I probably spent around $250 on Wii virtual console and WiiWare games during the first year–maybe year and a half–that I had the system, but that was mostly due to the number of free points cards I received as gifts. I currently have around 1800 apps for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on my computer. Most of them were free when I got them, but I’m sure a couple hundred cost $1, and more than 20 or 30 cost several dollars. Now, of course, Microsoft and Nintendo are terrified to “undervalue” games at $1 (and I understand that), which is one of the reasons I’ve spent as much money on the App Store as I have, but even at $1, pulling my wallet out to add “points” to an imaginary online wallet would still prohibit me from spending as much money on the App Store as I have.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

I have been waiting for a “game” like this my entire life.

I’m not even exaggerating with that statement. I love video games. I’ve devoted a great deal of my free time to this hobby, and will likely continue to do so until I’m old and grey and can’t move my fingers anymore (and with luck, I won’t need to in the future, anyway).

One of the big reasons I love video games is that I get to do things that I don’t normally get to do. Like fly, destroy buildings, slay monsters and demons, and rescue princesses from pirates.

Okay, I do occasionally get to do that last one.

And while I am certainly capable of going SCUBA diving off the coast of Manoa Lai, I realistically can’t afford something like that. Enter “Endless Ocean”, a game that allows you to attempt to capture that experience without all the water, sea sickness, and wet suits.

This game is (like the song that plays over the opening titles of the game, all over the web site, and the trailer) hauntingly beautiful. There isn’t a better way to describe it. From the sun’s light filtering down through the water to sparkle off the coral, sand and marine life, to the exquisite sound and music production that fills your head long after you quit playing.

And, since the game is simple enough that anyone can play, has no violence whatsoever, and is incredibly educational in the field of marine biology, all ages can enjoy it, even if they’re not yet old enough to read.

So go pick this game up, if you have a Wii. Or go play it at a friend’s house. Or just go buy it until you can actually find and/or afford a Wii. It’s worth it. As far as $30 games go, you absolutely cannot go wrong with this game.

After our meal, Autumn was craving chocolate, so we went to Russell Stover’s and then back to the neighbors’ home to start watching Game of Thrones. Dave (neighbor and bestie) and I have read the books, but have wanted to wait to watch the series together with our wives. We weren’t disappointed. The first 15 minutes lived up to my expectations of the book, and throughout the episodes, we were both pleasantly surprised by how faithful it is. The ladies were quite impressed, as well, by the writing, the acting, and even the subject matter.

We ate a (very) late dinner while watching the second episode and listened to the rain pour down upon us. I had just picked up my yearly batch of pumpkin beer and brought over two bottles for everyone to try: O’Fallon’s and Schlafly’s. O’Fallon’s has long-been my favorite beer of all time, but I’d never had Schlafly’s. It’s very strong, both in flavor and alcohol content, but I still prefer O’Fallon’s. Schlafly’s spices completely overpowered the pumpkin, which is (in my opinion) the most important part of the beer.

The next day was one of those perfect fall days that make you want to sit on your porch and watch the world change while reflecting on the year. There’s something about fall that always evokes the most nostalgic part of me. I think it’s the scent in the air of leaves and rain and the feel of a cool breeze that brings it to me. I always think of high school football and carefree days of yesteryear. I spent most of the day playing Super Mario Galaxy with Liam and enjoying the weather. We went out to dinner again with the neighbors to get as much time in before Dave left for work again on Monday. After dinner we watched another three episodes of Game of Thrones, each one more exciting than the last. I’m really looking forward to episode 6, as I’m pretty certain I know what awesomely horrific scene it will contain.

Monday was another lazy day. Stan, the husband of my wife’s co-worker came over to replace the brake line on my car and I finished Super Mario Galaxy, by finally nabbing the 120th Star. Now I can play as Luigi, but I’ll save that for the next time I want to play through the game again. I started up Super Mario Galaxy 2 and can honestly say it is a better game in every way so far. It builds on the original so well, that it’s unbelievable that it was originally envisioned as Super Mario Galaxy 1.5. The music is fantastic. The levels are ingenious and much less repetitive than the first. The only flaw in the game is the story, when compared to the first, but that is easy to overlook, as I care much more about the gameplay—which is phenomenal.

It’ll probably be my game of choice for the next few weeks. Hopefully I can complete it 100%, as well. It should be easier, thanks to Avery being able to help more than hurt when assisting as Player 2.

Tonight, I think I’m going to have another O’Fallon and sit outside for a bit to enjoy the weather. Maybe go for a walk and think about what it was like playing the original Super Mario 3 when I was younger, as the leaves changed outside and the air turned and I got nostalgic for Super Mario 1 & 2, a glass of grape juice in my hand.

If you haven’t had the pleasure of playing this game before, I highly recommend it. There have been a number of great board games that pit players not against each other, but against the game itself: Warhammer Quest, Lord of the Rings, and The Omega Virus. However, what makes Shadows Over Camelot unique is the potential that one of the players may be a traitor, secretly trying to undermine the various quests that the knights set out to achieve. Worse, once accused, the traitor loses some abilities and gains others, making the timing of his accusation a delicate proposition. Worse, since there may be no traitor at all, mere mistrust of one another can make some quests more difficult to defeat.

The game was exciting. Andrew turned out to be a traitor and Jeff and I barely won the game from him. It was an incredible first-time play. Jeff told me that the gameplay ideas in Shadows Over Camelot had been taken to the next level in the Battlestar Galactica board game. I’m looking forward to picking it up soon.

The second game that we played was Pandemic, a game about a global outbreak of four different diseases and the research team fighting to stop them. The game is brilliant in its design, due to the fact that the Epidemic card can cause all cities that have already been infected get placed back on the top of the deck to become infected again. This can lead to outbreaks that spread diseases quickly. Worse, the 9th outbreak ends the game, as does the depletion of the deck. This keeps the game a desperate race to keep the diseases under control long enough to find the cures. It gets hectic as the number of outbreaks climb and the cards in the deck dwindle.

My brother-in-law, David, joined us for this game. We played two rounds. The first one was a Beginner-level game (which places four Epidemic cards in the deck) and we were slaughtered. Absolutely devestated. All four Epidemic cards came up in the first half of the deck. Gonoherpesyphillaids wiped out all of Asia and North America in minutes. It was an excellent learning experience and made the second round much easier.

In the second round, we got extremely lucky. We raised the difficulty by adding a fifth Epidemic card, but they were so well spaced that we were able to prevent outbreaks. With only two cards left in the deck, Jeff cured the final disease and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Later that evening, we played several rounds of Munchkin: Impossible (one of the 7 billion variations of the card game Munchkin, this one with a spy theme) sans Jeff. We were up until 3 am playing and had a blast.

Jeff and Andrew have been known to play lots of board games, so I knew they’d have a good time. But David is generally uneasy to try the various games we like to play. The fact that he enjoyed them as much as he did made me feel optimistic that he might play with us again in the future.

If you have any interest in checking out these games for yourself, I’ve linked to them on Amazon above (where available), but you can find much more info at BoardGameGeek, as well.

∞ ∞ ∞

Bionic Commando – This one is a no-brainer. You play as a soldier trying to take down Master-D and the Badds (Hitler and the Nazis in the Japanese release). Your character cannot jump, but instead has a bionic arm that lets him swing, climb, even smack around bad guys. Plus, the levels don’t have a specific order to be completed in. While some levels contain items that must be found before progressing, the order isn’t set in stone.

After its recent re-imagining into Bionic Commando: Rearmed, the Wii is the only system that can’t play Bionic Commando. While it’d be nice for Nintendo to get their “storage solution” into our hands in time for Capcom to feel that releasing Rearmed as a WiiWare title is a worthy proposal. However, in the meantime, the least that Capcom could do is release the original title on the Virtual Console. Easily one of the most amazing video games ever released for the original NES.

Blaster Master – No NES game had a more detailed world than this side-scrolling-birds-eye action-platformer. Similar in style to the Metroid series as areas of the game must be backtracked to access hidden items, new areas, and additional levels. What makes this game so much fun is you drive around a tank that can receive a variety of upgrades as the game progresses. But, in order to defeat the bosses that litter the world, you must exit your tank and use your very vulnerable driver to venture deeper into the underbelly of the world to face them. Plus, the story is about rescuing your frog from the clutches of the mutants that live under your hometown. How awesome is that?

Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers – Capcom made a number of great games using Disney’s licenses and this is one of the most popular. Two-player cooperative, smooth gameplay mechanics, and incredible level design (making the world around the characters huge was done here first and never better on the NES). Unfortunately, it seems that Disney doesn’t know how to capitalize on the greatness that is the Virtual Console, as none of their titles have hit the service, yet.

Clash at Demonhead – This is my personal favorite from this list. I assume that I got this game as a gift from my parents for some holiday or another. It’s possible that they even just picked it up at random one day because they love me. Anyway, the important thing is that the game is incredible. You play as Bang, a special operative on a mission to stop some terrorists from detonating a doomsday device that will destroy the world. Like Bionic Commando, the game has a fair amount of non-linearity to it. You start at the bottom of the mountain and have to make choices about which paths to take to reach the top. Not every path is required to complete the game, but many contain important items or objectives. This is likely to show up in a future edition of Classic Gaming Sporadically, so I’ll give more info to you then.

Double Dragon II – While the Interwebs is filled with people fawning all over the original Double Dragon, I was always disappointed in the lack of two-player coop in the NES release. Double Dragon II, on the other hand, did not make such an oversight and was one of the most entertaining gameplay experiences of my childhood. My brother and I spent countless hours working together to reach the final boss and get our collective asses kicked again and again. But it was always fun, even when it felt like work.

Duck Tales – Yet another Capcom game, and another Disney title at that. In this one, Scrooge McDuck’s fortune has been stolen and with the help of his nephews and friends, he’s on a quest to get it back. With some of the most unique gameplay elements of any licensed game, as well as incredible music and level design, this game should be at the top of many gamers’ wish lists. Perhaps one day, Capcom and Disney can get together with Nintendo and make those wishes come true.

The Goonies II – The Goonies was incredible and Konami was quick to cash in with a game loosely based on the movie. The game was pretty great, but the sequel was one of the most amazing platformers of all time. You play as Mikey on a quest to rescue the rest of his friends. They’ve been captured by the Fratelli family, freshly escaped from prison. Armed with a yo-yo and your wits, you set out to find them. The game world is one of the most complex I’ve ever seen, with doors everywhere: some which take you into to rooms full of items, secrets, and hidden pathways; others that lead directly to alternate areas of the game. It’s easy to get lost, but that’s part of the appeal. The world feels huge for an NES game, and indeed for many games made today. With a music soundtrack inspired by The Goonies theme from the movie and spot-on gameplay mechanics, I can’t wait to see this hit the Virtual Console.

So, shortly after my time in the city of “Room 12″ began, I had moved on. I ultimately traded the game on Goozex, knowing that the Wii version would make up for the shortcomings of the GameCube version. Now, having got the Wii version, I can confirm that I was correct. Citizens of the town stay out later, Tom Nook’s shop stays open later, and with the city available to visit from the early stages of the game, there’s always something to go do.

But the really big feature of the game is being able to visit friends’ towns. My wife was awesome this Christmas, and even though the Wii Speak/Animal Crossing bundle was sold out everywhere, she managed to find a deal on Amazon to get them both separately for the same price as the bundle. And I am so glad that she did.

Last night, I visited my friend Andrea’s town. She and her husband have been playing together for the last several days and (thanks to the fact that they got a 12,000 Bell gift from a reindeer on Christmas Eve), have  already upgraded their house and spent enough money with Tom Nook that he has opened a Kum’N'Go (okay, Nook’N'Go, but seriously, the parallel must be drawn). I visited her town for about an hour or so and spoke to her via Wii Speak the entire time. She didn’t have the microphone herself, but she plugged in her USB keyboard and away we went. She was so impressed with the way the Wii Speak worked that she decided she’s going to get one herself. And, never once did she have trouble understanding me.

Today I turned on my game to check my mail and an hour later I finally put down the controller so that my wife could create her character. The best part of all this is that when my son visits his mother, my wife and I will be able to play with him (assuming his mother doesn’t freak out on him for it).

If anyone is interested in coming to town to visit, my friend code is listed in the About Me / Contact page, but I’ll list it again here for convenience:

Friend Code: 3867-2149-5247
Town Name: Taurith

Come by anytime!

Animal Crossing Friend Code: 3867-2149-5247
Town Name: Taurith

And, for those of you that want to just talk to me using Wii Speak, you can get my Wii number (and any other Wii/DS codes) from the About Me / Contact page.

I’ve also included a key for how I’ve interpreted the icons for the score generator at the bottom of the post.

The Legendary Hero – The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Zelda’s Lullaby – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Serenade of Water – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Jurassic Park Theme

Star Wars Theme

Hobbiton Theme - The Lord of the Rings

Title Theme – The Legend of Zelda

Epona’s Song – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Prelude of Light – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Song of Storms – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Song of Time – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Score Generator guide:

I skipped 1-16, as they’re obviously just the fingerings, but these 5 are a little different. This is my suggestion for following these symbols.

 - 17: Hold note for about one count and then move right into the next note.

 - 18: Hold note for about one count and then move into the next hold.

 - 19: Hold note for about one count and let fade out, should be followed by 21.

 - 20: Quick breath, then right in to the next note.

 - 21: Breathe, this is your “free” space.

Anyone that has played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has wanted to learn to play the ocarina. Anyone. If you tell me you didn’t, I’ll tell you you’re lying. I’m looking at you, Jesse. The problem is that ocarinas cost money. Good ocarinas cost around $60-80. You can get cheaper ones, sure, but they don’t sound very nice. And even the $60-80 ones aren’t the highest quality. Plus, you drop it, and it’s probably gone. FOREVER.

Well, now you can get your very own ocarina for just $0.99. That’s right. Plus the $200 or $300 you spent on your iPhone. And your monthly AT&T bill. But, still just $0.99 for the ocarina.

My cousin Adam pointed out Smule’s Ocarina that was released today and allows you to play an ocarina by blowing into the microphone and touching the screen. I’m going to repeat that, because it’s fucking awesome. You blow into the microphone and touch the screen to denote pitch.

If you don’t realize how awesome this is, then please review below.

Direct link here.

Now, after seeing that, do you wish you had been the genius that came up with this? I know I do. But it gets better. Not only can you play a variety of awesome songs using your brand new digital ocarina, you can share your musical talent with the world. One of the features of the app is the ability to view a globe with little whitish-yellow “lights” on it. Each of those lights is another user of this app. While you view the globe, one of the lights will begin to send green rings and blue waves into the stratosphere. At this same moment, beautiful (and sometimes awful) music will emanate from your speakers. You’re listening to someone else play their copy of Ocarina.

As if that wasn’t already cool enough, Smule has posted a handy tool for you to create and share your own “sheet music” called the Online Score Generator. Adam pointed out an excellent song for your ocarina-ing pleasure: Song of Time from Ocarina of Time. I have been working on it since this afternoon and have much of it memorized. I’ve also taken it upon myself to find a large collection of ocarina fingerings that you can use with the Score Generator to make it easier to share with your friends and family, as well as bookmark for yourself.

So, here is one that I whipped up for you: Prelude of Light from Ocarina of Time.

And here is another: Hobbiton Theme from Lord of the Rings.

And here is a link to a plethora of fingerings to make your days brighter (WARNING: Some of these fingerings are not compatible without adjusting the key and even then they may not be accurate. You’ll have to experiment with them to figure it out).