Wario Land: Shake It! is Nintendo’s newest “platformer”, released here in the states on September 22^nd. Like most people, I haven’t yet had the opportunity to play it, but have been looking forward to it since visiting this amazing YouTube page:

After reading the game overview on Nintendo.com, I’ve decided that Mario Land: Shake It! could be right up there with Super Mario Galaxy as the Wii’s best platform game to be released so far. The game control seems to incorporate Nintendo’s classic game play and Wii’s new style of interactive play beautifully. As stated in the overview “The controls are standard for a Wii Remote held sideways (D-pad, buttons), but with an important twist: most of Wario’s special moves are accomplished by shaking or tilting the Wii Remote. This allows great versatility but without forcing the player to remember complicated button combinations“.

To learn more about Wario Land: Shake It!, visit the officially website: wariolandshakeit.com. Hopefully I’ll have as much fun playing the game as I did playing on it’s website! I’ll make sure to share my review of Shake It! as soon as I can. But if you’ve already had the opportunity to play this game, please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

…and may have gotten away with it.

I for one am a long time Nintendo fan. Like many, I can vividly remember my days as a youth spent mashing buttons on the old cabbage green-screened Game Boy, and like very few, I actually remember playing a Virtual Boy.

Gone are the wonderful days of my and Nintendo’s youth. And with the release of Super Smash Bros Brawl last month, I can only imagine what journey the company will take me on next. Until I actually sat down and thought about it.

Super Smash Bros Brawl is an amazing addition to the Smash franchise (just a trilogy for now but even Lucas said that about Star Wars…). Depth is abundant with this release, as I can spend just as much time playing anonymous foes from across the country as I can designing and testing my own level. And the plethora of match/item/rule combo’s are more then enough to keep the entertainment fresh for hours on end.

But the one thing I, and many other gamers alike, have been the most excited for, is exactly where Nintendo let us down. The online play.

Sure it’s all well and good that I can at the press of a button play some backwoods small town kid who has never even seen anything beyond his trailer and local Wal-Mart, but the pain in the ass-ness of the “Friends List” and the inability to create a match and invite your friends on your own is a big disappointment. I am quite far from a game programmer, but I’m sure it’s not that hard to create a system that displays the various match rooms, and who’s playing in them, and whatever other information the online player may deem necessary. EA can seem to pull it off pretty easily without sacrifice to the depth and playability of their games, why can’t such a gaming Mecca like Nintendo?

Not only would a match room based system be easier to navigate and see who you’re playing against, it would also alleviate the constant “server trouble” that Nintendo and it’s fans experience when everyone and their Grandmother attempt to get online. I liken this whole experience to a Big Mac meal at McDonalds.

We ordered a #1, but Nintendo forgot to give us our fries, didn’t put cheese on the burger, and gave us Diet Coke when we clearly ordered Coke.

Thomas K. Hooker

The Nintendo Wii is the best thing to happen to video games since… well, the NES. Wii has made video games fun again. All of those complicated first person shooter type games that controlled the video game market pre-Wii began to feel like work! In my opinion, you shouldn’t have to refer to a 500-page strategy guide every two minutes just to play a game. I often used to miss the days of the original Mario Bros. Games, Yoshi’s Island, Donkey Kong Country, etc. The game play could be challenging at times, yet easy enough to master. Thanks to Wii, games like that are being made yet again.

I was SO excited that Christmas when I got my NES. Frantically, I rushed to hook it up to the TV and inserted the Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt cartridge. I was young and didn’t have much experience playing video games – I stunk at it actually. But the thing is, I must have sat there in front on the TV for five hours straight, having a blast the entire time! Years later, I enjoyed SNES the same way. I had fun with my N64 too, but not as much. After that, I strayed away from Nintendo. I went from Playstation, to PS2, and then to Xbox 360. The 360’s graphics look great and I really enjoyed playing it. I had heard about the Wii and seen many commercials for it, but to be honest, I thought it looked kind of cheesy. But after learning about how you can download a ton of original NES games to the virtual console, I knew I had to have one. As new games were being released for Wii, I started to realize how much I enjoyed playing them over 360 games. I really like the fact that a lot of Wii games offer co-op play. It’s nice to play a game with someone who is actually sitting in the same room with you, not someone on the internet a thousand miles away. But the best part about the Wii is the games. The first time I played Super Mario Galaxy, I got that same feeling that I had that Christmas morning many years ago. I feel the same way about Smash Bros. Brawl and even Super Mario Strikers Charged. And I’m sure I’m going to love the new Mario Kart Wii just like I loved the original Mario Kart.

My point is: playing video games shouldn’t feel like work. After working all day you should be able to go home, relax, zone out and play something fun. Games don’t need to be so intense and serious to be entertaining. It may sound silly, but I like playing games that remind me how much fun I had when I was a kid. And thanks to the Wii, there are finally some games out there that can do that. So if you miss how much fun you used to have playing all of those original Nintendo games, then the Wii is probably right for you.

- Krissy