Friday, June 29, 2007

Lexy is off to her mothers cottage again for the weekend leaving me home alone. I had a real hankering to watch the Harry Potter films but they've been packed in anticipation of our move. To sate my craving I picked up Order of the Phoenix for Wii. I've put about 2 hours into it so far and I'm enjoying it far more than I should. Hogwarts is bloody MASSIVE and just roaming around and dorking about has been quite fun. Spell casting is a bit of a mixed bag. Outside of combat I can cast any given spell without fail but in combat I often find my gestures going unrecognized. That could simply be the result of me being a bit... animated... when under pressure. The graphics are quite nice (for the Wii) but I find it a bit more dark and brown than I'd like to see overall. It should help me kill the weekend nicely.

Labels:

posted by pookzilla at 6:59 PM - 0 comments

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Lexy picked up Resident Evil 4 for the Wii for me the other day and I am now about one hour into playing this absolutely fantastic game for the third time. For someone who never plays a game more than once and often doesn't even finish them to the end this is a Very Big Deal. The new pointer/motion controls are definitely a positive addition but I think they could've done better - strafing and mouse look for instance - but I suppose there is only so much you can ask from a port.

I am currently in the chiefs house - I figured that was a good spot to stop. There's no sense in seeing the Chainsaw Guy for the first time before I've even had my soothing morning coffee.

Labels:

posted by pookzilla at 8:38 AM - 0 comments

Saturday, February 24, 2007

So... Sonic and the Secret Rings. I picked it up today on a lark and I'm really conflicted. On one hand I sometimes find myself having some classic Sonic fun - the speed makes you feel dizzy and out of control and as long as you're moving full tilt ahead you don't really notice the flaws of the game. The worst of these flaws is the responsiveness of the controls. Sometimes it's hard to know if I'm really tilting far enough or not. This shows itself most painfully when you're trying to do a jump attack. First you need to hit the (2) button and then flip the control forward. The problem is that sometimes it doesn't detect the flip forward and you just end up falling to your death. This is because there are often batches of enemies that have to be used to cross wide gaps. This problem with jumping makes me hesitant to "just do it" - I find myself stopping just to line up my jump. Stopping (and backing up) do not feel natural in this game and I find it really harshes my mellow.


I'll certainly keep playing it. The levels where you're simply running around collecting rings and avoiding obstacles are quite enjoyable. I'm just not sure about the rest.

Labels:

posted by pookzilla at 7:53 PM - 0 comments

Sunday, December 31, 2006

Test post from Wii Opera. This isn't too painful at all.

Labels:

posted by pookzilla at 10:42 AM - 3 comments

Friday, December 29, 2006

If it weren't for the crippling wrist and elbow pain (caused by Rayman Raving Rabbids) I wouldn't be able to put down Rayman Raving Rabbits. Great game. Hard on the joints. "Bunnies Never Close Doors" is my nemesis.

One thing though... I finally pulled out the manual and noticed that there were video options listed including progressive scan/faux 16x9, etc. I fired it up to check them out only to see that the video menu wasn't there. Thinking that maybe it was filtered out because I dont have the necessary video hardware to support these modes I went online to look into it. According to Wikipedia the menu doesn't exist at all despite the screenshots and documentation that point to it. This seems like a pretty major fub...

Labels:

posted by pookzilla at 10:16 AM - 1 comment

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Christmas was good. Together we were totally spoiled by her mother and her boyfriend who bought us a new washer and dryer to replace the pair that have recently burned out on us. Holy shit! Separately we also made off like bandits with me taking in enough sleep ware to completely replace my horribly aging sets as well as a new MEC bag, a pink belly dancing belt (hubba), DVDs jewelery, USB rechargeable batteries, enough chocolate to kill me, and numerous other things I can't recall at this time. Oh, I also got another cat. Well, only kind of - official custodianship of Abby (our black butterball) has been transferred to me because we're utterly and totally smitten with one another. She's sitting on me as I write this, in fact.

What I really wanted to talk about was the impact that the Wii made at our holiday dinner. We had 4 guests on Christmas day who're all (no offense intended) technological Luddites. Two share a computer they aren't comfortable with and none of them could be classified as "gamers." Having said that, it was impossible to tear them away from the Wii. Bowling in particular was a huge hit with every one of the newbies kicking my (substandard) ass at some point or another. Nintendo has really come up with something special in the Wii. By the end of the night everyone expressed interest in having their own and coming from folks who otherwise show no interest in games this is a Big Thing. If the reactions in other households are the same then Nintendo may indeed have a second device (along with the DS Lite) that prints money.

Labels: ,

posted by pookzilla at 7:41 AM - 0 comments

Sunday, November 19, 2006

It was a very big day in our household. First, the entertainment - I picked up my Wii pre-order today. Yay! Along with the Wii I grabbed Legend of Zelda : Twilight Princess, Red Steel, a cheap SD card, and a second Wiimote/nunchuck combo. I spent most of the day playing Red Steel and Zelda (both fun, although Red Steel has some control issues) and once Lxy got home we played a bit of Wii Sports (she kicked my ass at bowling, boxing, I kicked her at golf and tennis, and we tied at baseball). All of these were great fun although after the boxing match we both felt like our arms were falling off. I mention that Lxy got home because she was out for a very special reason today. She drove to Kingston to pick up her new little baby hedgehog Esmerelda! She's absolutely adorable. She's already earned the nickname Huffnstuff due to that very distinctive hedgehog grunting sound. Huffhuffhuffsnort!

Now it's time to come down a bit. We're both waaaay over stimulated. We're going to have a helluva time getting to sleep. :)

Labels: ,

posted by pookzilla at 7:43 PM - 1 comment

Monday, October 16, 2006

EB Games took pre-orders for PS3 and Wii today. Like a good little nerd I camped out at the local EB at Bayshore along with a bunch of other people. I arrived at 6:50am but some people had been there since midnight or so. The door opened at 7am and by that point about 15 of us were in line. Of those, some of us wanted both units to sell on eBay. By the time the EB Games folks showed up at 8:00 the line was about 30 deep (including spouses). They announced that they had 8 PS3 units and 15 Wii units available for pre-order and that no one could order both. Since the PS3 is the higher ticket item the first 8 people chose PS3s leaving Wiis for everyone else in line (including me). There was one additional Wii available that was snapped up a few minutes later meaning that all units were snapped up by 8:20 or so. They then let people into the store one at a time to place their orders. It was almost 9:00 before I went in but by then the line had grown considerably - there were maybe another 10-15 people in line by then. The EB staff came out and told them that there were no more units available and most people sighed and walked off... except for one person I'm going to call Matrix-Wanker Trenchcoat Boy. MWTB was PISSED off. He had called the day before and was told that the store was opening at 9 and he didn't think it was right that people had the GALL to stand around outside for 8 hours waiting in a lineup. With a tear in his eye he walked off, shouting that the EB Games could fuck themselves and that he wanted all of his pre-orders cancelled. He may be back later with a shotgun and some Marilyn Manson tunes. I bet he has a myspace profile.

It would've been nice to have gotten a PS3 - that would've funded my Christmas season - but having walked away with the unit I actually wanted to keep for myself I feel content.

Labels:

posted by pookzilla at 10:08 AM - 3 comments