16-Bit Human

2003-08-07T13:50:00.000-07:00

I should hopefully be putting up a new piece in a few days, until then I thought I'd just post a link to this nifty website:

Boycott BuyRite Games

BuyRite has probably one of the worst reputations of online video game stores, and for good reason. Check out the website for information about BuyRite and what to do if you get ripped off by them.

I ordered from them once before, and despite a rather rude reaction on the phone I got my package okay, plenty of other people aren't so lucky. PLay it safe and order from places like National Console Support and Play-Asia.

2003-07-18T00:08:00.000-07:00

I was looking through an old box of random stuff I had in the garage and realized I had two consecutive years of PSM Magazine. Fall of '97 through Fall of '99. These were from when I was a big Playstation fanboy, times when my N64 would sit alone in a corner unused and unappreciated. These were also the glory years of the Playstation. Looking through one issue they had a "Best of 1998" (or maybe it was '99). Tekken 3, Gran Turismo 2, Metal Gear Solid. Huge games at the time, it was an amazing year for the Playstation.

The Saturn was on it's way to an early grave, the Nintendo 64 had taken it's place as a definitive second, and the Playstation was king.

I'm trying to figure out if I should dump them or keep them. On one hand they're kind of useless and will only take up space in my garage, on the other hand I'm a nostalgic fuck and they document the best time of the highest selling console in history.

Looking at PSM now they've definately fallen from greatness. Granted, they were rabid Nintendo-hating fanboys, but at the time PSm was a far more enjoyable read than EGM or any other console game magazine out there. Nowadays, they don't even have their unique illustrated covers. Now they just use the same tired promotional art like every other magazine out there.

2003-07-17T21:48:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking about switching 16-bit over to Movable Type and making it more of a general news/opinion/articles website focusing on various imports and niche games. We'll see how that works out.

2003-07-17T05:07:00.000-07:00

My local arcade finally broke their rule of "Nothing but crap games and Capcom fighters" and got Initial D: Arcade Stage. Not only that it's cheap (comparitively). 60 cents (three tokens) to start and 40 cents to continue. Ohhh.... This is bad news for my wallet. Luckily it's not all fun and games since the steering wheel calibration seems off, so sharp turns are a pain to pull off correctly.

Either way, they just got them put in because I was getting the only high scores on the board. For now I'm #1 in a few stages, hopefully I won't be de-throned too soon.

2003-07-16T02:44:00.000-07:00

Ave and I finally tested out our arcade sticks... Five fucking hours on Capcom vs. SNK. Plus, Ave's stick (or his converter) seems to have come kind of problems, and he can't use it properly on the Dreamcast, although it works fine on his computer.

I was going to write more, but I'm tired. Instead I'll link to this: Which Street Fighter are you?. It actually sucks, I got Yan & Yung, Alex and then Dan. What does that say about me? I wanna be Balrog dammit.

2003-07-11T02:45:00.000-07:00

My Red Octane arcade stick arrived today. It's 7.5lbs of pure plexiglass and wood arcade-like joy at home. All for the low-low price of $25 (free shipping and $5 off because I bought it at Anime Expo).

And yet it sits on my table motionless.

My USB and Dreamcast convertors have yet to arrive, so currently it's limited to only PSX and PS2 play, neither of which I'm too excited about. Front Mission with an arcade pad? Naaaaah. Avelino and I paid out the ass for express shipping from Play-Asia so hopefully we'll get it on Saturday or Monday. Samurai Showdown II in MAME is a bitch with a keyboard.

Insert Credit just posted an interesting piece by Tim Rogers about names in video games. It's a fun read, but typical Tim Rogers in it's length and rambling sensibility. If nothing else, it's not your typical video game article. Which is something, I suppose.

2003-06-30T19:32:00.000-07:00

I really haven't updated in forever.

I haven't been playing many video games lately, aside from my occasional shooters in MAME and ripping it up on TimeSplitters 2 when I get bored. For whatever reason, I've just been to busy or too lazy.

One thing worth mentioning is Video-Fenky which is by the same by who did one of my all time favorite video game websites, Video-Senki (sadly no longer around). All sorts of random Japanese video game news and rumors, the occasional odd items thrown in for fun and anything else you coudl want and never hope to find on any mainstream video game website.

Hopefully I'll update again soon.

2003-04-29T16:39:00.000-07:00

Geez, I haven't updated since Crash Bandicoot was able to sell systems.

The most obvious difference between the Gamecube and it's console system brethren is the lack of a concrete strategy on online gaming. While the X-Box's Live system is the undisputed king of onlien gaming, even the PS2's haphazard strategy looks impressive next to the Gamecube's singular online game.

The problem lies in that Nintendo seems to simply not care. No upcoming games from Nintendo have confirmed online gameplay, instead choosing to focus on their GameBoy Advance connectivity and traditional split-screen multiplayer features.

Mario Kart for Gamecube (now officially called Mario Kart Double Dash) was long rumored to end Nintendo's anti-online stance. Instead, Nintendo threw us a curve ball. The new Mario Kart will not feature online features, but it will feature LAN support allowing 8 people and two Gamecubes to play against each other on two seperate TV's. No denying it, this sounds fun. But you can't help but ask if perhaps this is merely a stop-gap attempt to appease gamer's while Nintendo figures out how to do things online.

Or, in true Nintendo fashion they could decide to simply not play that game, a la CD's circa 1995. Estimated time for Nintendo online support: 2006

2003-04-13T14:36:00.000-07:00

Spring Break
Instead of out partying in Cancun, I am at home in Davis relaxing and playing video games. My current game of choice is MS Gundam: Federation vs. Zeon DX, which is a Capcom-made arcade fighter. I first played it in Japan and loved it. Luckily not too much later it was released (in Japan) on the Dreamcast and I snapped it up, since then it's been released on the PS2.

It's still surprising to me how well lots of later generation Dreamcast games manage to hold up graphically when compared to newer PS2 games. Maybe it's the abundant RAM on the Dreamcast, but even if they don't have the most polys, Dreamcast games manage to stay attractive with bright and vibrant colors. Not only that, looking back I realize their are a number of Dreamcast games I'd still like to pick up, I just won an auction for another Dreamcast Gundam game (notice a trend?). Gundam Battle Online is technically an online strategy game, although it does feature an offline single player campaign.

GBO and Federation vs. Zeon both feature online multi-player, and it reminds me how pioneering the Dreamcast was. It took the X-Box to make online play popular, but the Sega definately set the precident by churning out a number of games with online play capabilities.

I'm also computer-less for the week, as the only computer at home is a 120mhz Macintosh Performa from 1996 that my mom uses for email, but the 28.8 modem can't even load Hotmail, so I'm stuck blogging this from my aunt and uncle's house.

2003-04-10T05:09:00.000-07:00

Japanese Shockwave Games
A quick post, as I'm about to head to bed but I encourage you all to check out Shockwave Japan's Sandra Witch game. Unnecessary skin asside, the game is addictive in it's simplicity. I find it's best to let the bouncing balls to get as close to you as possible and charge up your blast for the right speed so as to get the most balls with one hit, hence more points.

Currently my best score is #100 on the weekly results and #316 on the monthly, not too bad. Look out for yellowlightman.

I should also mention Zoo Keeper which is pretty much just Bejeweled but with cute farm characters, mildly entertaining in it's own right but I can't get onto the high scores list at all.

2003-04-09T20:22:00.000-07:00

Street Fighter II: The Movie!?
"Jean Claude Van Damme has agreed to star in a sequel to the 1994 film STREET FIGHTER, based on the Capcom video game franchise. Furthermore, Australian singer Holly Valance has been yakking to Van Damme about taking over the part of Cammy, the military babe portrayed by Kylie Minogue in the first film." (Source)

Yeah, too bad it's not April 1st. Either way, it seems like Vam Damme is jumping on the videogame-to-movie bandwagon in an effort to jumpstart his failing career (Legionnaire anybody?).

Assuming it does get made (what ever happened to the Super Mario Bros. sequel?), it will no doubt follow in the path of films like the afforementioned Italian duo and the first Street Fighter in full-on video game based movie suckitude.

2003-04-08T19:31:00.000-07:00

The past week has been filled with be being sick, not enough Zelda and school.

Baseball season is here and I feel the need deep within to pick up a baseball title for the Gamecube so Ryan's pussy little Angel's can get an old fashioned beatdown courtesy of a team that has won more than one World Series in the last fifty years.

My baseball video experience is pretty much composed of two instances. The more recent one was a few years ago when I borrowed a baseball game from my friend for the N64, it was fun enough and I have no interesting anectdotes about it.

My first baseball video game experience was for the Atari and a game called simply Baseball (to the best of my recollection) as a young 'un I would constantly harass my Dad to play it with me, and he rarely did. Or at least, not as much as I would have liked. It was the only really good game I had for the Atari, a system my Dad later threw out during his next move without asking me (Thanks Dad).

2003-03-31T20:11:00.000-08:00

Zelda: The Wind Waker Impressions

The Graphics
These have been hotly debated ever since the first screen shots appeared online. For a lot of people, the cel shaded style quickly turned them away. The idea that the game would suck just because of a new style of graphics is ridiculous, and now obviously false. The graphics are definately the kind of thing that polarizes opinion, either you love them or hate them. Those that hate them need to lighten up and appreciate the cartoon style. Those that love them can appreciate the flawlessness of the graphics, the expressions on people's faces, the hand-drawn look. In short, they are gorgeous.

The Gameplay
The gameplay is familiarly Zelda, but at the same time it is new and fresh. Whereas The Ocarina of Time was more a 3D version of Link to the Past and featured mostly the same puzzles and items, The Wind Waker has brand new puzzles that are still "Zelda." New items, new storyline, familiar yet new. Probably the most obvious new addition is the sailing portion, the game requires you to sail across a vast sea with numerous islands. But it is pulled off with typical Nintendo-quality and quite enjoyable.

The Controls
Very similar to the Ocarina of Time's, in short it is perfect. A few minutes and it already feels like second nature.

In Short
Buy it.

2003-03-26T23:57:00.000-08:00

In sophomore year of high school I was hardcore into Mobile Suite Gundam, arguably one of the most popular anime franchises (well, in Japan). Through mailing lists and newsgroups I frequented I heard of a Playstation port of a Gundam game for the Saturn. In particular this game was unqiue because unlike most Gundam games it was a military strategy game. Its name was MS Gundam: Giren no Yabou, which translates into MS Gundam: Giren's Greed.

I waited with anticipation after placing my preorder with NCS. I was a huge stragegy game fan, and Giren's Greed was every Gundam fanboy's wet dream. It was more than your regular strategy game because instead of focusing only on combat, you were also responsbile for managing troops and pilots, maintaining relationships with various political factions as well as developing and building new technology. For the most part it was regular fare, nothing very special. What made it stand out what was that depending on the decisions you made duringt he course of the game, the story could deviate considerably from the established Gundam continuity. As such, it allowed for fans to make their "own" version of the Gundam story.

After weeks of waiting the game arrived and I popped it into my modded Playstation and set about learning the controls. Being that it was an import game, and my knowledge of Japanese was at a second grade level (at the time) most of the complex characters and dialog were totally lost on me. With help from various Japanese-speaking Gundam fans I was able to figure out the basics and play the game as best as you could expect for not understanding half the things being said.

The game for one, is huge. The depth and options are almost limitless, added to this fact is that the game is comes with two CDs. Each CD allowed you to play as a different side (The Earth Federation or Duchy of Zeon) in essence doubling your replayability.

I played it and played it. And I kept playing it for a couple years. I would guess that short of Tetris, it ranks as the I've played the most. Its unique in the fact that if I wasn't such a Gundam fan, I wouldn't have spent the time to learn how to play it or enjoyed it so much, but because I cared I was able to spend time and appreciate it as an actual quality game, a cut above most licensed titles.

As time went on I moved onto new games, new systems and eventually Giren's Greed was just soemthing I glanced at while looking through my game collection. For the most part I had forgotten about it. That is, until NCS announced pre-orders for a new version of Giren's Greed, coming out in May coming out on the Wonderswan.

2003-03-26T17:36:00.000-08:00

The Wind Waker landed today. It is fantastic, I must say. The graphics are absolutely stunning, it really does look like a cartoon. The gameplay is almost identical to the Ocarina of Time, which is a good move in my book. The controls are picked up instantly, flawless Nintendo controls as usual.

More comments once I get further into it.

2003-03-24T17:14:00.000-08:00

The Wonderswan
In early 1999, Bandai released a new low-cost handheld video game unit as an attempt to grab a portion of the market monopolized by the GameBoy Color. Although the system was only grayscale, it’s 16-bit processor and sharp graphics were a step above the GameBoy Color’s. In fact, the Wonderswan shared the same designer as the GameBoy, Yokoi Gunpey.

The Wonderswan itself could be used in either a horizontal (like the Sega Gamegear or Neo Geo Pocket) configuration or a vertical (like the original GameBoy) style configuration, depending upon the design of the game. As such the handheld featured two clusters of four buttons that acted like directional pads and two regular buttons. The Wonderswan ran on one AA battery, with a battery life of about thirty hours.

Games available at launch included well-known franchises like Digimon, Nobunaga’s Ambition and Densha de Go. The system began to carve out a niche with further well-known franchises and unusual peripherals like the Handy Sonar, an actual sonar unit designed for use by amateur fishermen.

Almost two years later in late 2000, an updated color version of the Wonderswan was released. The new Wonderswan Color featured the same processor but now included color capabilities and full back compatibility with older Wonderswan games. The unit was slightly larger and the estimated battery life was reduced. New color-compatible games were soon released, perhaps the most significant of these being an updated version of Final Fantasy I which was released at the debut of the new handheld.

A further update of the Wonderswan was released, named the SwanCrystal. It featured a slightly larger LCD screen, which reduced the motion blur common on the first two Wonderswan handhelds. Otherwise the SwanCrystal was identical to the Wonderswan Color, and was compatible with all Wonderswan games.

Increased support from Squaresoft and more Gundam and Digimon games allowed the Wonderswan to carry on in some amount of success although the release of the GameBoy Advance proved to be an obstacle the Wonderswan was never able to overcome.

Wonderswan Specs
Processor Speed: 16-Bit
Clock Speed: 3.072 Mhz
Colors Display: 8 shades of gray (Wonderswan), 241 colors out of 4,096 possible (Wonderswan Color)
Power Source: 1 AA battery or Rechargeable Battery Pack
Battery Life: 30 hours (Wonderswan), 20 hours (Wonderswan color)

Wonderswan
Release Date: 03/04/1999
Release Price: 4,800¥
Available Colors: Skeleton Pink, Skeleton Blue, Blue Metallic, Pearl White, Skeleton Green, Silver Metallic, Skeleton Black, Soda Blue, Frozen Mint, and Sherbet Melon. A number of limited edition Wonderswan packages were also made, such as the Federation or Zeon bundle with MS Gundam MSVS and a camouflage edition.

Wonderswan Color
Release Date: 12.19.2000
Release Price: 6,800¥
Available Colors: Pearl Blue, Pearl Pink, Crystal Black, Crystal Blue and Crystal Orange. A limited edition Wonderswan Color was also included in a Final Fantasy I bundle pack.

SwanCrystal
Release Date: 07.12.2002
Release Price: 7,800¥
Available Colors: Wine Red, Blue Violet, Crystal Black, and Crystal Blue.

Games
Throughout it’s life the Wonderswan enjoyed a wide selection of games, although most were of the RPG or strategy genre. Bandai managed to used it’s wide selection of anime properties to create games based on well known franchises like MS Gundam, One Piece, X and Inu Yasha. The popular Pokémon-contender Digimon also made a number of stops on Bandai’s handheld.

Much of the Wonderswan’s longevity can be traced to support from Squaresoft. Although Squaresoft’s first game for the Wonderswan was released alongside the launch of the system, it wasn’t until the remake of Final Fantasy I was released at the launch of the Wonderswan Color that Square become a leader in Wonderswan game development. Square followed up Final Fantasy I with II and IV, both with increased visuals over the Famicom and Super Famicom originals. Other Squaresoft staples like the SaGa series and a port of the original Front Mission saw release next to Wonderswan exclusive games such as Blue Wing Blitz and Wildcard.

Bandai itself was no slouch, pumping out Digimon and MS Gundam games with a fervor. The use of exclusive games from popular franchises helped the Wonderswan to stand out against the GameBoy Advance, but inevitably the Wonderswan began suffering the same fate as systems like the Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64. With a few exceptions, it was Bandai that was producing all of the games, with minor support from companies like Squaresoft and Capcom.

Peripherals
Along side the usual handheld peripherals of rechargeable batteries, lights and earphones (the Wonderswan lacked a normal headphone jack) the Wonderswan featured some of the most unique add-ons seen on a handheld system.

Communication Cable
Your typical link cable that allows two Wonderswan players to go head-to-head on any 2-player game.
Price: 1,450¥

Handy Sonar
Released in 1999, this add-on is designed to allow fisherman to see what’s in the water below them. A sonar unit attaches to the Wonderswan with the graphic display showing up on the Wonderswan’s screen
Price: 9,800¥

Headphone Adapter
Since the Wonderswan lacks a regular headphone jack, it’s necessary to use an adapter, which plugs into the add-on port, which allows for a regular headphone to be used.
Price: 2,700¥

Rechargeable Battery Pack
In case you get tired of replacing those AA batteries, you can use a licensed rechargeable battery.
Price: 3,700¥

The Wonder Borg
Using your Wonderswan you can program this beetle-like robot with basic commands and watch it walk around. The Wonder Borg also contains a variety of sensors such as infrared, touch, brightness and pheromone. This was primarily intended for us as an educational device to teach about early robotic engineering.
Price: 12,000¥

The Wonder Witch
Gamers around during the earlier years of the Playstation may remember the Net Yaroze, an amateur programming kit for the system. The WonderWitch is the Wonderswan equivalent, allowing those that know C to program for the Wonderswan. The package includes a special WonderWitch cartridge for storing your game, as well as a CD with programs for your PC and a cable to connect your PC and Wonderswan.
Price: 11,800¥

The Wonder Gate
This add-on allowed the Wonderswan to access the Internet through a cellular phone. Features included a web browser and E-mail program as well as access to small downloadable minigames.
Price: ?

The Wonderswan’s Swan Song
In July of 2002 Bandai released a new update of the Wonderswan, the SwanCrystal. Featuring a new look and a much sharper screen, the Wonderswan Crystal was Bandai’s last attempt against the GameBoy Advance. Lack of support and the increasing popularity of the GameBoy Advance forced Bandai to announce that all manufacturing of the SwanCrystal was to be halted on February 18th, 2003.

As it stands there are a few games left on the release charts for the SwanCrystal/Wonderswan Color but it looks as though these will be the last for the system. As it stands, the Wonderswan was the only handheld in recent years to even challenge the GameBoy’s dominance of the handheld market, even if it failed. It managed to produce a unique collection of games and create diversity in a market where for a very long time; there had been none.

References
WonderSwanWeb (Official Site)
GameFAQs (Look under Wonderswan FAQ's)
SQUARE for Wonderswan
WonderBorg
SwanSong - The Wonderswan Site
Wonderswan World

2003-03-23T22:06:00.000-08:00

Using the Internet Archive I was able to take a look at my old webpage I had at simplenet.com. Granted, I have the backups somewhere on CD but it was cool to see it on the web again. The last update I did was on March 18th, 1999. Damn, that was a long time ago. Coicidently, I started dating my first girlfriend on the 20th of March that same year, so my loss of interest in webpublishing can be easily explained by girls and shortly following that, highschool.

Sometime after that, I still had a very large folde ron my desktop with all of my webpage designs, images, whatever in it. While talking on the phone and attempting to clean up my desktop I accidently threw that folder away, and I was too lazy to download all my files off my server so that relatively large part of my creative childhood remains lost. Shortly after I finally cancelled my simplenet account they got bought out by Yahoo and lost their unique identity. The awesome thing about simpelnet was that for $30 startup and $10/month you could get unlimited space and unlimited bandwidth. Granted, this was before the explosion of mp3s, web videos, and broadband so there wasn't much to suck up that bandwidth anyways. Regardless, that probably stands as one of the best deals in internet hosting, ever.

Internet history class dismissed.

2003-03-23T15:38:00.000-08:00

After posting to a few Japanese BBS' concerning NEC PC-98 emulation, my site now gets a lot of hits from Japanese visitors. It's kinda odd to look at my access log and see the majority of IP addresses ending in .jp.

2003-03-23T04:18:00.000-08:00

Apologies for not updating this in forever, life has been hectic and video games haven't been a big focus for me of late. Regardless, Zelda: Wind Waker ships tommorow and midterms just wrapped up so this will likely change. Rejoice.

The news is a month late, but seeing as how no one cares anyways, it seems Bandai finally decided to throw in the towel on the Wonderswan. Sad, I've always really liked this system for some reason. It's been the only handheld to even challenge the GameBoy's reign of power, although it still didn't do a very good job.

A few games are left to be released, specifically a port of MS Gundam: Giren's Greed on May 2nd. With any luck I'll be grabbing that, a swan song I suppose. I've been planning a series of articles about rare or unknown Japanese consoles, so the Wonderswan will likely be included. Keep checking back here for more on that.

In the meantime, I recently discovered |insert credit|. They do a good job of representing a more unknown side of the gaming industry, with a whole lot of emphasis on the GP32 (sorry no link, it's too late. it's a very powerful korean made handheld). Also check out Oldergames. They release old un-released and original games for dead systems (read: Sega CD, Phillips CD-I, etc).

And good night.

2003-03-11T20:43:00.000-08:00

Random Sites
As part of my research for our trip to Japan (see below) I've been looking at a lot of sites for information. The Japan National Tourist Organization has some interest stuff, probably the most worthwhile part was their step-by-step guide to staying a a ryokan, which is an old-style Japanese inn. A guy named Justin has a good website all about his experiences in Japan. A good amount of photo essays, although the organization is a bit confusing. I'll probably be checking out his guidebook to Tokyo, called Just In Tokyo. On a side note, his signifigant other is the woman behind Game Girl Advance. The internet is sometimes a very small world, eh?

2003-03-11T20:20:00.000-08:00

Ave, Yann and I have been talking alot about going back to Japan in a year or so. Right now our plan seems to visit our friends there (most of whom are spread out because of school). Getting around will be by train, walking and hitchiking. More or less we just want to "play it by ear" and go by day by day. Basically an adventure.

Thsi of course means we'll have to be packing light, since we'll end up carrying whatever we want to take with us on our backpacks. So we'll probably start somewhere around Okayama, maybe visit our host families and stuff then make our way towards Tokyo and whatever else on the way.

I'm really excited, but it's too damn far away.

2003-03-08T15:40:00.000-08:00

Capcom just released a video of their new game PN 03, here.

It looks pretty cool, and I'm definately more intrigued by it now that I've seen it in action. The main character has a sort of kung fu-dance-Dragonball Z type deal going on and reminds me of wire-fu style Hong Kong movies just with fireballs and stuff like that. Granted, the main character also does a fair amount of butt shaking, all the fanboys will be thanking Capcom, I'm sure.

The graphics look nice, definately filling up that hardcore sci-fi niche that the Gamecube kinda lacks. Overall it remind's me of a Japanese take on Star Wars, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

2003-03-07T01:12:00.000-08:00

My poor abandoned blog.

I haven't touched many games lately, just the occasional Skies of Arcadia (these dungeons need more friggin save spots so I don't leave my GC on overnight). Right now it's all just building up to Zelda. 17 days and counting.

2003-03-03T15:44:00.000-08:00

Almost every second I love my Mac. There are a lot of reasons why I don't mind using an over-priced and hard-to-upgrade processors. There are a few times I really hate it though. All those times they don't have a program for what I want to do. Inevitably its something small, not incredibly important, but something it'd still be nice to have.

Now its an emulator for the PC-98, an old DOS-based PC from Japan. The one and only PC-98 emulator for Mac won't play any of the games I have. Not too important, but something I'd like.

I guess I need to get Virtual PC.

2003-02-25T22:48:00.000-08:00

Ladders, Ladders Everywhere!
Skies of Arcadia has a phenominal amount of ladders. On land you can't go a few steps from running into them. Up to second floors, other areas, whatever. They have ladders by the boatload (hah!). Everytime I climb down one I think of Starfox Adventures and how you could slide down ladders with the A button. Man, I woudl kill for that ability right now. Screw magic, screw swords, I want ladder slide. Oh well.

Maybe if I keep playing long enough, they'll invent steps.

2003-02-23T03:10:00.000-08:00

Shigeru Miyamoto is known for his stable of established video game characters; Donkey Kong, Mario, Link. Nintendo has built their fortune and success on his games, and continue to keep making sequels. Despite this, Miyamoto hasn’t had many new ideas in the past ten years. He pushes his games in new directions, Mario 64 and Zelda: The Ocarina of Time were both incredibly ground breaking but it’s still the same mold for the same characters.

Pikmin has changed this, as it shows Miyamoto’s first completely new franchise in some time. In addition to just creating new characters, Miyamoto has managed to create a very original game; it’s not just Zelda or Mario with a different face slapped on it.

In Pikmin you play the role of Captain Olimar a spaceship pilot who crashes his ship on a foreign and unexplored world. In the crash many of the parts to his spaceship scatter across the planet, and he must recover them to get his ship space-worthy before his life support systems fail in thirty days. Here’s where the Pikmin come in; little creatures of three different colors (red, yellow and blue) come to help Olimar. By using the strengths of each color, and continuing to feed them (with food pellets or animals collected) Olimar leads the Pikmin to recover the lost pieces of his spaceship.

Each stage in the game has a number of pieces, a puzzle surrounding how to retrieve that piece. You’re at your own discretion as to the order that you retrieve the pieces, although you have to work fast because the game is divided into days. Each day in game equals about half an hour of real time, so you’re pressed for time to figure out each obstacle and how to tackle it. Bit by bit you figure out the abilities of your Pikmin, and what they can do. The puzzles get progressively more entertaining as you’re forced to use each Pikmin ability with the surrounding environment to retrieve all of the pieces to your ship.

Pikmin is an excellent puzzle game, but presented like a real time strategy game. Despite being an original game, there are many similarities. The control and need to continue replenishing your Pikmin is reminiscent of StarCraft or any real time strategy game. The difficulty surrounding each piece of your starship is a puzzle. And the need to make use of your environment and to explore that environment for every secret is similar to adventure games.

Despite being released early in the Gamecube’s game, at the current MSRP of $29.99, it’s a good deal and a definitely worth the money.

2003-02-22T05:30:00.000-08:00

I think Shenmue rendered regular RPGs out of date, at least in my mind.

I'm about five hours into Skies of Arcadia Legends, and despite being a pretty fun game, in terms of gameplay its very similar to SNES-era games. Either way, a few things bother me. Granted, these things should be taken with a grain of salt because I'm certainly not an avid RPG player.

Realism. Okay, I'm not asking for a life sim. But seeing as how a major part of RPGs is the story, the world should be an believable place. Days should be kept track of, it's ridiculous to have the characters tell you you've "gotta hurry to save character x" but then be able to sleep in an inn for the night five times.

Or how about all the characters you see? Walking the same little path, or staying in the same place... day after day. You leave, you come back a while later. They're still there. They don't move. Shenmue created that sense of realism by having moving characters. Off to work, off to school. Wherever. It made you think "Hey, these guys might actually have lives." The guy that sits in front of the inn telling you the same three sentences about his town doesn't have a life.

Shenmue is certainly not the end all RPG, but it's definately advancing. It shared plenty of problems with other RPGs. Such as, no matter how many times you ask... Most characters will say the exact same thing. Or something ridiculous. They'll tell you about the history of their town, as if they're a tour guide. Shenmue didn't have that problem though.

I think the last RPG I played that wasn't on the SNES was Final Fantasy 8, so I'm no authority. Either way, playing Skies left me feeling like it was 1995 or something, nostalgia ain't a bad thing but we should be moving forward here.

2003-02-19T02:55:00.000-08:00

I've been playing Pikmin non-stop the past couple of days. It's one of those games that has no comparison, some sort of Lemmings/RTS/Adventure game hybrid, which really makes no sense at all. Miyamoto proves that despite continually re-doing the classics, he still has a few very original franchise ideas, which is reassuring to say the least.

I'll stop there, because I'm prolly gonna get off my butt eventually and write a review of it, if only for the fact I haven't written anything decent on here in a while.

Oh yeah, and www.yellowlightman.com is go.

2003-02-17T23:23:00.000-08:00

Last night I had a lot of dreams, it was one of those nights I guess. One of those dreams involved Skies of Arcadia for the Gamecube (although it was originally released for the Dreamcast). Anyways, I woke up with the desire to buy it.

I really have no idea why it was in my dreams, I haven't thought much about it really, never even considered buying it. Anyways, now I'm thinking about buying it, especially after two good reviews from some friends.

Its creepy in-dream advertising or something.

2003-02-17T00:50:00.000-08:00

Sega and Sammy are going to be merging into a single company. The news doesn't come as quite a shock, especially following the recent merger of Enix and Square. What's unique is that Sammy is primarily a pachinko manufacturer, with it's one notable franchise being Guilty Gear

Weirder yet is that Sammy's president Hajime Satomi will be the president of the new company, not a Sega executive. I can see the logic in this, because frankly, Sega's business management sucks. I just hope it doesn't turn into an SNK type deal, where all of the video game staff was told to go program pachinko games. But the difference I suppose is SNK was bought out, Sega is merging, and Sega also controls a 54% majority of the company so it's doubtful Yu Suzuki will be making pachinko games.

In Japan, both companie's stock dropped, so the merger might not be as beneficial to either companies. Or it could fall apart completely, like Sega's merger with Bandai a few years ago.

2003-02-11T23:36:00.000-08:00

Wow.

Thats so cool, robots are cool.

2003-02-11T17:33:00.000-08:00

Remember this?

Apparently NCS has been getting a lot of requests for the Rez + Trance Vibrator game pack, despite the fact a few months ago they had a large surplus of them. Oh well, I had always meant to grab the European versions of Headhunter and Rez after I grabbed Shenmue II but I never got around to it. Too bad because I could make mad cash by selling it.

2003-02-11T03:02:00.000-08:00

It's bad enough I update this pretty regularly, but god forbid I make another.

2003-02-11T00:16:00.000-08:00

Today... wow.

I'll just skip through my classes and lunch and nap to the cool stuff. I drove to Sunset today to see a book reading by William Gibson, of his newest book. A weird thing to do, but he's about the only author I can get excited about so I figured it'd be a cool experience.

Sunset is amazing, coming off the 170 it slowly turns from ghetto stripmalls into blocks and blocks of neon. Too many music stores to comprehend, ever curving following the slope of the foothills, definately unique. The area around Book Soup (the bookstore the reading was at) was a lot like San Francisco, so I felt oddly comfortable in a way I'm usually not in LA. Unfortunately it was more like San Francisco than just appearances... Parking was a bitch; I ended up circling around until I finally did a half assed parallel parking job, crammed what little change I had into the meter and took off towards the bookshop.

It was during this frantic parking-search I saw teh Whiskey A-Go-Go, which for those not aware was the place where The Doors were the house band until they signed their contract with Electra. I'm a huge Doors fan, so that was pretty amazing for me.

I made it to Book Soup, about fifteen or twenty minutes late and had to stand in the very back behind other, taller people. I had already missed the reading (though Gibson joked it wasn't a very good chapter, because he picks what he's going to read at random). I heard the last few questions and then it was time for him to sign books. I bought a copy of his new book, Pattern Recognition and got in line.

One thing I noticed was that I was easily the youngest person there, most people seemed to be between thirty and fifty and most looked like they had just got off of their relatively normal jobs. Wasn't really the science fiction crowd I was expecting, but then again his books aren't exactly Star Trek either.

I finally got to his signing table, handed him the book. Looking back I really should have brought all my other Gibson books too, since he didn't have a problem signing big stacks of books, oh well. I asked him some dumb quetsion about making films based on his works and I left. Overall I was a little disapointed I didn't ask him a better question, but I dunno what else I could possibly have to ask him so I didn't worry about it too much.

Driving back down Sunset I stopped at a stoplight and was looking around and saw that I was right next to the Harmony Gold offices, the people that created Robotech. So I grabbed my camera and took a quick picture of the sign before the light turned green. I didn't think about this until now, but it really reminds me of the time I saw the Nintendo building as we were riding past it on the train in Kyoto, Japan. Same sorta "'Oh shit!' wheres my camera?" reactions. Luckily, both times I got a picture.

Thats three events, each with a lot of meaning to me in one day. So I am happy.

2003-02-10T03:29:00.000-08:00

Not much to say, I preordered Zelda yesterday... Less than two months to go.

Will write more soon, promise.

2003-02-05T23:50:00.000-08:00

I just cut my suitemate's hair. That isn't too gay, is it?

Either way, it turned out pretty good so I think I'm gonna drop out of film school and go into barber school and give haircuts to people like Clemens who want to look like Jason Priestley circa 1994.

I just realized Blogger changed the graphics for the blog editor, but you can't see that.

2003-02-04T22:08:00.000-08:00

I spent nearly all afternoon playing two old Macross arcade shooters, and now my left hand is sore from continually pressing 'control' to fire. I've never been much into shooters, mostly because given my skill at them I tend to lose quarters fast. MAME makes it possible to die a lot and not lose any money.

My suitemate just came in complaining because Fox cut to a 35mph chase instead of showing the preview shots from next week's 24. Yeah...

Anyways, I like the "twitch" style of shooters. You have to zone out a little and let your body react to the game, which is cool. Seeing tons of shots flying towards you and having to dodge them, grab powerups, it's pretty exciting.

Not only is the run away car going 35mph, he's also using turn signals whenever he changes lanes.

I think i'm getting better, except that the third level in Macross II is insanely hard, because you have to get a certain amount of points within a certain amount of time, so it's very frustrating.

2003-02-04T00:19:00.000-08:00

Supposedly Datel will be releasing their Freeloader disc for the Gamecube sometime in the next week or so. It's just a regular boot disc that lets you play any Gamecube game from any country on any Gamecube from any other country. The unusual thing (to me) is that it came out so soon. The PS2 is still struggling with an easy mod chip as is the X-Box.

Which reminds me, Microsoft originally promised that the X-Box wouldn't have any region coding, but then went back on their word. I don't see why, they're still losing money out the yin-yang.

Either way, it'll be nice to be able to import Gamecube games although thus far there isn't much actually worth importing. We'll see how soon Nintendo Puzzle Collection comes out here, although with Zelda right around the corner I can probably just wait.

2003-02-03T23:00:00.000-08:00

Updated the title graphics and other random crap, woo-hoo.

2003-01-28T02:53:00.000-08:00

Shen-Musings, Part 3: Shenmue II and Beyond
Despite being an excellent game, Shenmue did not do amazing sales. None the less, the comined factors of being merely the first chapter of a sixteen-part story and the pet project of Yu Suzuki, definately helped to assure the released of a sequel.

Shenmue II improved on the original in many ways. The game now took place in Hong Kong, and allowed for much more freedom and exploration. Rather than being limited to a handful of streets in Shenmue, the sequel offered a much larger world. The inter-connected districts of Hong Kong were so complicated, it was easy to get lost without a map and so huge it felt like a real city. The story was much more encouraging of freedom, and didn't present all the answers quite as easily as the original did.

You could now get a job whenever you want, or make money by doing a variety of other things; gambling, darts, arm wrestling or street fighting. The arcade was there, with more classic Sega games, and a diverse cast of characters helped move the story along.

Despite these improvements, the game was only released on the Dreamcast in Japan and Europe. In an attempt to bolster sales of the X-Box, Microsoft secured the rights to Shenmue II in the U.S., and Yu Suzuki and AM2 even went back and tweaked the port of the game for better performance. Despite this setback for U.S. Dreamcast owners, it wasn't hard to find an imported copy of the, I ordered mine from National Console Support. In fact, I even saw a copy for sale at a Software Etc.

Shenmue II X (as the X-Box version was called) didn't sell very well, and with poor sales it's unsure if another sequel will ever be made. Yu Suzuki, however, seems determined to continue his story so it's likely it will continue on in some form.

2003-01-27T23:58:00.000-08:00

Its amazing how fast this past year has flown by. I can't think of any other time in my life when I've had so much fun. All that uncompleted homework, 80 unexcused absences, two cars, and some of the best friends in the world. I don't think there's a single part of this past year that I would change. Even more amazing is how I've shared this past year with somebody else. Every thought, every event, she's been there with me. She laughed with me, she held me when I was sad, and tolerated all of my quirks and tangents. She's more than just a friend, more than just a girlfriend, she's a very special part of my life, a part that I don't know what I'd do without. She played such a huge role in making this year so amazing. And every day I'm grateful for having her in my life, for having her willing to be such a major part of my life. Happy anniversary, babe.

2003-01-27T23:21:00.000-08:00

Nowadays we can look back at NES games and still appreciate their graphics, because they're "retro." Or we can look at SNES games and still appreciate them for thier artistic skill, even if the pixels were a little blocky. So I wonder if we'll look back the same way on early Playstation and Nintendo 64 games.

I don't think polygons have the same ability to look quite as nice after five or ten years, the same way sprites do. ESPN X-Games for the Playstation doesn't have the same artistic merit of Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, even if it is technologically superior. I suppose there are always games like Metal Gear Solid, or Zelda 64. Either way, I have a hard time looking at my Gamecube games and then trying to get into Driver or Perfect Dark, even if both games have awesome gameplay.

2003-01-26T06:20:00.000-08:00

Oh how I long for thee, Nintendo Puzzle Collection. Dr. Mario, Tetris Attack and Yoshi's Cookie, all on one delectable disc. I wish they'd hurry up and release the Freeloader, so I can start importing some games. In the mean time I'll tide myself over with this:

Nintendo Puzzle Collection Commercial [Japanese]

Wait a minute, that doesn't cut it at all.

2003-01-26T06:16:00.000-08:00

Goddamn I hate the drive from Davis to LA. Its so incredibly miserably boring and lonely. On the plus side, I made it in about five hours thanks to my constant 80-100mph speed and my one ten minute break to get gas and go to the bathroom.

Driving through the boonies for the first hundred miles or so south of Sacramento was really nice, it was very overcast and a little rainy in some parts. In Turlock or there abouts I saw a gas station called 'Gas Wars,' right across from the Chevron I stopped at.

The grape vine is annoying because you keep thinking it's over, but really you're just in a little valley. Somewhere in there there's a lake called 'Pyramid Lake,' named because of a small island in the middle of the lake that looks like a pyramid, go fig. And then I passed the last hill and I was back in the land of Porsches and H2 Hummers.

2003-01-24T04:20:00.000-08:00

Tweaked Part 2 of the Shenmue entry, threw in some pictures from the Sega Saturn version, before it was scrapped and development was moved to the Dreamcast. Old school.

I also put up a couple of link buttons on the left. The Digital Emotion one I made myself, go me.

2003-01-22T20:18:00.000-08:00

Shen-musings, Part 2: Unsure of What it Wanted To Be

Despite its accomplishment of creating a world unlike any other game previous, Shenmue still suffered for a number of problems. It seemed like for every step it took forward, it took one step back, or rather, didn't step ahead at all.

So while Shenmue allowed you to go at your own pace, and interract with nearly anybody; most people you talked to would just repeat the same thing over and over again, day after day. Your interractions with all but the most important characters were limited to a handful of responses. Even with those important characters, you had no choice of what to say to them. This resulted in me saying "Goddamit, Ryo! Why the hell did you say that!?"

Many of the shops were limited in interactivity as well. There were at least a half dozen restaurants, but you couldn't buy food at any of them. The used goods store, the sports store, again, your interraction with those was limited to talking with the shop owners standing in front of them.

Maybe it was too much to ask of a game, but it was incredibly frustrating to be able to interract so much with certain areas and people, but not all. Its easy to see where this short coming came from, as Shenmue was most definately intended to be an interactive movie. As such your lines were preprogrammed, you had no choice of what to say to people because the story needed to be carried on.

As such I think it was a mistake to throw those two elements together. A world designed for realism and exploration doesn't work very well when matched with a movie-style story that must follow a certain path. On one hand Shenmue tells you "Here, do whatever you want" and on the other hand it tells you "You have no choice, do it this way." Yet, the Shenmue is still a very moving experience. The movie element of Shenmue is in full force and works very well. Full voice for all character, dramatic camera angles and subplots, and unresolved mysteries. Shenmue is successful in that it creates the illusion that you are in the midst of a martial arts epic.

2003-01-21T05:11:00.000-08:00

Shen-musings, Part 1: The Beginning

Around the time of Shenmue's release, I was deep into my hardcore Playstation/Nintendo fanboy days. Actually, scratch that, I was just a hardcore Sega-hater. God knows why really, maybe because a friend of mine in elementary school kept arguing with me that his Genesis' graphics were better than the graphics on an SNES, I don't know. Either way, the Dreamcast was nemesis.

Where I had before forbid one of my best friends from bringing his Dreamcast into my house, I was now begging him to let me borrow it to play Shenmue.

Shenmue looked to be that next step. The name of the game was freedom, a break from a linear plot transgression where your next step was foretold by the programmers. Granted, if you wanted to investigate the story in Shenmue and actually beat the game, you had to do that too. It was unique because you could wake up one morning (I'm talking in-game here) and spend your entire day playing video games and wandering around. You had an entire neighborhood with bars, people, an arcade, a store. The freedom to pick your own pace and the fact that the game was more than just elements to move the story along was awesome.

The game was divided into days with each day roughly equaling twenty or thirty minutes, I don't remember exactly. As the day progressed you could follow people out of their homes and to work, and then back to their homes or to the bar for a drink. Where as almost all RPGs took place in one constant place and peopel rarely moved one from small area, Shenmue successfully created that world around you. I think that was key to the game, the creation of this world. The setting didn't exist simply for the story, instead, the story existed because of the setting. You could go through the entire game without talking to scores of people, or doing different minigames, because that was just part of the town of Yokosuka and had nothing to do with the plot.

Granted, this wasn't perfect by any means. Many people would repeat the same thing to you (or just say how tired they were and "could you ask somebody else?") when you talked to them. And while you could go into many buildings, the majority of the doors you knocked on got you responses of "Go away!" or nothing at all. Shenmue also had the nasty problem of flip-flopping between a free-form life simulator and various monotonous tasks that had to be accomplished, whether you liked it or not, to advance the story.

Despite that, the game created a true feeling of being in a different world. In this case it was 1985 small-town Japan, but very few games can actually do that. Shenmue actually made you feel like you knew Yokosuka. It was able to transport you to this place, and you believed it. I hadn't realized how real Yokosuka was until I went to Japan the summer after I played Shenmue. Shenmue trully does look like a small Japanese town; little tiny houses with no yards, vending machines everywhere, it was all there.

It helps to have boring tastes sometimes, because Shenmue is incredibly enjoyable if you like just wandering around and exploring. I loved it because for every RPG that ever forced me into a random battle I didn't want to fight, or every sidescroller which had no logic behind your jumping on platforms.

Its hard to put into words exactly so much why I love this game. Its that creation of a world that makes sense, the game is based in logic. A game where you could sit on your ass all day and all the characters around you would keep on living, and not really care what you do. The game created a world before it created a story, and because of that, you believed it and could enjoy it all the more so. I feel the same good feeling when I walked out of my house in Yokosuka and saw that it was raining as when I walk out of my house in Davis and see that it's raining. Shenmue is that first step in true realistic immersion gameplay, and even with all its weaknesses, I love it.

2003-01-21T02:03:00.000-08:00

Been working around with logos and stuff in Photoshop, mostly because of a new contest over at teamfc3s.org. Either way its fun, and I've been downloading new fonts and stuff.

Here's a couple of things I've been doing:

The picture in the first one is an old rotary car prototype from Mazda made sometime during the 70's. I wish they still made gull-wing doors on cars, they're so cool. Not very practical I guess, but cool none the less.

Speaking of cars, all the auctions for Hong Kong bootleg DVDs of Thunderbolt have been getting a lot of bids, I suspect due to it showing on TV last night. Oh well, I'll wait a while before I shell out $30 for one.

2003-01-19T23:59:00.000-08:00

2003-01-19T23:21:00.000-08:00

Three Jackie Chan movies in a row, I don't think Sunday nights get any better than this. The cool thing is that the first one they showed (well, the first one I caught) was called Thunderbolt which I'd never even heard of before. It was made in 1995, and from what I read (I only actually saw the last half hour of it) its a martial-arts car racing movie. Sounds awesome, and it probably is. All the racing scenes were sped up a little, all the drivers were horrible and the cars were hideously mis-matched. But none had neons, so it was all good.

Now I'm watching Mr. Nice Guy, which surprisingly I've never actually seen before. What strikes me as off in all these Jackie Chan movies made arounnd this time, they always have these generic white gusy as villains, and most of them seem to take place at least partly in Austrailia. Rumble in The Bronx, First Strike, Mr. Nice Guy and probably more I can't think of.

I can't figure out if it was because it was just cheaper to film in Austrailia (and Canada, for Rumble) or if they wanted to do it for other reasons. Maybe they got tired of filming using the same city for 20 years. It also weirds me how in all of these movies his name is Jackie. Wait, did they call him Keung in Rumble? I can't remember now, and I'm just rambling anyways.

It's annoying how suddenly I find a dozen things to write about at once after two weeks of nothing.

2003-01-19T23:10:00.000-08:00

A bad Squaresoft game? Oh wait, this was an early one; back before they started making limited-interactivity linear movies.

2003-01-06T18:08:00.000-08:00

The Magic Box just reported that Microsoft will be using the Blinx character as the X-Box's mascot in Japan, "despite the game has sold less than 6,000 copies in the first week of release." I think its a good idea that they finally chose to have a mascot, since I remember reading at least one Japanese developer complain about the lack of one, but jeezus... 6,000? It's amazing that so many X-Box games sell worse than Wonderswan games.

2003-01-06T17:59:00.000-08:00

My video gaming has gone down the tube, such is my finicky self. I woke up at 5pm today and currently reside in a day of constant darkness. It's kinda like being a vampire, or living in Iceland.

Ave and I went to the MU last night, and it was most definately a victory for Ave. It's annoying how close I can get to beating him in SNK vs. Capcom, but never close enough. He's too good with Yuri, too damn good. We played air hockey and lived up to our normal tradition of excellence. In the middle of the game Ave accidently hit our puck onto the other table and the guys on that table spent a few moments palying with both pucks until one of them had the chance to grab it and toss it back onto our table. Moments like that make me feel like a real athlete, or something.

Then we hit bowling and Ave had a sickeningly good game the second time around. He got four strikes in a row and got 175. That same game I got 74. Keep in mind I beat him the first time though, so it wasn't a total shutout.

2002-12-28T04:53:00.000-08:00

Another late night with Timesplitters 2. I haven't played a single mission or challenge or league mission today, but I have created the frightening Death Cruise deathmatch level. It's like Titanic, only slightly less horrific, or something.

I just noticed that each map only takes up two blocks, so on a normal 59 block memory card, you can save 29.5 maps. Thats not too shabby, although I wish you could make maps take up more than 2 blocks (with an option or soemthing), since the alloted amount of memory seems to run out pretty fast. But maybe thats a good thing so that you don't totally confuse the hell out of the people that play the maps.

2002-12-27T04:24:00.000-08:00

Its 4-fucking-AM, and I have to be up in like seven hours to have lunch. Seven hours might not seem like much, but I've become accustomed to my winter-break twelve-hours-per-night sleep routine.

Either way, Timesplitters 2 is awesome. It's something like Goldeneye with some frenetic Quake-style action thrown in. Nothing ground breaking (well, except for a few small parts) but a whole lot of fun. Granted, the single player is hard as hell on "Normal" mode, but luckily the game has a lot more than just single player missions.

The multiplayer has a ton of different modes, some look really interesting although I haven't been able to test those any out yet. You can chose from around a hundred characters to play and each one has their own stats, although you have to unlock a large percentage of them. In order to unlock a lot of the levels and characters you have to play through the Arcade Leagues which are like the challenges from Perfect Dark, but with more variety in gameplay.

The multiplayer itself has the feel of GE, but the speed of Quake, if that makes any sense. I kind of would have preferred the slower pace of GE, but it's still fun. There are a fair amount of options you can mess around with and a large variety of levels, stemming from the time-travelling aspect of the game.

Perhaps the most original feature of the game is the mapmaker, although I guess it isn't that original since the first Timesplitters had it too. It's an easy to use level-creator, which seems to have a fair amount of depth. I've only messed around a little bit with it, but I think you can make single-player missions in addition to multiplayer levels. Either way it's nice that its there, and its not insanely hard to figure out or so shallow its useless.

I've only tried a few of the single player missions, but the first one in Siberia is pure Bond. The music, the warning sirens, everything screams Goldeneye. This makes sense due to the fact that a number of the developers who worked on Goldeneye worked on Timesplitters as well, or so they say. I'm impressed by how much stuff there is to do and unlock, which makes it a fairly deep game.

I also have Pikmin, but I haven't played that much so I'll save comments on that for a later time. It's time for some sleep.

P.S. Turns out you can put the fire out by stepping in water, i.e. a shower or fountain, imagine that?

2002-12-27T00:30:00.000-08:00

Timesplitters 2 has the most goddamn annoying first level of any game I've ever played. Why can't I put out the fire when its burning me? Why god, why!?

2002-12-23T05:21:00.000-08:00

Holy crap, The Two Towers is amazing. Thats really all I can say, I've seen it twice so far and both times have been awesome. Everything about it is fantastic, just awesome. It's hard to say more.

Although both times I've seen it there's been a group of girls either in front of me or behind me who laughed hysterically during just about all of the Gollum scenes, which bothered the crap out of me. I suppose I should be happy that they saw The Two Towers instead of Two Weeks Notice or whatever, but I just wish they'd shutup.

Now I'm in a mood to bust out my Warhammer Role-Play books, but that never works out the way I want, so we'll see.

2002-12-18T11:47:00.000-08:00

The past few days I've been surrounded by games, but actually haven't been playing much. But I like that hype of seeing new and upcoming games. At Gamestop with my friends, one couldn't decide which GBA game to buy out of four, four. I don't think theres ever been a time I've ever had to decide between four games I really wanted.

I've never been able to be the kidn of gamer who just plays a ton of games, and beats every one. I know a lot of people like that, but I can't do it. For whatever reason I'll play for a while, and then maybe not touch a game for two weeks. Then come back. That habit has severly messed me up in Shenmue II as I keep forgetting what's going on and what I need to do.

Speaking of Shenmue II, I think my Dreamcast is broken, as it keeps having loading errors. I've foudn the problem, the small connector that runs into the piece of plastic that holds the lens keep coming loose and won't work. You can snap it back into place, but it doesn't take much to wiggle it loose again. I'm hoping I'll be able to fix it with a little glue, but I haven't bothered to yet.

Rambling over.

2002-12-11T03:37:00.000-08:00

I rented Starfox Adventures thinking I should probably give Rareware's last game for a Nintendo platform a try. A lot of the N64's survival was aided by Rare, and they released easily one of the two best games for the platformer (Goldeneye) and all sorts of other platformers that helped sell the system. While I never much liked the 3d-platformer genre I still enjoyed their ability to make quality games, the amount of time I spent playing Goldeneye and then Perfect Dark says that.

So I was pretty upset to see them leave Nintendo's camp, but looking back I'm not sure if I really should be. Starfox Adventures feels like the N64 all over again. Which makes sense given that it started as Dinosaur Planet to be released on the N64, but all the same, it feels out of place next to all these next generation games. The game feels very stuck in the past.

I can only hope that this isn't Rare's best nowadays, but I suspect the only other future Rare game I'll ever play is Perfect Dark 0, if and when that comes out for X-box. By then it'll have to deal with Halo 2 and whatever other über-FPS is hot at that time. For the time being I'll think of how I spent most of my freshman and junior years playing Goldeneye, how I waited with baited breath for Perfect Dark and how awesome those two games were.

Thanks for everything Rare, I'll see you around.

2002-12-10T03:43:00.000-08:00

For practically all of my computer lifetime, I've been using a Mac. I can't really say why. The first computer I used to surf the web was a Mac at my Mom's work, my first Performa was bought through my cousin who works at Apple, and the artist inside me can't stand Window's utilitarian ugly exterior.

Eventually I learned about all the shady things Microsoft has done, maybe it was the TNT movie Pirates of Sillicon Valley that got me thinking about it. For a while, I carried around a big chip on my shoulder, Microsoft was that evil empire that I rebelled against by stealing MS Word and using a Mac. And then they bought a big fat chunk of Apple, and eventually I figured out all big companies are evil and they care about me only so far as I buy their crap.

But its funny how that translates into video game name-brand loyalty. For a long time all I would touch was my N64, then I broke down and bought a Playstation. Then Sega felt my wrath, at one point I told one of my best friends that he could never bring his Dreamcast into my house again. Then I played Shenmue, got a job, and I bought a Dreamcast.

Then we had the next wave of systems. Playstation 2 was too expensive, too... blah all around. Gamecube was my hope, Mario! Zelda! Yay, Rare! I had learned to survive off of first-party games in my N64 days. So then Microsoft re-appeared in my target sights, the X-Box being created by that evil empire. Overpriced, ugly as sin, designed horribly. I made jokes about them crashing, and getting viruses. Those stupid X-Boxes, made by evil Microsoft.

Then I played Halo.

They're ugly as hell, and I hate to give any more money to Microsoft, but damn some of those games look fun. I think I'm learning that it's important to analyze the individual products, in this case the games. Yeah, Microsoft is evil. So is Nintendo. The games are good, and that makes it worth my money. It's time I started figuring out that I'm gonna miss out on a lot if I keep to my biases and don't dabble occasionally in the dark side.

But I am never, ever, buying an American car.

2002-12-09T02:36:00.000-08:00

Looking at all the previews for the new Gamecube Zelda game, I'm getting excited about preordering it. Not only that, there's a unique thrill to rushing home on the release date and popping a game into your system, starting it up and knowing that you're one of the few people that have seen it (not counting the 100,000 people who preordered it with you, we're talking immediate associates here).

I never played the original NES Zelda before a few years ago, and only spent a couple of weeks on my friend’s SNES playing a Link to the Past in sixth grade, but two of the most important moments as a video game geek occurred because of Zelda.

In '98 the N64 was in full swing. Games like Earthbound 64 and the 64DD were on the horizon and despite having something like 1/10th the user base of the Playstation, times were good. But most importantly there was Zelda 64. Delayed God-knows how many times, it was finally going to be in my hands by Thanksgiving of that year. My mom picked it up on her way home, I hadn't pre-ordered early enough to get a gold cartridge, but I'm almost positive I still got it on the same day, or soon after.

My entire Thanksgiving Break consisted of that game. Playing the ocarina, tackling dungeons, discovering you got older in the game. That game was it, and it was awesome. I couldn’t tell you a thing about Thanksgiving that year (except that it was at my house, and people came), but I could tell you how to play Epona’s song all day long.

That, to me, is what the N64 was all about. It wasn’t a billion games every month, boatloads of RPG’s and just about every other genre. It was about that one amazing game, that you spent months and months waiting for and when you finally got it, it blew you away.

That second moment came years before, sometime around 4th or 5th grade. My mom bought me a Gameboy for Christmas, and not counting my Dad’s old Coleco, it was my first "real" game system. I opened the box on Christmas Eve, and packaged with it was The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. I’d never heard of it before, and had no idea what it had in store for me.

I stayed up long into the morning playing it, though not actually getting very far. I spent most of my time cutting down bushes and grass, but man, it was amazing.

I probably spent over a year playing it, off and on. It’s amazing to think that such a simple game could be so amazing and totally open your eyes to what video games could hold, even if I didn’t realize it then.