Here’s a summary of the problem. I wanted to try Ubuntu to see what all the hype was about. I downloaded the latest LiveCD for 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) and booted it up. Liking what I saw, I started the install process. From that point, until just before the install was completed, my computer would lock up hard. Every time.

It’s important to note that the same computer never crashes in Gentoo or even Windows. Also, the “alternative mode” (text) installer works fine, and booting into Ubuntu recovery mode (single user) works fine as well.

If I just used the LiveCD without installing, sometimes it would be OK - but it would always lock up eventually. Usually this would happen when there was a high level of activity, but occasionally it would freeze when sitting idle as well.

At first, I thought it was caused by the hard drive I was installing to, because I’ve had some issues with it in the past. After unplugging every drive, and having the OS crash with the same frequency, that was quickly eliminated. This also eliminated problems with the drive controller.

Then I thought it had to be an incompatibility between Ubuntu and my motherboard chipset, which is an nVidia nForce 570 SLI. I tried all kinds of advice on disabling apic (noapic and nolapic kernel options) to no avail. I tried noacpi, but that disabled my keyboard and mouse and I don’t have any PS/2 ones lying around. I tried updating my BIOS to the latest version - no dice.

Then I thought it was an incompatibility with the video card, an nVidia GeForce 7950 GT. After all, it works in the alternative installer and recovery mode, so it has to be something graphical, right? Nope. I tried the “nv” and “vesa” drivers for Xorg with the same results. Any difference in time-to-crash was coincidental.

I tried to think of issues I’ve had in Windows in the past. Then, of course, it hit me. Whenever I tried to turn on AMD’s Cool’n'Quiet feature, the system became very unstable. I had to go through a lot of pain to remove that driver without crashing the system.

The equivalent software in Linux is powernowd, also known in Gnome (and, therefore, Ubuntu) as “CPU Frequency manager”, which takes advantage of the different CPU power-stepping features to slow down your processor when you don’t need it. This fits the pattern of crashing on high activity (when the CPU steps up) and occasionally at idle (when the CPU steps down after high activity).

The fix: Go to System -> Administration -> Services and uncheck the option for powernowd. This will permanently stop the daemon. You can also run “/etc/init.d/powernowd stop” on Ubuntu and several other distributions to stop the daemon temporarily. (Distributions vary as to how to permanently stop a daemon. In Gentoo, for example, you’d run “rc-update del powernowd default”.)

So, it seems that the chipset on many motherboards (mine is an Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe), or perhaps the processor (mine is an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+), is incompatible with power stepping. The same advice applies to Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) and probably previous releases as well.

8. Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz: 1/5

This is another easy place to start, because Super Monkey Ball is terrible. For your own sanity and wallet, do not even rent this game.

Super Monkey Ball has two game modes. The first is classic Monkey Ball, where you roll your crazy little monkey down a Marble Madness-esque course encased in a balloon. The only challenge is in trying to master the frustrating controls. Level design is boring, frustrating, or both.

They didn’t even make the Wii remote enjoyable to use in such an obvious avenue for motion sensitivity. The controls were fairly responsive, to the point of oversensitivity, but were not customizable. You have to hold the remote pointing toward the television, as opposed to sideways like an NES controller, which would make much more sense to me. It became uncomfortable after only two levels. On top of the discomfort, your wrist is just not designed to make quick movements in the manner they intend, which could even lead to RSI.

So, let’s ignore the first game mode. The second is even worse. Sad, really. It’s a collection of 50 minigames a la Wii Sports or Wii Play, though shorter, not replayable, and less fun in general. In fact, most of the games don’t even behave as the (briefly shown, opaque) instructions claim. Several don’t work at all. I can only remember two or three of the 50 minigames. My only guess is that the “monkey ball” portion was in development when an executive saw the success of minigame-style Wii titles and insisted on their inclusion. The result is truly painful.

9. Super Smash Bros. Brawl: 4.5/5

Great little fighter. I don’t think Brawl is as expansive as most other reviews say, but there is a lot of content. The main fighting mode is great. There are at least 40 characters and 50 levels, and with the level editor you can make interesting new ones. If you’re new to Super Smash Bros., you might be surprised to find that fights aren’t just melee combat. Levels come alive and present various obstacles throughout the fight. They’re also much larger than in most fighting games and present multiple areas and tiers for variety. Many aspects of the rules of combat can be adjusted to your liking. Some are serious, some for fun, like wearing a flower on your head or breathing fiery curry breath.

On top of standard combat, one of my favorite challenges is the Event mode. There are different events for single player and multiplayer, and there’s a good amount of variety in the goals. One mode involves killing 50 enemies in one loop around the course. Another involves beating all of the original Smash Bros. characters in one round. Another involves beating colored koopa troopas in a certain order. They’re challenging and they offer difficulty levels and trophies to keep you coming back.

There is a single player mode, called Subspace Emissary, but it feels… odd. It’s reminiscent of an old-school platformer with new graphics. Honestly, this is my only complaint about the game, and it’s why I can’t give a perfect 5/5 score. There just isn’t enough unique about this mode to keep my interest. It has its moments - I particularly like the Donkey Kong levels - but there are just as many annoying moments. You can’t pick your characters for a large portion of the mode, and you often get stuck with Pit. Since Pit is a new addition to Brawl, I can understand the reason for this, but he’s also not as polished as the returning characters and tends to annoy.

There are a few other mini-modes, like a coin-shooting game and sticker collection, but they’re not really worth discussing. Feel free to ignore them and enjoy the Brawl and Event modes, which really are classic. Recommended for almost anyone, though I’d strongly advise you play with a friend or three.

10. Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection: 4/5

I love this game. I am a pinball freak, and The Williams Collection has amazing physics and camera control, two key elements to replicating the pinball experience. The only reason I can’t give it a 5 is the fact that you must be a pinball fan to appreciate it, and that if you’re not, the content might seem a bit light. You do have to practice quite a bit to get all of the content out of this title.

There are 10 tables ranging from 1970 to the mid-90’s. They’re all well-selected and offer a lot of challenges to master. Once you complete the standard set of 6 challenges on a table, you open up the “Wizard Challenges” that are significantly harder. These often involve hitting a perfect streak of targets to get the ultimate jackpot of the table. Not to be taken lightly. I’ve only managed to complete all of the wizard challenges on one table, Space Shuttle, but I’m definitely working toward the rest. Completing challenges earns you credits that you can use to play other tables or unlock tables for free play. Highly recommended if you’re a pinball fan, and recommended for anyone to see if you secretly have the bug.

11. Trauma Center: Second Opinion: 4/5

I hope you don’t have an aversion to blood and guts, or you’ll miss out on a fun, original game. You play a surgeon moving up in the world of Creepy Anime City (paraphrased) where everyone acts like a saint except you. You feel the need to leave patients hurting in the OR without being fully treated, or to be rude to your helpful nurse, or to ignore the advice of your elders. Ahh, Japan.

Anyway. The gameplay of Trauma Center is strong. It’s a lot of fun to figure out the different medical challenges, and the controls on the Wii are fantastic. The analog stick on the nunchuck picks your instrument, and the remote serves as your operating hand inside the patient. There’s a puzzle element to figuring out which tools should be used when. If you screw up, you have a bit of a chance to recover through the use of stimulants and supernatural powers (again, it’s Japan), but the difficulty ramps up until you really need to know your tools intimately.

My only nitpick, aside from the bizarre story, is the stage where you’re forced to defuse a bomb. It’s out of place and far more difficult than the stages leading up to it. Recommended unless you have a serious aversion to blood.

12. Wii Play: 3/5

Wii Play is a hit-or-miss minigame collection that you can get for $10 if you buy a remote. ($50 instead of $40, basically.) Since it’s hit-and-miss, I’ll devote the most times to the good bits.

• Good minigames:
  • Shooting Range, i.e. Duck Hunt. I wish they had just called it Duck Hunt and made everyone happy. Classic shooting game, but if you want more, get Link’s Crossbow Training.
  • Laser Hockey. A nice air hockey clone with the addition of paddles you can rotate.
  • Billiards. Simple but fun, if you like shooting pool. You can even impart english. Minor control issues, but not enough to hamper play.
  • Tanks! The best of the bunch. Reminiscent of Combat on the Atari, with the addition of mines and better cannons. Surprisingly addictive.
• Not-so-good minigames:
  • Find Mii. Ugh. I suppose this is the best version of a “find the matching pictures” game I’ve played, but still boring.
  • Table Tennis. Not terrible, but there’s nothing to the game except moving your paddle left and right to hit the ball. No real use of the motion controls in the remote.
  • Pose Mii. Ugh. Painful to play. You have to line up goofy-looking bodies, attached to your Mii’s head, into patterns on the screen. Not much more to be said, aside from Ugh.
  • Fishing. Could have been better. The graphics are cheesy and the fish look like construction paper. The controls aren’t as responsive as they could be.
  • Charge! A silly game where you ride a cow around a track and try to jump obstacles. Fun to watch, but gets old fast.

Recommended only because it’s $10 if you’re getting a remote anyway.

13. Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles: 4/5

If you like rail shooters, this is a great way to bring the genre into your home. Resident Evil is the perfect setting for a shooter like this, and the Wii has the natural choice for control mechanisms. You play through part of the story from the first few Resident Evil games, blasting your way through zombies with the Wii remote. You shake the remote to reload, and you can evade some enemy attacks by performing the right motion when the warning pops up. The controls are good and the weaponry feels just right. You can always go back to levels to improve your rating, and single-player side stories will open up as you progress through the main chapters. Recommended if you’re a fan of shooters or of Resident Evil in general.

14. Wii Built-ins - Everybody Votes, Check Mii Out, Forecast, and News channels: 3/5

These are all free channels that either come with the Wii or are downloadable from the Wii Shop channel. News and Forecast (weather) are actually well-made, and have impressed some of my visitors, but they’d be a bit better if they opened quicker. You only get a brief summary when you select the channel, at which point you have to wait for the full program to load to get the 5-day forecast or world news. Handy to have in the living room if your computer is elsewhere.

Everybody Votes is a simple channel where you can vote on random questions of the day; sort of a democracy of useless trivia. Check Mii Out is a bit more interesting. You can submit the Miis you’ve created to various contests. For example, there have been contests to create Mario, Cleopatra, and opera singer lookalikes. Hey, it’s free, what were you expecting? You could probably skip these and lead a full life.

Next in line: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. These are two of my favorite franchises and I saved them until after I completed Super Mario Galaxy. Once I’ve played through, I’ll let you know my opinion and whether they live up to the legacy.

How about fourteen Wii game reviews?!

1. Super Mario Galaxy: 5/5

This is an easy place to start because the game is delightful. It’s a true spiritual successor to Super Mario 64 and is every bit as fun to play.

The addictive elements are there - quick gameplay, content that’s always fresh, beautiful graphics, and intuitive controls. You can play for 10 minutes and feel a sense of accomplishment by getting a star, or you can play for hours and complete whole worlds.

The controls are intuitive, even in a vast 3d setting, and the levels are forgiving if you misstep. Motion controls are used just enough not to be cumbersome. You point at the screen with the remote to shoot projectiles, and shake the remote to spin Mario like a top, which is now one of the main gameplay mechanics.

The game design is classic Miyamoto. You never repeat the same puzzle twice. Each level feels like a new adventure. Visually, you can see the trend towards a younger audience that started way back with the Yoshi games on SNES , but it’s almost endearing. Plus, if you really don’t like the children’s stories, they’re entirely optional. You still get a great game. Highly recommended if you’ve ever liked a Mario title.

2. Warioware: Smooth Moves: 4/5

Reviews of Warioware have been polarized. Metacritic shows generally favorable reviews, but scores range from 56 to 100 and user reviews average 6.5. I assume this is because of the nature of the game - a sort of extreme version of the minigame trend we see with many Wii games.

Personally, I like minigames, whether standalone or baked into full games. They give you an opportunity to try different things at a rapid pace. Warioware takes this to the extreme with just about the shortest games imaginable - 3 to 5 seconds on average. It gives you just enough time to get a sense of what’s going on, then you immediately have to solve the puzzle by moving the remote in whatever seems like the correct way. There are so many microgames that they built a full game on 3-5 second experiences. Sure, it won’t last you as long as Super Mario Galaxy, but it’s the type of game you can return to many times because you definitely won’t remember all of the challenges.

The games are based on a set of controller styles, such as “The Elephant,” which involves you holding the remote straight out from your nose like a trunk, or “The Waiter,” where you balance the remote flat on the palm of your hand. You have to change styles very quickly between microgames , particularly near the end of the game where you’re only given a second or two to change posture. This keeps the energy high and keeps the strange looks coming.

The game was challenging enough to stay interesting for the 3-4 hours it took to beat. (This does not include any time going back and replaying the games.) For the most part, the controls worked as expected, though there were one or two games (out of around 100) that I couldn’t figure out. Recommended if you like minigames and have a sense of humor.

3. Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis: 2/5

I’ve been a table tennis fan my entire life. Whether you’re a fan or not, this game disappoints. For the newcomer, it’s overly complex and doesn’t offer enough introductory content to get you interested. For the veteran, the controls seem awkward and arbitrary, which makes the game frustrating and, ultimately, boring.

There is a short series of tutorials that teaches you the basics of play. However, the controls and the ball mechanics seem like they were designed by different people. The ball mechanics, by which I mean the way the game simulates ball motion, are complex and fairly accurate. The controls, on the other hand, feel mushy and inaccurate. I just couldn’t get the game to perform the moves I wanted. When I contort my arm to make the ball hit the back left corner of the table, while holding several buttons to impart the proper spin, it would just drop flat on the wrong side of the table. Meanwhile, your avatar is blocking your view of the action.

Frustrating. Not recommended unless you really, really like table tennis and are willing to put up with the warts. The tennis game in Wii Sports is more fun and offers better modes of play. Speaking of which…

4. Wii Sports: 4/5

Wii Sports is the pack-in title for the Wii, so anyone with a Wii should have played it and formed their own opinion. My opinion, being a fan of all the sports in the game, is that it’s a perfect complement to the spirit of the system, and that the games are more addictive than many you’d have to shell out real money for.

My personal favorite is Tennis. The controls are amazingly responsive for being so simple. The practice mode is replayable for hours. Each sport has three practice modes of increasing difficulty, and once you get good at Tennis, you can play the third practice mode (hitting the ball to specific targets) for quite a while without stopping.

Golf, Boxing, Baseball, and Bowling are equally fun. Each has simple controls, fun graphics (play with your own Mii!), and lots of replayability. The only reason I’m not giving the game a 5 is that you might be less interested in the game if you’re not interested in these sports. Still, it’s a great title, and one you can play with almost anyone. My game-confused family has proven that.

5. The Godfather: Blackhand Edition: 3/5

The Godfather is a GTA-style open-world game where you complete missions for The Don’s organization and try to move up in the world. The story is recognizable if you’re a fan of the movies. It’s not a rip-off, but rather a side plot that takes slight liberties with the movie canon to fit a new character into the scene.

First, the good: the controls are very good. You use the remote and nunchuck to simulate your mobster’s hands, with which you can punch, grapple, choke, and throw your enemies in old New York. These actions are handled well and feel intuitive and realistic. You probably don’t need a manual to tell you how to choke someone or throw them into the wall. The remote also serves as a pointing device for your many guns, if you choose to enter free-aiming mode. Over time, you build up the repertoire of moves you can perform.

And then, of course, the bad: the storyline does get a bit dull when your mentor, Luca Brasi, dies within the first few minutes of the game. You’re left on your own to figure out the city, and the game does not guide you. Normally in a open-world game this would be fine, but you at least expect side missions to keep the action moving. There are very few. Even when you’re told about upcoming story events you’re left without a clue of how to find them, and when you do, they don’t always work. It can be quite frustrating. After the second occurrence of a missing plot event, I was ready to give up on the game.

It’s worth a rental, at least to check out the motion-sensitive street fighting controls.

6. Link’s Crossbow Training: 4/5

Link’s Crossbow Training is offered as a pack-in game with the Wii Zapper, a piece of plastic that combines your Wii remote and nunchuck into a stylized gun. I would highly recommend skipping the Wii Zapper altogether and picking up a used copy of Link’s Crossbow Training from your local game store for $5 like I did. It doesn’t need the Wii Zapper and actually plays very well with the remote and nunchuck alone.

It’s a simple target shooting game with bits of adventure shooting and boss fighting thrown in. You can earn medals on each of 9 levels by shooting the various Zelda-themed monsters and targets. In some stages, longer hit streaks will multiply your score, so there’s an element of strategy in choosing whether to try hitting every target or to take your time and go for the big points in the center of the targets. In other stages, you need to fire as fast as possible to take down enemies advancing on you from all directions. In others, you use the analog stick to move around a stage and track down enemies hiding on roofs and in buildings.

For $5, you can’t go wrong. Recommended if you like target shooting in any capacity.

7. Madden NFL ‘08: 3/5

I have a long history with Madden games, starting with Madden ‘92 on Sega Genesis, so I was interested to see how they’d handle the jump to the Wii . In some respects it was successful, and I enjoyed playing through some of the new training modes. Overall, though, it was a disappointment to see the many downsides overpower the fun of shaking your Wiimote around to tackle someone.

I’m actually not a big football fan, so football games have to deliver on gameplay to hook me. One of Madden ’08’s new features, a single-player career mode, seems to focus more on a corny life simulator than fun content. You spend more time in a tiny apartment with all of four selectable targets than you do on the field. You actually have to tell the game to advance day by day to get to the next event, whether it’s training, an interview, a draft, or a game. The only options of value are games and the training mini-games, which you can play separately. I’d rather not virtually tear days off a calendar, but thanks anyway, EA.

If you ignore the useless new features, the gameplay is fairly entertaining. You can shake the remote and nunchuck in certain ways to enhance tackles, catch passes, or run past defenders. Doing a Power Tackle in two-player mode by punching your fists forward and shouting is endlessly entertaining. The controls aren’t as intuitive as I’d like, though, and it took some time to adjust to the different play style.

Overall, I think the Wii controls and training modes bring some life back to Madden, and the controls simplify things a bit for new users. You might have to ignore a lot of junk on the way, though. Recommended for die-hard Madden or NFL fans, or as a rental for someone who wants to try out the controls in a sports game with friends.

Stay tuned for Part Two, another seven games, coming soon.