Yes, I'm dedicating a fair amount of blogging time to the Wii Music Defense Force, because I still can't fathom the amount of sheer hatred for this game. Even Jeremy parish's kind words hasn't limited the damage.

Nintendo, for their part, keeps releasing videos of the zillions of instruments in action. These range from electric guitar, ukelele, taiko drums, and silly stuff like "the dog suit." There's clarinet, saxophone, piano... it goes on and on.

Interesting, as Rock Band, the most diverse of the modern music games, can only boast 4 instruments.

I'm used to giving reasoned appeals here, but my patience is running out for that. Someone I talked to about this recently, someone I'd consider a Nintendo fan of sorts, said this was "Guitar Hero without the fun." Really? Wow, good thing you played the game so you can make such a definitive statement. Oh wait. That's right. You didn't.

At this point you might counter, "well Rob, you haven't played it either." No, I haven't. But my position- let's give it a gosh darn chance, is at least reasonable. Plus, I have musical expertise that most people lack. I've always seen the genuis in this product, which at the very least leverages the Wii controls well by not requiring you to buy tons of extra peripherals.

One thing's for sure: When it's released on October 20th, we'll know if Nintendo really does have a strangle hold on the casual market. Because this product is probably not selling to any hardcore gamer outside of extreme Nintendo partisans, and of course smart people who don't follow idiotic internet driven fanboy trends.