you + me = wii

i'll tell you a secret. i've never finished super mario brothers before. i had my first NES when i was around 7 or 6, back in new york. my father's close friend and his family were staying over, and he had 2 sons, one my age and another one a little younger. one night, my father unexpectedly bought me a NES. the nintendo carts back then were huge. super mario brothers came with duck hunt. it also had that zapper that came along with it. never mind about all that micro genius rubbish that asians were getting...i had the real american deal back then.

but i never finished the game that started it all. even on emulator, which is even harder for me. i only had around 4 games on the nintendo over a 3 year history. sad, no? i finished double dragon 2, barely played astyanax and received smash tv as a gift. died after the second level. i think i was too young to appreciate it all...i wasn't old enough. reflexes weren't quite honed yet. i can give you whatever excuses you want.

then in singapore, i got a snes somehow. i can't remember the specifics but i think it took a visit to my father's friend's home to see that his 2 sons were playing street fighter 2. things were different. stereo sound, crisp 16-bit graphics. i ploughed my way through super mario world. i was given a lot of games (about S$ 1000+'s worth) and this continued when we came back to kl. the best part is, the snes still works. though some of the games have been swapped away, i'm quite happy that it's still running. the same couldn't be said about the nes. i had to leave it behind in the states, all those years ago. otherwise, whoooooooooooo.

i was left in the gaming wilderness for a few years before i bought someone's dreamcast. granted, it was already a dead machine back in 2003 when i'd bought it, but it was the closest thing to a brand spanking new console i had at the time. i did one better and bought a ps2 shortly after, which still loyally serves me til this day. besides the minor problem of it not being able to play certain games, it's...i can't believe i'm using this term...dope.

this year, the xbox 360 was released. i wouldn't want to spend money on it. later this year, the ps3 is coming out. if i had money, i'd spend it on that.

and then comes the dark horse of the race...the new nintendo wii.

that's right. the wii. as in...we. or wheee. or....wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii, as i like to put it.

fabulous machine. it won't change the face of gaming, but it'll make it a lot more fun. it's like a novelty console that you have to own. i'm not into the technical aspects, but...imagine playing tennis, and how your movements are translated onto the screen. or catching a fish. or swinging a sword. or conducting a symphony. it's all possible, thanks to that mad-ass controller and a bit of bluetooth.

it's really the ultimate party machine. and it's not just for guys, it's for...everyone. dare i say, chicks might love it more. i mean, they did come up with nintendogs. no way i'm gonna touch that. (or i might, but you'd never know).

nintendo is the last console maker standing from way back when. we had systems from other companies like the jaguar, turbo grafix 16, multiple manufacturers coming out with the 3do (thank you, panasonic). atari was shut down. sega's gone on to be everybody else's whipping boy. but nintendo has still been around, though barely.

but if i do get enough money, by hook or crook, i can bet that even my father would be charmed by the wii.