Gaming Addict

Well, I havn’t pre-ordered Metroid Prime yet because I can’t decide if I really want to. There are a lot of great games coming up and I just don’t have enough money to buy them all, though I really wish I could.

There’s Metroid, Super Mario Galaxy, Guitar Hero, and Smash Bros., just as my main prospects. And today I just played Super Mario Strikers at EB Games and enjoyed it a lot! The online play is pulling me into buying that game as well. So for those reasons I probably won’t be pre-ordering Metroid Prime as I try to make up my mind, and not purchase Metroid impulsively once it’s released and I see it in stores. Guitar Hero will wind up costing me the at most $90 and a minimum of probably $70. Since all the Wii version is getting will essentially be a shell, $90 would be a little much.

Oh well. Judging by my scheduel in August I won’t even have any free time to go out buying games, let alone play them. So I guess that all I’ve got to look forward to will be September…

I saw The Simpsons Movie this past weekend… twice. Two different groups of friends wanted to see it. One on Friday, another on Saturday. I was OK with it though because I really enjoyed the movie and didn’t mind watching it a second time. It was a lot better than I expected. I didn’t have high hopes for the movie because of the decline in the TV series but you can really tell that almost all of the old writters from earlier seasons have returned to team up and create a great movie. I highly recommend it.

Tomorow, or at least at some point this week I’ll be preordering Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. As you can see in the side bar off to the right, it’s a game I’m really hyped up for. I don’t really think there will be shortages of the game on it’s release date but I’d rather be safe than sorry. It’s not like it’s costing me anything more. My local EB Games is running a contest where you will be entered into a draw to win some kind of Samus statue I think it was once you’ve preordered the game. While I’m there I may also pick up 2 used GameCube controllers to have a full set of 4. I’m planning ahead for Smash Bros.

August is gonna be a busy month for me. The MSA Cup will be going on so I’m going to be busy working a few of those games. The days where I won’t be working the Cup will be filled up by the week long Folklorama performances and the also week long East Saint Paul Tournament where I’ll be reffing. One hell of a way to spend my last month of summer vacation.

And last but not least, I thought I’d pass along my own little Wii success story. Yesterday a few friends came over and they saw I had a Wii. All but one had already played it on another occasion and had really enjoyed it. The one guy who had yet to try it was really skeptical and thought it looked stupid. After he turned down a couple of our offers to let him play he finally gave in and then had a blast playing Wii Sports. I got tired of the game a long time ago and I almost forgot that great feeling of picking it up and playing for the first time.

I’m sure many of you have already enjoyed the retro game download services offered by Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony. Numbers don’t lie. What we’ve been getting up until now is our favorite classic games onto our new powerful consoles, just the same as they were 10 to 15 years ago. All the imperfections that the games contained on their original consoles still there today. But the question is, should we still have to deal with such things? And should these classic games be remade into updated versions of themselves now that we have the technology to do so?

Aussie-Nintendo has an editorial up which mainly discusses the latter. What if Nintendo decided to release a graphically beefed up version of A Link to the Past? Or if Sony and Konami were able to work together on a solution release an updated version of the first Metal Gear Solid Games for PSone. I’m sure that the PSP with it’s now improved clock speed would be able to handle it.

Microsoft however already seems to be taking steps in this direction. The Xbox Live Arcade release of the original Prince of Persia was not what you think. The game was remade to look better and control better while there were minor changes made to a couple traps, etc. Aside from that however, it was essentially the original PoP game.

I have to say that I wouldn’t mind seeing this done to other classic games. The Legend of Zelda, Street Fighter, Mega Man X, just to name a few. If Nintendo could make it work, how many of you wouldn’t a reworking of A Link to the Past created to resemble Ocarina of Time? And speaking of Ocarina of Time, would you buy a Wii remake of the title? Provided that it was budget priced. I know I would. Regardless of the many ways that OoT is already available to us (N64, GCN, Wii VC) an improved and Wii specific version would kick some major ass.

Hopefully Nintendo catches on to this soon, otherwise they could be left behind. Follow the link at the top to read the whole Aussie-Nintendo editorial.

I was downloading Star Fox 64 off of the Wii Virtual Console and as I watched the little Mario sprite run across my screen collecting coins, I wondered why Nintendo didn’t just put in a normal progress bar. One that would should you how much you’ve downloaded, how much is left, and the percentage of what you have so far. I’m not saying I dislike Nintendo’s gimmicky little animation but would’ve prefered something a little more detailed.

So I thought, why couldn’t Nintendo have thrown a progress bar in there somewhere? Maybe under Mario while still keeping the coin collecting and block hitting animations intact? I guess it could still be possible through a really minor firmware update, but I doubt they’d do anything if the idea was presented to them.

It’s a minor gripe, along with a few other things I’d probably tweak and change, but those can come in another post.