Got home to find they’d left the security tag in it. Took about twenty minutes to get the box open and the disc out. They’re very well designed, those tags. Started up the Wii, only to find the hand cursor wouldn’t appear. After some fiddling I found the problem – my lovely cat had bitten through the cable. Oh yay. Got a couple of night lights set up in front of the TV and managed to get enough of a signal from them to start the game. Then it was just a question of turning on my Wavebird controller which is, thankfully, fully supported once you’re into the game. Pity you can’t control the Wii menu with one.

Played a lot on Friday night, then – once more using the night light trick – on Saturday. I must have played it a lot, because I unlocked something for playing for over ten hours at some point on Saturday afternoon.

Verdict? Well, it’s certainly addictive. Hours disappear like minutes when you play. There’s tons of great stuff to unlock – characters, trophies, stickers, music. etc. There’s an awful lot to it. A huge one player game mode that I’m still only half-way through. Lots of events and mini games. A “Classic” mode I’ve not even looked at yet. The normal multiplayer game, that is great fun to play in single player against AI. And a slowdown-ridden buy playable online mode. Then there’s the extra bits – arrange your trophies, use coins to get new trophies and stickers in a shooting mini-game, a stage builder and probably more I’m forgetting.

It’s a massive package and for the price you can get it for now, it’s a complete bargain.

Started as Yoshi because I remember liking him. Ran through the Classic single player mode on Very Easy, which lived up to its name once I’d remembered how to control the game.

Tried the Home Run mini-game, but only got 42 feet. Which is a bit less than my record of 1,539 feet. No idea how that game works any more.

Noticed I didn’t seem to have the Marth trophy yet, so leapt in and did Classic mode with him… and then unlocked a new character, Roy, at the end of it!

That was unexpectedly productive. Cool.

It’s great fun, too. Well worth digging out from the back of the games cupboard.