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Reviews (4)
18 April 2008
Never grows old...
1 of 1 found this helpful First of all, for a game that comes bundled with the Wii, you get way more than most companies would offer. The games are all fun, despite the lack of depth in, say, baseball, which has only three innings.
My father, a man of infinite technological phobias enjoyed Wii golf, and actually asked to play a couple of holes when I was showing the system off to my siblings. He did pretty good, although putting can be a difficult endeavor to master.
My girlfriend, a woman who was accustomed to button mashing fighting games from watching her brother, took naturally to bowling and tennis. Although she enjoys making a Mii a bit more than anything else, it's fun to play a couple of sets on the clay and kick some Wii butt.
Baseball is fun, albeit limited. There are few pitches you can hurl, and fielding is left up to the computer. Even running the bases is out of your hands, but the batting mechanics feel good. It all comes down to timing.
Last, but not least, is boxing. The only sport that takes advantage of the Wii's "nunchuk" controller, you can either flail around wildly, actually really try to box, or flick your wrists to knock the stuffing out of people. Wii Sports boxing is better than that horrible Showtime game... Blech.
Either way, between the daily Wii Sports training you can endure, the fun and cool mini games you use to hone your skills, and the fantastic multi-player action, this is a game I will never sell. No matter what cool title I find myself coveting, I always find some time for Wii sports.
30 December 2011
What iPad?
13 of 13 found this helpful I purchased a Acer ICONIA A500 10.1 inch tablet for my wife. She opened it on Christmas, charged it for 4 hours, and I haven't seen her since. Our communal laptop is dying, so we also got a nice desktop for the family; something the kids and I could work and play on. I figured a nice little tablet for the wife would be a good idea considering the rest of us would be monopolizing the desktop most of the time. I was hoping that the ICONIA would do about 50% of the computer stuff she needed.
I was wrong.
The ICONIA does 99% of everything she needed a computer for. The operative word is NEEDED; past tense. She hasn't laid a finger on the desktop since setting up her Windows account.
While researching tablets I came up with this list:
iPad 2 - Costly, pretty, solidly built, long battery life, user friendly... But it's an Apple device, and we are NOT an Apple family.
Android Tablets - The 3 top contenders being ASUS Transformer, Motorola XOOM, and the Acer ICONIA. The ICONIA won due to it's construction; the aluminum back makes it feel more hardy than the "cheap" plastic feel of the others. I have also used and owned several Acer products and I found them to be vastly superior. It is important to note, however, that at 8 hours with WiFi off, the ICONIA has the shortest battery life of the bunch. Not an issue for us.
Kindle Fire - A good E-Reader that doubles as an entry-level tablet. The cost is great, but I had concerns about its capabilities as a "real" tablet.
I got the ICONIA, and do NOT regret the decision.
The display is ridiculously responsive, colors pop, and HD videos flow smoothly.
The interface is extremely easy to use; I expected a week or two of having to troubleshoot for my wife, but she figured almost everything out on her own. Small things like copying and pasting text or deleting items from the Android Honeycomb desktop take some getting used to, but only because most of us have been spoiled and poisoned by the use of a computer mouse with 2 buttons. A quick internet search on the tablet's browser usually provides an answer within seconds.
It has a USB, card reader, HDMI output to connect to a TV, and can accept a SIM card if we opt for a 4G data plan through our cell-phone carrier.
It feels amazing in your hands. Heavy enough to make its presence known, but light enough to hold for hours without strain.
I've found the Android operating system to be extremely stable, easily modified, and the support community is very active and friendly. Android is continuously evolving for the better, and updates are quick to download and install...
And the factory reboot is easy to accomplish if something gets stuck or messed up.
And to think I had considered paying almost twice as much for the iPad...
There are a TON of applications, and many are free, most are very cheap.
I know where my wife is hiding now because I can hear Angry Birds pumping out of the surprisingly high-quality speakers, as well as whatever horrible music she's listening to on Pandora.
PROs: Excellent value, solidly build, gorgeous display, ridiculously responsive touch-screen, great speakers, a lot of options for peripherals, fast, doesn't make you just another Apple Automaton.
CONs: Not many... Shortest battery life in its class, but 8 hours is more than enough for me or my wife... The integrated headphone jack is 1/16th inch and requires an adapter for use with regular 1/8th inch. Oh well, $3 at Radio Shack..
25 April 2008
Arcade Title to Wii Done Flawlessly
3 of 3 found this helpful I enjoy this game. First off, I have been waiting for a system that could translate first person shooters to home entertainment easily, without stupid joy sticks and what not. Coming from a PC background, a FPS is just not the same without a mouse and a keyboard. That being said, the arcade versions of games like Ghost Squad have always been incredibly enjoyable.
Ghost Squad for the Wii is very fun. Multi-player is a blast, and I find the game to be much more enjoyable with a "Zapper" type attachment.
This game is very true to the arcade version, and it rocks. Replayability alone is very little, and I'm sure a game with more depth, like Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, will be more fulfilling in the long run. But I will have this game in my collection for a long time. It is simple, it is fun, and it is cool.