All posts by Drew

BenSpark.com is about my life through photography. Each image is a gateway to a story about my daily life. Occasionally funny, inspiring, interesting or creative BenSpark.com is real life in photos. With over 4200 consecutive days and many different cameras BenSpark.com has documented images from the mundane to the amazing.
Review, Video Game

Monster 4X4 World Circuit

I recently purchases Monster 4X4 World Circuit for the Nintendo Wii and I have to say that this game was a lot of fun to play. I’m going to give it a go at a real review in a review format.

Playability: 4 out of 5.
This game was very easy to play. I took the Wii remote, held it sideways and used it as the steering wheel. The 1 and 2 buttons were for forward and reverse. I’m not sure what one was the brake because I usually drive full tilt and never use the brakes. That may be why I go careening into the woods often in these games. But once you get the hang of th controls it is a very fun game to play.

Graphics: 3 out of 5
They could have been better, I was blown away by the opening scenes and disappointed slightly by the graphics in real play

Fun: 5 out of 5
It is just lots of fun to chase an over sized soccer ball with a monster truck. It just is. There is something so satisfying about tearing around in that truck.

Re-playability 4 out of 5 – There are multiple tracks with locked cars and races so you’ll be coming back for more play again and again. You can also upgrade your trucks. It is very fun and exciting game. But when things come down to the end it is a racing game and not much changes over time with a racing game.

The game also came with a free steering wheel that snaps together and is used with the Wii Remote so that you can feel like you are steering the trucks.

Grab Bag

Photo-A-Day #680 02/17/07

Spent too much time tonight playing with this. Full update tomorrow.

Update 02/18/07: Yesterday Allison and I went up to New Hampshire. We stopped at Comp USA in Nashua to see if they had a Nintendo Wii in stock. They did! However you had to buy 3 accessories with the Wii. So, we bought a second Wii Remote or Wiimote as it is known. We also bought 4X4 World Circuit That game came with a free steering wheel that houses the Wii Remote. I also picked up The Legend of Zelda for the Wii. We then left Comp USA and I dropped Allison off at Chili’s so she could got pick out dresses with her friend Lindsay for Lindsay’s upcoming wedding. I headed to Manchester to meet up with our friend James for lunch at TGI Fridays.

However, before I got to lunch I made a stop over to Toys ‘R Us to find a Wii Nunchuck Controller. I ended up with two of those plus a Wii Vertical Stand Cradle with 2 Wii Remote covers (One was a Mario theme (Red – Mine) and the other Yoshi (Lime Green – Allison’s)) and a 512MB memory card.

The funny thing was that there were two types of these, one with the memory card and the other without and they were the same price. So I was a no brainer to get the one with the memory card. I also got 2 Classic Controllers so that when we get home Allison can use her Wii Points Card to buy some classic games. All she wants is Super Mario Brothers. It will be fun to play that with her. Now, while I was looking around I saw that Toy’s ‘R Us has there own credit card and if you signed up you get 10% off and you also can get no financing and no interest so I also bought a 3rd Wii Remote and the Wii Play game that came with a free 4th Wii Remote. And I bought Wario’s Smooth Moves because that has 200 Wii Remote Mini Games. So I went a little Wii crazy yesterday.

I then went to TGI Fridays and had a nice lunch with James. While we were there we ran into Melissa. Allison and I used to work with Melissa at LEMI back about 5 1/2 years ago. Melissa was there with her husband Jeff and their daughter Kelsy. Kelsy was a little cutie and she was having fun being silly. After lunch James and I went to the mall where I got an alarm clock for my iPod and we looked at a bunch of things in Best Buy, but we didn’t buy anything there. I was at my limit for a while. James headed back home but would come back for dinner at Dan and Marcia’s.

I went back to the house and set up the Nintendo Wii and Dan, Marcia, Allison and I played Wii Bowling. We had a very good time playing. Clyde the cat however found that he wanted to chew on the wire that connects the sensor to the Wii itself. I was able to stop him before he made too much damage. We played a couple of strings and then Allison and I played Wii boxing.

We had home made Chinese food for dinner and James came over for dinner. After dinner James and I played Wii Play (It is only a 2 player game). We then switched to 4X4 World Circuit and played with Allison. We did a race first then we played Monster Truck Soccer (A mini game within 4X4 World Circuit). Then James had to leave to take car of his dog Kara and Allison and I played a round of Wii Play and then went to bed.


Clyde on his spot.