2807
09

Wii Sports Resort: Wuhu Island in your home

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IMG_1561Those little Miis are back!  And they’re just as adorable as ever in Wii Sports Resort.  This time you get to see your Nintendo-ified self in vacation gear as part of 12 sports with sub-games featured for each (the full list of sports is below).

IMG_1527Wii Sports Resort is one of the Wii games featuring/requiring the new Wii MotionPlus technology (Tiger Woods is another notable).  While the idea is neat, it can be incredibly frustrating when the sensor won’t calibrate between games and it’s clearly been losing its signal at times.  Another downside is that the accessory costs $20 separately, although one is included with the game for $50 (a far cry from the Wii Play bundled with the Wii Remote, but this is a far superior game).  You still need to spend the money on a second one if you want to take advantage of most of the multiplayer games.

IMG_1523At first the game didn’t seem as physically intense (we play for keeps) as Wii Sports, but after two nights I’m pretty sore.  Pete and I both really like the 3-point Shoot Out in Basketball and Archery, but we’ve easily spent the most time on the Swordplay game Speed Slice and Wakeboarding.  We also took a few Cycling tours around the island.  Much like a real bike ride around a volcanic island, it’s exhausting.

IMG_1547I do not like any of the Frisbee® games or the Aerial Dog Fight (much as she hated the Super Monkey Ball version, Monkey Dog Fight).  I really just hate them because I’m terrible at them (but my feelings may change once my shoulder recovers).  I think this may have lead to Pete enjoying them more.  I did enjoy the Swordplay Duel even though I did not perform well.  This has also not diminished my desire to be a contestant on American Gladiators.

IMG_1568The Bowling is essentially the same as the Wii Sports version, and I imagine the Golf is too.  A one-hundred pin, 10-frame game has been added though so it’s not a total rehash.  The Archery and Table Tennis have been pulled from Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, but the Wii MotionPlus adds a new element to the gameplay making it a bit more fun and challenging.

IMG_1564The box has a disclaimer regarding the ratings for online interactions, but it’s unclear if there’s an online component to the game from what we’ve played.  The game compels me to enjoy a cocktail while playing Table Tennis and I want our next vacation to be somewhere we can learn to Wakeboard.

Wii Sports Resort features:

Swordplay
Wake Boarding
Frisbee®
Archery
Basketball
Table Tennis
Golf
Bowling
Power Cruising (wave runner)
Canoeing
Cycling
Air Sports (aerial combat!)

2507
09

LIVE PLAY BY PLAY REVIEW: Karaoke World Championships Part Two

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The next singer guy performed Broken earlier as a duet with some girl and performed some stupid song that we think Brian Youdunno must be a big fan of… “Don’t Fall Away” or “In My Hands” or whatever it’s called. He relied on his affected voice too heavily, but so did the guy who originally sang it. Also his oooohs at the end were definitely out of key.

Karen gave him a brown two. I thought that was kind of harsh.
Angie gave him a six but switched to a four after Karen yelled “What!?!?!?”
Pete voted three for Three Doors Down who he imagines sings the song… Right or wrong.

“Hey Ya” came on for the sixth performer, but she claimed it wasn’t her song. While she waited for another song to cue up, she demanded that her mother take photos of her. That was so rock and roll. Angie gives her a one for not performing “Hey Ya.” She chose the song “The First Cut is the Deepest.” She did it fine with her smoker’s voice I guess. I too would have prefered “Hey Ya.”

Kar gives her a five she guesses.
Pete gives her a four but gives the stagemother a NINE!!!!!

This post is now sooo Matt Lyd-ian in length that it has expanded into a second post.

Why is everyone from Pittsburgh? Isn’t there anyone talented in East Stroudsburg or Wilkes Barre who could have made the trek?

The next performer had a vision of love and it was all that you’d given to her. She was pretty damn good. Too bad she didn’t do Johnny B. Goode or look like Kenny Rogers.

Karen gave her a 9 but thinks it would have been better if the mic wasn’t up so loud.
Angie gave her a ten because she wants to give a ten to someone.
Pete gave her a ten for having all the talent for American Idol but all the awkwardness of Karaoke.

My thumbs officially hurt.

The eighth performer did a song that I didn’t recognize, perhaps called “Take It Back.” Angie wonders if the tattoo on the upper back/lower neck is the new tramp stamp. This chick can sing but loses points because NO ONE has ever heard this song… Except maybe her mom. Stupid.

Kar thinks she was too young to do that song and gave her a four.
Angie gives her a three because she agrees with Kar that the song was boring but she liked the dramatic hugs the singer got after the performance.
Pete gave a five.

The mom just said, “WTF. I don’t know why the crowd didn’t respond. That was dynamite.”

The last contestant was actually from Philly and performed “Bring Me to Life” after warming up with a duet on that song by that other band that the chick who sings “Bring Me to Life” also sings on. Her voice is too weak to pull off this song. Which is too bad because I was pulling for her since she was sitting at the table next to us. (Weird. The guy who she dueted with earlier is singing the guy parts of this song along with her at his table. Angie suspects he loves her. She may be right, but apparently he can only communicate with her through song. It’s tragic really.)

Kar gives her an eight but that includes an extra point for being from Philly.
Angie gives her two points for having someone listen to her via cellphone. Two points for her secret lover sing along. Only one point for the song because it sucks. And two points for potentially being the only person from Philly for a total of Seven.
Pete gives her a nine because Uncle Bill came up from Florida to see her and Aunt Buppy was on the phone.

Woooooh. Stop the presses. A new performer has stormed the stage and demanded the opportunity to perform. He’s unscheduled. If he wins it will be an epic but controversial upset.

He’s performing “Walking in Memphis.”

Oh he sucks. Totally. Kenny Rogers is safe. How disappointing.

Walking in Memphis guy may have broken the mic. He’s so embarassingly bad yet completely earnest.

Kar gives him silence.
Angie gives him a four for chasing away the angry grannies.
Pete gives him a minus one in honor of Hulk 600. He showed no respect for competition by entering so late.

The judges chose four girls and two guys to move on to round 2.

But there’s controversy!!!!!

Only three women can move on to the next round. Joyce the chick with almost no pants on has been kicked out of the second round after being announced as a qualifier!

The crowd is stunned.

There’s utter silence.

OH MY GOD!

Walking in Memphis has now advanced in place of no-pants girl and the secret lover dude… Secret Lover dude is arguing with the judges.

This may be the most exciting moment in the history of the World Karaoke Championships.

I’m stunned.

My battery is about to die. We’re out of time folks!

2507
09

LIVE PLAY BY PLAY REVIEW: Karaoke World Championships Pennsylvania Finals Part One

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Twelve finalists performed in the Karaoke World Championships Pennsylvania Finals Saturday night at Holy Smokes in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia. The top male and female performers would move on to the national championships in Ohio.

How the $&@# did we end up there? I dunno. Angie was hungry.

As the performers awaited the start of the competition, the atmosphere in the bar was electric. Many of the contestants were accompanied by their family and they were clearly ecstatic about the event.

After rehearsal performances of Boogie Woogie Ooogie Oogie, Broken, Alone and some Stevie Nicks piece of &$@#, the first contestant took the stage.

Apparently the one audience rule is do not boo, but no one is stopping me from booing them on my blog. Boooo.

The first contestant was from Pittsburgh and worked the crowd before launching into a Luther Vandross song. On his first falsetto “ooooh” his voice cracked. It was awesome. You should have been there. Five hours is a long way to drive just for your voice to crack. He also had a creepy way of singing without really opening his mouth. He should be a ventrillaquist, but his singing sounds way better now than it did at the beginning of the song. This song didn’t really have a catchy melody though… Note to self: when performing in the Karaoke World Championships perform a pop song.

Our scores:
Karen gave him a four out of ten. She thinks he picked a bad song.
Angie says six because he didn’t follow the words.
Pete gave him a five with no comments though he compared the singer’s championship potential to that of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

So we’ve heard five songs be performed (including the warm up tracks) and we know that the songs loop about ten seconds after they end and start over. Why doesn’t the guy running the machine know it yet? Dummy.

The second performer chose to go with Bobbie McGee complete with fake Janice Joplin accent. Not a bad impression, but it doesn’t show off her voice very well. I kind of forgot I like this song… But I’m still not sure it’s a good choice for the World Karaoke Championships. Her little hip dance move during the “awkwardly long for Karaoke” guitar solo was precious though.

Karen gives her a 5 or 6.
Angie gives her a 2 for doing a country song… She’s dumb…
Pete gives her a 6 as well because he realizes Janis Joplin is not a country artist and was very entertained.
Angie now knows it wasn’t a country song but stands by her score.

The third performer, also from Pittsburgh, appeared at the beginning to be wearing just a shirt with no bottoms on. It could have been awesome, but alas we discovered she is wearing short shorts they were just hidden. I didn’t recognize the song she did but she screamed way too much during it.

Karen gave her a three before she had even finished performing.
Angie gave her a 2 based on song choice.
Pete gave her a four, commenting simply, “wow.”

The fourth performer chose Johnny B. Goode, looked like Kenny Rogers, and danced like Elvis. Kar thought he might be doing his best Jagger crossed with the chicken dance. I declare him the winner though it doesn’t take much talent to sing that song.

Karen gives him a six because of the dancing but was unimpressed vocally.
Angie gives him an eight for his dance moves.
Pete told a mildly inappropriate joke that I would publish but he won’t let me.

2507
09

It’s Amazing when 600 actually equals 600

Posted by under *like, Comics | Join The Discussion |

Amazing_Spider-Man_600This week not only saw the release of Marvel’s Incredible Hulk #600 but Amazing Spider-Man #600 as well.  It looks like I made a poor decision in what to read on Wednesday (especially considering I only had time to read one book).  While Hulk #600 had more problems than I care to recall, Amazing #600 was truly amazing. Featuring a massive 104 pages of new material, this book was well worth its $4.99 price tag.

The feature story by Dan Slott and John Romita Jr. told a tale of a frail and aging Doctor Octopus trying to leave his legacy to the world.  Of course, this was a gift the people of New York were wishing they could return as it all goes wrong and chaos ensues.  Set against the back drop of Aunt May’s wedding to John Jameson Sr. (J. Jonah Jameson’s father) Spider-Man has even more motivation to save the day.  This is a great story for an anniversary issue as it has an epic quality to it while being very much set in current Spidey continuity.  Some plotlines are wrapped up and a number of new ones are set in motion.  The artwork is top notch and it’s the kind of story that could have been spread over three regular sized issues.

The rest of the book consists of short stories including: Spider-Man’s trip to a psychiatrist by Stan Lee and Marcos Martin, and a museum by Zeb Wells and Derec Donovan; a couple of touching stories featuring Uncle Ben by Mark Waid and Colleen Doran, and Aunt May by Marc Guggenheim and Mitch Breitweiser; “If I Was Spider-Man” by Bob Gale and Mario Alberti where some kids in a playground daydream about what it would be like to be Spidey; and a final story featuring Madame Web sets things in motion for the Spidey event the Gauntlet continuing throughout the year in Amazing Spider-Man.  Between the pages of each of these stories are series of “Spider-Man covers you’ll never see” that were good for a laugh.

All in all, I can’t say enough good things about this book.  I’m reading Amazing Spider-Man on a regular basis and this was really satisfying both as an issue that fits right into ongoing events and as an event itself.

2207
09

Hulk smash puny arithmetic!

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Incredible_Hulk_600Today saw the release of Incredible Hulk #600, another landmark issue in the year of Marvel‘s fuzzy math 70th Anniversary.  The dodgy addition is in full effect for this Hulk issue as well since I can’t make heads or tails of how this is issue 600.

According to my research (Wikipedia), Hulk was featured in Tales to Astonish from issue 60 through 101.  At this point, the series was renamed Incredible Hulk and ran to issue 474.  The title was relaunched (as were a number of Marvel books at the time) with a new #1 and ran through issue 112.  This is where (and Kevin loved this) the title became Incredible Hercules.

The final days of the Incredible Hulk title saw the Hulk’s journey to an alien world in Planet Hulk when the Illuminati decided to protect the Earth by sending the Hulk away, and his eventual return for vengeance in World War Hulk.  Despite the success of these stories by writer Greg Pak, Marvel mysteriously handed the Hulk over to Jeph Loeb for a new series with a another issue #1, that was and is God awful.  This book reached issue #12 last month and has focused entirely on another mystery in the identity of a new Red Hulk (called Rulk, see, God awful).

Adding it up we have 101 issues of Tales to Astonish, 373 issues of Incredible Hulk (102-474) volume 1, 112 issues of Incredible Hulk volume 2, and 12 issues of God awful Hulk.

101 + 373 + 112 + 12 = 598

So, they’re off by 1!  No, they aren’t because you have to include Incredible Hulk -1 from Marvel’s Minus One Month in 1997.  599..therefore, this is issue 600.

Not really, there are still two problems:

1.  The original 1962 Hulk series by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby ran from issue 1 to 6.  Wouldn’t that make this issue 606?

2.  Hulk wasn’t featured in Tales to Astonish 1-59.  Wouldn’t that make this issue 541? or 547?

Happy Anniversary Hulk!

Almost forgot the issue review, we’re still not told the identity of Red Hulk, we get a reprint of Hulk: Gray #1, two fun Chris Giarusso stories (featuring Green, Red and Blue Hulks), and an intriguing She-Hulk story featuring someone who’s not any She-Hulk I’m familiar with and is apparently Bruce Banner’s daughter from the future.  I did not feel this was worth the $4.99 price tag and I’m not even sure it’s issue 600.

As of this paragraph, this post is now titled “What to Think of the Upcoming Incredible Hulk 601.”  It is a conversation Kevin and I had months ago when we learned:
Incredible Hulk was returning with issue 600 followed by future issues written by Greg Pak, Jeph Loeb’s God awful Hulk book would continue with issue 13, Skaar Son of Hulk would continue without Skaar, and Incredible Hercules would not be affected in any way.

Kevin: I don’t even know what to make of this.  Or if I even want to read it, what I need to do to catch up.  What a nightmare.

Pete: I think you can ignore Herc, obviously.  I can lend you all of the remaining Skaar issues leading up to 600.  I’m stopping that book at issue 12.  I think we can ignore Loeb’s Hulk.  The only real story is “who is the Red Hulk?” so, I think at that point you could start with Hulk 600 and go on from there.

I’ll be getting at least issue 600 (since it fills in between WWH and Loeb’s Hulk #1) and 601 (just to see what Pak has planned).  I will not be getting any of Loeb’s Hulk issues.  It is a nightmare, but I trust Pak.  I know you didn’t dig Planet Hulk so much, but I really enjoyed his run and World War Hulk for the most part.  Easily, the best since the Peter David stuff.

Kevin: Yeah I really liked World War Hulk.  Planet Hulk not so much.

Pete: I think Pak back on Incredible Hulk is absolutely worth checking out.  I have my doubts that Loeb and Pak had all of this worked out at the beginning though.  I just feel like Pak would have reacted differently when we asked him about the transition and encouraged us to keep reading.

Kevin: Yeah that’s what I thought when I read that comment yesterday.  When we saw him at NYCC he had no future Hulk plans in place.

Pete:  This post is now 700 words.