More lame games coming to the Wii
Posted on February 23, 2008
Filed Under: Play
Tagged: commodore 64, mario & sonic at the olympic games, video games, virtual console, wii, xbox 360
Jason spreads a little Friday love for the Wii with a note about some upcoming releases to the Wii Virtual Console. A number of classic games (also known as “yeah, it was a crappy game to begin with but I’m a nostalgic sap") are coming to the console, this time from the Commodore 64.
Personally, I don’t get the whole Virtual Console thing. With the exception of maybe one or two titles on there, the games are ancient and most lost their appeal for me when computer programmers figured out how to get 32 bits of colour out of a chip. I just can’t see spending money to play games like that.
Presented with a choice of buying International Karate (youtube) for our Wii or Ninja Gaiden 2 (youtube) for the Xbox 360 (it’s also available on the Wii), I’m going with Ninja Gaiden 2. No question about it.
Don’t have a Wii and still want to get in on some of that awesome C64 action you’ve been missing all these years? No worries, mate. There are a number of emulators available (http://www.c64s.com, http://www.live-id.org/j64/) that let you play games like Back to the Future 3 or Eddie Edwards Super Ski.
If you do have a Wii though, I’d suggest taking a pass at playing the C64 Virtual Console games and picking up a copy of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. Anitra and I played for a couple of hours in various circuits last night and had a blast.
Freezing my Wii off
Posted on December 21, 2007
Filed Under: Family, Play
Tagged: christmas, richmond, toys-r-us, wii
[Teagan - I know you’re only 6 but you can read and you know how to use the internet. If you’re reading this blog post before Christmas of 2007, if you don’t stop right now, you’re going to get into trouble.]
Ok, with that out the way…
I had an early start this morning and counted my blessings for having grown up with a grandfather that was a Virginia State Game Warden. He taught me how to dress for a cold morning. While others stood shivering and stomping their feet trying to stay warm, I was as toasty as could be while standing 6th in line outside of Toys-R-Us.
Jill, one of my wife’s co-workers, tipped us off yesterday that Toys-R-Us was getting a delivery of Wiis that would be available for sale this morning.
I snuck out of the house early and found a handful of extraordinarily friendly people already in line. One woman was buying the system for her husband who’d given up on getting one this Christmas. Two other women were picking them up for their kids. I was most pleased by the story of a recreational therapist though - she was buying one for a child, a patient, who’ll be spending this Christmas at Shelter Arms.
Me? I’m picking one up because Anitra and Teagan have been talking about getting one for a while.
Although we love our Xbox 360 and play a number of family-friendly titles together like Viva Pinata, Carcassone, and Beautiful Katamari, the number of kid-friendly games are pretty limited. What’s more, many of the children’s games on the Xbox 360 either suffer from terrible control mapping, making things way too complicated for kids, or are just flat out unengaging and not fun (Meet the Robinsons, Ratatouille, and The Bee Movie Game come to mind).
Because Wii would like to play as a family, we decided to become a multi-console household. Of course, we made that decision at the same time everyone else in the world decided to buy a Wii, which made finding one a little complicated.
Mission accomplished.
