One step ahead

New Star Wars: The Clone Wars Lightsaber Duels Trailer

Lucas Arts has up a new trailer for the new Clone Wars: Light Saber Duels game coming out for the Nintendo Wii. The game will be out in time for Christmas 2008.

iPhone: The Band

The future is here, and apparently it sounds vaguely like Final Fantasy.

Marching Band does Video Games

I was in Marching Band in high school and loved the experience. I also loved playing games on friend's Nintendo Entertainment Systems. Who knew someone would find a way to combine the two? For me, this was a nice early-morning laugh-maker.

Lightsabers coming to a Wii near you

Since the Wii was first announced, even the most hardcore skeptics admitted that it looked like a GREAT platform for lightsaber games. Unfortunately, LucasFilm remained uncommitted to the platform. Yesterday, that all changed. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed will be ported to the Wii and all lightsaber control will be done with the Wii-mote. I don't know about you, but I am considering getting in line for my copy now!

Wii continue to change video gaming

Wii Fit Coming Soon

One of the great advantages of the Nintendo Wii as a game system over the others is that it forces the gamer to be active. No more passively sitting like a lump and twiddling your fingers. Instead, you must swing your arms, twist your body, etc. to control the action on-screen. I can feel myself becoming more flexible and stronger the more I Wii. Nintendo has noted this demographic and has announced Wii Fit a new set of games that will work with a new step pad to measure fitness and encourage better health via different kinds of exercises. Very cool, and perhaps the biggest step forward for the health of Americans in a long time!

Wii Transfer

If there are other Nintendo Wii and Mac users out there (and I know of at least one), this is a handy little app you may want to check out. Wii Transfer allows you to share your music and photos between your Mac and your Wii - basically giving you a little bit of the AppleTV functionality on your non-Apple appliance. The way it does it is by setting up a small web server on whatever Mac you are running it on, and streaming music or photos to the Wii thru its Internet Channel (which, by the way, you'll want to pick up right now before Nintendo/Opera take it out of Beta and make it non-free). You can bookmark the Wii Transfer URL, and go back there at any time Wii Transfer is running. The free version will only play individual songs, and puts a big DEMO in the middle of your slideshows. The full version costs $14. But for many of us, free might be all we need.

Yes, we have a Wii...

...and if you own a Nintendo Wii, you know what that means. If you don't, you probably think it means hours of lost sleep. Nope. It means I am sleeping like a BABE, because I am so exhausted from playing this console! I read about the recent diagnosis of "Wii Elbow", and laughed at the out-of-shape people exhausted by playing video games. But, I can tell you that playing even NON-sports games, is EXHAUSTING. But I must say it has been GREAT for my health, as I am now exercising regularly and can really feel the difference as I am more flexible, stronger, and my back has not felt this good since I had surgery years ago. A quick review of the games I have played so far:

Wii Sports: This comes free with the console, but is also EASILY the most fun game I own. And this is not a dig on the other games. But Wii sports - which is a fairly simple set of sports-themed games like tennis, boxing, golf, and bowling - IS simple which means you can start playing on day 1, and have some serious fun. And it is also the most aerobic of the games, which means playing it for 1/2 hour each day counts as exercise.

Wii Play: This game comes free with an extra controller (or is available without, by why bother?) and is focussed on showing what kinds of things you can with the Nintendo Wii's innovative control methods. You race cows, play air hockey, ping pong, and play something like Duck Hunt among other games. Quite fun, but not nearly as fun as Wii Sports. It is worth the extra $10 with a controller, but definitely not worth buying on its own.

Red Steel: This is one of the first First-Person-Shooters for the Wii, and takes advantage of the unique controls to not only shoot guns, but also fight with a sword in each hand. It is a blast to play, although exhausting because you turn and aim by pointing your arm at the screen. However, while is rated "teen", parents should be aware that the weapons include not only bullets and swords, but also every curse word in the book. It is recommended if you are in a house with children (or like me, in a 3-family house with children in a different apartment) that you turn the volume WAY down... or get a different game.

Spider-Man 3: Spider-Man has not only been among the most successful of the super hero adaptions on the big screen, but also among the most successful video game adaptions out there. Spider-Man 1 was fun because you actually got to be the Wall-Crawler. Spider-Man 2 was GREAT because you could swing free-style around the city - I spent hours just exploring for the pure zen peace of it. Spider-Man 3 takes it one more step by allowing you to actually spin webs by flicking your wrists, which gets VERY tiring very quickly. It may actually be MORE tiring than Wii Sports, which is really saying something.

Overall, I have no regrets with buying this system, aside from waking up sore almost every day. But it is that good kind of soreness after a mildly strenuous sports (or marching band) activity, which means you will be stronger tomorrow. And if you want to share your Wii friend code with me, let me know.

Old School

I love the one scene where he is training with Wii Boxing.