This week’s Virtual Consolation Prize almost didn’t happen. My Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector, which I use to take Wii online, decided that at some point between last week and now it would stop working.
At first I reinstalled the driver, but that didn’t work, and only a three-hour troubleshooting marathon (with Jenn giving me orders and me realizing for the first time just how extensive her knowledge of IP configuration is) got everything working again. The lesson that we can take from this is that the Wi-Fi Connector is a weird little device that gets very picky about its IP address. Also, Nintendo needs to ship that LAN adapter pronto.
Anyway, all that work and for what? This week’s Virtual Console lineup kinda sucks.
To hear the net kids explain it, Military Madness — a strategy game for TurboGrafx — is the only solid entry this week. However, I cannot play strategy games to save my life, so I’m passing. Somebody write in the comments section if you like this. Or hate it. Just write something, damn it.
I wasn’t going to buy Space Harrier II for Genesis, but my friend Rob said I was some kind of sub-human retardo if I didn’t. So I told him that it would be on his head if I wasted eight bucks on it. And boy, it sucks. I like Space Harrier, but this isn’t it — this is a choppy, barely-working version of the game with animation that looks like one of those fixed-display LCD games. This is what Star Fox would have looked like without the Super FX chip. I think I had a little mini-seizure.
And of course there’s Tennis, another of the crown jewels of Nintendo’s library.
This is probably the most disappointing week for Virtual Console releases since the Wii launched; Military Madness plays to a small niche, and whatever niche enjoys shitty games would like SHII and Tennis, but that’s about it. Hey Nintendo: four games a week should be your bare minimum. Shoot for five. Three is right out.
Oh, and we did get the Forecast Channel, which brings weather reports to Wii. And that’s actually pretty nice. Go update your firmware and check it out. It’ll be sunny on Friday, says the Wii. And Wii wouldn’t lie.