pay beyond II

Continuing from last post, I got my Wii on launch day, along with Zelda, Red Steel, and Excite Truck. The Wii also came with a pack-in, Wii Sports.

Excite Truck was fun for a little while, but got old quickly and didn't take long to finish. The controls were a little weird and completely imprecise, which makes me worry that all racing games on the Wii will be crappy. Hopefully when they make Mario Kart for the Wii, it won't use the same control scheme, because that would be terrible.

I played Red Steel for about 10 minutes and it sucked pretty bad. I haven't played it since. The pointer is pretty delayed, the voice acting is garbage, and some of the gameplay mechanics are just stupid in regard to the controls. What a waste of $50.

I haven't played much of Zelda either because it feels like Ocarina of Time with slightly (not much) better graphics. Everyone keeps saying how awsesome it is, but the game starts out so slow I don't think I'll ever make it to the good parts. I will probably wait until I get the Wii component cable before I really get into the game. Fortunately I already ordered one directly from Nintendo and it shipped a few days ago.

So far Wii Sports has been the best game on the Wii. Wii sports has 5 sports games that make good use of the Wiimote's motion sensitivity. It includes Boxing, Bowling, Baseball, Golf, and Tennis. Each game requires you to swing the Wiimote like you were holding a tennis racket, baseball bat, bowling ball, or golf club. Boxing uses the nunchuck addon for the Wiimote so that you can punch, block, and dodge like you were actually boxing. With the exception of bowling, the games use simplified rules placing most of the focus on using the Wiimote. All the games are incredibly fun, but bowling takes the cake. I've spent the most time playing bowling and have achieved Pro ranking. What makes bowling so fun is that the Wiimote can actually detect spin you put on the ball, allowing for nice curve shots. On top of that, it has a training mode consisting of 10 rounds. The goal is to get a strike as many times as possible, and each round it adds another row of pins, so by the last round, you have 91 pins. I can't tell you how satisfying it is to get a 91 pin strike. :)

One of the more entertaining features of the Wii is the Mii Channel, which allows you to make 3D avatars basically. I've made Miis of myself and several friends so far, as well as some random Miis, such as Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Waldo, a Stormtrooper, an alien, Dr. Katz, a Mii with an upside-down head, Megaman, Roll, and Jesus. When you create a Mii, you can turn on the option for them to mingle, which allows your Miis to visit your friends' Wiis, meaning your Miis will show up in your friends' Mii Parade. It's aways fun to check the Mii Parade and see what new and weird Miis are visiting. It works best if your friends make a lot of Miis, so to everyone on my friends list, keep making those Miis. So far it seems like Aaron is the only one making any. Oh and if anyone has a Wii and hasn't already added me to their address book, my number is 0783 5361 6542 4655. Just add me up and give me your number so we can start exchanging Miis.

In 360 news, I have completed Need for Speed Carbon and Gears of War, save for a few achievements here and there, which now leaves plenty of time for Oblivion, Enchanted Arms, and Dead Rising. While searching for an extra Wiimote, I decided to pick up those three Burger King games (Pocketbike Racer, Big Bumpin, and Sneak King), which are surprisingly fun. They cost $4 each and are better than many full price games out there. Pocketbike Racer has been the best of the three and I've played the hell out of it. Yesterday I unlocked all the achievements for it except for the Xbox Live one. The other two games are fun, but not as good as PBR, which is like a cheesy Mario Kart clone.

Because I didn't have enough games to play as it is, I went ahead and picked up Dead or Alive Xtreme 2. I didn't expect it to be very good, considering the reviews I've read about it online so far, but it seems to be worse than that. I enjoyed the volleyball mode of the original, and while the same mode is present in DoAX2, they've added too many other games to the vacation that are just boring and waste too much time. Jet skiing was a nice addition and I spent some good time playing that, but the controls are a little funky. It reminds me a lot of Waverace 64 but with better graphics. I haven't played much of the game, only a few days into the vacation and I'm not sure when I'll go back to play it. So far it just hasn't been fun enough to warrant spending any time playing. In the meantime I'll keep focusing my time on Oblivion, which eats up 80% of any free time I get.

Thanksgiving was good, ate a lot of food, spent time with the family and all that jazz. It was pretty uneventful with the exception of one huge bit of news. A couple days before Thanksgiving we learned that my sister Melissa is pregnant. It's still too early to know if it'll be a boy or a girl, but it's exciting regardless. It's hard to imagine that I'll be an uncle, especially considering Melissa is only 19. It was a bit of a shock, and my grandparents didn't take it too well since they're very traditional and borderline fanatical Christian, but what's done is done. No sense making a fuss out of it now. All I know is if her son turns out to be a boy, he's gonna love visiting me. Hopefully he doesn't break anything though.

Switching gears again, it's been pretty hard to find extra Wiimotes for the Wii. I've looked all over and they're usually sold out. However, last night while at Wal-Mart getting xmas lights with my dad, I decided to check the games section on the off chance that they'd have Wiimotes in stock. As luck would have it, they had four, so I bought all of them. I'm keeping one for myself, but if anyone wants one I'm selling them for $43, which is exactly how much I paid for them. Technically I paid $43.03 for them, but I don't really want the change, so consider it a tiny discount. So anyone who wants one, just drop me a message. I'm gonna return any I don't sell, so anyone interested act now! Supplies are limited!

Last week I bought a 2 gig SD card for my Wii, but my stupid laptop can't read the card, so I can't put any MP3s on it, which was the whole reason I got it. Now I'll have to wait until either I get a card reader capable of reading a 2 gig card, or Dell releases an updated driver for the built-in card reader for my 700m that will allow it to read 2 gig cards (which seems pretty unlikely).

Speaking of my 700m, an hour before writing this post, I was trying to fix the speakers on it. The speaker wire goes through the hinge on the screen and after repeated opening and closing, the wire has been severed. After looking up how to open up the screen on the internet, I figured it'd be an easy fix or at least easy to pull out the speaker portion. However, while opening up the screen part, I was trying to pry off the cover. Stupidly, I forgot to take the battery off first, so while jamming my knife under the cover, I saw a bright spark and a loud pop. The spark left a nice char mark on my knife and I knew nothing good could have come from that. I quickly turned on my laptop and saw just what damage had been done. The screen doesn't come on anymore. I looked up replacement screens on the Dell website, but it costs $500+, which is ricidulous, as I only paid $750 for the laptop. However, after doing more reasearch, I figured out that what's actually wrong is that a part called the inverter board is fried. It turns out, that inverter board is what takes in power and lights the backlight for the screen. Shining a flashlight into the screen, I can see that the display is working, it's just not being lit. The good news is that I can get that part for about $60 on ebay. I just need to figure out how to put it on myself. That still doesn't solve the original problem though. I still need to get replacement speakers, which after looking on ebay, run about $80 to $90. So while I'm glad I won't have to spend half a grand on a replacement screen, it still sucks that I will have to replace the speakers and the inverter board. I can't really use my laptop now unless I hook it up to my lcd monitor here at home, which is how I'm able to type this post. Fun stuff, and just in time for xmas, woohoo!