Mendon

I'm having a BLAST with this game. One thing I'm stuck on (haven't gotten 3 stars yet) is the backwards Donkey Kong. Not sure why I'm having problems but can only guess my brain isn't wired for this version.... LOL

A sort of dilemma I face is that I really want to play Walking Dead Season 2, which is out now on the PS3. But since I have a PS4, I'd rather get that version but haven't heard a word if it will be released for either PS4 or Xbox One. Anyone heard anything on this?

Jack Tretton said this about the PS4 yesterday: “You have competition out there. There are lots of things that people can spend money on, especially during the holidays; and the holidays only come around once a year, so that’s really when you want to take advantage of the market opportunity...It breaks my heart if somebody's got $400 in their hand and they want one and we can't sell them one." It is a relief to know that Mr. Tretton understands & feels my pain, but I now have guilt feelings that my dilemma has left him with a broken heart and perhaps even depression during this holiday period. So, I retract anything bad I ever said about Sony.

I was really surprised to find that the charge cable for the PS4 controller was different than the charge cable for the PS3.

I thought the entire Nintendo Direct was excellent. I have a high interest in Hyrule Warriors; the addition of Luma & Roselina to Smash Bros. is cool; the new video for Mario Kart looks FANTASTIC; Kirby Triple Play looks very good; NES Remix looks fun as hell; the upgraded Golf for Sports Club looks fun also; Donkey Kong looks FANTASTIC; though I don't own Sonic Lost World, the new DLC might make me pick up the game; and I'm very excited for Bravely Default. Overall, I give this Direct an A+ grade. The only downer I feel from today is that I want the new Luigi statue from Club Nintendo but the 1,500 coin price tag is insane!

Speaking only for myself, the Wii U made a lot of sense for me as a launch purchase: there was Super Mario U & Zombie U as brand new releases that I really wanted. There was also Assassin's Creed and Batman since I hadn't played them before but had a high interest in them. And I had a mild interest in Mass Effect 3 which I also hadn't played before. So right out of the box, I had 4 new titles to play and 5 titles if I decided to try ME. Plus, since the Wii U was backwards compatible, I could play all of my backlog Wii games on it. And there was the Miiverse community to take part in. For all those reasons, I've always had a interest to fire the Wii U up and play it. With the PS4, I'm finding it hard to discover a reason to turn it on. I'm not faulting the PS4 hardware, only saying that I could have waited for quite some before buying.... errr, I mean trade for it....... and that I'm glad I didn't pay over MSRP like many people are doing currently on eBay and Craig's List.

Nah, I disagree. I can buy a Snuggie or a Vanilla Ice Greatest Hits CD anytime I want one. And McDonalds never runs out of McRib's or Egg Nog shakes. But I can't buy a memory stick???? Corporate incompetence, I say!!!

Well, after playing around with the PS4, I've decided its a nice system but I could have waited quite awhile before adding one to my house. For me, there is just nothing available that I care to play on it so the system just sits there. I've got Killzone but I'm not impressed at all with it (guess I've never been a big Killzone fan anyway). Not interested in sports games; not interested in another shooter so CoD & Battlefield are out; Knack doesn't really appeal to me, especially at $60. Not much available at all on the PS Store and nothing that intersts me. My only alternative is to see if I can swap my unopened Wii U version of Black Flag for a PS4 version at Walmart so that I have at least one game to play. I'm sure by June or July there will be several incredible games available for it. But right now, I can't imagine people paying a couple hundred dollars over MSRP to eBay & Craig's List sellers for a system with so little software available for it now or in the next few months (a re-release of Tomb Raider & Rayman doesn't excite me either). Nintendo caught a lot of flak for what many considered a poor launch lineup of Wii U games and not much coming during the first 6 months of its release. I really see nothing different with both Sony's and MS's release of their systems. Again, the PS4 has some nice features and a promise of more, but there is really no reason to own one right now.

First, it is the shortage of PS4's that Jack Tretton promised would be "available to anyone who wanted one" for Christmas. Now, after buying my son a PS Vita Walking Dead Bundle, I can't find a damn memory stick anyplace! Amazon has had them on backorder for weeks with no restock date available and my local Walmart, Best Buy, Target, and Kmart don't have them in stock either. If I was a Sony stockholder and knew that there were customers out there willing to open their wallets and purchase products but Sony can't make the products available, I'd be yelling my head off... LOL

So what are your thoughts on Knack? Most reviews weren't very favorable, but many player reviews/comments are very positive for the game (sort of like Ryse not getting favorable reviews but a lot of players love the game). I wish there was a downloadable demo for it on the Store. There are some upcoming titles I'm really interested in..... Thief, inFamous, Elder Scrolls Online, Evil Within, The Division, Uncharted 4.... but most are quite a ways off (a lull in game releases right after a system launch isn't unexpected, though). I haven' linked my Vita up with the PS4 yet, but are there any games out now that take advantage of Remote Play?

Gearbox Software and TellTale Games team up for "Tales from the Borderlands". Since I love The Walking Dead and Borderlands, this news has me very excited for this game. http://youtu.be/9sztWWoEcVQ

I had both an Xbox One and PS4 pre-ordered thru Amazon but decided to cancel both of them in August because I just couldn't justify spending money on either new system when I already had so many 360 - PS3 games to play and my Wii U & 3DS were filling most of my gaming time. Fast forward from August to Dec. 6th. A friend of one of my son's is getting into classic video game collecting in a big way and was aware that I have an extensive collection of systems & games. He called me up and told me that he had an extra unopened PS4 that he was about to put on Craig's List but wanted to know if I might be interested in doing some trading. I really wasn't very interested but told him to come over anyway as who knows...... To make a long story short..... after a couple hours I ended up trading him a couple of boxed systems & games that I hadn't taken out of their storage boxes in YEARS and now have a PS4. I've only played around with the PS4 a little bit and quickly discovered that I have MUCH to learn about the system and controller. To me, it just looks and feels very different than gaming on the PS3. A couple things I've learned in my short use of the system: First thing, I had to read the Quick Start guide just to find the Power button....LOL... man, they hid that and the Eject button very well. The system update went quickly; actually I didn't even know it was updating until a Notification popped up that it was ready to install. Yep, the system has the PS4 wobble but its not really noticeable unless you push firmly on the front left corner. The PS Store is pretty empty of PS4 goodies. I downloaded a couple freebies (very quick downloading, BTW) but haven't had a chance to try them. I have no idea what the touch pad on the controller does... LOL. But I like the feel of the controller; very, very nice. I have no idea what games I will play on it. I bought Killzone and played thru the opening where you are a kid.... looks very nice but not far enough into the game to get a feel for gameplay/story. But looking at the rest of the launch library, there are really no other games out at the moment that interest me. The media bar... I know its not called that on the PS4 but I can't remember what they do call it.... is very, very plain looking. I need to find some good themes or pictures to liven it up. Like I said, I have much to learn and explore about the system. So far, I'm pretty impressed with the system but until some games are released for it that I'm interested in, I'm not sure how much use it will get.

Thanks for the link and info.... I'll remember that in the future, even though so far I've never had problems with any HDMI cable I've used. I had to laugh..... was in Best Buy on Sunday and someone was buying a Blu-ray DVD player for $40 and the salesman was trying to sell them a $100 Monster HDMI cable to go with it.

For me, the Wii U has come the closest because No disk installs Backwards compatible External HD support Free online The down part of the Wii U is exactly what you stated: DLC is tied to the console, meaning that if you replace your console with another for whatever reason, say Bye-Bye to your downloaded items. For this reason, I rarely make purchases from the eShop unless its a really cheap game like the 30cent NES games or the $2 Edge game.

I'm really enjoying the game. Some levels are pretty easy, others are giving me fits as I try to get all the star's, the stamps, and the secret Luigi's. Can't begin to count how many times I attempted Plessie's Plunging Fall's before I got everything.

I have to say, that while Amazon packaging sometimes isn't well done, Amazon itself stands behind the products it ships and the way it ships them. Last Christmas, I ordered a Super Mario All Star's Limited Edition game for the Wii from Amazon. It arrived in a padded envelope and was crushed pretty good. I immediately Emailed Amazon with a complaint and they shipped over-night another copy (this time in a box), told me to keep the original, and gave me a $10 credit towards a further purchase. I was very happy!

One of the things that irked me about the PS3 was the constant firmware and game updates. All too often I'd want to just sit down and play a game and when I fired up the system, I'd have to wait to download a firmware update, then wait for it to install. Finally, I'd attempt to load the game only to have to download an update and wait for it to install. Sometimes, I just gave up and said #$%^ it as I lost all interest in playing. Not many firmware updates on the XB360 and any game updates seemed to only take a few seconds or a minute to perform. Much, much nicer way of doing things. With that said.... I own neither a XB1 or PS4 but am I to understand that on both systems you have to install the game disk to the HD to play? Wow, guess technology has travelled into the future and found floppy disks! Gotta be a little bit of a pain if you use GameFly or Redbox to constantly install and uninstall.

Part of it might be demand, but I think its mostly wishful thinking on the sellers part. I can't believe anyone would pay triple the MSRP for any video game system.

I'll start off by saying I'm old, I'm obese, eat the wrong foods, smoke, and get very little exercise. I guess you could consider me a Walking Heart Attack. When the Wii Fit system was released, I thought that this just might be the time to start changing things around and get my life in order. I bought the first Wii Fit w/Balance Board and for the first couple weeks, used it daily. I had a lot of fun with the games, worked up a sweat now & then, and even lost a few pounds. But after about a month, I sort of lost interest in it, going from daily use to weekly, then bi-weekly, and finally put it into the closet. It just didn't seem to be much of an exercise program and I wasn't really motivated by it. My wife used Wii Fit for about 6 months and she lost some weight and had some fun, but then she also quit using it. Still trying to lose some weight and get into some form of "being in shape, I bought the Wii Fit Plus software upon release and again used it for a couple weeks, had some fun, and lost a few pounds. But again, I lost interest as I just wasn't motivated enough to visit on a daily basis. Earlier this year, a visit to the doctor showed that I REALLY needed to make changes in my life as blood work results did not come back with encouraging results. So I changed my diet to eat better, switched to e-cigarettes to quit smoking, and started to incorporate exercise and movement into my daily life. Over the next couple months, I was experiencing mixed results as I lost some weight, did some bike riding and walking, and was getting closer to being completely smoke free. But motivation, even with the doctors report in my mind, was the biggest hurdle I found to overcome. After years of doing nothing, it was just too easy to say "Oh, its too hot to go for a bike ride today" or "I ate well yesterday so I'm going to have lots of pizza tonight". I almost needed someone from Biggest Loser yelling at me constantly to motivate me to stay on the course I needed to be on. As release day approached, I watched the video's for Wii Fit U and wasn't really impressed, especially since I remember how long I had used Wii Fit and Wii Fit Plus. But then I saw a video detailing use of the Wii Fit U meter, the **FREE** software, and some of the activities included with the new program. I watched and thought "Okay, its only $20, I'll give it a try". Three weeks later.... I'm making this post to tell you that I absolutely **LOVE** Wii Fit U and the meter. Everything within the software, the use of the meter, and the online MiiVerse community is fantastic and I'm having a BLAST and achieving results better than I expected. First off, the activities and exercises within the program are better than ever and I find that I really work up a sweat with many of them. Many of the activities were included with Wii Fit and Wii Fit Plus but there are also many, many new programs. After 3 weeks, I still have MANY activities to try out, but here are a couple I enjoy daily: Desert Course has you walking on the balance board while trying to balance food on a tray.. not a workout by any measure but it does help with balance, you are burning some calories, and its FUN. Plus it gets harder and harder as more deserts are added to your tray and in different shapes that make rolling around and off the tray a very real possibility with each step. Riding a bike around an island has you walking on the balance board while holding a Wii-mote to steer the bike with the goal being to go thru a series of checkpoints in the shortest amount of time you can. The faster you step on the board, the faster the bike will go, so burning up calories can come quickly. Plus the Advanced Obstacle Course is a real calorie burner and one hell of a challenge. Next, there is the Wii Fit U meter. It keeps track of how many step's I take each day and the number of calories burned (plus other information which at this point I'm not incorporating into my routine). I then transfer this information into the Wii Fit U program and the information is charted for me to follow and suggestions are made to improve calorie counts and workout performance. There are also challenges within the game, such as the Walking challenge, where your Mii walks around various landmarks, based on the steps you walk in real life using the meter, as you try to complete the courses. I find myself walking farther and farther each day in order to complete these courses. They are not short and it will take me a lot of time and a LOT of miles to tackle them all. Finally, there is the MiiVerse community. You can join a user created Gym (I'm a member of the Go Nintendo gym) and message back and forth with fellow Wii Fit U gym members. Information from fellow gym members is available for viewing so you can see how often they are working out, what their calorie burn is, what their results are for the various Wii Fit U activities, what in-game accomplishments they made, and much more. With each activity you do within Wii Fit U, you are given the option for the result to be automatically posted to your gym group and they will offer up praise and encouragement for your efforts. I've also found that gym members will offer up hints and tips for improvement in all aspects of working out and I've found many of these invaluable. As I said earlier, I absolutely love this program and find it to be the motivation I've needed to continue to progress on a daily basis. In the three weeks I've been using Wii Fit U, I've lost 14 pounds, have walked countless steps, and am burning up the calories. Wii Fit U might not be a visit to your local gym, but for some like me, its helping make changes to my daily life and improving my health. I ***HIGHLY*** recommend that if you have a balance board laying around, then spend $20 for the meter, download the free software, and give Wii Fit U a try. You might be very surprised at what you find. Thank You, Nintendo!!!

If you get the chance, check out the reviews on Amazon's pages for the different launch bundles: almost half of every PS4 shipped to Amazon customers is receiving a one star rating, with the vast majority of the reasons being DOA out of the box with pulsating Blue light and no video. And it doesn't appear the ratings are fake as the ones I looked over and read were all listed as a "Verified Amazon Purchase". Example Ratings: PS4 Battlefield 4 Bundle: 149 - 5 Star, 13 - 2 Star, 8 - 3 Star, 7 - 2 Star, 115 - 1 Star PS4 Launch System: 1,196 - 5 Star, 106 - 4 Star, 38 - 3 Star, 33 - 2 Star, 552 - 5 Star Not sure what is going on but if you have a working system and received it from Amazon, count your blessings!

Wow! I'm just the opposite as the Xbox & PS collect dust and any free time I have has been devoted to Wii U and 3DS. The past couple months for Wii U I've picked up Deus Ex, Sonic, Wonderful 101, Assassins Creed, Batman, Lego Marvel, and Duck Tails (physical copy since I prefer that over digital). On 3DS I'm still working on Pokémon X and Animal Crossing Plus I bought a Wii Fit U meter & downloaded the free software and use it every day. I really enjoy some of the new activities and the expanded communities really make the game fun. And next week, Mario 3D World and Zelda release. with both more than likely eating up hours & hours of my life. With the backlog of games I have for all three "last gen" systems plus Wii U and 3DS, there is no way I could justify getting either new system.

I believe Walmart also has the 2DS on sale for $99 on Black Friday.

Yer 100% right. The only time I actually bought a bundle was at EB Games when the PS2 launched. They had an extra controller and 2 game minimum in order to purchase a PS2. They were the only store in town that had the systems in stock and it was either buy the bundle or go without. Guess I got very lucky with the Wii, Xbox360, and PS3 as I found the systems in the wild on launch day and purchased only what I wanted to purchase. Another method stores use is to put a system or two out every day so they get people constantly coming back into the store to see if any new systems are on the shelves and hopefully they'll buy other items while in the store checking. My only complaint with what Amazon did is putting a totally unrelated product in the bundle that adds $200 to the cost.

I couldn't believe this.... Amazon has been "Sold Out" of PS4's for a couple months now, saying only "Sign Up To Be Notified When This Product Becomes Available". Well, tonight, on PS4 launch night, I get an Email from Amazon telling me that at 12:01am, they have a limited number of PS4's available for sale BUT ONLY if you also buy a Kindle Fire. Total Price for the package: $599.99 Imagine that... a couple of warehouse workers stumble across some buried boxes in a back corner and say "Well, look at this... we got some extra PS4's. Hey, lets move some of them Kindles that no one is buying". I mean, if you want to make people buy a bundle, fine, make them add a couple games and an accessory to their order. But to force them to buy a totally unrelated product for $200??? That seems pretty low for Amazon to pull. I'm willing to bet that Amazon is sitting on a lot of PS4's and will use them over the next couple weeks to make some sales.

I agree with you, Crazy Climber. At first I thought the only people who might buy it are Nintendo collectors but the point of opening a new system on Christmas morning vs. a used system makes perfect sense. Whether the cost of producing these new systems is overshadowed by sales profits, though, is something that only time will tell.