Poo Time

It's occurred to me that Wii Fit is the first game to (if not reward) make you feel better for having done a big poo before playing it.

If you don't understand, have a go and then play. I'm right.

A New Way To Be An Idiot

I did a particularly stupid thing today. It's my dad's 60th birthday tomorrow and I decided to buy a present off of Amazon. Last minute a bit, but still in time. I went for the Express Delivery (£8) and all would have been fine if I'd remembered to change the delivery address. I noticed the error as soon as I clicked the final button. But sadly because of the expressness it got processed straight away. No changes allowed. It's coming to my house. Not Dad's house.

Doh!

So now I have to hope it arrives before we have to leave for the train tomorrow at ten.

I am an idiot.

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Postscript: It arrived at 0815 this morning. Yay!

Postscript2: It's a Wii! But don't tell Dad!

A Load of Plastic Tat

I'm rapidly acquiring too much plastic stuff under the telly. It's not been this bad since the old Dreamcast days (I don't think I'll ever need to get another fishing rod though). A quick audit finds the following controllers:

2 x Wii Remotes
2 x Wii Nunchucks
1 x Wii Classic Controller
1 x Mario Kart Wheel
1 x Wii Zapper
1 x Fake Wii Zapper
1 x Xbox 360 controller
2 x PS3 controller
2 x Guitar Hero wired guitars
1 x Guitar Hero wireless guitar
2 x Singstar Microphones
1 x Gcon3
1 x silly headphones thing for Xbox Live

And then there's Wii Fit out later in the week, so that will add a Balance Board. And then... soon... Rock Band!

I think I need help.

Farewell to the Galaxy

Finally... I've got all 120 stars and then all 120 again... and then the last one! 121! It's over!



Seriously, I can't think of many games where I've been happy to play through the whole bloody thing straight after finishing it the first time.

If you need more detail, after getting all 120 stars, you have to play through the whole thing again but as Luigi. Even the hard annoying levels. And all you really get at the end is... **Spoiler Deleted** and the letter above. But I feel it was worthwhile and that I'm a better person for it.

And I'm looking forward to moving onto something else. I'll miss it though.

Super Luigi!

I got the 120th star in Super Mario Galaxy yesterday. Some of the final few are right b**tards to get, especially the evil Toy-Time purple coin challenge. Took me ages, that one did. But perseverance pays off and I find myself with a dilemma.

Because there aren't 120 stars, there are 121. But to get the final one takes a little longer than the others. As it stands, I've unlocked a new game: Super Luigi Galaxy. It's exactly the same but you play Luigi who is faster and jumpier, but skiddier. To get access to the final final star I have to get all 120 main stars again, but with Luigi.

That's going to take ages... Can I be arsed? Maybe. It'll probably depend on whether anything comes along to distract me in the meantime.

Damn good game though. Damn good.

Temp Time Off

I can't begin to say how brilliant Super Mario Galaxy is. I'm playing it, not writing here. Bye!

Metroid Prime Completion (1 of 3).

I'm quite happy this evening as I finally finished a Metroid Prime game - #3: Corruption on the Wii. I never finished 1 or 2 (and I had two attempts at the first one) as I would always get stuck on some well hard baddy near the end. This time, I've had barely any problems at all. This could be because:

a) I am older, better and more experienced
b) The Wii controls make things easier
c) It's an easier game.

I'm going to go with a).

I'm really tempted to go and have a final stab now at the first two...

Sports on the Wii... and a Dalek Incident

After a drought for the best part of a year in terms of Wii games, there are finally some good ones around. Super Mario Galaxy looks like it'll be amazing (once I get chance to play it) Metroid Prime 3 is fantastic (though I suspect, just like 1 and 2 I'll get near the end and be unable to defeat the final boss) and my new favourite party game is Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.

It's very much a Ronseal game. It features Mario and Sonic, and they have indeed gone to the Olympics. You can't complain under the trade descriptions act. It also sounds like it should be shit - it has cheap tie-in written all over it. Not literally, that would dint sales (or maybe not).

But in fact it's great. I've purchased an extra Nunchuck to have proper two player on it. There are loads of events, in a variety of styles. It's structured in a Mario Kart style and you can play sets of three mixed events in a tournament style. Or play single events. Or play the (slightly random) Olympics quiz. I haven't played (or unlocked) them all yet but they seem easy to pick up and no doubt hard to master.

100m is straightforward and mainly involves waggling both your arms upside down as fast as possible. Quite tiring if you play it a few times in a row. Tabletennis plays like a slightly more advanced version of Wii Tennis. I haven't got the hang of swimming yet. Fencing seemed bizarrely easy against the computer. And etc. Most importantly, the events all seem to have more to them than just pressing a couple of buttons over and over again, Speccy sports style. Time will tell how these all go after a few weeks, but I suspect my arms will hurt.

The most amusing thing is the way it lets you use your Miis in events if you don't fancy a character from Mario or Sonic. It dresses them up in athletic gear and finally lets you prove that you (yes, you!) are faster than that darned hedgehog. Which I always knew I was.

So in short, get it.

In other unrelated news, I was in Tesco earlier and pointed over to a shelf containing a load of Dalek bubble baths. I said out loud to K, "look, Dalek!". Unfortunately I hadn't spotted there was a lady in one of those electric shopping cart things right in my line of pointing. I think I got away with it.

Endless Console Updates

One of the more annoying things with the current generation of consoles is that they all think they're PCs and hence constantly try to update themselves with new system software of the internet. At least most of it is actually adding stuff rather than just correcting security flaws (that's what they tell us, anyway).

Last night I spent the best part of two hours updating the Wii, the PS3 and the 360. Partly this was my fault for not having played on any of them for a while, due to mainly (still) playing old PS1 Final Fantasy games on the PS2. And some of the rest was because I couldn't work out all the cabling to make the 360 work (you have to turn off the DVD player).

It makes me pine for me old Speccy. It was all fields then.

Top Labels

Here are the top 10 labels I have used on blog posts since Blogger introduced them.

1 Wii (7)
2= Food (6)
2= Music (6)
2= Pubs (6)
5= Christmas (5)
5= Metroid Prime (5)
5= Prague (5)
8= Toilets (4)
8= Trains (4)
8= York (4)

I find that quite a depressing list.

Computer Game Progress Update!

If you're wondering, I never managed to finish Metroid Prime when I played through it the second time. I did much more than the first time, but I couldn't get past bloody Meta-Ridley. I could get him nearly dead, just not really dead. Maybe I'll try again at some point - I think I was close to being able to do it.

Yesterday, I did manage to finish the new Zelda game, Twilight Princess. I thoroughly enjoyed it for the most part. Not sure if it's the best Zelda ever, but it's definitely up there. It took me about 45 hours in total which seems quite a lot, but it kept me out of the pub. Recommended if you have a Wii, but then if you have a Wii you've probably already got it.

I think now I'll go back and attempt to do on LOZ: The Wind Waker what I failed to do on Metroid Prime - actually finish it. First time around I got about two thirds through (at a guess) before getting distracted/bored. This time... I'll try and do better. I know some people don't like it because of the graphics and/or the endless sailing, but I remember it having a lot of good things about it too. Obviously I'm not talking about the sailing, people were right to dislike that.

Unless maybe because I'm five years older now, I am of an age to appreciate a more sedately paced boat-based activity. We'll see.

Spin the Gameboy, not yourself...

I finally got hold of a copy of Warioware: Twisted today for the Gameboy. I've been wanting it for ages but it was never officially released in the UK. Like the other Warioware games it's a daft collection of very short minigames (normally less than 5 seconds each) that are thrown at you one after t'other without any real time for thought about what you're going to be doing next.

Twisted's USP is that the cart has a motion sensor in it that reacts to twisty motions of the Gameboy. ie if you spin the thing left or right it reacts to this and moves things on the screen accordingly. Amusingly there are several warnings that you should spin the console in your hands rather than leaving it stationary and spinning yourself around it. I suspect that the people who need these warnings are the same ones that are breaking their televisions with the Wii remotes.

The motion sensor is however (I believe) the reason why it was never released. I read that it contains some mercury (or maybe polonium) and because of that it can't get through the import/kite-marks/safety rules and hence can't be sold in the UK. The shop I bought it from must have imported it somehow - I am assuming it is legal for them to then sell it on, despite the whatever. If not then I must apologise for helping to make a criminal act happen. Please don't lock me up.

Or alternatively, maybe that's all bollocks and it will be released properly soon - it deserves to be, because (like all the Warioware games) it's great. It'll certainly keep me dosed up until Smooth Moves comes out!

Wii-ther Forecast

When I woke this morning the disc slot of the Wii was all of a blue glow. This meant it had something to tell me. When I turned it on there was a message waiting saying that (wait for it...)... that the weather forecast facility was now live. How exciting.

I loaded it up and it told me that it was zero degrees and foggy. Whilst I can't vouch for the exact temperature being correct, it was definitely foggy. And cold. I could judge the fogginess by looking out the window. And the cold from when I went outside later.

So that was useful.

It has been really cold and foggy all day. I'm glad I have got all the running out of the way - I wouldn't have wanted to go out this evening even if I had time (which I don't due to being going for a Christmas curry).

In other news, my Christmas shopping is going really, really badly and it depresses me to even write about it. Still five shopping days to go though.

Wii! Wii! Wii!

Happily my Wii arrived at 10am this morning, pretty much the perfect time. Late enough to not have had to get up too early, but early enough to give me plenty of time to play! Thank you Mr Argos!



First impressions are very positive. It looks good, ports for things like Gamecube controllers and memory cards are all inside little doors to keep it nice. The slot loading cd player has a very nice action. It's ready to connect wirelessly to the internet straight out of the box (which is mouch more than the 360 does!) and there is already a good variety of old games to be downloaded into the Virtual Console. I haven't tried these yet but they include the original Megadrive Sonic, Golden Axe, Altered Beast, Donkey Kong Country and Super Mario 64! All seem to cost around a fiver which isn't too bad!

I played Wii Sports for a bit - it seems fun enough but I think it would be better with a few more players - but most of my day has been on the new Zelda game. It starts fairly slowly and it's taken me this long to get to the first dungeon, but it seems to do everything I'd want it to. It's a bit strange using the new controller(s) but they are actually quite comfortable once you get the hang.

The thing that really made me smile was not so much the motion sensing in the controller, but the way that you can use it to point at things on the screen and it actually works! I think it must use magic.

So now I'm going to get back to it for half an hour before heading out to the public house for some Friday drinks. I like days off like this.

Waiting for the Wii-kend

I'm hoping my Wii will arrive tomorrow. I may or may not have received an automated message on my mobile yesterday saying it was on its way but because I was in the pub at the time all I could hear was nothing. It could just have been a random missed call.

I called the lady at Argos earlier and she thought I was probably ok, but she couldn't check on her computer because it was out of office hours. Not sure how that works as she was clearly available to answer phone calls. Other than that she was very friendly and helpful though!

I guess I'll find out tomorrow whether I'm getting it or not!

Metroid Prime Revisited

I have a bad habit of buying computer games (that's not the bad part) and then never playing them properly. Not cos they're crap, just because I never seem to have enough time, and I'll often get distracted by other things - sometimes a new game will do it! Or sometimes I just go for weeks without touching a game at all. This means that of the many games I've bought over the years, I haven't finished as many of them as I should have done.

I was tempted to buy Gears of War at the weekend, but in a fit of sensibleness, I stopped myself. Instead, I decided I would play an old game instead and try and finish it. I chose Metroid Prime - a true classic, but one which I never got all the way through the first time I played. I think I maybe did about two thirds of it.

I was surprised on loading it up this evening that the last time I had played was March 2003 - three and a half years ago. It really didn't seem that long...

But it still plays brilliantly. I've just had three straight hours on it, and have pretty much cleared the Chozo Ruins. Now onto the Hot Bit (can't remember it's real name!) and after that... no idea. Things seem familiar as I get to them, but it's been too long since I last played for me to remember what's around every corner.

I can't see me finishing it before Wii is released here, but attempting to do so will be a fun challenge. And if I don't manage it, I can just play the game on the new console instead :-)

Right, back to Tallon IV I go!

Wii, wii, wii, all the way home

I've ordered myself a Nintendo Wii which is quite exciting. It won't be out for a few weeks yet though, so I will have to just wait.

I'm still not really sure exactly what it will feel like to play with. The controller is like a motion sensitive remote control that you can wave about and point at things. A bit mad. I'm sure it won't be long before I accidentally hit somebody with it. Or maybe even hit myself. I hope the edges aren't too sharp.

One thing I hadn't realised until today is that it will also play Gamecube discs, so I won't have to increase the number of boxes under my telly. I hope it's better at being backwards compatible than the Xbox 360 is with old Xbox games, where half of them don't actually work (yet?).