I should have been a pair of ragged claws

I should never have entered my credit card number into my Wii. In the last two weeks I've already purchased four games: One sublime classic (Gunstar Heroes), an interesting Sonic Team platformer (Ristar), one of the first console turn-based strategy games (Military Madness), and a nostalgia-fueled waste of $5 (Ice Hockey [ 1 ] ). The Virtual Console lineup started with some fantastic games (Mario 64, the NES Legend of Zelda), but the most tempting nectar are the Monday releases of Genesis and Turbo Graphics 16 classics that I've never played before. Part of my enthusiasm for the virtual console comes from my bizarre laziness when it comes to changing games. Inertia is overly involved with my gaming choices; if the disk is in the system, then I'm probably going to keep playing that. It's as if taking out game disks is so hard . The Wii lets me play all these games without having to get out of my seat! It's great! My PC theoretically has the same feature, but it requi

A few of co-workers have gotten Nintendo DSs for themselves or their family and some have asked me what I recommend. Well, how about recommendations in haiku form? Everybody loves that! Elite Beat Agents Male cheerleaders? Huh?! This comic music game grooves even with Believe [ 1 ] . Dragon Quest: Rocket Slime Look what's on my head! I'll fire it from my huge tank! Hope you like mad puns. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow Has Metroid-vania [ 2 ] ever been done better? No. Take notes, Nintendo! Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Nethack [ 3 ] , lose no sleep; It's a puddle to your lake. Still, fun in the car. [ 1 ]Yes, Cher's Believe . While some may question the track list , Elite Beat Agents remains a fun game no matter how many hundreds of times you've heard the songs. [ 2 ] Metroid-vania is a sub-genre of 2D platformers defined by their maze-like non-linearity and the collection of abilities that open up new areas to explore. The first Metroid-vania was Nintendo's Metroid, a

These impressions are from ~30 minutes of play time. I got it today from a co-worker. The controls feel almost uncomfortably loose; it takes a while to go from the analog stick to tilting of the wiimote in a racing game. It's seems closer to an SSX than a typical racing game in that it's more about crazy jumps than riding a tight line. It rewards "style" driving more than any other racing game I've seen. Progression through the game is based on the number of points you accumulate through the level. You get points for doing stunts, jumps, and smashing up others cars as well as your finish position, so theoretically you can come in last and still "win" and get an S rank. (It's certainly easier to get an S rank with the 1st place bonus points, but it's possible otherwise.) There's also these bizarre power ups that deform the terrain; typically they make steep ramps for some ludicrous jumps, but sometimes they just make a ditch. (Maybe some are b