Review: World of Goo

Just downloaded one of the simplest and yet immensely enjoyable games from the Nintendo WiiWare site this week: World of Goo.

I have read quite a number of rave reviews about this little game by independent games developer 2D Boy from the two Nintendo magazines I subscribe to, Official Nintendo Magazine and Ultimate Nintendo Magazine. And since I finally got my Wii hooked up to the internet in the past week, and I had some Nintendo Points that were won in an eBay auction, I decided to download this title to see what the fuss was all about.

Now at 1500 Nintendo Points, World of Goo is most expensive game one can download from the Nintendo Shop online, from both the Virtual Console and WiiWare line of games. With 1000 Wii Points costing AUD$15, the World of Goo game costs a hefty $22.50, perhaps a piddling in price compared to the latest Wii games released in shops, but well higher priced than classic goodness like the Super Mario Bros line of games or some of the Zelda games available on the Virtual Console.

Let me just say that World of Goo is well worth the high price tag.

I haven't even cleared the first chapter yet but have already spent quite a number of hours on this game. It is fun, simple, addictive and immensely replayable. It has all the hallmarks of a classic game and even though I hadn't read the rules to the game, it took me about a few seconds to work out how to play the game and what the objective was!

In a nutshell, the game involves you controlling a whole bunch of globular "goo" balls in order to build structures, horizontally or vertically. Each chapter has various stages but the main objective is always the same: there is a "vent" or an "exit point" and you need to build your structures with the goo balls so that the tip of the structure is close enough to the exit point and your goo balls can then escape the level and you can move onto the next one.

That's really it. It's that simple. It's not an easy game to play though as a lot of strategy is involved. Your goo balls are alive: think those little black "ball" creatures in Hayao Miyazaki's "Spirited Away", where they are malleable, constantly moving and have those big little eyes for comedic effect. That's what the goo balls look like.

In some instances, once a goo ball has been used to form part of a structure, it becomes an inanimate "joint". This is where one has to be careful: you have a limited number of goo balls in each level and you have a set number of goo balls you need to help "escape" from that level. So you can't just use up all your goo balls because if you do and you can't reach the set minimum number of goo balls escaping that level, you need to start the level again.

There ARE some levels where the goo balls remain animate even after using them as structure "joints" though. In those levels you can just "break" a goo ball off your structure and reposition it. So in those sorts of levels, if your structure falls apart, just like Lego blocks, you can take apart your goo balls and start all over again.

The physics of the game are pretty amazing and realistic. All too often I built a structure as high as I possibly could, only for it to come crashing down because it was just unstable at the bottom and couldn't sustain an even distribution of weight.

Found out that this game is also available on the PC, which makes sense: if you can use a Wiimote to point-and-click and build structures, of course you should be able to do the same with a mouse since a mouse offers greater accuracy and precision!

Which brings me to the little "mouse cursor" from the WiiWare version of the game. The "cursor" is a little black blob that is "malleable" in nature; it stretches, it bends and it forms shapes when you move the Wiimote quickly. Highly entertaining to watch the little cursor blob when you've got nothing better to do!

The graphics are top notch too, are is the music, which is a touch eerie. In fact, the game is very Tim Burton-esque: if Tim decided to stop making movies such as Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas and started his own game company, World of Goo would be the game that has all the traditional Burton hallmarks: dark, quirky and hauntingly beautiful.

World of Goo has also won multiple gaming awards as indicated in its Wikipedia entry here:

World of Goo Wikipedia entry

Simply put, this is a MUST GET if you own a Nintendo Wii and can get online to download the game. Heck, if you can't get it, because you can't get your Wii online (and I certainly sympathise with you if that is the case. It only took me about 2.75 years after first getting the Wii before I got it online!) or for whatever reason, get a friend to download the game into your console for you!

One of the most absorbing games you will ever play. It is well worth ANY price you pay for it. Heck, get it on PC if you have to!

Review: Boom Blox

Over the last few days, since I first purchased the game last Friday at Knox City SC, I have been playing a simple yet highly addictive and extremely fun game: Boom Blox.



Boom Blox hasn’t been around for too long, having been released a mere seven months ago be Electronic Arts, the same company that produces all those fabulous sports games like Fifa, NHL and NBA games.

I first played Boom Blox when we went to Dean and Emily’s housewarming party earlier in the year and they were playing the portion of this game that required players to remove oblong blocks from a structure carefully so that you don’t topple the entire structure over...basically, a glorified but improved version of the much loved Jenga game.

That was fun enough as it was, but then Dean and Emily tried out the other game modes which included tossing baseballs to knock down point blocks, throwing bowling balls at your opponent’s gem blocks atop a castle (last one standing wins!) and knocking point blocks into various multiplier walls to see who could get the highest score.

As more and more people arrived, we were all still hooked on Boom Blox and must have spent at least three to four hours playing it. It was such a simple game in terms of design, but the fun factor was just enormous...and it was highly addictive since none of us wanted to stop playing it!

I found out much later that the acclaimed Steven Spielberg (director of Schindler’s List, Jaws, E.T. and many many other blockbuster movies) was a director/producer of the Boom Blox game! So it had a big name producer attached to the game, but strangely enough, despite the game’s acclaim, most of friends I knew had never heard of the game prior to trying it at Dean’s place. I know I certainly didn’t know that such a game existed!

Anyway, I remembered how fun the game was so when I saw it on sale, I purchased it. Found out that Target (where I purchased Boom Blox from last Friday) is having a mega sale the three days before Christmas and the same game is only selling for $14.95, a good $25 cheaper than what we paid for it. Grrrr. Even still, it’s such a great game that it’s worth the money.

As I said before, it’s uber addictive and very very difficult to put down once you’ve started. There are over 300+ levels and even though I spent over four hours on the single-player mode alone, I was only 29% through the game!

The single-player mode had an “Explore” feature which allowed players to work their ways through puzzles. There were point blocks on structures that needed to be toppled over in as few throws as possible, the “Jenga” like structures where you had to remove as many point blocks as you could in a set time, and other such puzzles.

There is also an adventure mode in single-player where you have cutesy animal blocks called the Bahhhs (based on sheep) being invaded by the Grrrs (based on bears). The Bahhhs had a castle and you were required to throw bomb balls at the invading Grrrs and prevent them from infiltrating your castle and stealing away the Bahhhs’ precious gems!

In Episode 2 of the adventure mode, the Oooks (based on monkeys) had stolen the Bahhhs’ gems while the Bahhhs were distracted in the fight against the Grrrs, and you were required to invade the Oooks’ castle to retrieve the gems. Cue more throwing of bomb balls at the Oooks’ castle.

It is fantastic storytelling and heaps of fun. What’s really neat is that it’s also a game for kids...apart from needing to use one’s noggin to figure out some of the puzzles, there really isn’t much you need to know...after all, it’s just a matter of tossing baseballs/bowling balls/bomb balls at blocks!

While the single-player mode shines, it’s the multi-player mode that will really get most people going. It’s so much more fun competing against friends and laughing when someone accidentally topples a block structure down. It’s can get competitive, but at the end of the day, Boom Blox is really a superb party game.

The one thing that I must warn those who are interested in the game is that if you do not regularly exercise your throwing arm, it could lead to a great deal of pain and distress after a few hours of playing Boom Blox.

The very next day after playing Boom Blox for a few hours, my right arm was extremely sore and I couldn’t really lift anything heavy at all. I felt as if I were a baseball pitcher who had gone through nine agonising innings of trying to pitch the ball as fast as I could!

I just couldn’t get any strength in my throws, so when playing the multi-player mode against Aeris, I decided to try using my left arm instead. And despite playing for a good one or two hours less, the very next day, my left arm was out of action...and it still hurts like hell!

Boom Blox is a game you cannot afford NOT to get if you own a Nintendo Wii. It is one of the simplest yet most addictive games I have ever played and it utilises the Wiimote so innovatively and efficiently. Even if you are not a hardcore gamer, Boom Blox would most likely appeal to you!

Review: eGames Expo and Digital Lifestyle Show 2008

Reached the Expo just after 10.30am and already there were quite a lot of people there. Saw quite a lot of people cosplaying…in fact, I recognised a number of cosplayers from when we first saw them at Armageddon Expo two weeks ago…wearing EXACTLY the same costumes and having the EXACT same group of friends who were dressed EXACTLY the same as well! Sheesh…what happened to creativity?

Forgot to bring my camera with me or else I would have had pictures to share of the Expo! It was a pretty huge expo but we didn’t get an opportunity to try out too many games because of the number of people at each games booth, all waiting for an opportunity to try the games out themselves.

I really liked the Little Big Planet booth where they gave us quite a number of freebies like a lanyard, pens and stickers. It’s not the freebies though, it was the fact they had a pretty cool “gimmick” at the booth itself. Just have a look at the stickers below!

There was this huge blue ball in the middle of the booth that represented the globe (or the little BIG planet, haha!) and everyone was invited to take the stickers they were given and create their own personalised Little Big Planet characters and stick them all over the globe. It was a pretty awesome concept and it allowed everyone to be as creative as they wanted to be (as much as they could with the stickers they had anyway)! Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to see the actual Little Big Planet game in action.

They had a futsal set where the Fifa 09 booth was and there were two guys showing off their football juggling tricks. They even had two foosball tables there and I wanted to have a game against Marcelo but they were quickly occupied by other players who were waiting for a chance to test out the Fifa 09 game. Marcelo and I played the PS3 version of the game for a couple of minutes then decided to move on.

Went to the Wii area and tried out Celebrity Sports Showdown…I’d read reviews that it was pretty ordinary, but Kim and I had quite a bit of fun with the Gladiator-style “whacky-mace-sticks” and badminton. Marcelo and I then lost to the computer AIs at dodgeball. It was a pretty fun game, though I suppose if I had it I would lose interest in the games pretty quickly.

Tried out Wii Music as well and unfortunately, only had the one go with Kim playing “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go”. It didn’t help that I had no idea what song was being played (thought we’d choose the song AFTER the instruments) so I chose the vibraphone while Kim had the classic drums. Of course, the vibraphone was so completely out of tune for the song and it sounded as if we just weren’t musically inclined at all!

Seems like Wii Music has quite a big song list though and I still haven’t yet made up my mind as to whether to get the game or not. It’s one of those games that seems really fun an innovative at first, but whether I’ll lose interest in it after a while (like Wii Fit, Link’s Crossbow Training, Big Brain Academy among others) is another matter altogether.

While we were walking past some anime booth manned by the Animemavericks, some guy came up to me and handed me a copy of the Animemavericks magazine. He literally pushed the copy into my hand and then started giving a used-car-salesman-type sales pitch about how awesome the magazine was because it covered anime and games.

I started flipping through the magazine while he was talking just to see whether the magazine interested me. It was pretty interesting, so I quickly flipped back to the front cover to see if there was a price printed on the magazine. There wasn’t! The guy just kept blabbing on and on and on though so I quickly interrupted him and asked if I could take the magazine to have a browse at my own leisure.

And his response? Something along the lines of, “Ah, yes, you can have the magazine. It only costs $10.”

WHAT! It ONLY costs $10? Yes, the magazine was printed on good quality glossy stock and the content appealed to me. But hang on, didn’t he put the magazine in my hands in the first place? I didn’t pick up the magazine from the booth. I didn’t ask to see the magazine. He just came over while I was walking past the booth and shoved the magazine into my hands!

I told him I’d think about it and he added, “If you get the magazine today, I’ll give you a free poster”. As if a poster of some random gaming or anime characters would be a huge enough incentive for me to purchase the magazine! I told him that I didn’t have the need for any posters in an attempt to see what else he might throw in, but all I got for a response was: “Oh sorry, but I can only give you a poster.”

I quickly put the magazine on the table of his booth and told him that I’d consider purchasing it later and briskly walked away to watch Marcelo try out the PS3 version of the latest Tomb Raider game. Thanks but no thanks…I’d like to go through a convention without having to deal with a pushy car-salesman-type person!

Saw the Singstar booth being unoccupied and I asked Marcelo and Kim whether they wanted to give it a try, but they were quite hesitant to do it. They asked me to go give it a go, but I didn’t quite want to on my own!

We didn’t want to walk past the same booths of the convention again and wait around to try out some games, so decided to leave. But before we did, I headed back to one of the merchandise booths and purchased myself a Yoshi plush. They only had one remaining green one (but lots of red, black and blue ones)…so quickly snapped that up before anyone else could!

It was quite a good convention even though we were there for barely two hours. Would definitely love to go to another gaming expo sometime soon…pity they didn’t really have the new games for sale, only just the display booths for people to try them out.

Going to a video games expo tomorrow!

Marcelo and I will be going to the eGames Expo tomorrow, which is part of the International Digital Entertainment Festival 2008. A ticket will also allow us into the Digital Lifestyle Show, also held at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. It would be exactly two weeks tomorrow since we both were last there, so I need to get out of my head the fact that Jim Lee isn't going to be there tomorrow!

Anyway, I'm excited at the prospect of previewing and perhaps playing some of the new games that will be on display. Here's the full list of games that will be featured in the booths:

eGames 2008 Featured Games

What I would really love to try out of the games featured is:

Fifa 09
Fifa 09 All-Play
Little Big Planet (even though I don't own a PS3)
Pro Evolution Soccer 2009
Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party
Singstar Abba
Wii Music

Wii Music seems to be the next "specialised" (and highly overpromoted) Wii game after WiiFit. I've seen some of the ads on the TV and they are pretty good, choosing to recreate Wham!'s "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" with the musical instruments one can use in the game.

The concept sounds like an awesome one, but I don't think I'd want to spend nearly $80 buying the game trying to create music on my own (though I suppose it might be a good creative outlet for me to put some music to lyrics I had written for songs in the past). So the jury is out on this one...I'd like to give it a try before making a decision on whether to get it.

I'm sure Marcelo and I will be interested in different games since he owns a PS3, Xbox360 and PSP while I own a Wii, DS, PSP and PS2. It'd still be awesome checking out the games though!

Review: Bully: Scholarship Edition

Over the last two days, I've been playing the story mode of Bully: Scholarship Edition on the Nintendo Wii.

I've always been a fan or Rockstar games (though their Rockstar Ping Pong was pretty crap...and I played it only once! And State of Emergency was the pits too) so I get excited whenever a new Rockstar game gets released! Bully was actually by Rockstar Vancouver, but hey, it's still under the Rockstar banner.

I had played the original Grand Theft Auto all those years ago and while I never progressed past the third or fourth mission (hated the stupid bird's eye view from the sky), I found it just so fun having the freedom of choice in a world which was populated with gangsters, gunmen and people with violent tendencies!

So when I read about how groundbreaking GTA3 was on the PS2, I just had to try it out for myself. And I was absolutely blown away...I actually just completed the main story all on its own without doing any of the exploration of Liberty City and the side missions. And it was such a rivetting experience living in a full fleshed out 3D world where you had so much freedom just doing whatever you want outside of the main storyline missions, I went back and did it all again but this time, with the side missions!

And then GTA: Vice City came out and that is still my favourite game of all-time. The music was just to die for...combine that with the gameplay and you have a surefire winner for this child of the 80s! I purchased GTA: San Andreas when that came out but believe it or not, it still remains in its packaging to date and I haven't even played it yet!

When I heard that GTA: Liberty City Stories would be released on the PSP, I actually got a PSP just so I could play it and relive being in the world of GTA3 all over again. And then GTA: Vice City Stories was released...with even BETTER music than in Vice City! In fact, the only GTA game that I don't actually own is GTA4, and that's because I don't have either a PS3 or Xbox.

But enough about the Grand Theft Auto series. After all, this is supposed to be a review of Bully! I actually played the PS2 version a couple of months ago, despite the game having been released some time back, so I knew what I was in for. In Australia, there was this huge uproar about the game title so they actually renamed it as "Canis Canem Edit" which translates loosely to "Dog eats dog" or something like that.

In fact, if you want to read about the controversy Bully has generated, check out the Wikipedia entry:

Bully/Canis Canem Edit video game

Bully isn't anywhere close to as violent as the other games from the GTA series. What it does offer though is that same free-roaming expansive world that's now a trademark for most Rockstar games.

You play the title role of Jimmy Hopkins, who has been expelled from numerous schools and gets sent to Bullworth Academy, the strictest and worst school this side of America. Jimmy has a bad rep and sending him to Bullworth is the last resort for his mother and stepfather to "educate" him.

Strangely enough, with all the bad press that the game has received worldwide, one would think that Jimmy just goes around beating up other kids and bullying them into submission. On the contrary...Jimmy actually gets picked on and bullied by the other kids once he steps into Bullworth Academy! Jimmy doesn't take to bullying kindly though and thus kickstarts his adventure...fighting back, playing pranks on the other students and trying to romance the schoolgirls.

In the PS2 version, gameplay was fairly straightfoward especially when it came to the fighting, since you'd just mash a couple of buttons and you'd be beating up the other kids trying to bully you. The Wii version is much more elegant...in order to throw kicks and punches, you actually thrust the Wiimote and the nunchuk forward! And there are combo moves, all of which are executed superbly with the Wii contollers. It makes sense that if you want to throw a punch, you should be doing it properly and not mashing a button!

And with the Wiimote innovation, you get to do other things that seemed unnatural in the PS2 version. The Wiimote is used as a targetting device when it comes to using the slingshot. When you use the camera, you can also use the Wiimote. Those who are used to the PS2 version and have moved onto the Wii version will find the changes a bit unnerving initially, but with an hour or so navigating the Bully world with the Wiimote and nunchuk, you'll feel it's as natural as it can possibly get!

The best thing about the Wii version? There are four extra classes: Biology, Music, Geography and Math. And there are extra missions too! With the four extra classes, I've found that everything is spaced out more evenly. In the PS2 version, I found that I had completed ALL the classes and I wasn't even halfway into the game. In the Wii version, I'm just about at the halfway mark but I've only graduated from two classes: Biology and Music, and still have at least one or two more classes for the rest before I'm done with them!

And the new classes are pretty fun too! Biology involves you to dissect various animals with the Wii controller...something that I can't imagine being done with an Xbox360 or PS2 controller! So you get that whole "Trauma Centre" feeling and gameplay. In Music, you get to play percussion instruments and try to shake the Wiimote and nunchuk in time with the music. Very Dance Dance Revolution with the Wii controllers!

Math is just like playing Brain Training or More Brain Training where you select the correct answers as quickly as possible. Geography is probably the toughest of the four classes as you need to have some working knowledge of world locations or you'll find yourself failing the class! You are given flags of countries or states and a map and you need to assign the flags to the correct country/state. Thankfully, when you point the cursor over the flag, the name of the country/state will actually appear at the bottom. I can't imagine how much more difficult it would be if you were running blind and had to try and identify the flag as well!

I did extremely poorly in the second Geography class where you needed to assign American state flags to the appropriate region they were located. What do I know about American geography? That's the one thing I didn't like...I knew where California, New York, Texas and Florida were, but the rest were pretty much a crap shoot. Either I could go grab a map of America and cheat or I could just randomly assign the flags to a state and try and remember what it was! Everytime you got something wrong, 5 seconds would be taken off the countdown clock. Took me four or five tries before I passed the class!

I really loved the Music class. It's just so fun trying to keep in time with the music! In fact, there's a new mission called "Nutcracker" during the Christmas period where you'd perform one long medley of Christmas songs. And that was absolutely awesome...I was laughing away in the background while playing the xylophone and humming to the Christmas songs I recognised!

Speaking of new missions, there are quite a number of new missions in the game as well. There are at least four new missions during Christmas including the aforementioned "Nutcracker". The other missions I played involve helping out a drunken hobo who believes he's Santa Claus! I really enjoyed the mission where he asks Jimmy to take out "the competition" and I went around causing mayhem, destroying Christmas props, Santa's sleigh, candy canes, presents, etc. And beating up midget "elves" was pretty funny too!

Still have quite a long way to go before I finish the game. But it's an extremely gratifying experience playing it. I thought the PS2 version was fantastic...but the Wii version just blows it out of the water and is an A-grade game. If you haven't tried out Bully before and want to just have some fun in a free-roaming world, get it today!

Here are just some screenshots of the game...I've got some of my own screenshots which I've saved and maybe I'll share them one of these days.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl: First thoughts.

Got a pretty nice haul of comics on Saturday from Classic Comics. There were actually much fewer comics than I thought I had to pick up. I was expecting perhaps six of the seven Bone HCs I had ordered but none of them were there, which was a bit of a relief I guess, because it would have eaten a LOT into my finances.


I did pick up The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Absolute Edition Vol.2 HC though, which I'm really looking forward to reading. The only thing though, is that I still have a huge stack of comics (both single issues and trades) and manga that I haven't started on yet. And that doesn't even count all the comics I've borrowed from the Knox City Library that I've got to read finish in exactly two weeks' time!


I also picked up another Nintendo Wii game in Super Smash Bros. Brawl from JB Hi-Fi. It's one of the most talked about games for the Wii and while reviews have been mixed (just check out the Amazon website...the game has been given reviews from the lowest one star to the highest of five!), the majority of people have just said how much of an awesome game it is. And how could one own a Nintendo system and NOT own a Smash Bros game?





I tried this out today when Marcelo and Kim were over and I got my ass handed to me by Marcelo in the Brawl portion of the game. To be fair though, I walked into the game having read about the controls ONCE before, and that was a good week and a half ago. Marcelo wanted the classic controller and I only had one, so I first tried out the Wiimote by itself, then the Wiimote + nunchuk combo. And I just couldn't really string together any combination of attacks. Had to break out the manual to have a look at the controls.


After reading figuring out what the controls were, it was a bit better and I think I prefer using the Wiimote to the Wiimote + nunchuk combo, but I think obviously, classic controller was made for this type of game. It was pretty fun even though I was confused trying to figure out the controls to play the game but this is the type of game where you'd need a lot of practice. I can't wait to start unlocking all the other characters though...there are a LOT of things that a player can unlock in this game! It's such a massive massive game...and I think it's the first Nintendo Wii game that actually uses dual-layered DVD discs!


It's also the first game in the Super Smash Bros series that actually uses third party (read: non-Nintendo exclusive) characters. Apart from old Nintendo favourites such as Mario, Link, Yoshi and Pikachu, there are also characters like Solid Snake from the Metal Gear Solid series and Sonic the Hedgehog. The lineup is pretty massive and it'll be awesome trying all of the characters out.


Marcelo and I also played the single player mode called "The Subspace Emissary". It was pretty awesome as it allowed two players to play through the mode, which is a welcome change and brought me back to the days when I played Streets of Rage 2 with my cousin on the Sega Megadrive!


The one thing we didn't like about the single player mode is there wasn't any dialogue. It was kind of like watching a mute version of a game from the Final Fantasy series, except it had your favourite Nintendo characters. The single player mode is really good for practising the movesets of the various characters you get to use during the game though. And while it IS side scrolling it's still pretty fun...I'm slowly discovering how to use all the various item that get dropped onto the ground! Really like the bazooka at the moment, though it seems that if I pick it up facing a certain way, I have to face that way until I drop the bazooka and pick it up again.


More reviews and my thoughts about the game when I play it more!

Wii Championships at Federation Square

Received this nice little thing in the mail today which I had purchased from eBay:

Played it for about half an hour and I've completed the first three stages of Episode I: The Phantom Menace. This game is awesome! It's not quite a 3D platformer and it's not a side scroller...it's somewhere in between. But the Lego characters are so cute! They don't talk at all and humour is delivered via facial expressions. And the music is just superb. I wonder what the Wii version is like...not that I'm going to get that!

In fact, we were talking about the Nintendo DS as well as other games consoles at work today. K-Mart and Big W were having massive toy sales this coming week (starting tomorrow!) and we were looking at the brochures that someone brought, as well as online, to see what was available. There were some awesome package deals on the DS and Wii...the console plus free games at the normal console price!

We were discussing which ones were better and more worth it, which invariably led to me talking to my colleagues about my experiences with Big W, namely how I could be the first customer there but something would be sold out, or how they would say the stock hadn't arrived yet. The Big W prices were cheaper, but I prefer K-Mart in terms of quality and probably Customer Service. Plus, there are K-Marts that are open 24 hours while we all concluded there were no Big Ws like that.

In fact, in about an hour's time, I'm going to drive down to the K-Mart at Burwood SC to have a look at their games there. Cooking Mama on the Wii is selling for $34.95, the cheapest I have seen and we've been looking at that for quite some time now. Good time to buy it...I'll probably laugh madly when Aeris tries it out!
Most of my colleagues have children or grandchilden who have a NDS and I think I'm probably the only one out of my colleagues that owns one. That may change soon though...I had another colleague really interested in purchasing one since it came with one or two free games! The offer with two free games was at Big W and while that may seem more worth it, the other offer at K-mart for one free game may be the one with better value since the choice and quality of games offered were much better.

Hmmm...Wifi NDS action at the call centre? Hey you never know! While we're still on the subject of gaming, received an email today about the Wii Championships taking place at Federation Square this weekend. They were having competitions for Wii Sports and the public have been invited to compete against each other! I don't think we'll go to participate OR watch, but if we were, I'd love to take part in the tennis comp, which is on Saturday! First 500 entrants get a Wii backpack and each day a Wii and five games are up for grabs for the daily champion!
Which doesn't make quite much sense...because the champion would surely have put in many hours of playing Wii Sports...which means they would probably own a Wii already? How bizarre!

Further information about the Wii Championships:

Get down to the Wii Championships this weekend - Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 July - at Federation Square Melbourne to put your Wii Sports skills to the test and win great Nintendo prizes!

You’ll also have the chance to compete in Wii Sports tennis and Wii Sports bowling against Channel Nine personalities Kelly Landry (Getaway), Shura Taft and Georgia Sinclair (KidsWB).

Each day a Wii, and five Wii games will be up for grabs for the daily champion, plus the first 500 entrants per day will receive a Wii back pack!

The Wii Championships celebrate Nintendo’s sponsorship of the Game On exhibition, located at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI). The Game On exhibition which is open daily, will close Sunday 13 July.

EVENT DETAILS
What: Wii Championships
When: Saturday 5 (Wii Sports tennis) and Sunday 6 (Wii Sports bowling) July 2008
Time: 10:00am – 5:00pm Saturday and Sunday
Where: Federation Square Melbourne, Corner Swanston and Flinders Streets, Melbourne, Victoria