Romperz

Old Gen Consoles

Our house is building up quite the collection of last generation consoles. We have the Sega Genesis and Dreamcast plus and Xbox and a PlayStation 2. We never play these systems anymore. They are just collecting dust and taking up space. Now, what to do with them?

My first thought is eBay. eBay is a wonderful market for video games but not sure about game systems - especially used ones. I bought my Dreamcast on eBay for $15 so not really expecting much coin for any system. It would just be nice to have the space back.

I do think I will sell the PlayStation 2 last. The reason I bought a PS2 in the first place was to play Kingdom Hearts - which I bought with the PS2. I have yet to play Kingdom Hearts. So before I sell it, I want to play it. With the rate I put items on eBay, I say that I have at least a year before I get around to actually listing the consoles. By then they will be antiques.

LEGO Star Wars

So I’m working through LEGO Indiana Jones for the Xbox 360. We’ve had so much fun with it that we’ve bought LEGO Star Wars. It was only $20 and hopefully will give us something to play while we wait for LEGO Batman to fall a few dollars in price.

LEGO Star wars is similar to Indy Jones. Or I guess it’s that Indy Jones is similar to Star Wars. This Star Wars is the complete saga, so it is a longer game that covers all six movies. There’s secret treasure to find and you must replay through the levels to get it all. I kind of like that because it does extend the playing time.

We have finished episode one and have less than 10 percent of the game completed. There are upgrades to buy and some are exactly the same as Indy Jones. So at least we are somewhat familiar with some of the items in the game thanks to our LEGO experience.

My husband is really close to finishing Indy Jones. I was hoping to finish before him but not sure I can do it. Right now we are playing Star Wars together and haven’t either of us started an individual game. It’s good to play a fun multi-player game again.

I own Wii Fit!

I can stop researching new diet pills as I have finally found and bought Wii Fit. I have every confidence that Wii Fit will help me lose weight. Well, maybe some confidence.

It is a fun game. I especially love the yoga poses probably because I have wanted to learn yoga but didn’t know where to start. I also love the balance games. There is one called soccer head where you hit the soccer balls with your head. Rae, my two year old, calls it ‘baseball.’ She also loves the Wii Fit, which I knew she would. It makes it somewhat difficult to play with her awake since she is always saying ‘my turn!’

So the time I do get to play, I’ve really enjoyed it. It could help you get fit. It is fun to play, so you might could even burn a few calories, too.

Cake Mania for the Wii

Jill’s grandparent’s bakery shop is on the verge of foreclosure and it’s up to you to help them out. Jill returns home from culinary school and quickly sets out on a mission to save her grandparent’s beloved bakery.

Cake Mania, the hit casual game for the PC, is now being developed for the Nintendo Wii. Cake Mania in the Mix is set to be released in early 2009. In the new version, there will be motion mini-games and a co-op level where Jill will have some extra help in the kitchen.

Players will use the Wiimote to guide Jill through nine different bakeries, making plenty of custom cakes along the way for an array of customers. Some demanding new customers will be pregnant moms and ninjas. There will also be a new phone system that will allow catering orders to be place by phone instead of just walk-ins.

Casual games are perfect for the Wii since the Wiimote makes it so easy to ‘point and click’ much like how you can on a PC. Other casual games such as Home Sweet Home are also being developed for the Wii.

Wii Fit

I’m really looking forward to the release of Wii Fit. First I need to clean the living room, so I will have plenty of room to play this game.

This game looks more like fat burners than a traditional game with all the exercising and moving your body part. But that’s exactly what I’m hoping for. It would be great to burn some fat and lose some weight all because of playing video games. It would be my dream workout.

I worry just what the weight limit on the balance board will be. Hopefully both my husband and I fall below that number. If not it’d be terrible to have to first lose weight before I could even play the darn thing. That would be as almost as bad as having to clean before the maid comes over. Not like a have a maid. I’m way too messy to hire someone to have to sort through this disaster.

Maybe I will do a little research on Wii Fit since there should be some more information out there since we are approaching its US release.

Buying Wii Points Online

So, I really wanted to buy Mario Kart 64 for the virtual console. Since I had a balance of 200 Wii points, I needed to buy more since Mario Kart costs 1,000 points. No problem. I can buy 1000 Wii points for $10. Excited, I filled out all the information to buy the points. Or at least I thought I did.

I kept receiving an error about invalid postal code. So, I go online to check to make sure I’m entering the right information for my credit card since we moved a few months ago. My information was correct. Confused, I called Nintendo.

It didn’t take long to track down my problem. In the ‘county’ box I kept putting ‘USA’, which is not a county at all. Once I tried the county, it worked like a charm. So, I was able to download Mario Kart 64. I felt silly for missing something so obvious but sometimes it happens. The most important thing is I got the Wii points and the game, so I can deal with a little embarrassment for a happy ending.

Wii Woes

Some Wii owners have been experiencing issues with their Wii not playing certain games or not working at all. Super Smash Bros. Brawl is the most recent game to cause problems. Nintendo says that one potential is smoke. The smoke gets trapped in the Wii and gets crucial parts dirty. Nintendo has offered to clean affected Wiis for free.

One potential solution for gamers to smoke is consider buying some air purifiers to place around the house. The small models don’t cost that much. In fact you could place a small one next to your entertainment equipment. That way it will help to keep the air clear and hopefully your Wii working.

While it might not cost to have your Wii cleaned, it still means you will be giving up some playing time while your Wii is in for repairs. An air purifier might can stave off the problem altogether.

Dr. Mario for the Wii

There are rumors of Dr. Mario coming to the Nintendo Wii. Dr. Mario is a game that we have had for several systems and literally taunts me. I am really bad past level 10 or so.

After playing for hours with the good doctor throwing pill after pill, I feel almost like I need to enter a drug rehab program. All kidding aside, I’m not sure why this game is so addicting or why I continue to play it even though I am horrible at it.

A Wii version could be fun or it might be frustrating, most likely both.

Trouble with Super Smash Bros. Brawl?

I was excited when I got the new Wii release Super Smash Bros. Brawl and rushed home to play it. It played great. I was a little worried since I had read that some people were having trouble getting their Wii to play this first ever dual disc for the Wii.

Since I had no problems, I didn’t worry too much about researching the problem. I did read that Nintendo said that smoke could cause errors and would gladly clean for free any Wiis that wouldn’t play the disc. But that means packing your my Wii and sending it off for who knows how long.

Well yesterday my husband wants to play Smash Bros. but the Wii will not load it. Hopefully it was just a fluke and will work today. He took out the disc and wiped it off. I’m not sure if there is a disc cleaner for the Wii or if a regular cd disc cleaner will work. We are not smokers, so the error wouldn’t be caused by smoke. Now dust on the other hand might be a different story.

I won’t worry too much about it until we try to play again.

VC on the Wii

So, we have spent about half of our Wii points from Christmas. I have bought a game and so has my husband. There are many more I want to get, so we will definitely be buying more points.

The virtual console is one of the cooler things about the Wii since you can play older games on it. You buy them with Wii points. Basically 100 Wii points is $1. Most games range from 500-1500 Wii points.

It’s been a fun way to grab a new game on a slow TV night and have some entertainment. Well worth the few dollars it costs for the games.