zerolight

Despite the ridiculous stock shortages (a year after launch) I managed to get myself a Wii from Amazon.de (who have now closed doors to UK customers). All may not be lost for those looking to buy before Christmas though, as Nintendo have announced they are flying in “emergency” stock for the UK in time for Christmas – which feeds the conspiracy theorists who suggest Nintendo has been withholding stock to increase demand.

Anyway, I have mine now. The original plan was to sell the PS3 to fund it, however, wife permitting, I may back down on that notion, and just keep both. Positive thoughts… abundance of wealth.

It’s tiny. Really small. About the size of an internal DVD burner in a PC tower. It’s about as powerful as a last gen Xbox. Powering up for the first time is a little underwhelming. Over a year of hi-def gaming on the 360 and PS3 mean the standard definition output of the Wii looks distinctly last gen. The component leads do a decent job of crisping up the picture on an HDTV, but all that scaling on a 40″ TV comes at a visual price. If you’ve plugged an Xbox into an HDTV you know what to expect. Get over the resolution, and all the jaggies it brings with it, and there’s a lot of fun to be had.

I’m not entirely sold on Wii Sports – aimed directly at the casual gamer. It’s amusing, and could be a laugh with some company – Zee won’t even look at it. There’s no denying the motion controls give it a unique and appealing flavour. However, there’s more to the Wii than Wii Sports.

Super Mario Galaxy is outstanding. We’re talking Game of the Year, better than Halo, totally outstanding stuff here. It’s familiar, friendly, cute, and cuddly. It’s utterly, stark raving mad, bonkers. It plays flawlessly. It’s a gem. If there was ever proof that games don’t need to be online to be stellar – this is it. It’s a system seller, the Wii’s killer app. Should you buy a Wii for just this one game? Absolutely. This is Nintendo back on form.

Zelda: Twilight Princess. Good grief, this game looks so grim when you power up the Wii. Blurry, low resolution textures. Jaggies. Geometry that’s so last gen it could be running on the Game Cube. It is, after all, a Game Cube game with Wii controls bolted on. The first hour or so does it no favours either. Stick with it and you’ll find yourself in a game world that’s just dripping with atmosphere… blurry low resolution atmosphere right enough, but Nintendo gets it right where it counts. Behind those clunky polygons and low res textures hides a beautiful, wonderful game. I like it more than any other Zelda game, except maybe the Phantom Hourglass on the DS, but it’s a close call. Shame that the eBay pond scum sold me a disc so badly pitted and scratched that it was unreadable – it took an hour with some fine sandpaper (yes you read right) to polish out most of those scratches to get it booting on the Wii.

Metroid Prime 3. The Jury is still out here. EDGE gave this a 7/10 in total opposition to every other review. And yet they loved it, after they got past the first couple of hours. I’m not that far in, but thus far it’s a bit generic, good but not great, but with a really neat control scheme. Yes, I used the word neat despite the fact I’m not from the Midwest of the USA. I’ll reserve judgment – Eurogamer loved it (9/10), and for the most part my preferences tend to align with theirs. edit: Jury’s back in – Metroid is officially great!

So three classic hardcore games from the big N then. And gameplay ahead of graphics – though saying that, SMG does look wonderful. The only fly in the ointment is the lack of HD visuals. Maybe on the Wii2 – the Poo?

As Ian already mentioned in his blog, the next few weeks are proving to be a bumper month for AAA console game releases. I have a slightly different list, and unfortunately mine are all must haves (for me) whereas I’m sure Ian will give or take on his list. Coming to a 360 near me: Halo 3, Skate, Sega Rally, PGR4, Half Life 2: Orange Box, and thankfully futher out in November – Mass Effect. I may buckle at get PES on the PS3 instead of Sega Rally, but I doubt it.

I think I’ve played the Skate demo more than any other game this month… I suspect the full game will see more console time than Halo 3. It’s also a fact that generally I have a couple of hours per week to get some gaming time… such that I’ve barely scratched the surface of Bioshock (it’s not toddler friendly).

Anyway, to the title of the post. How do you fund your gaming habit. For me proud father and skint husband, I sold off every game I own (bar Bioshock, Tiger Woods 08, Motorstorm, and Forza 2. That’s some hefty instore credit at Blockbuster which funds 4 out of 5 of the immediate purchases. I don’t want to think what I’ll be selling off in November to fund the habit. They say the first step to a cure is admitting you have a problem. My name is zerolight. I’m an addict.

It’s not a game I have any intention of buying, but I thought I’d download the demo on both 360 and PS3 to see how they stack up, after all, it pushes the hardware pretty hard. The result? The PS3 version had much more detailed textures, and had significantly better lighting. This was quite a surprise as I expected them to be much of a muchness. Control-wise the 360 version nudges ahead, the PS3 version’s triggers sometimes seemed to lag when firing your guns – this might just have been a problem with the demo build though. Aside from that, the famous Dual Shock dead zone wasn’t present – the PS3 game felt just as responsive as the 360 game and nowhere near as poor as Resistance: Fall of Man. Chock up a win to the PS3 then… which tends to suggest that the PS3 might end up with better versions of DiRT, PES, and GTA after all.

Now my impressions of the 360’s E3 showing are nothing but positive. I’m going to be selling off a lot of games to fund my post E3 must have list. Assasin’s Creed looks exceptionally promising. Mass Effect is essential. PGR4 looks glorious. Although I have no desire to go online with Halo 3’s multiplayer component, the recent footage of the single player campaign (possibly online co-op) has confirmed that as a necessary purchase. So Halo 3 and PGR4 in September, Mass Effect in November, and of course GTA IV in October – all for the 360 – not to mention Pro Evo Soccer before the end of the year too. Perhaps GTA and Pro Evo might be PS3 purchases. Perhaps the PS3 will go to fund the habit? We’ll soon find out.

Another disappointment. I’m beginning to wonder why I bought a PS3 – my 360 still gets all the gaming time. Still, a couple of trailers showed promise, noteably Killzone 2 and GT5 – speaking of which, this really can’t be in-game, can it? Half is clearly rendered, but from the shot of NYC on it appears to be game footage. Oh, and I just watched the trailer for the new MGS game… now that does look impressive, though I’ve never quite got into the MGS series. Maybe not as disappointing as I initially thought.

edit: In a bid to convince myself that I should just sell the PS3, I fired it up today – fully expecting to be underwhelmed by the whole experience, and utterly convinced that the GT:HD Concept demo would pale in comparison to Forza 2. I was pleasantly surprised by the experience. Though the games are few and far between, the PS3 is a pleasant gadget to use, and GT:HD definitely held it’s own… I think there’s a chance that the long awaited GT5 could well topple Forza’s thrown. Then again, the mammoth deadzone in the controller could make Killzone 2 unplayable. I’ll hold on to it a little longer – PES and GTIV could well turn out to be better on the PS3 than the 360.