist website called Zero Punctuation. The latest video that they came out with was so on-spot and completely accurate that I had to share.

Zero Punctuation: The Second Annual E3 Hype Massacre



WARNING: Definately NSFW (Not Safe for Work) due to lots of language.

My personal thoughts are in complete agreement with most of his statements. Does anyone else think that "Project Natal" is going to be anything but a gimmic? Yes, the Wii has sold about a bagillion units... But I'm pretty sure no one older than 10 is still playing the console.

Keyboard Cat plays off Mario

There's been a "Keyboard Cat" Meme going around, that for some reason I just find hilarious.

I had to share a couple of my favorites:

First, Mario... Love the fact that it turns into MIDI music:



The other I liked is with Leo Laporte (Host of TWIT, as well as numerous other shows)



Had to share.

What are you most excited about from E3?

Now that the E3 conference is over with... I wanted to sum up some of the stuff that I thought was either very cool or innovative.

First off, Microsoft.

Being a 360 owner I was very excited to see what Microsoft had in store for us this year, and I think they didn't disappoint. Here's a list of what I liked:

1. Facebook, Twitter comes to XBL. I will say that I'm more excited about Facebook then I am about Twitter (who's going to tweet from their xbox?). The idea of leveraging my already large number of facebook friends and finding out automatically which ones have gamertags would be very cool.

2. Halo: Reach, and Halo: ODST. First, they showed a cool trailer for Halo:Reach. Its good to know that Bungie is creating another Halo game, and hopefully this one will be just as cool as the trilogy.




3. LastFM coming to XBL. This is a cool radio service similar to Pandora. I'm glad there'll be an easy way to get some music on my XBox 360 now.

4. New FFXIII trailer. Am I the only one who thinks this is completely awesome? I think it may be enough to turn me into a Final Fantasy fanboy again. A target of Q1 2010 is being made.



Second, Nintendo had a few big announcements of their own.

1. New Mario Galaxy game (Mario Galaxy 2). I LOVED the first one, as I thought it had some really innovative gameplay. The new game is going to be set in the same universe but with 90% new content. Check out this gameplay video:



2. Metriod: Other M. Metroid is going to retrun to is 2-D roots with a new side scroller for the Wii. Check out the info so far here.

3. New "The New Super Mario Bros. Wii" This is a new game that is similar to the hit on the DS. Check out more info here.

There was a ton of other stuff that was announced, and you can check out the full list here on Kotaku:

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3

What are you most excited about?

New Star Trek Film Gets Bashed

Loved the latest video on the reviews that Trekkies have been giving the new Star Trek movie.


Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

Trekkie: "If I wanted to see young, attractive people doing exciting things I'd just watch sports"

Nice. Kinda want to see this picture now.

We Didn't Start the Flame War

Way to go College Humor... Probably funniest video I've seen in a LONG time.



UPDATE: Came to my attention that this doesn't look right so here's the original site link.

Catchy Video Game Themes

They just don't make them like they used to... Found an article here that counted down their top 10 catchy video game tunes. I went through them and forgot how much I loved some of those songs! Here are my favs:

Mortal Kombat (Movie Theme)

You could not have grown up in the 90s without this song just making you want to perform a fatality on someone.

Final Fantasy Victory Theme

This song was in EVERY Final Fantasy game and somehow I never got tired of it. Kudos to the words though, I always wondered why the characters danced after winning.

Tetris Theme

One of the few games I owned for the original game boy, I swear I could recite the whole damn song! Crazy Russians and their incredibly addictive game!

The Legend of Zelda Theme

I totally agree with the article putting this at number 1. As soon as it started playing again I had the urge to go play Legend of Zelda on the SNES in my closet (Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past = best Zelda game ever BTW)