The video game battle has raged on for over 20 years with more and more casualties announced each generation. This time round, who will win the fight?

360 Man

In his former incarnation as just plain old ‘XBox Man’, 360 Man took his time and used his big weapon: connection infrastructures, to plan the perfect moment to enter the console wars. With Master Chief at his side and guns blazing, 360 Man is the current kingpin of all the heroes.

Strengths:

Truly KILLER Apps (including a substantial advantage over PS3 Mecca with his recruitment of third parties), and with the devastating power of the MS network he can summon his many followers (in a non-cultish way of course).

Weaknesses:

Overheating (whereupon he is vulnerable to attack and online mauling) where the power ring on his chest slowly turns red and his followers may begin a mutiny and move to the other side. He also charges a fee when people ask for his services, rent-a-hero style, causing them to often resent 360 Man despite all his values.

PS3 Mecca

The third in line of his kin, PS3 Mecca learnt from one of the legends himself: Master PS2, but this time round the Sony hero faces a much tougher fight…

Strengths:

Within his chassis PS3 Mecca has an incredibly powerful source of potential, and at this point he is trying hard to maximise it through regular tutelage with the Master PS2, a harsh but all-knowing teacher (like Pai Mei in Kill Bill). Possesses a lethal bluray laser but still in training to wield it properly (like Luke Skywalker and Yoda). His killer aps are, again, still in development and a lot will ride on the aging shoulders of Solid Snake.

Weaknesses:

Often mocked and insulted by the people, PS3 Mecca has taken a real beating from his rivals as he struggles in the current gen battle. Being initially too costly for the public to enlist his services and a bit too boastful about his own abilities before a blow had even been landed, he has already lost favour with many of Master PS2’s allies from the last gen wars.

Wii Lady

The (Wii) Fittist of all our heroes, Wii Lady stands up for the rights of all the young ones, families, and the Nintendo fans still reeling after crushing past defeats to the older generation heroes the Gamecube Cube and the N64 Colossus. Speaks with a Scottish accent (“wee lady”, get it?)

Strengths:

Strong physical attacks (including nunchuk melee weapon), virtually unbeatable from a first person perspective, can summon the powers of fallen heroes from the All Conquering NES armoury, and completely rules the sewer (or “underground” as it sounds much cooler) with her right-hand man Mario.

Weaknesses:

Are Mario and a proven ability to be the life of friend/family parties enough to sustain Wii Lady’s longevity? This may not even be an issue though with her popularity with, well, pretty much everyone in the world (provided that friendship codes have already been established).

PSP Chick

Basically the Master PS2 in reincarnated female form and offering a host of media options, PSP Chick is definitely the funkiest little hero around. But is being cool enough?

Strengths:

Able to connect to her bigger brother the PS3 Mecca, PSP Chick has proven herself to be a reliable handheld device as she insists that she is an altogether different hero to the DS Boy. Possessing greater vision than her main rival, she also has the ability to throws her UMD discs at unsuspecting enemies as they gasp “what the HELL is that?!”

Weaknesses:

Some may say she is fighting an unfair fight against DS Boy, but she is still a worthy adversary in her own right despite being busted for graffiti and fake website scams.

DS Boy

The Robin to the Wii Lady’s Batman (or Batwoman), the youthful DS Boy stands his own ground and is a force to be reckoned with via his sheer playability and, well, just being a fun guy to call upon. Extremely popular worldwide, particularly in Japan – they just can’t get enough.

Strengths:

His unique abilities allow him to throw rocks with a simple swing of his stylus bat, cut into enemies with surgical precision, improve IQ scores, and object to injustices by utilising his built-in microphone. DS Boy can also link up with Wii Lady like Voltron – Wii Lady as the head and the pink, blue, black and gold versions of DS Boy completing the limbs. As to where the torso comes from, it’s the same deal with Optimus Prime’s trailer thing that always appeared/disappeared whenever it felt like it.

Weaknesses:

Tends to focus a bit too much on the ‘touching’ side of things as opposed to the traditional methods of crime fighting, as well as being guilty of only hanging out with his own friends rather than embracing the world.

Wii Tennis, Wii Bowling, Wii bloody Golf…how about some variety, Nintendo? Below are a bunch of obscure sports that, to my knowledge, have not yet been made into mainstream video games. But chances are we have all heard of these sports at least and given that the Wii is looking to cater for the family/non-gamer demographic, these activities deserve a chance too. Mr Miyamoto, if you want to mail me a royalty cheque just send me a PM. Credit to Andrew Carmichael who gave me the idea for this blog.

Hardcore Euro limbs-flailing-about Action

European Handball

No, not the handball you used to play in primary school by ’slogging’ a tennis ball. This is one of the great obscure sports that is fantastic to watch and possibly great fun to play, but sadly drops out of public consciousness when it’s not Olympics time. A bit of a cross between soccer/football and dodgeball, I just love seeing hardcore Dutchmen flinging themselves into the air and fully pelting a tiny ball at the goal as a bunch of Ukrainians protect their genitalia in defense. Plus, this must be the only sport in the world where a goalkeeper can let in 48 goals and still be on the winning side. I can already picture myself straining an elbow with awkwardly violent Wii-mote body movements.

Forget about those alpine skiing or snowboarding games, those of you who truly enjoy watching the Winter Olympics (or have seen Blades of Glory) will know what an ‘interesting’ sport figure skating is. Dancing on ice whilst balancing a partner on one hand, cruciate-ligament destroying spins, dodgy music and latex fluffy costumes – there is SO much potential here. Strap a Wii-mote onto each of your ankles to perform a quadruple-axel jump and chuck in a GTA-style minigame where you have to take out your rival by smashing their knees (with Manhunt-esque motion controls) and this will be a winner.

Ok, this one is very obscure. Zorbing involves strapping yourself inside a big ball and rolling down a hill. Do I need to say any more? To recreate the effect of bone breaks, skull fractures and family-wide concussions, I suggest strapping Wii-motes all over your body, clearing enough space in your room for a trampoline, and well and truly destroying yourself.

Cheese Rolling

Most often seen on Funniest Home Videos and featuring once a year on your local news report as the ‘comic’ segment right at the end, this sport takes place in Gloucestershire England and sees players chasing a huge piece of cheese down Cooper’s Hill. The winner gets to eat it. The video game version of this sport is admittedly tricky to emulate, but I’m sure it is nothing a children’s playground slide in the living room laced with grease and mouse traps cannot solve.

That weird Log Rolling sport

I don’t know what it’s real name is, but this sport is mainly played by big bulky (Scottish?) guys in singlets with moustaches who run down hills and try to dodge logs that are constantly rolled down from above (presumably by Donkey Kong). What is NOT Nintendo about that? The winner is the guy who doesn’t get killed. Plenty of G-rated fun for all!

Javelin

Did you see how that long-jumper who got speared by a wayward javelin throw at the Golden Gala of Athletics in Rome (mid-jump too by the way)? Now that’s what I call ‘cross-genre’: with Wii Javelin Nintendo could release an 8 foot javelin accessory to plug your Wii-mote in and battle it out with your 8 year old cousins to see who can throw the furthest within the comfort of your own home. Or see who can impale mum…either way the potential is enormous and it is definitely more fun than drunken darts. Actually…

Darts

In several parts of the world darts is a competitive and televised sport, with professional players balancing their throwing arms and beer guts to get a perfect score/drunk. You are also allowed to down pints of lager as you play…how many sports offer that? What an untapped market this is Miyamoto San. Just ask 13 times World Champion Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor what he thinks:

“Aye man, the sport is *&%$#’n brilliant-like, and Nintendo will pay me how much?” *passes out*

Throwing Wii-motes at your TV screen (okay, motioning a throw) is a highly viable option too, and the possibility of Mario endorsing beer will bring in millions for the company: ‘Mario and Sonic at the Pub’ – I can see it happening already.

Jai Alai

Jai Alai is a pretty unknown sport with Basque origins and involves flinging rock-solid balls from one end of the court to another at your opponents’ heads. The aim is to apparently catch with your weird-looking hand-canoe things and try to beat the world speed record for hardest pelted solid object. Yes, this is a poor write-up because I don’t quite know anything else about it, but smashed cheekbones, ill-fitting trousers AND funny jumps in the one game? Worthy of inclusion I say.

Outdoor Hockey

Outdoor hockey is far less well known than ice hockey, with slightly different rules, e.g. penalty shots are the key to winning, headbands are seemingly compulsory, and Aussie women do well at it at the Olympics but will lose to the Netherlands eventually. But that’s not at all what’s gonna make the Wii version of hockey fun: the illegal ankle taps and stick-to-neck fights every 2 minutes will be. Strap two Wii-motes onto your ankles, and try to avoid light-sabre-ish attacks at severing your Achilles tendon.

Dodgeball

A staple PE class game made famous by the Ben Stiller movie, dodgeball is, at it’s core, brilliant fun. The Wii version would involve mum and dad using their Wii-motes to motion striking moves and/or In The Line of Fire-like protective dives towards their children in the ultimate battle of favouritism. And even though it was a lot of fun, it would be a much bigger challenge than the dodgeball minigame featured in Bully with the moulding of young influential minds (and who knows, future custody battles) at stake.

Wife Carrying

Originating in Finland (the Europeans have the best sports) this activity involves husbands carrying their wives in a variety of positions ranging from the general piggyback to the more suggestive “Estonian-style” where, get this, “the wife hangs upside-down with her legs around the husband’s shoulders, holding onto his waist” and racing against other couples on the verge of divorce. The game version of this will hence require Wii-motes to be attached to all four limbs of each partner, and the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection will ensure loads of international wife swapping action to occur. It will totally bring a new meaning to the expression “trophy wife”. Awesome.

Wood Chopping

Taking place regularly in the big alpha male country regions of North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, woodchopping is fairly straightforward: compete against a host of other mullet-donning 7-foot Macguyvers to see who can chop a piece of wood the fastest (or whoever pops a hernia, whichever comes first). However the axe swinging motion could be quite controversial particularly as games like Manhunt 2 and even the Wii version of Trauma Centre have been banned in some places…after all trees have feelings too. The censored version may have mattresses in place of logs; I’m currently ironing out the details with Godfather Miyamoto who instead wants the game to be about Mario hacking away at Sonic.

Shortly after it was originally posted on my old 1up page, this blog actually got “Dugg”, i.e. it was quickly linked and re-linked over the web to within an inch of its life. Just check out how nasty the internet is! 

PS3

She seemed nice at first: a very good looker with several “exclusive” features. But after a little while she’s just turned into a real high-maintenance cash-grabbing bitch who you desperately want to leave, but whom you strangely feel compelled to stay with just to see how it all turns out. She’s now inviting you to move into her Home, which could lead to a beautiful relationship…but you still have your reservations. She IS still really hot even after you first laid eyes on her in 1995, but a gold digger nonetheless.

Her real life equivalent: Catherine Zeta Jones

Xbox 360

The rich girl who has won over many because she is actually quite nice and not as materialistic as we originally thought she was. She’s almost as hot as (or hotter than) the PS3 and doesn’t whine as much, but over the long term will she still be quite as attractive? Overall, still a classy and reliable choice and one that’ll get you the thumbs up from mates.

Her real life equivalent: Nicole Kidman

Wii

Her previous incarnation was really hot in the 90s, but she kinda lost popularity over the turn of the millennium. However now, she’s had a complete makeover and is back in the spotlight again with features that appeal to pretty much everyone. But then again she was idolised ever since the 80s and has a massive hardcore following to this day. She is fun in a harmless and innocent kind of way, but if you’re the type that prefers paintball skirmishes over playing twister you are going to be disappointed.

Her real life equivalent: Drew Barrymore

Sega Saturn

My personal all-time favourite although a lot of people wouldn’t feel the same. Still, I thought she was a real cutey and definitely appealed to the old-school gamer and 80s cult movie buffs. Went out of fashion far quicker than she should have and never fulfilled her true potential. It’s worth digging up her number in the old phone book for a bit of nostalgic catch-up time though.

Her real life equivalent: Phoebe Cates