Soooo...all this gaming news and no story of my Wii Launch? Well it's time then.

Saturday I went out to watch the Rutgers game with friends. What a sore loss that was. The only plus side to it is that Syracuse University now stands a chance in hell! That's good...because we're literally last in the Big East. Oh what a difference our football and basketball teams have!

After the game ended, we headed to the Rutgers area to hang out at Kat and John's apartment. On the way around 10, Amar and I stopped by the local Target to gauge the line. (I had decided days before No Best Buy and No Target). I'd done my research the past week and decided we'd try the Wal-mart no one ever goes to in Whitehouse Station, blocks from where I work. There were about 30 people outside of Target, some campers and a big game of football going on in the parking lot.

We headed over to Katina and John's for some rousing Taboo, and later on stopped for some goodies. We got there around 2:30am, Amar had gotten spot 23 in line and I was 24. I had called this Wal-Mart that afternoon and found out they were getting 28-32 Wiis. They got exactly 28, which matched up to leaked launch numbers online as well.

We waited until 7am, when the store opened. They passed out paper tickets for systems. Bought my Wii, 2 extra Wiimotes and nun-chuks, Ray-Man, Trauma Center and Monkey Ball. Also picked up my preordered Zelda that evening at EB. Felt bad for the guys there, since it was one of my previous places of employment, and I've been through 2 console launches to know the nightmare they are.

Overall the launch was really enjoyable. It really was an experience. A kid or two brought a small tv, a PS2 and a Gamecube. Super Smash Brothers Melee was being played when we arrived. I played some Guitar Hero 2 while we waited. which surprisingly kept the fingers warm. It wasn't too cold until the actual store-opening time. Dawn was surprisingly much more chilly than the wee hours of the night

Most of the people were there to buy for their children or selves. 5 spots in line were sold from $35 up to $100. We knew there'd be at least 28 systems so these spots basically guaranteed a system. About 15 extra people stayed even after they knew they wouldn't get a system and picked up controllers/games. For all the newcomers at the end of the line or those who stayed and didn't score a system, I told them to go to the local CostCo, as they opened at 10am and were going to get systems as well. No one was camping out near there last night when we made our Target surveillance. The necessity of owning a CostCo membership actually weeds out a lot of younger gamers.

I was really surprised at the difference between this launch and the Playstation 3. That launch was insane with violence erupting countrywide. I think a big faction of that is that most of the PS3 campers were "mercenaries" in that they were just out to make a profit and sell the system. Hell there's nothing out for it anyway to warrant keeping it.

I played some on Sunday and Monday, all the games and started Zelda. I'm very impressed and I'm glad I did launch this year. Much more fun than just picking up my pre-ordered 360 last year!

The Nintendo crowd seemed much more apt to actually keep their systems and not turn a profit. The only profit I saw being made was selling line-spaces, and those were (mostly) from people who could wait to get theirs a few weeks down the road, and were happy with $35-100 extra dollars lining their pockets.

The guy who was first to buy a spot in line (11), intimated to me that even $100 would have been worth the smile on his son's face for his birthday this week. I straight-out told him he was a great father and that his kid was lucky to have him. Wii2006 was an experience for sure.

Well idiocy continues! Wii + Gesticulatory people = dangerous. There have been 3 instances of people using their Wiimotes so ridiculously strong that they've snapped the connecting lanyard and flailed into TVs and a laptop LCD.

Laptop Shenanigans

And here's the redneck who smashed his tv first:


Way to kick it in Pele.

Oh my..it hurts so good! Cue the eBay scams!

This guy won an auction for 3 ORIGINAL Playstation systems. Do a quick search and you'll see you can net just one for as little as $20. How much did he pay?....almost a grand.

Ouchers.

HAHAHAHAH!

PS3 nosedive!

All the retards who bought the PS3 (likely 90% of them) with visions of dollar signs dancing in their heads, are not going to net as much as they thought. I knew this would happen.

Before it launched Playstation 3 was selling for $2,000 to $3,000. The most I saw was 5k. The day the console laucnhed, the average price of a PS3 on eBay was $2,900.

By Saturday the average was around $1,100.

PWNED!

Matt Cassamina's Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess review is up on IGN. Scored a 9.5 but in my opinion the game is nearly a 10. Here are his closing comments:

"The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is, in my opinion, the greatest Zelda game ever created and one of the best launch titles in the history of launch titles – second only, perhaps, to the at-the-time ground-breaking Super Mario 64. It is also one of the finest games I have ever played. The experience is made better and not worse on Wii. The Wii remote and nunchuk add accuracy and speed to exploration and combat for a heightened sense of immersion. While the game has just about everything going for it, including improved controls, a long and engrossing quest, brain-teasing dungeons and some beautiful graphics, it's not perfect. The difficulty has been upped over Wind Waker, but I wish it were harder still – the boss fights are oftentimes too easy, for example. Additionally, while the visuals are generally impressive, some textures remain blurry to the point they are noticeable. And finally, I still question why Nintendo refuses to add either voice work to the side characters (especially since Twilight Princess features such an improved, dark storyline) or orchestrated music to the soundtrack.

Nintendo's new console ships with Wii Sports, which effectively demonstrates a new breed of games only possible on Wii. The Zelda franchise is equally exclusive to the machine and Twilight Princess is must-see, must-play and must-own entry into the series that proves over and over again why Nintendo is the best developer in the world."

I agree with just about everything he says too, which is rare. I'd love to see some voice acting for NPCs. Link can be a mute just like Gordon Freeman is for Half-Life. And after hearing some of the most amazing orchestral and symphonic arrangements done for this series, (I admit I have an extensive orchestrated Zelda library) the MIDI-sounds are getting old. But this, as well as my next point, may be for a simple reason.

Cassamina also mentions the game textures, both gameplay and cutscene. The textures on the overworld make it evident that TP was originally a Gamecube game. That said I'm only about an hour into the game and I'm already blown away. Graphically the game is still beautiful, and if it WERE released on the Gamecube I wouldn't have known they could pull those visuals out.

The feel of the game is very dark. It starts out happy like former titles, very similar to Ocarina of time, I even liken it to an evolved original Zelda, but a technical successor. (Hell, Ocarina of Time floored me the first time I played, and it's what I attribute my survival of my tonsilectomy to)

It's not often when games come along that you're genuinely disappointed when their epic draws to its end. I know Twilight Princess is going to be that way, but thank God it's a lengthy title if anything. It's beyond me how they keep evolving this series, and it's far from stale. I doubt it ever will be.

Full Review Here

There are some sad sad people in the world.

Smash My Wii
Smash My PS3

The funny thing is no one cried over the Wii, but the Sony fanboys nearly offed themselves when they Peter-Gabriel'ed the PS3.

And for old times sake...here's last years atrocity.

Smash My XBox

I just feel bad for people who don't get a console of their choosing and have to see this. If they're trying to make a point, it's not apparent or even justifiable. If they do this "for other people" and just to see the looks on their faces, or for anti-fanboys, it's pretty sad.