Button Mash This

So it’s been almost 7 months since the release of the Nintendo Wii and today I finally saw some Wii consoles in stock at a Toronto area Walmart. 7 consoles in fact, I was floored and I was very tempted to buy one. I was surprised and glad to see them on the shelf. They even had a supply of nunchucks in stock (note, I tried going to another Walmart afterwards that did have the console or the nunchuck).

What I did pick up was an orange remote glove which up until now was not being carried in Canada. My previous set was bought in the US and was shipped to me via a friend in Florida. Upon closer inspection, the new glove is ribbed along the side and doesn’t come with the colourful wii straps that our US counterparts get

To wrap it up, I also purchased two new nintendo branded stylus pens (in blue and red). I picked up a set of black and white ones in the US last summer, but again, these were not readily available in Canada until now. Strangely enough, the Canadian version was packed together with DS Lite screen protectors.

The glove and the stylus pens will set up back just under $12 CAD each, they also have gloves that wrap both your remote and nunchuck (that is heat sensitive and changes colour) for just under $20 CAD.

PS: Wendy’s Canada is also carrying Nintendo Wii themed figures and toys, I ended up grabbing a Mario on a shell toy that comes with a mini wii remote. Note that this promotion is pretty much over and the toys left are very limited.

Recently, the social networking site, facebook opened their doors to third party applications. Of note is a Video Game application that allows you to track the video games and consoles that you own, becoming a virtual bragging forum for all your friends to see.

The applications covers all the major consoles from the past two generations, but does not cover the cost of pizza and beer when all your friends want to crash you pad to play on your systems. You’ll also notice that there are titles missing from the vast list, which is a tad annoying, especially if your are an anal-retentive completist like myself.

Back at the beginning of February, my friend Maria hosted a Wii Wednesday in her downtown condo. Present were Joey and Wendy

Games Played - Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, Wii Sports, Wario Ware Smooth Moves, Rayman Raving Rabbids.

Flickr URL * http://flickr.com/photos/photojunkie/400360866/

Flashback to Thursday, February 1st. We were in shock too when we had a special Wii night at the Whippersnapper Gallery, where we had 5 Wii consoles, 4 projectors and Dell Monitor all running simultaneously. Thanks to Chris and Jess and the folks at Whippersnapper for providing the space. Thanks to Eli for bringing and extra projector. And also thanks to Jon and Sam who also provided their Wii.

You can see a gallery of images from the night over at Flickr

Flickr URL * http://www.flickr.com/photos/photojunkie/377209975/

Andy playing Rayman Raving Rabbids

This week’s Wii Wednesday brought us out to Andy Walker’s swanky pad in the west end of town. It was an intimate event of three as we we’re join by his roommate and web designer, Steve Huntriss. The smaller crowd and access to Andy’s wifi actually allowed us to completely tour through all of the Wii online capabilities. It also proved that Steve’s coding on both the Cyberwalker site and Little Geeks site was dead on, rendering perfectly in Wii’s Opera browser. We also discovered the importance of giving users the ability to increase font size (as most sites are harder to read on the browser. NOTE: the Wii was setup for widescreen in this instance, so that may have had some influence on the fonts size). I also learned that the browser doesn’t quite know what to do with Flash content as we tried to watch a video on Andy’s Lab Rats site.

See this is what happens when you visit an internet geek’s place like Andy. You end up checking out the online features for the first hour before getting into the games. As well as discuss the pros and cons of Vista.

I assure you, we did finally get some play in and proved to Steve and myself that Andy’s not the most co-ordinated person, especially during some of the Rayman Raving Rabbids mini games. Although he did redeem himself at the end of the evening by beating us out during a game of Darts on Wario Ware: Smooth Moves.

Games Played - The News Channel, The Weather Channel, The Internet Channel, The Mii Channel, Wii Sports, Excite Truck, Rayman Raving Rabbids, Wario Ware : Smooth Moves.

Flickr URL * http://flickr.com/photos/photojunkie/376236303

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So there’s gonna be a top secret Wii party tomorrow evening. It will involve 4 Wii and anyone with a Nintendo DS. If you want details drop me a line.

PS: Just so you have a better understanding… There is gonna be 4 Wii, 3 projectors, 1 TV and a room full of Nintendo DS users.

Flickr URL * http://www.flickr.com/photos/photojunkie/374214471/

The third stop of the Photojunkie GTA Wii Tour brought us out to Ryan’s place in the east end. We actually got through a sampling of quite a number of games throughout the evening and I witnessed my first flying remote, when BlogTO contributor Penar let go of it during Wii Sports. I was shocked, but no damage was done.

It was quite an amusing evening considering all the attendees were filled with testosterone and all contributors to BlogTO. The evening ended with us huddled around Ryan’s computer checking out some really funny video’s on YouTube. Hmm, you know, we could have actually done it on the Wii’s Opera browser, perhaps next time.

Games Played - Excite Truck, Tony Hawk’s Down Hill Jam, Wii Sports, Wario Ware : Smooth Moves, Rayman Raving Rabbids.

Remember when the GameBoy first came out and Tetris was the big craze. I was in highschool then. Well it looks like the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation got a license to create a Scratch and Win version of the game. So for a mere $3 you can have a chance to win up to $75,000. That can buy you a lot of video games. I thought I’d give it a try.

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Simply because The Legend of Zelda : Twilight Princess allows you to “retry” after continual fiery deaths in lava pits, it doesn’t mean that your game is saved. After playing for about 3 or 4 hours on Friday night, I turned off my Wii and went to bed, only to wake up on Saturday morning at Faron Woods instead of the Goron Mines. Let me say I was a little upset, but doing everything over, only took half the time. Save your game people! You laugh, but I know the same thing has happened to other people, so I know I’m not alone on this.

In any case, I’ve currently made my way to The Lakebed Temple and I must say that swimming can be really frustrating. The scary part is that I have around 18 hours logged in and I’m barely a third of the way finished. But accouding to the Zelda Completion Calculator, I’ve done only about 20% of the gameplay.

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