Nintendo’s Wii Review

Although the Nintendo Game Boy was my first real gaming device, I have never been overly attracted to Nintendo products. Despite this, I still convinced myself I needed a Wii and I made the purchase two Christmases ago. Overall, the Wii does a good job of doing exactly what it was made to do. It is a very active and kinesthetic gaming console that revolves around direct body control through the motion sensor and Wii Motion Plus. It has revolutionary technology that has changed the face of the gaming industry and has brought games such as Super Smash Bros. to life in a whole new way.

The motion detection and accuracy of the Wii was astounding from the beginning and this has only been improved with the installment of Wii Motion Plus. The Wii also opens the doors to new types of lifestyle games such as exercise/workout games that walk you through workout routines and provide immediate feedback on how to improve your workout methods. Adventure games such as The Legend of Zelda have also been added to the Wii along with the Call of Duty series and many others. These were both major steps for Nintendo because they showed the wide range of games that the console could support and it also aloud diehard fans of such games to experience them in a whole new way. The Wii is also capable of internet browsing and supports applications such as Netflix for instant movie streaming.

Despite these positive features, there are still many major drawbacks to the Wii. I am not a gamer that focuses solely on graphics, but when it comes to the Wii it was an undeniable disappointment. The graphics that the Wii supports is comparable to the original PlayStation Portable. This has made many fans upset and has limited the Wii’s marketability as a mature gaming console. Other major drawbacks include things such as the controller’s short battery life and the lack of a CD/DVD player.

In conclusion, the Wii is a descent console to be used in a relaxed gaming environment such as a family or party setting. It is easy to use and has such a broad range gaming styles that cannot be found on any other console.

P.S. The main reason for this review was a lead up to one of my major game reviews, which I will be posting in the near future. This will be on The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, which is only available on the Wii. This is the latest major installment in The Legend of Zelda series and is the first to utilize the Wii Motion Plus feature.

10 Reasons Why Ezio Auditore of Assassin’s Creed is a Badass

Image from Photobucket.com

10) He has a hidden blade

9) He can jump from any height so long as there is a hay stack at the bottom

8) He rebuilt all of Rome

7) He has a half cape

6) He’s scaled the Colesium

5) He’s homies with Leonardo Da Vinci

4) He’s talked to aliens

3) He was the first man to fly (Take that Wright Brothers!)

2) He got in a fist fight with the Pope

1) He is Italian

My Recently un-dusted PlayStation 3

 

I’ve been playing video games for as long as I can remember, it’s just something I grew up with. In my more early years of gaming the Xbox certainly took a backseat role. There were much more games for my other systems that appealed to me, and also I did not appreciate the huge awkward controller that belonged to the original Xbox. But when the Xbox 360 came out, it instantaneously became my main gaming system. The controllers were perfect, the graphics were great, and the game selection was wonderful. Out the three main systems, xbox exclusives proved to be my favorite. Only the occasional Wii exclusives (such as super smash bros brawl, or paper mario) would detour me from my Xbox 360. All the while the playstation 3 that my dad bought sat in my living room, virtually untouched.

Even now the only use my Playstation is receiving running an old Playstation 1 game that me and my dad used to play all time. You’ll hear more about that later. My main point is, my Playstation has been there the whole time, and not once has a PS exclusive come out that has compelled me to get it. That is, not until now. A Playstation exclusive is coming out in the very immediate future that I just have to get. I can’t wait to get my hands on it and you’ll hear about it soon enough.

My Personal History of Gaming

Let me begin by introducing myself. My name is Sam and I have been an avid gamer since as far back as I can remember. Although gaming is only one of the many activities that I participate in, it is one of the biggest and most time consuming things that I do daily. I am the proud owner of an Xbox 360 along with many other consoles, but my life as a gamer was not always so luxurious.

Let me take you back to when I first got my hands on a gaming device. I was around 6 or so and my family had ventured out to Disneyland for a quick vacation. At this point in my life I was desperate for a Game Boy and I had been bugging my parents endlessly for one. When we got to Disneyland I saw it, a red, Mickey Mouse shaped handheld gaming device. It was much less advanced than Nintendo’s Game Boy, but it incorporated many elements of the Disneyland experience was solely based on Mickey Mouse.

From there I moved on to a real Game Boy. My friend and I would always meet at his house, each with our Game Boys, and trade games back and fourth until we had fully exhausted each other’s collection. Soon enough our Game Boys were not sufficient and my friend got a Gamecube. This led to hours spent on his living room couch attempting to score in quittage, trying to find princes Zelda, killing giant robots in Rocket Power and many other important activities. The Game cube was fun but it did not last. That Christmas my friend got an Xbox original. Along with his Xbox came Halo 1. The idea of an 8 foot tall, steroid-induced super-soldier running around killing obnoxious alien beings bent on destroying our galaxy did not appeal to my parents and so I was forced to play the game in secret.

From the Xbox I moved to the computer. Internet games were the trend in 5^th grade. I played everything from MMORPGs to free flash based games. Websites like Shockwave and AddictingGames became my life. Although Internet games were fun, they only held my interest until I finally convinced my parents to allow me to get an Xbox 360. This has been my main weapon in the gaming world sense 7^th grade and without it I would have way more free time. Although the red ring of death is a pain to deal with and the fact the disks constantly get scratched for no apparent reason is extremely obnoxious, overall my Xbox 360 has done its job of consuming countless hours of my life. Although my Xbox is currently my favorite console, it is hard to tell what the future of gaming will bring. But I know that without a doubt I will be ready to upgrade when the time comes for the release of the next major gaming console.

How I Think the [Prototype] Series Will Be Similar To the Assassin’s Creed Series

Even the most casual of gamers have at least heard of the Assassin’s Creed series, but not everyone knows of it’s more humble beginnings, and my theory is that [Prototype] is the humble beginning of what could be a fairly popular series.

Although the first Assassin’s Creed was a fairly good game I do believe Ubisoft could have done a much better job with it, after all the game did come out in 2007. On the other hand there’s [Prototype], a game that (in my opinion undeservingly) sold enough copies to be considered a platinum hit. I picked this game up about a year or so ago when I was looking for just about anything that wasn’t first person shooter, what I got didn’t impress me.

Plot: Assassin’s Creed has an amazingly original plot, while [Prototype]….. not so much. what makes a plot original for me is whether or not another game could be made with a similar plot. No game could ever make a plot similar to Assassin’s Creed, but a game with a plot similar to [Prototype] is a different story. The plot is basically a sketchy company is preforming biological experiments on unsuspecting civilians, one such civilian escapes and possesses awesome powers and now seeks to find the men who did this to him and make them pay. Come on, that’s so generic it’s almost cliché.

Graphics: I for one am not too picky about graphics in a game, but both of these games were significantly under the norm of graphic quality for their time. Both games have pretty bland and unoriginal graphics. The cut-scene graphics for [Prototype] are also nothing to be proud of, the lip synching is awful, characters show little to no emotion, and their movement is awkward. Assassin’s Creed’s cut-scenes however were very welly animated; it makes me wonder why they didn’t take the time to improve in-game graphics a bit more.

Animation: I might not be picky when it comes to graphics but animation quality is a whole different story. I cannot stand games with awkward animations, it constantly brings me out of the game and downgrades my experience all around. Assassin’s Creed’s animations were pretty awkward, the character didn’t move fluidly at times and interactions with the environment and other characters were awkward. [Prototype]’s animation is smooth, but things don’t behave how you would expect them to. For example, when you are holding someone in the air by their neck, and proceed run around a little bit, their body flails around like a rag doll. Also when you throw a car it seems to glide through the air, it just doesn’t feel like your throwing a car.

Game-play: [Prototype] runs on a generic super-hero game engine, this disappointed me  greatly. I felt like I was playing a spider-man game for god’s sake! On the other hand Assassin’s creed runs on an original game engine, but it didn’t seem to have all the kinks worked out of it. Each game has original game-play aspects which I appreciate. Since Assassin’s Creed runs on such an original game engine just about every aspect of it is original so I won’t bother going into it. [Prototype] includes just about anything you could expect to be in a super-hero like game such as, flight, disguising, wall running, hand to hand combat (obviously), and stealth missions, but it also includes something you wouldn’t expect in a typical super hero game, the ability to pick up weapons and drive vehicles. Also by (for lack of a better word) consuming people the main character gains their memories, this might be more of a plot aspect, but it also serves a purpose in game-play, because you can gain certain abilities by doing so.

Assassin’s Creed had more advantages to begin with than [Prototype] does, so I don’t see [Prototype] becoming anywhere as big as Assassin’s Creed, but [Prototype] definitely has potential. There are enough original aspects to the game-play to make it distinguishable from other similar games, and the plot seems to thicken a bit in [Prototype] 2 when the main character switches to an army official bent on tracking down the main character from the first. Who knows, maybe the two main characters will start recruiting people and giving them powers as well, then the next game could be called [Prototype]: Brotherhood. Then I would be able to say I told you so.

p.s. just for the record I wont normally be this critical of games, this review type thing just called for it!