I read an article in a newspaper last week about people who throw Wii parties. The article made it sound like this was commonplace and happens a lot. It mentions two different Wii invite websites that are "all the rage" for wannabe partiers. It also had a list of tips on planning your Wii party and a few of them were quite funny. So do people seriously invite random people that they've never met before over to their homes to play the Wii? Here is the article from the St Paul Pioneer Press in its entirety:

Four months after Nintendo released the Wii game system, the console is still a hot commodity - and its fast-paced, multiplayer games are bringing fans together to party. At a jammin' party in St. Paul recently, there was no dancing - but a whole lot of arm waving. Guests jabbed to strike each other in boxing bouts projected on a wall, swung to swap tennis volleys and tilted stick-like controllers to guide racing trucks. It was a Wii party, one built around Nintendo's new video gaming console and its motion-sensitive Wiimote.

Wii get-togethers are all the rage. The Evite.com online-invitation service says Wii-themed bashes are one of its fastest-growing categories. The new Web site WiiParty.net hooks up wannabe partiers in particular U.S. cities. What's the attraction? Wii games are easy and fun to play - just get off the couch and start swinging your Wiimote around. You'll also find Wii bashes documented in giddy detail on Web pages and media-sharing sites such as Flickr and YouTube.

Nathan Christianson, of St. Paul, is one hardcore Wii partier. He recently set up his Wii at a friend's house in St. Paul so a bunch of his buddies could go berserk with "Wii Tennis," "Wii Boxing," "Excite Truck" and the kooky minigames in "Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz." Up to four of the partygoers could wield Wiimotes simultaneously - in four-way tennis or bowling matches, for instance. By taking turns, up to a dozen could play together in fast-paced mini-games. This, said Christianson, has made Wii gaming a far more social and mainstream pastime than, say, PC gaming with players "hunched over monitors."

Travis Grawey holds regular Bible-study sessions in his Andover residence, and he and his wife use their Wii as a lure to boost attendance. "You gotta suck 'em in somehow," he joked. The Wiimotes come out once the Scriptures scrutinizing is complete. The Wii isn't the only game attraction at the Graweys. There's also "Guitar Hero" on his PlayStation 2, an arcade-quality "Dance Dance Revolution" floor pad hooked to his Xbox and traditional games such as pool and foosball. But Grawey said he figuratively places his Wii "on a pedestal" because it's such a hoot and has proven so popular with his guests. "Video games were created back in the 1970s and 1980s to be fun," he said. "The Wii takes us back to the core of what video gaming should be - to be fun."

Annie Byrne, a senior at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, recently added a Wii to the regular game nights she helps organize at her best friend's off-campus apartment. Now their guests have "Wii Boxing" and "Wii Tennis" mini-tournaments. "It helps us do something different and be active instead of just sitting on the couch," Byrne said.

Two hypercompetitive "Wii Boxing" addicts in California are training for a mid-May grudge match their friends have jokingly nicknamed "The Thrilla Over the Hilla" - a riff on the famous "Thrilla in Manila" bout between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, and a reference to hilly Hollywood-area terrain. One Wii boxer is running up mountains. The other is chugging milkshakes. A "Rocky"-flavored documentary is in the works. So is a mock news conference. On the day of the bout, the fighters will have a weigh-in - make that a Wii-in. This, said party co-organizer Jess Rosenthal, is what the hyperaddictive Wii has wrought. "It's been hilarious to watch all my friends fall in love with it," he said. "Even our girlfriends are interested in this."

Want to host a Wii party or help plan one? Here are pointers:

Space.
Move all your furniture out of the way, and remove other obstacles that overexcited Wii gamers will trip over or bump into.

Batteries.
Wiimotes eat 'em, so be sure to stock up before the big bash. Also, invest in a Wii Charge Station from Nyko Technologies - it's on Amazon.com.

Greasy finger food.
Don't serve it! A slippery Wiimote might go flying and smash your TV. Only serve grub requiring utensils, and offer lots of napkins.

Wiimote straps.
Insist that guests use them for maximum safety. Note that Nintendo replaced its initial, flimsy straps with thicker and stronger versions.

First-aid stuff.
Stock up on Band-Aids, Ace bandages and Icy Hot balm. Someone is bound to get hurt, so be prepared. And get all Wii gamers to stretch!

Hydrate!
Wii gaming can get pretty sweaty, so be sure to have water, Gatorade or energy drinks available. Speaking of sweat, lay out lots of clean towels.

Eye shields.
Those hard Wiimotes and flying elbows can do real damage, so provide protective goggles.

Apparel.
When sending out invites, specify loose and comfortable clothing. Women may want to leave those stilettos at home.

I don't have a Wii and I've never played one but are people so out of shape that you need to be constantly drinking fluids? And do people get hurt that much that you need a first aid kit readily available? The funniest one to me was the "Eye shields" Does anyone seriously wear protective eye gear while they are playing the Wii? I mean come on. I know this article wasn't written for gamers, but for parents, adults and anyone that does not play video games. I still think some of these tips are dumb though.

So has anyone here on Gamespot thrown a Wii party?

So I was going to write a blog on my 26th birthday (Friday March 30th), but instead I got addicted to GOD OF WAR II! After waiting several weeks, I received God of War II as one of my birthday presents. I also got God Hand, Justice League Unlimited Season 1 DVD and a few Transformers figures. I got all of that stuff from my girlfriend. Then I got a check for $52 from my grandma and aunt. Other then my grandmother, no one in my family celebrates any kind of holiday. Not Xmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Halloween, St Patricks Day, nothing. I don't have a lot of friends so I barely get any gifts on any holiday except for stuff from my girlfriend, Liz. I also bought a few things for myself. I got Justice League Unlimited Season 2 at Best Buy, a couple of Amon Amarth CDs and I ordered The Wizard, Private School and Tomboy from Amazon. If you've never seen The Wizard, check it out. The greatest video game movie ever made IMO. Private School and Tomboy are two 80s teen comedies that I've been waiting to get on DVD for awhile now.

Anyway, before I got hooked on GoWII I finished all the guild quests in Oblivion, I finished the Knights of the Nine quest and I did all but one of the Daedric Shrine quests. Overall, I'm not too fond of any of the guild quests but I loved all the Daedric quests and the KotN. I liked KotN so much, I would have been happy playing an entire game based around the story. Having the vision and speaking to the previous Divine Crusader while you are up in the clouds looking down on Cyrodiil was really impressive. Finding all the wayshires and questing for all the Divine Crusader armor was fun and somewhat challenging, but unfortuneately the story was too short. One thing that really sucked is that during my KotN questing I somehow lost my horse, Shadowmere! Everytime I'd fast travel to a location with an enemy nearby, they would attack my horse. One time an Ogre attacked Shadowmere and the horse didn't get killed but went unconsious. I didn't think it was a big deal so I just went on with my quest. I went into a cave and when I came out Shadowmere was no where to be found. I'd fast travel to a city and I didn't get a message saying my horse was outside. What the heck happened? Has anyone else had trouble losing their horse?

Ok on to God of War II. Man, the game is freakin epic! That pretty much sums it up in one word. The music and the environments are what makes this game what it is. I think I have more fun traveling to new locations more then the combat itself. A definite improvement in that area. And when you're speaking of environments, you have to mention the graphics. Absolutely amazing that this game is running on the PS2. Proves that the PS2 still has some life left in it. The music is just as good as in the original game, if not better, no complaints here. The combat is improved but I feel the game is a lot easier then the first. I'm on normal mode at the moment so I guess I'll have to switch to Titan mode to really try out the combat system. But even then, I remember the original game being plenty difficult even on normal mode. I dunno, maybe I'm just so used to playing GoW on God Mode that normal mode is just easy to me. I've died more doing platforming stuff then just getting my butt kicked by some cyclops or something. Overall the game seems to focus more on platforming then anything. Again, maybe I need to play it on Titan mode, but there seems to be a lot less combat then there is platforming and puzzle solving. I really like the grappling manuevers, and the icarus wings. There's a great sequence of events involving Icarus himself and obatining the wings from him and the level right afterwords is awesome. And the sequence that was shown on On The Spot where you have to swing across a large chasm while bridges and columns are falling over was spectacular.

I'm about 8 hours into GoW II now. I just crossed the Great Chasm after encountering the Titan, Atlas. I can't wait to see the end of the story and unlock all the bonus stuff. All for now, later.

Last night I purchased Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for XBL Arcade. If you watched my Top 20 favorite games of all time video blog, you'd know this game was in my top 3. I would have purchased it immediately, but I was dissapointed that they didn't include the extra stuff that was in the Japanese version of SoTN, Nocturne in the Moonlight, which was only released on the Saturn. That version has two extra levels and you can also play as Maria.

I think you can play as Richter, Maria or Alucard right from the start. You can see the entrances to the deleted levels in the Playstation/XBL Arcade versions. The first one is at the very beginning of the game (the Underground Garden). There is a trap door on the ground almost immediately after you jump across the gate and before you enter the castle itself. If I remember correctly, the entrance to the other level (Cursed Prison) is in the Catacombs area. There is also an extra familiar in Nocturne in the Moonlight, as well as new weapons and items.

I played the trial version of the game for a few minutes to see how the emulation is and I was pleased that it plays well. There are a few issues with the sound, but it's not too big a deal. Some sound effects are missing and for whatever reason the sound effects are much louder then the background music. That's too bad cause the music in SoTN is fantastic.  I think if there were no achievement points, I would not pay the $10 to buy this game again, after all I have the original version on Playstation. So basically I'm playing the game just for points, but it is a good excuse to play one of the greatest games of all time once again. All of the achievements are going to be a breeze for me, except for the one you get for playing through as Richter. That is going to be really hard. I never played through the game as Richter before. This will be a welcome challenge. Despite the minor sound issues, $10 its still a great deal and it's nice that Microsoft released this so that younger gamers that missed SoTN on PSX can experience Castlevania at its finest.

In other gaming news, I finished the Dark Brotherhood questline in Oblivion last night. Now I have finished all the guild quests and I've gotten all the achievements for Oblivion (not including the Shivering Isles achievements). The Dark Brotherhood was pretty cool, but largely forgettable. It didn't get interesting until the last couple quests. I think I enjoyed the Fighters Guild quests more then any others, even then all of the guilds quest weren't all that great. To be honest, I played through the guilds and arena questline just for the achievements. If there were no achievements, I probably would not have completed them. I'm looking forward to playing the Knights of the Nine this week, hopefully before my birthday. My bday is Friday the 30th, I will be 26 years old. I'm getting God of War II for my bday and I plan to play it non stop all weekend. I can't wait!

Finally, Activision announced they are adding some downloadable content to Marvel Ultimate Alliance on 360. For $10 you get 8 new playable characters. Hulk, Hawkeye, Nightcrawler, Cyclops, Magneto, Dr Doom, Sabretooth and Venom. So will these characters be worth the ten bucks? I wonder how differently they will play then the existing characters. I would assume Hulk would play like the Thing, Nightcrawler like Deadpool, Magneto like Invisible Woman/Dr Strange, Venom like a beefed up Spidey, and Sabretooth like Wolverine. I assume Cyclops will play like his previous versions in XMen Legends I and II. I'm curious to see how Doom and Hawkeye will play. And also, how integrated will these characters be in the game? Did they record new voices for them? Was there any kind of dialogue written for them? Will there be new simluator disc missions? I guess we will have to wait and see. I know I'll be buying thise, despite the price. It will be a good excuse to go back and try to get the rest of the achievements.

Now Rare needs to release some downloadable content for Viva Pinata, like they promised long ago. And Microsoft seriously needs to get on the ball with XBLArcade. Nintendo is releasing at least 10 games a month on Wii's virtual console and we are stuck with one game a week on Xbox Live Arcade.

This weekend I finally got around to picking up Final Fantasy XII. And I got the Collector's Edition of course.



I'm a big fan of the series and I normally would have picked this up the day it came out, but after playing the demo that came with Dragon Quest VIII and reading several reviews of the game, I didn't have much interest in it. Mainly due to the battle system seemingly being like an MMO. I'm sure I'll like the game once I get into it but that won't be for awhile. I have to finish the guild quests in Oblivion and by the time that's done I will most likely be playing God of War II, which just got a great review on Gamespot.

My only other recent purchase is this:



World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Collectors Edition. I got it at Target on clearance for $35. I bought it mainly to sell on Ebay and make a profit. However I tried out the $1.00 demo of WoW I recently got and I was surprised that I actually liked the game. I'm trying to decide if I should pick up WOW and keep the expansion or just sell it like I originally planned. I should probably just sell it, I don't want to be tempted by a game that will take away my life. The quest system in WoW reminds me of the quest system in Oblivion. It's managed really well and it's easy to see what ones you have active and it's fairly easy to tell where you're supposed to go. Oblivion's is better though since there is no compass/quest arrow to tell you exactly where to go in wow.

If you haven't read it yet, check out JamesonV's blog entry about original packaging. I posted a lengthy comment and I wanted to show some pics of my stuff but couldn't do it there. Below are some pics of examples of original packaging and how I keep my stuff in good condition.

My SNES box. Notice its the redesigned version. The console itself weighs no more then the box it came in.


Secret of Mana with instructions and maps. I recently got this off Ebay.


Contra III. Notice I still have the plastic wrap that was around the cart.


The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past. I just noticed it's a players choice version. AAAAH! Oh well, not that big a deal. I've got the plastic on this one too.


My Mint in box Sega Genesis. Got this for $8.00 at a garage sale. Quite a steal I'd say.


A couple of Genesis games. Notice the cool red cart for Maximum Carnage.


Here are some examples of other things that aren't video games:

A few CDs that came with stickers on the jewel case or stickers on the plastic wrap.


Some DVDs with stickers that were on the plastic wrap.


A cool DVD box set that is leatherbound and designed to look like a book.


The Invader Zim box set that came with Zim's house.  I guess its a little dusty lol  Cat was not included.


And finally a bunch of my action figure boxes.  I always keep the original packaging of all the figures I buy.

TMNT on Xbox Live Arcade!

Holy crap this is awesome.  I haven't played the original TMNT arcade game since I was a kid.  I can't wait to play this again.  Plus it's only 5 bucks!  Hell yes!:D  That and 4 player offline or online multiplayer support, and I'd assume there will be achievements too.  I'm buying this the second it becomes available.  Hey, I wonder if they'll have this on On the Spot this week.

This is the first XBL Arcade game I've been this excited about.  I can't wait for Castlevania: SOTN but I still haven't heard when it comes out or if any new stuff will be added to it, such as the other playable character and two levels that were not in the Playstation version but were in the Saturn version.  I know I'll get SOTN for sure but I hope they add some extra stuff to it.

Now Microsoft has to release TMNT: Turles in Time, The Simpsons and the X-Men arcade game on XBL Arcade and I'll be REALLY happy.  Great move on Microsoft's part to get this out there.  Now they just need to release XBL Arcade games more frequently instead of once a week.  The only other Arcade game I've purchased is Heavy Weapon. The game is really cool and very fun but it gets HELLA hard at about mission 8.  Last night I made it to mission 9 and I'm number 3 in my friends list for top scores.

Well I had another snow day today. I got up at my usual time, spent 15 minutes cleaning a foot of snow of my car, and set off to work. I get downtown and I get a call from my boss, telling me she closed the office. You know it would have been nice if I knew that BEFORE I left for work. I was going to go in for a few hours anyway and get some work done, but the parking lot had not been plowed. Not really a big problem but they plowed the street so the entrance to the parking lot was blocked by 3 feet of snow. Now way my Malibu would make it over that much snow. So I just headed back home.



Only moments ago, I became the Champion of Cyrodiil! HUZZAH! All hail Vanderg Draven! Wow, that was an insanely annoying final quest but the end to the game was really cool. Makes me wonder what's going to happen in the next Elder Scrolls game. I think I'm going to dowload the Knights of the Nine this weekend. It'll be nice to do some quests without having to go into Oblivion gates constantly. I can't wait for the next expansion, Shivering Isles.

My office closed early today because of the big snowstorm we're getting up here in Minnesota.  I got out of work about 3 hours early.  The roads are decent downtown but they're really bad in the suburbs.  It took me twice as long to get home and you couldn't do any more then 40 mph tops.  Unless of course you're a complete moron who goes 50-60 mph just cause you're driving a 4x4 and you don't think you'll skid out.

In other news, I've been playing a ton of Oblivion lately.  I kinda gave up on Dead Rising for now.  I was getting a little bored of the game, plus I haven't played a good RPG since Suikoden V.  I've got about 3 or 4 quests left in the main storyline.  Right now I've been doing some side quests to get some good armor, weapons, etc.  Last night I killed Umbra and got her awesome sword and decent armor.  I also got the Azura's Star, not before becoming infected by a vampire though.  I think I'll do a few more of those Deadric Shrine quests and then head off to finish the main one.

Later

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Please watch the intro before you watch the actual Top 20 video above. I've had a lot of problems getting Windows Movie Maker to render out my project files and this is the best render I got. I tried saving the entire project file as one video but it screwed up everything. So instead of spending several hours trying to figure out how to get it to work right, I just uploaded the videos in two parts. There's still a couple hiccupps in this intro but it's the best I could do.

Please let me know what you think of this video blog. I'm really proud of it and I had a lot of fun making this. I really wish I could have gotten the intro to work properly but I think it's still pretty damn cool.

Intro Music - The Celestine Prophecy by Pagan's Mind
Outro Music - A Celebration for the Death of Man by Agalloch

Found this on the "internets" recently. Looks like Jeff, don't it?

I'm in the process of making a video blog of my top 20 favorite games of all time.  And yes I will be on camera for this one.  Last weekend I did the intro which took several hours and this weekend I will be filming the main part of it.  I've been using Windows Movie Maker and I had a lot of trouble saving the intro so it would look right.  I have some things synched up to music in my intro and for whatever reason they would be all messed up when I would try and save the project file as a .wmv.  I finally fixed it, for the most part anyway, last night.  I finalized the order of my top 20 today and if all goes well I should have the video uploaded by President's Day.

As far as gaming goes, I returned Oblivion on Saturday and I've been playing Dead Rising since then.  I'm still that not far on it (case 1-4) but the game is very fun.  The escort missions are a royal pain in the a$$ though.  I don't mind the ones where you have to carry someone but I hate it when you have several people following you.  Even if you give them weapons, they still get attacked by zombies left and right.  It doesn't help that after 7:00 P.M. the zombies get stronger in numbers and strength.  For those of you that have played Dead Rising, what happens if you don't do all the scoop missions?  I know if you don't do all the case files you don't get the good ending but do the scoops matter?

I haven't played Twilight Princess in over a week now.  My girlfriend has been hogging the game ever since I got it.  She just got the last piece of the mirror so I think she's close to the end now.  She's going out of town from Sunday to Wednesday next week so I should get plenty of time to play it then.  I think the last time I played it I had just entered the Lakebed Temple.

In other news, I just got word that I'm getting a HUGE bonus at work!!:D   It's even bigger then my normal paycheck and more then I'm getting for my income tax return (well if you figure in taxes it's going to be like an extra paycheck).  I would love to buy a bunch of games with it but I need to pay off some credit cards.  That way I'll save a bunch of money each month.  Hmmm, I might have to pick up Oblivion though...