tapedeck

When you pick up a Wii game box in store you're seeing a snapshot advertisement. What's the first thing you think about? I ALWAYS think about the motion controls and how fun they could be. Wii represents the unknown, the excitment of something new. This is why I bought Excite Truck, Warioware, The Godfather, Harry Potter etc.. All because of the "new" way of controling the game. And I have yet to be dissapointed by driving the wiimote, swinging and grabbing mafia types and casting spells with my arm. Bring all genres on. This time next year we will think Wii is the greatest thing ever. Oh, hang on...we won't. Why? Because by then we will be complaining that Wiiware isn't as good as we wanted, and we want a new Wii channel, better than "check mii out"...It's a never ending circle. And why not?...We would have nothing to say if we didn't complain. It's the British way no?

Nice, I liked it lots. Last verse I decided to write a melody to it and dangle my vocals over it...Dangerous! I'd put it on the net but don't have a clue where to get good hosting for free anymore...Anyone?

Let me start off by attempting to nail this argument about traditional games: In a years time this argument about no "hardcore" games and casual games flooding the market will be totally void. It's only apparent now as developers were slow to adapt to the success of the Wii and Nintendo have a formula which attracts families/non-gamers. It's hardly suprising this is happening as the GC was a shambles for 3rd party developers and Nintendo had to learn lessons 'fast'. We are getting remakes yes, (what's wrong with that business sense...NEW gamers on Wii afterall?) and we are getting sequels (always has been the bread and butter of developers). Granted it looks a little barron at the moment yet there will be so many projects in the works that will come at the end of this year and into next year. People should keep the faith. Nintendo may be producing Wii fit alongside mario Kart, but which one will draw more developers AND consumers to the system? I don't know why people are complaining about titles like Wii fit. if you don't like it...Don't buy it and play Mario Kart/Smash Bros/Prime/Galaxy instead. Games which you will prefer by your own admission of wii fit. Further philosophical ramblings: As gamers we seem to be greedy. We play the title in a matter of days or weeks after maybe years of development and then we are seemingly dwelling on the titles shortcomings. We then tire of the game and start moaning where the next one is coming from. To me the VC is the saviour of games. Remember Paper Mario on the N64? Now it's on the lips of thousands of gamers again. I wish people would sometimes look at what they have infront of them and just experience that piece of software to its fullest. Like Wii Sports. People complain religiously about it and it's status on Wii. But it's absolutely the closest any form of electronic entertainment has come to the real thing. If my grandad can see this, why do so many gamers not even regard it as something special? Because we have been spoilt for choice, because we all think we are critics and making games is easy? The philosophy of the Wii: Seems to me that it's all about holding games close to our hearts again and not forgetting why we started to play in the first place. Interaction. Whether that's with others or on our own is the reason we game. We want to be the selfish warrior, the one who saves the day, scores the goal, shoots the bad guy. Selfish. But with Wii it seems much of gaming can become selfless again. And thus social (and acceptable). Wii is bigger than we all seem to realise.

I'm sure pretty much every Nintendo fan will have bought Luigis mansion at launch. Your usually onto a rare 1st party game when the case is coloured as they are the initial batch of cube games no? Mario Sunshine had a purple case, Double Dash had a red one, wind waker, gold. And the Zelda Promotional disk had a purple case too. I'm sure that's how it panned out no?

I'll rant on when I've thought about this one. Maybe I just wholly agree. Will think about it while on the lavvy. Peace out for now.

Funny...Opening bars are a little overdone...Like too complex to work out what the hell is happening, but quite good overall. I take it you just clapped, whistled and overlayed vocals?

Splash wallpaper previously requested with other sweet (blue) wallpaper

Indeed, I was playing Perfect Dark the other day and was shaking the N64 controller to reload....stupid I know. Especially when being shot in the head. It just seemed to make perfect sense though. It just proves that the motion controls are ingrained in me now. Back to topic...I remember thinking the wiimote controls for TP were ok...Nothing revolutionary like, say Wii Sports. But the fishing is incredibly intuitive and when I was doing that giant eel/fish boss I was actually thrusting my arm in a stabbing motion into the fishes eye when stabbing him. That felt utterly awesome and I will never forget that moment. The sky temple and the use of TWO hookshots also felt wonderful with the wiimote and was incredibly like some kind of spiderman-like moment. Immersion at it's best. I doubt those moments are as good on the cube,

Here's a (dodgy) pic of some of the rarer GC games I have...Note the NOT FOR RESALE Rebel Strike disk and Pacman versus disk. BG&E MONSTER HOUSE PACMAN VS LEGO STAR WARS 2 REBEL STRIKE PROMO DEMO DISK

There were some elements in Star Fox Adventures that were magical such as the wonderfully designed earlier sections of the game and the wonderful sense of place. Yet I agree with various comments that as the game drew on it became mediocre as it lost it's way a little with repetitive tasks and backtracking. Lovely visuals though and maybe the better game between Namco's Star Fox Assault. Waaaaay off topic I know : peace:

Cheers Dyson, I'm a firm believer in the power of the Wii and the power gaming can have as a social event. Hopefully this will be as big as I can possibly make it. There is an opportunity to create one hell of an evening. I was even talking to the pub owner about running a FIFA/Pro Evo league on a Saturday morning in conjunction with the new season kicking off. He is well up for it and has already looked into getting a "game area" into the pub. He was discussing the need for pubs to try to get new people in as pubs are, by their nature, social arenas just ripe for entertainment. And with the recent smoking bans and the changing of generations from past to present, things like Bingo, singers etc aren't as much a draw as they used to. He even feels clubbing is seen in a negative light by many youths now and it is only done as there is little variation in night time events. (I kind of agree). Anyway, he is well up for bringing new ideas into the pub and has really got into the spirit of this Wii night. I'm hoping to make this something big and get a bit of a tour event going on around many more pubs. Will be difficult to gauge as I'm not making money from it...And if I do I'll probably get Nintendo breathing down my neck. We. Will. See.

If you went to a Wii themed night at your local 'ale house' - What would you want to be happening? I would think cheap drinks AND plenty of prizes ensures success no?

I've got: Twilight Princess Wii Sports (obviously) Wii Play Big Brain Academy Scarface: The world is yours The Godfather: Blackhand Edition Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix Excite Truck Mario Strikers Charged Wario Ware Red Steel Eledees Favourite is The Godfather. Took Monkey Ball and Call of Duty 3 back...horrendous.

The design runs on...More posters done and Nintendo postalio mailed (asking for freebies etc). TV's and newspapers all said would make a note of date/time and will try to send someone along. And it's going to be £2 entrance and £1 to enter the highest scoring game. Peace 'a cake. I hope lol. August 21st starting at 6pm till whenever we finish. Everyman for themselves . Prizes to be confirmed for 1st, 2nd, 3rd (Hopefully a shiny new Wii in there). I'll keep updating here about what is happening like what is working / not working etc and finally post shots of night to all interested....Just incase anyone wants to emulate this. Bring it on!

I could only ever handle 2 fingers. 4 Fingers used to make me feel sore in the tummy. Kit-kats aren't too bad neither. Seriously though, this will continue...just like the DS. It's almost like people want the Wii to succeed.

It's hard to get a real rock band together nevermind a virtual one.

Yeah, spoke to pub owner today and he is thinking a £1 entrance fee with winner takes a cut of it...Anyone think this is a good amount. I was thinking it should be £2 if the prize is pretty amazing. A game of normal bowling is about £5 at my local alley. Setting this up i more difficult than I thought

RRR2 is what happens when the developers themselves start to have FUN. Thanks Wii...Only you made this possible for Ubi. The Rabbids are an absolute 'genial' character design. One of the best designs I've seen in recent years. And giving them a masochistic outlook and almost gremlins/lemmings-inspired lust for death and mischeif has only made them more popular. I hope ubi get the recognition they deserve with RRR2. Rayman himself will need his own games after this. The Bunnies don't need him anymore. The bunnies are the real stars now. Let Rayman go back to platforming.

I'm holding a one-night event (initially)..I'm looking to start around 6pm and run it until around 12pm. I can have the pub till 2am. Which is nice. The main problem I'm deciding over is whether to prebook names by leaving a phone number on leaflets dispensed at pub/gamestation/student halls etc..Or to just have an open night and those names down by a certain time on the night are in. GAME FORMAT: I was looking to have it on an individual basis. Especially if there is a prize. I have contacted Nintendo about posters, t-shirts, games, Wii console etc and have told them I've contacted the newspapers, tv stations about this too. As I said, any further suggestions would be welcome. The recent wiimbledon event in the USA was easily ran as an individual event as tennis lends itself to it (bowling could too with highest average on (3?) games going through?) and they borrowed TV's and Wii's from friends and family. I've got 2 Wii consoles and 5 wiimotes. Obviously looking for more, as I need to work out number of games to ppl who enter ratio (anyone spread any suggestions on this?) but if pre-payment is made; this could cover the cost of me buying a couple. The gamers themselves can also bring wiimotes of their own (obviously welcomed due to their cost and susceptability to breakages off walls when drunk!) There are 3 TV's available to me, and a projector which I will use to show the final game. I'm waiting for Nintendo's reply and have asked Chips, Gamestation and GAME to promote anything they have in return for free advertising. (Where possible). Any more ideas people? I want this to become huge and start running it as an ongoing event around the region. WHERE IT IS: The Venue is a pub called The Golden Calf in a village called Hesleden. It is near Hartlepool in the North East, which is a turn off on the A19 motorway. The pub has rooms available for around £20 for a night too..Only 5 rooms though. Although 3 can fit in one room I'm sure. (families welcome). There is also a restaurant and food can be eaten in the bar. Usual things and also takeaway food served too. The drinks are also cheap. Bonus! As previously mentioned, I hope to run this at the end of August and have already started production of flyers, posters etc for places of interest, like bowling alleys in Durham etc... Now I need your help on the format...

Personally I think it's good we are getting wii-makes. I remember playing Metal Gear Solid on the Gamecube and thinking back then it was a brilliant idea. It's only when developers are lazy and add nothing new that it becomes disgruntling/pointless. Recent news such as Bully coming to Wii with additional content arouses my interest too. It revitalises interest in the franchise..JUST for the control possibilities. Wii only! However, I do worry about the sales of these games more than anything. If we can pick up vast amounts of cheap consoles/second hand games in Gamestation for less than the "NEW!" Wiimake then the idea will become redundant. Bully is £12 in Gamestation at the moment...Will the wiimake justify me forking out double that price? I think Resi 4 got it spot on. Add wiimote functionality add some other whistles and bells and make it cheap as chips. I bought Scarface last week for £24 in ASDA and I don't mind paying that at all. It's almost an impulse buy. It was right next to the XBOX version too which was £20. So £4 for additional, NEW controls and some slight graphical tweaking? Count-me-in. The more the merrier really. As long as it doesn't become a trend setter or a means for publishers to see if original content will or will not sell on Wii, I'm more than happy. And yes, The Godfather feels absolutely perfect. If any of you are in the position of not playing this then please play it on Wii. The controls are well worth the remake.

After reading the interesting Martin Mathers interview here on the site I was dewy-eyed remembering how much money I used to spend on games magazines. (And Mathers Virtua Cop failure on TV). Still to this day I've got them all in the loft. Over 200. These days I rarely buy magazines. The internet is indeed partly to blame with fast-access, varying material and the almost "personalised" experience offered. But the social aspect a magazine offers, such as discussing screenshots on your old school desk obviously doesn't happen with adults so it's a tough area to look at as lots of games magazines seem to be aimed at a teen crowd (Possibly apart from EDGE) plus I'm older now! But there are times I still buy a magazine (usually NGamer or EDGE) if only to reaquaint with old "friends" and to once again enter that childlike, comfortable world of a games magazine (almost akin to picking up a Beano whilst eating the free drumstick lolly). It's easy for magazine editors to blame the internet for the decline of the paper industry yet they rarely do, like Mathers. They have a responsibility for their industry afterall. Yet I still feel there is a deeper, underlying issue at hand. The price of magazines are incredibly steep in relation to what the new-fangled interweb offers. The pricing now seems archaic. Would you rather spend £5 on a magazine or log onto N-Europe etc as part of a £15/£20 monthy Broadband connection? Do you get more enjoyment for your £5 or from checking the web whenever you want? Maybe £2.50-3 would mean an 'instant' buy or subscription to many. Obviously staff need to be paid and printing costs, travel expenses to fund. Yet I still feel that a lower price point would increase sales. Magazines need to do something unique as Mathers said. And why don't they just try a price point lower than usual? Try a cheaper, fortnightly magazine perhaps. There are many avenues and ideas to be tried yet publishers probably don't want to risk what they currently hold (a small percentage of gamers interest in relation to the internet). Why can't I pay £2-3 every month to get "the thoughts of...(insert journalist here)" sent to my Wii? Something unique has to happen and bringing back something like FoSoYa (uniqueness) may not be enough afterall. I recollect that thousands of UK N64 gamers bought N64 magazine and that was partly because of the poor competition. Plus the market wasn't exactly (and still isn't) saturated. However, the magazine was prolifically well written (justifying staff wages) and they were constant with their review standards/scores. (Which, unfortunately a magazine seems to live or die by). It's easy to see that N64 magazine was popular in its day by the readership amount. With comments such as Clayfighter 63 1/3 (N64) getting 24%: and being described as being "as painful as having red hot needles shoved into your eyes"; the magagine was independant and not scared to print what they wanted. This honesty and British humour hit a chord with the readership. Many magazines can seem too series now (An arena EDGE has, commendably and professionally covered for years now.) Even NGamer doesn't seem to contain the same "fun" as the old N64 team. Or when it does it's almost cringe-worthy. Maybe I'm being too critical. But when they have tried to recapture past glory by recycling staff members it smacks of ideas running out. So what is the answer? I honestly think the answer lies with (as Mathers states) MORE quality, unique writing. More unique content and using the readership to its full capacity. Get the readers involved as much as possible. I obviously can't increase the magazine sales alone and what I've posted are only my feelings on the issue....How can magazines be as popular as they used to be? Or, with the internet is that now impossible? How can games magazines become a stable, profitable, successful business avenue again? Do we need to rely on the NGJ (new games journalism) technique of writing more? Is the core cycle of reveal/preview/review tiring fast? The future of journalism is 'now'. We buy the magazines, we are the interested. Why do we buy gaming publications? Or do you buy them at all anymore? If not, why not? Personally, I would love to write for any gaming publication...So I guess I'll have to keep on trying to be unique too, like all of us here. Writing about what we hold dear. Rant over.... Connection closed.:wink:

I agree that reading an old magazine can have wonderful sentiments. The previewing and consequently reviewing of old games is insightful to look into with the pleasure of hindsight. Seeing beta shots can also be interesting when you've finished the game and seen everything on offer. Looking back at magazines circa 1990 can even give humorous insights into Sega/Nintendo relations...Always a merry situation in the face of the present. It's nice how I can pick up a magazine from 1997 and see the NEW! 3D Zelda on the N64 and read the buzz surrounding the title. But will we get this with the internet...? I think it's like a HTML graveyard sometimes. We see news pasted, chopped, copied and passed around, digested and then deleted. On paper it's cemented on paper, inked forever. It seems better to savour literature on the bed of a spine, almost intrinsic, natural. If we are to see lightweight, bendable PDF, DOC readers in the future with uploadable content, I hope we have some kind of iPod feature in which we can stock thousands of articles. Maybe then writing will be treasured and those NEW! 3D Zelda titles can once again be oggled over.

Well, nRevolution has piqued my interest actually. I had a brief encounter with the contents of a recent issue and found it to be quite unique. Unique in the mannerism of page layout and almost cartoon, comic-style layout. May have to give this a try come the next issue. It will be interesting to see if this price point forces the hands of the other magazines.

I don't know what to think of Dave Perry anymore. He was a highly respected individual in the 90's with his productions of Gamesworld and Shiny entertainments output. And he helped develop 'animotion' in titles like Cool Spot, Aladdin and finally Earthworm Jim. Yet his sheer arrogance for himself and towards other games developers means he is a deeply flawed individual. As someone who also took a complete hissy fit on Gamesmaster when falling from the snow slide on Mario 64's Cool, Cool mountain - I lost all respect for him. The old developed games were indeed good; and as a motivator and spokesperson for games, he is, no-doubt talented. Yet as an individual he states things which are so devoid of truths that it scares me to think that he is a success in the industry. He is a dinosaur yet as a developer he sticks only to where the 'most power' is. Whether that be the Megadrive, the PS1 or the XBOX360 or by using his business sense to make the Matrix trilogy. You've got talent Dave and by making your sweeping statements it seems your still as arrogant as ever.

Having played SMG yesterday on my Wii through said cable I can confirm "YES" it looks fabulous. Of course, I'm only being utterly sarcastic here and can only say...it will look better than anything else currently occupying your Wii regardless of what cable you use. Composite FTW!