The game comes with a wheel that makes it easier to use the wii remote and even allows Ian to play the game. There are 8 different courses in Grand Prix mode, with four them being new and the other four including courses from Game Boy Advance, Game Cube, NES, and other past Nintendo consoles. All of the favorite characters are back, plus you can even use your own Mii once you get gold in the 150cc race. There is also battle and vs mode where you can team up with other characters or race against them on your own. I like the balloon battle over the coin battle, but both are fun to play with. In true Wii fashion, you can also play Mario Kart online. You can log onto the Nintendo WiFi net (or whatever it’s called) and find other people to race or if you’re friends are online, you can race them. This mode is nice because we can race Jordan and Beth in Grand Rapids without leaving our own apartment in Detroit.
The game has been a lot of fun to play. Ian actually got it for us for Mothers/Fathers day, although he may not realize that. It’s one of the few games Jesse and I can play together without getting mad at each other for running into battle and destroying all of the strategy. Plus Ian loves watching it. He’ll actually bring the game wheel to either one of us and pull us to the TV. He also loves sitting in our laps while we’re racing around the track. He even has his own character. He doesn’t race well, but likes holding the wheel and he knows which button to push to make the car go; he just hasn’t figured out that he needs to constantly push it. The only real trouble with Ian liking this game is he really likes this game and will go right up to the TV to see what is going on. He’s a definite handicap when we’re playing.
The courses are pretty fun, but I absolutely hate Rainbow Road, but I guess that is a staple for the series. I’ve done all the cups in both the 50cc and 150cc, except for the Special Cup because of that blasted course. I’ve even got gold in all the other cups, but I can’t even place for this course. I’ve even been trying to convince Jesse to play just Rainbow Road for me, I would go through the three courses before it, just so I can get past this blasted cup. No such luck yet.
Jesse kept hearing about this game for the Wii called Puzzle Quest from one of our friends and the library had it on their shelf this weekend, so we picked it up. At first, we really weren’t that crazy about it, but after playing it for pretty much most of the day, it’s growing on us. The game has a quest mode as well as a “instant battle” option. I think Jesse started a quest, but I couldn’t tell you what it is. We’re enjoying the actually battles to care about the quests right now. The battle mode is what would happen if Puzzle Fighter and Bejeweled had a love child. There are also different spells you can use to give yourself more of an edge, but you have to earn enough mana in order to use them.
Overall, it’s fun to play and perfect when having a small child run around. Ian has been able to sit in our laps, while we play, and not effect whether we die or not. You can have the puzzles be timed, but if you’re worried about a tiny body standing in front of the TV, you can also have the timers turned off. This is actually kind of good.
I just noticed Jesse is playing in quest mode and it kind of reminds me of some of the older Final Fantasy map boards. Although this does remind me of one small grievance I have with the game…the font is TINY. Jesse says it’s mainly our TV and if we had an HDTV, then it would be different, but I don’t believe it. The font is so tiny, you could be sitting right next to the TV and still not be able to read it. On ours, it is a little blurry, so maybe it is readable, but it’s still really tiny for me. I wear glasses after all.
One more awesome thing…it’s only $20 on Amazon. Most Wii games start out around $50, so it’s not that bad of a deal.
So for those of you who have been checking out my book review blog, I’ve moved it to a new location. It was originally on Blogger, but since I was putting so much work into it, I decided to switch it to a Wordpress format since I am far more familiar with that. I finished getting everything transitioned tonight, so I’m calling it on the blogger version. It died at 11:03pm. Blogger has been good to me and it was easy to update, but it wasn’t real easy to manipulate and they had very few templates that didn’t look cartoony. Now I have something that is a bit more stylish. If anyone gets a chance, head on over and check it out. I would love to hear what people think about it.
Filed Under (Books, Reviews) by myjaxon on 25-04-2008
Alright, I haven’t done this in awhile, but this series was so good, that I had to share it with everyone. I’m pretty sure that a lot of my friends don’t check out my book review blog, Literary Escapism, so I wanted to post my review of the last novel of Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels trilogy. So, here it is:
—————————————- I’ve finished the final novel, Queen of the Darkness, in Anne Bishops’ Black Jewels trilogy and all I can say is wow. My face was just streaked with tears over the ending and I was riveted to the plot line as it zoomed to its ending. The individual personalties of the characters added so much to this series that you felt for all of them. When something hurt them, you felt it. It’s not often that a book will make me cry for pages. I may cry during the appropriate scenes, but to continue crying for pages afterwards, that’s something else. When I book can do that, then you know that it’s a masterpiece.
The only thing I can think about right now is, and then what happened. The final battle happened, and we were given details about what happened to the supporting cast, but what about Janelle and Daemon? We’re left with them seeing each other for the first time after the battle, but we don’t know what happened afterwards. I’m going to try and get my hands on the new Black Jewels novel, Tangled Webs, that just came out and I’m hoping more details will be given then.
Overall, I loved this series. It is definitely getting added to my “to be purchased” list and I’m planning on adding Tangled Webs without even reading it. When a story stay with me, even when I am not reading it, and when there is a connection with all of the characters - that is what makes a great novel. The Black Jewels trilogy has to go down as one of the best fantasy series ever.
We rented the new Alvin and the Chipmunks tonight and Ian’s reaction was priceless. The movie just started and all of a sudden, we hear Ian erupting into giggles. It was great. We tried to recreate it, but…yeah, he turned a little camera shy.
I have to say, I loved the cartoon Alvin and the Chipmunks growing up, so when I heard they were doing a live action movie, I was kind of skeptical. They don’t normally do them well and I have been disappointed in the past. I really can’t say that with this movie. They actually did a pretty good job with it. It was better than I thought it would be. I am definitely going to be buying this movie, and not because it made Ian giggle at the beginning. It did capture Ian’s attention for awhile, but it’s still a bit long for him. He can barely sit still during a 30 minute show, so I knew he wasn’t going to make it through this one, but he kept coming back it. Especially when the chipmunks were singing. And speaking of their songs, there was some dialog that should be familiar to any fan of the old cartoons. They still used the familiar songs - the Chipmunk Song & Witch Doctor - but they did modernize it a bit. I didn’t have a problem with the modernized version of the Chipmunk Song, but Witch Doctor wasn’t that great. I prefer the old version of that one.
Overall, the movie was good. Jason Lee did a good job as David Seville and the CGI animation was pretty good. The story had a good story arc and it really didn’t drag. When we got to the end of the movie, the final conflict or conflict resolution, it kind of caught me by surprise. I like movies like that. It means that I was interested enough in it that I lost track of time for awhile. Isn’t that the point of movies? To lose track of time, to just relax and not worry about what’s going on while watching a good story? Alvin and the Chipmunks is definitely a movie I would recommend.
The game comes with a wheel that makes it easier to use the wii remote and even allows Ian to play the game. There are 8 different courses in Grand Prix mode, with four them being new and the other four including courses from Game Boy Advance, Game Cube, NES, and other past Nintendo consoles. All of the favorite characters are back, plus you can even use your own Mii once you get gold in the 150cc race. There is also battle and vs mode where you can team up with other characters or race against them on your own. I like the balloon battle over the coin battle, but both are fun to play with. In true Wii fashion, you can also play Mario Kart online. You can log onto the Nintendo WiFi net (or whatever it’s called) and find other people to race or if you’re friends are online, you can race them. This mode is nice because we can race Jordan and Beth in Grand Rapids without leaving our own apartment in Detroit.
The game has been a lot of fun to play. Ian actually got it for us for Mothers/Fathers day, although he may not realize that. It’s one of the few games Jesse and I can play together without getting mad at each other for running into battle and destroying all of the strategy. Plus Ian loves watching it. He’ll actually bring the game wheel to either one of us and pull us to the TV. He also loves sitting in our laps while we’re racing around the track. He even has his own character. He doesn’t race well, but likes holding the wheel and he knows which button to push to make the car go; he just hasn’t figured out that he needs to constantly push it. The only real trouble with Ian liking this game is he really likes this game and will go right up to the TV to see what is going on. He’s a definite handicap when we’re playing.
The courses are pretty fun, but I absolutely hate Rainbow Road, but I guess that is a staple for the series. I’ve done all the cups in both the 50cc and 150cc, except for the Special Cup because of that blasted course. I’ve even got gold in all the other cups, but I can’t even place for this course. I’ve even been trying to convince Jesse to play just Rainbow Road for me, I would go through the three courses before it, just so I can get past this blasted cup. No such luck yet.
