Platform: Wii
Price: R450
Verdict: Next-level Mario.

One of the best days of my life, as a kid, was being 10 years old and using saved up pocket money to buy a Famicom (Japanese NES) 8-bit console. I had enough cash to get two games with it and chose Goonies and Super Mario Brothers. I had played Atari and other early consoles but the NES was a milestone and Super Mario set the stage for a new era in console gaming. Anyone old enough to remember MacGyver, The A Team and Airwolf will likely also have some nostalgia attached to Mario. But you don’t have to be a child of the eighties to appreciate Super Mario Galaxy 2 which once again raises the bar for platform games.

This is the second in a 3D series of Mario games set in space, along with an amazing variety of power-ups and physics tricks. And it’s ridiculously fun.

The controls are a bit niggly at first, especially the irritating (to me) Wiimote-twist that you have to do to get Mario to spin up against things. This move is the same as in New Super Mario Bros. for Wii and I still can’t get the hang of it. I’m not a big fan of motion gaming in general but at least you can play Galaxy 2 without needing to be standing in front of the TV. You do need to point the controller at the set, however, to manipulate a star-cursor used to collect stars in the game that can also be fired as a weapon.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 requires the Nunchuck attachment for the Wii-remote and uses most of the buttons for specific jumps and moves. A second player can also join in with just a Wii-remote and control a little star that follows Mario around and helps him out. This is a neat feature, but not much fun for the second player.

So we’ve established that this game is fun, but it does also contain some of the frustration common to Super Mario titles. For example, dying will send you back to the beginning of a level and it can be highly annoying to play through again, especially if you were close to a save point before dying. There are also camera angles that sometimes make your movements difficult to judge, sending Mario flying off a planet, for example.

Those annoyances pale when compared to the storyline, however, that is as inane as they come. You can’t skip through the ridiculous dialogue about… like… candy-floss and mushrooms and stars, either. Luckily these sequences aren’t too long, but you have to wonder why Nintendo even bothers with a storyline for Mario games.

That said, the variety in Super Mario Galaxy 2 makes up for any shortcomings and will keep you busy with this game for ages. There are heaps of spherical, 3D worlds to run around on, 2D levels that set a new standard in platform gaming, gravity-reversed levels where you’re stuck to the ceiling and power-ups including a suit that lets Mario create clouds  in mid air to use as platforms and a bee suit for flying around in.

Yoshi, Mario’s dinosaur-friend is also back in this title and you can ride around on him, using his tongue to zap enemies.

If you have a Nintendo Wii this is a must-have title that will keep you busy for ages. You have to push through the first few levels before things really get going, so bear that in mind. It’s a good time. And it’s Mario.

The DSi XL has two 4.2″ screens that are 93% bigger than the screen on the Nintendo DS Lite. It also has a larger pen-like stylus whereas most of the DS Lite left you feeling fat-fingered as it was clearly developed with 5-year-olds in mind.

Core says it will launch the DSi XL in two colours – wine red and dark brown, with a glossy sheen on top and matt finish on the underside for gripping onto tables and other surfaces.

The new console also comes pre-loaded with two Nintendo DSiWare software titles – Dr Kawashima’s: Little Bit of Brain Training: Arts Edition and Dictionary 6 in 1, as well as the Nintendo DSi Browser.

The DSi XL also has a camera that can be used for video chatting and putting your mug into games, amongst other things.

Core has not confirmed pricing yet.

The limited edition black version of the insanely popular console will come in a bundle with a Wii Remote, Wii MotionPlus, Nunchuk and copies of  Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort. All the hardware is black. Like my soul.

The recommended retail price for the bundle in SA is R2900 and the international price is expected to be around $289.

Core is also bringing in all of the black accessories for the Wii. You wouldn’t want a black Wii with white remotes. That shit will get you beat up at school.

Firstly, the Nomad played the same game cartridges used by the Mega Drive or Genesis. That’s right – imagine having a PSP that played your PS3 games. It was that awesome.

The Nomad also had a controller slot on it, so that you could plug in a second Genesis gamepad and have two players on the same Nomad. Rad doesn’t even begin to describe this feature… think two-player Mortal Kombat anywhere.

It also had a standard power port, so you could buy any generic power or even car-lighter adapter and use it to power the Nomad. It came with a cable to connect it to a TV, so it really was like having a full-fledged Genesis with you anywhere. Proprietary ports are the work of the devil and I wish today’s console manufacturers would support standards more widely than just HDMI.

The Nomad’s battery pack clipped off and you could buy spares. The pack held six standard AA batteries so you could pick up batteries anywhere or carry a few loaded packs with you. Batteries, however, were the only down-side of this device as you would only get a few hours game time out of six AAs. I used to use rechargeable batteries with the device. Unfortunately we were a few years away from decent batteries in 1995.

I picked up a Nomad in 1996 while visiting my girlfriend of the time in the USA. The exchange rate was R4.40 back then and I paid around $160 for it – so roughly R700. I brought it back to South Africa and was instantly promoted to legendary status with my friends. I still have it. I throw out things all the time, but the Nomad is a keeper and I’ll never intentionally get rid of it. And you can pick up second-hand Genesis game cartridges now for a fistful of change.

What’s the coolest thing you bought in the 90s? My Sony MZ-R70 MD recorder/player is a close second to the Nomad.

That means that South Africa will be getting the Wii gaming console soon. While there is a world-wide shortage of the console, which is kicking the PS3′s ass in America, we might even be lucky enough to get it by Christmas 2007…