Wii Sports Resort + Wii MotionPlus

Picked up Wii Sports Resort at JB HiFi tonight for for $79, including the Wii MotionPlus dongle. Normal RPP is $99 for this pack at places like EB Games.

The Wii motionPlus comes integrated into a Wiimote jacket , not what I was expecting at all. When you start up the game for the first time a video plays detailing the process of inserting the Wiimote into the jacket. I managed to do this before viewing the instructions, so it can't be that hard.

The intro to the game involves all your Miis skydiving on to the island. This is a nice touch, and you get to control one of them on the way down. The game itself a wider array of sports to choose from than the original Wii Sports. Of the sports available only two old favourites remain in the game, bowling and golf. New sports/activities include frisbee, archery, wake boarding, air sports, jet skiing, table tennis, canoeing and fencing.

The addition of the Wii Motion Plus allows for very sensitive controls making sports much harder to master. Bowling in particular I found much more difficult than on the original Wii sports games. While I haven't had a chance to sample all of the sports, from what I did though, I can say that the Wii MotionPlus is a big improvement over the sometimes hit and miss controls of the Wiimote on its own. Bowling in particular!

Of the sports that I tried out, probably the most enjoyable I found were archery and flying the plane around the island. All I can say is that the controls to these sports seemed very natural. With flying you hold the Wiimote horizontally in front of you, tilting it to turn, climb and descend, I could have spent ages just flying around the island if there wasn't a time limit. The archery made use of the Wiimote and nun chuck but in reverse to normal. So if you are right handed you hold the Wiimote upright in your left hand representing the bow with the nunchuck in your right representing the end of the arrow.

As to the bad controls, there were a few namely the jet ski and frisbee. The jet ski left me with sore shoulders due to the way you hold the Wiimote and nunchuck, which is as if you are holding the handlebars of the jet ski, it just doesn't feel very natural at all. As for the frisbee, lets just say I'm not too good at frisbee in real life, so I have little hope of aiming one in the game. The dog is cute though.

Is Wii Sports Resort worth buying? Yes it is. In fact I would go so far as to say that this is probably how Wii Sports should have been made in the first place. If you do not have the greatest hand eye coordinated like myself, then the addition of the Wii MotionPlus will definitely add a challenge to all the sports on offer. No more bowling Turkey's and serving aces. That frisbee really could go anywhere. Then increasing the sensitivity of the Wiimote, which often does not register my backhand in Wii tennis can't be a bad thing.

More Human Tetris

This one is different to the last though. It uses stop go animation and is more faithful to the video game. The sound effects and music are great.



Also in the series are Space Invaders, Pong and Poll Position.

Human Tetris

AKA Brain Wall. Someone was telling me about this a few weeks ago.



Apparently Channel 9 has the rights to a version of this show called Hole in the Wall coming to our screens soon.

Game On

Yesterday I went to Game On at ACMI (for some reason I wrote ACME the first time...). It was fantastic. I saw a lot of games I haven't seen for years, and lots of others that I've never seen first hand like Nintendo's epic failure, the Virtual Boy. Most landmark games were included, but of course there were a lot that could have been included but weren't because there is simply not enough room. As the person I went with remarked, "where is World of Warcraft?", which is probably one of the most iconic current games.

The best part is the fact that almost everything is playable, from the early arcade game Space Wars, classics like Pac Man, Donkey Kong and Galaga, the glory days of the 8 bit consoles and PC's in the '80s, through to the Nintendo Wii. I would have liked to have tried out the PC game Portal (which is included in the "Orange Box" I talked about a few posts ago), but it was being hogged by a hooded figure who was playing for at least an hour while we were there. Definitely not in the spirit of the game.

While not for everyone, I think most people could appreciate the exhibition. It could even change the perception that video and computer games are just for kids. Having said that I want to take my neice and nephew, as I think they'd love it. Especially after showing them my Gameboy Pocket a few weeks ago. I got them to turn it on, and after about 10 seconds one of them asked "when does the light come on?". They were a bit perturbed when I told them it doesn't have a light in it and that you need to play in a bright part of the room. They are used to their modern Nintendo DS with backlit dual screens. I think I could show them a thing or two at Game On.

My advice is if you are thinking of going, go early, especially on weekends. We got there just after opening at 10, but by the time we left at 12 it was really packed.

Many Happy (Tax) Returns

Finally got my tax return back this week. Yes, I only submitted it in the last week of October.

Today I'm off to buy a Wii.

Back to the 90's

Early in the 90's I was really into Nintendo. I had a NES, a SNES and a Game Boy, but by 1996 I'd began to lose interest in games. This was just about the time the Sony released the PlayStation console. Needless to say that I completely missed the PlayStation phenomenon. That is, until today.

So I was waiting for the bus on the way to work and had to wait about 20 minutes until the next one. So right next to the bus stop is a Savers store. For anyone who doesn't know, Savers is like a super-sized op shop (they do donate some of their profits to the Diabetes Foundation), their stores are the size of supermarkets (in fact this particular Savers was a Woolworths many years ago). They tend to price their stock quite a bit higher that op shops, so be prepared to pay (they are still cheap though).

Lo and behold there was a PlayStation in the electrical department, minus controller and cables. After a quick search of the near by "great wall of electrical cables" I had found the missing parts and was ready to go. For $16 I am now the proud owner of an original Sony PlayStation.

When I got home I plugged it all in and turned it on, and it starts up fine. I don't have any games for it yet so I put an audio CD in the drive. It played without any problems.

As for games, impossible to get new these days, I'm thinking eBay and stores like Cash Converters are the go. I've seen new Playstation games in The Warehouse, but our local Warehouse closed down earlier in the year and is now (or soon to be) an Aldi supermarket.

Tetris Dreams

Recently in a post Daniel mentioned that one of his friends used to have dreams about playing Tetris. I've had them too, usually after playing the game for extended periods of time before going to sleep. I no longer have them though as I don't play games all that often. At the time I did a bit of research, and found out it is a recognised phenomenon. A friend of mine said he has experienced similar dreams with other games. I just did another bit of research , but didn't come up with much except an old article from the Scientific American. Interesting stuff really.

Super Mario Kart

I've been playing Super Mario Kart on ZSNES a bit lately. So far I've beaten the Mushroom Cup, Flower Cup and Star Cup. I have not yet beaten the Special cup because...


I keep falling off the track in the final race, and end up falling behind the rest of the field so far that I get lapped.

Once again, I came last...