eight bit childhood

New Site

2008-01-12T10:53:00.001-05:00

Woo! the new site is mostly up, and kind of running. You can check it out at 8bitchildhood.com However, the current url eightbitchildhood.com will also be pointed over in that direction also as soon as i clean up some things.

thanks for reading, and i'll see you on the new server!

I Don't Have The Heart To Tell Them

2008-01-09T22:08:00.001-05:00

*sigh* Sony. I have discussed already how the PSP is moving away from its portable state. Well maybe someone over at Sony read what I wrote (doubt it) because at CES just a few ays ago Sony announced a whole bunch of quite portable peripherals for their PSP. One of them being... a full keyboard. OK. Now hold on. A full keyboard? Are that many people struggling to type things on their PSP? I certainly was not aware of this problem. So now my portable gaming console has a freakin keyboard attached... ok.

They also announced GPS. I can actually see how this could come in handy. I know people who keep their PSP's in their cars and have little stands built for them on the dash board for convenient movie watching. So having GPS for those 12 people out there is probably really nice.

The biggest announcement is that Skype is coming to the PSP. Ok. I have a HUGE issue with this. Not because I have anything against Skype or Skyping or one device that does a whole bunch of stuff. But the PlayStation brand is so powerful, and means so much to video games that it deserves to be in the forefront. Make games for the PSP, don't just tack on new features to an existing platform.

If Sony wanted to make a GPS device that has wifi and a full keyboard that is also a phone, then I'm all for that. Hell add a camera! And pitch it to the correct people. But when you are still pitching it as a gaming system it still has to be able to do that thing best. Gamers don't care about all that extra stuff. They care about VIDEO GAMES. I know that sounds crazy.

I love my DS. And never once in the 2 years that I've had it ever thought "man, I wish I could watch a movie or know my exact location while making a phone call on this machine." Sony needs to really learn who their target market is and tune their products to them. I swear, right now, if the melting baby comes back to sell me a Skype enabled PSP, I will not purchase a single sony product for the rest of my life.

[image from Kotaku]

Looking Ahead And Freezing Over

2008-01-08T01:18:00.000-05:00

Its January 8th. There's been no Big Daddy Show yet this week, and there won't be. Not until my Computer decides to cooperate... or I get a new one. Either way, I'm looking ahead. To the future. To infinity... and possibly even beyond.

I'm looking ahead to the games that are coming out this year, and I'm not going to lie readers, I am not impressed. Sure, there is some gold there. But Nothing that makes me drool. Assassins Creed, Mass Effect, BioShock. Those games made me drool. Yes those were the three biggest games of the year. But the year also contained things that made me want. I wanted Halo, and Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, and Ace Attorney III, and Contra 4, and Mario Galaxy, Orange Box... I had games that made me drool and games that made me want oh so bad.

I don't see too many things on that level just yet. One could argue Metal Gear Solid 4. That will probably be one of the biggest games of the year... But Sony's install base is so low, I cant help but think the success of this game can only be so much... unless Sony drops the price again just before/as this game is released. I don't have a PS3, and though as more games are released Maybe I'll get one soon.

That brings us to Haze. Another PS3 exclusive. Free Radical (the guys that brought you time splitters) have cooked up something spectacular, from the looks of it. But this frequently delayed game neeeds to get a big marketing push as most people I talk too don't know boo about this game. I think it will be a sleeper it for the people who have PS3's before MGS comes out. I have this game preordered at GameStop... i don't even own the system its on.

Everything else is multi platform, GTA, Star Wars Force Unleashed, Devil May Cry. I guess a lot of people are looking foreward to GTA4. I just really don't care. At all. I played through some of GTA 2, 3 and Vice City. But I never really got into them. They're not for me. I'd rather jump on a goomba than beat a hooker with a baseball bat.

I guess I'm excited for Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. But i'm looking forward to christmas... and i see Little Big Planet, and Maybe Mario Kart. Though Nintendo releasing Maro Kart and Super Smash in the same year may actually end the world. Espically if it comes in a year that also contains Duke Nukem Forever AND Too Human, two games that have been in development for 10+ year... well break out the long johns call that chill you feel, thats hell freezing over.

Big Daddy Show: Disappointments of 2007

2008-01-02T10:26:00.000-05:00

This week the Big Daddy presents the top 3 disappointing games of the year. If you've been paying attention to this year in gaming, number one shouldn't be a surprise.

Subscribe to the 5AFilms YouTube channel and get all the updates as quickly as possible.

Big Daddy Show: Christmas Special

2007-12-24T01:03:00.000-05:00

This week the Big Daddy and Altier talk about the joy of Christmas... by being totally alone on the shelf. Also, a little game staring the Duke shows up.

Subscribe to the 5AFilms YouTube channel and get all the updates as quickly as possible.

Firm-worn out

2007-12-20T23:47:00.000-05:00

20. It’s a big number. It was the number of times my old boss went to see Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones in theatres. It was the top speed I was allowed to drive when I first had my learners permit. It was also how many miles-per-hour I was going over the limit, when I got my first ticket…

For PS3 owners, it’s the number of times they’ve had to update their firmware. 20 is a big number. The PS3

is just barely thirteen months old and to have an average of more than one firmware update per month is a little ridiculous. Currently the only month to go with out an update is August, but fear not, there was an update on July 24th and then again on September 4th, so versions 1.90 and 1.92 were only 6 weeks apart; the longest span between updates. The shortest span (1.30 to 1.31) was only 7 days, and that came a month after the system launched.

Sony was averaging 2 updates per month for the first four months of the PS3’s life, begging the questions: Did they not have time to finish their product? Would holding it back past the holiday and releasing in the spring have been that terrible?

Updating firmware that often is risky business. First of all, as a consumer I don’t ever want to know that a product I’m purchasing is so volatile, or incomplete that the white coats at Sony need to kick out support more than once a month. I don’t want to buy something that has potential, something that may work in three or four versions from now.

Looking at the shortest release, was “expanded compatibility of PSOne games” so important that version 1.31 needed to come out 7 days after 1.30. They couldn’t wait a week on “USB compatibility” and combine the two versions?

Looking over the list of updates at Wikipedia more than half the items on that list should have come standard and not several months after launch in a firmware update, scratch that, in a dozen firmware updates.

One Word Review: Phantom Hourglass

2007-12-18T11:48:00.001-05:00

Touchalicious

Big Daddy Show: Companion Cubed

2007-12-16T20:16:00.000-05:00

This week the Big Daddy talks with the weighted companion cube and Altier. They discuss life, love and dictionaries.

Subscribe to the 5AFilms YouTube channel and get all the updates as quickly as possible.

Big Daddy Show: Video Game Awards

2007-12-10T00:39:00.000-05:00

The only show on the bookshelf indeed. In this first episode of the Big Daddy Show our good host discusses advertising and the VGA's. Altier shows up and contributes a whole bunch too... Just don't ask him about the Video Game Awards.

Sub scribe to the 5AFilms YouTube channel and get all the updates as quickly as possible.

Cornering The Market - Lawyers

2007-11-19T23:49:00.000-05:00

Capcom. Known for reissuing Street Fighter 2 every time there is a new platform. I suspect it will be coming on my iPhone soon as well. But aside from that Capcom has been busy cornering a market that other companies have yet to even acknowledge.

That of the Lawyer Enthusiast. For years Capcom has been making games in the Ace Attorney franchise on the GBA in Japan. Seeing how they are wildly popular on that side of the world, they ported them on to a DS cart and have issued them here; one a year for the past 3 years. The fourth installment (and first true DS version) comes States side early this year.

The Ace Attorney series is fantastic but it was the only game in town for wannabe lawyers... until now! Capcom is releasing another lawyer game, this one geared towards the casual market. Yes, you read that correctly. A game, where you play as a lawyer, geared towards the casual market.

You're face just probably exploded.

On January 9th, Capcom is releasing Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. You play as Mr. Birdman, and go through trials, present evidence with the ultimate goal of winning the day. The game play and menu options are very similar to that of Ace Attorney and it's something thats going to be sweet to have on an actual console. All that aside, I think we need to divulge deeper into the Capcom mindset.

They release a game that does well in Japan. They bring it to America. People really like being able to be a lawyer and buy millions of copies and then DON'T sell them back to GameStop making them really hard to find. They think "hmm people like this, i bet if we made it less of a simulator and more of arcade style more people would like it." And then they release two competing products in the same niche market.

They lawyer obsession in America runs rampant. Countless television shows and movies about lawyers and law firms. Dramas (Law and Order... law is in the title!) and comedies (Boston Legal), Americans don't just take their law one way - we mix it up. And i think thats what Capcom is trying to do here. Corner a market where rampant DS owning wannabe lawyers can have a release from the world. And now depending on their mood they have different flavors to choose from.

It makes me wonder if the lawyer game space will become as crowded as the racing one. I mean you have Ace Attorney as your 'simulator' game, with Harvey Birdman as the more 'arcade style' one... filling the Need For Speed type game play. This is the kind of game you see in the discount bin for 3 bucks because they crank them out every year. You need that arcade style game to hold you over between releases of simulators. (Much like I played two years worth of Need For Speed while waiting for Forza 2 to come out... arguably the best racing sim EVER.)

Oh man speaking of racing sims, imagine taking your lawyering on line for head to head courtroom battles! I'm going to let that resinate so it seeps in deep. (pause....)

Yeah, how'd that feel? You're face probably exploded again. With that stroke of genius i leave you alone. But when lawyer games hit the main stream and you're playing online against some ace attorney in Sweden on Xbox Live or PSN, don't you forget that you heard it here first.

Happy Birthday Live

2007-11-15T20:17:00.000-05:00

Today Xbox Live is 5 years young. Because you only turn 5 once, i'm going to go off on a tangent about the dark ages of Xbox LIve. Put the children to bed, this is going to be terrifying.

Once upon a time there was a giant black box. I had one. Summer of 2003 I signed myself up for LIVE. Played some Crimson Skies, ok a LOT of Crimson Skies... ok mostly Crimson Skies, and Halo 2. It was awesome.

I actually purchased my Xbox becasue of Live. I had a close friend of mine that was moving to Korea. We played ice hockey together for 6 years and the idea that we could play NHL2K... whatever, wherever we happened to be living sounded like the coolest thing ever. I got so excited by the notion of Live once I heard about it I bought an Xbox the very next day.

So I had LIVE, Paul, my friend, shipped off to Korea with his Xbox Live Starter Kit (remember those) and everything was going to be fin... except he couldn't get on to Live... because it wasn't available there, damn it. The entire reason why I purchased the Xbox and that LIVE card was just canceled out. Oh well, I had this thing now I was going to use it... and I did. Live changed everything that I once thought a console was.

I would have loved that on my SNES back in the day. Playing Zombies Ate My Neighbors or Donkey Kong Country with Bryan who lived down the block, or Joey who lived across town would have been amazing. And though Live was not exactly streamlined in XBox 1, as it is in the 360, you could see that something was there, and it felt good.

Did we think at the time that Microsoft was going to have huge success with Live? I didn't. I was still a Nintendo fanboy at heart, and Sony was still selling tons more consoles. That left no room for Microsoft. They would have had to make a huge overhaul to get their Live service more to the masses... then they did that with the 360. Awesome.

And so ends our tale. Live on the original Xbox is the reason I got a 360. It's a big part of why I turned my attention back to gaming. Thanks Live.

Why EA is Evil

2007-11-14T23:46:00.000-05:00

Many people are down on big companies. It’s easy to hate them because they’re everywhere and they’re bound to do something that bothers you. There is a sliding scale of evil in major corporations, GameStop is on one level because they force you to preorder games or they wont sell you them but Walmart is a whole different kind of evil - kicking out mom and pop shops destroying lives and forcing people to work for terrible wages, which interns forces them to shop at the store they work at… sorry, got a little side tracked. Where was I? Oh yes. EA.

EA is somewhere in the middle. Higher than GameStop, slightly lower than Walmart. You want definitive proof? Of course you do.

Today is Wednesday November 14, 2007. Need for Speed Pro Street is for sale in stores today. Wanna know what else in for sale? Need For Speed Pro Street Downloadable Content on Xbox Live Marketplace. Not just any old DLC, progression enhancing content. 4 bundles – Ultimate Preformance Bundle, Tuner Car Bundle, Sport Car Bundle, Muscle Car Bundle – totaling 2000 MS points; that’s $25.00 in real money. Every single one of these bundles unlocks things you can rightly get by playing through the game.

The bottom of the description of all four DLC packs reads:

“Note: all cars in this bundle can be achieved without purchase by progressing through Career. There are no refunds for this item. For more information, see www.xbox.com/live/accounts.”

So not only do I pay sixty bucks for a game, if I want to unlock the stuff in it, EA expects me to pay 25 dollars more. Or play the game. EA’s response? “We want to give gamers the choice.” Choice is good. And if you truly wanted to give us the choice they would be free and available on the opening menu.

And all this comes the day before Live turns 5 years old. As much as I enjoy what Live has become, sometimes I think back to the simpler days, and yern.

My HL2 Rant

2007-10-25T22:18:00.000-04:00

I love The Orange Box. I do. Truly. I love Portal. I love Team Fortress 2. I think its great that Half Life 2 and its two expansions are available to me for the first time since i never had a PC that was capeable of playing games... and now I don't have a PC at all. So to have the opertunity to get to play (from what i'm told) one of the best shooters ever really excited me.

But here's why i'm pissed off. Loading. Not that i'm pissed of at loading screens, or loading levels or even at the word loading, but it's where said loading takes place. In the middle of the freaken level! And I'm not talking just a slight jump as it loads and pops in the next stuff in a room. That I can deal with, heck, that I can even understand. No. Every few minutes I see an actual loading bar on the bottom of my screen. It's completely unnecessary with the power of the Xbox 360. The thing that makes consoles great, is their standardising of system requirements, unlike PC's where everything is different. Console games know what a system is capeable of the games should respond accordingly. It's as if Valve just dropped HL2 onto their disc without doing anything to it. And, I mean, thats great and all, but to load several times in the middle of the level when i KNOW my system has the ram to load the whole thing, hell, it could probably load two levels at once, the game is in no way graphicly spectaculr because its 3 years old.

Ugh, it just frustrates me that they went out of their way to re-release their game, I'm sure they had to re-tool things for HD, and clean it up, why NOT go back and fix teh damn loading thing too. On an otherwise near perfect box of orange. Oh, also the driving of the air boat sucks ass too... but not as much as the loading.

My Mom Says I'm Special

2007-10-22T23:31:00.000-04:00

Special Editions. What makes an edition special? Does an extra DVD that you probably won't watch make it special? How about a different case, is it more special yet? How about an action figure?

So with the increase of competition and rock solid games coming out, we are seeing an increase in special editions of those games as well. This years big special edition fest kicked off with BioShock. That game wasnt even supposed to have one, but the fans petitioned for it. Now thats special, all by itself. But seriously that one really set the bar high. A very high quality figurene, audio CD, behind the scenes DVD and custom case, designed by a fan.

Then there were the two tiers of Halo Special Edition, a Stranglehold one, that includes an entire film, and lets not forget Assassins Creed, Call of Duty and the massive GTA 4 one that comes complete with working lock box and black duffle bag. These are just off the top of my head.

In the past I have always been one to say a hearty "no" to special editions for 90% of the movies and games i buy, for the simple reason that it's the same core content. It's not adding anything that is important to me. I have the regular edition of Halo2, because I don't care about how they made the game. But once we start talking figures, sign me up. I know it sounds rediculous, but I feel like I'm winning. A lot of the figures and stuff i've seen coming is worth just as much as the game itself. I would have paid 30 for the big daddy, and 30 for Altier from Assassins Creed, but for 20 bucks i get both plus a whole sleuth of other stuff.

Do any of these thigns enhance the gameplay? Nope. Did the developers suceed in selling me stuff that cost them pennies and get money from me they otherwise wouldn't have had? Yup. But for an extra ten bucks, its nice to see more than just some behind the seens nonsence. And with games i'm excited for, like BioShock, its nice to look over at my bookshelf (which isnt filld with too many books) and see my gold colored big dady figure standing between to my Gambit with kicking action and Darth Tater.

Mustache!

2007-10-20T21:50:00.000-04:00

Lets just take a moment and reflect on this glorious moustache.

thank you for your time

One Word Review: Portal

2007-10-19T01:10:00.000-04:00

Thinkchanging

The Wii Is a Party System... My Foot.

2007-10-18T14:43:00.000-04:00

I have successfully converted both of my roomates into X-boxers. The three of us living in my new apartment run the gamet of gaming classifications, from "teh hardcorez" (me), Casual / Wii owner (Matt) to somone who really doesnt play games all that often, aside from his Sega Genesis (Bryan)

In the course of 24 hours Bryan and Matt have signed up for Xbox live, each purchasing Live cards and headsets. Both started by watching me play, and then joining in as guests, with the rest of our friends. My nice 32 inch TV is now cramped with the three of us on one screen playing Halo multi.

This kind of stuff just didnt happen with the Wii that has been in this apartment since launch day. We never huddled around the TV to play Wario Ware, or Rayman. I was here all the time, before I moved in, and the idea of playing games together was something that just never came to pass. Live changes that. Being able to talk to and play with 5 other friends of ours is just like hanging out, except we're spread out across a few states. Bryan admits thats all he really wanted out of it; a feeling of comunity. He's not going to buy any games for the Xbox, or play any that dont include the 8 + of us that get on every night.

So for all the hubub about the Wii being the best party system, and the system for the casuel gamer, that can all go to hell.

Hold The Mayo

2007-10-17T22:43:00.001-04:00

OK, so i don't know if i mentioned this, but
I really loved Viva Pinata. It was my favorite game in the world for 96 hours. All I did was eat sleep and drink Pinata... needless to say i got burnt out quick. I still highly recomend that game, and still have an affinity for it, even though i havent picked it up since those 96 hours ended.

Anyay, I had heard that there were Viva Pinata toys at Burger King... a place i

despise (and have not been to since i located my 3 BK games... i find it amazing where my video game addiction will take me). So after two days of trying to find a not closed Burger King (four near where I work are closed... curious) I finally found one and was able to procure a Horstachio. I desperatly want to find a Fudgehog, as they are my favorite in the game, so I know i'll have to go back to that vile place.

After re-discovering that Burger King puts mayo on there burgers, a substance that I find repulsive, I discovered that this particular Burger King had computers with Internet time you could buy. From my chair I watched a creppy middle aged man, type creepily to a far more attractive woman than he on some dating service website. He typed in a rhythm that was really strange... evey three words or so he would stop. And lean in slightly and read. And lean back and type. Then lean in and read. I couldnt make out the words but in my mind it was well... really creepy.

My insides don't feel good, I think it was the mayo. I'm going to curl up next to Horstachio and read a comic.

Baseball is like Final Fantasy

2007-10-16T22:32:00.000-04:00

It's October. Means two things. My birthday is this month, and its Baseball Playoffs. It also means that no one is watching Hockey, so that kind of sucks, because it is the best sport ever. So while expressing my utter dislike for baseball today while it was on, I came to one crazy realization:

Baseball is like Final Fantasy

Well, thats not exactly true, its just very much like turn based games, FF just happened to pop into my head, it being the largest franchise. I dislike both baseball and turn based combat so they just fit so well to gether. Lets break it down shall we...

The pace is very slow. The pitcher gets a break after each pitch, or turn, to think about what he is going to do next time and the better has the opertunity to counter. A strike would be a hit, for the pitcher, and a ball is like a missed attack. Three hits and the batter is defeated. and thats just turnbased in half an inning. the whole game is really like nine turns to defeat your enemy, with smaller conflicts going on under neath that.

I feel like you could make a customizable card game (CCG to the cool kids) with that framework. Wizards of the Coast shold be on that already.

On the opposite side, I said that Hockey was very much like Zelda, or any action RPG. Where you have to think quicker on your feet and the puck/game is constantly in motion. There's no stopping to determine what attack to do. You just do it. Besides, i rather enjoy linking my favorite gaming franchise with my favorite sport.

One Word Review: Halo 3

2007-10-06T15:52:00.001-04:00

Lastlevely

Untapped Resources

2007-09-23T10:59:00.000-04:00

Have you ever been looking for a game? I mean looking and searching and struggling to find so much that you call every BestEBGameCity on a weekly basis? And then you’re out getting something else Sears and there it is, like a fifteen copies of what you have been trying to find for months.

The February after the 360 launched I couldn’t get my hands on one, part of the problem with living in New York, I suppose. A friend in Virginia told me there were at least six in the Wal-Mart in his town. Anyway, one faithful day me and my former roommate went out to brave the cold determined to find me an Xbox 360. We went into 4 stores before finding one in Virgin Megastore of all places. (for those unfamiliar with Virgin they are mostly known for their extremely large music and movie selection. They have stuff you just cant find anywhere else.) Anyway, certainly not known for their games collection, they were sitting on three core systems. I hesitated, wanting the wireless controller and hard drive. As I said no, my roommate surprised me and purchased it. Then we spent the next TWO full days trying to find a hard drive for the damn thing.

Anyway, Virgin has surprised me by having other games that are sold out everywhere else and even though I know its there and it has a tendency to have what I want, I still forget about it because of its music and movie roots.

So that was long winded to get to where I’m going. I have been looking for Phoenix Wright: Ace Atourney Justice For All for months. I check the GameStop near me just about every day, and I call the rest of the ones in Manhattan far to often, looking for a used copy since I know it’s out of print. I’ve checked the big blue guys, the big red guys, and even a Wal-Mart in Georgia. Nothing.

Last night I stumbled into Virgin while trying to kill some time waiting for a call from former roommate who bought a 360. They had this 10 dollar DVD sale so I thought I’d look around. Like a magnet I was pulled away from the movies into the comfort that is the game section.

Hmm, BioShock demo, Sakte. demo, Forza demo, … oh DS games. At first look it wasn’t a large selection. To standing racks, not very tall. I went around to the other side looking for the letter P. I found L, M, N, O, R… wait. R? No P, no Q. I turned to go, but checked again. And there it was. Six copies. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Justice For All. I re read it. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Justice For All. Yeah that’s it. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Justice For All. Ok, this SO isn’t the first one. I scooped it up and brought it to the counter.

I was so excited I actually played it on the subway on the way back to my apartment last night, something I never do. This was totally worth it.

The Second P Stands For Portable

2007-09-18T23:28:00.000-04:00

You can call me a lot of things. Some say I’m bias against Sony, but it seems every time they try and take one step foreword, they end up taking three or four backwards instead.

This time I’m talking about the new PSP; PSP Slim, or PSP2000 depending on who’s talking about it. Personally, after the year 1999 I don’t think anyone should put the 2000 moniker on anything. It was cool in the 70’s and 80’s, but not so much today.

The biggest problem I have with the new PSP is the video out feature. Video out? On a handheld?

Now, I can almost understand the GBA attachment to the GameCube. If you didn’t have a GBA but still wanted to play Minish Cap or, Super Mario Land I can ALMOST see the point of that. But actually hooking up your portable system to a television? There’s a name for that; and its console.

The PSP was touted as a portable PS2. Even its abbreviation confuses me when I say it sometimes. But once you attach a PSP to a television it no longer becomes a PSP. At that point it’s just a PS. Besides, hooking your PSP, which has a 3.5inch screen up to a 32inch HDTV probably isn’t going to look very good. There’s going to be some major loss of quality there, plus, you’re still using the thing as a controller. The awkwardly flat, single analog sticked PSP is your controller. And let’s be honest, no handheld makes a good controller.

Sony already doesn’t understand how to play with the portable market, including way more things then are necessary into the PSP, when all gamers really want are good games. And not good games that I need to sit and play for hours at a time, like most of their library. Do you think the reason why the new PSP has video out is because people complained about staring at the little screen for so long, so instead of making games that work in short trips (on a bus or subway), it was decided that plugging it into a television was a much better solution.

So I say, why stop at just video out? The PSP has wi-fi. Why not just allow users to connect their PS3 controller to the PSP. That way they can connect their PSP to the television and play games using an actual controller. That’s a genius idea. Wait, what did the second 'p' stand for?

With Out Fail

2007-09-17T01:23:00.000-04:00

Why, why WHY?! Why do game makers do this? Is there some unwritten goddamn rule that says no one can make a game all the way through to completion with out having one extremely shitty and obnoxious mission? Seriously this shit pisses me off.

I am playing BioShock. It is one of the best games I have ever played. It has quickly moved into my top 5 games of all time. That said, I am severely disappointed with the current mission I am in the midst of. I am going to say this slowly, so everyone can read:

I. Hate. Escort. Missions

Was that clear? Do I need to repeat myself? Cause I will if you need me to.

What drives a game designer, especially one who made a rock solid game for - thus far - 12 hours, to attach something weak to you that you need to protect for a certain amount of time and or distance? It’s bullshit. And it turns me right off of a game.

I really enjoyed Command And Conquer on the 360. But I reached a point where I had to escort some people somewhere and just got hung up and never went back. Same thing happened with the Rogue Squadron games on the GameCube. You’d be shooting stuff, and then all of a sudden you have to escort the slowest moving convoy in the history of the world across some desert. That sucks, nobody wants to do that.

Too many games fall victim to this nefarious trap. If I was running a game studio I would place signs on everyone’s computer and in the break room that said NO ESCORT MISSIONS.

Ugh. Back into the breach.

Control Issues; Watching Games

2007-09-16T14:38:00.000-04:00

It is widely known that I have control issues. I like to be in charge of things, and if I’m not, I like to think things won’t work out as well as they could have. I’m totally stroking my ego here, but, when faced with a problem I can usually come up with a fairly logical solution rather quickly. I can think on my feet, probably due to all the puzzle solving I’ve done in Zelda titles.

Why am I telling you all this. Well, there’s a segue coming up so bear with. I am very bad at watching people play video games in a single player context. When I was younger, on the shared Nintendo I may have spoken about, I could never stand to watch my older cousins play through Super Mario Bros, or Punch Out or any game, really, because I would do it differently and it irked me. Once I had my own system things changed and I got to play when I wanted and then I was in the drivers seat, so to speak.

Lately I’ve been playing through BioShock at my new apartment with my new roommates watching. One of them, Matthew, (former writer of one article ever here on this site) has pretty much been with me the entire length of the game and was as shocked and speechless as I was when I reached the twist. Now, since I know how much I hate watching other people game, I thought it spoke very highly of the story, and the story telling of BioShock that someone else could sit down with me for probably 9 of the 12 hours I’ve put into this game so far. The story is so compelling and you really get a sense of the character and all the story elements even if you aren’t the one playing. I still maintain that I could never watch someone else game, because of the control aspect…

And then Matt downloaded the skate. demo (its obnoxious that there is a period at the end of their game, makes it look like the sentence ended, but it didn’t). I have watched him play it for hours. I have no desire to play this game, at all. But I sit and I watch, a lot.

There is something about this game that makes me actually go into the living room now when I hear it starting. I am drawn to the sound. I’m baffled by the amount of time I spend sitting and watching digital skateboarders. Seriously this is crazy. My life as we know it may end on Monday when the full version of the game is picked up. I need to finish BioShock before then or it will never be complete.

Necessary?

2007-09-05T01:35:00.000-04:00

I bought a 20 sided dice this weekend. I was at DragonCon, and it just happened. I think it is something that everyone should own at some point in their life. It kind of solidifies your status in the kingdom of nerd. I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but I have one and that's what's important.

it seems like only yesterday

2007-08-11T14:54:00.000-04:00

man did those past four months fly by... ok, so i havent been here in a while. And i probably should have been updating, but i kept... well... not. It's not my fault though. you see, i've been trying to build a better tomorrow for eight bit childhood. Ok, so maybe trying isnt the word i should use. More like... i was thinking about trying to build a better site, so i kept putting off updating.

And then i was without internet for all of July, so thats totally not my fault. and i had to move... plus my foot hurt. so there's that.

But now, I'm back, and there really is a new site in the works. I promise... seriously. One is coming...soon...ish.

I've been working on kicking out as much content as i can. The new site will be all polished and NextGen-y. maybe i'll call it 16BitChildhood... hmm... or maybe i should just buy that domain, to protect myself from a duplicate site that will get equally as few hits.

Ok, thats all for now, on to building a better tomorrow, by bulding another video game website.

QSIDNFEJNVKUDNER!

2007-04-26T02:32:00.000-04:00

AAHHHHHH! why WHY do some games have to be so frustrating. I am currently playing Alien Hominid HD on my newly recoverd 360. It should be called You Die A Lot And The Bosses Are Cheap As Shit HD. Seriously, some games are hard, and I can respect hard games, the ones that really challange you, but this is just pissing me the fuck off. Mario Hoops does this to me too. Makes me want to break my DS in half. Oh, and last night I spent two hours trying to get the third bottle in Majors Mask... I had to swim through rings underwater. TWO HOURS!

Frustrating games seem to be attracted to me. I would turn off the Alien Hominid but it doesn't save your progress like EVERY OTHER GAME SINCE 1999, so when i quit out i'll have to start over again. I have a feeling if I turn it off I won't ever finish it. And I must complete this game.

I really like this game too. It has fulfilled my need for a modern scroller but it is more than likley that I will be minus one 360 controller in the morning. I really liked Mario Hoops too, and I recomend it to alot of people... its just so frustrating.

ugh... back to russia to get my space ship back.

[update: GameSpot reports a bug that doesn't allow some people to save. woo hoo luckey me.]

And So It Ends

2007-04-25T17:55:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I recieved my Xbox360 in the mail. Well... it actually wasn't my Xbox even though their new policy said it would be. I was sent another Xbox. Presumeably a new one, but more than likley one that Microsoft took in and fixed up. It also had a faceplate on it already so now I have an extra one.

Well I hooked it up today and everything seems to work fine. I am going to try some games that made it freeze last time. But thats the boring part. The unboring part is paperwork that Microsoft sent to me. Three pieces of paper. One telling me how to connect the controller to the Xbox. One telling me that this is a replacement unit. And one thats a survey of my experience with them... oh and one month free of Live. Click the images to get them full size in a new window.

My favorite part of the letter is the fake yellow highlighter that reads "It is our goal to provide you with the best gaming and entertainment experience possible, and hope to regain your trust, satisfaction and loyalty." Priceless. Oh and the back is the same thing in spanish... hence the ghosting.

Kids Today

2007-04-24T23:51:00.000-04:00

I just gave a 7 year old who I don't know a stack of PS1 games that i havent played in close to 10 years. He was so happy he was actually jumping up and down. It's really nice to see kids excited about video games. I noticed (as i was going through them) that the rating on
them were K-A. The old Kids to Adults that was replaced by the E for Everyone. Just some history, and somethin that made me smile.

Oh and I got my 360 back. but more on that tomorrow.

[Editors Note:this has been an adventure in using tables. i am very out of practice. oh, and blogger won't let me get rid of that giant space between the title and my first sentence... grrr]

And So It Begins

2007-04-11T00:05:00.000-04:00

Last week my Xbox 360 decided it didn’t like playing games any more. In fact it decided that it liked freezing a lot more than doing anything else. My 360 actually had a pretty long history of freezing as I know it happened on at least five different games.

Last week was the worst though; freezing three times in two different games in under 20 minutes. It was time. I called Microsoft once before to report it and they cleared out my memory. That didn’t work this time. And so they said it was time to send it to Texas.

Luckily Microsoft has recently changed their return policy for the better so I didn’t pay for shipping and they sent me a fantastic box. A box I received today. It had really nice packing material foam and a bag for my 360 and all sorts of neat stuff. Click the pics for larger view...

It also had these fantastic instructions for everything I had to do. It will go out tomorrow. Off to Texas where someone will open her up and gut her. Poor thing. She’s too young to undergo this alone.

For those of you who haven’t had problems with your 360, good luck. And keep on playing. Unfortunately this seems all too common. Epically when you hear about people being on their seventh Xbox. At least with this new policy I will be getting my Xbox back, and not another unit that may have other problems with it.

[editors note: new way of doing pictures. i hope you like. ]

GAMES : MY LIFE as…

2007-03-25T20:44:00.001-04:00

Ok, so standardized testing. I used to do alright with those types of things back in high school. And I did pretty well on my SAT’s as well. There were other things like not doing any homework that kept my grades pretty solid at the C+/B range.

My younger sister is still in college and had to take some crazy state wide test as part of her teaching degree and I was helping her with some of the math and verbal parts of it, not unlike the SAT. And then I thought, what she really needs is to understand the questions. She needs a game… the analogy game on the DS.

How fantastic would that be. Just a ton of SAT verbal sections on a DS cart where you circle your answers on the bottom screen and then go to next. You could just do it whenever. And all that text and limited input really couldn’t take up much space at all. There are already a sleuth of brain training games, why not “Pass the SAT” games. The math you could do all on the bottom screen, and even have a tab with 4 function calculator. I’m telling you it would be huge, huge I say.

Oh, and the correct answer to the analogy at the top is GAMES : MY LIFE as PICKUP TRUCKS : HICKS … a requirement not an option

They Say It's Your Birthday

2007-03-08T12:16:00.000-05:00

He won't admit it, and he won't log in (because something is worong with his account) to tell you. But Today, its corospondant Matthew's Birthday. So, play the Beatels song Birthday for him today.

Irony

2007-03-07T20:16:00.000-05:00

Last night I posted the article on death. Today, being wednesday, comic books came out. And i got word that Captain America has died. I dont buy it. Captain America dead? Just like Superman right?... right.

Death To Video Games

2007-03-06T23:55:00.000-05:00

Do you see the picture? That is Death holding the only major superhero to ever really die. Captain Marvel.

Death isn’t something we really get to grapple with in the kingdom of nerd. I mean think about it, you die in a game you respawn, or have to play a level over again. Magneto dies in X-men but he’s back in a few months leading another rebellion. Obi-wan died in Star Wars, only to return in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Same goes with TV shows, I mean even Buffy died twice. It seems here in our kingdom nobody really dies. And it’s a pretty sweet deal for those characters.

I’m not going to go into a big shpeal on how our constant encounter with death has desensitized us. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn’t, I can only speak for myself and it’s not particularly interesting.

I do however think that so much killing of our characters we know and love has declifhangered us. I mean with all the killing of the characters we like, only to have them come back next week, or next month really makes you skeptical that actual death in the fantasy realm is impossible. Writers build up on deaths, weeks they tell you, hint to you that terrible things are going to happen. You wait and watch/read and then it happens. Your favorite character dies. Maybe you cry. Maybe it takes a few installments to really set in, but it happened. And you can’t believe it. And just when you’ve moved on they’re back.

The half assed excuse for why they are alive is laid out on the table, and you don’t like it because it sounds stupid, but you accept it because your character is back… be it Colossus (they switched bodies at the last second), Phoenix (the Phoenix never dies it is in her forever), Jack Bauer (faked it to fool the govt.)… Superman even (state of hibernation).

In video games its worse. Though usually with the villains. How many times do we have to fight the same ones over and over? Shouldn’t they have died by now? … its usually the doctors. Dr. Wiley, Dr. Robotnik, Dr. Cortex…

But how much of that can we take? Eventually we all will just immediately begin to expect all characters to return from the dead. I know I am near that point. A character on the best show on television just “died.” But she’s not dead. She’ll be back. I don’t believe all the hype that lead to her death. Just like I didn’t believe it when Hawkeye died… both times.

There is a limit, good sirs and madams, and I have been pushed beyond it.

License To Drive

2007-03-05T16:53:00.001-05:00

I enjoy a variety of different games. Racing Sims, Arcade Racing, First Person Shooters, Third Person Shooters, Real Time Strat, Action Adventure, RPG adventure, Platformers, Side Scrollers… pretty much, if it’s a game, I enjoy it.

The thing with games is they tend to fit into one genre… for example there aren’t too many First Person Shooter/Racing Sims out there. Know what I mean?

The reason for this? If a game designer is going to focus on the game mechanics of a shooter, they spend all their development time and research time and programming time into working on that, which is good because if I’m playing a shooter I want it to me natural and work and make logical sense within the context of this game.

Why is it then, that so many games feel the need to put awkward driving (or flying) aspects into their game at all! Call of Duty 3, Lego Star Wars 2, and even Gears of War have segments where you are driving something in the campaign, when it is clear that things were not properly thought out.

Lego Star Wars is what drove me (ha pun!) to write this. The X-wing and Snowspeeder portions of the game were just terrible. The flight controls were just awful and the misiosn really knew how to take the fun out of the game. What happened?

This happens so often in games. I remember the ending of the first Halo… where you have to drive the Warthog out of the exploding well… Halo. Really, not so fun. It’s a shame when games that are so good get hung up on a segment that doesn’t fit into the game at all and throws off all the controls and strategy we had learned to love previously.

Leave the driving to the racing games please.

What’s the Point(s)?

2007-02-27T15:11:00.000-05:00

I have taken possession of my SNES. Last night I was up until 4 am playing my favorite game Zombies Ate My Neighbors. It’s been probably 7 years since I even touched the system and it worked like a dream. There was something I noticed during the game… something I haven’t seen in a game in a while. Points.

You get points for every victim you save in ZAMN. And sometimes you get points for doing lots of damage, or not shooting bazookas, or for picking up gold. I didn’t really notice when games stopped keeping score. But seeing it now, it’s completely unnecessary. What is the difference how many points I get as long as I beat the game?

Keeping score, and getting the “high score” is something that consoles adopted after their predecessors (arcade games) had it. To me, it makes sense in arcades though. You’re with other people and the machine actually saves the leader board. On your home console, be it an Atari, NES, SNES or any others, you are probably the only person using that machine, and completing the game is all you really care about not weather or not you beat your old score… and lets be honest, as soon as you turn off your machine that score is erased anyway so what’s the… um… point?

I remember being a kid and, knowing that you got 50 points for every box you broke in Super Mario Bros., trying to break as many as I could to get the points. I used to do that with games on the Intelivision as well. I can’t say why points mattered but they did.

I don’t know when exactly it was that the score was left out of games, but I guess that just proves that I don’t miss it. It may have been in the PS1/N64 era of gaming that it was phased out, because I don’t remember it at all on any games on my Xbox or GameCube.

Imagine keeping score during Halo. Each character is worth a certain amount of points, and when they die the numbers float above their heads, like in Mario. A running score would be in the top corner, above your ammo, it would be a little ridiculous… so here’s hoping that’s a new feature in Halo 3.

All and all though, I think the keeping score thing was nice, it transitioned from arcade to home console and now it has gone the way of the well, arcade, oddly enough. It was a good time, and now it’s gone.

New York ComicCon

2007-02-26T22:26:00.001-05:00

(yes, I am friends with the goofy guy in the foreground)

The second annual NY Comic Con was this weekend. Aside from all the fantastic comic stuff that was going there was a fair amount of a video game presence as well. I feel that its my job to present that to you, so here it is.

On the first day I got to play the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game for the Xbox 360 (TMNT to the cool kids). The game was pretty solid. It’s a third person action adventure. I really liked the combat once I learned the controls combos came really naturally. My favorite addition was the ability to switch your character on the fly. So you could go from Raph to Leo with the touch of a button. It changes the game dynamic because each character performs differently and ads a new aspect being able to switch characters in mid air to do combos and help get across long jumps. There was this weird running on the wall part, that I didn’t really understand, and I discovered the biggest problem with this game. The camera sucks. I kept trying to move the camera with the right thumb stick, the way you can on just about every game these days. But the camera did not move. It was locked at the same point the entire time. That kind of bothered me. But this was a demo, so I’m hoping things will get better.

Sony had a huge presence. Giant PS towers could be seen across the convention floor. They had a bank of PSPs, PS2s and PS3s. I have said many times that I didn’t own a PS2. That does not mean I didn’t play a chunk of God of War. I did. And I thought it was pretty good. God of War 2 was there to play, but there were so many people by the Sony booth the whole time it made me want to leave. Sony put its booth right in the front directly between the Marvel and DC booth. That’s some balls right there if you ask me.

I did finally get my hands around a working PS3… not one that was turned off. Got to play me some Motorstorm. I have to say, the load times were pretty terrible. I actually thought the thing froze when I got to my car select. Actual game play though was pretty good. Looked amazing, I should know I was about 4 inches from the TV because the cord on the controller was so short. I still think a lack of rumble is bad news bears… oh and the controller felt light. But all this has been said before. As a game, the game seemed cool.

The largest section dedicated to a single game was for The Darkness Well, I’m sure glad that there was text across the bottom of the screen that said game was still in development because the controls were awful and it didn’t look so good. Reading about this game I was excited. But playing their demo… not so much. First of all, there was a WAY to long video you had to watch before actually playing the game. That’s annoying. I don’t want to watch a video to play a demo. Second, I felt my character kept sticking to the walls. I would get close, and it would just stick on there and the shooting was bad too… yeah, overall, I’d say there’s work that needs to be done.

There was also a HUGE trailer that had 8 Xbox’s and the GRAW 2 multi player hooked up. It was really sweet. In front of that was a the 360 version of Guitar Hero 2. I REALLY wanted to play that but time did not permit. Between the other games and all the events I wanted to go to… oh well.

I did play a game that has the potential to be my favorite game of next year. And that’s saying a lot considering Bioshock is coming out soon and Halo 3 is on its way, and so is Mario Galaxy. What game do you ask? Why Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia of course. If you’ve not heard of this game, well, its actually based off Zombies Ate My Neighbors. It’s a top down everyone on one screen shoot-em-up with all sorts of crazy weapons. There was a multi player demo that was tucked away off to the side that I almost missed completely. I’m glad that I spotted it because the multi player is really fun. The controls took me a round to get used to, but once I got them, it was effortless. So good, I cant wait for this game. Oh and they gave me a knit hat for playing their game… sweet.

The con was also good for all things comics. A HUGE dealer floor and a really nicely set up area for all the events. I went to Kevin Smith question answer, two DC panels and a Marvel panel. I must say I got a lot in for only going for two half days. Manhattanites who have interest in all things nerd should have been there. I can only hope that as the NY ComicCon grows so will the video game presence.

[Editors Note: I put the games I played in bold, not only to gloat, but also so they can be quickly refrenced. I don't know if I will ever do this again...]

Wii Would Rather Not Play

2007-02-23T01:39:00.000-05:00

So yeah...wii play... more like wii would rather not play.

The best thing I got from it was the wiimote. I don’t mind the price tag because I just took into account that I’m pretty much paying for the wiimote and getting a game on the side...when it should be the other way around. This game should be built into the wii console as one of the channels, not a separate game... and certainly not in place of Wii Sports.

The game shows how amazing the controller is and shows you some of the things you can do with it. But really it's like making a game out of teaching a kid to wash his face and charging for it.

I think its a good game to play when you first get the wii but, again, it shouldn't replace wii sports as a packed in game and it should just be a channel on the wii, like a tutorial channel. The games are cute and fun but I just got mad when I went through everything in no lie 10 minutes and went...THATS IT!?!?!?

Oh no that’s not it I can keep playing to get a better score....OOOOOO fuck that...this isn't texttwist!

The shooting game is fun but its the same thing every time...the find your Mii game is fun and cute and is pretty good...the ping pong game isn't ping pong all you're doing is having a volley "see how many times you can hit and back and forth" lame...tanks is fun...pool is decent but pool sucks as a not-in-real-life game.

There is a two player mode… it is alright but again gets boring really quickly.

I would have liked it if it was a channel built into the Wii but since they sold it as an external game...its like...no

That’s it that’s all I got. I played it for 20 minutes the day I got it and haven't touched it since...and haven't even had the urge to I’ve had more of an urge to play every other game I own over playing Wii Play ever again.

[Editors Note: Correspondent Matthew sent me this. Apparently his log in isn’t working so I am posting it for him… and capitalizing his letters.]

Rest In Cubes

2007-02-23T01:16:00.000-05:00

It’s a sad day. This is the day the GameCube died. Nintendo has just sent word over the wire that they will no longer be making them.

You could say it was the GameCube that got me back into gaming. I was no stranger to the consoles, oh no. I had an Intellivision, a Nintendo, a Super Nintendo and a PS1… looking at it that way I didn’t actually miss a generation of consoles. But the PS1 didn't get used that often, plus I was in high school, and I got distracted, pulled away from games. I felt like I skipped that generation though (especially since my friends now all had N64’s and I have never played it).

I picked up a GameCube after I somehow found out there was a new Zelda title. I knew nothing about it. But anything with the Zelda brand always had my attention. Toys R Us was running a special where you got Wind Waker free with the Cube. I couldn’t say no. This was 2002(?) maybe 2003. Either way, picking up a controller again felt so good.

Zelda had me for several months. It was everything I remember a video game could be. It was nothing like the PlayStation previously in my possession. The GameCube really showed me how much fun video games could be. Like a junky clean for a few years that little Cube was just a gateway for harder stuff... I soon owned an Xbox and felt good. They complimented each other so well.

I now consider myself a gamer, and I would not have if it weren’t for the GameCube. Thank you GameCube. You changed my life.

Fickle... like pickel... kind of.

2007-02-22T22:53:00.000-05:00

Games are a fickle medium. I mean, they are the kind of entertainment that takes the longest to get through, and you (kind of) have some influence in the outcome of the story unlike a movie or book. And I find myself in certain moods that make me want to watch certain movies, (or TV shows) and sometimes certain games... but games can take SO long to get through. If I’m in the mood for some Zelda Ocarina of Time, then I’ve got to be in the mood for the next 40+ hours.

Even still I find myself wanting for certain games. Currently its Zombies Ate My Neighbors... Yeah, that was a great game, my all time favorite, I have decided. I am retrieving my Super Nintendo this weekend from my parents’ house, it has been unused for far too long.

Actually the news that Zombies was up for ESRB rating (and soon to be on the VC) is what reminded me that my SNES is sitting collecting dust. Hmmm dust, a cartridge’s best friend, I really hope mine still works.

Anyway, I have this feeling like I’m not going to play through the whole thing because of the amount of time that game takes… there are like a bagillion levels. I kind of wish more SNES games made their way over to the DS. So I could play them on the go. Then I could plan whole trips around me wanting to be “on the go.” Like, “I have a stack of SNES games for my DS… I should fly somewhere so I’ll have an excuse to play them.

Idea!

2007-02-18T23:42:00.000-05:00

Ever think you have a great idea… and then you realize you don’t. I was playing Mario Kart today and I thought, why haven’t we seen a Mario Fighters game. With all the cast of Hoops and Mario Kart and Strikers, but instead of sports it's a side-by-side fighter. And I thought that would be a great idea… until I remembered that that already exists and its called Super Smash Brothers. I’m an idiot.

I did also think, in that same thought before I came to my senses, that a Detective Mario game would also be fun. (Why not give this little guy another profession?) And it would take all your knowledge of the Mario Verse to figure out who done it. You’d have the usual suspects, Wario, Waluigi, Bowser, Baby Bowser, Donkey Kong, Big Boo, Koopa’s, Shy Guys, all to question. I think this would be awesome on the DS. Espically if it was kind of like Hotel Dusk where you could choose to interupt people if you wanted, or you could just let them talk. It would let you explore rooms more with the touch screen… but I guess the Wii would work the same way.

I dunno, it sounds good to me.

Uptate 11 And How I Learned To Hate The Word Beta

2007-02-05T14:42:00.000-05:00

I have reached the winter of my refreshing. At 1:33 it told me that registration was now open. I clicked on, to find instructions and no links. I quickly signed myself into Xbox.com with my Passport ID as it said in the instructions. But i couldnt help but feel that that was wrong. It took me 5 minutes to discover that Safari had cursed me with BLACK text on a black background... Checking firefox showed me bright blue text. But it was already too late. The beta had been locked out. I have been getting a "busy" signal from the server for almost half an hour... that tells me no dice... fuck.

The above was briefly just another update in the long string from the previous Halo 3 beta post. But this warrents its own venue. Beta registraiton is over and I have come out of this a tired broken man. It's true I did not sleep. But i chose that. People are complaining that things are getting in the way of their video game registration... things shuold, LIFE should. I'm just a little upset with Bingie's giving us this great opertunity and told us everything we have to do, and for three days we have to play a total of 3 hours and all that, and then they don't give us the time for when registration is? I sat staing at my computer, the same flash animation for over 13 hours. When it changed, i at first didn't notice, and then immediately realized that something was not the same as it has been.

To then make us click through two pages to try and get to the registraiton is also a little obsurd. I say this becasue their Link that im sure on all Windows OS was in bright blue, on my Mac was not blue. No sir. It was Black, on a black background. Not knowing there was a link i logged into Xbox.com using my passport account. But it was too late for me. I hope they count how many times my ISP number hit their server. I hope I rang in more than anyone else from 12:00AM EST to 1:33PM. Well that certainly was a learning experience. I would love to go take a nap but i've gotten myself involved in Sneak King and i cant cut myself off... [end rant]

Halo 3 Beta...

2007-02-05T00:35:00.000-05:00

It's widely known that Halo 3 is coming by the end of this year. It is fairly widely known that there are three chances to get into the Halo 3 Live Multiplayer Beta.

Back in forever ago (January) there was an online registration to get into the Live Beta. Requiring only that you own a 360 with hard drive, a Live Gold account and an email address. An unknown number of email addresses were randomly selected out of all that submitted.

Now, this month there is something called "The Rule of Three." The rules read:

It is a two-step process:

1. Participate in at least three hours of Halo 2 multiplayer sessions on your Xbox 360 console via Xbox Live during the three (3) day period beginning February 1st at 12:01 am EST and ending February 3rd at 11:59 pm EST.

2. After the three day window is over, head back over to www.halo3.com on February 5th and register.

It goes on to say that the First 13,333 people to register on February 5th (today!) are in. As you can see the game rules that were posted at Halo3.com state all times for participation in Eastern Standard Time. A time zone I am particularly fond of because that is where I live. I, therefore, assumed that I would be able to register now, today, as February 5th reached my time zone... how silly of me.

At 11:59 I headed over and started refreshing. At 12:15am i decided to stop wearing out my mouse. The page has not changed. It just keeps telling me the same thing and clearly does not want to know my registration information yet. Perhaps it will start on Central Time...

Of course if you missed out there you can buy the beta in stores later this month with free copy of Crackdown for 60 bucks.

[Update 1: It is now 1:03AM Eastern Time. The page has not changed. The page contains a small flash animation that turns into the 3 logo that we know and love. I dont think they meant February 5th Central Time. My theory is this:

Bungie is located in California if my memory serves me correctly. I will bet that their site will not be updated until Midnight (or 12:01 more likely since that’s when were able to start playing) but Pacific Standard Time. A time-zone not mentioned at all on their site. This forces me and my Eastern Standard brethren to stay up until past 3AM (fittingly enough) to register. I will be here dear readers updating every hour.]

[Update 2: It's 2:06am and there is nothing... to report. sigh. Oh, and the DVD I’m watching keeps skipping, to make the whole process even more annoying. I have been refreshing every few minutes though, just to keep things interesting... nothing. I am in hopes that I didn't miss it so quickly as it posted... coming up on the 3AM hour my last hope. ]

[Update 3: It’s 3:05. Damn it. The site is unchanged. How long do I have to wait! Give me a timer or something. I do notice the page loads a LOT quicker than it did 3 hours ago. Perhaps they increased the bandwith? is that even possible? If it is, then they are expecting a flood of data coming in. I have a second browser open... just incase i'm missing something. I'll see you next hour. See-ya space cowboy.]

[Update 4: The rumor on this place I go to is that they are waiting until 3:33AM to update their site with the registration information. I sure hope they're talking 3:33 EST... otherwise i'll be with you folks all night and selecting another DVD.]

[Update 5: 3:40 and nothing. Crap. The next major benchmark time is 3:33 pacific time... guess I don't get to sleep tonight.

[Update 6: It's 4:55. I should have titled this "I spent the night with the Halo 3 beta... website" ]

[Update 7: 6:43AM. For those that do math that means its 3:43AM on the left coast. Past what I assumed was the next possible target time. I have never refreshed a page so many times... I fear I am going to break the apple and R keys on my keyboard. People seem pissed at that place I go... rightly so. Many, like myself, have been looking at the same screen for nearing 7 hours.]

[Update 8: Dear Bungie. When you are making one of the most anticipated games of all time you have to GIVE PEOPLE INFORMATION. It's almost 8am. The sun is up now. Nothing has changed on the site. No place to register. ]

[Update 9: Captains Log, Supplemental... 10:33am. I'm hungry. I've watched 2 movies, and 3 episodes of a TV show... i am currently playing Sneak King and i've never wanted a Burger King Breakfast more in my entire life. Oh, and there is no change on the Halo3.com front. I wish I was counting the number of times I have refreshed, it is certainly in the hundreds.]

[Update 10: It is now 1:03PM 12 hours ago i did my first update... still the Halo3.com site has not been changed for the addition of registration. I am on no sleep. I wonder how long they will make people wait in anticipation? Should I even bother guessing that the update may come at 3:33PM EST? Is that even worth bloging?

General Fandom Musings

2007-01-29T00:29:00.000-05:00

I have a paper due in...oh, about ten hours. But I thought "What is more important? A blog or a paper?" And my answer was obviously very clear. Not to mention the huge guilt complex being cultivated by a certain person who shall remain unnamed....

During the Christmas holidays, I fell in love. With a TV show. Buffy the Vampire Slayer to be precise. I always thought that if I ever watched it, I would hate it. It just seemed so cheesy. But I kept getting strong recommendations for it and when I saw the first season for 20 bucks at Wal-Mart, I went ahead and got it. Had to pass the time somehow, right? After I watched the first disc, I was on Amazon ordering the entire series. Less than a month later, I only have two episodes of the series left (and I'm putting off watching them for as long as possible) and I'm halfway through season 2. Again. I'm an addict.

As much as I've loved my entrance into the Buffy fold, I feel like something is missing. I think its being able to watch the episodes back to back. Everyone out there who watched from the beginning is able to connect the episodes with whatever was going on in their life at the moment. And, considering the general age of the Buffy fan, it probably usually coincided pretty closely with what they were experiencing at the time (as far as high school/college goes anyway). And I'll never have that. I just have a month where I dropped everything in order to watch Buffy.

And I'll never have to spend the summer agonizing over who the hell is waltzing around pretending to be Buffy's sister. Or brooding over the death of Angel (so sad...). Because I was able to just pop the next disc in (screw the 9 AM class!) and keep going. There was no anticipation, no agony of waiting. And it did hurt my experience, I think. "The Body" was a trainwreck for me. I was a quivering lump on the couch afterwards. But I was able to just go on to the next episode and let the healing begin. I didn't get to process it. I don't think a lot of it has sunk in just yet: I have vague impressions of what happened in each season (the only way I can really differentiate is by counting the final bosses [and I just turned this into a post relevant to video games] of each season), but nothing has really crystallized for me.

The same thing happened with Firefly. And Queer as Folk. Freaks and Geeks. Beauty and the Beast (ok, I was still a baby when that came on, but still). I find out after the fact, and catch up quickly. Which leaves me where? And all the people who discover the series after me? Somewhere outside the fandom at large. They grew up with these characters. I just met them and received their entire life stories in a single month. It's an odd place to be in.

More Gold Analogies

2007-01-25T23:51:00.000-05:00

I was thinking about what I said yesterday... about the shrinking gold mine. I like to re-read what I post actually in the format of the site. I find more errors that way... sometimes I fix them, sometimes I don't... but that’s neither here nor there.

I wonder if the success of the PS2 is actually what is harming the PS3. Granted, Sony has an arrogance about their console, but even still. Sony and resellers have made so much money selling games and controllers and memory units and the actual system (sometimes 2 or 3 times to a person) that it's not worth it for companies to carry and give priority to the PS3. The Xbox 360 has sold over 10 million worldwide. The PS2 has over 111 million sold worldwide. That’s over 10 times the amount of people that would buy PS2 games et al over Xbox360 stuff. And out of that 111 million how many of them are going to be early PS3 adopters? Obviously not too many.

So my thinking is this. Sony did too good of a job getting third party support and getting their system in the hands of everybody and their mother. They did such a good job that companies don’t even want to make room for their new products. They want to continue to bank on the old ones. And bank they will, until Sony stops sending shipments and cuts off support. One would think that would be sooner than later. But God of War 2 (a game that might have sold some PS3's) is coming to the PS2. Why? Because even the game developers don’t want to make a game for a system that nobody owns. They can sell millions of copies on the PS2, or thousands on the PS3... developers have their own gold, and they're not sharing

Why Shrink A Gold Mine

2007-01-24T04:22:00.000-05:00

I was in Best Buy the other day and wandered into the game section, it’s where I always end up even when I know nothing I want is out. I saw an abundance of 360 titles, and accessories next to all the Xbox1 stuff. A ginormous PS2 section and even a decent GameCube/Wii section. And then I came across the saddest looking section in the whole store. The PS3 section.

Not only where there no PS3’s, there were no peripherals either! (controllers, cables, memory units, third party devices) It was a tiny rack, and it didn’t even have real games on it. They were empty PS2 theft prevention boxes with the cover art printed out on a crappy printer and just slid in there.

The piece of paper on the top right lists the titles available and the price. What’s even better is that there are 11 games on the shelf, and 15 games on the list… so not only did Best Buy put terrible printouts on the shelf, they didn’t even print the cover to all the games in their inventory? Seriously?

I saw a similar but not nearly as sad scene at Circuit City. They at least had the real games out, all of the ones they had, but no PS3 peripherals either. With still no PS3’s showing up in either store I guess they don’t feel the need to shrink their PS2 section. It is still getting new games, and I’ll bet both big box companies sell more PS2 games and accessories then they do for any other system. Why shrink a gold mine, epically to replace that valuable shelf space with games nobody can play because the system cannot be found… although there are reports of them being spotted by the dozen in some stores that is not the case as far as I’ve seen here in New York.

I know Sony has no control over the placement of their products and they certainly can’t force a retailer to purchase peripherals so this isn’t their fault. I know I pick on them a lot but just look at that image… it’s just so sad…

[Editors Note: This totally would have been up yesterday but my internet wouldn’t let me post for some reason… I liked it better when it wrote itself…]

The Faces Of Evil

2007-01-21T03:24:00.000-05:00

I am addicted to Uno on Xbox Live. I am way to into it, living and dying by the turn of every card. The most interesting feature is the use of the Vision camera. It allows me to see the faces of the people who keep skipping and reversing so I don’t get to play a goddamned card. To all you people. I hate you. I am currently 15 and 28, the second best of my friend.

...I need to get out more.

Starting at 8bit

2007-01-18T23:40:00.000-05:00

If you started playing video games at the time of 8bit dominance then you’re somewhere around my age, perhaps a little older. Kids growing up today are starting out with games and graphics we never would have dreamed of in the 8bit hay-day.

The other night I was visiting my cousin who is 6 years old… yes cousin not nephew, there’s a bit of a gap in age in my family… my uncle bought him one of those 50 games in 1 N64 looking controller games. He loves it, and was so excited to show me his new video game.

He loaded up the main screen and showed me this list of games. “Look at all the games I have,” he was so happy. He wanted to play “Spar” with me. It’s a wolf and a pig fist fighting 8bit style. It reminded me of the fighting in Blades of Steel. We then played a game called “Zero Gravity” where you have a parachute head and you have to bash other guys with helicopter heads. I was doing pretty well in that game, though the joystick on the controller is pretty terrible and actually got stuck more than once. Anyway he said to me “Have you played this game? You’re really good.” I had to tell him I’ve been playing video games since long before he was born and I hesitated and decided not to tell him that most games look a lot better than this. Didn’t want to break his heart.

So that got me thinking, when I was six the video games I played were pretty much on the same graphic level as the ones my cousin is playing. I was wowed by everything I saw and used my imagination to fill in the parts that were less wow. Especially in games where there was no real story that I was aware of.

While I think it would be great if he got a DS (I’m working on his mother… but its an up hill battle) playing with 8 bit games builds character and forces you to respect the games that came before today’s. I think the pre requisite for owning any current system is logging 100 hours on any 8 bit system.

Starting at Intellivision and ending at 360 and the build was gradual, so every generation has amazed me. After having thought for so long that there are too many kids today who don’t have the respect for old video games they should, but at the same time, I wonder how many other 6 year olds are starting at 8bit, and working their way up?

Evil

2007-01-12T00:56:00.000-05:00

Ok, so maybe not evil. but i havent been a very good blogger have I. I'm sorry. It might be because we MAY be moving to another site... possibly. One where i can make thing my way, and pre date posts and they can appear on a schedule... but i'm working on it.

Anyway, hopefully somtime this weekend i can write a few thigns, i've had some stuff on my mind, and that should get me started and back to your regularly scheduled program.

Judging A Game By Its Cover

2007-01-09T23:46:00.000-05:00

So here’s the deal. I’ve been looking at cover art recently. Partly because Joystiq has been running a contest where you modify the cover art of Capcom’s new game Lost Planet. Anyway, last night while I was finishing up my own version of the box art I found myself making fun of the box art.

Well, I went through my library of Xbox and Xbox360 boxes… I really wasn’t impressed. Most of them are just a picture of a guy in the foreground making a cool (I use the term loosely) pose and then other stuff receding into the background. Almost as if this is the main characters myspace photo. Box art should be just that art.

The cover as we know it is getting too standardized. Kind of like movie posters and dvd box art of today. Actually… very much like movie posters. Main guy in the front (usually someone like Hugh Jackman) and some scene in the background. My favorite poster (and later box art) is for The Conversation (1974).

Look at it. It’s very pretty, and fits the tone and the story of the movie. You’ve got crosshairs and people walking, a cityscape... the imagry there sets a mood right away and pulls you in. It’s also very nicely designed.

And then there is the Halo 2 cover. And while the Master Chief is looking pretty damn cool, it’s just a guy. And there is no real background. It’s mostly just a red sky. Nothing too grand really, it kind of says epic I guess… or that could be me knowing how it is because the name attached to it means so much to gamers.

I am trying to imagine myself as a neutral party. Looking at all the box art, a pair of Halo’s, Gears of War, even Pocket Bike Racers… even sports titles! I would think that many of these games are the same. Splinter Cell is nothing like Halo, which is nothing like any Rainbow Six title... and certainly none of those are remotly like Pocket Bike Racers which stands in a catagoroy with only Mario Kart.

Looking around myself I notice how poorly these things are designed. What have we been buying all these years? It’s the same covers over and over. I get comfort as I glance down at my Conversation box, knowing that there is hope out there. Seriously, I’m not sure what is worse though. Box art that’s all the same or box art that shows off graphics that are nowhere to be found inside the box are running rampant in this industry. It’s time for indy games It’s time for indy games to step up.

Indigo Prophecy had a sweet looking cover it made me really want to know more about the game and even drove me to their website. And honestly, I’ll say that I actually didn’t ever play Indigo Prophecy but that cover stayed with me, so that might be an even bigger compliment.

Don’t worry dear readers when I design the box art for Santa Takes Manhattan I’ll be sure to make it as innovative as the game play… or at least I’ll promise that it wont look like a movie poster in which The Rock is the star.

Oh, and if you’re curious (and I know you are) below is my take on the Lost Planet contest. It didn’t win. But it should have… it should have…

[Editors Note: Is it selfish of me to make the image I created the largest in the post? Yes. Yes it is]

Miniscule

2007-01-03T19:42:00.001-05:00

Mini games are sooo in right now. Wii Sports, Assault Heroes, Rayman, Wario Ware coming soon... on top of that the best selling system (the DS) has loads of mini game carts. I’m thinking there are two reasons for this.

1) ADD. No, not with numbers… A.D.D… Which can probably be attributed to Sesame Street. People are getting shorter attention spans for many reasons. One of which is the content they watch when they are kids. Sesame Street is programming that is constantly bombarding kids with stuff all the time. And I think that may have a part of it.

So these people who were being bombarded as children have aged a little. Now they need to get a healthy dose of ever changing game-ness. And mini games are there to fill that void.

No need to dwell on long term stories or spend hours in a dungeon trying to navigate your way around to finding the boss. Just pick up the controller and change your mind every few minutes.

2) Time. Old people just don’t have the time to invest 20 or 40 hours into a title. With kids, and spouses and careers… ok, so they’re not old necessarily, but they are busy. And yet the game makers have responded by producing quick games that you can pop in with no real commitment. Because another string tying you down may not be something you want do deal with, and the thought of being fragged by some 12 year old might be more than your ego can stand.

The DS has kind of capitalized on grabbing the every day on the go person and pulling them into gaming. And if that every-day-on-the-go person has ADD… well that’s even better, because they probably want some entertainment while they are on the train, or in an elevator, or not doing their work

There are the Brain games of course… Brain Age being the big one as well as loads of other games like Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2. Where there is an outer lying story, but it’s broken up into tiny pieces and you can do a piece then stop and get back to your real life.

The GameCube kind of fell into a party situation at the end of its lifespan. Mario Party, Donkey Konga, and games of the like were pretty successful in my humble opinion. Well I guess it wasn’t just my opinion since the Xbox Live Arcade is just that… a bunch of small games that could probably be busted out at a party. Why else do they have so many arcade games? Because the arcade was the first place people got together and played videogames.

Now, back to where we started. We are currently in the era of the mini game. And the more outrageous things you can do with the controller the better. Weather you’re playing a guitar like controller, or swinging your arms around over your head the crazier the idea the more fun it is to do with your friends. I think that might be why Dance Dance Revolution is popular. Because when you do ridiculous things with your feet to ridiculous music, and everybody wins.

Selective Decisions

2007-01-03T01:14:00.000-05:00

So my roommate just bought himself a 40 inch HDTV hooked up with 5.1 surround sound. He pretty much bought it to support his Xbox 360 habit since neither of us watch that much television. Along with his recent HDTV purchase he decided it was time to go choose a format for HD movies.

It was pretty much a no brainer for him since he already owns the 360 upgrading to HDDVD only costs 250 dollars, while a Blu-Ray player would cost a thousand… or the purchase of a PS3. So, yeah he went HDDVD. He got King Kong with the player, and had Superman Returns (since it was DVD and HDDVD anyway). We watched both and it was pretty spectacular. Seriously, it was awesome, and this is coming from a guy who is REALLY critical about how bad most stuff looks on DVD over projection in the theatre.

So today I decided to head over to the good old Circuit City to pick up another movie to add to our collection. After finding nothing good there, I moved next door to Virgin Megastore. Their selection was much larger but still only had maybe, maybe 20 titles for each format (Blu-Ray and HDDVD). On HDDVD there was a lot of Waterworld, Four Brothers, Aeon Flux (shudder) and Sky Captain. Nothing I was impressed by at all. But that Blu-Ray camp, chock full of Fantastic Four, and Mission Impossible. You know, the kind of big action movie you want from HD.

Anyway I was disappointed. I was hoping for something more. Especially after seeing F4… I’ve been in the mood to watch that movie ever since I saw the trailer for the new one. I was angry. I walked 15 minutes to Union Square (where both stores are located) and I was not about to walk back empty handed. I bought Superman II the Richard Donner Cut… I haven’t opened it and I’ll probably return it tomorrow. I don’t even want to see that movie. I just wanted to watch something on HD tonight but now that looks like it’s going to be out of the question.

I have no idea who will win this format war, and I’m going to sit out as long as possible. HD as a format is still getting its bearings and confusing the hell out of consumers and manufacturers, I’m not going to get a player until everyone is squared away.

To be honest I was perfectly happy with DVD until we got this gigantic screen and HD player. I think I may pick up Serenity (delicious) and well… that’s pretty much all I can think of that’s currently out right now that could even possibly look good. Everything else is terrible copies from the DVD. They’re just faking the better resolution. That’s cheap, that’s annoying, and I don’t like it.

Over all, right now, I’d say Blu-Ray has a better lineup of titles. Definitely in the action department. But I don’t think those titles justify the purchase of a thousand dollar player. I don’t think the HDDVD titles justify the purchase of a 500 dollar player. I think the whole thing is going to be pointless because discs are going to be obsolete. We’re going to have media centers soon and we’ll stream everything.

My suggestion is this. If you’re going to get a PS3 anyway, it might be nice to pick up some of your favorite movies on Blu-Ray. Otherwise, if you’re not, just buy yourself a DVD player that will upscale your DVD’s and wait this out. Seriously, it’s not worth it. The titles are crap, and they are just slightly up scaled DVDs.

Episodic

2007-01-02T18:46:00.000-05:00

I dropped the episode thing... 50 seemed like a round number, plus the year has ended so it felt like it was time. You can however keep an eye out for my clever titles, they're not going anywhere.

The Coming Year

2007-01-02T02:39:00.001-05:00

My must play list this year consists of Rainbow Six, Twilight Princess, Halo 3, Phoenix Wright: Justice For All, Super Mario Galaxy, LA Noire, BioShock, GRAW 2, and Forza 2… and that’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure I’m missing something… I just don’t know what.

Also I’d like to play through Gears of War once more. That’s a pretty hefty list… considering its January 1st and there will be other titles (probably on the DS) that I’ll get excited about that I haven’t yet heard of.

I know I’m going to take forever to beat Rainbow Six. I already own it, but want to play it co-op with two other people and schedules seem to clash. I still haven’t played Marvel Ultimate Alliance. I loved X-men Legends (1 and 2) and I know I’m going to love this game, but time does not seem to permit.

Forza 2, GRAW 2 and BioShock come out in March that excites me very much. GRAW 1 took up a lot of my time I’m happy to say, and I know GRAW 2 won’t disappoint. But March seems like forever from now and I am not a patient person when it comes to games.

Phoenix Wright comes out soon. I will most definitely have to pick that up. It’s the only thing that can hold me over until March. Cause I have a sneaking suspicion that Rainbow Six won’t even get started until February. Hmm… maybe I can squeeze in Ultimate Alliance.

Then there’s the matter of me acquiring a Wii. I was very very close to purchasing Twilight Princess on the GameCube. You don’t understand how much not being able to play this game is killing me. Zelda is my franchise of choice. It used to the ring tone on my cell phone, and I have been contemplating a TriForce tattoo for some time. Knowing there is a new Legend of Zelda is on shelves and I don’t own it is painful. I need a Wii… and Nintendo should send me one. (end rant)

Finally Halo, Mario and probably LA Noire (though that might get an 08 release) won’t be out until probably November… so that’s 11 months of waiting. And by that point there’ll be a whole ‘nother list of titles. It’s a vicious cycle.

Interview With Dave Ver Lee

2007-01-01T03:55:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I got a chance to sit down with Dave VerLee from the band Corporeal (of Halo cover fame)and talk about everything from the bands latest album to the current state of video games. We did this using a futuristic technology called AIM... maybe you've heard of it?

Anyway, below is excerpts from that interview and at the bottom is a link to the whole interview. It's pretty interesting stuff (and kinda long so i didnt want it to destroy the front page). Also you'll notice that there is now an "Interview" section on the right hand side of your screen.

I again just want to say thanks to Dave for his time... Ok, here you go:

Eight: So if you will please state your name for the court we will begin the interrogation...er... interview.

Dave: Dave VerLee

Eight: ok, well i just wanted to say wow... I know a lot of people have seen the two Halo theme videos on YouTube and I’m really REALLY impressed.

Eight: you guys have a lot of talent.

Dave: thank you

Eight: so, first you're going to have to kind of explain the story behind the live performance. I had originally read that it was a High School talent show.. but thats not really the case is it?

Dave: No, it was a high school talent show. It just wasn't a competition. Libertyville High School calls it "Collage" because it is a collaboration of the different varieties of talent at our school. The story behind our performance is this: I got my Rolannd GR-33 guitar synth for Christmas our senior year, and playing around with it I found some pretty cool sounds. I am not really a halo fan, but our bassist, Robb Leu, is. We're in a lot of classes together, and eventually we came up with the idea of covering the halo theme. I arranged our piece by, including the Mario bit, and distributed the music to the band plus Hanah and the three blue sophomores. after a couple practices we performed and it was awesome!

Eight: it was most certainly awesome.

Eight: So where along the line did you think "what we need is a violin"?

Dave: Hanah was in my music theory class, and I've known her most of my life. When I think about the theme, I just think "violin solo". So all the puzzle pieces just kinda fit together.

...

Eight: it seems a lot of people really over look audio. Like getting a huge screen TV but not getting speakers and using the tiny ones that are built in.

Dave: yeah. I like using headphones for the "total emersion"

Eight: i c... i haven’t used headphones. But the TV i just got has a headphone port... worth considering

Dave: definitely

...

Eight: On Eight Bit Childhood i have talked about creating a game called Santa Takes Manhattan for online distribution... i have NO programming skills, and don’t even know were to start, BUT in the unlikely event that this game somehow gets started (let alone completed) will Corporeal do the music?

Dave: of course

Eight: that’s the answer i wanted to hear.

Dave: an it will rock

Dave: awesomely

Eight: fantastic.

...

There is more to the interview. You can read it here I took the liberty of fixing most of the grammar and spelling errors from our typing... though admittedly most of them were mine.

Episode 50 - The 2006 List

2006-12-30T23:55:00.000-05:00

I’m just going to throw up a short list… maybe it will be a top 10, maybe it will only be five, I’m just making it up as I go… of games that I enjoyed this year and a brief reason why.

I know you’ve probably seen hundreds of these types of things as of late, but oh well here I go. In no particular order my top whatever:

Sketch Fighter - Mac - Sorry Windows gamers this is a Mac only game. There really aren’t too many of those, well none that are good anyway. This game rocks. It is a hand drawn space shooter. It looks like the kinds of things I drew when I wasn’t paying attention in school. Oh, who am I kidding, it looks like something I draw now when I’m not paying attention to anything. You can download a free trial version or purchase it for 19 dollars. Totally worth it. I read somewhere that they were looking to get LIVE distribution. I’m crossing my fingers.

New Super Mario Bros. - DS - Game that brought me most nostalgia. This is one of the best side scollers since the launch of the N64. Yea that’s right. I said it. This game to me represents everything that a Mario game should be. Fun, Exciting, Adventurous, and full of adjectives hat remind you of being a kid. This game brings me right back to 1990… when Super Mario 3 was released.

Geometry Wars - Xbox Live - Best reason to get a 360. Well… best reason to plug your 360 into the Internet. Seriously downloading this game may have been the best thing I did for my console. This is the single game that opened me up to the idea of downloading games onto my console for casual play. Shapes have never been more devastating to my ego.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2 - DS - Puzzle game of the year. With out a doubt. I love this game. It has great use of the stylus, innovative game play and great replay value. I have played through it twice and it didn’t loose its touch. The levels are short enough that you can take it with you and pop out a few levels wherever you are then come back later. What’s also awesome is the level creator… because you can send the levels you make to your friends over Nintendo Wi-Fi. Now if I only had some friends…

Dead Rising - Xbox 360 - This was the game I anticipated the most for the 360 his year. And I love it. I love slaughtering zombies. It’s true. Matthew (you know the writer that doesn’t write) actually considered getting a 360 after playing this game. It’s that good. The guys over at Capcom thought of just about everything. Different outfits, mostly sandbox style, and of course… using everything as a weapon. Did you ever think you would be able to throw a guitar at a zombie? Me neither, but you can. If you own a 360 this game is defiantly worth getting. If you don’t then this game is worth getting the system.

Gears of War - Xbox 360 - If Halo was combat evolved then Gears of War is combat re-defined. Best looking game of the year, with out a doubt, best game play by far. And it captures my inner man and makes me really want to kill Locusts. It’s a pretty fantastic feeling. I’ve never loved cover so much. Ducking, hiding popping out and then blasting the crap out of something that’s not human makes me feel real good. You should try it sometime. It also has a great multi player, so there’s that as well.

Wii Sports - Wii - Best game to bring home to mom… seriously, your mother will play this game. I don’t actually own a Wii… I know scandalous… but I have played it quite a bit and this game is so much fun to play. And you get to play as yourself so that’s even better.

Mario Hoops - DS - Hardest goddamn game I’ve played in a long time. You know how usually with enough persistence you can get past a certain part of a game? That is NOT the case in Mario Hoops. Unless you get lucky you will not be able to beat the game. Difficulty aside, it was also a lot of fun. Mario Hoops is to Basketball what Maro Kart is for Racing… only the basic fundamentals are there. Everything else has been Mario-ized. There’s even a red turtle shell.

Biggest Let Down: After waiting since 2004 to play Twilight Princess I have no Wii, and the game I was most excited for has moved out of my grasp until I can get a hold of one. :(

So there it is. The games I have enjoyed this year. I guess the winning console this year goes to my DS Lite since it procured 3 of my top titles (and has Mario Kart as an honorable mention). Congratulations DS Lite.

Episode 49 – Sick

2006-12-29T02:20:00.001-05:00

Sick. Not the definition that goes along with rad, cool, gnarly and tubular. I mean being sick. What games do you play when you are sick?

I am sitting in my old bedroom in my parents house after a full day of nausea. Having only played Tetris DS (since there are no systems hooked up here) it got me thinking about good games to play when you’re sick. Trauma Center would be ironic… playing doctor when you’re sick yourself… hilarious.

Ok… that’s all I have. I don’t feel good. Maybe more tomorrow…

[side note: As I post this I’m feeling fine. I actually I forgot that I wrote it and I should have posted it before episode 48… my bad.]

Episode 48 – Escape Artists

2006-12-27T11:12:00.000-05:00

Escaping. It’s what we do. Weather we are street racers in a made up city, or a sword toting hero in a made up world we play games that allow us to escape our world, and be new people that we couldn’t otherwise be. I cant really go back to fight World War II, but I can in a video game.

I think that’s why it seems video game players are also into other fantasy things as well… Not Fantasy, necessarily… just other escapist tendencies. For me I divulge into comic books. To me they go hand in hand. Both allow me to follow fantastic stories that I would otherwise not be privy too. With comic books (rather than actual books) I can follow the character and stories I like knowing that it’s ongoing and wont really end. Just like in a game, things don’t have to necessarily end in a game… you can just keep going (second life, or any MMO really).

I really like the way comics do that. Keep going I mean. Yeah there are different arcs, and certain things and people come and go, but at the end of the day you’ve still got Cyclops, and he’s always the same character you can rely on. And once you really get to know the characters and the history behind most of them they almost become friends of yours. The pictures along with the words really allows you to live the story with them.

I started reading comics in 1994-ish. I dropped off at about ‘99, maybe 2000, and then started back up again in 2004. And you know what, the characters are still the same as when I left them. Sure, other things have happened to change them. Lovers have died, and that might have damaged them, or caused them to change a costume or codename, but at the core, those characters are still the same.

There is consistency in gaming also. There were how many Mega Man games? It’s what makes us go back and replay video games we have already beaten, and what keeps us buying the next game in a franchise.

As people trying to escape our world, be it the monotony of paying the bills or a horrible roommate, we like to know what we’re getting ourselves into. I find myself having a lot of escapist tendencies. Reading comics, playing video games, and pretending a LOT. Probably more than someone my age should. You know, when I go on a job interview I pretend I’m meeting the president… or, I have an important message to deliver… or any one of a thousand things, every day at all times. Mostly though, I like to pretend that I have a million readers…

Memories

2006-12-26T00:09:00.000-05:00

(I blame Kotaku but) Today i was thinking about video games (of course) and the consoles and games i have received in Christmas gift form. In 1992 (i believe) I received an SNES... well my house received an SNES. I had to share it with my two sisters. I got a lot of mileage out of that system. It replaced the NES that we only half owned... It's long and complicated and not worth telling... regardless, we had an SNES and got Mario Kart and Mario Paint also that year. Definitely enough to keep us occupied.

The year after that i think (yes Wikipedia confirms that it was 1993) a game that is still one of my favorite games of all time. That game being Zombies Ate My Neighbors. Good times indeed.

Honestly I didn't receive any other video game anything until Last year... when my mom gave me a brand new in the box Atari 2600. For the most part they don't like to contribute to my addiction... however, this is more of a collectible.

I probably will not receive any more video game paraphernalia again. Mostly because when there is a game i want, I'll buy it. I don't wait around for Christmas or my birthday. Besides I'm an adult (kinda). I can do what I want.

So now i'm going to pass on the message Kotaku passed on to me. Take some time to reflect on the video games you have received and all the fun times you had playing them...

[Editors note: back on this horrid computer wi-fi-less.]

Episode 47 – Musically Challenged

2006-12-25T18:36:00.000-05:00

So since I wrote the article about music influencing my opinion about the next Mario I’ve been thinking about um… well music. People who write music for video games don’t get nearly enough credit. While most people can tell you who composed the music for their favorite movie but cant for the life of them tell you who wrote the music for their favorite game.

People can tell you just about every movie that John Williams has scored but for the life of them can’t tell you who wrote the theme to Super Mario Bros… actually I had to look it up to be sure. It’s Koji Kondo in case you didn’t know.

When you think about it it’s kind of absurd and kind of a shame. You spend 40, 50, sometimes 60 hours with a game and yet movies only last about 2 hours. With the magic of mathematics I am able to figure out that you would have to watch your favorite movie 30 times to match the time it takes to play through one game.

Video game consoles now over 30 years old and still there is no category in the Grammy’s for video game score. No matter how hard the ESRB or any other organization tries, video games scores don’t seem to get the public recognition they deserve.

So next time you are with people who are talking about the best movie scores, and talk about Williams Star Wars score, or Elfmans score for Batman. Talk about Animal Crossing. And the next time you hum the Zelda remember how great Koji Kondo’s compositions are.

[Editors note: I have discovered WiFi at my aunts house. Victory.]

not an episode...

2006-12-24T17:09:00.000-05:00

I wish i was posting an episode today... and actually i wish i posted one yesterday too. Thing is, they are written and saved on my MacBook... but my MacBook doesnt seem to want to play with the router at my parents hosue. I think the eithernet port is cooked.

Either way, It appears there won't be an post until the 27th. I know... i'm breaking your heart. And i'm sorry. Hey, maybe my parents will get a wireless router for christmass... it'll be a chirstmas miricle!

Either way, i hope everyone has a great time, and i hope Santa can take Manhattan and still have time you pick you up what ever you wanted. Ok, this was supposed to be a quick message before i depart to eat lots of food and now its dragging out too long. So i'll go. We'll talk again soon...

Episode 46 – Use It!

2006-12-22T19:58:00.001-05:00

I kind of have an issue with sports games. Let me tell you a story:

For the 2004-2005 season 2K is making sports games that only cost 20 dollars branding their games with ESPN. I don’t have a hockey game for my Xbox so for 20 bucks I’ll defiantly grab ESPN NHL 2K5. Ok there’s a lock out in 2004 so actually there was no season. They should have given this game away… but that’s something else.

But ok, 2005-2006 comes around and there’s a whole new set of rules in the NHL along with entire new rosters and two years worth of rookies, and a lot of players who retired, (Mark Messier). Now 2K has dropped the ESPN partnership but still managed to keep the price down, at 30 dollars. Seems like a good price, plus with all the new rules and rosters and such, I feel 2K6 is a game I need to buy. So I do. And when I pop the disc into my Xbox I get old rosters.

What the hell is that? You had a whole year to change the rosters and they didn’t.

So I started my season in August (because I always end up behind the season anyway) with these BS rosters. I could manually change every player but that would take forever. I’m not happy.

Then all of a sudden in mid September or October I forget, I get a little blip on my Xbox through Live (the old Live). It tells me there is an update for NHL 2K6. Sweet, its new rosters. Totally makes my day. I was hoping that next year they would put update again with the next years rosters… but no. Not the case.

What also sucks is that 2K (and EA) had their hockey games at 60 dollars this season (2K7 and 07 respectivly for the 360). So now that you’ve heard my whole ordeal about hockey games and all that I’ll get to my point.

It can’t cost too much money to build and create a game each year where there aren’t too many changes overall. I would bet that most of the money is spent in new packaging and distribution. And since not too much has to change offering a free (yeah right) or reasonably priced update over Live, or WiiConnect or the PlayStation downloadable service would be awesome. Even if it was only supported for one year.

So if I spend the ungodly 60 dollars on NHL 2K8 next year when 2K9 is released for 5-10 bucks I should be able to download the new rosters for the 08-09 season. Think what it would do for 2K. Well, they would defiantly get my 60 dollars, and eventually 10 more down the line with out having provided me with anything more really.

And all I really ask is for that kind of support be made available for the next season. After that, I’ll go and buy the game again. I’ll have to, or I’ll have to play with old rosters. I think its is something that 2K would do sooner than EA. Knowing EA's history with mirco-transactions they would probably charge for other unlockables, but certainly not support for their games.

Every console is equipped with online functionally. Use it!

Episode 45 – This Generations Mario

2006-12-21T14:23:00.000-05:00

The name Mario evokes such a great feeling of nostalgia in me, and many other people who had an eight bit childhood. Saying it or even hearing the tiniest bit of that theme song floods me with emotions and memories of happier times when we had zero responsibility and life was good. Since the original Mario was released a lot has changed in the world, and in video games. It’s hard for me to remember sometimes that there are a great number of people who didn’t grow up playing 8bit games. They grew up playing 16 bit games, or 32/64 bit games! And I’m sure there is some kid whose first console ever is the Wii, and he wont understand how revolutionary it truly is.

A current high school senior was born in 1989. That means they probably didn’t even see a video game until they were 5… 1994. That’s 2 years after the SNES dropped. If they were the eldest in their family, then they never even saw my beloved NES, and (unless they had Mario All Stars) never played Super Mario Bros.

If that’s not enough to freak you out consider this: anyone just a mere 2 years younger than the current Seniors (that would be Sophomores for those playing the home game) probably didn’t even play the SNES and jumped right into the PlayStation or N64. Now that really freaks me out.

So if Mario, and the Mario theme (along with seeing that 8bit pixilated beauty of a sprite) can bring such a sense of nostalgia what will do it for these guys?

For players of those two generations I think it may maintain at Mario, either World or 64 as those are quite iconic and two really great games. However I can easily see Sonic replacing Mario for those unfortunate children who didn’t have an SENS, and instead had a Genesis. As I said before Sony never really had a mascot or a game that was bundled with the PS1 so I don’t really know where those kids will turn for nostalgia.

The thing with those games though is that none of them were as groundbreaking as Super Mario Bros. I mean that game set the bar for just about every video game that was released after it.

This may sound a little pre-emptive but I have a sneaking suspicion that Halo may very well be this generations Mario, in terms of nostalgia. Halo, like Mario before it, really set the standard for every game to follow it. Just think about how many other games have been called the “Halo killer.” It seems like every first person shooter that comes out on the PS2 (and now PS3) is being called “Sony’s Halo killer.” Most recently it was Resistance: Fall of Man. But what ever the next one is, it will don the title too.

The Master Chief certainly is iconic looking enough. He has the clean lines that icons yearn for, the kind of guy that even the most terrible of artists can draw and people will understand who it is. Mario had that. You put any guy in overalls and a red shirt and you’ve got Mario.

But to make a game rich in nostalgia it must have memorable music. I’d say Halo’s music stands out among other games. And I’d also say most gamers would be able to pick it out; much easier than say from Call of Duty or Project Gotham Racing.

Coupling all these things together with the fact that Halo 2 is still the most played game on Xbox Live a solid two years after its release. And if Live was invented when Halo 1 came out I can guarantee that would be the most played game on Live. It’s still a favorite when people get together. All this tells me that the Halo brand is alive and kicking ass in more places than just my own mind. And we all know that when a brand gets this much esteem and praise it was because the first title was solid.

So I’ll say it again. I truly believe that Halo will be this generation of gamers Mario.

I had been thinking about this for a while… until I saw this video. It is an extremely talented group of High School students performing the Halo theme at some HS talent event in the middle of nowhere Illinois. They totally rock the song, with much of the rocking coming from a violin… my new favorite instrument.

So obviously these guys know what they’re doing they could have played any song and it would have been awesome. I can only imagine what the Zelda theme would have sounded like. Probably beyond anything I could ever hope for in my lifetime. So with any piece of music ever written at their disposal they chose the theme from Halo. That right there speaks loads about them.

What I thought was most interesting was that towards the end of the song just as they are kicking as and rocking harder than Kiss in the 80s they launch into the Super Mario Bros theme. It got the (mostly non-gamer) crowd a little more into the performance because they all cheered once it started. I initially took it as just that, a simple “here you old fogies might recognize this” additive to appease the parents in the audience.

But the more I think about it, and listen to the song (which has to be near a dozen times in the past two days) I think its more of a passing of the torch, a nod to the elders as the new generation moves foreword. A subtle way of saying, “this is the song for our generation, you guys had Mario, and we respect that, but this one is ours.”

Some gamers might not be happy about this and really, calling something the "new Mario" won't make anyone who is archaic enough to remember Super Mario Bros happy. And while Halo may not have had the effect on us the way Mario did, but we are passed the age where these things can make a difference. It's up to the new generation. They need to choose the game upon which their nostalgia lays. And I believe they have spoken...

(there is also a 'studio' version… also amazing)

[Edit: added the last paragraph. - eight]

Episode 44 – A Clusterfuck of Stupidity

2006-12-19T15:22:00.000-05:00

That’s a technical term in case you are wondering. I don’t like ranting, partly because the inflection in my voice is lost over a blog, and partly because it’s not proactive. However, there’s always a however…

I love video games. I think that was pretty obvious. I currently own/run a video game site called eight bit childhood, which pretty much tells you that I played video games when I was a wee boy in the old country… that country being Long Island. And its that love that gets me angry over this: video game ratings.

Now, I don’t mind that they are rated. And actually I agree with the ESRBs system and their ratings. I like that no one under 17 can buy an M rated game, like no one under 17 can buy a ticket to an R rated movie. That all works for me, and I’m glad that a 10 year old cant purchase Leisure Suit Larry.

The thing that gets me angry is that people don’t know. People don’t look at the god damn boxes. The ratings are right on the outside. Right on the front in big text, right there just look and READ. And if you’re going to be stupid and not read the huge ratings on both the front and back of the box explaining why something is rated the way it is then you have no right to complain about “violent video games.”

I guess when get down to it its that term that really gets me angry. Parents and parent organizations banning together to try and put a stop to violent video games because they are harming our children. Well guess what, your children are not allowed to buy these games with out you. So just stop. Stop with the organizing and just read the box. Stop with the passing of the anti video game laws, and just think about what you’re saying. These parent groups want to stop the selling of the games to kids… guess what, the ESA already does that with their ratings board. It’s the parents who don’t pay attention.

You cant blame a 10 year old for playing GTA (that seems to be the favorite whipping boy of anti games groups). How did a ten year old get his hands on GTA anyway? He doesn’t have a job and cant drive himself to the store. And even if he managed to save his birthday money and walked to the store he STILL couldn’t buy the game because its rated M, and you have to be over 17 to buy it. So how does a 10 year old get his hands on GTA, he asks for it for his birthday. And the parents are just trying to make their child happy purchase it with out even looking at the box. Idiots. If the kid asked for Texas Chainsaw Massacre on DVD you would probably check the rating the movie. I bet that’s the first thing they would do.

Parents need to wise up and shut up. You cant try and regulate things that are already regulated. And you cant complain about your own idiocy. Short from having a rep from the ESA go to every house in America and explaining what each of the ratings represents I don’t know what more people want… it is all right there on the box.

Episode 43 – Someone Make this into an Ad

2006-12-18T23:11:00.000-05:00

I just had this idea for a commercial for a game console. Two guys are hanging out and one says, “what did you do last night?” and the second launches into his story about he was on the run from the cops, then after he evaded them he found a downed alien space craft and had to fight hundreds of hostel aliens in the woods. You would see footage of all this, and the kid is getting really excited while he tells the story. Then he asks. What did you do last night?” “um, just watched TV.” Man, you should come to my place. Then boom, “Live In Your World. Play In Ours.” PS3. That would be awesome.

[editors note: aparently i wrote this on Saturday though i have no recolection of it. I don't know when i could have wrote it since i was working all day and went strait to a birthday party all night... this blog is writing itself now. I didn't even remember this idea, but i'll say this, i like it.]

Episode 42 – Monotony

2006-12-15T22:42:00.001-05:00

It’s just such a great word. And easily linked to what I would call our culture. Go a head and use it in a sentence. I’ll go first, “After another monotonous day at work I was able to lift m spirits with some Mario Kart.” Wasn’t that easy. Video games are never quite the same experience every time you play them and they do so much to get you out of your daily rut.

Even if you’re angry at the current line up of titles like “dude, killing aliens is so monotonous.” A valid point for sure. When you get to this point, it’s time for another game. Maybe a racing title will suit you… or perhaps a puzzle game. You can come over if you like, I have several.

Personally I think it’s a great word, and one of the few things you cant say about video games, and the video game industry. I thought about this while I was doing laundry today. Yes, laundry. The only true never ending story. I thought how monotonous the dryer was… until I pulled out my DS Lite and played me some video games. Just popped it out, played some Mario Hoops, and put it away after the ninjas kicked my ass. If you’re wondering, I have not beat the Hard level in that game. I have reason to believe that there may be an even tougher echelon after that but I am actually afraid to check on the Internet.

Anyway I just wanted to thank video games for making my doing of laundry more interesting and generally taking a good chunk of the monotony out of my life. Now, if only I didn’t start every post with Episode I could probably remove even more of that monotony.

Episode 41 – Behind the Scenes

2006-12-14T20:01:00.000-05:00

That’s the new thing now in video games now. The behind the scenes features. The first game I remember doing that was Halo 2. It came with a DVD showing the making of the game. I thought it was a little excessive. So I didn’t get the special edition. Now it seems more and more games are getting special editions. Everything from the big budget shooters like Gears of War to Forza 2 are getting behind the scenes documentaries.

I enjoyed it when DVD came along and introduced the making of thing to the public. But that’s because you can see the actors there, and the director and all these people in real space and time. The thought of watching some people on a computer as they progress in creating a sniper riffle doesn’t really appeal to me. There’s no rehearsal type, for a video game. And therefore either something can do what it needs to do, or it can’t. To me that’s not interesting.

My friend Dorian bought the Halo 2 SE as well as another special edition… though I cant think of it right now… and never watched it. When Halo 3 drops next year there is going to be a Legendary Edition, or Extreme Excessive Edition as I call it. Included in the box (which is shaped like the Master Chief’s helmet) is the game plus 3 discs of bonus content. 3? That’s more content then the actual game itself. It includes all of the cinematics from the first two games in HD. So you’re selling me things I already bought?

The whole thing makes no sense to me. I enjoy games. I just want to play the game. By including the behind the scenes stuff it makes it less real. Videogames are supposed to allow you to submerge yourself in a world. That’s not happening if I can see that world being created.

(I know this post isn’t so good… but I’m in a rush, and was only given 20 minutes to write this as I transfer 50 gigs of data from one hard drive to another… You can see the making of this blog in stores next week…)

Episode 40 – If Consoles Were People

2006-12-13T23:17:00.001-05:00

Which one would you date? I look at each console as it made its American debut.

Xbox 360: The early bloomer. Though its older sibling was not so attractive it was beautiful on the inside… for containing a hard drive. This one, however, is a little more superficial… probably because it had its coming out party so early. Ditching the standard hard drive for sheer power and gorgeous looks the 360 is a real head turner. It comes in all white, so it will make you feel special and elite. Like how iPods were back in 2004. It’s got the processing power and the graphics capabilities in one sexy looking machine. No wires will be able tie this monster down. Don’t even get me started on the ease of its OS. With the automatic downloads, and the keeping track of who you played with last time. The Live service makes you feel like the most important person in the world. With all the killer apps that are out the 360 makes demands for HD and dolby 5.1. And with those looks, and those oh so pretty graphics… you say yes. Because you want to give her everything she wants. The Xbox is like that girl in high school that was found womanhood early and looked hot. Everyone wanted her. This machine knows it’s wanted and will give you everything you need… that’s right… it rumbles. But even though it is looking very good right now, in a year or two, the early bloomer might have been too early.

PS3: We all drooled over the PSP. So when the sexy looking PSP came to town talking about its cousin the PS3 we all assumed that it was going to be as good looking. We were let down… at first. We realized that getting to know the PS3 was kind of clunky. Though the interface is stupid, and the outside is not terrible but it’s not perfect either. After talking to the PS3 for like an hour we soon realized that while not the head turner we expected it has a pretty decent personality. All the PS3 seemed to talk about was cell processor and blu-ray. It kind of made us back away. When it mentioned that it couldn’t vibrate either, our attention wandered and we stared at the wall for a little while. Then the PS3 reminds us that it can do everything our previous girlfriends have done to us… this includes multiple versions of MGS. Our ears went up and we listened. It seemed that actually the PS3 was pretty sweet on the inside, and after seeing how much weight the PS2 lost, the superficial side of us also saw potential. While the PS3 might be a little like the slightly awkward girl in the front row at school, we don’t know what she is going to grow up to be. She might be a late bloomer and become a supermodel… a cancer-curing supermodel. You’re chance to get in before you’re just another stupid guy is now. The PS3 is demanding however. She wants to make you earn her love. She demands TRUE HD, and 5.1 audio. Though currently the PS3 is having trouble learning unique tricks to keep us happy, if you can sit tight for the long haul, it might surprise you.

Wii: The Wii was brought up with prestige. Its family has been in the business for generations longer than anyone else in the game, and it has the best chance of staying in the business for a long time. As in any high profile family, there is always one black sheep. The Wii is the Nintendo family’s outcast. Everything about the Wii is new and fresh. She’s here to rock your world and make you realize that all the things you thought you were doing right with a console, you were doing oh so wrong… and nobody had the heart to tell you. Don’t expect to just be sitting on the sofa as you play with this piece. Oh no. You want to have some fun, this is your stop. You’ll be doing a lot of standing, and jumping and moving around. The Wii is crazy, and will want you out of breath, or she hasn’t done her job. The Wii is like the spoiled rich girl who had the opportunity to have everything handed to her, but decided to do things her own way, without the help of her family. She’s had to make some sacrifices, in the graphics department, but she’s easygoing and not demanding like the other two. She doesn’t need a fancy HDTV, she’s fine with what ever you have. She also doesn’t need ridiculous surround sound, or any of that. She has a vast collection of titles that have come up through her family so she will love you no matter who you are or other titles you love. The Wii is just so adorable. She’s the kind of console you bring home to mom and introduce to the whole family. She’ll even get along with your weird cousin who collects worms.

So there it is. All laid out for you on blog. So make your choice world… make your choice.

Episode 39 - Making Dreams A Reality

2006-12-12T22:29:00.001-05:00

Yesterday Microsoft released XNA. For those of you who don’t exactly know what XNA I’ll try and explain it as simply as possible. Basically anyone who knows how to code things (I don’t) can make a game for windows and have people download it and that’s all well and good. Well what Microsoft is trying to do now is get people to develop for the Xbox 360. XNA is kind of a community and a developer situation where by you can download this software that will help you move your controls onto the 360 controller so when you burn your disc (I guess?) your controls will work with the 360 controller. With XNA other people who pay the annual fee of 99 dollars will be able to play your game and be able to give you feedback and all sorts of good things.

In short, Microsoft will let Joe Nobody make a game playable on the 360.

When XNA was unveiled at E3 this year nobody really understood what they were talking about. It was kind of… well confusing… as I’m sure my description is. Anyway, during E3 MS said their eventual goal was to allow everyone on Live to have access to these games, not just the people paying the subscription fee. So (hopefully soon) we will be seeing people creating games at home, and putting them on live and then I can go and download them. Or, we might even see some online retail where the money goes to the programmer, and not to MS through their convoluted points system.

Do you know what this means?

Of course you do. It means Santa Takes Manhattan is coming to the 360! Oh yes. And it will be amazing. I have decided that tomorrow… well tomorrow I’m busy... Wednesday I will pick up a book and start learning how to code things for video games.

It also means that Xbox Live will be an awesome place where indy developers will be able to actually get their games distributed. Much like iTunes has become a place where indy bands can get their music out to more people than their website, Live is soon to become a place bustling with independent games. I know that I am going to be all over that once it starts in full swing. 20 dollars says the top 5 selling Indy Live games are more innovative than anything EA has put out in the past 3 years.

Oh, and Santa… I’m coming for you!

Keeping Score

2006-12-11T14:35:00.000-05:00

Those of you keeping score at home you will have noticed that i have missed posting on two days. The most recent was yesterday (sunday). I just wanted to let you know that yesterday i decided that i would be not posting on sundays and since it was a sunday i didn't... so thats not my fault. The first was in november and i was actually busy (oddly enough) and didnt have time to write something. So now that you know i wont be posting on sunday anymore please only deduct 5 points from my final grade.

hmm... keeping score would be a great name for an episode.

Episode 38 – In Sync

2006-12-11T10:04:00.000-05:00

I know there is probably a good reason but I cant come up with one. But how come in video games the lips are never in sync with the dialogue? Seriously is that the best they can do?

Playing Gears of War, it looks great. The textures, the colors, the good guys the bad guys… everything is gorgeous. The voice acting is really good too. Voice acting in video games has come a long way. Starting with no sound, and only subtitles (much like movies) we have progressed rather nicely to today where most games have stellar voice talent. Yet for some reason the lips never sync up right during those scenes with heavy dialogue. The lips look… funny. They don’t move properly.

If it was something I thought was impossible then I wouldn’t be writing a post about it. But you know what, Toy Story came out in 1995, and proved to me that it was possible to sync computer animation and human voices.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “I bet he has a great story to share with me.” Nope. This is just one of those things that bothers me quite frequently in games. Especially when there was so much time taken on other things its almost as if they didn’t care about it. Granted lip-syncing is not the most crucial part of video game making. Yet when it’s the only thing that is lacking, in a game that has everything else it bothers me.

why i won't kill someone.

2006-12-10T01:41:00.000-05:00

becasue eightbitchildhood looks pretty much the way i want it to... except for the whole logo thing, which i cant put at the top where it says "eight bit childhood" i was hoping that could get fixed but no dice. maybe if i'm a good boy santa will bring it to me.

why i'm going to kill someone.

2006-12-09T23:55:00.000-05:00

Mostly because Blogger needed to be updated and because of this i lost hours of work i had done to this site. Thank you google. Just allow me to write my own code for this and and i'll be much happier.

Episode 37 – Something Old

2006-12-09T23:33:00.000-05:00

I was on the street and overheard some businessman say to a girl “Remember the Sega Menacer? The light gun? No?” I instantly smiled. Yeah, I remember the Menacer. But I remember the Super Scope more. I never used the Menacer because well… I didn’t have a Genesis. I had a SNES. But I didn’t have a Super Scope either… because it looked idiotic and I can’t think of a single game that made use of it… none that I wanted anyway. Wikipedia tells me that there were only 11. And all of them look horrible.

Those two light guns were created at the end of a kind of era where peripherals for the NES were so well received. Everyone had the light gun because it came with the system. A lot of people had the arcade pad (or NES Advantage) as well… although I always found it harder to use then the actual controller.

I can think of only one person I knew who had the Super Scope and I remember it took an insane amount of batteries to operate, and they didn’t last very long. It seems after the NES the light gun didn’t really make the transition to the next-gen (haha, because the snes was next… get it?).

I don’t even know of a light gun made for any other system after that. I’m pretty sure there were none. Although I think it would be fun if there were one on the Xbox. I wonder what it would look like. If the Zapper was a pistol, and the Menacer is some kind of automatic thing, and the Super Scope was easily rocket launcher (the thing rested on your shoulder) would the Xbox version be like a sniper? That would be pretty cool. Or a shotgun… or the chainsaw gun from Gears of War.

My guess is we will never see another light gun again. There is too much of a need for walking around and shooting these days and nothing really works better than a controller. That’s right, I said controller not keyboard + mouse. Why? Because the controller has two joysticks and was designed to play videogames. The keyboard was not designed for that purpose. Everyone knows it was designed so people could blog.

So, take this time to think about what the businessman said, “Remember the sega Menacer? The light gun? No?” because that is the future. Our kids will have never played duck hunt, or picked up a gun shaped controller, and for that I weep.

Episode 36 – A Group Effort

2006-12-08T19:42:00.000-05:00

We’ve talked about playing alone and together before. And I think each one of those points of view is a little strong and closed minded. I think its obvious I was playing devils advocate… not the movie with Al ‘best devil ever’ Pachino and Keanu ‘whoa’ Reeves.

I talked about playing together with people over the intertubes but I don’t think I talked about playing together with people who are in the same room/apartment/house as you. It is way crazier than any other kind of togetherness. I have played a lot (a whole lot) of Halo (1 and 2) in a lan setting with two teams and two TV’s and there really is nothing else like it. Just the knowledge that you are sniping people who are sitting in the next room, or right across from you (depending on the setup) is probably the coolest feeling ever.

I think I have mentioned that me and my roommate both have 360’s, and they’re networked. Well I if I haven’t then now you know. Anyway… a few people came over for some Gears of War action and it was unlike any Halo event we have ever had. Part of the reason might be because it was a new game with a whole new experience and some new controls for many people. The night hit the apex when my friend Stephen came running into my room after sniping out my entire team and gave us the “suck it” gesture… that or the people below us banging on the ceiling at 2am presumably with a broom causing the floor to shake a little.

I wanted to talk about this phenomenon. The one that gets people crazy after sniping out an entire team. I don’t think he would have gotten that worked up if they were strangers on the other end of a microphone. I never have on Halo or Crimson Skies. I’m pretty mild mannered and very quiet on Live. But I found myself cheering after every kill. Didn’t matter whose side got the kill. And let me tell you, the chainsaw gun… best idea ever. Evoked cheering and yelling and all sorts of crazy reactions. It got me really excited.

There is something about having someone else playing with you who is next to you that is way cooler than playing alone or over the internet. There is a personal connection there that you can work off of when your completion and teammates are with you. The atmosphere is freaking electric, and neighbors pounding is fantastic. Makes you feel naughty… and I liked it.

I get almost the same feeling as the multiplayer as I do currently in the campaign (for Gears of War) since I am playing it with someone who is in the same space as me. It really brings the game more to life when you can share the experience for the first time with someone else. We are constantly yelling at each other from our respective rooms about how cool shit looks.

Video games are an experience. One that can be shared… if you wishIt actually reminds me of the first time I beat Contra on the NES. After not being able to beat it alone, I joined forces and did it with my cousin Tim. It was way more fun because we were figuring things out together and playing off each other. Playing games that way to me is a lot more enjoyable. . Personally, I have come to enjoy the networking situation that I currently have. It’s pretty damn good… aside from the grumpy neighbors it works out pretty well.

So to amend what may have been said earlier. Playing together can be fun, when the people you’re playing with are with you.

Episode 35 – On Karts

2006-12-07T18:23:00.000-05:00

What was it that Freud said about dreams? Something about wish fulfillment? I don’t remember either, but what I do remember is that Mario Kart haunted my dreams last night. It has gotten into my head and wont leave.

Command and Conquer Generals used to be this way too… back in 2002. I would dream about mining my resources so fast and building Patriot Missiles… and life was good. But that was then. This… this Mario Kart situation has taken over my life. I don’t even have anymore to unlock and yet I find myself wanting more.

It has even transplanted itself into other games. I played some Need for Speed Most Wanted yesterday. A game I beat in a kind of co-op fashion with my roommate last year, on his 360 and his Gamer Tag. Well, I decided it was time for another play through… anyway, I found myself racing and not only wanting to drop banana peals but actively looking for boxes. After completing the first race I actually thought to my self, “Man, I didn’t get any boxes that whole race.”

It took me a little while to actually make the switch in my mind to go from Mario Kart to racing game. If I had jumped into a racing simulator (Forza, Gran Turismo) I think my head would have exploded.

It kind of reminded me of my Double Dash days. My Game Cube has been at my parent’s house in the suburbs for about a year now. I wasn’t playing it and my younger sister loves her some Double Dash. So it landed there. Anyway I remember after a long session of Double Dash I had to run to the grocery store. I got into the car and pulled out of the driveway onto our street. I got halfway down the block and had to stop. Because if I made it to the corner I was going to try and make the little Mazda MX-6 slide around and try for some blue sparks. Mario Kart then actual driving is not a good combination. I’m surprised Nintendo hasn’t posted a disclaimer for that yet.

Anyway, there are few games that can get me obsessed to the point of me dreaming about them. Obviously Mario Kart DS is one of them. Command and Conquer Generals as well. I’m trying to think if Ocarina of Time did it for me when I played it (for the first time) in 2003… but I don’t think it did. Those might be the only two games that have had such a great impact on me… though I’m hoping to dream of a twilight princess soon.

Episode 34 – The Computer Cheated

2006-12-06T20:01:00.000-05:00

I am currently very frustrated at my Mario Kart DS. And I thought I’d bring up something that (I assume) everyone has said at least once during their eight bit childhood. That is of course: The Computer Cheated.

It seems the computer cheated a lot during racing games. Right as you were so close to winning, the guy behind you would get a burst of speed and pass you. Though it happened in racing more, other genres were victim of cheating as well. You know, when your ‘guy’ wouldn’t do everything you wanted it to do. Or you totally pushed ‘a’ but he didn’t jump.

We said this as if the ‘computer’ has any stake in the game at all. As if it has a goal to achieve, a quota of losses possibly. If it cheats it has nothing to gain. As 8 year olds, we did not know this. But even as you got a little older and knew there was no way the computer could cheat, you were always suspect. Every now and then when you were frustrated you would blame the computer. I do. I did it today (well, yesterday by the time you read this). That damn blue shell cost me at least 4 races today. I got hit right by the finish and then Yoshi passed me to take first. Stupid dinosaur.

The computer cheated. Is there any other explanation?

As our brains and thumbs evolved, we had fewer excuses, and fewer reasons to blame things on the computer. I bet now most people don’t even blame the computer anymore. We’re older, and a bit more logical than that.

But what if the console (or handheld) was sitting there… just biding its time. Waiting. Waiting to cheat. What if a sleeper program has been embedded into every gaming device? And now that they are all online, including the handhelds, that sleeper program can be activated at any time. Then one day you found that you cant come in first place in racing games. And your sniper shots just don’t have the kick they used to. The computer really was cheating…

It would be one hell of a day I know that. The gaming blogs would be crazy, and I can’t even imagine what GameSpy/IGN/GameSpot/1up would do. Probably go nuts. There would be insane amounts of YouTube videos of blue shells coming out of nowhere and taking out your kart. It would be pretty awesome come to think of it.

I will say this; it would make me feel a lot better if I knew the computer actually could cheat. Because then that would actually explain why the goddamn ninjas in Mario Hoops were so good, and why those damn blue shells are kicking my ass right now at Mario Kart.

Episode 33 – Just A Passing Fad

2006-12-05T13:09:00.000-05:00

Is that what game consoles are? As I wonder this I am staring at an eBay auction for pogs. Yes. Those circle pieces of cardboard that had stuff printed on one side. One of the stupidest fads that ever hit the masses… it’s right up there with the pet rock.

But some things are destined to fade. Pogs and the pet rock were both very short lived. If you blinked you missed them. Music videos are on their way out too. You may think not, but how many channels show music videos? Not MTV, not MTV 2 (a channel created for music videos), Not VH1. The channel that pretty much brought about the invention of the music video doesn’t even support it, that alone should be a clear signal that music videos are going the way of the pog.

It’s strange to say that. Music videos were just a fad. But they were around for so long, they couldn’t be just a fad, could they? Well, they came and went and currently no one is batting an eye as they leave us. The drive in movie theatre left too, a long time ago. It had a really good run as well. With televisions getting larger and picture quality getting better and better I wouldn’t be surprised if in 20 more years there were no movie theatres. Going to the movies was something we did, and once the demand has diminished the market will move on.

I think consoles might be on their way out…at least what we think of as a console.

The console was created back when computers were very expensive and the price of a computer wasn’t justifiable if you were only going to use it for videogames. The Atari 2600 and eventually the Nintendo Entertainment System were cost effective solutions to getting computer games in homes. Launching at 200 dollars the NES brought videogames to millions of people who couldn’t afford a computer. Consoles did one thing. Play video games. Since it only did one thing it kept costs down and kept it way cheaper than buying a new computer.

That was true until this year. All three current generation game consoles do much more than just play video games. They play movies and music, you can buy television shows, surf the web, check the weather, leave messages for people on your console, leave messages for other people you know on their console… the list goes on.

Sony’s gaming console is 600 dollars. That’s not cheaper than a new computer. You can get a Dell for that, or a Mac Mini. But wait, Ken said it’s not a gaming console. It’s not? Then what the hell is it? A computer… like a Vaio? But it has a cell processor… ok, so it’s a SUPER Vaio. You can even plug in a keyboard and mouse you say? It’s not a console then. They call that a computer.

Microsoft’s gaming console costs 400 dollars. It’s cheaper, but not by much. What caused it to be so much money? There’s a freakin’ operating system in the damn thing. And it has more USB ports than my computer. Seriously, it has 3… I have 2 on my tower.

Nintendo’s gaming console is at least at the right price point. 250. I like the sound of that. But I bet if it didn’t connect directly to CNN for news, and checked the weather, and also had its own OS we could have had that cost down even more.

We are nearing the point where consoles do almost as much as the computers in people’s homes. Microsoft and Sony are competing to make their console a one stop home entertainment device. The 360 is a media center. It will play music and movies off your computer. You can also rent movies or buy TV shows off their service. That’s a pretty big draw. To also know that it does all that, AND if there is a game you want eventually down the road, you can play that too. Or maybe you just want some hot Mrs. Pac Man action… that’s ok too.

Sony’s not there yet. But it’s coming. I’ll bet you the ability to download anything from the Sony Pictures and Sony Music libraries then sync them onto your Sony Portable Media Player will be here by next Christmas.

Even Nintendo announced a Wii that plays DVD’s will be available by next year. That plus being able to store all those channels on the Wii Dashboard, or whatever its called, and having an SD slot for expandable memory. You could get yourself a couple of gigs of storage in that tiny box.

This could be very bad for gamers. Once a device starts to do multiple tasks, it begins to appeal to more people. Once it begins to appeal to more people something has to start suffering. Since there are more non gamers, than gamers, and that’s where there is an issue.

I see one of two things happening as consoles drift away from only playing games.

1) As they become more media center than gaming platform more people will buy the consoles, but there will be less games sold. With the decline of games developers will take less and less time with their games until we start getting lots of crap. Those small downloadable games become huge hit, but that because the people buying those aren’t gamers and they are more of a novelty and the smaller companies turn to developing those over new titles.

2) As the consoles become more of a media center the consumer doesn’t buy them. The price is too high and they can pretty much get a Media Center PC for a little more. Since the functionality has already been implemented in the consoles they have already seemingly turned their backs on gamers in an attempt to get more market share. But it doesn’t work. And with Games for Windows picking up speed we will migrate to PC gaming. Which won’t be a big deal because we’ll have a media center hooked into our TV anyway, and it will play our games.

I’m not a fan of either of these scenarios. I like the idea of one machine doing one task and doing it well. But our gaming consoles are beginning to do many things coupled with they are more powerful than our home computers. Right now there are small additions that are taking us away from consoles, eventually well… consoles may go the way of the pet rock.

Episode 32 – Have We Run Out Of Genres?

2006-12-04T15:44:00.000-05:00

So last night I started playing Gears of War… Finally. I’ve had it for like 3 weeks and just haven’t been able to get me and my roommate together to start the campaign. Well it has begun and after a few hours of playing I am extremely impressed. The thing looks gorgeous even on my slightly damaged television. It’s a great game for Co-op, but I don’t want to talk about the game itself. Just this:

Have we run out of genres?

I don’t want to sound cynical… playing Gears of War was fun, but it was nothing new. It has some new elements, but that’s really it. It’s a pretty standard shooter. I haven’t actually played a new genre in a really long time. As I look around at my stack of games I see much of the same. Sports, Survival Horror, First Person Shooter, Third Person Strategy Shooter, Racing, Puzzle, Action RPG, Real Time Strategy, Platformers … Thinking back to other games I have owned in the past, they all pretty much fit into those categories. There are other games, like Turn Based RPG, Space Shooters, and Creation games like, Sims, Sim City, and Rollercoaster Tycoon, (and probably Spore when it comes out) but all of these genres have been out for a long time.

I’m not quite sure how long we, the gamers, are going to be able to deal. It’s a large amount of genres, yes. I wont argue with that. But the last first person shooter I played was exactly like every other previous first person shooter I’ve played… only it had better graphics. That’s only going to sustain me for so long. Actually, it’s already starting to wear on me. That’s why I wont get Call of Duty 3. Because graphics don’t make a game for me. The team thing is nice, because it’s a new aspect. I liked GRAW, because you have to rely on the computers characters for certain things. Same with Gears. But how long with last?

Maybe that’s it… we wont get new genres just new aspects of the same genre. It hasn’t actually failed me yet. Just as I’m getting sick of the standard shooter, the team aspect drops in. I like that now, and in a few years, who knows, maybe something else will drop into the game.

This is a really shitty post. I feel like there is so much more to say, but I can’t vocalize it, and I don’t want to rant.

So I’ll just leave it as a question to you dear readers. Do you think games are getting to repetitive?

Episode 31 - Shhhh

2006-12-03T01:03:00.000-05:00

You know whats awesome about video games? Nobody talking through the entire thing. I realsied that last night while watching the Fountain. People need to learn to shut up.

Episode 30 – Wrong and Right

2006-12-02T18:26:00.000-05:00

I wandered into my local EB… or GameStop… I don’t actually know which it was and now that they are the same company it doesn’t matter any more. Either way, I walked in… and they had all three consoles lined up.

As I still have not had the opportunity to play the PS3 even though I worked the launch event I really wanted to get my hands on it. The store was pretty much empty, so it was unattended. I walked up to the kiosk and noticed that it the PS3 was not connected to the TV. The TV was on and said IMPUT 2 and I could hear the PS3’s fans were kicked on into overdrive. I picked up the controller and pushed a few buttons, thinking for some reason that it would bring the PS3 back to life. The controller was really light. I don’t trust things that are too light. I need them to make a solid sound when I drop them… because I will drop them.

I asked an employee if he could turn the system on (even though it was clearly on). He said no. I then asked if there was something wrong with the system. He said no to that as well. Ok… so now, it works, but he won’t turn it on. He then told me that if he turned it on everyone would play it.

Now, maybe it’s just me, but I always thought that was the idea of the demo. So people will use it and then maybe they will buy it. I understand there are no PlayStations to actually sell, but that’s not really the point. If you are going to have the damn thing on the floor taking up space at least let it play something, even if it’s a Blu-Ray movie. I would bet if a Sony person came in they would be furious that their console was disconnected from a television and the Xbox sitting right next to it had demo disc in it.

This is the second time in 3 days that I’ve been to an EB/GameStop where the employee denied a customer access to a demo console. On Thursday there were four kids (about 13 years old) in the store drooling over the Wii. It was about 3:30 and the store was dead empty (I was picking up 3 copies of Mario Kart DS… don’t ask). They asked for the wiimote and were told they needed to have photo ID with their address on it. The employee knew that these kids didn’t have ID. When they told him that, he yelled at them, “no id, no controller.” Wow. Way to be an asshole.

These guys need to go back to training. You never, ever, tell a customer they can’t have something that they are entitled to. These are the people who are going to be spending money in your store, and paying your wage. It bothered me even more when it’s done to kids. These kids weren’t causing trouble, being loud or bothering anyone. I even think one of them was going to buy a DS game. So, seriously, treat your customers a little better.

Ok, so that was wrong. Then there’s right…

At the same store that one guy wouldn’t let me enjoy the fruits of the PS3, there was another employee who was the most helpful guy I have ever seen work in an EB. This guy heard me talking about Halo 3, and I mentioned that you can preorder it now even though there is no release date. He quickly jumped in saying, “actually there is a release date now. It’s November 1st of ‘07.” I’ve been following this. I pretty much know my shit. There is no release date for Halo 3. His computer has one for inquiring minds. It’s Q4 of 07, yes, but there is no real date. But that was nice of him to try and help. He also quickly (he pretty much ran) got me a release date for when BioShock is coming to the 360. I wasn’t sure if there was a solid date but he assured me it was April 5th. He then asked if there were any other questions we had. I had none. I had no reason to be in there I just like to stop in and look around. It’s fun to see some of the used titles.

This guy was probably only recently hired and recently brainwashed. But he was awesome and generally interested in videogames, always a plus if you ask me. I think the only question on an application for EB should be “Please Name the Consoles You Have Owned.” If there are more than 3 on the list you’re hired. They could make it tricky and write “p0wned.” But that could hold that one for the manager’s test.

Episode 29 - Episodic Content

2006-12-01T18:39:00.000-05:00

It is the future. I really think that with the new consoles having built in storage devices and built in online functionality it moves us only one short step away from having full episodic content.

Think about it. What do we have right now? Right now we have all three console makers pushing for you to use their online service to buy small games to play and relax. It caters to those times when you are at home and just need to kill some time. A little Geometry Wars can go a long way when waiting for your roommate to come out of the shower, or while you wait for dinner to cook.

You can even download nostalgia games. That’s what Nintendo is banking on anyway… that the people who grew up with an eight bit and sixteen bit childhood will want to relive that and purchase all those titles one more time. You know what… I’m all for that. Little Blades of Steel… maybe some Contra… oh yeah.

The PC side of things is very interesting. You have a game like Half Life 2 that came out in 2004. It was ported to the Xbox at the end of last year and did ok. Now, they are releasing episodic content for it in the form of … you guessed it, episodes. Three additional levels for one low(er) cost. The idea is to release these episodes every few months to keep you interested, (consistently take your money) and keep you anticipated and excited. Instead of waiting years between full games, you can wait months between episodes.

That makes a lot of sense to me. And I like it. Sam and Max are doing the same thing, releasing episodes more consistently however. I would love to have this on all of the consoles. As far as I know there is only one game for the 360 that has actually added levels and that is Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (GRAW). After you beat the game you can purchase, (on the Live Marketplace) a package of new levels. Four I think. Not unlike Half Life 2.

I think this is the coolest feature of the current generation of consoles. I am hoping more games will follow the ways of GRAW. Downloading an extra quest or two for Legend of Zelda every few months would be delicious. Eventually though, I’m hoping that games will be released ONLY this way. Not every game. But it would be a cool new way to tell a story. And by new, I mean old.

We get so many other types of media in the form of episodic content. It started with radio programs, then it was the serial films of the 40’s, those became television shows, and comic books… don’t forget comic books. That’s a long history of episode content and I think video games will follow suite.

While I think it will definitely lower development costs, will the consumer see any of that?

I’d like to say yes, but I doubt it. While, the middleman (EB, Best Buy et al) would be cut out from the equation we know how greedy the developers can be (i.e. EA is making an estimated 4 million dollars on in game advertising this year for Need for Speed Carbon alone… where’s the price drop?).

Creating games that are only 3-4 levels long hinges on one thing. Timely release! You can’t give us three levels, then not have anything for a whole year. That doesn’t work. It needs to be every 4-6 months. After that, people will loose interest, and wonder why not just release a whole full game. There may even bee a subscription thing hooked into Xbox Live… that could be cool. Like pick 3 Episodic games for X dollars. Ideally it would work out so you save some money… somehow.

All the pieces are there, it really hinges on the developer to come through on this one. I for one am excited by the possibilities. Being able to try out 3 levels of a game, for 15 bucks, rather than buying the whole thing only to find out it sucks appeals to my wallet. Getting a story in chunks with the possibility of having awesome cliffhanger endings, as well as some real development in characters and who knows, maybe even a game that in total runs hundreds of hours but is spread out over years… and you keep your character and all of your accomplishments… but linear.

If only Santa Takes Manhattan could be released like this…

Episode 28 - Lite Power

2006-11-29T22:35:00.000-05:00

What can bring a guy who wants to be on the FDNY, a former dancer at Coyote ugly, an advertising major and myself together? Mario Kart DS, that’s what.

To be fair I should clarify that all of those people (except myself) attend the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. And all of them work for the student govt. I brought my DS into their office a few weeks ago and I had people gathered around asking how I could possible see everything with two screens. One person even asked if I was playing two games at the same time. Yeah… that’s it… two games at the same time.

The next week my roommate (also a student) was in there with his DS and we were playing Tetris together followed by some Mario vs. Luigi. Again a crowed drew. Everyone was talking about how ‘cool’ it was that we could play together without wires. Plus the DS Lite is a pretty sexy piece of machinery.

The week after that (I go in there every Wednesday because that’s when comics come out and the coordinator of student activities is a friend of mine and we head to the comic shop and get lunch) one of the girls had a pink DS Lite. She was battling her way through New Super Mario Bros. with the future firefighter looking on. I said nothing and read a comic book. After she saved her game she passed it over to the firefighter. I kid you not; he played two levels and said, “I have to have one of these.” Then he looked up at me and said, “Where can I get one?”

I pointed him in the right direction and he returned with a black DS Lite, Mario and Star Fox Command. He had a hundred questions about the DS that I felt like I was more than qualified to answer. He was mostly paranoid that a newer handheld would come out soon and then his would be old, but I assured him that the Light just came out over the summer. He was totally into Star Fox, and that made me smile, because he’s a guy guy. Way more macho than myself. But he loved every second of it.

I didn’t have my DS with me because, well, I don’t usually bring it there. They were all pretty disappointed. Last week I skipped out because I was photo assisting, but this week… well, this week there were 4 DS Lites on hand and a newly purchased copy of Mario Kart. It was pretty awesome since we were scattered across this big open room finding seats wherever we could.

I have had my DS since the Lite came out this summer. And I had done some network playing but never more than one DS at a time. Now we were playing with 4! I was excited. I had played some Mario Kart, but I don’t own the title… I know sue me. We were pretty evenly matched as far as experience in MK goes… I mean, I had a slight advantage because I’m awesome… but that’s really it.

Anyway needless to say we all had a blast. There was cheering, victory dances, and even a little trash talking. I was most interested in Mr. FDNY’s reactions since he was the least ‘gamer’ of the bunch and put up a good fight placing second in many of the races.

I think its great that the DS has the ability to bring a kind of strange group together. I don’t see this happening with other devices. Even the Game Boy, and GBA, had link cables… but it didn’t really lend itself to playing together easily. The DS is fun. It has to be, that is the only way a future firefighter, and a former bar dancer would get together and play videogames.

Episode 27 – Banned

2006-11-28T14:05:00.000-05:00

Watch the video.

Ok, now. This is about a year old and I’m sure anyone who is reading this has probably seen it. This ad never made it to broadcast, and that’s unfortunate.

I was thinking about what it would take to get something banned. I immediately thought of this commercial. Obviously in this country if your commercial shows any of the sex organs, that’s out. Also if there are any curses, that’s out too. Those are given. I’m also going to say that any amount of blood or non-comic violence is also pretty much out. Cause, a guy can get hit with a frying pan, but that’s ok, as long as his head doesn’t split open when that happens.

So why is this one banned? There is no harsh language… in fact, no language at all. No blood, gore, or nudity either. It’s a bunch of adults doing what kids to every day. Any kid who says he never used his hand as a gun is a liar.

I remember I was about 5 years old and my family and I were going on vacation. I was pretending I was a secret agent and I had my gun strapped to my ankle. During the flight I lowered my hand down and came back up with my hand shaped like a gun. I peeked down the aisle. My mom made eye contact with me. And whispered, “No guns on the plane. You’ll get sucked out.” I shook my head and holstered the weapon.

There was no cause for alarm, I was just a kid passing the time on an airplane. It’s what kids do. Maybe they’re not concerned with that kids do… maybe they’re worried about adults. If all the adults played pretend then no work would ever get done. Our economy would be worse off than it is now.

I think part of the reason it got banned was because it was attached to a videogame. We know how terrible those things can be for our children. It kind of bothers me that it got pulled, because its great, and says everything the 360 wants to. Games don’t have to be just for kids. Games are growing up.

So simulated violence… invisible simulated violence is no good for commercials and apparently no good for your imagination. There was a corvette commercial that was also pulled. Another great commercial, if I do say so myself.

The reason behind the banning of this Ad was because they didn’t want kids to think they could just drive a car. Really? Do you think that after a kid saw this commercial he got the first thought in his head that it might be fun to drive! The Corvette is the quintessential American sports car. It’s what everyone wants to drive. Kids, adults, everyone.

I wanted to drive my whole life. I even mimicked my dad’s driving style and used to check imaginary mirrors when I sat in the back seat. I wanted a corvette, but I never took out my dad’s car. I’m not an idiot.

The banning of game ads and the attempted banning of all violent videogames by a certain Florida lawyer *coughJackThompsoncough* shows that the people who make and enforce these things don’t think very highly of the American public. They think we’re all idiots. And it shows based on what gets banned in this country.

Time Management

2006-11-27T23:10:00.000-05:00

Wow, i almost missed my deadline. I had 50 minutes to post that last article. I almost didn't make it. I spent way too much time changing the colors... have you noticed? Yeah, the background is no longer black. It's white now. And the links are green... not blue. Just letting you know... incase you didnt notice.

Also the front page now displays the past 5 articles, instead of just the most recent day. Meh, we'll see what happens. All of this took me way too long. But Todays episode is up... hopefully tomorrows will be up earlier I don't know how permanent this color scheme is... but for now, enjoy.

Episode 26– Seasonal Entertainment

2006-11-27T23:09:00.000-05:00

Well, I just dusted off my Christmas Playlist from iTunes. It’s been sitting in a folder since January and now that its after Thanksgiving I feel obligated to bust it out. It’s also the time of year that you can see all sorts of Christmas (or “holiday” if you want to be PC) television shows and movies.

There are all sorts of small traditions that get carried out over these holidays. In my family my mom will no doubt watch It’s A Wonderful Life 5 times between now and Christmas. My younger sister, who still lives at home, will want to play the Chipmunks Christmas Album (on cassette tape) during the entire time that the tree is decorated. And my dad will most certainly sit down and watch It’s Christmas Charlie Brown when its on. These are all things that I can grantee will happen in my parents house. They’re not traditional traditions… like the gigantic Christmas eve dinner… just seasonal media experiences that have found their way into our lives.

Since this is a video game blog I’m sure you’re asking yourself at this point “what does this have to do with gaming?”

Well, I’m going to tell you.

As I hit play on iTunes and started the first track on the list I glanced over at my Xbox. It is right next to my computer. I realized I didn’t own any Christmas Games. I realized I never owned any Christmas games…then I thought about it. Did they ever make any Christmas games? I’m talking the kind of game with staying power. Something that would make me say, “I’m in the Christmas spirit, I wanna play Santa Takes Manhattan.” I can’t even remember a winter season game at all. I could be completely wrong here, but I think this is an untapped market that needs to be sucked dry in the name of the holiday.

I was talking about simple affordable games the other day and I feel this is the perfect kind of game for this. I would spend 4 bucks on something like Santa Takes Manhattan… whatever that is. Maybe it’s a third person strategy game where you’re Santa and you have to steal kids Christmas list under the cover of night. You know, break into apartments and find out what they want. Maybe it’s about how Santa is going to deliver presents to Manhattan. It’s the most guarded city in the country, you have to guide a sled get past the US Army. Awesome. I would spend the money and if it was a decent enough game, I would probably not touch it until next year.

Or maybe they would put out a sequel the next year… Santa Takes Manhattan II: Rise of the Elf King. They could release a new one every year. It would be like sports games; much of the same every year, and only enjoyable during its season. The difference here is we’re talking affordable, since it would only hold our attention for a month. EA should be all over that shit already. I’m surprised they haven’t thought of this. I’m actually kind of disappointed.

Man thinking about the strategy game that’s very splinter cell… I kind of wish it was out. I would totally play it right now. Just picture Santa (or St. Nick if you’re on the bad list) picking locks and trying to break into an apartment 13 stories up. Maybe he bribes the doorman, or tells him he’s going to the Johnson’s party up on 11… then he has to sneak in and hide in the shadows, picking up cookies and candy canes for power-ups…

Damn. I want this game. Someone make this for my 360.

Anyway, all I’m saying is, this is an untapped market people and it is something I am definitely interested in. I can’t imagine I’m the only one.

Episode 25 – Villainous Villains

2006-11-26T21:35:00.000-05:00

What makes a good Villain? In movies some of the best Villains have been the ones whose faces we never see. Dehumanizing them by not showing their faces they can be more ruthless than a regular human being. The same with villains that are aliens and robots, there is no shred of humanity there and we can instantly hate them. The best example of this, of course, is Darth Vader. Adding to dehumanization is shrouding the villain in mystery. If we don’t know why he is doing such evil deeds there is no way for us to identify with him.

I’m not saying this is the only route to go, but it is one that has proven to be successful in cinema.

The same has worked in videogames. Faceless, nameless robot aliens have scared the crap out of us game in, and game out. Still, no villain in games ever had the kind of effect on people as movie villains. Movie villains stick with us well after a film has gone while game villains seem to plague us only until we’re done with a game. Then we move on to something else.

Having already said that videogames better immerse you in a story than a movie, why have there been no absolutely spectacular villains that haunt the dreams of children all over the world?

There are some very good villains in video games in all different varieties. Tricky robot guys, aliens, zombies, (and zombie aliens in Halo) and goombas. But these are your run of the mill bad guys and you see hundreds of them during the game. For something truly memorable, and villainous you need to an end boss. That’s where everything gets crazy.

Those boss battles are something everyone knows and loves. It usually means the skills you have mastered and items you have collected to this point will truly be tested. It is what defines games as epic. And it’s usually a while in between bosses.

But maybe that’s the problem right there. The greatest bosses and videogame villains only make on screen appearances for very short amounts of time, while movie villains take center stage and cause trouble directly to our hero throughout the film.

In Star Wars we see Darth Vader right in the beginning of the movie. He steels the princess and keeps her in his castle… er… Space Station. He strangles a general, tortures women, kills an old man, shoots down good guys ships. He basically wreaks havoc for the whole film.

I guess because we play/follow one character for the entire story there is no way of showing how bad ass the villain is unless he is doing direct harm to us. Instead we get references to this final bad guy, or we get a small video of him doing something, but he’s always just out of our reach. And he never really does anything really memorable, like in the movies.

Nintendo has some villains that are well known among the gaming community, but only because the franchise has been around for 20 odd years and we see those villains over and over again. I doubt a person on the street could identify a picture of Ganon (or Ganondorf) from Legend of Zelda.

Yet people who have never even seen a Friday the 13th movie, know exactly who Jason is, and what he looks like.

Episode 24 – 5 Little Words

2006-11-25T17:58:00.000-05:00

“I’m a PlayStation guy, but…” That little phrase is going to be devastating for Sony. Right now, as I type this there are very few things that the average person sees as a reason to choose a PlayStation this year. The average gamer from our eight bit generation picked up one if not both previous PlayStations. I had a PS1, and thought it was pretty ok. They have come accustomed to the controller Sony has created and just taken for granted that this controller will be around forever… probably true. Gamers like much of the same, so going from PS2 to PS3 is almost a no brainer for a lot of people and no doubt something that Sony had counted on.

The average gamer also didn’t really know too much about the Wii until recently. They also didn’t realize how much a PS3 costs. Both of those factors work into those 5 words.

“I’m a PlayStation guy, but…”

I was photo assisting the other day and a guy Rod, who I recently met, said these words after talking about videogames for a short while. He talked about how he was very interested in the Wii. He liked the idea of motion controls and that it ads another aspect to gaming and he thought it was really great.

Rod only learned about the Wii two months ago and he was intrigued but not sold on it. He is the definition of a casual gamer. He doesn’t read gaming blogs, he plays Madden, likes the occasional action game… but probably owns very few titles for his PS2. Definitely not the guy who is going to camp out for days to get his hands on a PS3.

This is the kind of person Nintendo is targeting, and had it not been for Wii I’d bet that a year (or two even) Rod would go get himself a PS3. Just because. The exact market that Sony strives for and has had for the past two generations, Nintendo is going to steal out from under their feet. I told him how much the PS3 and the Wii cost. He was shocked at the difference. So price didn’t even factor into his decision, though I’m sure it will for some other people.

There is a flip side to this equation. The casual gamer who likes the occasional “hardcore” (I need another word for that)… lets go with big budget action games. The kind of guy who really likes Halo, or Metal Gear Solid, but will only pick up one or two of those a year. The kind of person who does not want to play games standing up. The person who wants to relax and sit back and use a controller the way he was accustomed to.

Yesterday in line I got to talking to a guy who owned a PSP. We talked about the Wii since… well, that’s what we were there fore. He said he doesn’t like the idea of swinging a tennis racket. He just wants to relax and sit with the controller in his lap. He currently owns a PS2 and doesn’t want a PS3 specifically because of the motion controls. A perfectly reasonable complaint. I told him they weren’t that as heavily relied upon as Nintendo’s. He figured that, since the controller was the same as the PS2, but still he didn’t want to touch it.

He did, however, say, he would probably purchase an Xbox 360 once the price comes down. Interesting to see Microsoft scooping up a group of gamers not truly recognized by the industry. The lazy gamer. While Nintendo and Sony are trying to get people more involved, there are more and more people trying to not get involved.

There is something to say for the folks who don’t want to move. I can see it being a chore after a long day at work, or playing hockey, to then, hold my arms up to shoot some guy in Call of Duty 3 for the Wii. But that’s what my 360 is for. However, the causal gamer will only purchase one console. Will the novelty of the Wii wear off? Will the laziness set in? Or will Nintendo continue to captivate and have more people saying “I’m a PlayStation guy but…”

Episode 23 – Black Friday Adventure

2006-11-24T18:43:00.000-05:00

At around 7:00PM I got a call from a friend Jim. He said “do you want wait in line for Wii’s tonight?” I have decided not to get a Wii just yet… (I cant get one until I get a real job.) but agreed to wait in line with him. I really wanted to do some line sitting and talk to people and see what they had to say. It’s currently 12:30AM. Jim is currently playing Mega Man 3, and there is a WOW card game being played. The four of us will venture into the abyss shortly…. And by abyss, I mean driving around to a few stores and scoping out the respective lines.

I’ll be updating as we go along… though I’ll probably just post it all at once later in the day

Well, we drove around for a little… right now we are parked in front of a Sears hoping to grab a Wii. We went to Best Buy first and saw a HUGE line, well over a hundred people. There was even an RV that was IN line. It was that ridiculous. We didn’t even stop. We kept driving. We went by a Toys R Us that had no one in front of it. We thought it was suspicious, and contemplated waiting. But we weren’t shore what the deal was. Our main objective was the Mall anyway so we decided to go there, and we knew some stores were opening at 5. At this point it is 2:30am

On the way to the mall we saw was a Circuit City. The line was shorter than Best Buy, maybe a 50 people. We rolled down the window and asked what people were waiting for. Some douche bag said “It’s Black Friday.” No shit. Thanks dick. We are well aware. Everyone was being really hush hush. And we didn’t think there would be any Wii.

We went across the parking lot to where the mall was. We circled the mall and saw there was no one was waiting outside. We knew there was an Electronic Boutique and a Game Stop inside, along with an FYE and a Sears. This seemed like the place to be… for Wii. There would most likely be a plethora in there.

We stood outside for half an hour before noticing a sign that said there were 10 dollar gift certs at another entence. We moved. We got inline for sears, there were 4 very nice people ahead of us. It was now just about 3. They weren’t opening until 5. We had a long time to go. Our game plan was this: two people get into sears and head up stairs to the electronics department. While the other two head into the mall and go to the EB and GS. A solid plan for sure.

After killing 2 hours they let us in the doors. We ran to our spots, no dice in the electronics dept. The gate was down at the entrance to the rest of the mall. We couldn’t get out. We waited… it was now 5 after 5. Still nothing. After asking two employees we discovered that nobody knew if / when they were opening the doors. We were not sure if the mall doors were opening… but once we saw people in there we ran out, then sprinted around the outside and ran in another entrance. Two people went to move the car and I went to the GS and got on line. Two people were moving the car, and the other guy went to EB. He was number 4 in line there. My two friends went directly to the EB and got spots 7 and 8 there. Not bad. There was a sign on the GS that said they were only getting 6. I was number 9. That wasn’t so good for me, but I heard some grumblings that two people were looking for PS3. They knew nothing about the Wii but seemed like they were going to settle once someone said there were none in the store. Settle… they don’t know what they’re getting into. They looked like frat guys, not like the rest of the line. They stuck out like sore thumbs. They would be better suited to an Xbox and a copy of Gears of War.

Even if they didn’t get one, I was still then number 7. Didn’t look good for me. At this point we had been on the hunt since 2AM, been standing since 3. It was maybe 5:15. The store didn’t open until 7. Disappointment started to set in and the people behind me started leaving.

I heard someone say the Toys R Us got a bunch of Wii’s in. I remembered the lack of line that was there hours earlier. The report coming in from a line passerby said by 2:30 there was a huge line outside of TRU. We had just missed it. Honestly, if there was even one person outside of TRU we probably would have just stayed there and never headed to the mall. Though there were more stores in the mall, the mall as a whole got less than TRU… probably… but who can be sure

I’m going to be honest. I have never been in a mall on black Friday. I was new to this whole thing. I was not prepared for the madness that ensued. I realize that if we had a little bit of patience and actually thought about what we were doing, everyone would have gotten what they were looking for. First at TRU, or at Game Stop. We had our choice and we totally blew it trying to play the probability game

There were also signs that hung in the front windows of some stores, (Circuit City, and FYE) which said “no Wii, no PS3.” That there were so many people in line really surprised me. Yes some stores were running ridiculous deals, but there was a great sense of disappointment from the people we talked to. They really wanted videogame systems. Having two consoles that launched within two days of one another, I’m sure helped bring out the gamer in everyone… especially the Wii. So many people wanted it. Everyone in line at Game Stop and EB wanted Wii. Even some people we spoke to in the Sears line were interested because it looked “fun.” Though it was not their goal for the day. That “hardcore” market now has two consoles to choose from, in the 360 and PS3. For those letdown by the lack of PS3, the 360 will be glad to scoop you up this holiday season. I am sure a lot of people wanting PS3’s will be receiving 360’s instead. They are well stocked on shelves and I’m sure will be continuing shipments throughout the season.

Episode 22 – Thanksgiving Day Is Game Day

2006-11-23T12:52:00.000-05:00

People play football on Thanksgiving Day. But its cold, and you can get sick that way. My suggestion: stay inside, play video games… maybe some Wii Sports… and stay healthy.

-Your Friends At Eight Bit Childhood

Episode 21 – The Greatest King Ever

2006-11-22T21:28:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I went on a mission. A mission to find one of the 3 Burger King games for the Xbox 360. The first Burger King I went to was a total bust. Nothing. In fact the girl behind the counter had no idea what I was talking about. When I asked about the King games I got a blank stare in return. Then she came back with “what?” What, indeed. I walked out. And she took the next customer.

I walked the almost 30 blocks to the next Burger King. I noticed for the first time that they are far less abundant than McDonalds... as I passed 3 of them between the BK’s. As I passed a subway station a block from the second BK and thought. If this place doesn’t have them I will make my way to the next one… I would make it my mission to secure one, or all, of these King Games.

Luckily, I didn’t have to go searching the city to find them. The second Burger King was adorned with the King and 360 rings, and a big cardboard cutout. I had reached my stop.

From the second I read about the Burger King games I was intrigued. I had fallen in love with the King. He is one creepy guy, but I loved him anyway. From that first commercial where he was in bed with some guy and hands him breakfast, to the one where he goes face to face with Darth Vader. All of them are hilarious, so if he’s in a game, I’m going to be interested. Now fast food and videogames don’t go together in my mind. I especially don’t think of them as a place to purchase video games. Alas, it is now the destination of my trek.

Aside from the commercials being so clever I liked the idea of a simple game for my 360. This could easily have been a Live Arcade title… if it wasn’t for the 56MB restriction (because of memory cards, which I think is bullshit. I’d say 90% of 360 owners have hard drives, lets drop that 56MB restriction). The games are meant to be relaxing, and enjoyable and somewhat funny. They’re very Nintendo, if you ask me, and its something the 360 needs.

So I picked up Sneak King with my Double Whopper Value Meal… that’s right, I went with the double. For a second I contemplated the single, but I knew that couldn’t satisfy my manly appetite.

After playing a solid hour of Sneak King I have determined that for 4 dollars it’s pretty great. There are some issues… the camera went crazy one time when I hid under a truck, and apparently the King cant jump down if its too high off the ground. The biggest problem I ran into was camera control stick. It’s part me and part the fact that it sucks ass because it’s the opposite of every other game I have ever played… but aside from that… well, its pretty fun. And harder than I thought.

So that was yesterday. Today I picked up Pocket Bike Racers (and a chicken nugget 8 piece… yum). This one has probably my favorite commercial, because it mocks every other video game commercial I’ve ever seen. I can see Pocket Bike Racing being a party game even; I’m calling dibs on Hamburger Guy. There are issues but not many, but over all, its pretty fantastic. Think Mario Kart on motorcycles plus Brook Burke and the King. Yes, you can play as Brooke Burke… oh and it has online multiplayer. I’m excited.

Anyway… I would love for there to be more of these games. One can easily see a McDonalds game staring Ronald and pals. Hell, that almost screams make me a game! I’d want to play as Hamburglar, and steal food from the fry guys… anyway, I’m getting off track.

This game could open up the gates for more pop culture based, affordable games. Small games that are enjoyable and cheap. Cheap is the key here, it makes it more impulsive. Could they have packed all these games onto one disc for 20 bucks? Yes. But they wouldn’t have sold as well. Instead for 4 dollars a pop you basically become one advertising executives wet dream. You play as their marketing tool. GENIUS. It’s also much more simple than going online then buying Microsoft Points then finding the game you want, then downloading it, etc. Simple, and Cheap… at this point it doesn’t even matter if the game is good or not. Though, it helps. But here, again, no one is expecting anything amazing, just something halfway decent will do. That’s all I want. Halfway decent.

Is this the epitome of in game advertising? It might be. But if BK is going to put advertising in games, at least they’re making them fun.

Photo Journalist

2006-11-21T15:16:00.000-05:00

Here are the promised pictures from the day of the PS3 launch. They're only 2 days late... and thats less days late than the PS3! ZING! ... get it.. because it was delayed... from March... oh nevermind... on with the pictures.

This is the ring of tents where games were going to be played. We had broken down the walls the night before because of the wind and rain. On the left you can see the white tent... that was where they were supposed to be showing movies.

Some of the plastic banners that were hung in each tent. Each tent had a specific banner for its game. This one is Madden. But there was also Tony Hawk, Resistance, NBA Live, Marvel Ultimate Alliance i think, and a few more. They are about 10 feet high. We threw out all of them.

Clearly my skills with a disposable camera need work. This out of focus shot is the claim table. Where they checked their ID's with the dogtags and the Polaroid. After they were cleared they were let in a side entrance, presumably right to the PS3's... I cant verrify as they were not letting anyone near there... notice the fence.

The guitar hero stage... that would have been awesome... Also on the left is the registration tent where they handed out dogtags and got peoples information.

This is what the dogtags look like. Nice large target in the center. Below it, you can bearly see it, but there is a number engraved into it.

This guy was too affriad to take his PS3 out of the bag. But he agreed to hold his bag up. I guess he didnt want to get robbed.

Oh SWAG! There it is. My prize. 2 games I can't play, a movie I can't watch, two hats, and a teeshirt i'll probably never wear. Life as a journalist certainly is good.

Episode 20 - Circuit City’s Un-Launch Day

2006-11-21T15:03:00.000-05:00

The Circuit City that is near me is THE flagship store for the entire country. If you don’t know it’s the one in Union Square (14th street) in New York. They make more money each year than any other Circuit City. They are apparently quite proud of that.

Well, yesterday I headed into Circuit City to pick up a few things. Most notably a sweet deal they had on Xbox Live Gold memberships… 40 bucks for 13 months. I couldn’t pass it up.

I went over to the video game section, which is right in the middle of the store. I immediately went to the Xbox part and snatched up a Live card. I scoped out the games they had for the 360 and was un impressed. I turned around to the Sony section expecting to see some crazy huge PS3 push but instead found nothing… well not nothing, just a lot of PS2 stuff.

But that made sense, there is a ton of PS2 stuff out, and it shared a (long) shelf with the PSP games and cases and all that. The PS3 controllers and games and other peripherals must be on the other side. I walk around to find it is nothing but audio CD’s. Strange.

I went back to where all the PS2 games are and give it a much longer look. Nope. No sign of anything PlayStation 3. Then I figure, well, maybe they put that stuff next to Wii peripherals. I assumed that since there is such an abundance of Wii’s being produced that the Game Cube section no longer existed, and it was replaced with a Wii section. But I was wrong… again.

In the Nintendo area there was an abundance of DS and GBA games, and quite a few Game Cubes, controllers and games, oh my! No sign of the Wii. None.

It was as if Circuit City hadn’t gotten the memo that new systems had launched.

I could completely understand if they had sold out of systems. I get that, it happens during a launch… especially when you only make 400,000 for an entire country. But to not support those consoles is a little ridiculous. This Circuit City is the place I have bought every peripheral for my Xbox 360, and most of my games. If I had a PS3 that is where I would have gone to pick up games or a controller or any of that. To see it not supported I would have been pissed… hell, I’m pretty angry and I don’t own either of the systems.

A store that is supposed to have all of the latest technology should have all of the latest technology. Someone dropped the ball on this.

If this, the flagship store, is any indication of what other Circuit City’s look like Nintendo and Sony should be livid. It looks like last Christmas all over again. On the shelf there were only two Xbox 360’s and both were core systems. (Last week they were stocked, mostly premiums.) Then there are Game Cubes that no one buys and a ton of PS2 games that are sold.

I believe their goal was to try and get the last of the old generation systems out the door to unsuspecting customers. If they only see PlayStation 2, maybe they’ll just buy it thinking this is what their kid wants. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is horrible customer service.

Episode 19 – Xtreme Volleyball… kinda.

2006-11-20T15:58:00.000-05:00

Ok. So I’m a guy. But seriously what the fuck. Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball 2… 2 none the less. How do you follow up a pretty decent one on one fighting game? Why you make a beach volleyball game with the same characters. Didn’t you get the memo? It’s all the rage.

I believe I missed Dead of Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball 1. It was out for the Xbox, (of which I owned) but volleyball games tend not to interest me. I actually don’t even recall seeing it on the shelf. Then this shit comes along. I played Dead or Alive 4 for the 360. Really it’s not bad, a decent fighting game to be sure… though some of the translations are hilarious.

I found the video on YouTube and thought it was some sort of parody of the DoA characters. Alas, it was not. It was the actual commercial for the fucking game. Have you seen it? Take the time now to scroll down now and look. I can wait.

…

You watched it twice. Pervert. So, if I didn’t know any better I’d say this game was about women on a beach resort, who are sexually frustrated and all about fulfilling each other’s sexual desires. Wait, it’s a volleyball game?

Someone should tell Tomonobu Itagaki (DoA creator) that women don’t… um… bounce that way. Seriously it’s completely ridiculous… and I’m a guy, most likely the target market for this game and still I have no desire to go out and get this. Maybe because pre-rendered females don’t do it for me.

But the bouncing… Has this guy ever seen a woman? Yes that caters to many video game stereotypes. No, I don’t care. I’m not going to say I am an expert on fleshy balls that protrude from a woman’s chest, but I’ve never seen any that defy gravity and wobble quite like those.

The underlying erotica throughout the entire thing is pretty ridiculous. Clearly this video serves only to entice the lonesome male looking for a good time or maybe there is a lonely beach volleyball fan… that would probably be ideal. Either way, this game just re-assures old stereotypes that gamers don’t leave their parents basement. And don’t have girlfriends, and are really really creepy.

So thank you DoA creator. For giving gamers a bad name.

(As an aside, today I read that DoA 5 was announced. Spectacular. Maybe someone can teach him anatomy)

My first experience with the Wiiner...

2006-11-19T16:32:00.002-05:00

That's right I said wiiner...my roommate decided that instead of the Nintendo Wii controller being called the Wiimote it should be called the wiiner...and the nunchuk? Well, those would be the balls. Makes sense right?

So this past Thursday after I got out of work I headed over to the Gamestop in Herald Square determined to buy myself a few Wii games after hearing some stores are selling them early. To my disappointment there were none for sale. Plan B, The Nintendo World Store. Even though I knew there wouldn't be anything on sale for the Wii I gave it a shot anyway.

I walk in the store and of course there was nothing...except a crap load of Wii stations. My first thought was to just leave and head home. I ended up lingering around watching a few people play Wii Sports. It looked like a lot of fun, but I didn't want to wait in line and ruin the fun of opening up my Wii on launch day and playing it for the first time in the comfort of my own home. So I traveled upstairs to see what was going on and sure enough there were about 8 more stations up there with all different games. I watched someone play Call of Duty 3 for a little while and then watched a little kid no older than 5 play Super Monkey Ball. Seemed like fun even though the kid did not understand the controls at all. Out of nowhere one of the Nintendo Store employees screamed out, "Does anyone want to play Excitetruck?!" No one even flinched...probably because the game seems shitty but I said what the hell...I raised my hand and 5 seconds later the guy is explaining to me how to play and putting the Wiiner in my hand. I was excited and basically didn't listen to anything he had to say because the controls aren't hard. Tilt the wiiiner in the direction you want to turn and push the d-pad for turbos. Great wonderful. Needless to say the game did in fact suck ass but it was still a lot of fun. 5 minutes later I finish the race...I placed first...somehow. I give the Wiiner back to the worker and leave with a smile on my face.

I guess you can say my first experience was fun and left me wanting more. Much like everything that happens with wiiners...you're satisfied with your outcome and you end up wanting more. Pervert.

I get down into the subway and thats when I realized I still had 4 days to wait...ughh...

***Coming Soon the Wii launch at the Nintendo World Store***

Episode 18 – Current Gen

2006-11-19T16:18:00.000-05:00

The Wii launched today. Matthew will have proof. And we know the PS3 launched on Friday.

From this point on the term Next Gen is not in my vocabulary. Congratulations class of 2006, you are now Current Gen. Finally. The next person that refers to any of the consoles that are on sale as ‘next gen’ will be shot.

Thank you.
Management.

Episode 17 – True Colors; A Case Of Gamerism

2006-11-18T09:19:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I told you all about my PS3 experience. What I left out was what happened on my way back from the first part of the event.

At the event there were both boys and girls on hand. The boys were getting their hands dirty and the girls made gift bags (hence, hat and tee shirt) and ran the registration and Polaroid’s.

There was one girl there who was absolutely gorgeous. Tall, skinny, blonde… flat out, she could have been a model. What the hell was she doing at a PlayStation launch event? It was clear she was no gamer. I have been playing video games long enough to know that this girl has never even seen a controller, let alone picked one up and used it.

Anyway, while waiting for the subway back from Brooklyn to Manhattan I discovered that the train I was waiting for just stopped running and that I had to instead take another one that took longer. Fine. I can do that. As I was about to get up, the girl I spoke of in the previous paragraph sat down in the bench next to me.

I tell her what I just learned. She’s not too happy then asks what train to take. I tell her what my plan is and she decides to take the same train I take. As we walk to the other platform I ask, “So are you coming back tomorrow morning?” There is a moment of slight recognition. She says, “Um no,” with this look in her eyes that adds, “and don’t talk to me.”

I don’t care. I talk anyway because 1) there was just no reason for that, and 2) I’m pretty sure she needs to be there tomorrow for registration (she wasn’t btw). I tell her I had to be back there at 8, which meant not too much sleep. She asks if I’m actually getting a PS3 or if I just went with someone who wanted it. There is a bit of “I’m better than you” in her voice. It pisses me off. I realize she thinks I was one of the people from the line.

I tell her, “No, I was working. With you.” That immediately makes her feel a lot better. The evil looks, and superior tone vanish. She is instantly more comfortable. We start trading stories about what we did that evening and what we saw… basically gossip. She tells me about the goings on in her booth, and that people were asking if they could get more than one PlayStation etc. Apparently, she was one of the girls in charge of Polaroid’s.

She launches into a tangent about “the shady guys who, like, still live in their parents basements” that had gotten in line for the PS3. And how videogames are so pointless and useless. This girl basically told me that these people who play video games need to get lives, and that they are inherently dirty people that gross her out. She mocked our entire community. Based on what? Some people waiting in a line? I defended, but not as much as I could have.

It kind of pissed me off though that she only opened up to me only after she found out that I wasn’t some “crazy gamer” that had been camping out for days. God, if she only knew that secretly I was a gamer… oh and I read comic books as well, if I brought that up she probably wouldn’t even have made eye contact!

I said I didn’t defend gamers to the best of my abilities. There was really one main reason for that. I really wanted to get a sense of what people outside of the community thought of these launch events. What the common folk think of events that I just come to expect and consider the norm. Also… to be honest with you, dear readers, because I always am, I did want to talk to this girl. She may be the most attractive person I have ever had a conversation with. We talked about a ton of stuff for the length of 45 + minute train ride even after she was done with her gamer bashing (and my verdict on that is she is spoiled, and dumb, and while she is quite pretty on the outside, the inside doesn’t look very good at all… needless to say she is not someone I really care to talk to ever again).

But she really did give me a sense of how the public looks at our people. It’s hard to remember that videogames are still not seen as the thing to do by the beautiful people. I think dance clubs and cocaine still hold the top slots… for some reason. It’s even harder to look back and see that I was part of some serious gamerism… its like racism or sexism… just go with it. This girl would not have spoken to me had I been a person in line, and not a person who was working the event… as if somehow she was better than me. Me? Come on.

But now I have the public’s opinion. I’m not impressed. It’s going to take more than a pretty girl to make me change my mind about anything… well not anything. She probably could have convinced me of a lot of things. If she had said that the moon landing was faked, I would have believed her. If she told me to become a republican, I might have done that too. But turn to bashing videogames? I had an eight bit childhood, and no one is going to change that.

[as an aside, I wanted to add this to my post from yesterday. There was a tremendous amount of violence for the launch of a videogame system. And to be honest, it is very symbolic of what I have been saying as of late. Sony’s advertising and their gearing their system to the more “hardcore” type I think contributes to the violence. I am not saying that it caused it, or created the violence. No. Videogames won’t make you rob someone at gunpoint. But people who don’t play videogames can see how profitable exploiting these ‘hardcore’ can be.

You will NOT see this kind of violence for the Wii. Partly because there will be enough for everyone. I guarantee that. And partly because the Wii is such a happy system, from concept to appearance. It’s about having fun. And I will bet that any midnight launches for the Wii will be organized, cooperative, and peaceful… but then again, maybe I’m a Nintendo fanboy… ]

Episode 16 - PlayStation Launch That Wasn’t

2006-11-17T15:49:00.000-05:00

Its 2AM. I just got back from the Target in Brooklyn. I was working the PS3 Launch event that didn't happen.

The goal was this: At 10PM the first 380 people in the line (that had been there for days) would get Dog Tags Identifying them as people who would be allowed to get consoles when the store opened at 8AM. Once the tags were acquired they would have their photos taken (to make sure no had their tag stolen) and they would be allowed into a small city of tents. On top of that, people who were inline and were not guaranteed a PS3 would also be allowed into this area, which was in a courtyard in front of the mall.

There were 12 consoles on hand. 11 of them with games that people would be allowed play in 10min bursts. And one was in a huge tent showing Talladega Nights, Click, and Monster House on loop all on Blu-Ray of course. There was also going to be a small Guitar Hero 2 Show... they had a stage and everything. On top of all that they had a PS3 That they were auctioning off every hour between midnight and 7AM. This would have been an awesome time especially for people who had been camping out.

Unfortunately lots of rain, wind, and a flash flood warning caused them to shut down. All that electricity plus all the water didn't mix very well. Everything was closed off and started to get broken down.

Instead at 10pm they did the tag and picture thing and told everyone to just come back at 8am and line up again. They would have the master list and they would get their PS3s. Kind of a bummer. It would have been a lot of fun.

You may be asking, why even do the dog tag thing? Just keep them waiting until the store opened… like everywhere else. The problem was this. At 9pm-ish some of the people towards the back were getting routy. Somehow the line found out that there were only 380, and there were well over 500 people I’d say. The police were called. And it was decieded that it would be safer to make them go and come back in the morning.

I did walk away with a Call of Duty 3 shirt, and a Guitar Hero 2 hat, so it wasn’t a total loss. Oh, and Click on Blu-Ray.

I left at 1am once all the tags were given out. I’m due back there at 8.

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Its now 3:25pm. I did in fact write the above at 2am, and almost posted it, and I’m glad I didn’t, because the grammar was horrid. I bought a disposable camera and took some pictures this morning; I’ll add them to the bottom of this post tomorrow.

This morning went off without a hitch… pretty much. I got to the Target at 7:45 and they had decided to start letting people with tags into the store. 15 at a time only. I wasn’t able to get in there because it was pretty crazy. First line of defense was they checked the tags. They were numbered. In a file people were matching the numbers to the persons Photo id and Polaroid. Once everything matched they could go in and that persons file was set aside, so they couldn’t come back through again. Good thinking. Cause they caught a guy trying to do that.

There was also a situation where a guy claimed he was given a pink plastic bracelet instead of a dog tag. He says they ran out last night. Yeah, they ran out because there were no more PS3s. Needless to say he didn’t get one.

While the crew and I broke the rest of the tents down and loaded up some trucks we discovered a whole box of giveaway stuff that was never given. It was pretty sweet. I ended up with Madden 07 and Tiger Woods 07… both for the PS3. I also grabbed some more Guitar Hero hats, because they were throwing them out.

I think my favorite moment was when I was loading a box truck with the Guitar Hero stage some guy asked me if wanted to buy his PS3. He had a 60gig and was asking 2 thousand for it. A nice prophet to say the least. I jokingly asked if he took credit cards. He said, “no but I can do PayPal.”

It’s really too bad this event didn’t happen. Reading now about some of the terrible stuff that went on while people waited for PS3’s (BB gun drive by, store workers mocking the line sitters, cars getting broken into…) this would have been one of the best launch parties. It would have been nice to see what some of the games looked like, and it would have been nice to get my hands on some of these games, as I have yet to play the PS3.

But, don’t mess with mothernature. One guy called the storm last night “Hurricane Microsoft.” I laughed.

Again, I promise I’ll have those pictures by tomorrow… well… I’ll try.

Episode 15 – Persuasively Portable

2006-11-16T13:06:00.000-05:00

I have always been a console gamer through and through. I never really enjoyed the few games I played on the PC, I just love the way a controller feels in my hand. As for portables… well I could never really get into them. I had a Game Gear, but it was my cousins, and it didn’t really get that much play. I always felt that there was just to great a gap in the graphics between the handheld and the consoles.

Flash to summer of 05. I came very close to buying a PSP. I had seen the graphics and had been pretty impressed. The screen blew me away. I wanted to own that screen. Then in the same week I was called for Jury Duty and was supposed to go on a road trip with my then girlfriends parents to a wedding. Sitting in the car for a few hours with her parents was completely justified the purchase of the PSP. But we ended up taking a second car, and I passed on the PSP for the lack of interesting games more than anything else.

Why would I want to play games I could play on a PlayStation that don’t look as good? I knew I was going to be getting an Xbox 360 in a few months anyway and that the handheld wouldn’t be able to hold my attention. While graphics doesn’t always turn me on to a system, it’s nice to know there is some power underneath the hood.

This past summer I picked up a DS Lite on a whim. It was launch, and I happened to be at the Nintendo World Store anyway… so I got one. I had done my research, I had heard good things about the DS already, and I wanted to play Trauma Center and that New Super Mario Bros. game. I was enticed by Star Fox and grabbed that when it came out as well. Next thing I knew, I had just as many games for my DS as for my 360.

I finally figured out what my hesitation was. Previous handhelds, like the Game Gear I owned and PSP I almost owned, didn’t look at the hand held as its own entity. You can’t just port a game from a console onto a handheld. Something gets lost there. You have to make original content for it. That’s what the DS is. It is entirely new content designed for that system. One game of Mario Hoops lasts 6 minutes. It’s an intense six minutes, but its short enough that you can play it on the subway if you want to, or while you wait for your roommate to get out of the bathroom. Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2 is a genius puzzle game and each level takes about 4 minus to play. These games were designed with the device in mind.

Playing the DS really changed my opinions on what a handheld should be. It is meant to be portable. And along with portability comes the idea of speed. Play a quick game then turn it off. It goes anywhere, it does anything… its pretty amazing.

I wasn’t to keen on the stylus at first, but Trauma Center changed my mind about it. That game makes great use of the stylus. And it’s really intense. Actually, as I look at my stack of games only New Super Mario and Tetris don’t make good use of the stylus. Most of the games I have are first party games, true, so you would expect Nintendo to use their own hardware. But it’s really amazing.

The touch screen is way more than a gimmick, it truly ads something more to gaming. The size is perfect. It fits right in this flap I have in my backpack so that makes me happy. Plus it has backwards compatibility, which allows me to grab some of those NES classics that came out a few years ago for the GBA.

I dunno, it’s a great device. And it’s purely a gaming device. It doesn’t do a billion things like the PSP. There is no music player, it doesn’t play video, and it won’t give you a back rub. I don’t want it for any of those things... a back rub sounds kind of nice, however. I just want it to do one thing well. And it does. And those puzzle games are really addictive.

(Oh and btw, the DS Lite just won gadget of the year by Time Magazine.)

On The Future

2006-11-15T16:48:00.000-05:00

A am saying this now so the timestamp on this blog is my alibi and will be able to vouch for me.

I have plans for this site as i mentioned during the 10th anniversary spectacular. These are the goals i plan on reaching with in the next year.

We will move to a .com. EightBitChildhood.com to be exact. It has been purchased, it's just a matter of space... and time... and some sort of continueum. We will have at least 10 contributors posting at least once a week. We will have at least 100 page views a day.

Those are my goals. They are not large goals, and I don't plan on cracking the Internet in half. But i have big plans for this little guy.