I should have been a pair of ragged claws

It has taken me three attempts at playing Resident Evil 4 (twice on the Gamecube and now on the Wii) before I finally realized that everyone was right and I was wrong . Resident Evil 4 is a fantastic game. I love the aiming the gun with the remote. While Nintendo did a good job of translating Twilight Princess from a GameCube game into a Wii game, Resident Evil 4 gun battles feel like the game was designed from the ground up to be played with the remote. It's easy to switch between targets quickly and "juggle" a group of oncoming cultists/zombie/crazies through quick kneecap shots. Capcom plays the tension of "too many zombies, not enough ammo" like a violin. Other aspects of the game lack the elegance of the aiming; the inventory screen is obtuse and frustrating by using some rather obscure buttons (the + and the 'c' button). It certainly doesn't ruin the game, but it's a missed opportunity to not use the remote to drag and drop in the inventory...

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...

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...

All the stars aligned for a week of gaming: the Nintendo Wii was released with the latest Zelda game the week before Thanksgiving and I had vacation days to burn, and my brother, Todd, was in a similar situation. So he took the bus from Manhattan on Monday and we tag-teamed the game, swapping between each dungeon, until it's completion last night. Todd and I have done this a number of times many years ago, but the change to act like children again and play (and complete) a game in one of our favorite series together made this week one of my most enjoyable vacations. No small credit can be given to Bessie who demonstrated saint-like patience with the bleary-eyed bums in her basement yammering on about heart containers, master keys, and the saddening absence of Tingle. She did indulge in some some light jeering, saying that Link is such a cute elf and wondering where Legolas could be. I have a good bit to say about Twilight Princess, the Nintendo Wii, and the Zelda series in general,...

Names, by their nature, are definitive things and perception is more potent than reality. In the most crucial moment of Nintendo's existence, they cover the shoulders of their best hope with an albatross of a name.