I bought a wii.

Sorry about the lack of posts recently, along with the lack of photos. My camera is being weird at the moment. No matter whether I put in new batteries, or fully recharged batteries straight out of he charger, all it can manage to do is open it's lens..... then a few seconds later, close and shut down. I suppose I could try using the camera on my netbook, but that would be a bit weird and awkward to use.

I have bought a wii console. In fact, I bought it slightly before my PS3, but I didn't write it up. It's second hand but in impeccable condition, as the previous owner seems to have only played with it once or twice, according to the internal log.

I have bought a whole load of games for it; Baroque, Blast Works, Dewy's Adventure, Disaster Day Of Crisis, Dragon Quest Swords, FFF Chocobo's Dungeon, Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn, Geometry Wars Galaxies, Guilty Gear /\ Core, The House Of The Dead 2 & 3 Return, Little King's Story, Madworld, The Munchables, No More Heroes, Opoona, Samba de Amigo, Samurai Warriors Katana, SNK Arcade Classics 1, Soul Calibur Legends, Super Paper Mario, Super Smash Bros Brawl, Tatsunoko vs Capcom, Wario Land: The Shake Dimension, Warioware: Smooth Moves, Wii Music, Zack & Wiki.

All of those are PAL version games, apart from Tatsunoko vs Capcom which is a Japanese game. Most of them cost around £10 or less, and I am happy with the selection I have chosen. I've played a bit of most of them, but there are still some I haven't even taken out of the wrapper yet!

I haven't bought any wiiware downloadable games because I do not trust Nintendo with purely digital ownership thanks to them revoking most of my loyalty points which I had spent years building up, complete faith in them. There is no personal ownership for wiiware games - you download them to your console without it being tied to any form of identity. So if your wii breaks, you can't transfer your games to another console without phoning Nintendo and begging, and they are very reluctant to cooperate, from what I have heard. Plus, they do not offer any demos for games, and there's not much internal memory in the console, nor much in the way of online play, so it doesn't seem very good.

I held off buying a wii for a few years because there didn't appear to be that many games for the platform which appeal to me, and the price of games was too high - for a long time they retained their prices very well. Buying a second hand console for £50 less than the standard price, and picking up games fairly cheaply, now that I have this console, I'm quite pleased with it.

The speciality of the wii seems to be games which you can pick up easily, play in short bursts, and laugh with. This is what I really appreciate the console for. There are some games which seem like normal home console games, but I would say that a great deal of games are more like amusement arcade games. For example, you can go mini-bowling with friends. You can wave a stick around and play swordfighting. You can play accurate ports of one-on-one fighting games. You can move about with music / rhythm games. Amusement arcades are becoming more and more scarce as the years pass, and they contain more and more gambling machines and fewer arcade games, so I really appreciate the fact that the wii seems to replace and regain part of what has been lost.

And, even if the games are short, they don't cost too much anymore, so I don't mind.

The wii does suffer the same overall problems with its game catalogue that the DS does - there are are a lot of gimmick control games (use this control method because it's new, not because it is the best or most useable), and there is a lot of software for the console that is not a game but self-help training software. These appeal to a broad market and bring in a lot of money, so that kind of stuff is what people have come to associate with the console, but there are some really decent games for the platform too.

500 yen discount voucher for CD Japan

There's a special offer on at CD Japan at the moment: put in your email address and they will send you a voucher for 500 yen off of any order of 5000 yen or more, to spend before the 30th of July 2009.

Special Offer coupon page

I guess 10% isn't that much, but it's more than welcome. (See my previous 2 posts, I have some preorders to place...)

I Senshi - upcoming Anniversary Gundam album

Have you ever liked a song so much that you think that an album containing 6 cover versions of it would be a great thing? I think I'm unusual. I own the album with 18 versions of "Yuusha Ou Tanjou!", the Gaogaigar opening theme.

Now I've heard about this upcoming Ai Senshi cover album, I'm really thinking of buying this too.

Gundam 30th Anniversary I,Senshi Tribute

Catalog No.: VTCL-60161
Label/Distributor: Victor Entertainment
Format: CD
Number of discs (or other units): 1
Release Date: 2009/07/22
Price: 2000yen (2100yen Tax incl.)

I've also seen a tracklist:

1. Ai Senshi (Andrew W.K.)
2. Ai Senshi (MIQ)
3. Ai Senshi (Daisuke Inoue (original singer), 1999 version)
4. Ai Senshi (Gackt)
5. Ai Senshi (Richie Kotzen)
6. Ai Senshi (Matsuhiro Oikawa)

Source. As it's another blog, I can't tell if that tracklist is finalised.

Preorder on: Gundam 30th Anniversary I,Senshi Tribute

I really like this song! I think it's definitely my favourite song to come out of Mobile Suit Gundam. It's from one of the films, which I haven't seen. I just really like the song. I think the album would have been better rounding off with the original version, as I think it's the best. The Andrew W.K. version is in English and it's a good translation; accurate and with a lot of impact. I haven't heard the MIQ version, I'm hoping it's new as I like all of her covers. I haven't heard the self cover... I don't much like the Gackt cover (even though I like a lot of his music), the Ritchie Kotzen cover is another English cover but the lyrics aren't as good, and I haven't heard the Matsuhiro Oikawa version but I have enjoyed some of his past music too.

Not listed is this live cover of Ai Senshi: Super Robot Spirits Acoustic version, with Mizuki Ichirou, Kageyama Hironobu, Endoh Masaaki, Horie Mitsuko and MIQ. It's really good, and is another reason I have to look forward to a MIQ version.

EIZO JAPAN - upcoming album

This is one to look forward to! Anyone who is a fan of Sakamoto Eizo (lead singer of Anthem, Animetal and an ex member of JAM Project) should look into this!

He's got a new album of covers of anime songs coming out at the end of August 2009 in Japan - it's available to preorder on CD Japan.

Tracklisting from his official website

Engine Sentai Go-onger
Pegasus Fantasy (Saint Seiya)
Butter-Fly (Digimon)
Unbalance na Kiss o Shite (Yu Yu Hakusho)
Turn A Turn (Turn A Gundam)
Geki! Teikoku Kagekidan (Sakura Wars)
Kimi o Nosete (Laputa: Castle in the Sky)
DELUGE(Instrumental)
Dengeki Sentai Changeman
Aiai Mikochan (Norakuro)
Kioku no Umi (School Days)
Hana - Shinomori Aoshi no Theme (Rurouni Kenshin)
Towa no Mirai (Rurouni Kenshin)
Pegasus Fantasy Acoustic Ver (Saint Seiya)

It'll be good to hear the self-cover of Animetal's Towa no Mirai (presuming it is a cover). I saw a video on youtube of him singing Butter-Fly live at an anime song event, it seems to be a song with a resurgence in popularity, which is great because it's always been a fun song. ^_^ I have wanted to hear him sing the Sakura Taisen theme for ages too. ^_^

It mentions on his English MySpace page that "We are also promoting overseas. Working hard to bring the album to your countries!!", I think that means concerts rather than the CD being released internationally, but I can't be sure. I think I'll put an order in for the Japanese version anyway.

EDIT: 2009-07-15

Keep an eye on his official myspace page! It now contains clips from the album to listen to, and he'd revealed that he will start recording EIZO JAPAN 2 next month! :D