Is because it's election day.

Always a miserable day overall, since election day always starts a ton of unnecessary last-minute fires around the office. You'd think we could avoid getting caught by surprise by such things, since, you know, we all pretty much know when elections happen. It's a train wreck.

Anyway, I did my usual sweep-in-at-the-end-of-the-day voting, eBay Sniper style. I also continued my recent practice of voting against my party affiliation. I enjoy the stealth factor. Plus, the gutless monkey who used Terri Shiavo as a campaign platform, brought a miscarried fetus home from the hospital for his (living) kids to "cuddle", and actually lives in Virginia, NOT Pennsylvania wasted a few of his dollars sending his robo-calls to me.

So here's hoping that one turns out the way everyone expects.

Years ago, I had a demo of Metal Gear Solid for the PS1. I didn't like it. I couldn't even get out of the first room without being spotted and whacked by the ! guards. But when MGS2 showed up as one of the first truly "next gen" offerings for the PS2, I took the chance on it and found it one of the most compelling and original games I had ever played. And I decided that I probably missed out on something cool by passing on the original MGS.

Against all odds, Nintendo got Silicon Knights (the Eternal Darkness team) to do a Metal Gear Solid remake for the GameCube, but with the look and feel of the PS2's MGS2. There is so much wrong with that sentence. It boggles the mind.

It seemed like a win-win: Silicon Knights gets to work with a gaming legend, Nintendo gets a new "mature" title that is kinda sorta exclusive. But I don't think many people bit. Despite early hopeful rumors, this obviously did not lead to a GameCube port of Sons of Liberty... and Silicon Knights now works for Microsoft. So, uh, I think we can chalk this up to the Nintendo M-rated curse.

For my part, I thought the game was great. Seeing Snake's Alaskan adventure, with the classically silly bad guys and the first encounter with Otacon... it underscored the "virtual mission" theme to Sons of Liberty. Seemed kinda short, though.

Memory Score: The WaveBird kinda took some of the fun out of the Psycho Mantis scene

Two years out, the DS has nicely matured. We’re past the days of tech demos being sold as full games (ahem, Yoshi’s Touch-n-Go). We have enough new-concept, high-profile games to outweigh the launch day panic of N64 ports ahem, Super Mario 64DS). And thanks to the GBA’s agonizingly slow price point death, Nintendo finally feels confident enough to stop selling their first-party DS games at the $35 level (ahem, Pokemon Trozei). The DS rode out that initial wave of gimmicky criticism and has positioned itself as a must-have, just in time to lateral a little of that mindshare over to the Wii.

Although I think that two freaking years was far too slow, at least we’re here now and have something of which we can be genuinely proud. Because back when Nintendo first announced their little “third pillar,” it was far from an instant success waiting to happen. As far as I'm concerned, they beat the odds that it would be an absolute train wreck.

Which brings us to Cooking Mama, a tiny little game that perfectly epitomizes the DS in 2006. It’s an un-asked-for title in a little-seen genre that makes full use of the stylus with a collection of on-the-go mini-games that retails for $20. Got all that? Enough hyphens for you? This is the promise of Nintendo’s post-GameCube strategy: smaller, non-traditional games with a potential appeal to a broader consumer base.

This is amazing. There's this little song that you probably know from either Mario Paint or, more likely, Animal Crossing. In AC, it's called "K.K. Song" and it's one of the hidden tracks you can request of K.K. Slider, or, Totakeke, as he's known in Japan.

The song is something of a trademark signature of Nintendo composer Kazumi Totaka. It has been found in several games spanning a decade, from the SNES to the original Game Boy all the way to the DS. Mario Land 2, Link's Awakening, Yoshi Touch-n-Go, and several others.

The video back on that link shows off all of the known appearances... and also has this weird unedited television show vibe, which I don't get at all. It's like live TV, but done without caring what the host was doing throughout the shoot. I'd love to know who produced the video. And why. It's almost as if they weaseled onto some local station's morning news interview set. If that sort of thing is cool on the internet these days, holy hell do I have something new to do with my weekends.

Tonight we took Clark to his third Disney on Ice show.

This is when we told him that tonight's theme was "Princess Wishes."

Toys R Us did some kind of second wave of pre-orders this morning, in a surprise stealth reveal. Kotaku broke the news yesterday, but I did not read it until after my store had closed... so I could not call to verify.

From the Justify Your Accessory Department.

One year after the EyeToy's release, I don't think anybody had yet figured out what to do with it. This is another Play-style minigame collection, but again lacks any kind of tournament feature. How can a half-assed EA movie tie-in title figure this out, but two (and more!) EyeToy-focused games miss the obvious point. The way these dopey games handle multiplayer is the modern day equivalent of playing two man Mario Bros by handing the controller back and forth. Terrible.

On the positive side, the year between Play and Sega Superstars shows off in polish... not to mention the incredible Sega fan-service. Each game is based on a classic Sega title, from Virtua Fighter to Sonic to NiGHTS to Space Channel 5 to Crazy Taxi to Monkey Ball to Samab de Amigo. Even freaking Billy hatcher is in there. None of them are very good, but the company reverence is fun. Just in case there's any Sega fans still out there.

Memory Score: Best one: Puyo Pop

To celebrate the launch of the Wii this Sunday, I am spending the week wearing a different Nintendo t-shirt each day... and presenting a new Nintendo "innovation" from the Era of the GameCube.

It sucks that the PS3's price is due to that Blu-Ray that nobody is sure if they really want.

It sucks that the PS3's bungled production numbers are due to that Blu-Ray that nobody is sure if they really want.

It sucks that the average family has almost no chance of getting a PS3 by the end of the year.

It sucks that Sony would rather act cocky about it, claiming that people will pay $600 for a PS3 sans games, simply because it's awesome.

It sucks that I will not be part of the launch day fun... because the price is way out of line and the availability is shot to hell.

To celebrate the launch of the Wii this Sunday, I am spending the week wearing a different Nintendo t-shirt each day... and presenting a new Nintendo "innovation" from the Era of the GameCube.

To celebrate the launch of the Wii this Sunday, I am spending the week wearing a different Nintendo t-shirt each day... and presenting a new Nintendo "innovation" from the Era of the GameCube.

To celebrate the launch of the Wii this Sunday, I am spending the week wearing a different Nintendo t-shirt each day... and presenting a new Nintendo "innovation" from the Era of the GameCube.

After a long hiatus, we've now received three They Might Be Giants podcasts in under a month.

Take it easy, guys! You're going to kill my iPod.

I guess you're supposed to toss old podcasts when new ones show up, and if I was downloading some kind of topical talk show, I suppose I would. But the Giants' stuff is like getting a complete special EP every time, so I hate to dump them. I mean, I definitely burn these things off to a CD, but I still enjoy having them on the iPod where every other bit of music lives.

To celebrate the launch of the Wii this Sunday, I am spending the week wearing a different Nintendo t-shirt each day... and presenting a new Nintendo "innovation" from the Era of the GameCube.

To celebrate the launch of the Wii this Sunday, I am spending the week wearing a different Nintendo t-shirt each day... and presenting a new Nintendo "innovation" from the Era of the GameCube.

Today I picked up two packs of the new Pirates set (Pirates of the Mysterious Islands) and found this cute flyer inside. WizKids will send you an exclusive ship if you send them:

• All four "bottle messages"
• Four Mysterious Islands wrappers
• The original receipt(s) for purchase of those four packs
• A coupon printed from WizKidsGames.com

Jesus Christ WizKids, you need a blood sample and a spot in my Will too?

I pulled in at the Toys R Us just after 10am, armed with my three pre-order tickets (Wii, Zelda, Trauma Center), three $10 gift cards, and the coupon for a free $10 gift card with purchase over $75. Since I was late, I didn't get to see if there was any lines at the door. My only fear was that something colossally stupid would happen, and my pre-order would somehow get screwed up.

This time of year, TRU must have people lined up outside every day, because the store was already packed with people who couldn't care less about the Nintendo Wii. I dived into the video game aisle to find an extra remote.

A couple poor slobs were standing by the glass display case getting the bad news from an employee. Already out of Wiis. Only received 48 units and 30 of those were for pre-orders. No idea when the next shipment will be.

Here's the assorted Wii paraphrenalia, including the games and extra remote. I thought the remotes were supposed to come in cooler packaging than this?

Another external power supply... I did not think to check if it was the same model as the one that lit the GameCube. That would be nice if they were identical.

The sensor bar is waaaay smaller than I expected. It's like eight inches. I figured the size of the box meant the sensor bar was fitting in there longways... but it is actually shortways.

This is Trent, staring at a wall. He is such a tool.

I have to say, before last night I wasn't entirely sure of Twilight Princess.

The first little zone is pretty ugly. It is definitely not a next-gen showcase. I guess it's just tough to capture all the details inherent in a forest and not come up short. Particularly when you're looking at a Gamecube game that has been kicked over to Wii at the eleventh hour. And I cannot stand how Link's hat clips into his shield! Dude, we're staring at his back for the entire game... put some effort into forcing that to look nice.

As I'm running around the Ordon Village and the Forest Temple, I'm thinking of how far this falls compared to the visual style of Wind Waker. There's just not a lot of personality here. The limited animation of Wind Waker worked in concert with the simplified art, whereas here you have limited animation layered on to complicated, detailed characters... so the veil is torn asunder. You don't buy it. Compare the crappy animation of South Park with the crappy animation of the '80s G.I. Joe cartoon. A strong visual look-and-feel will do wonders to gain audience buy-in across relatively lousy movement. Nintendo needed full-on motion and realistic facial acting to pull off this new lush look, and Twilight Princess does not deliver that. Now, I'm only eight hours in, but I don't expect this to change.

The context: this is Peter talking, an American who has lived in Japan for many years, running J-List, one of my favorite online interesting import shops.

Pets are a part of our household in Japan, and currently we've got a dog (faithful old Sakura) and two cats (black-and-white Mix-chan and all-black Kuro). My wife once remarked to me, "It's important to keep pets in the home. They die in place of family members when the family runs into bad luck." My eyes become little black points like an anime character's at this, as Istruggled to understand her statement. She was talking about the concept of "migawari" (me-gah-wah-ree), literally meaning "substitute for" or "sacrifice for." When our dog Chibi passed away earlier this year, the general consensus among my Japanese family was that he had died in order to protect someone in the family from injury or worse, and everyone loved him a little more for that. Originally a ninja term meaning to dress up a tree to look like a person so an enemy would think it was you and attack it mistakenly, the word refers to anything that takes bad luck in your place, protecting you as it does so.

If you're at all into Japanese culture, you should be reading his weblog weekly. Or grab the RSS feed or the email mailing list, which, you know, won't include NSFW pics of Japanese skin mags. Yeah, everything kinda steers back into plugs for the stuff he sells, but his little insights and revelations about life in Japan are worth the commercializing.

In the spirit of cool random game giveaways (like the Bully dodge ball), if you buy Elebits through EB/GameStop, you get an awesome Elebits stuffed animal. There's not even any hesitation that I'm going after that. I must come up regularly in EB's promotion meetings. "What can we do to get Joe super-excited about a game he already intends to buy?"

Just to make it a little less awesome, the free plushie is randomly boxed out of two (and maybe THREE) choices. So odds are I will get the ugly blue one.

Elebits also seems to be the first Wii game to use online play in some fashion... although it's just to exchange custom levels and in-game photos. No Elebits deathmatch for you.