Here Wii Go

Until Nintendo's Wii was born, I had never lost a fist fight to a girl. And now, my perfect record... is ruined.

It seems that Poptart's female intuition (+1 to INT, if I recall Sex Ed correctly) instilled within her the instinct to rise from a second knockdown in Wii Sports Boxing. In the several preceding rounds, such a "third wind" was unheard of. Needless to say, I was still engaged in my full body rotation dance of celebration when she finished me off with a quick one-two to my Mii's melon. It goes without saying that this has shifted the balance of power in our relationship. I see a great many backrubs in my near future.

I should say, that as close as my Mii is in appearance, it will take a few more generations of LCD technology before the true paleness of my complexion can be honestly conveyed. It may require radium to be embedded in the liquid crystals, I'm not sure. (Because, you know, nice TVs don't cost enough yet.)

With my prodding (read: fake crying), I was allowed to pop Twilight Princess's cherry. As one might expect, this requires a thrusting motion with the Wiimote. But since I was hanging out over at Cat's anyways, we delved into the beginning of LotZ:TP btw fyi ymmv. I will mention a few of my first impressions, as I didn't really sink my teeth into any labyrinthine sustenance to really guage TP's rank in the Zelda hierarchy.

First, graphically speaking, the game looks damn good. Just like I would expect a Cube version of Ocarina of Time to look like. Don't get me wrong, I liked the appearance of Wind Waker (yeah, swirling black smoke), but it was not in the same semi-realistic vein as Ocarina. A nice looking Cube game unfortunately draws some pretty steep competition, notably Resident Evil 4. I think Capcom 'broke the mold' on that one, but unsurmountable competition aside, TP looks very nice. Gorgeous water effects, for the wow.

Secondly, the controls are not that intuitive. They will take some getting used to. This isn't Wii Sports Baseball, okay? This is, after all, the Legend of Zelda. It was helpful that I recalled the traditional Deku Baba slaying method (Dodge its strike, jump attack, horizontal slash), but when I was swarmed with a number of enemies, it became a little disorienting to maneuver and attack. Often the safest bet was, when in doubt, to shake your nunchuk like a British nanny (i.e. use the spin attack). I'm sure by the time the Forest Temple boss is encountered, such rudimentary techniques will be second nature, but be forewarned, initially, you'll think that it would have been simpler on your old Wavebird.

I don't mean to be discouraging, of course. There is no way one can ignore that Twilight Princess will be legendary.