neurological dryer lint

i could talk more about why i think the smoking ban is good for the general public, or why i wish more people voted for the northwest levy... or the soon-to-come reign of mediocrity in the house and senate... or stem-cell research, or gay marriage... but screw that, i played the wii for the first time today.

it could have been that i was a foot from the system and the TV, but the first thing i noticed was that on the system's main menu, the cursor was a little oversensitive. on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the slowest, i keep my mouse speed at about a 4, and i hope i can kick the wiimote's sensitivity down a bit. while it booted pretty quickly, the menus were very slow to switch between the different sections, and it took forever to load the disc, at least ten to fifteen seconds.

(i also found out today that you can't play MP3's off of the SD cards without going into the 'photo channel' and starting a slideshow. i hope future OS updates add more media-player features.)

limited on time, i jumped straight into the game that was loaded into the console, excite truck. graphically it looked like a gamecube title. there's a lot more depth to this title than i initially expected - different countries, tracks, and vehicles you can unlock, etc. the game itself seemed to be a very immature racing title - when you crash, hit a tree, or even just spin out, you slow to a stop and then have to wait a few seconds to re-enter the race. it's a fast game, though, and in large groups i can see how it'd be fun - not as good as a mario kart, but still entertaining.

the controls were a little startling but eventually got comfortable. you hold the remote longways - like an NES controller - press "2" to accelerate and tilt side to side to steer. it was goofy enough that i found myself bouncing back and forth across the track, from edge to edge, as i overcompensated for the steering's sensitivity.

i'm sure more developers will perfect the sideways-steering concept in other racing titles. as for this one, i wouldn't buy it, but that's because i've only liked two racing games ever - burnout 3 and pole position. but it definitely got me excited about the potential of the system... i gotta confess part of me still didn't believe what nintendo is proposing will actually work, despite months of playtesting by the gaming media.

looks like at midnight saturday i'll be grabbing mine from colerain's gamestop. hopefully i'll be able to grab my reserved copy of zelda from western commons and grab an unclaimed copy of red steel too since i can't reserve it. or maybe best buy will hook me up.