Zack and Wiki (Wii)L COMPLETED!

It took over an hour to finish off the boss, as I had several failures, but eventually he was defeated. There were then four (or five?) "Game Over" sequences, including two more after it declared "Fin", and then it was finally over. Now there are some extra challenges to complete, but I haven't a clue how to go about accessing them. The books on the bookshelf are mostly empty still too.

Total play time: 12 hours 27 minutes.

Zack and Wiki (Wii)

ONE HOUR AND FOURTY FIVE MINUTES.

That's how long it took me to complete Barbaros' Land. In fact, aside from a quick fail of the final "boss", that's all I did on the game today. I'm up to around 11-12 hours in total, but it doesn't feel that long. The time just vanishes while I play.

Anyway, since I'm on the last bit of the game (I think), I'd best start asking for a sequel. Mind you, only seven people bought the original so that probably isn't going to happen, sadly.

Zack and Wiki (Wii)

Getting close the end now, I'm sure of it. I've completed all the open levels, rebuilt Barbaros, and killed a giant squid. Now it's off to Treasure Island itself! Woo!

Pop (Wii)

Advanced mode make me am cry from my arm. The idea is to hit the maximum score possible as quickly as you can. Sadly, for me, that too almost an hour an a half. Hence the arm pain.

However, I did manage to rank 58th in the world!

Pop (Wii)

The guy responsible for this WiiWare title posts over at rllmuk, as do I, and so I thought it nice to give him a bit of support. Not least because I managed to get 1000 Wii points to buy it with from Nintendo Stars. If you've no idea what any of that means, tough.

After an hour of moving and removing stuff I actually wanted to keep, my Wii had enough space to let me download Pop! And then I played it.

It's good, in a non-game sort of way. You burst bubbles. I seem to be missing some gameplay aspect, as that's all there is to it. It's kind of thereputic, and certainly fun, but like Electroplankton and bubble wrap, there's no actual game.

Zack and Wiki (Wii)

Just one level today - the Airship one (called "Operation Takeback", or something). It wasn't especially hard, but I had to restart several times, meaning it took ages. I kept missing things, making later bits of the solution impossible.

But MAP GET! Aces.

Zack and Wiki (Wii)

Worked my way through all (well, all bar one) of the Fire World levels today. I don't know if they're actually getting easier, or that my brain is now becoming tuned to the way the game expects you to think, but I certainly found them easier.

Even the boss (although good, and clever) was much easier than the previous two.

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii)

Having played this at my in-laws earlier in the week, my arm was twisted to buy it. And, having played it today, my arm was twisted some more. Literally.

The thing is, the events are either far too easy (Skeet Shooting, 100m) or far too hard (Swimming, Long Jump). The swimming in particular - I can do the first 50m easily (in first place), but then without changing rhythm, somehow get overtaken instantly and then come 8th. It makes no sense!

Zack and Wiki (Wii)

Completed all the remaining Ice World levels today, including the fiddly IMMA CHARGIN MAH LAZERS one. Then I opened up the Lava World levels (so... grass, ice, fire... desert next? Cave? Space? Thems the rules!).

Completed the first one there too.

Zack and Wiki (Wii)

Ah... for some reason the things I tried on the monkey-boss level last time I played didn't work, but this time, they worked fine. Very odd. But with that done, and the other "first world" level complete, it was onto the second world - the ice one.

Only done two levels here so far though.

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii)

I'm at the in-laws at the moment, and they have this game. So we all played it for a while. It seems very good, but the games vary wildly from very easy (skeet shooting) to very hard (swimming) to seemingly random (long jump).

I was either very good, or absolutely terrible, as a result.

Zack and Wiki (Wii)

And today I played this. It too is very good!

It's a point and click adventure game (which are generally ace), but with Wii-specific controls for certain actions. For example, you turn a key in a lock by twisting the remote. You saw down a tree by thrusting the remote forwards and backwards like a saw, and so on. It's intuitive and doesn't feel tacked on in the slightest, unlike some other Wii games.

So far I've completed 5 "levels", and have attempted the "boss" once. But I got stuck.

No More Heroes (Wii)

I bought two new games today. I haven't bought any in ages, and finally got round to paying in some cheques for my birthday this morning. And they were on offer in Gamestation. So I thought, why not?

So I bought No More Heroes and Zack and Wiki, both for the Wii.

I've only played the former today, but so far, it has been excellent. I've done the training, killed the assassins ranked at 10 and 9, explored the town a bit, collected coconuts, assassinated a bloke in a car park, and went shopping. I love the style of it, and the controls are way better than I expected.

Bomberman Land Wii (Wii)

You may have noticed I've not posted anything all week. That's not because I haven't played anything, it's just because I've been really busy. Besides, the only game I've touched is this one.

And I'm around 8.5 hours into single player mode now. I've completed the Ring and Delta zones (both with ease), but now I'm on to the Diamond Zone and it's suddenly become really hard.

There are three games making it difficult for me to progress. The hardest is "Water Skipping". It's impossible. The second is "Bomb Smash", which is impossible. Then there's the multiplayer "Bomb Balloon", which is impossible.

So I'm stuck and frustrated and I don't like the game any more. Bah.

Bomberman Land Wii (Wii)

I went back to the single player story mode on this today, and finished off all of the first zone - coming first over all. I was quite surprised I managed to come first, as after the first (of four) rounds, I was so far behind the leader there was no way I was going to be able to win.

But I did - with 114 points compared to my nearest rival on 81.

Unfortunately, I have found a large flaw in the game. To play the minigames (to earn "pieces" - the points you need to win), you need tokens, and you're given more tokens than there are games to play. However, if you get top score on a game, you can't play it again. So, basically, if you're good, you run out of games to play before you're out of tokens. Which is silly.

Oh, and you rack up hundreds of training points (which you spend on things) in the training games, but there's nothing to spend them on. You buy all the best stuff from the shop, and you still have hundreds and hundreds of spendable points left.

Link's Crossbow Training (Wii): COMPLETED!

Or at least, completed to the point I will consider it so: I've managed a Silver or better on every level, and killed the bosses. In fact, I have only three Silvers, I think - two Platinums and the rest are all Gold. Not bad!

I also amazed myself by getting over 65,000 on just Zora's River - which gave me a Gold without even adding the other two scenarios on that level. Ace!

Toki Tori (Wii)

Completed all of the remaining "Scary Castle" levels today, followed by the first six or so in the Sewers. But now I'm stuck. Bah.

Toki Tori (Wii)

Just two levels on this tonight. I'd hoped to have done more, but 2-7 was far too hard. Well, it wasn't in the end, I was just looking at it the wrong way.

Bomberman Land Wii (Wii)

Another couple of hours in battle mode today. It seems the best way to play is to set everything to random - arena, rules, starting positions - everything. Helpfully, there's a game mode that does all this for you. Every round is different!

Of course, I won.

Bomberman Land Wii (Wii)

This arrived yesterday. Played it for about an hour in "traditional" mode - the same Bomberman game in multiplayer since the dawn of time. And in this respect, it is very good. It's missing some of the more recent (well, 15 year old...) additions like throwing bombs and things to ride on, but it has all the required power-ups and plays as well as it ever did.

There are a few different modes, such as Star Mode where when you die you respawn but lose stars, which are scattered across the play area for all to collect. The winner is the person with the most when the time runs out. Then there's Points Mode, where you get points for killing others and lose points for killing yourself. There's also a "Wii" mode, which consists of no Bombermen at all, just pointers on the screen where you shoot bombs. It sort of works, but is a bit confusing.

After playing that, I played single player Story Mode. There's a lot of chatting and cutscenes (unskippable, and the captions can't be sped up either - gah!), and it seems to consist of a load of mini-games rather than any Bomberman style action. It's very odd. You buy goes in these games with tokens, then gain "pieces" depending on how well you do. Once your tokens are all used up, your won pieces are tallied and you're ranked against the other contestants on a leaderboard - come first and you're promoted up to the next tier of games. I didn't come first. Rubbish.

Wii Fit (Wii)

Mainly to just show the in-laws it today. Didn't do particularly well, either. Bah.

Wii Fit (Wii)

Well, sort of. I didn't play it as such, I just used my wife as a joystick while she stood on the board, and we played the ball heading game. 299 points (50 more than the previous high score!) says this is the way to play it!

Wii Fit (Wii)

Only a few minutes on this today (yes, I know - I've not been on it in ages), mainly just to try my hand, or legs, at the Ski Jump again. Best I could manage was 343, which puts me 8th on the table. Rubbish. Also did the body test too.

Toki Tori (Wii)

Yeah, yeah - I wasn't going to buy any more Wii downloadable content. Partly because of the nasty experience I've had losing full access to £400-worth of Xbox 360 DLC (all Microsoft's fault), but mainly because my Wii is full and I don't want to delete or move anything until Nintendo develop some proper sort of storage system.

But then I saw Toki Tori on the new-today WiiWare shop.

I had to move two N64 VC games, and delete my WiiFit channel, but it's now bought, downloaded and played. And? It's very good! It's cute, and reminds me a lot of Adventure of Lolo - which is aces. So far I've completed all of the first world's normal levels, most of the hard levels, and about 4 of the second world's levels. Some of the hard ones have been more than a little difficult...

This Week's Roundup (360/Wii)

Another busy week (it was my birthday!) so I've got a bit of catching up to do.

Wii Fit (Wii)
Haven't played this much since Tuesday, but did fit in a couple of sessions in the week. Mainly just played step and ski jump, though.

Link's Crossbow Training (Wii)
Excellent! I got this for my birthday, which was pretty amazing in itself since it's impossible to buy pretty much everywhere. It's pretty simplistic (it is basically "just" a lightgun game) but is brilliantly well done and the "Wii Zapper", despite being a bit of a faff to assemble, works really well. I've completed it already, but that's not really the point, so I'm not going to consider it finished just yet. I think you have to get a piece of Triforce on every level? Anyway, I have at least a Silver on every level bar one, with a couple of Golds and a Platinum too.

Sega Superstars Tennis (Wii)
In two-player mode. It's pretty good fun, actually, although NiGHTS is rubbish (as I found out having picked him and then losing without scoring a single point). I need to unlock more minigames too, as none of the ones currently available are particularly good.

Race Driver GRID Demo (360)
Played this today. First impressions are: it's very quick, the damage models are amazing, and it looks fantastic. But it's too hard. I do like the rewind facility though.

Some Dragonball Z Thing Demo (360)
It looks great. But I'm not into Dragonball Z and I had no idea what I was doing. Not that it seemed to matter, as the demo is really easy and I completed both two levels with no problems at all simply by mashing buttons.

Grand Theft Auto IV (360)
And this is what I've played most this week. I'm now around 23 or 24 hours in, and the mission I've most recently completed is the one where you save Roman from the Russians. Again. I've spent a while taking Roman and Little Jacob out, completed a couple more missions (and my first race) for Brucie, and completed the first task for the paper company. Oh, and a job for Packie and another for the policeman guy who Niko seemed to know well but it was the first time I'd come across him. Very odd. I still have an outstanding mission for Dwayne but it's too hard.

On Friday night I played online for the first time. First up was a game of Deathmatch with random people, and I'm just pleased I didn't come last. After that, it was Turf War which I didn't really like very much. Then, someone on my friends list invited me to a co-op game and we went and completed the three co-op missions together, which was pretty good.

GTA Glitch Watch
This morning, as I left my room in the flat in South Bohan, I managed to run up the flight of stairs before the stairs had been drawn-in. Very odd.

Also, every time I load the game, the door leading out of the flat flashes white briefly. Also very odd.

Wii Fit (Wii)

Just 24 minutes on this today, and almost exclusively on Ski Jump, trying to beat my beat jump. I didn't. I did, however, complete both advanced and super advanced on Tightrope, and did a couple of yoga and muscle exercises.

Wii Fit (Wii)

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES today! And mostly the energetic stuff too: Advanced Step, 10 Minute Free Step, both Hula Hoop games, Island Lap jogging, Super Advanced Rhythm Boxing, and the warrior and lunge yoga/muscle combo. And some other bits too.

I was absolutely knackered afterwards. Which was ace!

Wii Fit (Wii)

15 more minutes tonight, almost entirely on the Ski Jump game. My highest score today was just 358, which was rubbish compared to the 376 I already have set.

I'm guessing 400 is the maximum?

Wii Fit (Wii)

Just 15 minutes tonight, mostly on the bubble game and step game, but also attempted to beat the Ski Jump and Slalom records (and didn't).

Oh, and was just 9 seconds off a flawless Arse-Sit. Gah.

Wii Fit (Wii)

Another 34 minutes on this today. I even managed the 10 minute Rhythm Boxing game, although I'm still struggling to get it to register "weave" movements.

Wii Fit (Wii)

I didn't play this yesterday. It made me feel suitably guilty for not playing it yesterday too. Evil thing. I did, however, manage 34 minutes today.

About 10 of those minutes were doing the Muscle things. They're like the Yoga ones, only involve you moving. Those I tried were actually pretty easy. Spent about 10 minutes on Yoga too, and the rest was on Rhythm Boxing (I've just unlocked a 10 minute version too!), Step, and assorted balance games.

Impossible Mission (Wii)

Another attempt at this today, and another horrible failure. I managed one puzzle, but the problem was that all the remaining things I had to search required a Snooze to get to. And I had no Snoozes. And I couldn't get any more Snoozes as all the remaining things I had to search required a Snooze to get to.

Which was a bit of a problem.

There's also one room which is completely impossible, Snooze or no Snooze.

Wii Fit (Wii)

32 minutes today! Although the final two hardly count - as they were from the final balance "game": sit on your arse. No, really.

The other 30 minutes were mostly from the long Rhythm Boxing, the whole island lap jogging, and the Step game, bolstered by more snowboarding and some of the shorter games.

Oh! And I ran up a MASSIVE 376m on the Ski Jump!

Impossible Mission (Wii)

I'd forgotten just how fantastic this game was. OK, so it's the inferior (but possible) C64 version and not the amazing Spectrum version, but you can't have everything. I could have played the Speccy version on an emulator for free though. Hmm.

Anyway! I spent two hours playing this today, which comprised just three games in total. The first one saw me die before even uncovering half the map, the second without completing a single puzzle, and the final attempt got me FIVE puzzles completed, and very nearly six - time ran out while assembling it.

Wii Fit (Wii)

30 minutes! Gasp!

And it was mostly on the energetic stuff too - jogging, Advanced Hula Hoop, Step Plus (which is really pretty difficult) and Advanced Rhythm Boxing, as well as a few goes on Snowboarding, Advanced Slalom, Penguin Feeding Thing (88 points!) and Ski Jump (matching my best of 338).

I did feel throughly worked out afterwards. Which is the point, really.

Wii Fit (Wii)

Only 15 minutes tonight, but I did mainly stick to energetic games (like Rhythm Boxing and Step), and Advanced versions of other games (like Slalom). I unlocked Snowboarding today too, which is just like Slalom, only side-on.

Managed a HUGE 338 on the Ski Jump too. Aces!

Wii Fit (Wii)

Another 20 minutes today. I've unlocked a couple more games today too - the penguin-feeding one and the fantastic Rhythm Boxing.

Wii Fit (Wii)

Another 20-odd minutes on this tonight. I didn't get a chance to play yesterday, so should really have made a bit more effort today, but anyway.

Did the jogging thing again, this time chasing after the dog what runs past you. This altered the course a little, but was a nice touch. Also beat my previous scores on Hula Hooping and That Game Where You Tilt Balls Into Holes. The new Yoga pose I'd unlocked (Palm Tree) was hard, as I kept almost falling over.

And I was rubbish at skiing today.

Wii Fit (Wii)

Yay! I managed to ace the Step Aerobics game! Well, not ace as such, but I did only get one miss. And I scraped a few more seconds off my Tightrope time, and improved on my Ski Jump score - but still can't beat my wife. I did, however, thrash her football score of 100 with my amazing score of 234. Ha!

Mario Party 8 (Wii)

Had a go of this today with my wife, on the Shyguy Train board. Things got off to a bad start for me, as for the first four turns I couldn't roll higher than a 3, and by turn 8 I was still starless while everyone else had two or three.

However, I somehow managed to turn it around, and on the final turn had three stars, beating everyone else. To further prove my superiority, I then won all three bonus stars, and the stats showed that regardless of which bonus stars had been randomly chosen, I'd have won the game anyway - even if I hadn't picked any stars up on the board. Amazing!

Wii Fit (Wii)

Racked up another 24 minutes today (same amount as yesterday), but spent less time on the Yoga and more on the aerobic and balance exercises. I'm finding the tightrope walking easy, the ski jump impossible to break 300 on, and the jogging on the spot was actually quite good fun. Yes, fun. Amazing.

Weekly Round Up

I've been a bit busy this week so haven't had time to fill in my diary. So here's a brief rundown of what I've been playing:

Me and My Katamari (PSP)
It's been this for most of the week. It is good and all, but I'm finding it a bit limiting. There are so few locations in the game (even fewer than the 360 version, in fact) that almost every level is a repeat of the last, with a different - or not - arrangement of objects. The controls are very fiddly too, with going straight and large turns being easy enough, but minor adjustments are difficult.

There's also the dual problems of pop-up (so bad that you sometimes collect items before they've even been drawn on the screen) and slowdown, marring enjoyment somewhat. There's another strange thing too - I actually kept running out of things to roll up. I'd reach the target size, and have so much time left over I could not only roll up every single remaining item, but also have another minute or more left in which there was nothing to do.

Thankfully, it's still fun, and it's still Katamari. I think if I'd played the other games after this one, perhaps I'd not be so bothered by the problems.

Sega Superstar Tennis (Wii)
This was £15 in Asda, and as it had had some reasonable reviews, I thought I'd get it. Even though common sense dictates that because it's a Sega game, there's a good chance it'll be crap. But it isn't! OK, so it isn't fantastic, and the Wii swinging controls are a little unresponsive, but it's more fun than Top Spin 2 on the 360. Some of the mini-games are pretty ace too - especially the House of the Dead one.

Wii Fit (Wii)
This arrived this week too, and it's brilliant. I don't go in for it being an actual tool for really actually getting you fit, but if it makes me more active at least, that'd be good. It's also a great novelty too, using your entire body as a controller. And it's worth the price for the skiing and ski jump games alone. Almost.

I won't be posting my BMI and weight and stuff here, just my progress. Which so far, hasn't happened. I've played most of the unlocked Yoga poses (one of which my body simply rejects), all the balance games, and a couple of aerobic exercises. I'm not planning on even touching the muscle exercises though. Press-ups? No.

MySims (Wii)

With skate. done and dusted, I was going to move on to something new, but then realised how many old games I still have uncompleted, and saw this on the shelf.

I was at just-over-4-stars previously, and today spent almost two hours barely improving on that. I think the bar is now at around 20% full, rather than 10%. Mostly spent the time prospecting for stuff and growing trees, but also moved a fortune teller in, and completed tasks for her and Goth Boy (who is now "complete"). Also moved in Master Aran, and made him some furniture.

I now need to find skeletons. They're in the desert, apparently, but I can't find any.

Uridium (Wii)

It's far too hard! I did even worse than yesterday!

Uridium (Wii)

I bought this simply because of the novelty factor of playing Commodore 64 games on the Wii. It's... OK. But hard. Only managed to reach Level 2!

Wii Sports/Wii Play (Wii)

So the inlaws were up today, and bizarrely they wanted to have a look at my Wii. They've not really taken an interest in games before (aside from Buzz! a couple of years ago), so it was a bit out of the blue.

I showed them Wii Sports first, and played bowling and tennis, and then we played Wii Play, on the shooting, pool and (most video-gamey) the cow-riding games. And now they're going to buy one themselves!

Adventures of Lolo 2 (Wii)

Not played this in a while, and didn't play for all that long today, either. I was on Floor 4, and one of the levels there took 30+ attempts, so I was stuck for a while. I'm now part way through Floor 5.

NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams (Wii)

Hmm. I don't know what to think. On the up side, it's more varied than the original game, with several missions for each level (such as save the Nightopians, a boating mission, and so on). On the down side, they're not great.

I think if this had been a Dreamcast game, it would have been a winner. Sadly, games have now moved on from collecting things as you steer a boat.

Anyway, I've done all of the first set of missions for Will, tried (and failed to beat the boss at the end of) the first mission on the second level for Will, and done the first mission and boss on the first level for Helen.

Adventures of Lolo 2 (Wii)

It would seem that this game has one power-up over the original - a hammer to smash rocks. Possibly this was in the first game too, but I don't recall it.

Anyway, I'm not on Floor 5. Woo!

Adventures of Lolo 2 (Wii)

I bought and downloaded this for the VC at the weekend, but for reasons explained elsewhere, didn't really get a chance to play it. But today, I did. And very lovely it is to.

Basically, it's the same as the first game, which I played (and enjoyed) last year. If you don't recall, it's a Sokoban type game, where you have to collect hearts, then some treasure, then escape the room. However, you have to push blocks and take certain routes and avoid baddies (and, often, line of sight with baddies) to progress.

So far, I've made it half-way through Floor 3.

NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams (Wii)

I played the original Saturn NiGHTS last year when I was having a Saturn Game Playing Phase, and was shocked at how badly it had aged. I could forgive the graphics, but the gameplay was dull, shallow, repetitive and simply not fun.

Which meant I was sceptical about a new Wii version. And, sadly, it seems I was right to be. It's the same. Of course, I shouldn't really have expected anything else, should I? What I did expect, however, was some lovely graphics. Unfortunately, those on the Journey of Dreams, so far at least, have been sub-Dreamcast standard.

Seriously - Sonic Adventure looks a generation ahead of this. The "Dream Gate" area (new to this version) is especially poor quality, with dreary textures and jagged edges. Oh Sega, once again you have broken my heart!

Of course, I have only played the tutorial, the Dream Gate, and the first level (and boss), so things may improve, but this isn't the way to get me interested...

Geometry Wars Galaxies (Wii): COMPLETED!

With two earlier levels completed on Silver (actually one was Silver, the other Gold), I had enough geoms to unlock the final planet. Which was really easy - I even got Gold on it!

So that's it - all done. Apart from going back and bettering my scores and leveling up the other drone states I'd not used much. Sweep and Turret are at max, Attack is almost there, but pretty much everything else is untouched.

After completing the game, I went back to Retro Evolved mode, and totally failed to beat my high score. Pff.

But what an excellent, excellent game. And for £17? Bargainlicious!

Geometry Wars Galaxies (Wii)

I've done all the levels now, bar the final planet on the final galaxy. I've got 140,000 geoms, and need 200,000 to unlock it - that's two more Bronze-to-Silver improvements.

I've just realised - why is each galaxy a galaxy? They're clearly solar systems. Hmm.

Geometry Wars Galaxies (Wii)

All these Geoms I've been collecting - hundreds of thousands of them - were all used up by the last few planets in the penultimate galaxy. Meaning I didn't have enough to open the final galaxy. So I went back to some earlier levels and managed Gold where previously, I'd only managed Bronze. That let me in, and with the first three planets there all Gold'ed, I'm back in huge credit!

Sadly, it costs LOADS to unlock each planet, so it looks like I'll need to get golds on them all in order to continue. Bah!

Geometry Wars Galaxies (Wii)

Right, I'm on the penultimate galaxy, and I've done three of the planets there. Not many left now! They're all getting a bit hard though, and I haven't managed a Silver rank in ages.

Geometry Wars Galaxies (Wii)

I don't really know what to write. I really love the game, but it's just "shoot stuff", so there's no real way of making an interesting diary post out of that...

I'm over halfway through unlocking the galaxies, though.

Geometry Wars Galaxies (Wii)

This just gets better! Every planet has a different "quirk", like you've only got one life, or you have huge splitting baddies, or there's no break from the action at all, or the "grid" is a maze with walls.

I've been powering up my Turret, which seems great for taking down huge swarms, especially on the more open levels. I had plenty of opportunity to power it up too, considering the number of times I had to attempt a level that needed 30 million points - just for Bronze!

Dewy's Adventure (Wii)

My Wii has had a quiet time of things recently (Eternal Sonata, Tony Hawk and Assassin's Creed saw to that), but with both Geometry Wars and Dewy arriving today, it's had a bit of a renaissance.

First impressions are... confused. The opening sequence is exactly the same graphical style as Eledees, with the same boy in it, and the same voice actor. The game itself, however, is totally different. It lies somewhere between Mercury Meltdown and, erm, something else. You tilt the controller to direct Dewy (a dew drop, hence his name) around the levels, collecting mushroom people. You can turn into ice or steam for a short period, allowing attacks and other moves.

So far, I've only spent about 40 minutes on it, completing the first four levels, and beating the first boss. It seems pretty good!

Geometry Wars Galaxies (Wii/DS)

That's right - Wii and DS. The Wii game arrived today, and, to my surprise, it lets you send a copy of a port of Retro Evolved to your DS. Hurrah!

First up was the Wii "Galaxies" mode. It is ACE. I was expecting a slight drop in clarity of visuals (over the 360 Retro Evolved) but there isn't really. It's just not HD, that's all. The level-based nature is a big difference to the game, but it works really well. I've worked through the first set of planets, and then two from the second set.

After that I had a go at the included Retro Evolved game, managing a feeble 300,000-ish points, ranking me 212th in the world. Ste Parker, of posting-in-ugvm "fame" is at 7th or 8th! Pff.

Finally, I played the DS version for a while, getting 360,000 points, even though it seemed much harder. How odd.

Super Luigi Galaxy (Wii)

Played through a bit more of this, nabbing about ten more stars. I only need about 12 now before I can face Bowser at the "end" of the game as Luigi.

I'm still convinced there are more baddies as Luigi. For example, when fighting King Kalicente (is that how you spell his name?) for the second time, he chucks one hell of a lot more of those blue flaming things at you.

Super Luigi Galaxy (Wii)

Haven't played this in a while, as I've had a lot of Team Fortress 2-ing to do, and Peggle and other stuff, so I felt a bit bad about neglecting it.

But no more! For I returned with Luigi and got him 7 more stars, taking his total to 35, and 155 overall. Just, erm, lots left to go!

Got my first green star with Luigi, and my first letter from Luigi to Luigi, which is all a bit strange. You'd have thought you swapped places with Mario on the second run through, but no. And why is it that the other Luigi is taller than m