I was not a fan of the “Postal” games, they struck me as raunchy and pointless. But Uwe Boll’s taken things to a whole new level of offensive, raunchy, and pointless. Seriously, I don’t recommend watching this trailer unless you REALLY want to know what I’m talking about, but I seriously regretted giving in to the curiosity within the first 10 seconds of the trailer.

I guess I should be thankful, at least Boll didn’t get a hold of the Halo movie rights. There’s still some sense left in it all…

What is increasingly clear is that none of these people have ever handled a gun in their lives.

What’s amusing to me, though, is how all of the defenders of Nintendo have jumped in and essentially shut up the parents who were complaining about it.

For anyone who’s not familiar, the Wii Zapper doesn’t look ANYTHING like a real gun. Additionally, it’s my understanding that the “shoot” trigger is the forward one and not the rear one (thus taking away any shooting function similarity to a real gun). Finally, the Wii Zapper isn’t really good for recoil, unless you consider a shake that’s softer than a cell phone on vibrate as being “realistic”.

Then again, this is from New Jersey, as one commenter wrote, “the Sheeple State”…

This game I’ve been waiting for since buying a Wii. This was originally supposed to be a launch title, but it got pushed back (in Nintendo’s defense, they already had Zelda as the epic game at launch, I wouldn’t have thrown out all the cards right away either in hindsight). It’s the first shooter that has been totally built from the ground up for the Wii. It was apparently mostly ready during the launch, but according to Reggie, they didn’t want to release it until it was perfect.

Reggie, I don’t care what anyone else says, you’re my hero.

I’ve only played the first hour of this supposedly 20-odd hour of the Magnum Opus in the Metroid Prime trilogy, and let me say: It rocks.

The first hour, I feel, barely scratches the surface of the game, but so far, here’s what I can tell you. The motion system for actions feels fairly natural. Took me a while to get used to some of the motions, but once I got them down, it made sense and just kind of flows. The controls took some getting used to because I expected the shooting to be done with B and jumping with A, but it’s the other around, but I didn’t figure out until an hour in that you can flip them, and now I’m used to it, so flipping it’s pointless, except maybe to save me trouble in my other shooters.

To put it into perspective, how many have played Halo?

*waits for a show of hands*

Good, Halo 2?

*waits for another show of hands*

Good. Now, who remembers those annoying little dudes with the blaster pistol and shield combo, that you had to usually nade because you couldn’t shoot through the shield.

*waits for show of hand*

Mmmkay. Picture those guys, only instead of doing that, you use the grapple lasso to rip it off their arm, then put them down with a rapid burst of fire. Sound more fun?

*waits for nodding*

It is. And Samus is officially my hero, after fighting Ridley in a Lord of the Rings Gandalf vs. Balrog falling scene, and finishing him off by shoving his beak open with her feet and putting a charged shot down his dinosaur-looking, plasma-spewing throat.

Well… That’s all the update for now. I’ll keep you posted.

Wii 1, Others 0.

Hmmm… Karaoke Revolution, anyone?

Recently, Blizzard had a countdown going, listing every day one of their previous titles, and at the end of the timeline was a big “?”. Speculation ran rampant as the countdown drew nearer, and now the countdown is done, and the question answered: Just what the heck does Blizzard have up their sleeve?

Starcraft II, kiddies, and not a moment too soon.

I played this in high school. It goes down as one of my absolute favorite games ever. How Blizzard kept this under wraps for so long is beyond me, but it was worth the suspense.

Unfortunately, this means I’ll probably have to look into upgrading my system. Jerks.

I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time…

MSNBC has spent a lot of time on my bad side over the years, but now, I have a new favorite news channel.

Between Chris Matthews slapping Thompson down on hardball, to this now, I’m as giddy as a kid in a candy shop. Seriously, no media outlet’s ever taken this much time to denounce what Thompson does.

Thank you, MSNBC, may you beat the tar out of him in whatever lawsuit may follow…

To start, when was the last time you bought a console that came with a game right out of the box? Super Nintendo? Yeah, it’s been a while. So the fact that the Wii comes with one hearkens to a day when the game companies actually wanted you to have fun with their consoles, instead of spending all the time oogling over the technical specs and having to spend an extra 50 bucks on a game.

This isn’t to say Wii Sports is the end all game that will keep you satisfied game-wise for the rest of its life cycle. Wii Sports is actually more like a tech demo. A really fun tech demo, that I still bust out and play one month later, but a tech demo all the same. It lets you basically see everything your shiny new white box can do. There’s baseball (simplified game mechanics, but its basically throwing and hitting), bowling (addictive and great for multiplayer), golf (freaking hard, even with only four clubs to choose from), tennis (my personal favorite, albeit if you get 4 players going, it might get dangerous), and boxing (the only one that uses the nunchuk, and no, you can’t beat someone with one hand tied behind your back. Believe me, I’ve tried).

Wii Sports isn’t the reason most people bought a Wii. Most people bought it because of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I’m no exception. I loved Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on SNES, one of my all-time favorite game rentals as a kid (and to date my favorite Game Boy Advance game), and after trying the demo at EB Games, I was hooked (fishing pun aside – what got me was how much fun I had reeling in fish). The game was my first purchase to compliment my new console.

The game is epic. I mean, seriously epic. I thought that Ocarina of Time for the N64 was big. This game is huge. Not just huge, but gorgeous as well. Despite the Wii’s lack of the horsepower behind the X-Box 360 or the Playstation 3, the game looks incredible. I’ve logged about 30 hours of gameplay, and I’m still finding new things (for instance, I just unlocked a mountain area. I didn’t even know there WAS a mountain area aside from Death Mountain). Throw in the joys of horseback combat (Hi-ho, Epona, awaaaaay!) and some of the fun gadgets like the gale boomerang (which you can lock onto up to 5 targets and throw. Particularly effective on flocks of birds, you’ll bring them right into sword range stunned), and, of course, fishing (which is one of the highlights, I told one of the EB employees “I’d pay 50 bucks just for the fishing element!”), and you have a monster of a game. And, it’s fun to play. I’ve played fewer and fewer truly fun games as of late, so when I find one, I’m happy.

I also presently posess two other Wii games, NEed for Speed Carbon and Wii Play. Wii play, like Wii Sports, is very much a tech demo. It’s filled with little 1-2 player games that teach you how the controls can be used (tilt the controller forward to make the cow run faster. Genius, I say!). And, for those who are anxios for the return of the “Duck Hunt” franchise in late 2007, you’ll be glad to hear that Wii Play includes a duck hunt clone mini game where you shoot targets (but occasionally, you can shoot ducks for extra points =). Need for Speed Carbon, while it’s menu interface controls aren’t well thought out, is a fun game all the same, and plays to a strength I never knew I had – In the basic control configuration, tilting the controller left or right turns your car left or right. All my childhood, I was made fun of for leaning with my controller while playing racing games as if it made any difference. Well, you know what?

THE DAY IS MINE! MWAHAHAHA!!!

And, with forthcoming releases, I’m getting pretty excited for what’s next. Super Mario Galaxy & Metroid Prime 3, both late 2007, look like they’ll be awesome, and, hello, Mario Party 8? How much stranger can the mini games get with motion-sensing controllers?

Gamers, life is good.