Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Those of you who booted up the Wii this morning and checked out the Mario Kart Channel may have noticed that the first competition has finally been opened for entry! The process is simple: complete three laps of Mario Circuit as quickly as possible, upload your time to Nintendo's big list 'o times, wait until the deadline (May 9th or May 10th, depending on your timezone), and get ready to bask in internet glory. Hurray, right?

Wrong.

When we think of Mario Kart time trials, we think of gradually shaving milliseconds off of our best times, of taking every corner as finely as possible, of finding the best way to utilize our three mushrooms, of locating the perfect racing line, and of keeping our noses just ahead of the time trial ghosts. Yet this first Mario Kart Wii competition totally misses the point.

For instance, it's not a time trial at all, but a fully fledged race, complete with eleven opponents and all the usual items. In other words, you can take every corner as flawlessly as possible, only to get blue-shelled on the final straight. Which doesn't strike us as a terribly fair contest. We guess this is meant to level the playing field for newer players, but shouldn't more skillful players be justly rewarded?

Anyway, if you do want to try your hand at being robbed of a deserved victory, this blogger's best time so far is a quite appalling 2:03.325.

Forget Swarovski-slathered Wiis -- UK retailer GAME has just absolutely trumped every other Nintendo prize in history by offering up this totally dorky/awesome Mario Kart-themed Volkswagen Beetle in a forthcoming Mario Kart Wii competition. All you have to do is pop along to one of the thirty participating UK stores on April 5th and get the fastest lap in the country. Easy!

There are tons of other prizes on offer, not to mention the chance to play Mario Kart Wii a whole week early, but we've got our eyes set firmly on the car. It's probably not the kind of thing for anybody wishing to attract the opposite sex, but who cares? They're not the ones with a damn Mario Kart Beetle.


[Via Go Nintendo]

Even though we usually support the more obscure VC releases, we can't help but focus our attention on this week's most mainstream title: Castlevania. Finally making its appearance on the Japanese Virtual Console, Konami's side-scroller is a must-buy. I personally consider "liking Castlevania a lot" as an important component of my personality. What an awesome night to have a curse.

Like Castlevania, Power Sports and Dead Moon have both already arrived in the US (Power Sports as World Sports Competition), and Ichidant-R, a Bonanza Bros. spinoff, is the sequel to Tant-R, seen on the Sega Classics Collection. A multiplayer puzzle minigame collection, Ichidant-R is sort of a precursor to Mario Party and Wario Ware.

Hajimari no Mori is a graphical text adventure from Nintendo! Let's all hope for a miracle localization for that one.

• Akumajou Dracula (Famicom Disk System, 1 player, 500 Wii Points)
• Hajimari no Mori (Super Famicom, 1 player, 800 Wii Points)
• Ichidant-R (Mega Drive, 1-2 players, 600 Wii Points)
• Power Sports (PC Engine, 1-5 players, 600 Wii Points)
• Dead Moon (PC Engine, 1 player, 600 Wii Points)

Well, obviously Majesco wants everyone to get on the Cooking Mama train (we hear that's how they make that money), but this weekend, as you'll recall, they're offering New Yorkers a chance to get in the game in style. To promote the release of Cooking Mama: Cook Off, Majesco is calling all Iron Chef-wannabes out to show their stuff -- and win free swag. If you're going to be anywhere near the Nintendo World Store this Saturday between 11 and 4, drop by, if only to sample the goodies the on-site chef will be preparing. Now that's incentive.

To our readers in the area: we'd love to see your pictures if you attend. We may even post them and make you an interweb celebrity for a whole five minutes.