Paul Kimmelman made a short guest-bloggin’ over at Freakonomics, mostly to pose a question that a lot of people I know are asking: why can you still not find a Wii after five months and five days? Even though I did finally obtain the system (after waiting outside a Best Buy in the rain one Sunday morning with my girlfriend), it amazes me that you still can’t run down to your local game shop and pick up a Wii on a whim (whiim? Nah, whim). While Nintendo probably can share some of the blame he tries to lay upon it (such as insufficient planning regarding manufacturing), I thought one of the later comments made a lot of sense: no one’s ever sold this many consoles in such a short period of time. There is hope, though, as Nintendo has recently stated that it’s gonna ramp up production shortly. Hopefully we’ll soon get past siutations like “Toys R Us will have three Wiis on the shelf Sunday morning, camp out in front a week early to get one”.
Super Paper Mario is quite possibly my favorite game to come out for the Wii so far. Yes, I am indeed comparing it to Twilight Princess, and the Zelda game pales (pales, I say!!) in comparison. It’s been a long time since I’ve played a game from the Big N that so perfectly captures the fun and joy of 2D platforming (New Super Mario Bros. didn’t even come close), while at the same time bringing in a fascinating new game mechanic (flipping into the Z-axis) and pulling it off so well. It certainly doesn’t hurt that they combine it with a great story and excellent writing; I can’t remember having laughed so hard at game dialogue in a long time (besides the unintentionally funny stuff… JOSEEEEEEPH!!!). And as a big fan of the 8-bit scene, I can’t help but appreciate it when Mario turns into a giant NES pixellated version of himself, or when he gains a tiny NES Mario posse to assist him (though they end up having the opposite intended effect: instead of them protecting me from enemies, I try to protect them from harm, but they really don’t make it easy; they seem to be designed to fall off ledges and bump into Goombas). If there’s one thing I could change, I’d allow the non-Mario party members to use the flip technique. I hate not being able to stay in Peach form for any extended period of time.
Oh, second thing: they really dropped the ball by removing a dash button. What kind of 2D Mario platforming game doesn’t have a dash button? The answer is the Super Paper Mario kind.
That’s about all the naysaying I’ve got about the game. Here’s a part I thought was God-damned awesome:
Of course, I’m the biggest Zelda II: The Adventure of Link fan on the planet (I checked), so I may be a little biased. Still, awesome beyond belief.
I’m fairly certain that anyone reading this blog is already intimately familiar with the game, and probably bought it before I did (lousy GameStop with their only having enough copies to satisfy pre-orders… at least Best Buy came through for me this time), but I cannot stress enough that this is a game that all Wii gamers need to own and play. So I’ll stress it some more! This game rocks the Wiizzy.
And now for some puns. The flipping mechanic adds a whole new dimension to gameplay. It really does provide a certain sense of depth that 2D games often lack. Okay I’m done.
I won’t pretend to be revealing breaking news here; I’m sure you’re all aware by now that long-time rivals from Nintendo and Sega will finally be in a game together, titled Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games. Frankly, I’m still getting over the fact that this probably isn’t some massive April Fool’s prank. I don’t have much extra to contribute to the topic, but I did want to point to an interview conducted by IGN with Mike Hayes (president and COO of SEGA Europe) and Laurent Fischer (marketing director of Nintendo Europe). It’s pretty straightforward early hype (a few too many “I don’t know”s and “it’s too early to tell”s for my taste), but at least it further confirms that it’s really happening.
I’ll assume most of the people that read this blog are old enough to remember the bitter rivalry between Nintendo and Sega fans back in the 90’s. That was back when a console war reallly felt like a battle, when gamers would trash talk each other about which system had the better game library, when we’d have serious “who would win?” discussions about the plumber and the hedgehog. I have always wanted to pit the two against each other on a level playing field and, since the interview pretty effectively shoots down the possibility of a Sonic cameo in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Olympic Events will have to do. Of course, the results of the 2008 Olypmics are pretty easy to predict:
100m dash: Sonic
High Jump: Luigi
Long Jump: Peach (maybe Tails, if flying is allowed)
Shot Put: Toad
Nintendo’s ramping up the commercials, now focusing on the system’s not-really-best-kept-secret of the Mii Channel. Let’s all be honest now. It’s not about Zelda, or Excite Truck, or WarioWare, or upcoming games like Smash Bros. Brawl, or the growing handful of Virtual Console games. When it all comes down to it, the most fun aspect of the Wii has to be Mii creation. I’m glad to see Nintendo capitalizing on this, and even using the actual Mii Channel music! Here are the two commercials, starring the borderline creepy “Wii would like to play” Japanese salarymen:
Well done, Nintendo! Now let us give our Miis mohawks and tattoos.
The LEGO Group has announced that it will be creating a brand new massively multiplayer online game featuring its instantly recognizable modular plastic bricks! Details are somewhat scanty (all we get so far is a press release from the developers, and about half of that is boilerplate), but I love the idea of selecting a LEGO avatar and building up a world brick-by-brick! Let’s hope they can pull this off, I’d love to have the ability to design custom vehicles and weapons, and collaborating with fellow LEGO men to build up entire cities, castles and fortresses! Create multiple worlds spanning all the major genres (Pirate World, Space World, Aquanaut World, Medieval World, and so on), and allow characters and LEGO pieces from said worlds to interact and interbuild! Can you tell I’m excited by this prospect? Here’s hoping they make a Mac version (or even better, a Wii version).
I’m sure everyone’s read by now that The Legend of Zelda’s arguably most-loved title in the series, Ocarina of Time, has finally made its way to the Virtual Console (in the UK; the US will get it on Monday).
Can I be the first to say: Who really cares?
Yes, Ocarina of Time, or “OoT” to its friends, was a great N64 title. It was one of the reasons I was so psyched to get the system back in the day (I can’t believe I’m already referring to the N64’s time as “the day”, but it really was two gaming generations ago). But between the original (shiny gold) cartridge and the Master Quest and Zelda Collector’s Edition GameCube disks, I’ve pretty much had my fill of the game (and can even play those last two on the Wii directly with no fuss). I can’t be the only one in this position of owning the same game too many times already, and not wanting to drop another thousand Wii Points just so I can flaunt my ability to beat the puzzle to reach Gohma (SPOILER ALERT FOR YOU ZELDA 64 NEWCOMERS: “Twenty-three is number one!”).
Unfortunately (fortunately?), it’s pretty much the same story for me with much of the rest of the Shop Channel, at least as far as the Nintendo fare is concerned. No matter how much I love to blast through Super Mario Bros., I’m not going to pick it up when I already own the NES cartridge as well as the Super Mario Bros. DX remake on Game Boy Color. Donkey Kong Country? I’ll just fire up the ol’ SNES, thank you very much. I won’t even think about picking up Zelda II: The Adventure of Link whenever it becomes available (you don’t wanna know how many of those I’ve got). The Legend of Kage? I-
…
Well, there might be a few Nintendo games I need to pick up.
I got a kick out of this. Granted, I get a kick out of anything that reminds me of Trauma Center: Second Opinion, but…
A recent study performed at the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York has determined that the doctors who played video games were better at performing certain kinds of surgeries. From the Reuters report:
Out of 33 surgeons from Beth Israel Medical Center in New York that participated in the study, the nine doctors who had at some point played video games at least three hours per week made 37 percent fewer errors, performed 27 percent faster, and scored 42 percent better in the test of surgical skills than the 15 surgeons who had never played video games before.
“It was surprising that past commercial video game play was such a strong predictor of advanced surgical skills,” said Iowa State University psychology professor Douglas Gentile, one of the study’s authors.
It supports previous research that video games can improve “fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination, visual attention, depth perception and computer competency,” the study said.
You can totally ignore the second page of the article, which talks about silly nonsense like gaming being linked to aggressiveness and poor grades. Plant your kids in front of the tube, throw a Wii Remote in their hands, and you’ve got an instant formula for a medical degree!
…As long as they’re playing Trauma Center, obviously.
A clever Wii enthusiast had an equally clever idea: he had custom sculptures made of his and his girlfriend’s Miis as a Valentine’s Day present. They came out beautifully:
On top of that, the sculptor is offering his services to anyone else with the desire to have a sculpture of their Mii (like me) and $50 (unlike me). Act fast, he’s only making 100 Mii sculptures in this fashion. Go now!
I won’t pretend to be revealing breaking news here; I’m sure you’re all aware by now that long-time rivals from Nintendo and Sega will finally be in a game together, titled Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games. Frankly, I’m still getting over the fact that this probably isn’t some massive April Fool’s prank. I don’t have much extra to contribute to the topic, but I did want to point to 
