Sweet SMB Anniversary Wii Coming In Japan:

Poor Japan. They never get any cool stuff.

Played some Wii Party and NBA Jam tonight.

Wii Party
NBA Jam

I was considering Wii Party, what's the downside there ?

A few things actually. It felt like a third rate Mario Party that was banged out over a couple of weekends. It also looks it. The game just looks terrible. It reeks of third party shovelware, not your typical Nintendo game that was given a great deal of time and attention.

We played one "Island" round (board game style like MP) and after that went through all the 4v4 games we missed (they're all unlocked from the beginning) and only a couple were mildly entertaining, although I couldn't even tell you what those were, that's how memorable it was.

I could see the pre-teen set enjoying it, but I have to agree with the guys on Weekend Confirmed when they said, the only way to enjoy this game is if you are either 5 years old or inebriated.

To expand on NBA Jam while I'm at it, it's the same exact game it was a decade ago. Aside from the prettier graphics and updated team rosters, you wouldn't even know the franchise took a break. It also still suffered when playing 3 players. The lone guy still has a distinct advantage. We didn't get a chance to try out all the extra modes yet.

So, anyone out there jazzed about Kirby's Epic Yarn?

Hell yes! Picking up my copy as soon as Kmart has it out on the shelf.

Absolutely! But it might have to be a present request.

Apparently in these months I'm supposed to stop buying movies and games so people have shit to buy me for Christmas/birthday. Boo.

Wait, no, that's good.

Yeah, out of the two big releases next week (Kirby and Fallout Vegas), I'm way more excited for Kirby. Is that weird?

Oh Jesus - you guys are in for a treat with Kirby. It's amazing. The art style is simply stunning when playing. Simple to play, and doesn't rely too heavily on fancy Wiimote tricks.

The developers that did Kirby also did Wario Land: Shake It, which I thought was really good. I'm definitely looking forward to it.

It's without a shadow of a doubt, a game geared for little kids. But I played it with my wife watching, and she sat there and giggled every time I went behind some fabric, or pulled a zipper, or even rolled an enemy into a ball of yarn. It was awesome.

Yeah, I've heard it's ridiculously easy.

But I think this will be a great game to play co-op with the wife/girlfriend, etc.

Double True.

It sounds like it will be similar to Shake It, where it was easy if you just wanted to blow through the game, but to do everything was much harder.

IGN and 1Up both gave it a 9.0.

After last night's session, that's where I'd put it as well.

And with absolutely no fanfare, it seems the Wii now also has a discless NetFlix app/channel available for download from the store.

Serving all your SD Netflix desires.

Like all my neighbors, parents, and college friends.

It's really too bad the Wii is limited to SD, because it's by far the most satisfying interface. Easy to navigate, search, and everything.

Yeah, the Wii interface rocks.

I'm not even sure I've ever seen anything in my queue in HD yet, hmm.

Agreed. Unfortunately HD supersedes interface.

That is great news for us. Our Wii's disk drive broke recently and it is a $70 fix. We were mostly using it for kids shows via Netflix.