READ IT ALL OR I' LL EAT YOU:

So i' ve had my Wii for 6 days... not counting the 5 days i was away last week.

As most of you guys know, i decided to get a Wii in October last year, a couple of weeks ahead of the EU Super Mario Galaxy and Umbrella Chronicles release. I' d waited too long and the machine was sold out everywhere. I could have gotten my hands on one if i' d been willing to pay well over the odds an buy a shitty bundle.

Anyway, i managed to pick one up for the RRP and have been able to buy the games i actually wanted. I bought Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3 with the console and ordered Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition, Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles, Twilight Princess Wii Edition and Battalion Wars II which were all waiting for me when i got home on Saturday morning.

I also ordered Sonic and the Secret Rings and Super Paper Mario but neither have arrived yet. Hopefully they' ll turn up in the next day or two.

I' d held off buying a Wii. I' ve bought every console at launch since the Saturn in 95, ...but Wii just didn' t have enough decent games to warrant buying. If Red Steel had turned out well it would likely have been a different story, but it wasn' t until the release Super Mario Galaxy was upon me that i finally succumbed.

Mario games are a big deal for me. I never played the arcade games Jumpman and Mario Bros. and i never played the Game and Watch games... but i' ve been playing them since the first proper title was released on the NES. Most people loved the first game but i was still a little young to truly appreciate it at the time and instead have fonder memories of Super Mario World on the SNES.

I' m still playing Super Mario 64 (DS) and consider it to be the most important game ever released. It' s a work of pure genius and has never been bettered. Super Mario Sunshine was fantastic too, and although it was highly flawed compared to it' s predecessor, it too still hasn' t been bettered in it' s genre. So with Galaxy being called the true successor to Super Mario 64, i wasn' t going to pass it up.

My obsessions with the Resident Evil franchise is almost as strong. I played the first game, liked it, played the second game and loved it. I' ve played every RE title since, including the two Outbreak games on PS2 and the awful Gun Survivor games. Resident Evil 2 are my favourite entries in the series, but the REmake on Gamecube and Code Veronica on Dreamcast are also two of the best games i' ve ever played.

Since Resident Evil 4 was my favourite game last gen, i was definitely going to pick up the Wii version, even though i' d had the Gamecube and PS2 versions since their respective release dates. I wasn' t going to rush out to get it and didn' t consider it worth buying a console for, but i was curious to see how the game played with the Wiimote and figured it would be nice to have the PS2 content with the Gamecube graphics.

Umbrella Chronicles announcement had originally excited me as rumours of the game playing out in third-person over-the-shoulder like RE4 but featuring environments and characters from multiple other entries in the series would have been a dream come true. Unfortunately it turned out to be a lightgun-esque game akin to the afore mentioned Gun Survivor games and it ended up slipping off my radar until the reviews hit. It had turned out good and all of a sudden i was excited again.

Twilight Princess i had for Gamecube and the Wii version is virtually identical so i wasn' t that bothered by it and i' d played through Metroid Prime 3 on a friends console shortly after it came out... so i pretty much bought the console for Galaxy and Umbrella Chronicles.

What do i think of the games?

Well Twilight Princess is the same game with modified controls so doesn' t really need mentioning (save for the fact that the game shouldn' t be missed under any circumstances) :)

Resident Evil 4 Wii has the same content as the PS2 version, the graphics of the Gamecube version and a modified control scheme that works far better than the stick contols ever did. I started playing the game on Saturday and have already unlocked everything and beaten Professional mode. The game is slightly easier because of the Wiimote but it' s also a lot more fun. Again, the game shouldn' t be missed, although unless you' re a die-hard RE fan i can' t really recommend buyinjg it over the Gamecube or PlayStation 2 versions.

Metroid Prime 3 has already been covered... months ago...

Super Mario Galaxy is nothing short of amazing. I' d played it prior to it' s release at a friends place and have played it on a friends console since but refrained from playing it too much, wanting to play it through properly when i got my own console. It' s taken a backseat as i' ve been unlocking everything in RE4 over the weekend but it has to be one of the best games ever, ...possibly the best game ever. Somehow during my time playing the game at my friends place, i' d managed to miss the FreezeFlame Galaxy which is not only the best looking galaxy in the game but also one of the most fun. I realise Mario games aren' t for everybody, but i' d be surprised if there was somebody here who wouldn' t acknowledge the appeal.

Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles is kickass. The first chapter (that' d be Zero) isn' t anything special, but the second (the original) and the rest are super badass. It' s pretty stunning too, definitely one of the console better looking titles and there' s a lot of stuff to unlock. It' s essentially a slower paced, darker and more gritty House of the Dead. I love lightgun games and even though this isn' t technically one, Capcom have done a stellar job of adapting the franchise to the genre.

Battalion Wars II is great. I haven' t spent an awful lot of time with it, but from what i have played so far it' s better than the original (which i loved) and it one of the better looking games on the console. It' s a difficult game to describe, so i won' t... but if you have a Wii, or if you buy a Wii... give it a chance. It' s very cool.

Sonic and Paper Mario should turn up this week, No More Heroes is out on the 14th of March (delayed from the 29th February) and then that' s likely to be it until Mario Kart and Brawl turn up. There aren' t many 3rd party games on the horizon that look genuinely interesting. There' s Okami, which i will pick up even though i have the PS2 game... and i can' t think of anything else. I' m kinda hoping that Capcom left Resident Evil 2 and Code Veronica out of Umbrella Chronicles so they could use them in a sequel, and i' m still hoping for a traditional style Resident Evil 2 REmake like they did with the original on Gamecube. E3 will be interesting this year and i expect to see a lot more Wii commitment as well as more hardcore games. What i have should keep me content for the next couple of months, especially with PS3 and 360' s busy release schedules so i' m happy with my Wii for now ;P