It seems that button mashing is easier in the old style controllers, rather than using arm motions to achieve the same effect. Is this a lack of wii-muscles? Is it poor design?

We’ve suggested that our older son opt for the wiimote when playing his younger brother, who could use the old style controller. This effectively provides a handicap to even out the two boys, who are about 6 years apart in age.

The camera angles in Dragonball Z – Budokai Tenkaichi 2 – are well done and really do have the feel of being in the cartoon. The fighting effects are rather nice, and it’s captivating the fellas for a surprising amount of game time.

Lesson learned, don’t be ashamed to use the old school controllers on the new Wii!

Driving to Ohio:

• Suduko
• Find the Word Puzzles
• A clever twist on Connect Four called “Toot and Otto,”  where you are Toot or Otto and have to spell out your name.
• Nintendo DS games:
• 3 team Mario KartS
• Brother v. Brother matchups of Mario and Luigi in the downloadable game from Super Mario Bros. (punctuated with alot of “That’s MY star!”
• Animal Crossing

At Grandma’s house:

• Euchre, a fantastic card game with a confounding element that takes the Jack of the trump suit and turns it into a ‘Right Bower.’  The jack of the other suit becomes a “Left Bower” (so if the trump is spades, the left bower is the Jack of clubs, etc.) The heirarchy follows as:  Right Bower, Left Bower, Ace, King, Queen, Ten, Nine.  You throw away anything less than Nine.  Enough..google it if you need to know more!
• Uno (with twentyfive cent winnings, paid in impressive piles of nickles.)
• Bingo (again, twentyfive cent winning, but blackouts worth $1 – My youngest won $4.25 between the two games and is quite proud.)
• More of the same Nintendo DS titles.
• Solitaire:  Our oldest learned to play this one using real cards!
• Freecell:  He picked this one up pretty fast, and thinks ahead, so he’s got a good mind for it.

4th of July in Batesville, Indiana

• Corn Hole:  Where you toss bean bags into a box with a hole in it. Yep, that’s it.  This Texas girl didn’t play – give me horseshoes or washers, please. Down in the basement we found a box for  game where they called it Baggo.  Maybe it’s Baggo in Cincy and Corn Hole in Indy?
• World of Warcraft:  yes, the farmhouse has a robust wifi and my son was able to log in, check the auction house and get a quick fix of WoW.

We didn’t have time for any Hand and Foot, which is a variation of Canasta.  We’ll have to catch it next time, our 9yo is quite good at it and loves playing.

My ladies league fantasy football draft started up a week ago, so there was drafting throughout the holiday.  After the draft I’ll post a summary of the draft, but so far it’s going well!

With so much going on, we couldn’t get up to Origins, a large gaming convention in Columbus.  Next year we’ll really have to extend our visit so we can get up there.
Graeter’s Ice Cream, Skyline Chili, and gaming – we just love visiting Grandma!

I expect parents to be seeking the Wii and it’s wiimote and nunchaku for Christmas this year.  It’s is engaging, and my 6 year old will love swashbuckling with the new wiimote.  In fact, I can just see my kids jumping off of towered pillows, or the sofa, in fantastic moves that one would expect from only Jackie Chan or Peter Pan.  We’ll have our friends over to lob tennis balls at one another, and my daughter will conduct orchestral symphonies – not sure which game that actually is, but they showed alot of conducting on stage.   In fact, WiiSports and Zelda will apparently launch on the same day as the device – hopefully with some nice bundle packages.
The wiimote will have some sounds directly on the device, which they demoed with Zelda’s bow and could be very engaging.  And we thought we already had surround sound!

On Thursday I’ll get the grand Nintendo tour and I’ll post over on Killer Betties a full review and specials for families here at Gamermom.

They haven’t discussed the release of an Opera Browser or digital TV tuner, both of which have been discussed for the Japanese version.
Check out the release info at: Nintendo.com News2 – New Nintendo DS Lites The Way For Mario

The family got me a version for the DS, and with any luck, I’ll have some time on the plane next week as I’m traveling to E3 to play it and whip out a review for it. Stay tuned…

Animal Crossing: Wild World Review

The new DS will be lighter, brighter, and sleeker – but not only that.  You’ll be able to buy a cartridge with the Opera web browser, and using Nintendo’s wifi, you’ll be able to browse the internet.  This is really incredible – no other handheld or console system has implemented a web browser.  They’ll also have a digital video add-on, and they’ve announced a broadcast service that will stream high definition video.

The DS already has cartridges available for learning various foreign languages, brain games, and the rich and artistic Electroplankton.  What next?

Will interactive developers in the states be able to develop games for the DS now?  Ones that leverage the stylus and voip?  My niece just finished months of working with a virtual tutor online through Sylvan learning.  I can just imagine similar implementations for the DS.

The system is launching in Japan on March 2nd.  Gamermom can’t wait to hear how it is received!

Need more details now?

You get 10 ‘plankton‘ that perform various types of musical composition. The plankton can be manipulated using the stylus in movements that created music, and each has a distinctly differently musical action. Some have predetermined musical tones, others can be recorded right through the DS (e.g., your voice, ambient sounds, actual musical instruments.)

The game has 2 modes: a perfomance mode where you conduct the plankton, and an audience mode where you can listen to pre-recorded music (you can engage and play along with them as well.)

You can listen to the plankton via the speakers on the DS, which sound reasonably good, or on headphones or external speakers.

We plugged it into the speakers for my iPod and lounged on the bed exploring the plankton’s sea. The sound was incredible – some of them could have easily lulled the kids to sleep. But don’t be fooled; it’s not a lethargic game at all. We each recorded a sound or tone into the “Rec Rec” plankton and listened to a family groove. Great fun.

My 6 year old spent about 2 hours completely immersed in the game. This isn’t a child that spends 2 hours doing any activity, if that’s any indication of the compelling nature of Electroplankton.

My daughter and I talked quite a bit about how the scale works, and sat with the keyboard to experiment with sounds and keep our own voices in key.

There seems to be some discrepancy over whether Electroplankton is a game or not. There is not a competitive model at all – no notion of players or pre-defined conditions for winning. In fact, the game doesn’t record or save your compositions.

But this adds an interesting element – if you want to reproduce your creation for someone, you will have to actually learn to play Electroplankton. That’s turned our Nintendo DS systems into veritable instruments.

We’re going to try and use the headphone jack to get the sounds onto the PC, where we could record them. Seems doable, and we’ll post the results once we’ve got it going.

For this gamermom, any device that plays both intelligent, well designed games and can be used to create creative music is well worth it!

Dan Matkowsky quotes an article that makes me wonder if this woman is of the same species:

In the article, Roxanne Richardson, soon-to-be mother of two, contends, “I’d rather my son take a more proactive, less habitual drug like cocaine, than lock himself away and play video games. It’s so lazy. At least with pills and coke you’re out and about doing something.”

Wow…let’s talk about lazy for a second.
It’s Friday – my husband and I spent the week working, fighting off the flu, and doing all the chores that a family of 5 treats as everyday life (laundry, dishes, dinner, repeat).

What are we doing right now, having finished all that? We’re gaming with our kids.

Dad and the boys are playing Warcraft. Actively teaching our youngest, who is 6, the strategy necessary to keep up his production of units to help out the team.

Mom and daughter are exploring Electroplankton, using a keyboard to tune our voices and discovering how the plankton react to our directives. Huge music lesson here in how the scale works, etc.

Now, I’m sorry, but are my kids engaging in a lazy habitual activity? Exactly who is the lazy parent here?

Any parent who advocates cocaine, even in jest, is simply competing for a Darwin Award.

unmediated: How to Start a Nintendo DS ElecktroPlankton Band

That’s some mojo.