Wii football: more Gary Neville than Lionel Messi

I really am a doomed prophet. Little over a week ago did I big up the World Cup, banging on about how it was competing with Mario - my first summer love, circa 2010 - that Argentina and Brazil, in particular, were brilliant to watch. Well, sadly, the gold has since turned to shit. Argentina have gone. Brazil have gone. The Spanish, with the exception of David Villa, are yet to fire.

I need a new football game to compensate for this drop in quality, but I've recently sold my Xbox and am hardly the biggest fan of the Wii's PES and FIFA offerings. Too slow and tactical for me, they play like RTS titles rather than the sports simulations that I pine for. And that's leaving aside the cold, hard fact that the graphics are more 'Gary Neville' than their Xbox/PS3 'Messi' counterparts.

So no football games for me for the time being then. Given the extent of my previous sports-games addictions, I should greet this as a plus. I won't though. My PES/FIFA adulation is too far gone for that.

Mario or football?

I was only joshing when I declared that, with Super Mario Galaxy 2 on the horizon, the World Cup meant nothing to me. Because it does: I like following my team, the troughs and peaks of a season; I like the hysterical reactions to our national side, however tragic the final diagnosis might be. And the World Cup is almost as rare an event as a new Mario game anyway. I should savour it. But there's one problem. I'm all about the aesthetics me, so when something fails to entertain, I'm ruthlessly disloyal.

The first round of this World Cup was especially hopeless. Negative tactics, star players failing to ignite; all capped off, of course, by a painfully mediocre first turn-out from England. It was pretty tirgid stuff. Meanwhile Mario had grabbed me by the coat-tails. He wouldn't let go, the bastard. Controlling Yoshi, rendered in 3D properly for the first time, was wonderful; the levels were packed with new ideas; and the music was suitably foot-tapping - witness Puzzle Plank Galaxy if you don't believe me. It was perfection. I wasn't ashamed to shout my love from the rooftops. Well, kinda: Mario-love at 23 years of age isn't the coolest thing in the world. Anyway, two weeks ago Mario was giving the World Cup a right kicking.

Thankfully, though, its entertainment value has since picked up. Even England vs. Germany had a sort of sadistic joy: the first goal, in particular, was one in a million. An assist direct from the 'keeper - laughable. Terrible and wretched too, of course, but that's the obvious, all-too easy reaction. It's always better to laugh than cry.

So thanks to England's shameful exit, Brazil's continuing improvement, and Argentina's resurgence under Maradona, the World Cup is back in my good books. But it's still no match for Mario.

Mario Ga Ga

I have a reason to be cheerful this summer thanks to the release of Super Mario Galaxy 2. Forget football, that game will be my everything mid-June. But there's one problem. I have a Xbox, not a Wii. I would have to repurchase a Wii to get my hands on Mario Galaxy 2. I have never repurchased a console. This is a big issue. And it makes me wonder: why has it come to this? Why am I so ready to ditch the Xbox after only a year, to return to a console that I've lost faith in once already?

My pondering begins with my present issue: my birthday is just around the corner and yet I'm eyeing up zero, zilch, nothing. This is strange. No matter the year, I'm always able to pencil in a specific game for birthdays and holidays. Sometimes it's a new release, sometimes it's a game that's passed under my radar.

Here at the start of the new decade, though, I have squat. For all of its rave reviews, Bioshock 2 still seems an unnecessary sequel, while Mass Effect 2 sounds like it would suck 50 hours-plus out of my life. And 30 hours is my limit. I had pencilled in Red Dead Redemption but that's sadly been pushed back.

My current console lacks originality. FPS, FPS, FPS. I like shooting and the old ultra-violence as much as the next man, but not in every single title. I have other issues too with the 360, those which many modern gamers may disagree with. Gamer scores and achievements and avatars eh? They add nothing to the gameplay. And downloadable content? That's just a cynical ploy to make you pay for material which should have been included in the original product.

Anyway, I'm feeling all cynical now, so I'm going to finish on a lighter note.

Summer day, June 2010. Postman approaches front door with a slim, rectangular box in his hand. I'm like a dog, buzzing around in the hallway, waiting for him to poke it through the letterbox. The box is squeezed through and then hits the floor. Before I rip it open with my bare hands, I know what it has to be. Super Mario Galaxy 2. The finest example of my favourite genre, made by the best developer in the world. I feel like a kid again.