I am once again excited about WiiWare. The floodgates of quality have been opened!

I've been totally loving WiiWare lately. I gotta admit, that after an OK start, things looked pretty bad for the service, with junk like Major League Eating, Protothea (not BAD, but no WiiWare game, that's for sure), SPOGS Racing, Pirates, and Beer Pong somehow getting released on the service. It was starting to look like a bit of a haven for shovelware, and that sucked since things started off so well with great, complete games like LostWinds and Dr. Mario, addictive digital-crack for retro gamers like me with Star Soldier R, and little casual gems like Defend Your Castle and Pop, that showed such promise for Nintendo's answer to XBLA. But lately there's been so many great, quality titles popping up on the service, just about the only games I've been playing are WiiWare games, and that is certainly not a bad thing at all.

After seemingly clearing out all the crap from the line-up over the summer, things really started to turn around in August with much better games like Wild West Guns, Homestar Runner ep.1, (neither of which I've tried yet) and a HUGE favorite around my household, Midnight Pool (Helix seemed like it may be cool, but it gets less and less fun each time you play it, and I totally regret downloading it...). But as nice as those games were, they were nothing compared to the line up of September and, so far, October, which has really revved up the WiiWare line-up into something I'd without hesitation call must-play. Sure, I downloaded the non-game/interactive-screensaver My Aquarium, but just because I thought it would entertain my 3 year old daughter (which it didn't), but I also downloaded three incrediblly AWESOME games in September as well: Mega Man 9, Art Style: Orbient, and Bomberman Blast.

All three of those were still being played daily (along with a game or ten of Midnight Pool here and there) when, last Monday, two more awesome-bombs dropped on the service in the form of Art Style: Cubello and the phenominally wonderful World of Goo, which I wish I was playing whenever I'm not playing it. Seriously, I think World of Goo is WiiWare's so-called "killer-app", you simply need to play this game if you love video games. As if five amazing games that I love to play living on my system weren't enough (had to unfourtunately erase Midnight Pool to make room for World of Goo, damn that limited storage!), this Monday sees Tetris Party get released, and there's still stuff like Space Invaders: Get Even, Alien Crush Returns, Animales de la Muerte, Swords & Soldiers, Gradius ReBirth, and at least one more Art Style game (Rotohex?) on the seemingly near horizon, all of which I have already commited myself to downloading. That's not even mentioning stuff a little further down the line that already has me drooling, like Cave Story (which can't be realeased soon enough...), or great stuff that hasn't even been announced yet (like these amazing Art Style games that just showed up outta nowhere).

I don't know when I'll put another disc in my Wii, it may not be for a while, as WiiWare totally has my gaming itch covered lately. I'll leave you with this thought: the total cost of these five games, all of which I am fully satisfied with and play frequently, is about the same or less than the cost of one new disc game. A fact which is highlighted in my house with the fact that I had just bought and was really enjoying Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - I was flying through the game actually - a couple of days before Mega Man 9 (then Orbient, then Bomberman, then World of Goo, then...), and have hardly even played it at all since. Maybe I will once I finish World of Goo. Maybe.

-Kimo

UNPAUSE!

Yep, I'm pressing the big start button on this blog and taking it outta the "paused' state it has been in for far too long. I've been kept pretty busy the last couple months, and any free time that could've been going to writing about games has been going to actually, you know, playing them.

And, I have had a lot to play the last few months, with so many great games keeping me busy, and of course that also means I've got a lot to talk about too! Pretty much the only things I've been playing for the last few months is WiiWare, DS, and XBLA, so that's what I'll be writing about. I've also been thinking about shifting the main focus of this blog towards writing mainly about digital games - WiiWare and XBLA - , DS, and just Wii in general, as those are really the four main avenues of my gaming habits.

Plus, its not like there's any shortage of gaming websites and blogs out there, so who needs one more person spouting off about big games like Gear of War 2, Fable II or other blockbuster games, when that voice could be put to better use in singing the praises of something like Braid, Bionic Commando, World of Goo, or the Art Style series. I think I'll still blog about everything gaming, of course, but I think WiiWare, XBLA and DS is where the lion's share of coverage around here is going to be headed. Oh, and Virtual Console too. I've also been finding these downloadable games to not only be more fun overall than many disc-based games of late, but also to be of tremendous value. They're so cheap!! These are good times to be a gamer, I tells ya. Much more to come soon, see ya then.

-Kimo