Categories
Sport Video games

New Wii tennis?

Wow, they’ve really improved the graphics on Wii tennis.

Categories
driving Video games

Coolest Mini ever

Spotted in Centre Road, Bentleigh:

Categories
Consumerism transport Video games

Super Mario tram

Also last night, how’s this for combining my interests of transport and classic video gaming? The Super Mario tram — celebrating 25 years of Mario games.

Categories
Film Retrospectives Video games

The toy of the movie of the game

Spotted in K-Mart: Lego Prince of Persia. So let me get this straight… this is the toy of the movie of the video game. I wonder if there’ll be (as there was with Star Wars and others) a Lego video game of it. That would be the game of the toy of the movie of  ... [More]

Categories
transport Video games

Retro trains

Melbourne’s Comeng trains date back to the early 1980s, about the same time us Gen-Xers were cutting our video game teeth with Donkey Kong and Space Invaders. (Original unmodified pic) There’s certainly other things of the 80s around the place on the train network, for instance this sign on a now unused gate at Caulfield  ... [More]

Categories
Video games

The hero

A while back we were in EB Games in Swanston Street having a look at the big Nintendo area on the first floor. Jeremy sat and played a bit of New Super Mario Brothers with another kid. Both being experienced players, they gave the very last level a go. But towards the end, Jeremy’s character  ... [More]

Categories
Video games

It’s Mario month!

Isaac noticed the Best Before date on our current jar of Vegemite is MAR10. That makes it Mario Month this month! I think I’ll go play some more New Super Mario Brothers Wii. Then maybe I’ll make a Vegemite sandwich. (Though it doesn’t strictly have to be used by the end of the month; note  ... [More]

Categories
Video games

Avatars

One of the fun things with the Wii is creating your “Mii” — that is, an avatar used in some of the games. While the kids got busy creating some favourite fictional characters, my avatar looks like me. Here’s mine, seen in Wii Sports Resort, playing table tennis. Guitar Hero doesn’t use the standard, cartoon-like  ... [More]

Categories
music Video games

It’s the Beatles!

Today’s release of The Beatles Rock Band video-game and the remastered CDs is enough to get me excited about the band all over again. Not that I’ll rush out and replace my collection of CDs with these new ones, but it’s sorely tempting to buy my the new versions of a few favourites, such as  ... [More]

Categories
Video games

Wii Sports Resort – For The Win!

Okay I admit it, we fell for the hype, Jeremy and I. The demos of the game at the EB Games Nintendo Experience thing in Swanston Street, and Jeremy’s participation in a Nintendo event at Southland convinced us to pre-order Wii Sports Resort from EB Games. In doing so we gained an extra (so two  ... [More]

Categories
Geek / tech Retrospectives Video games

Geek Idol

I’ve had few real idols; people of whom I could genuinely say “I want to be like them.” In my early-to-mid 20s, Ben Elton was one of them. Amazingly funny, both on stage and in his writing. I wanted to write stuff that was half as good as his books, but never quite managed to  ... [More]

Categories
Consumerism Video games

EB Games

Reasons to like and dislike EB Games. Good — price matching. I walked into the Elizabeth Street store with a printout showing that Big W had Mario Kart $30 cheaper and the guy didn’t blink, and happily matched the price. Good — unlike many of the staff in the department stores (especially the cheap ones),  ... [More]

Categories
Video games

How fit are wii?

I’m still really enjoying the Wii. The favourite game with the kids is tennis, playing on one side together, though we’re getting good at it and it’s been giving us some pretty tough opponents. (I can only imagine that tennis purists are aghast at Wii Sports tennis; from the “best of 1/3/5 games” to the  ... [More]

Categories
Doctor Who Friends and loved ones Video games

Brief things

Haven’t blogged for a bit, so here’s a brief catch-up. I helped Tony and Rae and family move last week. The inevitable comment that pops up when geeks move house: packing the moving van is like Tetris. Of course, when you get a full row of boxes, they don’t disappear and make more space… The  ... [More]

Categories
Consumerism Video games

The socks I always wanted

I got the socks I always wanted at K-Mart the other day.

Categories
Geek / tech Video games

Back to the arcade

It was like stepping back in time. Down the stairs we went, into the darkness. Electronic beeps and bloops could be heard from all directions. Flickering lights. Most of the classics were there. Centipede. Galaga. Ms Pacman. Asteroids. Space Invaders. Donkey Kong. And more. A handful in cocktail tabletop cabinets, but most the way God  ... [More]