Quick Wii Reviews

For those who might be interested in some wee Wii game reviews, here are some brief thoughts on games I have played. Note: I am not a fan of fighting games; I just have never been very good at them, so you will not find any further mention of those. I need to find more first person shooters; I hear Call of Duty is good. Any suggestions?

Super Mario Galaxy - A great transformation from the old 2D days into 3D. The only problem is when running around a small spheroid, the camera doesn't always follow the way you might want. Rating: A

Resident Evil 4 - Great functionality, very good storyline. The only issue I had was getting across this big lake... took me many, MANY tries. It is fairly dark, not just visually, but thematically, so Recommended but play it before allowing your kids to endulge. Rating: A-

Super Paper Mario - I'm not sure why this one is so highly rated on game sites. While it is interesting to switch between 2D and 3D, I found the timer countdown (limiting how long you may be 3D) to be more annoying than challenging. And the dialogue you must scroll through does not add to the enjoyment... AT ALL. It is dreadfully long and painful. Rating: C-.

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - If you like fantasy adventure with great stories, this is a must have. I like the control and don't really have any complaints. Recommended. Rating A.

Mario Kart Wii - Very fun. I read some complaints from those who love the previous racing games from Nintendo, but I found it to be loads of fun. And I played with some kids in South America and the west coast once. It is not too complicated. Recommended. Rating A-.

Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure - This is a game of puzzles - situations where you must examine an area, which is often bigger than the screen, think ahead and take various actions to get the treasure in each location; you must really anticipate "what might happen if I do this?" It is fun, but and at times the action on screen is a little much and sometimes repetitious. Rating C+.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - I haven't played this one much yet, but it has been good so far. I do know some of the buttons/controls were not how I expected them to be relative to other first person shooters, but with enough play it is fairly easy to overcome. Rating B+.

Mercury Meltdown Revolution - I waited to buy this one farily cheap, and I am glad I did. There just seems to be too much going on in this elaboration on Marble Madness. I am sure I will come back to this one, but I have hardly touched it since the first time. Not Recommended. Rating D.

Trauma Center: Second Opinion - There are a couple ways to look at this, but definitely don't come looking for realism. SWMBO's sister, an MD & PhD, could not stop laughing at how bad it was. And dialogue between surgeries is just rediculous, but almost so bad it's good. The surgeries were fairly enjoyable despite any diversion from reality. Rating C.

de Blob - I really enjoy this one. It seems to be made for a variety of game styles - whether you want to finish a level as fast as possible or paint every conceivable building, tree and sign. Learning to jump from the a vertical surface can be a little tricky, but in all I like it. Rating A-.

Rayman Raving Rabbids - This is primarily a single person game. Very few of the games are simultaneous play; most for mutli-player games are played one at a time. For strictly solo play, there is a small storyline in 1 that is essentially absent in 2/TV. One of my favorite games is the dance-disco with the original Rabbid techno tune: "The Deejay Butcher." Rating: B

Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 - Contrary to the first Wii version of this series, this sequel moves very much to the party game; almost every game can be played by 4 players at the same time (shooting games are only 2 player). Also some games are cooperative. No storyline seems to have hurt the ratings but the games are just as fun, even solo. Rating: B+

Mario Party 8 - Much like RRR2 this is also a party game, but it is as if it has been combined with a board game. Characters move around a board and when certain spaces are landed on, the game switches to mini-game mode. Certain games are every man for himself while others are 2v2 or even 3v1! I would say this is a little more oriented toward kids than RRR and the mini games are almost good as RRR2. Rating: B-.

Lazy Day

Slept in. Played with cat. Played with Wii Fit. Checked out prices for cake for GTBAA - it's the 100th year of the Georgia Tech Band. Went to PetSmart; looked at kitties. Went by Best Buy; looked at Wii stuff and cameras. Ran into Jimmy. Ate at Scalini's. Caught a nap (which is why I'm up so late now). Came home and watched VT beat Nebraska. Learned that Bama gave the Dawgs a beating. Played some RRR. Good day.

I finished RRR's story mode, so I think I've unlocked all the games. Now there's all of these challenges to unlock, which I'm not sure how to do quite yet. I have all but one of the jukebox songs unlocked; I particularly like the "Rave" (get it?) original: The Butcher Deejay.

Oh yeah, and for you SB and HR fans, StrongBad answered his 200th sbemail recently. StrongBad's head looked a little big, and the episode was underwhelming; however, sbemail #199.5 was pretty good.

Final note: I stumbled across Peter Hirschberg's site. This guy is living the dream of every kid who went to the video arcade. He has his own arcade. You're thinking, "Cool, he has his a few games in his basement." Not quite. He has an entire building, with about 70 video arcade games. Simply amazing. I'm thinking - congrats to me, right? - that we could take a side trip around Thanksgiving when we go to New York. Oh yeah, I think that will be necessary.

Get Fit!

We purchased a Wii Fit this weekend. Even though the Fit disc it comes with is not the usual game you might expect from a console, it is still fun and enjoyable. I particularly like the soccer ball heading and ski jumping balance games. Doing some of the easier stretches and balance, I could feel a little strain (not painful) in my ankles, so I think that this could be very beneficial as I've seriously injured my ankles from time to time.

I still may need to get my heel and my toe checked out. One of my cousins recently had a ruptured Achille's Tendon: Ouchies!

Oh yeah, back to Wii. We also also bought the first Rayman's Raving Rabbids. It's fun, but I'm racing through the games; in a short afternoon, I played through 56% of the games. I like the story aspect it has, which the second lacks, but from what I experienced at the Seattle wedding, the group experience is sorely lacking compared to RRR2. At least we got it for cheap. Some of the graphics are worse, but some of the games are more fun and silly. Ahhh, cow throwing. Bottom line, RRR for solo play, RRR2 for group play.

Heroes in a few hours! Woo hoo!