Messing around with my Wii

I've had some playtime with the Wii now, enough to give it a fair evaluation, and I think if they don't make some extremely high quality, call-out-of-work-to-play-this-game level material, the Wii is going to totally fizzle out. Some of the more recent games, such as Wario Ware (pictured)and Elebits are fun for a short while, but the heart of the game is just exploiting the Wii hardware for what it can do. Wii Play has been called a Wiimote with a tech demo packaged along with it, and I have to agree. Think of the Wii as the hot chick you spot at some social event. She's elusive and hard to find, and when you do work up the nerve to talk to her, after 20 minutes you realize she's a complete moron. She functions, can hold a conversation, and makes a good first impression, but when it comes time to talk about important things, she just doesn't show up.

So how do I score the "next gen" as of now?
Wii - Fine for casual play, but not serious gamers. Hopefully Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3 will change my opinion a bit.
360 - Still in Beta testing. Seriously Microsoft, we don't want to rent a console for $400 for a one year term. Know why they call it a 360? Because that's it's shelf life before it dies on you.
PS3 - I honestly think Sony is TRYING to fail with this thing. Just today I read that Europe is getting a downgraded ps2 compatibility system. The list of Sony screwups keeps getting longer and longer......

My solution? Enjoy the ps2 for now, and the great library it has to offer. Four words for you if you disagree: God of War 2.

The Dreamcast Kid

Last night I got a visit from one of my favorite customers, the Dreamcast kid. Let me see if I can adequately put to words what this youngster is about:

To start he's about 9-10 years old. To understand his personality, you need to feed a child that age a large amount of crack, then give him a six pack of Red Bull, a giant size Hershey bar, a 2-liter of Coke, and a bottle of maple syrup to wash it all down with. Yes, he's that hyper.

There are two people browsing the store, and he opens the door and bolts in, cutting through the couple like a linebacker and saying "scuse me" after getting 5 steps past them. He's now at the back wall, literally bouncing up and down looking through the retrogaming racks. He then runs up to the counter and starts yelling at me "do you have any Sega Dreamcasts in?" No, I tell him. "Do you have any Sega Dreamcast VMUs?" No, I tell him, to which he then comes around the counter and points at a pile of memory cards I have waiting to be put out. "There's one! There's one!" Actually it's a N-64 rumble pack, but he swears it's a VMU. "Do you have any Sega Dreamcast power packs? I need one." No, I tell him, only a handful of Dreamcast games back on the wall.

Then he does a few more laps around the store...and by now his dad comes in. His dad actualy buys something, but I can't remember what it was, becasue for the whole rest of the time the kid just rapid-fires questions at me, one right after another.
"Is that a Plasma TV?"
"When's Halo 3 coming out?"
"Do you have any Wii's?"
"What's your favorite Sega Dreamcast game?" (he always says SEGA Dreamcast).
"Can you order any Sega Dreamcast power cords?"

I felt like I was on a quiz show - he wouldn't even give me time to answer any of the questions......I fear for my life the day when I actually HAVE some Dreamcast items and the kid really gets excited!

Guitar......Zero?!

Well, looks like I have to settle for second place at the GH compo. About 10 people showed up to compete, with a few more to watch.

I had a bad feeling when I stopped in earlier in the week to ask about the setlist. "Six, Jordan, Psychobilly Freakout, Hangar 18, etc." Wow, they weren't messing around. I thought you would at least start slow and work your way up, but they jumped right into the hardest tracks in the game.

First round was Hangar 18, and one loss knocked you out of the compo. Each set of two players would stick with this song until the next round. I wasn't too worried when I noticed most of the beginning players weren't even using star power. Two players looked like serious contenders though......Next was Psychobilly, which I felt good with, but when my turn came to play they switched it up to Six. I thought I was toast until the other player said he didn't even know that song.....guess he didn't venture into the bonus material at all. I fumbled my way through it but still managed to rock just a bit harder.

So by the third song two guitar heros remained standing, and I'm dreading the final song. Automatic assumption is Freebird, but no, they decide to go with Jordan, which has insane solos. And guess what, the other guy could handle them pretty well. We stated out even but I fell apart midway through the song. Having a differnet song might have produced different results, but HOPO's were the death of me. It was fun just to compete and hopefully competitive gaming will become much more popular in the future.