I'll say it again - the multiplayer in Mario Kart Wii is phenomenal, and is sure to be a hit with parties. But once you've played the new courses enough to find out how cool they are, single-player becomes the same boring venture you've already played. I'm really not motivated enough to keep getting gold cups and star rankings to get the rest of the game's unlockables, even though there are a ton of them.

Progress: 17 golds

Two and a half hours in, it's over. Of course I expected it to be short, and I can count the number of memorable puzzles/in-game events on one hand; but LostWinds felt a lot more fulfilling than I expected a downloadable adventure game to be.

You can read the game's prologue on Frontier's website. Here's the rest of the story:

Early on, Toku and Enril meet Deo, an elder in Toku's village who's taking care of the brat while his mother's away. Enril immediately recognizes Deo as one of her kindred ancient spirits. But it seems that he has spirit-amnesia, and he doesn't remember his own identity - until Toku and Enril find a Memory Chest, which unlocks part of Deo's power. Deo recalls that he sealed his own memories away in order to protect the stone prison. So Toku and Enril have to go on a quest to find the other three Memory Chests. Great!

After unlocking the fourth chest, Deo recalls that he entrusted his spirit power to a guardian of the earth, Magmok. So he goes to call upon Magmok for his power. But, whoops, Magmok's been possessed by Balasar's evil little black-goo minions. A boss fight later, Magmok recovers, restores Deo's powers, and - To Be Continued!

LostWinds looks to have a really respectable engine going, that could definitely generate a great sequel with the right polish and more attention to content. There is a surprising amount of action possible in the game that isn't directly documented or necessary. But stuff like the plot, and dialog, could use work. And I could really use a map and/or in-game signs with place names.

I've read that collecting all the hidden totems doesn't accomplish anything, so I'll be holding off on that. But who knows? I may play the whole thing over again sometime.

Progress: Beat final boss, 21/24 totems

Until I get a new DS game, I've decided to pick up Picross again for not-at-my-TV downtime. When I put the game down a few months back, I had just finished Normal Mode, meaning that now all I've got is Free Mode - which is supposed to be harder, but I actually find it more relaxing. In Normal mode I was always getting penalties for a slip of the stylus, and getting all tense when I realized I had drawn myself into a mistake; but in Free mode, more often than not, I catch up to and correct minor errors by the puzzle's end with no real detriment.

Progress: Free Puzzle 6-M

After reading Brad's comment, I thought that this is the kind of game that would really benefit from level design, since moving is the primary form of gameplay. No sooner did I ponder the connection to Zelda-esque dungeon puzzles than I got one. Use the wind to blow a rock around, which you must navigate through tunnels and over platforms until it gets to a switch, all the while protecting Toku as he moves with - or sometimes not with - it at the same time. And then there are these doors, different types of which must be taken down with different abilities, and magic whistling rocks, and it's very cool.

Combat is a non-issue in LostWinds. Most of the enemies can be defeated by gusting wind on them, and "harder" foes just involve doing something else, like using the wind to drop a rock on them, before they turn into the easy guys. Ideally (that is, if you don't get hit), Toku is completely uninvolved in combat. Based on the trailer, I can surmise that the end of the game has a boss-fight, but the hardest enemy I've run into so far I just had to fly over.

Speaking of, I just got a cape! Which means now I can use wind even more effectively in wafting Toku around. Whereas before my capacity to fly was limited by gusting power, using the "slipstream" ability I can just blow the cape, and Toku with it, almost anywhere. Which makes me think I'm nearing the end of the game.

My only meter for progress, which I only recently found out about, is in the form of four treasure-style chests that contain the memory of a spirit I'm supposed to save. It's related to the game's story, which I'll talk about in a later post since so far I don't even have much to explain. But I didn't even find chest #1 until I'd already put some time into the game. So who knows.

Anyway, LostWinds is shaping up really nicely, and even if it does end soon I wouldn't be disappointed. It's a nice game on the whole, and for $10 I'd call it an absolute steal.

Progress: Two chest ... things

Wii Ware, at last! Pop, those weird Blackjack and Game Show games, and Defend Your Castle haven't gotten me very worked up, and I still don't even know what the fuck My Life as a King is - but I've been looking forward to LostWinds for quite a while. And though I've just started, I'm already pretty satisfied.

You move the main character, Toku, with the nunchuk stick in sidescrolling platformer style. Use the Wii remote to point as Enril, the wind spirit, and use wind magic to blow things around in the environment, up to and including Toku himself. It's a very cool concept, which I think is the majority of the reason I like the game.

In terms of depth, there isn't much, at least it doesn't look like there will be. The game world is fairly peaceful and slow-paced, and there isn't a ton of stuff to do. But what LostWinds lacks in thrilling engagement, it makes up for in charm. The environments look absolutely gorgeous, and the gameplay is a sort of relaxing fun. I'm looking forward to seeing how long it lasts.

Progress: First checkpoint

The obvious thing to be hesitant about in Ninja Gaiden DS is the controls. A three-dimensional, sword-based brawler on a handheld with a touchscreen? But as many outlets will tell you, the controls are actually quite remarkable: intuitive, easy to use, well-implemented, and even a little nuanced.

The problem I have with Dragon Sword, based on the Nintendo Channel demo I played, is that it's sparse - there's not a lot going on. I fight some ninjas, walk up the stairs, fight more ninjas, fight more ninjas ... fight a dragon, now what? I wasn't impressed with the depth of gameplay. Of course it's possible that the demo just isn't showing me how deep it goes, but I'm not willing to pay New Game Price to find out. Maybe when it's cheaper.

Progress: Gave Up

What I said before about the game being hectic fun - as it turns out - does not always apply. As one might be able to derive from the game's "catch-up" formula of packing racers together, players who are losing are usually having more fun; which makes multiplayer awesome, since if you're playing with four people, at least three of them must be losing! This in turn means that winning is not incredibly fun, and has really not changed all that much from previous Mario Kart installments.

So while I'd heartily recommend Mario Kart for the party-game repertoire, and it's definitely the best in the series (the new level design is simply incredible), as a single-player venture it's not exactly what I'd call revolutionary. Granted, I've not yet tried getting into the online multiplayer.

Progress: 17 golds

I've actually been looking forward to this for a long time, since I read that it was a time-travel-based mystery game. I love mysteries - and time travel! But just today I read this in my new Nintendo Power:

"While the puzzle-oriented point-and-click gameplay appears very promising, the storytelling and presentation should also be highlights: Time Hollow is cowritten by Junko Kawano (who previously explored intriguing time-travel themes in the underappreciated PlayStation 2 game Shadow of Destiny) [...]"

Fuck!

Progress: Gave Up

When I first heard about Boom Blox, I decided I would wait and see. Well, I waited, and now I've seen. As far as I can tell from the video, Boom Blox is a culmination of two particular fetishes - block-based puzzles and explosions - which I absolutely cannot deny. Now I'm really looking forward to it.

If Wii Channels are supposed to represent the different channels on a television, then the Nintendo Channel is the one with all the commercials on it. But you only watch the commercials you want to watch. Isn't this how all advertising should work?

The Nintendo Channel exists to get you to buy games. Hell, you can even help other people buy games! But I'm getting ahead of myself. The channel achieves its goals through a number of means.

The first is videos. The channel is primarily a list of streamable flash videos, which includes game trailers, game footage, game interviews, game explanations, et cetera. It's only a little more fleshed out (in terms of Nintendo products) than what you might find on an online game video website, but the channel doesn't bog you down with additional ads, prologue commercials, or any of that other crap. Simply put, this is the best source for Wii and DS game videos.

Another way the channel facilitates you buying more games is through lists of games, categorized by title, platform, genre, release date, and so on. You can see what's coming out soon, recently released games, or back catalogues in a genre you like, for instance. And since it appears to just be using the same database as the Nintendo website's game list (since the Nintendo Channel itself is on it), a lot of games have even more videos that you can watch here for an idea of what the title has in store. And every game page has a link to take you to an Internet Channel page where you can buy the game online. Now not only do you never have to leave your house, you never have to leave your Wii!

An extension of this is the channel's recommendation system. I haven't delved too deeply into it yet, but based on some survey-style questions, you can use the Nintendo Channel to recommend for or against games you've played, based on demographic and interest categories. The clever part of this feature - that is, what makes it better than the Glog - is that it checks your Wii play history, so you can only recommend games you've played for at least an hour (thus keeping out almost all user-input garbage).

Finally, and this is actually the biggest reason you should download the channel, it is an excellent sales vector for DS games through the DS download station feature. Yeah, just like a real DS download station! Pick an item from the list of available demos and things in the channel, and your DS can download it right from your Wii, through the magic of The Internet. I just used it to play demos of CrossworDS and Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword. Awesome.

This is the kind of channel that really reassures you about your purchase of a Wii. I even want to get Emergency Heroes now. What miracles this machine is capable of!

Progress: Gave Up -- Perused