As mentioned the other day, the Wii roadshow was at Chadstone over the weekend. Justine and I went down to Chadstone last night (Justine wanted to buy something-or-other, I forget what) and popped into the EB store there.

While waiting for a turn at Wii Sports — the Zelda line was very long and each turn took forever, so I’m happy to wait until I get it myself — Justine went and looked for whatever it was she wanted. Upon her return we had a go at the Wii Sports tennis game.

I served; each time I served I’d hear a little floaty sound come out of the remote and a rumble when I hit the serve. Justine had a little trouble with the tennis and hitting the ball appropriately so we had a second go. On the second match Justine hit a few returns and we had a couple of back-and-forths which were quite fun.

From the demo unit, the pointer didn’t seem to work exceptionally well; I’m not sure if this was down to me never having used it, the TV not being setup too well or it generally being crap — probably one of the first two. Roll on December 7!

Last night, I finished Full Throttle. Some of the puzzles I remembered, some I didn’t have much difficulty with, and in one bit I cheated (using a mouse to control a motorbike and fight might be OK, but using a touchpad certainly isn’t!) but that wasn’t part of the puzzles so I don’t mind.

I never noticed it originally, but not only is the game really short, there’s quite a bit in there designed to draw out and lengthen the game. For instance, the Old Mine Road fights I just mentioned earlier are a bit time sink and not really of benefit to the game, as is the ending sequence which is basically trial and error over and over again until you find the right combination of things to do.

It’s a real pity that the two attempts at a sequel were never made (what, you thought there was only one? Apparently one was started just a year after the original but only had a couple of months work done; the second was in a playable form so it must have been pretty awful for them to can it at that point).

I had a lot of fun replaying Full Throttle, I think I am going to give Day of the Tentacle another run through since it too is such a great game. I’m sure a post will soon be entitled “I don’t THINK so.”

This evening I checked out the ScummVM website to see the progress on the SCUMM emulator. When I lasted checked and downloaded the emulator, the developers had started support for non-Lucasarts adventure games but not progressed very far; it was only available for Windows and maybe Linux.

Now, there’s a release for almost every system imaginable: Windows, Mac, Linux, NintendoDS, Windows CE (PDA), Palm PDAs, BeOS(!!), Amiga(double !!), Dreamcast, Symbian OS mobile phones and many, many more.

As well as the SCUMM games, there are a ton of other adventure games now compatible with ScummVM, and just as many that aren’t (all the Sierra ones, for starters).

Since I don’t really have any system capable of running ScummVM other than a Windows machine, I decided to use that to get some nostalgic adventure gaming on. In hindsight, I probably should have played Sam & Max Hit the Road now that Sam & Max: Culture Shock has just been released (well, the first episode of six).

Instead, I opted to play Full Throttle and even though the deepest recesses of my brain still appears to contain information on how to solve a number of the puzzles, I’m having a great time with the game again. In fact, I’ve copied it to my USB stick and am running it directly from there on my work laptop. In bed.

I’m totally sure that the team that made the game never imagined people playing their game like that!

One of the few online stores I’ve bought things from has recently decided to go out of business. Lik-Sang are (were) a Hong Kong-based company that sold video gaming systems, games, accessories and plenty of other cool bits and pieces that you couldn’t get outside of Japan.

Since 2000, I’ve bought from them maybe half a dozen times, and they’d always been fast with orders and their prices — though a tad expensive — weren’t through the roof. Shipping and customer service was also always good.

Two or three years ago they were sued by Nintendo for selling cartridges which were primarily for pirating Gameboy Advance games; it was at this time they changed ownership. A bit later (or perhaps earlier, I haven’t really followed this very closely) they were sued by Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft for selling mod chips.

Again they were sued, and according to them this is the reason for closing their doors. Apparently, Sony has sued Lik-Sang from every Western European country for daring to sell Japanese PSPs (with European/UK adapters, I might add) to Europe and the UK. In the UK, Lik-Sang didn’t turn up in court so Sony won, and are now trying to claim importation of video game equipment is illegal.

Here’s where I start bitching. What the hell is Sony on recently? They get busted for installing software which potentially damages CD/DVD-ROM drives, but don’t apologise. They are forcing BluRay on people with the PS3 and since they can’t manufacture enough diodes for the BluRay drives in time for the PS3 launch, they cut their “worldwide” launch back to half a million units… and Europe (and Australia) have to wait another six months for the “worldwide” launch.

If Lik-Sang were around, people from Europe/Australia who were willing to cough up the cash could have played the PS3 early. The thing is, these people almost always know what they’re getting themselves into — if you import a console you are generally into “the scene” enough to take care of yourself. What right does Sony have to tell me where I can buy a system from? What if I flew to Japan and brought one back? Will my luggage be searched?

Sony seem to be imploding at a mile-a-minute recently, and with all their shenanigans, I think it might just be a good thing.

I’m about to get all geeky and fanboyish for a moment, so if that’s not your thing you might want to come back another day.

I haven’t been excited about the release of a gaming console since perhaps the Saturn, and I definitely haven’t intended on buying one as soon as I can since the SNES — which I did buy and still have. In fact it has the price tag in it; it’s dated 3rd July 1992 and was priced at $299.00.

However, I’m totally geeked-out and excited about the possibilities of Nintendo’s new system, the Wii. If I haven’t already told you about it (and I’m almost certain I will have), it’s an interesting experiment in trying a totally new kind of control. Instead of using a joystick you move the entire motion-sensitive controller. Great idea but massive room for failure.

Anyway, tonight I put some money down to pre-order myself a Wii on December 7th when it comes out, and also pre-ordered the new Zelda game. Now, I rarely pre-order anything. In fact, I’ve pre-ordered exactly once, for the previous Zelda game because of a bonus for pre-ordering which ended up not being a pre-ordering bonus. Such is the gravity of my excitement for a piece of consumer electronics which carries the stigma of only being “for kids”. I think I need to say pre-order or a variation thereof again, so: pre-order.

I’ll be at my local gaming store at midnight of December 6th/7th with ready to part with money so I can geek-out all night long. Sad? Maybe. Fun? Definitely.

This afternoon, I popped down to Chadstone to see what the Nintendo DS Connection Tour ‘06 was like, and to enter the New Super Mario Bros competition to win a new DS Lite.

I took our DS along and was able to download some content for Animal Crossing — Justine got a “fire bar” (one of those spinning rows of fire from Mario that appear mostly in castle levels) and I got a “Star man”, the bouncing stars that give you invincibility.

I also took Nintendogs and met Shigeru Miyamoto’s puppy (probably his “public relations” puppy, and not his own one), who gave me a gift of some sort and a message which I couldn’t really hear as it was too loud. I’m pretty sure it was in English, though.

I discovered that I was too late to enter the competition, as all 256 (the number was fitting, perhaps) entries at the Chadstone competition. I watched a few rounds and then went home.

It must be fate. E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) was on a couple of weeks ago and Nintendo had hands-on demoes of their new Legend of Zelda game, Twilight Princess. Since that game is not due to be out for another six months, and I was eager to get my hands on a Zelda game I hadn’t played before, I decided to jump into Ocarina of Time for what must be my second or third attempt at playing the game.

Ocarina of Time is widely considered to be the best game ever made. It has topped the list at Game Rankings for years and has an almost 1% score higher than it’s nearest competitor. I’m a big fan of the Zelda series, and even though I haven’t played a number of the more recent games (mostly released on handhelds) I always try to get ahold of the major console releases as they come out (which is not particularly often — every 3-4 years).

Still, having only played maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the way though the game, I can see some faults that will most likely score a game quite a bit lower in reviews today. For instance, the control in a lot of cases is quite finicky when compared to more modern games. The graphics have not aged well, but in comparison to similar-vintage games, they’re fine. The story is not particularly advanced, either, but is definitely serviceable for the game.

In fact the biggest gripe I have with the game is the controls; all the other minor flaws I can ignore, but the controls can make what should be some exciting moments a little frustrating.

I was considering writing this post yesterday, but never really got around to it. What’s really interesting is that one year ago yesterday, I wrote a post about The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past game on SNES. It’s kind of fitting, really, since the Zelda games feature the same incarnation of the “Hero of Time” throughout different ages of the fictional land of Hyrule.

So, at around this time next year, expect another post from me about Zelda games. To prepare, I’ve created a link which will show you all of 2007’s May posts. And here it is. But don’t click it yet, it won’t work. OK, go ahead, click it. See if I care. You’re just wasting your time.