Tainted Report

So for awhile I was anxiously awaiting the release of a Halo for the Nintendo Wii. Not literally Halo, just a solid FPS with good online play and great action. I guess I felt a little jealous of the other consoles, who were getting waves upon waves of great shooters.

Well, that game has come and gone, but I'm too busy playing Wii Sports Resort to care.

As patronizing as I may have been towards the little white box called the Wii, there's no denying that these casual games are a ton of fun (well, except for Wii Music). Wii Sports Resort is no exception to this high caliber of gaming, bringing home a polished product that is one heckuva good time.

Of the 12 sports included in the game, 7 or 8 could be stand alone titles. Seriously, table tennis, swordplay, and basketball never get old. Nintendo once again struck gold with this follow up to Wii Sports, one of the biggest casual titles for
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If you have followed this blog at all, you will notice that I am pretty cynical when it comes to Nintendo. But honestly, it's a cynicism drenched in irony. I may make blog posts dissing on Nintendo's press conference, or why I regret buying the Wii, but at the end of the day Nintendo is still near and dear to my heart.

The only current gen consoles that I own are the Nintendo DS and the Nintendo Wii. While this may be due to my inability to afford other consoles, it is also because I have faith in Nintendo. I may say that the company has failed me, but honestly, I would be lying. Metroid Other M has me incredibly excited, if only for the new Final Fantasy esque cutscenes. New Super Mario Bros Wii could possibly have been done on the DS, but playing with 4 players is going to be a heck of a lot of fun.

At the end of the day, Nintendo makes good games. They may not always be geared
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I've always related to the Parable of the Prodigal Son. To summarize the story, a father has two sons, and he divided his property equally among both of them. While one is faithful to his father, the younger son wasted his money on an extravagant life, and ended up in shambles. He came and threw himself at the feet of his father, begging for forgiveness. His father is filled with joy, and offers up his best calf for a feast in his honor.

When I first heard this story, I saw obvious parallels to my own life. My brother could be seen as the younger son, who disobeys my parents' rules and cares about worldly things. Although my brother has yet to throw himself at my parent's feet, these parallels are the first thing that come to mind.

So, obviously I feel immediate compassion for the older son, who is faithful to his father. One part I left out of the parable is when the older brother
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Through some unfortunate events that I won't get into, I watched an episode of the Tyra show today.

Tyra's guest on the show was Paris Hilton, the twenty something who acts no older than eleven and has the personality of a grapefruit. While ordinarily I would take this time to rant about this new breed of hopelessly unintelligent divas, Tyra Banks' annoying habit of speaking out of turn aggravated me to no end.

Even though Paris was quick to plug herself wherever possible, it was expected because she was the guest on the talkshow. However, Tyra also took every possible opportunity to promote herself, cutting off Paris at times to tell her own story. While the entire idea of the Tyra show is incredibly convoluted, it was made even worse when Tyra butted in to tell the story of a boyfriend that cheated on her. Paris looked on in discomfort, finding it difficult to believe that anyone el
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Nintendo managed to do one thing right this year in their E3 press conference: they gave Cammie Dunaway a smaller speaking role. However, other than their doing away with Dunaway (a little pun I thought up in the writing of this blog) Nintendo once again failed to deliver anything that satiates the unquenchable thirst inhabiting hardcore Wii owners.

Right off the bat Nintendo showed off their commitment to rehashing old ideas while calling them fresh. New Super Mario Bros Wii looks to be a horrible mashing of the Battle Mode from Super Mario Bros, and the casual portions of New Super Mario Bros. for Nintendo DS. In their on stage demo, Mario, Luigi, and two off-color Toads (no Red Toad love?) flopped around the level, showcasing the incredibly stupid game mechanic of picking up other players (which Bill Trinen saw as an entirely fresh idea) and the clunky pipe mechanics. What could ha
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So I finally got my hands on Madworld, the widely anticipated game from Sega, and, more importantly, Platinum Games. This game is gritty, it's stylized, and it's laugh-out-loud funny at some points. But is it fun?

Yes... and no. I've played the game for about an hour now, and I've enjoyed it thus far. The controls work well; basic attacks are mapped to the A button, and you wield the chainsaw using the B button. To swing the chainsaw, you need to flick the Wii Remote. It works surprisingly well, actually. The motion controls don't seem gimmicky really.

Beating up the baddies is definitely enjoyable, especially with all the variety. You can pick up tires and throw them over someone so they can't use their arms. You can thrust a sign post through someone's head and skewer them. There are even some environmental deaths, like throwing someone in the path of an oncoming train or throw
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One thing I've always been fascinated by is Japanese culture. I love the technology, I love the bullet trains, I love the atmosphere of Tokyo (or what I can infer from the videos and photos of it), I love Japan. It is incredibly interesting to me, for whatever reason.

It's even gotten to the point where I have started to learn Japanese. My friend gave me a copy of Rosetta Stone with the Japanese pack on it, and I bought My Japanese Coach to see if that was helpful. And while that hobby has taken a little break as I've become more busy with school and diving, it's still something that I would love to pursue.

But Japanese... well, it isn't really a very useful language to know if you are a citizen of the United States. There aren't very many Japanese speakers in the US, so it's not like Japanese translators are in high demand. So it seems that pursuing Japanese would be more of a hobby
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Whenever I talk about the flaws that I see in Mario Kart Wii, people seem to be on my case, calling me a "Mario Kart DS fanboy" and some names that are a bit less pleasant. To be fair, I am pretty stubborn when it comes to Mario Kart DS, but at the same time, it's hard not to notice some of the glaring issues with Mario Kart Wii. I'm going to use this post to talk about some of those things and what I want to see in future Mario Karts.

First, I will admit that Mario Kart Wii is a good game. If you want to casually play a racing game, you need not look farther than MKWii. It's a really fun game, especially with friends. Online can be a blast when you just want a few rounds for fun. The controls are tight (the Wiil is clunky at times, but the Gamecube controller is awesome) the action is fast, and the items are as zany as ever. I'm not here to argue that it's a bad game, because it's
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While on my SEGA rant, I forgot to mention that everyone should pick up Deadly Creatures when it is released this week. It's yet another mature title for the Wii, and features a really unique set of protagonists: a tarantula and a scorpion. Intrigued? I know I am, and IGN's praising of the game has won me over. I'm picking the title up later this week.

IGN Review
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SEGA is one of those developers that seems to be doing well, but hasn't really done anything memorable as of late. Yeah, Sonic games are stilling coming out by the dozen, and they are probably selling well. But for the most part, I haven't been seeing a lot of quality from SEGA, at least not for a long time.

But SEGA seems to be shaping up, producing a Sonic game that isn't atrocious (BLASPHEMY!) and also presenting three Wii titles that are shaping up to be high caliber titles. And what's even more exciting is that none of these games are aimed at the casual market.

The first of the three to be released is House of the Dead: Overkill. Under new development, the latest in the long running HotD is shaping up to be a fun shooter with tight controls and an awesome style. IGN game them game an 8.3, citing some framerate drops as the main concern. If you like the arcade versions of HotD,
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