In this episode Shannon hacks the Wii and shares her favorite homebrew with us. Matt connects 3CX to the PSTN and Darren sets up a network monkey client in Linux.
Mario Kart Wii
It’s a really fun game. I definetly spent a good afternoon playing Mario Kart Wii with DK while he was visiting. It’s the perfect game to just play circuit after circuit with a friend and pass the controller back and forth. I think the races are a little easy. We were able to unlock all the circuits in no time, getting first place in all but… I think 3 races. Of course, the feeling of acheivement was great! Everytime we unlocked a new car/character/racetrack, I got so excited!! I wanted to keep playing all night!
Mario Kart Wii comes with a new nifty little wheel that you can set your Wiimote in, to ‘drive’ during the game. We found the wheel to be incredibly stupid, and I tried various ways of playing. Because the game is on Wii, you have the choice of playing with the wheel, wiimote, classic controller, etc. I chose the classic controller and found it to be the easiest by far. It’s just like playing the old school games from the old consoles.
The graphics are well done. The edges around some characters and tracks are rough, but the coloring and scenery of racetracks from old games is pure awesomeness. Nintendo kept some of the older racetracks!! There are also quite a few new racetracks too, and I have to say, I love the new Rainbow Road. It’s so colorful and pretty and ghey! lol 
The music kicks ass. Whenever you change menues, the music follows you. It doesnt change songs, but changes the mood of the same track by just a bit. It’s really cool! Hey! Listen!
The only issue I had with gameplay was that anytime you get hit by something, it seems like things pile up on you. For example, if I got hit with a red shell, as soon as I get hit, I also get hit with a blue shell, a squid, a green shell, and I get run over by Bowser. It happened to computer characters as well. I’d hit them, and they’d get hit a few more times by other people. It’s annoying!
All in all, great video game. It’s perfect for families, parties, etc. There isn’t any violence at all. It’s so fun!! Even Molly Wood likes it. 
I thought I’d write a little opionated review of this new game, since I recently played it a few weekends ago.
Smash Brothers Brawl had a huge cult following and almost all my friends were excited about the new game for Nintendo Wii. Darren reserved his copy and we waited in line while playing Tetris DS (and I pwned him, btw) while chilling inside the mall. I’ve never been a big Smash Brothers gamer, but I’ve played my fair share of each of the games.
The first thing I noticed was the graphics. The graphics kick ass, and I love the special effects whenever you use your final attack during a battle. The characters are beautiful, and the cut scenes are made so well. Nintendo is really starting to show off what the Wii can do as far as graphics go with this game, as well as with Mario Galaxy.
When you first play the game, I suggest playing with various controllers to figure out which one you would want to use. I personally like the Wiimote + nunchuck, but Darren used the Classic controller. It really just depends on your style.
There’s SO MUCH to do in this game. When you play Brawl (playing against up to 4 people without an internet connection), you can unlock new characters and basically try out each of the available characters and maps to find your favorite. I did not play any of the other battle modes, but I did take some time to check out the trophies, stickers, and maps you can make. I really have no clue why there are stickers and trophies in this game other than to raise your e-peen, but they are interesting to look at non-the-less. There are a few minigames which are fun, but didn’t peek my interest that much. My favorite thing to do, other than playing Brawl tourneys, was creating my own maps. Really cool! There’s lots of different ways you can create a map, and you can even choose your favorite music.
Apparently you can play this game online with other people, but since my Wii isn’t hooked up, I wasn’t able to do this. O wells
All in all, it’s a great game and I suggest it to anyone who likes old school style battle zone type games.
