可能我小時候也很喜歡湯瑪仕火車頭﹐在玩具店看著那套木製巨型路軌流口水﹐可惜媽媽從來沒有買給我玩。後來在加拿大讀書﹐偶然在週末早上的兒童時段看電視﹐也會有湯瑪仕的定格卡通﹐總覺得那些有人臉的火車模型很有趣。現在剛巧湯瑪仕Wii遊戲﹐反正完成遊戲所需時間不長﹐只需要半個小時多一點﹐便當懷念一下童年回憶。那些小遊戲大部份很無聊﹐只是很低技術的平面貼圖。不過製作群在火車比賽倒花了不小心思﹐在小遊戲中建立全島3D路軌和火車﹐不單要挍動搖控器讓火車前進﹐還可以上下拉動搖控器模彷火車鳴汽笛。可惜小遊戲沒有free play mode﹐不能自由地駕駛小火車遊覽全島。忽發奇想﹐如果把Thomas the tank train放在Microsoft Train Simulation走﹐應該會很有趣。
I finally got a Wii, 3 years later to the party. I didn’t buy it, I inherited it from my cousin who moved back to Hong Kong. Although the console is free, but it does not come with any controllers. So I have to spent some money to buy a few controllers. $15 a Wii remote with nunchuk from eBay, much cheaper than buying from Future Shop.
Believe it or not, I never own any gaming console. I never have a Red-white Nintendo, no a Sega, not Playstation, no XBox. I am used to playing games on my computer. Wii is the first console I have and I did not even buy it. The feeling of playing games on TV is quite different. I feel I have less piracy because anyone walk by can see my screen. Playing games on the couch is actually not as comfortable as sitting on office chair in front of the computer. The couch is designed for sitting lay back, passively receive the content from the TV. Playing Wii requires active interaction and naturally draw your body closer to the TV, which is not the most comfortable position.
I have been debating whether or not soft mod my Wii for a few days. On one hand, I don’t want to go over the trouble of soft mod the Wii and risk bricking it. On the other hand, I would never spend $50 on a game. At last I swallow my pride as an engineer, paid $40 and let someone soft mod it for me. Soft mod is a must for Wii to play download games. So far I have downloaded a dozen of games, I have spent a bit more some time playing Super Mario and the Gundam Wii game which I think eventually I may finish them. For the other games, I opened each one of them and lost interested pretty soon. I found playing Video game is just a waste of time in general, especially some games won’t foster any collective memory.
Other than playing downloaded games, the bonus of soft mod my Wii is the Home Brew Channel. (Read more at Wiibrew) I can run all soft of applications and thinker with my Wii. I installed Google Earth for Wii, a VNC client to copy my desktop from my TV over the Wii using the Wii remote as a mouse. The gold mine is really tons of ancient gaming console emulator. I can downloaded ROMs of old games from Snesorama and ROM Nation. I have played old games with emulator on my computer, but it’s different. You gotta play console games on a TV. I found I enjoy playing those ancient games more than the new Wii games. I feel like the Wii emulators finally filling the hole in my heart that I did not own any console game in childhood.
