Walking Wounded

That’s right. Somebody stole my Wii. And that’s not all. They took 2 controllers, the controller charger, a nunchuck, 6 wii games, 30 gamecube games and all the virtual console games on it. Ready for the crazy part. They did it while I was home!

I work from home so I’m here quite often. I came out for lunch at around noon and watched some TV with my roommate while I ate and went back to work in my room at 1:00PM. I closed my door, my dog was with me, and had music playing. I come out at 3:00PM and all my Wii stuff is gone. I’m still shocked! It’s quite unnerving. I feel very violated and taken advantage of. It’s not a fun feeling.

I filed a police report with the serial number which covers all pawn shops or trade in shops it could show up in. I am also keeping an eye out on all the auction sights for new listings in my area. Hopefully something will turn up. More than the loss of my belongings I am outraged by the injustice of it. I want justice!

One of the disappointing points to this is that Nintendo let me down. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a bit of a Nintendo fanatic and have been since I was a child. I was holding onto hope that Nintendo would be able to do something. Here’s why. The Wii is an online system. They also can identify what wii is online when it comes online. I know this because when I buy a Virtual console game, it shows up in my “My Nintendo” list of games on Nintendo’s website. So obviously Nintendo can tell where a certain serial number is and what’s going on with it. I’m pretty tech savvy and know this wouldn’t be hard to trace for Nintendo.

I called Nintendo customer support and there stance is “We can’t help you.” According to them there is nothing they can do. They can’t even get me my Virtual Console games and Wii Points if I were to get a new system. What really ticks me off is the fact that they kept saying that there was nothing they do. They wish they could but they can’t. This is just a bold face lie. They could do something, they just don’t want to. Even worse, the Nintendo Rep on the phone was completely unsympathetic. At least act like you care that this happened to someone.

Again, what really tweaks me is that they won’t do something. Nintendo just lost my business. Seriously. I know apple does something for stolen laptops. Nintendo should have a service for those who registered there product to be able to locate where their Wii has connected.

I’m angry, thanks for listening to me vent.

Where are the Wii games? They are all coming, and they are not here. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Wii and I disagree with people who say their Wii is collecting dust and should get rid of it. I would say my Wii is collecting these past couple months but I would also say it has an amazing line up coming.

Maybe Nintendo is waiting until it can make more consoles available to release it’s games that will really start selling consoles. I think Wii Sports and Wii Play are still selling systems, but those of us who have had our consoles for a while have well worn out those games unless we have friends over. Zelda was awesome but I can’t replay a Zelda game until a couple years after I beat it the first time.

I got Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition when it came out and that was a nice filler for a couple weeks. It also showed how much more accurate the wii-mote can make a game then using a tradition control set up. The game was tons easier on the Wii just because of the controls but still awesome.

So I haven’t really used my Wii in months. I’d like Mario Strikers but it’s not a must have and I don’t want to spend $50 on it. They really needed to put out a must have title these past couple months, rather then having a bunch of must haves of the next few months. Here is my list of games I’m interested in.

08/27 Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (MUST HAVE)
09/25 DDR: Hottest Party (MIGHT WANT)
10/08 Donkey Kong Barrel Blast (Might WANT)
10/16 Zack & Wiki: Quest… (MUST HAVE)
10/28 Guitar Hero III: Legen… (Multi platform)
10/29 Battalion Wars 2 (MIGHT WANT)
11/05 Fire Emblem: Goddess o… (MIGHT WANT)
11/06 Lego Star Wars: The Co… (MIGHT WANT)
11/06 Geometry Wars (MIGHT WANT)
11/12 Super Mario Galaxy (MUST HAVE)
11/13 Soul Calibar Legends (MIGHT WANT)
11/13 Trauma Center: New Blood (MIGHT WANT)
11/13 Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles (MIGHT WANT)
11/20 Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (MIGHT WANT)
12/03 Super Smash Bros. Brawl (MUST HAVE)
JAN 08 Wii Fit (MUST HAVE)

I think I would have spaced out the big hits better. I mean, Mario and smash within 3 weeks of each other! Then with the new Mario & Sonic game in the middle! Talk about overshadowing a potential huge title. If all these games had been spaced from June to December rather than August to December, I think they wouldn’t have hit the dry spell like they did.

Well, with that out of the way, I have to say, “holy crap how will I afford all these games!” I almost hope that some of the might want games aren’t any good so I won’t want them. I’m going to go from Wii Starved to Wii Stuffed. If Smash is online, I could see playing that game for years. There is a fully fleshed out single player adventure mode though! I can’t wait!

The closest coming must have title is Metroid Prime III in just a couple weeks. I already have it pre-ordered. I’m expecting the title to be decent but no where near the caliber of Mario Galaxy or Smash. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it, but hopefully I’ll be surprised and blown away. It is really hinging on the controls for me.

Last thing I want to talk about is Wii Fit. I’m really excited about this game despite most gaming sites not being impressed (general media loves it though). I think the idea of exercising with video games is long overdue in being well done. Others have tried and other than DDR nothing has really been popular. I think Nintendo can really pull it off. They do need some more work on the use of that balance board. It’s a great idea but when they demoed it at E3 there we many glitches.

I wrote this review a while ago and came back across it. I remembered how much I loved this game and thought I’d post the review. Sorry to spoil the ending of my review but this is the best game out for the DS right now. Of course I have to limit that to games I’ve played.

There have been a number of hand held Castlevania games and I have only played the 2 DS ones. Though I have played the NES Castlevania I, II, and III and some of Castlevania IV on the Wii virtual console. Those classics may attribute to my love of this game.
I am so thankful for hand held gaming because without it 2D games would be close to dead. However, they are thriving on the portable. Castlevania is kind of a 2D hack n’ slash dungeon crawler. However it has a lot of RPG and adventure elements to it.  In my opinion it is a perfect combination of the two.

I love how they handled the difficulty level.  If you level up far enough then anything can become pretty easy for the casual gamer.  But once you beat the game there are options to limit your max lvl and it really makes the game challenging.   Also, once you beat the game there are other characters to play through the game as.  One of those teams in completely controlled by touch screen.  It’s obvious that feature wasn’t very fleshed out but it really showed a lot of potential for future games.  It made some difficult enemies very easy and some of the easy ones near impossible, so it was cool to have to use new strategies to beat the same enemies.

One thing I really liked about this game was upgrading skills by using that particular skill.  I like this form of improving a skill as to some of the other ones as it makes the most sense.  Another cool feature was once you fully master a skill it gets a special power.  For example your javelin may double in size or you will through 3 darts instead of just 2.

If you like side scrolling platformers at all then you have to pick this game up.  You should be able to find the $20 greatest hits version which makes it a steal.

I finally got my Wii about 2 weeks ago. Does it live up to the hype? Does it live up to my ridiculously high expectations? To answer in a word, absolutely. Everything on it has been meeting my expectations. The interface is slick and easily navigated. I think the channels idea was great. I haven’t had the chance the mess with the photo channel (no pictures on the console yet) but I thoroughly enjoy the other channels. My favorite channel is the news channel. But I also really like the weather channel, internet channel and obviously the download channel.

This brings me to the Virtual Console. By the time I got my Wii there were plenty of games available to grab my interest. The download interface is simple but still has an appealing flare to it. For example the progress bar is actually Mario running across the screen and depending on his action, you know far along the process is. Granted you only know it in increments of 25%, but that is good enough for how small the downloads are. Having the VC games right there when you boot up the system is so handy. I exit out of my Zelda game and go right into 15 minutes of the original Mario. It may sound odd, but not having to change out a disc is so nice.

How about the actual games and new control scheme though? That is the most important part. Well, I spent the first week switching between Elebits and Wii Sports. I love Wii bowling and it proves the controllers greatness in my mind. I also dig tennis, especially the training modes. I got so hooked on Elebits that Zelda sat waiting. The game was fun and original and could only really be played with a Wii-mote. After multiple hours of playing, this game would hurt my hand from the constant shooting. This makes me worry about fps games on the system but you should never have to shoot that much in a game. It is almost constant in Elebits. However I beat Elebits in a few days and I’ve been playing Zelda the past week and a half.

Zelda is so wonderful. I’m one of those rare people who liked Wind Waker better than Ocarina in Time. So I was skeptical to love this game. However, I have to say it is the best Zelda game ever. On it’s own it is a great game. It has great items, characters, story line, action, everything. But what takes it over the top is actually the controls. I think anyone who got the Gamecube version is missing out. Throwing your fishing line with the remote feels so natural. I really like using the remote to aim, and think they did a great job putting together combos to pull of Links special moves.

One of my favorite things about the Wii-Remote is actually being able to use it with one hand and the other hands controls being a separate unit. I don’t know why controllers were ever held by both hands the way they are. The nun-chuck attachment feels so natural and very ergonomic. I love that I can browse the web with my Wii-remote and eat dinner with my other hand.

All in all, I see why this system is so popular and cannot stay on shelves. I was lucky enough to make a friend at EB games who held one for me. If you have the slightest interest in video game, you should get this system. If you are a hardcore player, I recommend this along side a PS3 or XBOX 360. But you cannot miss out on this system. It really did end up being like the code name “Revolution” suggested, revolutionary.