Captain Skyhawk

For this week I am going way back to a game from the NES. Captain Skyhawk was an incredible airplane shooting game. The objective was to repel an alien invasion. The varied levels had you defeating enemy bases, dog fighting with enemy planes, dropping off supplies to your team so they could develop a new weapon, and finally fighting the mother alien space ship (a pod looking thing with a big eye). The game was very addicting and I beat it numerous times. This is some of the great early work by Rare. The following video is the first level of the game.

Excitebike 64

This week's game is another great game for the Nintendo 64. Excitebike 64 is an incredible game to play with a bunch of people. While the racing on this game was excellent, it was the multi-player soccer matches that really stole the show. I know how wierd playing soccer on a motorbike sounds but it is incredibly fun. I love how loud and annoyning the announcers were: "Vicky Steele gets a soil sample!"


I don't own this game yet, but I hope it comes out on the Virtual Console soon. I really wish they would implement online into some of these multiplayer games. If they had online soccer I could kill a lot of time playing with friends.

King of Kong

Last weekend I watched the movie King of Kong. It follows the story of two video game players as they battle for the world record in the Donkey Kong arcade game. Their battle is almost as epic as mine and Chris's. It was a great documentary, very funny and entertaining. I highly recommend watching it. If you have Netflix you can watch it instantly online.

On Fire

One of my favorite things about video games is that I seem to get better at them even when I am not playing them. There have been numerous times when I get stuck on a certain level. No matter how much I practice I can never seem to overcome the problem. So I put it aside and move on to another game. I can come back months later, without practicing, and breeze through the place where I was previously stuck. For some reasons it just clicks in to place. Today I had one of these moments playing Mario Kart Wii. I have been unable to beat some of Adibobea9's records. As of yesterday there were seven that I had not yet beat. I was becoming frustrated and have been playing more Wii Fit and Pokemon in lieu of Mario Kart. Tonight I sat down and played Mario Kart and the records began to fall. Currently I only have one record left to beat: Grumble Volcano. I am down by eight second to Adibobia9. I am half tempted to win easily with the following cheat.

But I am determined to win fair and square.

Saturday Special

I am starting a new feature for the blog. Every Saturday I will reach back into the past and highlight one of my all-time favorite games. I start with one of my favorite multi-player games of all time.



The New Tetris is the best multi-player Tetris game that was ever made. Even Tetris DS with its Wi-Fi capabilities still does not surpass The New Tetris when it comes to multiplayer (though it does have such a wide variety of options and gameplay modes that it is the definitive Tetris so far).

This was the first Tetris game in America to feature 4-player head-to-head games. Beyond merely trying to outlast your friends head-to-head, the game also features a garbage system. When you got a Tetris four incomplete lines are sent the bottom of anther player's screen. If you clear three lines at once, two incomplete lines stack up under another player. When garbage was turned on, three options existed for how the garbage was distributed. The first would just go to the player to your right. Second, is the "hot potato" setting; all of the garbage goes to a random person until that person is able to clear a line, then all the garbage goes to someone else until they clear a line. Finally, the greatest garbage mode: directed garbage. You are able to select which person will get your garbage. This mode is great for doing two-on-two battles, or for trying to take down the superior Tetris player by ganging up on him 3-1. My fondest memories of this game is staying up late at a bachelor party and taking down Jeff Wassom with three people.

One of the best features of this game, that has not made it into any subsequent game, is the block making feature. If you made a 4x4 block with any four Tetris pieces they would merge into a gold or silver block. If you then cleared lines with a gold or silver block a much larger amount of garbage would be added to the other player. It usually ended up being a high risk - high reward trade off. Many times you would be so focused on creating a block and would end up allowing your screen to get so high that you were very susceptible to attacks from others.

Also present in the game for the first time in America was the ability to swap out one of the falling Tetris pieces. This allows you to save up a straight piece and work on getting a Tetris. The addition of this feature added a whole other element of strategy to the game.

Although this is a classic game I doubt that it will ever make it to the Virtual Console. There is currently a Tetris game in development for WiiWare. Tetris Party will feature 6-player online play and likely some form of motion control. I would love to see the return of block making as well, but I doubt that it will be included. Some rumors also speculated that balance board support is being added to the game as well. Either way hopefully it will create some great multiplayer game play.

Fifty - Fifty

The Mario Kart Records graph on the right pane of this blog is pretty self-explanatory, but I needed to do a special post to give a place for Adibobea9 to respond. In response to the Mario Kart Challenge not only have I easily beat 10 of his records (and Ribeye's record on DK Summit) but I now hold the fastest time on half of the courses. Adibobea9 hasn't even been gone a full week. Three more weeks to try and beat the other half of the records.

Wii Fit Thoughts

When I lost 41 pounds from January 2007-May 2007 there were 3 things that were effective in helping me lose the weight.

First, I checked my weight at least every week; keeping track of my weight frequently kept my weight loss goal on my mind and I paid more attention to excercise and what I ate.

Second, I lost the weight along with other people. We talked about our weightloss and supported each other.

Third, I had a reward for accomplishing my goal (my Wii).

Wii Fit makes a very effective weight loos tool because it provides all three of these elements. Weighing yourself everyday and seeing it charted out makes your awareness of your weight "bubble up inside you." This in turn makes you more aware of what you eat and what exercises you do. Second, Wii Fit, like the Brain Age titles from Nintendo, also encourages people to communicate about the game. It is enjoyable to see other people's progress in their weightloss and through their high scores in the minigames. Finally, Wii Fit is a video game. I love unlocking new activities and trying to beat the high scores in the game. The rewards are built into the game. Even if Wii Fit doesn't provide as good of a workout as running or swimming it is a good weight loss tool because it provides these three elements. However, Wii Fit can make you very sore and cause you to sweat (even ask Tammie). Overall I think Wii Fit is a great game and I have begun to see some modest results from it as well.