Video game update

I'm in Toronto, about to take a nap, in preparation for my first night of debau--er, um, diversion. In case you're wondering, no you won't hear about it, since this is a Family Blog. But as long as I was logged in (ya gotta love wireless internet service), I thought I would log my thoughts from the other night, having 'finished' Super Mario Galaxy.

First 'finished' isn't actually true. I rescued Princess Toadstool (again called 'Peach' but she'll always be Princess Toadstool to me) from the clutches of Bowser and Bowser Jr (who remains as annoying and whiny as ever, but I guess that's the little guy's charm). But the game consists, as previous versions of the franchise, in/of collecting stars by completing various challenging stages in any of a number of themed worlds. In Super Mario 64, you jumped through paintings in Castle Toadstool and were presented with any of several variations on the theme to win your star. In Super Mario Sunshine, you traveled to different cities/sites on the Pianta resort world, and did the same, although as I recall, the stars were called something different.

Anyway, in Super Mario Galaxy, you use various observation domes on a ship/comet/observatory, to travel to different 'galaxies', by which they seem to mean planetoids (each with several versions) in a system accessible from one of the domes. In addition to the jumping and spinning and bonus flowers and mushrooms (some quite, let's say, new), you collect power stars to rebuild the energies of the observatory/comet/ship thing, and after 60 power stars you have enough energy to travel to the "center of the Universe", which is where Bowser has Peach.

Okay, so the game is fascinating. Most stages are challenging without being maddeningly finicky. The different galaxies are a hoot. The hidden and bonus stars (some just 'hidden' alternative paths in other stages, others 'available' when some kind of interesting 'comet' appears in the relevant galaxy/system (some comets speed up the monsters, some introduce new stages, and so on).

So you need to recover at least 60 power stars to get to the final boss battle with Bowser and rescue the Princess. I've got to say, I was a little disappointed by the final battle. You meet Bowser in a few previous stages, and the final boss battle, while more or less being three times as long, isn't really any harder, or involve any new strategies or attacks, than the previous one. Don't get me wrong, it took me several (actually many) lives to get through it, but it wasn't very interesting, compared to previous final battles.

On the other hand, there's nothing actually 'final' about the final boss battle. There are at least 120 power stars available, between the various stages, comet variants, and hidden stars (and I'm told that at some point you unlock the Luigi character who is slower, but jumps higher (as in previous games) and you can then go for all 120 stars again as Luigi. And then something else unlocks, I think a 121st star.

So we'll see if I have the patience. I've never, ever, before collected all the stars in a Mario game. And having lived through most of the stages once, I'm content to leave the thing fallow for a week while I'm 'vacationing' here in Toronto. We'll see if I go through any withdrawal in the meantime.

Okay, zzzs call, then off to experience some vacation.

Fun with electronics

I went back through a few posts and realized that I'd never revealed my lucky purchase in St Cloud. I bought a Wii. Every evening (and most weekend days) for the last week or so have been a near continuous flurry of tennis and bowling in WiiSports, Super Paper Mario, and creating little cartoon versions of myself and various fictional characters on the Mii Channel.

I <heart> my Wii.

It turns out there's a planned/engineered/enforced scarcity of game consoles in Canada. According to separate people at two large retail outlets, every couple of weeks some guy comes in a truck and drops off a couple of consoles. They're not sure exactly when this truck will appear, or how many devices they're going to get at a time, but it ain't often, and it ain't many.

So if you're like me, and you don't want to admit to anyone you're going to shell out money don't really need to on a toy you don't really need, especially one that will just suck more money as time goes on, you want &deity; to tell you when it's time to buy one by providing one for purchase at some moment when you happen to be thinking about it. So once every couple of months, when you find yourself in the neighbo(u)rhood, you stop by We B Toys or whatever and ask if they have one. And if they ever do, it's clearly &deity; telling you that it's time to buy it. But this being Canada, they never do.

Turns out the distribution in the States is similar, in that some guy in a truck mysteriously appears at irregular intervals bearing devices. The difference is that in the States, the guy in the truck drops off a pallet or two of devices at the same time. Such that you sometimes see posts on web-based message boards saying 'they just got a bunch in at the (store) in (city) near the (landmark)'. And if you hurry, you can walk in and get one, although it doesn't take long for them to disappear.

So I thought I would increase my chances for divine intervention, or whatever, by hitting every big electronics store between "here" and "there" on my recent pilgrimmage to the Old Country. I hadn't actually meant to stop at every possible place on the road, but as long as I was (for instance) passing through Grand Forks, I might as well check at that Best Buy right by the freeway, or as long as I was spending the night in Fargo, I should check at the Best Buy and the Toys R Us in range of the hotel. Which I did, and no one had any in stock.

But then my tire shredded and I found myself unexpectedly stuck in St Cloud for a couple of hours. And there was a Best Buy across the street from the Mall (I checked, and no, they didn't have one). I wasn't quite willing to go the couple of blocks over to the Toys R Us, at least not on foot, and once the new tires were on I was anxious to get back on the road. But there was the two hours wandering around the mall.

And there was a little game store in the mall. And they had 'em. Hence my new reverence for St Cloud as a consumer, if not divine, shrine. Little electronics/games stores in malls rarely have consoles in Canada. They had a few dozen just sitting there. <cue angelic music>

So anyway, that's the big secret. I didn't mean for it to be a big mystery. I just didn't want to say anything until I was safely back in Canada.

If only

I don't like to post a lot of junk on one day, but this all came up since about noon time, and I don't want to forget about this.

Many of you know that I am a big Zelda fan. I missed this trailer when it first came out. But here it is.

Don't ask, you don't want to know anyway

Best Theme Ever

Never heard of the 11-string bass before, but there you go. Jean Baudin also has a 9-string bass version of the Legend of Zelda theme, but the sound quality sux. This is great.