Moco_Loco

@Angaran: Showcase comes out tomorrow.

This has been at the very top of my list of games to buy for a long time now. Being part of the Nintendo Life community, getting friend codes shouldn't be a problem, and I also love the idea of making microgames my family can play on the Wii. I hope I don't suck at it too bad!

@tbd: That sounds like Spain to me. Unless of course they mixed up different versions, like some of the textbooks I teach out of do.

If you want to confirm this, though, Nintendo Life will have to send me a free DSi so I can download this.

(Hey, it was worth a try.)

I am I can't download this? Now that sounds really strange.

Too boring for words, huh? The very best approach is actually comprehensible input (read and listen to Spanish at a level you can understand). It's the approach used by all of us for learning our first language. Knowing individual words can help make Spanish comprehensible, but ultimately they needed to put them in the context of conversations or stories that you could hear and read--including available translations (Rosetta Stone's biggest downfall, at least when I tried their demo and tried to learn Turkish, is that you can't find out exactly what is being said).

Once you hear and read enough, then get a bilingual conversation partner to take you further.

I was so into my first playthrough of Phantom Hourglass that I couldn't put it down for mere necessity. Usually, however, I merely read my way to glory on the throne. Great article!

This is one of those cases where I acknowledge the high quality of a game or series of games while also admitting it's just not my thing. I played through the first four cases of the first Phoenix Wright and just couldn't finish the fifth because I was bored out of my skull. The writing was excellent, but between that game and getting bored with Hotel Dusk I realized that text adventures with pictures just weren't my genre.

I tried the demo of Miles Edgeworth just to see what the differences were like, and I very quickly got bored and turned off my DS. It's definitely a great game series, and for all those who are fans of this genre--enjoy. They're great games.

While the portable-unfriendliness doesn't give me many opportunities to play it, I always get absorbed whenever I play this game. I prefer this to the remake version because it is a little more straightforward and I only occasionally hit a point where I can't figure out what to do next. With the remake I was actually playing along with a YouTube video because I could never figure out what I was supposed to do next!!!

Always having the map visible is also a big help. And you gotta love the cheese!

I lost all desire to get the more difficult stars when I started hitting harder areas like Rainbow Road. I found it impossible to get the precision I needed with the control options on offer. Don't get me wrong, I thought the game was great, but it also convinced me to focus on buying games built for the DS from the ground up.

As much as I like Bleach, all it took was one gameplay video to convince me that I didn't want this one. Everything just seemed so slow, and I've played most of the Fire Emblems released here.

It was actually Blade of Fate that got me into Bleach in the first place, though these days I tend to play Dark Souls when I want a quick fighting game fix.

Why does WiiWare keep getting iPhone ports? Shouldn't DSiWare be getting them????

I'm actually trying to get my head around how they can pull off those graphics and keep the file size small. Maybe a small number of areas get recycled with different goals? Even then, the areas would have to be fairly small. Either that, or they're just that good at squeezing a glass of orange juice out of a single orange slice.

It's weird how you can't even see your hand. Maybe there's telekinesis involved? Or maybe...(gasp)...you play as an invisible ghost in the game!

Silly Nintendo Power. Didn't they know that the true name of the Wii's successor is Mii N U?

The original Donkey Kong was one of the two games that got me interested in videogames as a child (you can probably figure out the other one, which was not a Nintendo game). I would LOVE for that to be released on VCA. I already have the NES version on my GCN Animal Crossing disc.

I'd love to see releases of all of these. So far the VCA has been underwhelming IMHO. I would love to see more support for it all around.

I rented this game through GameFly earlier in the year, and at first I really enjoyed it. Over time, however, I started to get increasingly annoyed with the imprecise jumping and how repetitive the game is. It needed smaller levels and button-based jumping. I think the level of variety in the game would have been sufficient with smaller levels, but the over-the-top size of the levels really made it more obvious just how repetitive the gameplay was.

I've always wondered how you would make a good Doctor Who game (I've been a fan since PBS started showing Tom Baker stuff way back when).

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and Zack & Wiki might be good places to draw inspiration from. The iPhone will probably get the "magic sonic screwdriver" FPSS (sic) game, where the sonic screwdriver opens doors and destroys your enemies or something, but I think a good Doctor Who game needs to be a puzzle-heavy adventure to work.

Unless it has some Captain Jack levels, of course.

I don't know about Wii Fit, but EA Sports Active has helped me get in the habit of exercising. I was using it every day for awhile, but I've been weaning myself off of it in favor of full-blown strength training and cardio using intervals of running, fast kick-ups or jumping jacks alternated with walking.

I'm still working on my food intake, but I've lost 13 pounds (I had lost 15 but then the parade of holidays started, so I'm just trying to maintain from now until January 1st) and I've noticed my increased strength and speed. I'm never short of breath except when exercising hard or running (not walking unless someone's in the way) up the stairs.

I think that this kind of thing was the idea behind Wii Fit in the first place. The study, though, seems flawed from the limited information in the press release.

Great review. Really makes me want to try it. Maybe it'll be on VC one day...

The price point is my main concern. For 500 points I might download a game for a little holiday cheer, but for 1000 I expect a high-quality experience. I don't think this price can be justified.

What's actually most interesting to me is that Sony even considers Wii a competitor. Most fanboys try to negate the success of the Wii by saying that it isn't even playing in the same league as the PS3 and 360.

That said, I wish Sony the best as they really did create an outstanding system. I don't want one (not enough games I can play while my kids are awake) but it's a good system.

It's kind of sad that such a common-sense approach (and one that is common practice for PS360 and PC) would have to be done on a "trial" basis at all. People like to try before they buy whenever they can. That way they make an informed decision, are happy with their purchase, and are more likely to spend more money in the future.

I recently bought two games that I am very happy with: Pokemon Rumble and Water Warfare. With Pokemon Rumble, I played the demo a couple times and decided I wanted it. With Water Warfare, I decided to investigate the game because I wanted an FPS I could play while my kids are around. I had to read reviews, watch reviews, and watch numerous gameplay videos before I was sold.

Demos help customers make good decisions, and the average consumer is far more likely to buy a game after trying it than to seek the game out and do the kind of research I had to do on Water Warfare.

I want 50% of the stars to be as hard as Luigi's Purple Coins. It took me 3 days to conquer it (and, yes, I did look at YouTube videos; I would have given up in disgust otherwise) but I was on top of the world when I finally did it. Unfortunately, it took me only a few tries to get it right when I played through it as Luigi. Not nearly as satisfying.

Even so, all of SMG was easy compared to trying to survive the older SMB games. Not so much because of level design, but because it was harder to get extra lives.

As for the Super Guide, I could care less. I watch YouTube videos when I'm really stuck so I wouldn't mind, and those videos will be there whether there is a Super Guide or not. I would still prefer that you not be able to get stars just by watching the guide, though.

The game really does sound like a complete blast to play. Review scores are subjective, but I'm glad Corbie gave it a 10/10 so it might bring the metacritic average up a bit.

And it's also stuck in mine. D'oh!

They combined a lot of popular casual game genres in that trailer. I mean, a Christmas Breakout clone? You would think stuff would stick to the candy cane at the bottom, or break it.

We can hope JV games has learned and made something that, at the very least, doesn't completely suck. Combined with a Christmas theme and the option to turn off the annoying sound effect when you click on the presents, a game that doesn't completely suck could be good for my family.

To quote one of my least favorite Christmas songs ever (why, Paul, why?), "Simply having a wonderful Christmastime..."

And now that song is stuck in your head. Bwahahahahaha!

It's really hard to say why some games succeed on the Wii and others don't. It's even a mystery to Nintendo why hardcore games aren't selling on the system (there was a story about that a while back). Honestly, though, I think most Wii owners are looking for games that the family can play together--if not literally, then at least in the sense that the family can be together while one person is playing the game.

Having three daughters, I know that's what I'm often looking for.

It's hard to find quality family-friendly fare on the other consoles (there are notable exceptions, of course), whereas most of Nintendo's franchises appeal to the entire family. Unfortunately, most third-parties make dumbed-down games or minigames to try to appeal to families, rather than copying Nintendo's strategy of making family-friendly games of high quality. Nintendo itself is most likely to fail when they make a game of dubious quality (Wario Land: Shake It was a decent rental, but honestly I kept thinking about the higher-quality 2D platformers I could be playing on Virtual Console) or can't figure out how to market a game (Wii Music).

EA Sports Active showed exactly what could happen when you make a quality family experience and market it well. I think there is room for M-rated titles on the Wii, but they need to be marketed correctly and have very good save systems--I'm playing the Resident Evil remake right now (hence my avatar) and love it, but I can only play it when my 3-year-old is asleep or out of the house. And I need to be able to save quickly if she wakes up or comes home--something I can't do with that particular game, unfortunately.

While I admit Natal looks impressive, the problem is the console it's designed to work with. I have my doubts that casual audiences will be willing to embrace a console with a high failure rate. Core gamers have put up with it because the Xbox 360 has a strong library that caters to them perfectly, but that same library would look pretty weak to a family-oriented audience. Is Microsoft going to be able to come up with a number of family-friendly, quality IPs to attract casual users to Natal?

At this point I'm having trouble seeing core gamers taking to the new technology. As much as I love my Wii, I'm very much over the novelty of motion control; I appreciate it when it is implemented well, and hate it when it is shoehorned in or forced upon me unnecessarily. For Natal to succeed, Microsoft must find a way to capture the imagination of a mainstream audience the way Nintendo did with Wii Sports.

Perhaps if they implement Milo the way IGN did in their version of the video...

I like the fact that you don't have to attach any ridiculous peripherals to play the game. I am seriously considering this.