Alice Cooper — The man’s done it all, and did a lot of it before most of us were born. Can you imagine a band throwing a live chicken into a pit, only to watch the crowd tear it apart? Yeah, well Alice Cooper did it — IN 1969. Alice Cooper defined so much of what heavy metal is today, bands should be sending him 10% of their income in gratitude.

Growing up, my dad had a couple of Alice Cooper albums on his record shelf. I never listened to them because the covers actually scared me. One look at that guy with mascara and snakes and I was out of there. I didn’t become a fan until seventh grade, when I heard Raise Your Fist And Yell, a CD I still spin from time to time. Despite the fact that I’ve been listen to ‘Coop for over fifteen years now, I’ve never had the chance to catch him live — until now, on Brutally Live, the new DVD/CD combo pack from Eagle Rock Entertainment.

Recorded live at Labatt’s Apollo in Hammersmith, England on July 19th, 2000, Brutally Live contains both a DVD and a CD. The DVD clocks in at 105 minutes and contains 25 songs. Due to CD length limitations, it only contains 20 of the 25 tracks.

As far as I’m concerned, Alice Cooper invented the stage show. While other bands were wearing suits and smiling like idiots on stage, Alice Cooper was throwing fake body parts at his fans and dodging babies hanging from nooses on stage. Age has not slowed the man in the slightest. At the beginning of the DVD, Alice is introduced to the crowd by some sort of half-rotten corpse, a special effect David Blaine would impressed by. During “Dead Babies”, Cooper pulls a grotesque two-headed half-deformed/half-wolf baby from a baby carraige, stabs in the back with a sword, and displays it proudly to the crowd. If you’ve never had to opportunity to see Alice Cooper’s famous guillotine act, here’s your chance. Just because your dad may have listened to him doesn’t make this your dad’s DVD.

The track list pretty much spans Alice Cooper’s entire career. Classics like “Dead Babies”, “Billion Dollar Babies”, “I’m Eighteen”, “School’s Out” and “No More Mr. Nice Guy” all make appearances, as well as material from Cooper’s latest album (at the time), Brutal Planet. My only complaint was that nothing from Raise Your Fist And Yell made it into the set list. Still, with 25 tracks, everyone who even remotely likes Alice Cooper will surely find something they like here.

One thing I really liked about the DVD was that the songs tend to blend together pretty well. You can still tell the older songs from the newer ones by the way they’re written, but with the same band and production on every track, the line between the years seems to blur pretty well. Better than say on a greatest hits package where a 35 year difference in production quality is blatantly obvious.

Sure, there are a few rock cliches here, like a drum solo with drumsticks on fire and several costume changes. Of course you have to realize, when Alice Cooper started this wild rock and roll ride, they weren’t cliches then. He invented half of them. Cooper also takes the opportunity to throw a few friendly jabs at some of his comtemporaries, first by referring to Marilyn Manson, Ozzy Osbourne, and KISS as his “disobedient children”, and later by wearing a t-shirt that says “Britney Wants Me… Dead.” It’s only rock and roll, baby.

The DVD is presented in anamorphic widescreen format, and contains 2.0, 5.0 (surround), and DTS audio tracks. The DTS track in particular shook my living room walls. Also included is one bonus video (“Gimmie”), alternate camera angles, and links to additional Alice Cooper downloads via his website. While it’s a little thin on extras, the important things (good video and great sound) are there in full force.

Alice Cooper fan or not, people should check out Brutally Live. For twenty bucks, you get both the DVD AND the audio CD. Brutally Live catches Alice Cooper in top form, and preserves the legacy of one of the masters at his game.

Tracks:
01. Brutal Planet
02. Gimme
03. Go to Hell
04. Blow Me a Kiss
05. I’m Eighteen
06. Pick Up the Bones
07. Feed My Frankenstein
08. Wicked Young Man
09. Dead Babies
10. Ballad of Dwight Fry
11. I Love the Dead
12. The Black Widow
13. No More Mr. Nice Guy
14. It’s Hot Tonight
15. Caught in a Dream
16. It’s the Little Things
17. Poison
18. Take It Like a Woman
19. Only Women Bleed
20. You Drive Me Nervous
21. Under My Wheels
22. School’s Out
23. Billion Dollar Babies
24. My Generation
25. Elected

I recently read an online article that consisted of questions you should ask yourself if you’re in a band and trying to get signed. The first and biggest question was, “what’s original about my band?” Of course, I’m not in a band, so I’ll ask that question of A18. What’s original about their band?

The answer is, not much. A18 serves up standard, trademark, straight forward SXE hardcore.

Foreverafternothing is very heavily front loaded. By that, I mean the first two songs are the best on the album. “Dig” shows listeners what the band has to offer — hardcore drums, bass driven riffs, and lots and lots of yelling. Where the band really comes together is on track two. “Broke the Blue” changes up tempos, singing styles, guitar sounds, and everything else within the song. Once that song ends though, so does the originality.

The rest of the disc dulls in comparison. Despite a couple of short interludes, “Things I Don’t Believe” consists of two chords played over and over. And over. Everything else came off as hardcore or punk stuff I’ve heard before. I skimmed a few other online reviews, all of which compared A18 to Biohazard and Hatebreed. I’m sure I’m showing my age, but I heard some Minor Threat and DRI in there as well.

Despite not bringing much new to the table, A18’s foreverafternothing is sonically perfect. The bass lines wander around the straight-forward guitars, particularly on “In Droves”, mixing things up a bit. Most of the other tracks just march forward in a straight forward screaming attack, until we reach “Hari Kiri”, which gives off a faint smell of Visions Of Disorder before fading out into forgetsville.

Foreverafternothing didn’t stick with me at all. Just minutes after listening to the disc, I was hard pressed to recall a single riff or chorus. Those searching for a new straight edge hardcore album might pick this one up, but it’s hard to recommend something “good” when there’s so many great hardcore bands out there.

01. Dig
02. Broke The Blue
03. Public Apology
04. Three Times Sold
05. With Kind Regards
06. Things I Don’t Believe
07. Where I Left Off
08. Scars Upon Scars
09. In Droves
10. Bury Me Breathing
11. Hari Kiri

You know, black metal isn’t really my forte’. I can listen to it and I can appreciate the talent it takes to play it, but I just can’t get into it.

I’ve listened to Marduk and Satyricon and from what I can tell, Norweigen rockers 1349 rank right up there with the best. If the goal of black metal is to play as fast and as hard as possible, then these guys do not disappoint.

On tracks like “Satanic Propaganda” and “Evil Oath”, 1349 blast off into a musical land of unbelievably quick blast beats and machine gun strumming. While the band’s techniques and performance are impressive, it’s a bit much for me to listen to for any given length of time. Production on the disc is clean and tight, and reminds me a lot of Mayhem’s last disc.

Fans of black metal should check out 1349. Any band that features former members from Pantheon, Funeral, Satyricon, Gorgoroth, and Zyklon-B and was named after the year the black plague hit their own country can’t be all bad. These guys have paid their gun belt dues and it shows.

Last night while unpacking more moving boxes (will this hell never end?) I ran across a box labeled “DESK”. I disctinctly remember packing this box — I opened up the box, set it in my desk chair, and used my arm to push everything from my work space into it. Tape it up, label it, and move on. Who said packing was tough? While unpacking this “DESK” box last night, I came across the debut CD from a band called 8 Trak Mind.

I remember looking at the CD a month ago or so and pushing it aside. I think I got their name confused with a local retro band and hadn’t been in the mood lately to hear 80s cover tunes. I decided to put the disc on while I was working last night … and boy was I glad I did.

As Beavis would say, “These guy rock! They rock, they rock, they rock!” Heavy, heavy stuff here. Some of the songs almost have a Prong vibe to them, but slower and heavier. Vocals range from singing harmonies to growling and screaming. If you’re into thick chords, thick riffs … well hell, just thickness in general, then these nine tracks of rock are tailor made for you. Don’t get the wrong idea, this is not doom metal — if anything, 8TM have more of a Gorefest vibe (circa Erase) going on here.

Occasionally I’m a a little slow at getting around to reviews. I’m not going to admit sitting on this one too long, but when I went to the band’s website to dig up some more information about them, I found out that they have already broken up and formed a new band named Mourn Makes Movement. Oops. MMM is 8 Trak Mind with the addition of another guitarist and a full time bassist. I downloaded the sample mp3 from MMM’s website, and they sound even heavier than 8TM does! Both bands’ websites are extremely well designed and have great quality samples free for downloading.

Back to the album for a moment. After a soothing intro, the disc kicks off directly into “Crutch”. What’s funny about several of these songs is they don’t seem heavy at first. The drums kick in and a riff fades in and pretty soon I find myself thinking, “Jesus, this is heavy!” Tracks like “Hostile Environment” and “Lost” are the same way … halfway through the songs I just find myself smiling, tapping… and looking for something to break. Another thing I liked — each song is different. None have just a basic, straight forward drum beat. The drums are part of the rhythm in several places.

Tacked onto the end of Plus One is the band’s earlier EP, Two Days. While there is a distinct evolution between the old tracks and the new, the old ones are still very, very good. It’s a hell of a deal for $10, to say the least.

8 Trak Mind have bullied their way into my “2002 List of Flack’s Favorite Bands”, right up there with Totimoshi, Killswitch Engage, and the Sweatpant Boners. You should pick this CD up from their website for ten bucks, and it should hold you over just long enough for the Mourn Makes Movement disc to hit the street.

01. Intro
02. Crutch
03. Lost
04. Wouldn’t It Be Nice
05. Sometimes
06. Bathroom Floor
07. Hostile Environment
08. Uninvited
09. Two Days (EP)

Everyone remembers the first dirty album they owned. Many of us have memories of hiding under the covers late at night, quietly snickering as Eddie Murphy, Andrew Dice Clay or Richard Pryor poured filthy words into our virgin ears.

I first heard the 2 Live Crew when I was 13 years old. At 32, the novelty’s worn off. Sitting with the big kids at the back of bus, 2 Live Crew seemed like the naughtiest thing anyone had ever thought of. 20 years later, it all seems a little silly — and the thought of a second greatest hits package seems even sillier.

There’s no denying the Crew’s place in history — they defined the Miami bass sound and were among the first if not THE first “dirty” rappers. Back in the 80’s and early 90’s, the band had several hit albums and were routinely on the news (and getting arrested) for their adult-only live shows. Unfortunatley this history is barely hinted at through the album’s track listing. Do Wah Diddy, Banned in the U.S.A. and F**k Shop were all popular tracks from the band that make appearances here. Me So Horny, which was on Greatest Hits Volume 1, appears here again as well.

That leaves a whole lotta room for filler. I can’t say I’d heard Hoochie Mama (from the Friday Soundtrack), Pretty Woman, or Shake A Lil’ Somethin’ before, and after listening to them a couple of times I don’t need to hear them again. Also appearing are several live tracks, remixes, and remakes — the most embarassing of which is Bill So Horny, a re-working of Me So Horny using former president Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, and anyone else from the White House whose name who is unfortunate enough to rhyme with something vulgar. Even after only a couple of listenings, the music is extremely repetitive, and the humor of finding every possible word that rhymes with the f-bomb gets old.

While the 2 Live Crew certainly influenced the rap scene, that’s not a good enough reasons to buy this. For those faint of heart, Amazon.com also sells a “clean” version of this album, which makes as much sense as non-alcoholic beer. Those really wanting to explore the band’s roots should simply pick up their four early albums: The 2 Live Crew Is What We Are, Move Somethin’, As Nasty As They Wanna Be, and Banned In The U.S.A. Any of them are better than this compilation.

01. Intro
02. Bill So Horny
03. Me So Horny
04. Do Wah Diddy
05. Pretty Woman
06. C’mom Babe (Doo Doo Brown Version)
07. Hoochie Mama
08. Shake A Lil’ Somethin’
09. 2 Live Party
10. Banned In The U.S.A.
11. Sex, I Like It, I Love It
12. We Want Some P-ssy (Live In Berlin Extended Mix)
13. Baby Baby Please Just A Little More Head
14. Who’s F-cking Who
15. Get It Girl Extended Mix
16. F-ck Shop

World Championship Poker
PS2 (2004)

If you don’t watch much television and haven’t been to the mall lately, you may not have realized that the game of poker is back in vogue in a big way. Between Texas Hold ‘Em tournaments being broadcast around the clock on cable television and retailers like Wal-Mart and Toys ‘R Us adding dedicated poker sections to their stores, the resurgence of poker is evident everywhere. All you need to join in on this current wave of fun is a deck of cards, a few friends, and your change bucket. But in case you don’t have a deck of cards or any friends, you can use the change from your bucket to pick up Crave Entertainment’s World Championship Poker, available for both the Playstation 2 and Xbox. And with a MSRP of only $19.95, hopefully you’ll still have some change left for when you do finally get a real deck of cards (and some friends).

For a budget title, World Championship Poker covers all the bases and offers players everything they could want in a single-player console-based card game. While the game plays several different variations and flavors of poker, the default mode is the currently popular Texas Hold ‘Em variation. Players ready to jump into the action can join a quick game at a table, sign up for a world tournament, or go online to face fellow human opponents. But before you hop into a game, you’ll first need to create your own character.

World Championship Poker’s create a character section is one of the most advanced avatar generators I’ve ever seen. After working through the easy choices (ethnicity, weight, hair color) you’ll get to choose your way through screen after screen of details. Everything from eyebrow width to style of teeth can be customized. The only frustrating part of the engine is that it doesn’t do some seemingly simple tasks. For example, players can choose one of about ten different hats, but you can’t change its color. Other than that, the character creation engine is quite robust and should allow almost anyone to create an avatar that resembles themselves (my son recognized mine immediately as me).

Once you’ve got a body, it’s time to sit it at a table. If you just want to get a feel for how the game works, you can select Sit at a Table and jump right in to a game. The goal of Sit at a Table is to be the last person, well, sitting at the table! This is accomplished by putting the rest of the jokers at your table out of the game, one at a time. In all honesty, the AI isn’t that tough to read, although sometimes the computer plays so terribly that it’s tough to figure out the type of hand they have. If you do end up needing a little help, R2 will bring up your helpful online advisor. Once you’ve aced this portion of the game, it’s time to move on to the World Tournaments, configured to play through just like the real thing (single elimination). One cool thing about World Championship Poker is, even if you’re out of a hand (or a game), you can continue to watch your AI opponents play through the rest of the hand. Just like in real life, to become a poker king you’ll need to watch how your opponents play and see the outcome of each hand to learn their particular style of play.

Both the Sit at a Table and World Tournament modes are single-player only. To play against another human being, you’ll need to pack up your cards and head online. Not only will you appear in the online poker tournaments with your customized avatar, but if you own a PS2 Eyetoy, the game will actually show your face in the game as well – cool feature! Both the PS2 and Xbox versions of World Championship Poker support online chatting as well, if clubbing your opponent verbally is more your style. Either way, online play is where the real action is. The only thing WCP is missing is a PayPal option for betting real cash. That’s probably just as well, as several of the games I played online just consisted of people sitting around jacking up the pot for no reason.

Consider yourself a diamond in the rough? You may want to forgo the games altogether and check out World Championship Poker’s tutorial section. All the variants of poker from normal five-card draw to Shanghai and Crazy Pineapple are explained here, as well as winning poker hands and some basic poker lingo. More slang terms are presented during the game’s loading screens.

World Championship Poker isn’t without its quirks. Your cyber opponents sometimes look a little zombie-ish a’la Madden 2001. The voice acting is mostly limited to short comments like “I’m folding” or “I’ll check.” The game also has a strange “Press X to Continue” policy. There’s almost always something in the corner of the screen where that message appears, so when the game informs you to press X, half the time I miss the message and end up staring at the screen, wondering when something’s going to happen.

Quirks aside, I heart this game! The lack of a two-player mode is surprising, but I suppose if you have friends in real life, one of you probably own a deck of cards. It’s easy to blow this game off as a simple budget title, but let’s call a spade a spade; World Championship Poker is a great game at a great price, especially with its online gameplay and friendly tutorial mode. $20 is less than the amount I lost the last time my friends and I got together to play poker, so I say the game is definitely worth the price. If you’ve watched World Series of Poker on television more than once or ever wished you lived a little closer to a casino, be sure to pick up World Championship Poker. And watch out for Flack405 online.

Wordtris
Super Nintendo (1992)

Despite the fact that Tetris may be one of the most perfect videogames of all time, developers have continued to tweak the formula over the years and release different variations of the original. Games such as Tetrisphere, Tetris Worlds and Welltris all built upon the original’s gameplay and took the series in new, fun and interesting directions. One of the most interesting variants to come out was Wordtris, a combination of classic Tetris gameplay and the board game Scrabble.

Replacing colored blocks in Wordtris are Scrabble-like letter tiles that drop from the sky. Instead of geometric shapes, words must be formed in order to advance through the game. Words of three letters or more can be formed both horizontally and vertically, although building words vertically is a dangerous gamble as the playing field is only ten tiles tall. Bonus points are awarded for words four letters in length and up, but once the game begins to speed up this becomes increasingly difficult.

In addition to letters, bonus items including bombs and potions (both of which eliminate existing tiles) drop frequently. Also appearing are tiles labeled with a question mark that turn into a random (and almost never helpful) letter when they land. But the biggest frustration isn’t these bonus tiles; it’s the complete random delivery of tiles. Like the original Tetris in which gamers found themselves begging for a “straight piece”, those playing Wordtris will quickly find themselves pleading at the screen for a vowel. There are only so many words a person can make with the letters FFFFFFFZXXXXV (not including Roman Numerals).

Settings in the menu system include one and two player modes that allow both competitive and cooperative modes. The ability to disallow repeated words exists, and like most versions of Tetris the starting difficulty level can be chosen.

Wordtris uses the Tetris gameplay in an interesting manner, but unfortunately each round’s outcome relies more on tile selection than actual skill. Despite that, the game is quite fun to play, especially to Scrabble fans. And, it’s much harder to toss the board when you’re losing.

Word Zapper
Atari 2600 (1982)

The easiest way to get kids to play educational videogames is to simply trick them into doing so. Word Zapper attempts this by disguising a combination spelling/memorization game as a space shooter. Unfortunately this duality is also the game’s major downfall – it’s neither particularly educational nor fun.

The object of Word Zapper is to memorize and spell back words displayed across the bottom of the screen. The alphabet continually scrolls across the top of the screen, and words are formed by shooting the correct letters in the correct order. This is made only slightly more difficult by the addition of horizontally scrolling ships that attempt to crash into your ship, dubbed the “rotary wing Word Zapper.”

Above the scrolling alphabet sits a countdown timer that starts at 99 and counts backwards to 0, at which point the game is over. The game also ends whenever a “Doomsday Asteroid” (a specific side-scrolling enemy) crashes into the Word Zapper, or the player successfully spells three words. The good news is that even in a worst-case scenario the game will be over in 99 seconds or less, which is likely to be as long as you’ll want to play Word Zapper.

Word Zapper supports one or two players and includes 24 gaming variations that allow you to configure every portion of the game from meteor speeds and density to the alphabet’s scrolling speed. While the game can be made more challenging, there’s no setting to make it fun. The spelling portion is elementary and the shooting elements are so boring that they may have actually convinced kids not to become astronauts. Instead of spelling, take a lesson in economics and skip this one. Class dismissed.

Wonderboy
Sega (1987)

Call me isolated, but for almost two decades I had no idea the classic platformer Wonderboy for the Commodore 64 was actually ported from an arcade game. While I knew the same was licensed from Sega and written by Activision, it wasn’t until just a few years ago when I happened across a Wonder Boy cartridge for the Sega Master System that I realized the game was released for multiple systems!

Wonderboy was released during the flood of platformers that followed Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros., and while the game doesn’t contain the depth of hidden objects nor the iconic hero of the Mario games, it’s still a great platformer that I played the heck out of for many months.

The game’s mechanics should be familiar to fans of platformers. There are two basic types of enemies, those which take away from your Vitality meter (like rocks) and those which kill you instantly (most animals, rolling boulders, fire, and more). Your Vitality meter also acts as a timer and is continually being depleted, but it can be restored by eating any of the snacks (from bananas to banana splits!) you come across. There are also giant yellow eggs that can be busted open to reveal weapons, guardian angels, skateboards, tomahawks, and other goodies to help Wonderboy in his quest. Throughout the levels are hidden cupie dolls, each of which will have to eventually be collected in order to fight the final boss.

Since the C64 is limited to one joystick-button, jumping is done by pressing diagonal on the stick. Holding down your stick’s fire button makes you run faster, and after picking up throwing axes the fire button throws them too.

Wonderboy contains everything that made the classic 2D platformers of the mid-1980’s great. The Commodore 64 was designed to deliver colors, graphics, sound effects and music such as this. The whimsical enemies (from whirling natives to jumping octopi) are as cute as they are deadly, and the game’s platform designs are both challenging and entertaining.

Wii Sports
Wii (2007)

Back in 1977, Atari set a videogame precedent with the release of its Atari 2600 VCS console — that precedence was, home videogame consoles should include a game. Thirty years after its release Combat may not seem terribly exciting, but that wasn’t necessarily the point. The point was (and is), after spending a couple (or few) hundred bucks on a brand new console, “said console” should come with a game to play when you get it home. For decades, this has been the rule. Some consoles (like the original PlayStation) bent the rules a bit, offering single-level demo versions of multiple games instead of one single game – but again, at least when you got the system home it did something. In recent years, more and more companies have opted to not include a pack-in game with their system (neither the Xbox 360 nor Sony’s PS3 comes with a game.) Thankfully, Nintendo stuck with the age-old pack-in game tradition by including Wii Sports with their latest console, the Wii.

Wii Sports consists of five simplistic sports games: Tennis, Baseball, Bowling, Golf, and Boxing. Each game uses the Wii’s motion-sensitive controller (the Wiimote) to simulate actual sport-related motions. The result is five mini-games that are all easy to learn and fun to play but not particularly advanced. Then again, neither was Combat.

Tennis, the first of five games, allows 1-4 players to pick up a Wiimote and go head-to-head (to-head-to-head) on a virtual tennis court. The game’s controls are super-simplistic; as the Wii controls your player’s running direction, all that’s left for you to do is swing the racket in the corresponding direction (forehand, backhand, or overhand). Players can somewhat control the direction of their shot by the timing of their swing. Regardless of the number of human participants there are always four players on the court. In one or two player games, gamers control both players on their side of the net (again, controlled by the time of the swing). Despite the game’s simple controls, Tennis is actually quite fun. By varying swing speeds and techniques the game yields more variety than one would initially suspect. In addition to the game itself, there is a constant threat of being whacked in the head by your opponent’s Wiimote and the constant fear that someone is going to bash their hand into your ceiling fan, or let go of the Wiimote and send it smashing into your expensive flat-screen television.

Baseball, the second game on the disc, brings more fun yet simple gameplay to the Wii. Anyone who has ever played or seen America’s favorite pastime played before will find the Wiimote controls intuitive. Batting is performed (as one might suspect) by swinging the remote like a baseball bat. Pitching is performed by swinging the Wiimote in an overhand motion. Pitchers have a few more controls at their disposal; by holding down one or more buttons, pitchers can choose between four different types of pitches. The velocity and force at which the remote is swung affects the speed of your virtual pitches as well. (Again, both of these motions are likely to scare owners of expensive televisions, with both the batters and pitchers swinging remotes with much force.) Like Tennis, all player motion control including outfielding and base running is automated by the console. The distance from which the ball lands determines whether a hit is a single, double, or triple. While gamers looking for a serious game of baseball will find the lack of control frustrating, the game is what it is — more of a “Wiimote learning tool” than an actual baseball simulation.

Next up is Bowling, possibly the most entertaining game on the disc. Once again, the motion of swinging a bowling ball and releasing it is duplicated via the Wiimote. Release the button too early and your ball will go sailing backwards, causing onlookers to jump; release too late and your ball will sail through the air before plonking down somewhere down the lane. Bowling seems to be the most sensitive of the five games when it comes to the remote’s control – slight variations in the Wiimote’s orientation will cause your ball to spin, backspin, or, if you’re like me, make a bee-line to the gutter.

The fourth game on the disc, Golf, has players teeing off against one another in up to nine holes of virtual golf. Again, the key to the game is in controlling the Wiimote, which held like a typical golf club. Swing too hard and the power bar will go all wonky, causing your ball to either hook or slice. I personally found Golf to be the hardest of the five games to control, with the Wiimote occasionally not recognizing my swings or reading my power level incorrectly (especially while putting). I don’t mind the Wiimote when it enhances gameplay, but if it actually hinders my ability to play a game then it’s more frustrating than enjoyable. I think a putt-putt style game would have been more enjoyable here, leaving the “real” golf to Tiger Woods 2007 fans.

Boxing is the last game on the disc and the only one to use both the Wiimote and the Nunchuck (the “other” Wii remote). By holding one remote in each hand, gamers will unleash their padded-fist fury by pounding their bobble-headed opponents into submission. Once again fun triumphs over technical prowess here – boxing fans will lament the lack of accuracy and control within this mini-game, while fun-seekers will over look this and happily swing wildly at one another. Boxing is probably the most physically exhausting of the disc’s five games. Your arms will be burning after this one

Wii Sports makes good use of the Wii’s Mii system. Miis are avatars that you create for gaming with on the Wii. Miis can be traded among friends online. It’s entertaining to see your friends show up as tennis opponents or members of your own baseball team.

Although it has faults, it’s hard to complain too loudly about Wii Sports. While some of the games are more fun than the others, they’re all playable. Each one does a good job of introducing players to the Wiimote, and they’re all easy to pick up within a minute or two. When gamers unacquainted with the Wii controller drop by to check it out, this is the game you’ll toss in. My five-year-old son beat me 3-2 in Tennis last night, so a complete mastery of videogames is not required to enjoy (and gosh, have fun) playing these games. Those looking for a bit more depth will likely find it in any of the consoles other $50 games – those looking to kill a few fun-filled nights with those non-hardcore gamers in their lives will find Wii Sports fits the bill nicely.