Wiidongle!

Apparently, this device has been created before, this is the Ultimate must have for the retro Nintendo gamer. This thing plugs into the Wii, re-utilizing all the old controllers you have laying around.

You know what that means right? Now you don't need those stupid looking Wii Classic Controllers, AND you can use the exact same control scheme you used for Ocarina of Time, Starfox, hell even Super Mario!

According to Kotaku.com, this baby will arrive sometime July for around 20 bucks. If you've got these classic controllers laying around collecting dust and you have some games on the Virtual Console, this thing is a must have.

RETRY: Mario Kart Wii

Mario Kart!!! This game was the bomb diggity on the 64; in fact I have it both in cartridge form and on the Wii hard drive. Simplistic, yet strangely addicting. But It was one of the first games out for the 64, which was an amazing time during gaming history!! I wish I honestly could relive those days.

But I can't, here we are in the late double 0's and we've moved on. Unfortunately not onto better things.

Mario Kart Wii is yet another attempt to cash in on a system empowered only because it's now the prefered choice among families. Lets face, you home types are complete suckers. If I had to bet, you've probably already bought this game and already agree with what i'm going to say about it.

Oh no Mario Kart, I won't be gentle.

Lets start with the good. Now Nintendo did try to make this a good game; they definitely put some work into this. It's extremely refreshing to have the multiple control styles at your disposal. I prefer using the gamecube controller because it allows me to exert better control over the things I'm trying to do. Using the Wiimote, or in combination with the Wheel tends to make things difficult. Very often you'll find yourself slamming into a wall, or being unable to cut a turn in time. It can otherwise be described as a frantic control scheme. Although interesting, it can make the game frustrating.

I never played Double Dash on the gamecube, so I'm unaware how much updating was done compared to the 64 version. A refreshing aspect of the Wii edition has lots to unlock, from new cups to characters and cars, even motorcyles each with their own stats. So it's nice to see Nintendo has tried to improve upon the formula. The tracks look great, racing through Delfino island made me want to play Super Mario Sunshine again.

Now for the bad. This game suffers from what myself and friends refer to as Wii Syndrome, or simply, sometimes we say the game has been "Wiied". What this means is that in the novelty of the Wii, the game trades in any credibility for some "retard-strong fun". That means that anyone can win, regardless of any kind of strategy. If you're at dead last 30 seconds before the race is over, theres still ways to jump all the way to first and win the race. It's really frustrating when you've worked so hard to maintain first the entire race and that little fucker Baby Mario steals your thunder at the last second, potentially causing you to fall somewhere below 6th place.

This problem is caused the games weapons. Weapons were balanced in previous editions, but theres a decent number of weapons that will fuck you over in one way or another now, inevitably causing you to fall behind. And with 12 people racing, the power weapons are not only received often but launched quickly and in succession. You can turn down the frequency of the items, but it doesn't really do much to solve the problem.

Bullet Bill is one of many fuckhead weapons
used to obliterate the competition

The weapons system itself is the entire cause of this game's shittiness. Any two year old can whoop your ass with the right item (I'm looking at you SSBB). This game has been Wiied, and any fun that can be had from this game can and will be sapped from you in an instant.

Its really sad because thats the only thing really bad about this game. It's just SO bad that it ruins the entire experience. Balance out the weapons, and you have a great, multiplayer game on your hands.

The only fun you can get out of this is if you have three other people in the room playing with you so that you can all share your anger and frustrations. Hopefully you'll throw your Wiimote in a direction other than your TV.

Try it again Nintendo; do it right nex t time

DRAW: No More Heroes

Let me set a record straight here. I was a very early supporter of the Wii. From the start, I had a feeling that it would become incredibly succesful, or at least a level far greater than the Gamecube could ever hope to achieve. All of this of course would be dependent on the game publishers. Aside from the Nintendo branded games, most Wii games can be considered, crap.

That said, having previously owned a Wii, one of the greatest games on that console is No More Heroes. Developed by Grasshopper Studios and director Suda 51, otherwise known as Goichi Suda, No More Heroes throws you head on into the role of Travis Touchdown, an arrogant Otaku who finds himself out of money. To solve that, he takes on an assasination gig. He buys a lightsaber-esque weapon online and goes for the kill, decapitating his target known only as Helter Skelter. Blood pours in Tarantino fasion from Skelters neck in a wonderfully pleasant cel-shaded style.

And thats just the opening cinematic.


Meet Travis, he's your average beam katana wielding, Otaku assasin.

No More Heroes shot for simplicity, comboed with easy to learn Wii controls this game became an unlikely winner amongst the garbage that gets put out daily on the Wii. If you've ever played Killer7, then you can expect the weirdness to arise, but not nearly on the same level as Killer7. Theres a decent amount of comedy, I could easily see this as being some sort of late night anime on adult swim.

Using your lightsaber is one of the most awesome feelings on the Wii. You press a button to swing, and when an enemy's health bar is almost depleted, or at the end of a combo attack, an arrow appears on screen. Swing the remote in the direction of the arrow and you'll do an execution style attack, sending blood and humoursly enough gold coins everywhere.

The meat of this game however lies in it's boss fights. These fights can be tough depending on which boss and what difficulty you play on. Ultimately you'll use similar strategies on them all, but they're really fun regardless of that.

You can easily complete the game within 10-14 hours, but you love every second of it and vague story surrouding the Assasins and the level of entertainment from the boss fights keeps you engaged and wanting more.

This is honestly one of the best games you can pick up on the Wii, and on the cheap by now. No More Heroes however did fall into some pitfalls, and the ones it fell into arent exactly forgiveable.

When you're not doing one of the 11 assasination missions, you'll be stuck in a "sandbox" world where the game attempts to recreate some of the fun that GTA brought to the table. You can't run over people, you can't be chased by cops and the things you can do in the sandbox are few and far between. You'll do odd jobs in between your killing sprees to earn money to enter the next mission. But it grows tedious and boring very quickly.

Secondly, the map is horrible. The developers went with a kind of 8-bit background tone because Travis loves the old school video games, so they decided style the map like that. God dammit i'm not kidding here, that map is almost utterly useless. If you can understand what everything is, not get lost, and see the little orange dots scattered around then your brain should be removed, studied, then put into a medical journal. This map is so bad it's completely inexcuseable. But you get by, because the sandbox isn't very big anyways.

If you can find this game on the cheap then I highly recommend it, it'll be worth the low price. Hell I paid the full 50 for it when it came out and i'm satisfied with that purchase (unlike that Dirge of Cerberus purchase....F@#*)

So, we're giving No More Heroes a Draw. We'll have another go at it when the sequel gets out.

Dragonball's turn

Dragonball Z! An incredibly long and drawn out anime series and a slew of games that just can't quite seem to hit the nail on the head. Lets not even talk about "Sagas", I think "Ultimate Battle 22" was worthier of mention than that piece of crap. While we're at it...don't even mention the movie. In fact, lets just pretend the movie never happened.

Got it? Good, moving on.

DBZ has been around for ages now, with games going as far back as Super Nintendo there hasn't been a game that captures the essence of DBZ. The more succesful attempts however as we all know have been the Budokai and Tenkaichi entries.

Budokai being a typical fighting game hasn't really done too much to differentiate itself from the other fighting games people usually buy (i.e. Soul Calibur, Dead or Alive, Street Fighter, Tekken etc.)

Budokai Tenkaichi however took the concept of the Budokai games and transformed it into what is probably the closest thing we've gotten to a true DBZ fighting game.

Tenkaichi introduces an open range battle experience. You and your opponent are slightly "rubberbanded", as in most fighting games. The only difference is you can move as far away from your opponent as you want, but as long as you're locked on, you'll always fly right at your attacker. The lock on function makes it so that you'll be able to hit your opponent in fighting style fasion, cause if you couldn't you'd likely miss with most of your attacks. Disengaging the lock isn't exactly a great idea, because your enemy remains locked on regardless and will automatically fly in your direction.

The battle stages in Tenkaichi are large, which is perfect for DBZ. This kind of game NEEDS huge arenas. It also takes advantage of destructible objects; buildings, mountains, rocks, etc.

Your variety of moves offer you the best in beatdown solutions, and nothing but. You'll throw some punches and kicks to soften em up, and then you'll start throwing some slammers and eventually you'll just blow 'em up. And with something like 120 different characters and forms, you won't be bored with the roster. Pretty much every Hero and Villain makes it into these games.

The funny thing about this game is that it's weak points are because of it's simplicity. Let me clarify by saying that simplicity is by no means a bad thing; some of the best games have a simple concept and control to them. Your moves are farily limited, and your major attacks are not just easily executed, but they're the same across the board. Ultimately, you can cheap your way through this game by just running away, powering up to max, use your super attack and repeat. You can win within 2-3 attacks depending on your opponent. The controls can sometimes feel a bit awkward, especially if you're not used to playing it.

The game boasts lightspeed battles as well, where if you're characters clash, the background grows dark and you button mash your ass off trying to beat your opponent. I don't really have this down, so I lose the lightspeed battle everytime, but it's an interesting break from the normal battle mechanics.

The story mode as you can probably expect, is pretty damn long and will keep you entertained, the later battles can actually be very challenging, and with Tenkaichi 3 being something like 20 bucks now, this really is a worthwhile buy if you're looking for a new and interesting fighting game. It is definitely unique, and you don't have to be a DBZ fan to enjoy it.

So where can Tenkaichi go from here? Well plenty of places. I would like to see something much more complex. The Dragonball series boasts a lot of "moves" and whatnot. I'd like to see more intricasy on those fronts. The lightspeed battles were kind of cool, but I wanted something deeper from them. Ideally, the Wii remote with the addition of the MotionPlus (hopefully coming out soon) could take the best advantage of the Dragonball experience. With nunchuk being one fist, remote being the other, it would be cool to enter a first person mode and then use each fist to try and break through your opponents guard and win the lightspeed battle. Now that would be a workout.

The "rubberband" concept of the fighters keeps the game in check, but I find it to be ineffective. The control scheme adds to the awkwardness of it as well, that entire front can be revamped into something smoother and easier to manipulate.

I think what i'm trying to underline here is that when you watch DBZ, you see all these characters with these powers you honestly wish you had. You see their smirks, thinking they're the most powerful dude ever. Then they start to show off their moves with ease. Thats what the gamer should feel when playing Tenkaichi. They should feel confident in knowing their wide array of moves while still making the controls interesting and fun, they should feel like the battleground is really their playground. The controls should be set up in a way that build off each other, so that the player can recall instantly the difference between doing the Kamehameha and Instant Transmission.

Will we see such a game? Only time (and probably the Wii) will tell.