Wii Updates!

It's been nearly a year, but a reader has provided some new information about this old post.

Nintendo has setup a page that provides some basic information about Wii updates.

I figured that while we were on the topic, this would be a good time to talk about my Wii experiences so far.

My Wii gets weekly use at a minimum. I've got a full time job, a lovely (yet demanding) woman, and a host of hobbies and interests that take up my time so game play hasn't been a large priority. I still get time in to play Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, mySims and run through many of the Virtual Console games I've got downloaded on the system. It's also fun to spin the globe around in the weather channel and see what the temperature is at the poles.

My Wii qualms come in the form of lacking online play. I've got Mario: Strikers but so many of my games lag out that I've given up trying. My buddy has been rocking in Madden, but the scoring system online is tipped in the favor of quitting instead of losing, so it's near pointless to play.

We've got Smash Bros. Brawl on pre-order and hopefully the on-line play in that will be on or above par with other console ventures.

Online play aside, a big aside, the quality and fun of my existing Wii library is incredible. I think that's the main reason it still gets so much play.

In the past month couple months I've picked up an XBox 360, so it does cut into the Wii time. This is to augment the not-so-greatness of Nintendo's online capabilities. This also has taken time away from some Wii action. Although I find that the games on the 360 are much shorter to beat. I just finished up Ace Combat 6 on hard and I'm working my way through expert. The online play is what I was looking forward to, but there just doesn't seem to be many people on.

I got Halo 3, but the pace for an FPS is abysmal. I don't mean pace of the story, I mean the actual live gameplay, so I don't really play that anymore. If I want quality FPS action, I'll stick to Metroid Prime 3: Corruption or Counter-Strike:Source.

So that's my spiel about the Wii Updates and my updates about the Wii.

Enjoy the holiday season and hit me up if you're looking for some friend codes to play Brawl when it comes out. I also keep my DS with me pretty much wherever I go, so if you're looking for some unique pokèmon or want to get some mario kart action, lemme know.

DigitalLife Summary

There really isn't much new to report on the DigitalLife expo.

MC Frontalot was awesome as usual, his 2 sets were spectacular and drew a sizable crowd considering how sparse the floor was populated in general.

Here's a clip of the front performing the pr0n song recorded by a fellow fan:



And here's a clip I got of the front busting crazy dance moves on my cellaphone during the breakdown in Hassle The Dorkening:



I got some views of Guitar Hero 3 rocking, but there was far too large a crowd and far too little patience in me to wait. It looks and plays pretty much like Guitar Hero 2.

The counter strike tournament going on was interesting but mildly so. I could've sat and watched for hours, but I could do the same watching my bro play super mario bros.

There was some Halo 3 action kicking. I watched a little bit of that, but the game play is still very slow. I think coming from the fast paced world of PC FPS's, it will unfortunately always be so. I did pick up Halo 3, not at the convention... I didn't see anybody selling it there. It's fun, but not crazy good.

There was a decent sized free play area with some PS3's and 360's setup. I played some racing game on the PS3, not sure what it was called. It was surprisingly mediocre. The graphics weren't that fantastic, and the game play was standard.

The US Army was there showing off a new game, similar to America's Army, but for the 360, they also had a large simulator game, but while I was there, the line was far too long.

I think that covers all the interesting parts of DigialLife, I'll update this post it anything new shows up.

All my DigitalLife videos can be found here: On YouTube. While you're there, check out the young kid busting out some crazy DDR moves.

DigitalLife pre-summary

So much to write about from yesterday, but today is beer fest day and I'm too tired right now to cleanup all the videos and images I got.

Expect more later!

DigitalLife part 2

Word from on high has it that MC Frontalot will be performing at the DigitalLife expo on the very same day I am attending.

I urge anybody who has/hasn't seen/heard about the good MC to attend and witness glory. He's doing two short sets, one at 2PM and one at 5:30PM.

I've spread the word to some friends in the area about the expo, but it doesn't look like anybody else I know will be attending.

I will do my best to take some good pictures of what's going on.

I'll try to put up some YouTube footage from my celephone as well.

DigitalLife

I was lucky enough to manage getting a free 4 day pass to the DigitalLife Event at the Javits Center in NYC through 1up.com. Now I need to decide which day(s) to go on.

I think I'll probably take a half day on Friday and head over after lunch.

There are a lot of events going on there, but I have to say I'm most interested in the gaming side of things.

There is the Pro-Am Gaming tournament with a $100,000 prize.

There should be tons of yet-unreleased games to demo. I hear that Guitar Hero 3 will be on display. I'm hoping to take a shot at the multi-player action going on there.

All in all it should be a good time.

XNA

Last night I went through the process of installing all the software I needed to start deving on XBox 360. It took longer than I felt it should have to get all the download links for each part.

First I grabbed the XNA specific stuff and tried to install that. It wouldn't work with my copy of Visual Studio 2005 and requires Visual Studio C# Express.

After all that fun, I got all the specifics installed and fired up the IDE for the first time. Visual Studio C# Express has an annoying green tint to it.

So now that all the software is installed on my comp, I need a starting project.

I was thinking of pinball-ish type game. Should be simple enough.

We will see how my motivation turns out.

I picked up Drawn To Life for the DS for nak. Watching her play gave me a nifty game idea, that I may try to flesh out into an project.

What?!

Who needs this kind of help? BestBuy is a silly store.