Jesus-Mother-Humping–Christ!!! This genius off a dude converts a Wii into a VR device. The video starts off slow, but shit…once he demos the VR, my jaw was agape. A-fucking-mazing.

[Link to video]

I love my Wii, but shit…I’ll love it more when it does VR!

Last night, I downloaded “Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream!!” via the Virtual Console on my cherished and most beloved Wii. When I was a kid, it was called “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!”, but I guess with the end of Tyson’s contract with Nintendo and having lost the championship to Buster Douglas, they made some cosmetic changes to the boss at the end (basically making him a white guy) and changed his name to Mr. Dream.

I’d completely forgotten how totally awesome this game was. I’d also repressed how balls-out politically incorrect it managed to be. I guess it was truly a different era, because a game this chock full of blatant racial and ethnic stereotypes would never fly in this day and age. That said, it rules.

The list of fighters runs a gamut of stereotypes. The obese Pacific Islander; the Japanese guy with the rickshaw soundtrack and extremely exaggerated slanted eyes. The drunk Russian (Soda Popinski’s original name was Vodka Drunkenski till Nintendo changed it, since it was a kids game) and more.

In spite and perhaps because of the insensitivity, the game rocks. I’d forgotten how many hours I killed, punching and dodging my way up the ladder, only to get laid out by Tyson in the first round. I don’t recall exactly, but I think I did manage to win the game at some point. So far, I can get to the second fight with Bald Bull. My old school game skills have suffered severely over the years. Still, I have time and a certain amount of thumb-tapping moxie left in me.

One of the ways that I know my brain is in engaged in a slow, synaptic erosion towards a state of oatmeal-like gruel is by my ever worsening skills at video games that ruled my world as a child. I used to pwn Super Mario Bros., back in the NES days. I could win that game on one life (yeah, so I used warp zones…I was still pretty damn good!). Now, sitting in a rank puddle of urine and feces, sweating, swearing and screaming at my television, I’m lucky to get to level 5.

Yesterday, I was reading about how the little-known and rarely seen original Japanese sequel to Super Mario 1, “SÅ«pā Mario Burazāzu 2″ a.k.a. “Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels” had been made available for the Wii’s virtual console. The article I was reading had a lot to say about how much more difficult and maddening this release is and how the creator might very possibly have been in a deep depression that led to his making a release that is a total fuck-off-and-die-trying type of game for all those budding Mario fans out there in the mid 80’s. I decided that I must have it.

As soon as I got home, I ponied up the 600 Wii points ($6) and downloaded it. I can safely say that “Lost Levels” is one fucking ass-rape of a hard game. I couldn’t even complete the first world, though I will keep spanking away at it.

On a similar Nintendo note, while I was browsing the Wii Shop Channel. I nabbed Super Mario Bros. 3, a game I’d completely forgotten about. I spent many, many a completely drugged-to-the-gills evening playing that game in high school. I loved it and now I own it again and can resume blowing away whole nights zoning to it—minus the hallucinations and eventual vomiting. The Wii is the greatest thing ever.

This last weekend, I got my hands on Metroid 3, for my beloved Wii. I’ve been playing the various incarnations of Metroid since back in the NES days. Remember winning the game fast enough so you could see Samus in a bikini? Such memories…such scandal. I killed many an hour slapping away at that game.

Shortly after popping in the disk and arming myself with the remote, Metroid 3 quickly became one of my favorite games for that system so far. Now an FPS game, the ability to aim with the Wii remote really, truly kicks some ass. I haven’t enjoyed a shooter on a console till the Wii came along with it’s miraculous controller, preferring to play those games on a PC, with a keyboard and mouse. The Wii’s completely changed that and Metroid 3 is a prime example of just how awesome the gameplay can be.

In more than a few ways, the game reminds me a lot of Halo. Of course, considering the history, you could say the opposite, since Metroid has been around in some form since I was in grade school. Irregardless, I love this game. Where it lacks in graphical punch, it more than makes up for in gameplay and storyline. I am frickin’ addicted.

I bought Super Paper Mario for my much loved Wii about two weeks ago and I’ve fast become addicted to it. A short while ago, I posted how I had rediscovered the original Super Mario Bros. using the Wii’s virtual console. To pair it against the latest installment in the Mario franchise, it’s great to see how they’ve kept many elements that made the first game so much fun while expanding on it without losing focus and quality. I especially like how you turn the Wii remote sideways (making it a super hi-tech version of the original NES controller) in order to play the game.

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I’ve had a Wii since January and one feature that I’ve come to really appreciate about it is it’s virtual console library that lets me purchase and play old games from long-ago systems. The two games I seem to be playing the most lately are Super Mario Bros. and Galaga, which is nuts because if you were to take a peek at what I was playing twenty-two years ago, nothing seems to have changed. Sure, I have a couple consoles and a bunch of whiz-bang games, which I certainly do play, but it seems that lately I am regressing to the simpler days of two buttons and a D-pad.

I remember the xmas where I finally got a NES. Every kid had to have a Nintendo, there was no room for compromise. I had made it clear all year long that the console was the only gift that would not result in tantrums, doom and destruction, so when November started rolling around, I started searching the house for presents, hidden until the appropriate day.

I noticed that one particular closet in the house was locked, for the first time I could remember. Fairly certain that I’d located the cache and what I fervently hoped was a Nintendo, I then scoured the house for the key, looking in every drawer, pocket, nook and cranny. I couldn’t find it anywhere.

I was now faced with a dilemma. On the other side of this door was likely my xmas present. I had to know if it was a Nintendo. I was ten year old latch-key kid, blitzed out of his mind on daily doses of sugar, Hulk Hogan and He-Man…there was no denying me.

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After much blood, sweat and feces, I finally managed to score a Wii system. It involved daily multi-borough trips to stores, a lot of walking and finally after getting a tip from a guy that a store I’d just left had received a shipment a few minutes ago, I jogged 8 blocks, got in line and nabbed the second to last one in stock. People were yelling, pleading and waving cash around, trying to buy a spot in line. Ugly, but it paid off.

I am now the proud parent of the much coveted Wii console. I can safely say that it’s the coolest and most innovative gadget I’ve had since I was a kid and the first home video game console came out. The Wii Remote is the best game controller I’ve ever used and after two days of owning one, I now have a a good case of Wii-arm from swinging it all over the place.

The Wii Sports games are retarded fun and the new Zelda is crazy addictive. I haven’t downloaded any of the virtual console games yet, but likely will at some point.

If you’re one of the lucky few with a Wii, feel free to add me to your Wii Friends. I’m kind of curious to see how it works and at this point, don’t know of anyone else that has a console. Here’s my Wii number: 4691 1553 9342 4896.

I’ve spent this past weekend scouring websites, trudging into stores and trying to find a Nintendo Wii with zero fucking results. Every website I check is sold out. Every half-wit store clerk I ask gives me a sullen mumble that I’m told means no.

The prospect of waiting for what could be possibly months has got me nearly despondent. My hands twitch in desperate need of wireless nunchaku gaming joy. I need it. I must have it! I would slaughter my non-existent first-born child for a Wii. For a few extra games thrown in, I’d not only slaughter the kid but cook him up and make lovely tea sandwiches out of him.

I have some standards. I refuse to pay over-bloated prices on Ebay so some enterprising dick-face can make a profit. Whoring (totally NSFW) for it is out and I’m not of the temperament to wake at down and wait in line at the Nintendo World store in the hopes the get a console in.

So I wait.