Nintendo seems to be on a lucky streak of sticking it to me lately, with the first strike against me being my Wii needing repairs and more recently scoring another point thanks to my copy of SSBB not working on my friends’ Wii. I had SSBB preordered at GameStop and figured I might as well pick it up the day it launched as I was in town anyways. The kicker being I had just sent my Wii off for repairs and had nothing to play the game on. Yesterday, we went to visit some friends, excited about the possibility of finally getting to check out the game.

Truth be told, I haven’t spoiled too much for myself as I didn’t really pay much attention to the pre-release hype. I posted a few news bits about videos and SSBB blog updates, but I didn’t really get too far into said videos nor did I continue to follow the blog for very long. And not out of disinterest, I could just tell the game was going to be awesome and wanted to not spoil as much as possible.

So here we are, at my friends house all excited about finally getting to check out the game and getting to go through everything that’s under the hood. We’d play some co-op Subspace Emissary, maybe unlock a few new characters, build a custom level, check out online, all kindsa crazy stuff we had envisioned. We joked around about how “Oh watch it not work, didn’t you hear about certain Wii’s not being able to play them?” which in hindsight, we probably should not have joked about because the truth of the matter is not only did the game not play, the Wii wouldn’t even see the disk.

>:(

We tried the Wii standing right side up, on it’s belly sideways, at a 45 degree angle, turning it on with another game in and then switching them, unplugging the power, we even took it old school NES style and blew into the slot at one point. Ok not really, but it was an option. We knew in the back of our heads the Wii wasn’t going to play the game, but we were desperate and tried everything we could think of. The game simply wouldn’t be recognized by the Wii so we played a few rounds of Guitar Hero 3 instead and still had fun.

On the way home I figured if anything good can come out of this, it’s going to be the amount of excitement that has built up inside me over the game and how cool it will be to finally play it. Nintendo is just teasing me.. I got home and noticed a note on the door from UPS stating I had a package in the office of the apartments here. I wonder what that could be?

No, I’m not trying to make some kind of joke about my private parts needing to be fixed, I’m talking about the fact I sent my Wii off for repair today and as I waved goodbye to it in the box FedEx supplied for me, I shed a tiny tear. Mainly because I knew I wouldn’t be getting it back before SSBB hits, which is my own dumb fault. It’s not that the Wii was scratching my games or not playing them or showing red rings or anything of that nature, it’s just been making an awful grinding sound akin to a power drill being turned on inside the unit. The noise started about 2 months ago and I am just now getting around to fixing it.

For those interested, the process for sending in your Nintendo Wii for repair is super, super painless. I called up the Nintendo support line, explained the situation to the guy on the other end (who was very professional and courteous) and told him that although it’s not a showstopping issue with the Wii, it is something I wanted to get fixed before my warranty ran out. Guess what! My warranty had just ran out last week.. The great news is without hesitation, the Nintendo rep told me they would still cover it. SUCH great service, especially seeing the unit was still playing games just fine and operating normally besides the fact it sounded like a tiny chainsaw. I was very excited to hear that they would be fixing it to say the least.

The next thing the rep told me was he would be emailing me a link to print out a FedEx label to ship the unit back, simply box it up, slap that label on it, and drop it off at FedEx. So that’s what we did today. And now I’m sad. No Wii and no SSBB for me until I get the unit back. I don’t foresee it taking a very long time to get it back, but I will be staring at my copy of SSBB intently, reading and smelling the manual as I await my precious’ return.

I’ll wrap this up with another small writeup when I get the unit back letting you know how long the turnaround is just in case the very off chance happens that you need to send yours in. Handle it with delicate hands, FedEx!

In case you’re wondering what the House of the Dead 2 and 3 combo game will look like on the shelves, here’s a pic of it’s boxart. I may have posted this before, but here it is again just in case:

Man this is a bummer for me personally I was actually looking forward to Nitro Bike after having fun with ExciteTruck for the Wii. With it’s online play and gameplay akin to what ExciteTruck offered, I thought the game was sure to be a frantic racing hit. Well, not according to Nintendo Power where they’ve gone and given it a 3.5 in this month’s issue. Ouch! They also give Endless Ocean a 7.5 which is slightly lower than I had expected but not such a big surprise.

In case you’re wondering what Nitro Bike is, here’s a trailer showing some gameplay:

Now be honest here and tell me which boxart you think looks cooler or more appealing, the Atari 2600 “Video Chess” boxart made over 20 years ago or the Wii Chess artwork as seen below. I’ve labeled them in case it wasn’t apparent which was which.

Wii Chess

Video Chess

I have to say I think Wii Chess looks rather bland and boring.. Quite plain. I miss the days of kickass boxart with artistic views, even if it is for a silly simplistic game of chess.

In case you’re wondering which games are hot or not on the Virtual Console listings, OMG Nintendo has you covered with their article that goes over 16 VC games you can’t live without. I have to agree with their selections for the most part, I might swap out a couple here and there, but otherwise I find most of their pics to be the cream of the crop on the Wii Shop.

2007 was full of great moments from start to finish for the Nintendo Wii. January 2007 was still coming strong from the release of the system just a few months earlier and gamers were still enjoying The Twilight Princess while the end of the year brought some great titles like Zack and Wiki, Super Mario Galaxy, and the Wii Zapper and it’s supported games. There were also games in between that kept the momentum going like Metroid Prime 3, Mario Strikers, Super Paper Mario, and Resident Evil 4.

What gaming experience from 2007 on the Wii stands out the most to you? Or maybe you have a few stories of things that were great? In my mind, thinking about the fun I had with Metroid Prime 3 makes me want to play it all over again and finally beat it. If I could only finish up Mario Galaxy.. And then I said I would go back and pick up Zelda: TP from where I left off. Maybe that should be my New Year’s resolution for 2008, to finish more games before moving on to the next one.

Happy New Years and here’s looking to a great 2008 with the Nintendo Wii!

Man Japan gets all the fun toys and bundles.. Check out this setup for House of the Dead 2 and 3 complete with a Wii Zapper that Japan is getting. I’m envious of the boxart alone, much less for what’s in it. I have a pal that’s really into scary movies and would dig this box and the games for sure. When and if it’s going to hit the US in this package is unknown and given the history of such things, doubtful.

Thanks to Nintendo Wii Fanboy for the headsup.

Gizmodo has tons of shots up of a Nintendo Wii recently modified and customized for Kevin Smith built by the folks over at Morpheon Mods. It’s got a full on Clerk’s theme going on with engraved nunchuks and Wii remotes as well. Check out some of the pics below then check out the links for more:

I saw this over at NintendoWiiFanboy.com who happened to read about it over at the NeoGAF forums. It’s a chart showing off 52 weeks of sales for the PS2 and the Nintendo Wii and by the looks of it, the numbers are pretty close. Click the thumbnail below to see the graph.

Just a quick note to let you guys know that Target is having a sale right now and amongst other Wii games, Super Mario Galaxy is only $37 right now. You can see the weekly ad right here.

Wow what a busy few days! But a great couple of days there leading up to Christmas today. We have a one year old son who get s all of the attention around here and he had an absolute blast. We had to get him a toy guitar so he perhaps wouldn’t go so crazy when I’m playing Guitar Hero III, but it didn’t work too well. He likes his toy guitar well enough, but when I bring out the GHIII guitar, he goes bananas and wants it, dropping his toy one. Whatever Daddy is playing with, right?

Also, something *huge* happened at my parents today where we normally gather for the holidays - my parents, who are in their 50’s and never played video games and absolutely despised them when I was growing up, told me they wanted to get a Wii. They said one of their bosses had one at a party and everyone (their age) was playing and loving it, just having a blast. So now, they want one. And they don’t want a 360 or a PS3 because they want to be able to get up and be active while they play, not just sit around on the couch so they said. I was blown away to say the least. Huge!

What about you guys? Any good Wii stories, or maybe you go some good Wii games or peripherals in for Christmas? I’m waiting on Ghost Squad to arrive along with the Nyko lightgun from Amazon and while I didn’t get any Wii related presents for Christmas, I do have a gift card to GameStop. I’m undecided on what I should spend it on although I’m crazily interested in Carnival Games or maybe even Resident Evil: UC. If anyone out there has Ghost Squad and RE:UC, could you perhaps post with what you like/dislike about each one and how they compare? Sure, I could read reviews but I’m always interested in hearing from the community here.

To make things fun and mix in the Tuesday Poll for this week, I’ll ask you guys, which game should I get with my giftcards from the following selection:

Ok, hope you all had a great holidays this year, I’m going to be posting tons of updates tomorrow and we should be back on track.

Take a look at this Amazon page and check out the list of “Top Sellers in Video Games” on the right over there updated hourly. I took a screenshot of the current results as of 1:20-ish on Christmas Eve:

I think the Wii is a big hit so far this holiday season for Amazon!