Funtime Festive Fambly Fi Club

Ok, so it's not a full-on Fi Club as you know and love it. Consider it a special invite-only poshed-up Fi Club with girls (ach!)

I'm doubting it's worth you bringing bags and bags of portable kit, but there will certainly be some hot Wii action and hopefully some Geetar Hero (both number ones and number twos) so get warming up your tennis elbows and limbering your fretting fingers.

No need to load up with armfuls of 'spensive crisps either cos this week all the catering is courtesy of Mr and Mrs h i r 0 (mainly Mrs) but do bring those speciality European lagers you guys are so fond of or some kind of soft drink if that's your bag.

Looking forward to cramming you all into my humble abode.

h

Line Rider - Urban Run

We've all spent 5 minutes munting around in Line Rider and then given up, right?

Then check out this amazing Line Rider video with a psuedo-isometric view. Clever clever clever.

So... impressions

So, what do the Fi Clubbers think of the Wii on first impressions?

Lot's of mini-game action going on, but largely very lightweight. Having given Sports some more time over the weekend I do think there's more going on under the covers than initially appears - there's a Brain Training-style performance review thing that I can see becoming quite addictive. I like playing all of these games. Golf is really quite sophisticated once you get into it and I'd love to see a full-featured golf game along the lines of Everybody... although I'm sure EA have something realistic in the pipeline already.

Play was worth it purely for the controller, but again very fluffy and disposable. Duck Hunt, Find Mii and Billiards are the stand-out games there for me. I'm wondering if these games support four players with four controllers. I should go and look in the manual I suppose.

I've put in about 2.5 hours on Zelda and the real quest has just kicked off... there's a lot of the cutesy 'village quests' which essentially familiarise you with the controls and principles. Now it's gotten very dark and mysterious. I can't wait to settle down this evening and give it another couple of hours.

I'm really looking forward to a first rate FPS. I had hopes for Call of Duty III after the video but it's only looking like a 74%-er on Metacritic. Still, by the time I've finished Twiglet Princess it will be a few quid cheaper I guess.

I also took the SD card out of my phone and checked out the Photo Channel today... It does a quick inventory of your card and displays all the thumbnails. You can set up a slideshow, with your own choice of music (played from the SD card in mp3 format), or doodle over the pictures and post them to the message board. Quite good fun, especially for the kids.

Fii Club

Counting on those two paragons of reliability, accountability and delivery excellence: Amazon and Royal Mail might seem a shakey premise for a Fi Club, but let us press on and assume that on the morning of Friday 8^th December a bright, shiny, exciting new console will be turning up on my doorstep looking for a loving home.

I'll be spending the day warming it up and breaking it in ready for the evening session. Those of you who haven't designed your Mii yet, may I suggest you visit the Joystiq demo and get some practice in.

Hopefully I shall have two Wiimotes, two Nunchucks, Wii Sports, Wii Play and Zelda on hand. If we find it's just too much fun I might go and splash out on another couple of controllers ready for the night's entertainment.

Back-up wrist straps and gym chalk optional...

Wii Hacks

Not that anyone but me cares, but here's a site pulling together some of the best Wii and Wiimote hacks so far.

Includes - Wiimote bluetooth drivers for Windows, "GlovePIE" scripts allowing you to control Windows with the Wiimote, and some guy noodling with some Nord Lead synth software.

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

http://www.tshirthell.com/store/product.php?productid=818
That was fun! Lets do it again!

Advertising Space

Check out this screendump of the PS3 section of Gamespot earlier this week. It didn't appear like this on any other page.


Click for biggerness!

via alwaysblack

Wiideos

A couple of Wii videos that have caught my eye this week. The first is Call of Duty 3, and worth checking out for the gesture driven game play: Canoeing, wrestling, clubbing galore.




I'd like to think that these actions don't get repetitive throughout the game, but rather exist as hundreds of one-offs.

Second is WarioWare Smooth Moves. They've really gone to town on the mini-game quality with this one and completely capitalized on the Nintendo IP. It's long, but worth watching to the end. Check out the boss level! ROB!



WWSM is out in January and top of my 2007 wishlist.