Let me start by saying that, yes, Super Mario Galaxy is incredible, but I implore you: don't turn your back to a shelf of Wii games that include such gems as Mario and Sonic: Olympics, Zak and Wiki, Raving Rabbits 2 and RE: Umbrella Chronicles.

I understand why the industry releases this many games during a period when most Wii owners will be buying 1-2 games each, but that doesn't change the fact that some of these games stand a good chance of being completely overshadowed by a mythical game like SMG.

There's nothing worse than playing a Wii game, loving it and then checking out its sales figures for the week to see that it didn't get even half of the sales it deserved.

How much weight you want to place in my commentary is entirely up to you, but believe me when I say that you'll be robbing yourself of some excellent gaming experiences if you don't give these other titles a try as well. Rent them if you have to (most video stores also carry Wii games these days), but don't let them go by unnoticed. Nintendo fans have complained about a lack of 3rd party support in the past (myself included) but by not supporting good 3rd party games when they arrive on shelves then the blame falls upon us and ONLY us.

M&S: Olympics is a solid sports game package, featuring some excellent motion control and the ability to play with your Mii alongside famous video game mascots from the Mario and Sonic universes.

Raving Rabbids 2 is one of the better minigame compilations I've seen, and it's downright hilarious to boot.

RE: UC is easily the best lightgun game I've ever played, adding a welcome layer of strategy to the genre which was previously absent.

And Zak and Wiki is a throwback to the point and click puzzle games we all knew and loved. It's a fledgling franchise, with no brand recognition to fall back upon like the others, but it delivers a great time for even a room full of people who love to be challenged by clever puzzles.

I'm not suggesting you buy four additional games, but please, give them a rent if any of them sound like they might interest you. I'm confident you'll be pleasantly surprised.

"I need it to breathe fire," I say.

"No," one says, shaking a finger laden with mystic rings, "we haven't the proper components for that!"

"Hold," says another, "we do have the emberstryfe talisman."

"But..." says yet another, "does that talisman have a BSD license?"

I'm telling you, it's almost like that.

Overhearing the discussion of world states, vertices and classes awes me at the fact that so much of importance is being said and I'm mostly oblivious to it. I say "mostly" because sometimes the discussion will dip to the level where I can understand it and I'll put in some input or recall a technical document which might aid the situation. Then the train leaves the station without me as they're off again.

I'm going to be able to show off the work done by my artists (possibly sooner than later) and that gives me a chance to push their work into the foreground where it belongs. But the same is just not possible with programmers. Obviously, the entire game and its structure are testaments to their abilities, but the grim truth remains that seldom do players stop to think about the hours of labor, toil and coordination that went into bringing these games to fruition. I'm a gamer of 20+ years and I don't think I've ever caught myself pondering the labors of the codesmiths responsible for my hobby.

We admire the painting for its artfulness but seldom the workmanship of the frame.

Maybe I'll figure out a solid means to give the framemakers their due credit (and no, I don't think watching their names scroll by in a credit roll suffices)...

Then again, if it weren't THE console to be developing for, there wouldn't be an abundance of excellent games for it.

Still, seeing online for SSBB confirmed and knowing I'll likely be in the middle of crunch time when it launches makes me cringe...

It can be found here.

I gave one other to Cubed3 recently, but that's the end of my interview spree, I swear. I was actually supposed to give a fourth but opted to hold off until a later time when we have more to say/show.

Again, sorry if you're starting to get sick of seeing my name out there, but I used to run a gaming news site and I know how hard it is to get anything exclusive for a site, especially one as small as ours was. If we can give a few more hits to some folks who want them, so be it.

But no more for a while, I promise.

No, seriously, there's no easy way to describe what it's like to want to do something for such a length of time and then suddenly find you're doing it. It actually sinks in every once in a while that we're doing what we're doing and the voices in my head have a good long scream.

As you probably now know, Medaverse Studios, as a development house, is a brand-spankin' new, but the team who sits beyond the name is anything but. I went to high school with two of the most talented people I've ever met in my life, an artist and a programmer, and the three of us comprise what can be called the "core team" of Meda. We're joined by five other immensely talented people who are helping to make Gravitronix a reality.

I know it's my job as a creative/lead designer to make it seem as though I'm somehow the driving force behind everything that happens here (an impression I've had of other creative leads), but nothing could be further from the truth. These are people driven by personal desire to not only excel at their art, but to push themselves further at it than they ever have before, and this is what I admire more than anything. You're going to be seeing and hearing a lot out of me personally as the "voice" of Meda, but I just wanted to start this blog by giving credit to the strength and talent behind the scenes. No matter how I come across, I am nothing without them.

That said, the matter of Medaverse's public/press relations will be something of a curiosity. I've been a gamer my entire life and a business man for at least half of it (I started working at 12). The one aspect of this or any other industry which I've always disliked is the tendency for any company or corporation to behave as though it is one single entity, identifying the people who work there only as cogs in a machine rather than individuals with a passion for their craft. In addition, it has been my observation that the very essence of "public relations" ironically involves relating to the pubic as little as possible.

In both cases, I feel that Medaverse's affairs should be handled in a different manner. For one, items like this blog and our forums are intended to connect us with the gaming community. Beyond that, I intend to report everything feasibly possible as it happens. This includes news about our games and our future plans. Naturally, we won't reveal works in progress because they tend to look god-awful, but I'll do my best to deliver content from time to time (maybe even once per post, but we'll see).

That's us in a nutshell. I acknowledge that we might wind up regretting some of the decisions regarding PR, but this wouldn't be an adventure unless we shook things up a bit, right?

I'll have more to talk about soon...