GamerDad is recuperating from quadruple bypass surgery and he’s using games to do it! Here’s how he’s coping!

Okay, so yesterday we talked about the Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS. I love all my systems equally – I try not to play favorites (well, except the PlayStation 3, it’s just so big and menacing and … there are no games for it! I want to play with it but I can’t. So I mainly use it for movies.) I’ll have you know that I’m not just recuperating in the privacy of my own basement! Oh no! I’m upstairs too.  Find out what’s on my Wii and PS2!

I like virtual violence, especially when sick. See, sitting around all day waiting for the kids to return from school and their mom to return from work is frustrating. Taking down aliens, contagions, Big Daddy’s, and Medics in gruesome ways is a nice way to cope with this frustration. But man can’t live on violence alone.

On the Wii, aside from blast-fests like Metroid and Resident Evil 4, I like to golf. Tiger Woods 08 is better than 07 but they still don’t have the swing down. It’s still possible to do the exact same motion two times in a row and hit it square on the first shot and whiff the second. Pity.

Rockstar Presents Table Tennis is a brilliant game. Not because they’ve somehow scanned the game of Ping Pong into a computer and wrung out everything that makes the real game addictive and fun, not because Rockstar is best known for bloody mayhem and irresponsible gaming rather than sports games, and not because I’m a huge fan of Ping Pong and out hobby owes so much to simulating it…

Rockstar Presents: Table Tennis is brilliant because I don’t like Ping Pong, but I like this. Once I heard that they were re-releasing the game on the Nintendo Wii I was thrilled. The Table Tennis included in Wii Play is a pale replica and I knew Rockstar would get the Wii-mote stuff right. They did and soon, Table Tennis Tourneys will dominate the Bub household!

I’ve seen the future, played it, and claimed it to be “good.” See, I have a GameWave, which is a clunky console that plays simple boardgame and game show style games. The trick is that GameWave comes with four remote controls. Everyone knows what color they are and can push buttons accordingly. Really helps when you buzz in. Sony thinks so too because, straight from Europe comes Buzz. Buzz arrives with four controllers on a single USB port, plays on the PlayStation 2, and basically consists of a “You Don’t Know Jack” style game show.

This is the future of our hobby folks. Mainstreamers light up when they see their own easy-to-use GameWave remote or Buzz controller. Grandma gets it without prompting. Everyone can play! Don’t worry though, we geeks still have an overwhelming advantage when it comes to this kind of gaming too. We are pop-culture sponges!

That’s what I’ve “Been Playing” lately. Chime in with your picks and I’m sitting here holding a copy of “Fishing Master” for the Wii. Looks good and fishing sounds kinda fun. . . More on that later!

Tags: Misc