The Game Room

It's All About Nintendo, Of Course...

2011-06-21T08:36:00.005-05:00

This past Saturday was an open house at the Personal Computer Museum. We called it our "Father's Day" open house since it was part of Father's Day weekend. I know there are a lot of Dad's out there who would love nothing more than to geek out at our place for a few hours and so I encourage people who have Dad's like this to bring them out. One particular family I am thinking about did just exactly that and spent the better portion of the day with us.

On Sunday I was catching up on some e-mail and received one in regards to the museum. It was asking about us being open on Father's day. "Did I miss it? Did I dream it? I can't find anything about it on your website!" he said. No, because the next day the website automagically updates and shows only FUTURE open houses. I wrote back to the mysteriously named "PRH" and told him that our open houses were only Saturday's and that it was the weekend we were referring to, not the actual day. He politely grumbled back and said that he hoped to have another chance to come out in October.

Later that same day I was spending some time with my best friend Scott. I was cataloging some software for the museum and he was testing some LCD monitors that had been donated. Part of testing these things is of course to put them into actual, daily use and so he sat down at a computer with one of these monitors connected and starting surfing. His web pointer went to Kijiji and somehow he ended up looking at the video game stuff. He called me over in excitement. "Check this out! I don't think you have one of these do you?"

There it was. The Atomic Orange (or Fire Orange as the seller called it) Nintendo 64. Not only that, it came with the box (and styrofoam) and even a copy of the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (my all time favourite game). He wanted $60 for it - a bit pricey, but ....hey, it's hard to find systems like that in this condition. He was also located in Simcoe which is around a 45 minute drive. However, it turns out that Scott works there and by the postal code literally around the corner from this guy. I told Scott I would see if he would take $50 for it and Scott agreed to pick it up from the guy on his way to work.

I went back to my desk as Scott continued to delve into the mysterious world of used goods. He called out to me a bit later and said he found a guy with two WaveBirds for sale. The WaveBird, if you don't know, is a wireless first-party controller for the GameCube but has become even more ridiculous to find as of late because it's also great for the Wii. We have gotten accustomed to wireless this console generation and wired controllers can sometimes be hard to go back to. "That's probably Chris that has those" I yelled back at him. Knowing that Scott wanted some WaveBirds, I purchased one from Chris just the month prior and gave it to Scott as a gift.

Chris lucked out in arriving at our local Liquidation World (recently purchased by Big Lots) one time when the old Nintendo truck drove up and dumped its load of unwanted GameCube memory cards and shovelware titles. Along for the ride however, was a treasure trove of WaveBirds all new in the package that ended up falling into Chris' hands for a mere $10 each. Chris has been doling them out like the golden ticket and his ad indicated he had only two left.

As luck would have it, I had *just* been in contact with Chris the day before. He said he had a couple of computers he wanted to donate to the museum and I told him to come out Monday evening because that's our usual drop off night. I sent him a quick message asking him to to bring a WaveBird if he had any left with him, and that I knew the price was $60 from his ad. Keep in mind - I never did confirm the ad on Kijiji was his I just assumed. Scott told me he would grab me the cash when he left but in the end we both forgot and we always settle up later.

Monday morning arrived with its usual amount of stresses. Things needed resetting and propping up, computers need rebooting and cuddling and people tend to have forgotten how to use their keyboards over the weekend. I checked my e-mail from time to time, looking for that reply to see if I was going to be able to land this great find for my collection (I already have the Pikachu and Gold Nintendo 64's but having another one still pleases me to no end). Near the end of the day, it finally chimed into the inbox - the e-mail I had been waiting for.

"I have four people interested at $60 and I am waiting for calls. If none end up wanting to come to Simcoe for it in the next couple of days, I will email you."

Well if that just isn't a kick in the nuts. I suddenly had a vision of Conker's Bad Fur Day and my heart sank a little as I knew I'd never be experiencing it on the "Fire Orange" Nintendo. The seller's note left me with a small opening to negotiate however. It was pretty clear that the price was going to be $60, but a lot of people won't bother driving out to Simcoe for a variety of reasons. Some say it's the smell but for me personally I've had a hard time getting a good cup of coffee down there. Regardless, I wrote back and told this guy that my buddy works right near him and that he would be there the next day, cash in fist - all $60 of it. As I hit the send button I couldn't help but sense something familiar...almost like a disturbance in the Force.

My friend Chris arrives in the evening with the two computers and the WaveBird! He hadn't replied to my earlier message so I wasn't sure if he even had one or could bring it. We went to the bank and I retrieved his $60. I asked him about the ad and he said when he posted it a couple of months ago he was down to his last two and that someone who was vacationing from "somewhere" picked up one and now this last one has remained. He can now delete the ad.

After closing up the museum and checking my e-mail I received another reply from the Nintendo 64 seller. "No wonder I missed the Father's Day open-house, I have been a bit obtuse lately. I didn't realize that you were the same Syd from the computer museum." As I looked at the e-mail, it was indeed from "PRH" - the same person who I had a brief e-mail exchange with on Sunday about the museum. What are the odds? As soon as he realized who I was, he said that for sure to send my buddy over to get the system and he further elaborated that the Nintendo 64 sale was for his daughter which was partly why he was staying firm on the price. He then indicated he also had a small palmtop computer he would like to donate to the museum (which we don't have) and that Scott could get that too, at the same time.

As I tried to wrap my head around this strange coincidence and clearly inevitable connection to PRH (whose name is Peter by the way) my mind was further warped as I sent to the details via a text message to Scott. I thought about getting the money to him and then I realized that he owed me $60 for the WaveBird anyways, so he could just pay that to PRH for the Nintendo 64. BING.

It blows me away that the Nintendo 64 came from someone who had a connection with me earlier the same day, that the WaveBird Scott wanted was going to arrive from someone I knew and was already coming to visit me anyways, and that both transactions were $60 and most importantly - they were both for Nintendo products. It is one of those things that starts as a simple coincidence but then grows larger. Really, it's like a Seinfeld episode although not nearly as funny. Oh Nintendo, look what you've done now.

The Great Divide

2011-04-18T08:27:00.002-05:00

I am sure this doesn't really belong in the "Game Room" but I've talked about random stuff before and so today is no exception.

I have to tell you, I'm a little concerned about the cashier's at the grocery store. There needs to be some changes - albeit minor ones - if I'm going to get through the checkout without feeling somewhat angry.

You might be thinking "hey why not use self checkout and avoid this whole problem?". The answer to that is NO. I'm not being old-fashioned, I don't like self checkout (for groceries anyways). If I'm picking up batteries or a couple of items in an electronics store that's fine, but groceries require some skill to ring up. You might say I should know better, but if I have to flip through a catalog looking for the code for a rutabaga I'm not going to be happy. In most cases, the cashiers already know it. There are other reasons too but that's for another post.

Anyways, my main question here is----"WHY DO CASHIERS NOT PUSH THE DIVIDERS DOWN TO THE END?". Do they not realize how incredibly difficult it is for the person heading for that belt to get that thing? When it's near the cashier it's useless. Either I have to reach over someone else's groceries (which is just a no no in my book) or I have to ask the person in front of me to get the divider and put it down for me.

Which brings me to the next question - divider etiquette. I think you're only really responsible for the divider that goes between your groceries and the person in front of you. That being said, if everyone put a divider down AFTER their last grocery item, this would solve a lot of problems.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not putting this all on the cashiers. The grocery store chains have some responsibility in this too. They build lanes with huge channels for these dividers and then populate them with like 2 or 3 dividers. Come on now -- fill that space up with dividers. They have advertising on them and can't cost very much being all plastic, so why be cheap? Doing this would mean that the extra "push" the cashier has to exert would be reduced, leading to less instances of work injuries acquired from repetitively slamming dividers down to the end of the channel.

All I ask is that we all work together here. Stores - buy more dividers. Cashiers, exert a little effort and shove those dividers down to the end. And shoppers, be nice and put a divider after your food. You're only helping yourself in the end - otherwise you run the risk of a stranger leaning over your food or getting into your personal bubble. That leads to a whole other topic--- fragrances in a shared work place. I'm "divided" on that topic, too!

Creating MP3's from YouTube Videos on a Mac

2010-11-05T10:41:00.003-05:00

Just realized I haven't written anything here in a while and what I wanted to talk about today isn't really game related, but I think it will be useful nonetheless.

With the shutdown of certain peer to peer network programs (like LimeWire) there has probably been a number of people having trouble getting music files. Now I'm not here to promote piracy, but there are times when I'm sure you'd love to take the music portion of a YouTube video and easily convert it into an MP3. Not just for music but other things, too.

There are a bunch of websites and tools out there to do it, but I'm going to share with you my method. I found that the online tools tend to be slow, inconsistent, and generally a pain in the ass.

Now the first thing you are going to want to do is make sure that your Mac can import FLV files into iMovie. Mine just started to be able to do this after installing the full Adobe suite which may be required and if so, sorry about that (unless you already have it). If you can drag and drop an FLV file into iMovie without screwing around you are golden.

The FLV file is the file that contains the "flash video" that YouTube uses. The tool that I use is the excellent iFunia YouTube downloader. It's free and you can get it here. Just go to YouTube, find the video you want and cut and paste the address into the software. No mess.

Now you have the FLV file, drag it into iMovie. Move the clip into the timeline and select "Split audio" from the edit menu. You will now be separating the audio from the video.

Now run a free great audio tool like Audacity. Arrange the windows on the screen so you can drag the audio track from iMovie into Audacity. Make sure in Audacity you have grabbed the LAME MP3 stuff to be able to export to MP3.

Once your audio is in Audacity you can trim it (if there is extra stuff at the beginning or end you don't want) or play with fading, volume, etc.

Now just export it as MP3 and voila! You are done.

It sounds like there is a lot of setup involved but it's really not that bad and once you have this solution ready to go it's very easy to continue to use it and becomes quite intuitive. Enjoy!

Canadian Olympic Gold

2010-03-19T08:12:00.002-05:00

I know I usually write about video games in this space, but today I just had to add my thoughts about games of a different sort - the Olympic Games. A recent article in the Star-Telegram really bugs me because it seems like no matter what we do, we often get viewed by Americans in a bad light. This guy basically beats Canada down for the fact that we showed a huge hint of patriotism, at the cost of failing to recognize that the Olympics are a worldwide event.

Huh? Clearly it's a worlwide event and one that gives each country a chance to be proud of its accomplishments amongst other countries. That's kind of the point. It seems like the minute we show the faintest sign of patriotism we get criticized for doing so. You're telling me the Americans don't act and do things the same way?

Having dealt with Americans my whole life I can tell you that like anything, there are exceptions to the rule. By and large though, most Americans I've dealt with don't seem to understand Canada except in the most stereotypical ways. We don't all live in Igloos. We don't all drink beer all the time (but I have to point out truly that ours is better), and we don't all sit around saying "EH?". We also don't mean to say "a boot" when we say "a bout" and I can also honestly say that we don't hear it that way.

I just don't get it. We're normally meek and mild and quiet about how we feel about our country. We finally stand up and actually show some of the patriotism that the Americans normally do, we get beat down...by an American.

Wow. Ironic. And dumb. Clearly this guy is a hockey fan and he's just pissed. He's from Texas though, so he probably has a gun. A big one. Ouch, it hurts doesn't it? Just remember the stereotyping can work both ways.

I went to a Toronto Maple Leafs game last night and I can tell you that the pride for our country hasn't just ended with the conclusion of the Olympics. We were louder, prouder and stronger than ever last night when our anthem played. I was proud to take part in it.

New License Plate

2010-01-29T15:36:00.003-05:00

So I finally did it...after whining about getting a custom license plate for my car I took the plunge and here it is! PCMUSEUM is exactly what I wanted and now that Ontario offers 8 digit plates I was good to go! Of course, I had to accessorize it with a "WILL WORK FOR BANDWIDTH" plate holder that I picked up from ThinkGeek.com.

So if you're out driving around town and you see this plate, you'll think of the Personal Computer Museum and come pay us a visit sometime!

Auto Incrementing with InfoPath

2010-01-19T17:21:00.003-05:00

So instead of my usual conversation, I thought I'd add a "practical" technical experience I went through because I was not able to find the solution to this particular problem online. If I couldn't find it, perhaps other people out there have had similar issues.

I've been using Microsoft's InfoPath to create a form for Human Resources to do Performance Reviews. Various sections include parts where I wanted to put in a repeating table and although I found ways to "auto increment" an area there to number the entries the user added dynamically, I did not want to use numbers. You see, my sections are numbered and therefore this would just look wrong. It would be much better if my entries were incremented with letters starting with "a".

I wanted my repeating table to look like this:

1. Indicate the primary responsibilities of the position:
a) | User types in section A
b) | User types in section B

So in this table (with two columns, the "a)" is in a column by itself) I set the first "a)" to be an Expression Box. Then you can right click on it and select "Properties". The data source should be "XPath" and set the function to be:

concat(substring("abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz", position(), 1), ")")

What this function does is concatenate (join) the letter of the alphabet based upon how far down the list you are, and then adds the ")" at the end.

You can make this work with uppercase letters or change the ")" to a "." or whatever you want.

Seems easy once you set it up, but I struggled a bit at first finding where to put this. My programming background came in handy to create the function itself.

Enjoy!

New Day, New Job

2009-12-04T09:53:00.004-05:00

Well I'm settling into my new job as Manager of Information Technology at ACIC / Methapharm here in Brantford. So far, I'm enjoying it. I've met some great new people (and look forward to meeting more) and there is not only opportunity here but also some great new challenges that I look forward to meeting head on.

A lot of time happiness in the job clearly comes down to attitude and a new place certainly brings about a new attitude for me and I'm happy to be here. Fresh paint at home is helping too!

Changing your job might be one way to bring new perspective into your life. Another way would be to make changes at home that at least make you feel like you are moving forward in life. If that doesn't work, buy lottery tickets and hope you win!

Turtles at the Computer Museum

2009-10-11T10:54:00.003-05:00

No, we're not talking about Testudines here. Sometimes, at the Personal Computer Museum we end up getting donations that include things other than just computers. Like in this case, someone dropped off some disks inside of a box of Turtles Chocolates. The Smiles'n Chuckles Ltd. company made these way back in the day, which I am guessing is the 70's. I say that because it looks old but it does have a barcode, which puts it into this era.

I just had to share this with you because I thought it was cool. And it's not everyday you find turtles at the Personal Computer Museum.

Windows 7 Launch Party

2009-10-04T18:05:00.002-05:00

Say what you want about Windows Vista. Say what you will about Microsoft. One thing is for sure: they are trying to shake the bad image and doing whatever they can to do it. Is it working? So far. Someone came up with the great idea of having Windows 7 house parties. In my case, I decided to have ours at the Personal Computer Museum on October 24th. Will it work? It has already peaked the interest of many people who want to come out and take a look. It's always better to get a product view from someone you know directly and trust, than to read a review from a stranger online.

The other thing we are going to do is show Windows 1 (and just because they are already there, Windows 2, Windows 3 and Windows 95). The entire slew of early Windows programs will be there, just to show how far we've come. Which is a lot in some ways.... and not that much in others.

Don't take my word for it, come out to the museum from 10-4 on October 24th. At the very least, have a coffee on me.

Getting Ready for the Competition

2009-08-16T10:47:00.002-05:00

The Guitar Hero Competition is next weekend. I'm starting to feel the pressure pretty badly as I get prepared for what is definitely going to be Brantford's largest gaming event of its type - ever. In a lot of ways, it's actually more stressful than running a Guinness World Record challenge like we did last year with Tetris but in other ways it is not.

It's been great working with the City of Brantford - Parks and Recreation and Lori-Dawn Cavin. It's nice to have someone else taking over responsibility for various aspects.

As we sit - a week out, my major concern is that we don't have a lot of players in the 35+ category. Where are you guys? Worried about getting your butts kicked by 12 year olds? Remember, you'll be competing against others in the same age range so....if you don't come out and play, then nobody will and there will be no body to take that prize money!

Anyways, make sure you register at the official website and see you Saturday August 22nd from 10am to 4pm at the PCM!

2009-07-13T08:52:00.002-05:00

First of all - the news. It looks like I'm signing back on with Rogers Television after a bit of a hiatus. Yeah, sure, I do the JCI Brantford Santa Claus Parade every year but other than an occasional appearance on First Local, I really haven't been around much.

That is all going to change in September.

First of all, I'm going to be part of a brand new show called "Inside Brantford". I hope this isn't a secret, because now I'm posting about it. Oops. I didn't sign anything saying I couldn't talk about it. On this show, I'll be appearing once a week during a live segment talking tech.

Then, you'll also see me weekly doing a video game segment on First Local which is going to be a lot of fun!

Finally it looks like Rogers is returning back to its community roots and I'm excited to be part of it. Not only because I think it will be good for the community but it will reunite me with Jason Souliere and Patti (Dickie) Berardi - whom I've had the pleasure of working with in a previous life.

So look for these all new shows in September on Rogers 20 - BRANTFORD!

Welcome to the New Promotion

2009-07-09T18:28:00.003-05:00

When my PS2 collection recently went over the 1,200 mark I thought it might be a good way to draw attention to the museum. I know this sounds strange, but this is how my brain works at times. I thought I'd post the story to Kotaku, and I wasn't wrong about the idea of promotion. It turns out, the story has drawn a lot of attention and a lot of heat.

At this point, almost 47,000 views and a couple of hundred comments. It is somewhat surprising the negative comments (like it's "sad" that he has so many games) like it's a problem to have that many or something. I just laugh. Whatever. It's all good.

The thing is, those that know me will realize I didn't post the story to brag. I posted it to draw attention to the museum and it's doing that. Close to 20,000 hits on the museum website in 3 days is a record and I'm proud of it. Let's spread the word!

On a completely different tune, I wanted to point out how the soda pop industry must really like computer geeks. There are at least two major brands that I think have been created to cater to the programming geeks of the 80's for sure.

First, we have Sprite. If you worked on computers like the Commodore 64 you know that it had 8 Sprites built into it. Sprites are special graphic elements that can be moved around the screen independently of the background and essentially "on their own". In games, this translated into enemies or the player themselves. Atari computers had sprites too, except they called them "player/missile" graphics which was just a narrow way of saying the same thing. So Sprite, as a pop is going to be favoured over it's rough equivalent, 7-UP, by computer programmers every single time. I can't explain why - it just happens.

The other pop conspiracy with computer geeks is Hires Rootbeer. We don't say "hires" like hiring for a job, but rather, we call it "HI - REZ" rootbeer. As in "high resolution". In the good old days on the Apple II computer for example, you could put the computer in various graphic modes. Some were low resolution and some were high resolution (or hi-res for short). So again, the geek in all of us is going to be drawn to a higher resolution form of Rootbeer than say, a low one. Honestly, I can't make this up.

Holy media, Batman

2009-06-17T10:54:00.002-05:00

I've been very fortunate to have had lots of media attention lately. The Museum has been featured in two pieces on the butterscotch.com network. The first piece is an interview with me, and the second one has Matt Harris, Andy Walker and Sean Carruthers.

Also, my new coffee table received some great coverage on both Destructoid and was also picked up on TheAwesomer.com so that's pretty awesome. If you are looking for a cool coffee table or custom piece, please talk to the artist directly, Erin McFadden from DameDecor. She's wonderful to work with.

On Wednesday, June 24th I'll be brought before the judge to raise money for Crime Stoppers. Please consider donating to Crime Stoppers to keep me in or get me out! Thanks!

Being Star Struck

2009-06-10T08:00:00.002-05:00

So Kevin Smith was in Brantford this past weekend and I think he's really cool - and would have loved to have met him. However, with everyone pawing at him on the weekend I decided to respect his space and be one less person doing the pawing.

But this weekend, at the Personal Computer Museum, I've got Andy Walker, Sean Carruthers and Matt Harris coming. Although you might not have heard of them before, I'm actually a bit star truck at them coming (especially Andy) who I have watched on my television for years.

There is a Joshua Jackson piece on butterscotch.com that mentions the museum and you can view it here.

So come on out, to 13 Alma Street on June 13th from 10am to 4pm---50 free t-shirts to the first people that arrive.

The Solution for Road Rage

2009-06-03T08:49:00.002-05:00

I think I made an amazing discovery today - a possible solution for road rage. All you have to do is buy a new car or find some new music that you like. I have made this discovery after many years of research. You see, every time I have a new album or group of songs I like I put them on a CD and play them in my car. I find myself not feeling as much of a need to get to my destination when my experience in the car is more enjoyable. Yesterday, I picked up my new car (2009 Sante Fe) and this morning I was actually grateful when the light turning onto my work street turned amber. My thoughts that usually amount to "bastard!" turned to "Sweet...." as I soaked in the new car smell.

So really, that's it -- the solution. Get a new car every week. Doesn't even have to be new - maybe if we all just swapped cars with each other every week then we'd still be in the honeymoon phase, plus it would have the upside of car anonymity. You know, so the person you cut off last week can't easily hunt you down this week because you're now in a different car.

I think I'm on to something.

Blue Meanies from Outer Space

2009-04-23T08:33:00.002-05:00

Someone called me a meanie today and for some reason, my mind turned to one of my favorite named games of all time - Blue Meanies from Outer Space. You can see from the screen shot it really wasn't a great looking (or playing) game but the name has just stuck with me over the years. I think I'll do an article on the best named games of all time - because I'm not sure anyone else has done that. Somebody liked the game enough to do a remake but I'm not sure I'm brave enough to download it.

My game room is going to be on SPACE: THE IMAGINATION station on Friday, April 24th at 7:30 PM EST and I'm looking forward to it. A number of my Internet friends have never seen the place (and I've never shared video of it) so this will be interesting.

Game Night is Saturday and there is just not enough time to get ready for it. Oh well, it comes whether I am ready or not. Kind of like the ocean.

It's been a good week though. We collected over 50 pieces of recyclables from S.C. Johnson and Son for Earth Day, I exchanged e-mails with War Games director John Badham and I'm probably going to call a Hollywood celebrity tonight. Cool beans.

Why Inkheart the Video Game is like my cold

2009-03-24T08:18:00.002-05:00

Well, I finally got it this year. If I hear one more person say "Yeah, there's a really nasty bug going around right now" I will shoot them. Can you honestly remember, in the past two years, when you didn't hear someone say "there's something nasty going around?". It's the nature of the nasty.

Speaking of nasty, I played "Inkheart" for the Nintendo DS yesterday while waiting at the doctor's office so she could tell me about it "going around". You can read my full review at the Armchair Empire sometime in the next week or so, but until then, here's a summary.

Much like my nose this morning, this game blows. The animation of the main character sprites reminded me of the Amiga computer from 1985. When I say it reminded me, I meant that it reminded me that the animation that came out on the Amiga was better than this 2009 release. I wish I was joking.

So like my cold, this game made me ache. It was painful. Like a train wreck, I couldn't help staring at the animation to make sure what I was seeing was real. It felt like a dream. A dream from 1983.

Germans made this? I stared in disbelief. I like Germans, they usually make good things. I was thinking German, so when I sneezed on my DS, I said "Gesundheit!" and the sad part is that my screen looked better after the sneeze. Unbelievable.

Wendy's and the ELANS

2009-03-11T12:43:00.002-05:00

I know it's not directly related but what game room hasn't seen some Cheeseburger action? Well I'm here to give you some advice on ordering at Wendy's if you are super hungry and want to save a bit of money. Some friends and I were having a discussion about how to order things at Wendy's. My brother taught me a number of years ago to order a "#4 Combo" with an extra patty if you wanted a better sandwich than a double (a #4 in most of Canada is a Bacon classic combo). So you get two patties, bacon, cheese and the better bun at a cheaper cost than doing the same thing to a double. It was pointed out to me recently that perhaps a better way to order this is get the new "Baconator" combo with "everything on it". The default way the Baconator comes it essentially has the cheese, meat, and ketchup (and mayo I think). I like the lettuce, tomato and pickles so I've tried ordering it with everything. It turns out that so far, they've got it right 50% of the time. To some people "everything" that is on a Baconator includes just what is normally on a Baconator. It depends on whether they trust you, as the ordering party, to say what you want and not what you mean. It's a tough call at times. The upside of going the Baconator route is that it's $0.10 cheaper, and you get more bacon.

Bottom line - if you're hungry and willing to risk the possibility of getting a burger that you're not 100% happy with, go the Baconator route. You'll save that $0.10. If you're not much a risk taker, stick to the #4 with an extra patty. If you didn't know about these options, now you're just a little bit of a smarter consumer.

Talking about games though, I've been selected to be a judge of the ELANS - which is basically like the Oscars only for video games, animation and special effects. It's based out of Vancouver. You may not have heard about it before, but it's a truly up and coming event. The first year was hosted by William Shatner. Last year, it was Seth McFarlene. This year it's Tom Kenny (AKA SpongeBob SquarePants). Victor Lucas of Electric Playground, Reviews on the Run and now EP Daily is going to be talking about the nominees at a press conference.

It's a real honour to be part of this process and I enjoyed it. Although I can't talk about who I chose, the process was interesting and perhaps more challenging than it should have been. But that's what learning is all about.

Visit http://www.theelans.com for more information.

PS2 Collection

2009-01-21T06:52:00.003-05:00

Well it was great to have my post about my Xbox collection hit Evil Avatar, resulting in a massive amount of traffic to my sites. Probably the best part was connecting with other Xbox collectors who are in the same situation as I am trying to determine what games are really out there. I'm working with a buddy to sort out these things and we'll be presenting our findings to the world through one of my web properties.

The whole situation with the Xbox list - and the surprise in the manufacturer not even knowing what is available - leads me to realize it's true with other platforms too. My PS2 collection is at something like 1130 now but I'm not really sure how far I have to go to get them all (and more troublesome is the fact that new PS2 games continue to come out as we're knee deep in the time of shovelware). 1600? Just a guess. A scary, nasty guess. Why do I feel the need to have them all? I guess when you get so far you might as well keep going.

I constantly get asked if I actually play all the games I have. Well, having over 5,000 games makes it near impossible to play all of them. Of course I don't. But I do play games ... just not all the time. If I played one game every day (and assuming I never added anything new to my collection) I could play for around 14 years. Yep. 14.

It's great to see gaming become more mainstream. I guess I never really realized it wasn't -- when you are so immersed in something it's often difficult to see the perspective from the outside.

I also wanted to share with you a great site I've been visiting lately. Video Game Price Charts is a great tool to figure out what your games are worth, so make sure you check it out.

That's it for now - talk to you soon.

Xbox Collection Hits 713 - but how many left to go?

2009-01-02T15:39:00.005-05:00

So I picked up a few more original Xbox titles today, bringing my grand total to 713 (but this includes some variants like the Mortal Kombat Deception variants but NOT Platinum Hits versions unless they were unique). So I'm thinking I'm getting pretty close to having them all now - something I'd love to achieve.

According to xbox.com, there are only 799 original Xbox games - yet I keep hearing there are over 800. When I look at Wikipedia, they list everything - North American, Japan and other territories. I want JUST North American titles.

So why is this so hard? There hasn't been a new game out for years, you'd think someone would have this list handy. I've looked different sources - Wikipeida, xbox.com, Video Game Collector magazine and Digital Press. Everyone has a different number.

Does anybody know? Can anyone tell me, definitely, how close I am? I've got most of the rare ones and a bunch of what I'm missing is common sports titles....but I have been a bit reluctant to kick this collection into overdrive until I can actually see the end goal.

So...if you know, please post it here. If you're curious - my Xbox collection isn't even my biggest (I have over 1,100 PS2 games right now) and I use Game Collectorz (www.collectorz.com) to keep track of everything. Here's a photo of my collection and you can also browse the parts of my collection that I've actually managed to catalog (original NES and Atari 2600 have not been tackled yet, and I'm scared--very scared).

Google, Vinegar, and Dents

2008-11-27T10:38:00.002-05:00

I received a gift in the mail yesterday. A beautiful calendar from the Computer History Museum. I've actually been planning on creating a vintage computer calendar with the computers from the Personal Computer Museum. The gift is nice, the calendar is great, but I'm more excited about the card that came with it. It's a Google card. If you've ever received one of these cards then you know how I excited I am. Why? Well first of all, it's from Google - do I need to say more? It's also completely Google in terms of simplicity. No copyright notice, no ISBN or UPC code. Just "Google", in colour, with a little "TM" symbol. I have it at my desk. I'm showing it to co-workers like I did when I got my first 100% perfect test in grade school. I'm such a geek.

I've also been playing around with Balsamiq. Like the stuff inspired by its name, Balsamiq Mockups are intended to help improve the flavour of your designs. If you've ever designed a web page or software user interface on a napkin, then you know exactly what this tool does -- only better. I never thought anything could be better than paper but this actually trumps it. Not only that, but you don't need to go through the process of scanning your napkin or paper into the computer you simply tell it to produce a PNG file.

Yesterday I felt better after getting the Google card but not before I realized I dented my car. I was putting away my original tires after getting the snows installed and I dropped the one tire. It fell, "grazing" the back quarter panel of my car leaving a dent around the size of my fist which should soon follow anyways. Hate that.

My week of hell with the JCI Brantford Santa Claus Parade is soon coming to end - and it couldn't be soon enough.

3D Gaming, Swap Meets and Toes

2008-11-05T10:09:00.002-05:00

I like free stuff - heck who doesn't? So that's why I was excited to find out my buddy Neil had managed to arrange some great free prizes from the likes of AMD, iZ3D and Blitz Games (among others). Of course, nothing is really free right? But all he's asking is that you fill out a survey. Call The U-Decide Initiative, the survey is catered to either regular old 2D gamers (like I used to be) or those folks that own true 3D hardware (like me now). Check it out!

So I had a few bucks to burn this past weekend and headed into Brampton for the annual (sort of) CGCC Swap Meet. This group of Canadian Gamers is quite the bunch and I blew my wad in under 15 minutes I think. Wow. It went fast. Got some great Genesis stuff - my collection is taking up more room than I have now. So sad.

And finally a note of caution. Because I'm a computer programmer and casual gamer by trade, you'd think that I'd be out of harms way for any kind of physical mishap on the job, right? Well ... running the Personal Computer Museum means lugging around old things and yep, you guessed it - I dropped a 19" CRT on my foot. The worst part? I left it to its own devices and now it's infected. Doctors, pills, bone scans and a bit of radiation later and I'll be fine ... but don't be a dolt like me and leave it. It got so bad a few weeks ago I took a drill to my toe. But you don't want to read about that here.

Tetris, Prince's, Booty, and Pee

2008-08-26T08:47:00.003-05:00

It's been too long since I've written -- sorry about that. Just hasn't been a lot to talk about but now there is almost too much!

First off, we're planning a Guinness World Record attempt for the Most Participants in a Tetris Tournament on Saturday, September 13, 2008 at the Personal Computer Museum. Interested people can find out more and pre-register at TetrisTournament.ca. Where else can you be part of a World Record?

I finally got around to playing Prince of Persia. Yeah- the first one. Oh no -- that's not right. The second incarnation - on the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube. I actually played most of it on my PS3 but anyways, it was interesting. Frustrating at times-- enough to almost make me want to quit but glad I continued and finished the bugger.

I moved right onto something brand new - Ratchet and Clank Future: Quest for Booty and that was a great 4 hours.... but that was it. Now I have to wait over a year for more. :( Oh well, love that series.

Nothing to do with games but man did this morning suck. First, I go to take some letters to the post office--but the one I go to that is closer to me is not open until 9am (and it's 8:23 at this point). I take care of that, and go to drop off a 24 hour urine sample to a clinic....yeah....the thing was fine until I put it on the counter and then LEAKED all over....yeah. Talk about embarrassment. I would say I'm peed off, but that's just wrong.

Games for Windows

2008-06-19T14:33:00.002-05:00

Microsoft loves to win in every business they are in. When they moved into the video game console space with the original Xbox they knew they weren't going to win right away, but they did manage to sell something like 24 million Xbox's. Not bad for a first outing. Then, they leapfrogged the competition to get the Xbox 360 into the hands of consumers and it has worked--despite hardware problems. The games are there, and people are loving it.

What they don't seem to be loving these days is PC gaming. We've all read articles spelling out the "Doom" (pardon the pun) of gaming on your computer, and yet many people still play games on their computers. Why not? Computers and gaming go together like marshmallows and Rice Krispies. I'm personally a console gamer, but as curator of the Personal Computer Museum I know the importance of gaming on a computer over the years and that it's still quite strong today.

When Microsoft came calling us looking for help in creating a retrospective view of gaming and computers over the years I was both surprised and honoured. So we're going to be part of the Games for Windows event occurring on June 27, 28 at Toronto's Interaccess gallery at Queen & Ossington.

Computers change quickly. Gaming is changing quickly. It's important to preserve the history as it unfolds---because before you know it, it's gone. These are your memories and your good times. We just help you remember them.

I'm through trying to help out! Incompetence wins!

2008-05-12T15:33:00.002-05:00

If you know me, you know I'm a pretty mild mannered man. I was brought up to be polite, hold doors open for anyone and say please and thank you. Further to that, my incredible "green" personality means that I'm curious about how things work. I tend to give too much information to people at times but I have found it has helped me more than hinder. Until the last little while. By the way -- this post is NOT about games! :)

The first example is at the movie theaters. In my area, we have something called "The Scene" card. It's a loyalty program that gives you 10% off concessions and eventually, after buying 12,500 regular tickets you get a free admission. Being a person who likes to save time and is also "technology oriented" I usually use those machines to buy my tickets. I swipe my Scene card and get my tickets and I recently bought two combos and received my discount. When you present the "pre-paid" voucher at the Point of Sale (POS) the cashier has always asked me for my Scene card. Why? I think. Then I realize they need to swipe it AGAIN in order to get the transaction total down by 10% to match the value of the concession voucher. If the till says you sold $30 of crap and there is a voucher for $27.... it makes extra work for the bean counters. The first 5 times this happened to me, I had put my Scene card back into my wallet and had to bring it out to present when it was asked for. I finally wised up ... I would bring the card out AHEAD of time to save everyone the grief of me fumbling around in my George Costanza sized wedge that protrudes out of my ass.

SOOOOOOOOO the last time I'm at the theater, I present my card to the little Avril Lavigne look-a-like behind the counter and she looks back at me and says "Are you buying something else because it's too late for me to take this...". HUH? I explain to her that every other time (and I'm talking at least 20-30 times) I've used an ATM voucher I needed my card. "Nope....nope you don't". I explain about the funds not matching. "They fix that in the back". Of course they do. Just don't try and upsize your drink or add a hot dog ... because then the Scene card comes out and a look of horror, shock and confusion will come over the cashier's face as they try and figure out how to take an ATM voucher and cash. It's called SPLIT tender .... 10 years in the POS business will do this too you.

So that wasn't SO bad, only arguing with Avril was not that fun.....so now we go to my constant coffee fix: Tim Horton's. Lately I've had a thing for the Toasted Coconut donut. Don't know why -- I don't ask. As quickly as this fad came on for me, it will go away but for now I like to have one here and there. As far as I know there is only ONE Tim Horton's in the area that carries them. "I'll have a coffee and a toasted coconut donut please" I ask.....I get my coffee and some weird yeast donut with maple topping and then toasted coconut on THAT. NOT what I wanted. So the next time I specify: "and a cake toasted coconut donut". Now ... call me STUPID but I worked as a baker for Mr. Donut when I was a teenager and we made primarily two types of donuts: yeast and cake. I know the difference, why don't they? "What was that?" I heard back on the speaker. A toasted coconut cake donut. So then, I end up with a chocolate cake -- white coconut donut. GEESH!!! So the next time I go back, I get to asking for just "and a toasted coconut donut". Now I am getting "White or chocolate sir?"....ah ha...progress. However, I'm the type that wants to specify to a waitress my "sides" and choices ahead of time to save time and energy for all concerned. So now I say "coffee and a white cake toasted coconut donut". Now I'm getting "Sorry, was that a coconut donut? Filling?".

GRRRRR. I give up. This is why getting an apple fritter is easier, it's hard to screw up what you are asking for. Or skip the donuts, it's what I should be doing in the first place.

Moving on up

2008-02-23T08:44:00.002-05:00

My blogging is changing a bit and I'm now writing for Ospreyblogs.com and also Torontothumbs.com so make sure you check me out on those sites! I am also continuing to write for Armchair Empire and Brantnow.com and each site has different content because apparently I have too much to say.

I'm currently playing the original Half-Life on the Playstation 2 and other than that, just playing some games I need to review -- nothing too exciting at the moment but there are some upcoming titles that I can't wait for so stay tuned!

Halo 3 - Finishing the Fight

2007-11-29T09:07:00.000-05:00

Well you know that I'm a gamer. I have more video games in my house than some people have brain cells, and yet surprisingly I have never REALLY played Halo before. Sure, I own all of them ... but it wasn't until Halo 3 arrived that I finally took the plunge and decided to play the single player campaign. I had only played the first level or two of the original Halo and of course have experienced some multiplayer (even played at the Mothership-Microsoft itself when I was there a couple of years ago). So what did I think of this release? I thought it was great. I'm not sure I buy into the incredible hype about it but then again, I'm not a big first-person-shooter fan. I found the story quite interesting and I did feel immersed in the experience. The AI was good - but certainly NOT perfect. Sometimes my guys would drive backwards and I found myself stuck in one place for WAY TOO LONG. These shortcomings did not take away from a great gaming experience however. The music was amazing, the graphics were very good and the game was filled with enough "HOLY CRAP!" moments that I walked away feeling pretty darn good about it. Now the "Legendary Edition" is what I had to have ... but seriously, $150 for the Helmet? Somebody's making too much money. Oh yeah, Microsoft is really good at that. 9.0 out of 10.

Chicken Little for the PS2

2007-10-15T09:32:00.000-05:00

So I know I'm a bit of a sucker for a good kids game ... but I usually find them entertaining and a game being a bit on the easy side doesn't bother me at all. I don't have a lot of time to play games, so if I can experience the whole world without redoing a level 20 times, I'm there. This game was quite easy until the last driving level which drove ME mad until I finally got it right ... but picky picky picky. Overall, this game was quite well done ... the graphics are not the greatest on the PS2 (and I'm scared to think of how these graphics looked on the Xbox unless they prettied them up, but I doubt it) but the experience was fun. The levels were interesting and there was actually a lot more varied gameplay (platforming, driving, shooting) then I expected. Imagine something like a Ratchet and Clank, without the graphical polish or quite the finesse, and you've still got yourself a decent game. Overall, I give this one a 7.0 out of 10 and would recommend it if you are just looking for a fun experience.

Kameo: Elements of Power

2007-10-05T09:10:00.000-05:00

Well, it only took me around 2 years after this game (and the 360) launched to get around to playing and finishing Kameo. I am really not sure what took me so long, but I'm finally happy to report that I finished this sucker last night. First of all, I am really not sure what people's issue is when it comes to certain platformers. THIS IS NOT A KIDS GAME - not to say that it won't be enjoyed by people of all ages, but if you think it's just a dumb game for kids you are totally missing out. The various "elemental warriors" are really just a fancy way of implementing unique attacks and moves. The way this is done in the game is great, although you'll find some of the warriors pretty useless except for very specific instances in which you require their powers.

People have said this game is short - well, I didn't really find that myself. It might be because I played it in pieces, but it was definitely worth the price at launch and now that you can get it for $20 if you haven't played it, go get it! The graphics are gorgeous (even today) and other than some frustrating control issues (like most games have) and the occasional wonky camera (which ALL games of this genre have) it's a real gem. 8.0 out of 10!

Tomb Raider Anniversary

2007-09-07T10:27:00.000-05:00

It's no secret that I loved Tomb Raider: Legend. This time, the team has taken that engine and recreated the first Tomb Raider. The first was a game I never really had a chance to play ... and after playing this version, I'm not sure I could go back to its low polygon bretheran but hey, you never know.

Anniversary is more of a "re-imagining" than a total remake, with most of the same locales intact but new ways to walk around them and the puzzles are redone as well. The game feels good, looks great, and sounds wonderful. The problem is the typical wonky camera, but more importantly - what happened to the difficulty level? The game seems to flow at a nice pace until you hit a snag where you are stumped. These are not stop points because of complicated puzzles - it's because of timing that is so closely clipped that some of the elements are close to impossible to advance beyond unless you perform your moves perfectly. Some would argue it's just a good challenge but I beg to differ. A game can be challenging without being frustrating, and I must tell you that there are several moments in this game that are utterly and completely frustrating to the point where I almost wanted to give up. Thankfully, there were video snippets out there that should you ways to get past these points, and if I didn't have those videos I wonder if I would have given up. I must say though that overall those frustrating moments are outshone by the incredible moments that do exist. The graphics are great for a PS2 game, and the controls are USUALLY decent. Overall, I'm giving this experience an 8.0 out of 10. It's at a great price, so pick it up whether you are a fan of the original are just trying it out for the first time.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Lego

2007-07-30T09:24:00.001-05:00

OK, I admit it. When I first heard that there was an Indiana Jones Lego game coming, I kind of cringed. I don't really think I thought that this might be a recreation of Raiders of the Lost Ark, instead I envisioned some cheap cash grabbing knock off. Then, I checked out the
trailer and I must say, I'm quite impressed! There are few things I see online these days it seems that actually make me laugh out loud, but seeing a lego-ized rolling ball coming after our hero just made me bust a gut. The only downside to this thing that I can see is that I'll have to wait until summer NEXT year to give it a try. It encompasses all three movies, so I imagine they will be releasing it around the same time that the fourth Indiana Jones movie comes out. These marketing guys are slick.

Rayming Raving Rabbids Wii

2007-06-25T10:57:00.000-05:00

So being a big Rayman fan, when I first heard that a new Rayman game was coming out, I was very excited. Then, when I heard it was going to be a collection of mini-games I was feeling a bit let down. OK, I'll be honest ... I was feeling a
lot let down. But here's the great thing ... the game is a BLAST. These rabbids will just crack you up and the games are well crafted. They range in difficulty but there is nothing wrong with that, and nothing is so frustrating that makes you want to stop playing or anything. I think they reused a lot of the mini games over and over again but for the most part they made it fresh and innovative. Good job Ubisoft, Rayman Raving Rabbids (Wii Version) gets an 8.5 out of 10 from me!

Tak 2: Staff of Dreams

2007-06-12T09:41:00.000-05:00

When I finished Brave: The Search for Spirit Dancer, I moved quickly into Tak 2: Staff of Dreams on the Playstation 2. It was an interesting choice, but I really didn't do it on purpose. You see, I had planned on playing the second Tak game since finishing the first over a year ago. Yeah, I know, I'm way behind. It's true -- this often happens to me. I rarely play a game when it first comes out unless it's a huge blockbuster (in my mind anyways) and now that I review games professionally, it makes it a bit harder because the limited time I do have to play games now competes with the games I have to play to review. Anyways, I'm glad I got the chance to finally give Tak a go. I noticed an awful lot of similarities between Tak and Brave. Tak definitely has more polish, but the difficulty level in certain spots ramps up to the insane. Overall, the game is what you would expect from an action platformer. You run around, collect things, beat up things and solve puzzles to continue. It does the job well with lush environments and good sound. There is also a lot more variety in this version of Tak with vehicles and the types of puzzles that you are challenged with. The game is certainly long enough and the ability to become different animals (with their own distinct abilities) offers an interesting (if not sometimes frustrating) twist on the genre. There were essentially two parts of the game that I had to repeat about 6,324 times (approximately) and wanted to throw the controller. Going online, I found other people with similar frustrations. To my big surprise, the ONLY person that has written an online FAQ/walkthrough for the game stopped right about the place where I was stuck. That's right, even the people telling you how to finish the game GAVE UP or died from swallowing the controller (I'm not sure which). I even emailed the guy with no response, so I'm thinking he died a 'controlled' death. Yeah. Anyways, I finally got past the bad part and finished the game. There is a surprise at the end (no I'm not going to ruin it for you) ... you will just have to find out for yourself. If you haven't given this one a try, I'd recommend it... it's fun, but the frustrating moments make you shake your head in and whisper "WTF" to anyone that will listen. An 7.5 out of 10.

God of War II

2007-05-13T09:36:00.000-05:00

I apologize for not getting these comments up sooner - just too much else going on! I finished God of War II awhile ago now, and yet it's still in my head. How many games can you say that about? If you've played the first one, then you are going to feel right at home here. The game definitely feels more like a straight evolution of the first one, and truly, that's what we were all looking for I think. I didn't want to have to relearn a bunch of things and feel like the developer was just trying to do something new for the sake of doing something new. That doesn't mean there aren't new things - flying on Pegasus for example is new, if not a little short. The threesome mini-game is back (though not much different) and there are more boss encounters although only the first one is what I would truly call epic. This game definitely starts out on a high note but in some ways, never quite gets back to that level of awesomeness. There are a couple of frustrating moments, but overall this game delivers what we were all expecting: one hell of a lot of fun. A 9.5 out of 10!

Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters

2007-04-13T13:46:00.000-05:00

Size Matters? I thought it didn't. Apparently I (and many other delusional males out there) were WRONG. Size does matter because the latest great Ratchet & Clank game is pocket sized on the PSP. Fortunately, I bought one of those "hook up your PSP to the TV" thingy-ma-jigs (the official term) and I was able to project this game onto my 42" Plasma TV. Size matters, indeed.

Anyways, this game was pretty decent - it sure FELT like a Ratchet and Clank game that you are used to on the PS2. And until the PS3 title comes out later this year (how excited am I for that!?), this stop-gap will keep you going.

8.5 out of 10. For a more detailed review, check out what I wrote at Armchair Empire.

2007-03-29T14:13:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure what it is about Eragon that has drawn me to the movie and to the game ... maybe it's the idea behind it. The movie was 'ok' - nothing great. I was perhaps a little let down and I knew something was wrong when I started looking for more and more Star Wars references during the film. However, I still was looking forward to playing the game.

The game is pretty much like the movie: it's nothing great but you're not going to look at it and say it's a real stinker. It's just average, like the movie. If you LIKED the movie you will probably really enjoy the game.

The 'finishing' moves had a camera that reminded me of God of War, but I'll be honest: this is no where near as fun. The levels are relatively easy and if you're just looking for a game that you can experience and get through, it's not bad. The levels that you fly around on the dragon are not that great though, I spent more time with them in some ways but that was just out of frustration.

Overall, I'd give this one a 6.5 out of 10.

Lego Star Wars II

2007-03-16T11:01:00.000-05:00

When I first heard about Lego Star Wars, I thought it was going to be cheesy. Well, guess what? I was right. It's cheesy. Not just a medium brick kind of cheesy, but a full jar of cheezwhiz kinda cheesy. What I wasn't expecting was for it to be a good game.

Now along comes Lego Star Wars II and I'm happy to report everything that worked in the first one is here, and most of what was broken has been fixed. The ship flying modes are better than the original (and less frustrating) and the challenge is a bit higher, although overall I think the game is too easy. At the same time, sometimes it's nice to just experience a game and not get frustrated trying to get past a certain point. This game fills the bill just perfectly.

Is it game of the year? No ... but it sure is a lot of fun, especially seeing Stormtroopers in a Hot Tub!

Be careful what you wish for!

2007-02-09T16:49:00.000-05:00

Well I feel like I finally hit the big time. Last Friday, I got home and received a free game in the mail. What's the catch? Well, I have to review it of course. At first, I was so excited....1) because I had a new game and 2) because it was free. Then, moments later, reality set in. I HAVE TO PLAY THIS GAME. Not that I wouldn't... but knowing me, it would be 2010 before I ever popped it into the machine. So now not only do I have to play this game LIKE NOW but I have to write about it too. Don't get me wrong: I am NOT complaining (honest). It's just a different feeling when you know you have to do something. Just a different sensation that's all. Look for a new review soon!

Dragon's Lair - Back into the Lair

2007-01-31T10:02:00.000-05:00

I recently had the privilege of interviewing David Foster from Digital Leisure about the Dragon's Lair series. Dragon's Lair, the hit arcade game from 1983 has lived on over 20 years of popularity and will probably continue to do so for another 20. I was thinking about what makes Dragon's Lair so popular and I think I've come back to "the experience". I don't think anyone would disagree with me in saying that Dragon's Lair is not about the gameplay ... after all, 4 directions and a sword button all timed events? That's not much of a formula for in-depth gameplay.

What's it's all about is the experience. The experience of Dragons' Lair is immersive and somewhat magical. That's why I keep playing it and enjoying it. I think more games should consider that.

The article is on Armchair Empire and you can find it here: http://www.armchairempire.com/Interviews/dragons-lair.htm

God of War II - Release Date Confirmed

2007-01-18T11:28:00.000-05:00

So now it's official ... on March 13, 2007 Sony will release God of War II. I have to admit: I'm both excited and cautious about this coming out. The first game was amazing, but I find myself fearing Star Wars Syndrome (ok I just made that up). Will the new one create the amazement and wonderment the first one did? Unlikely, but I'm sure I'll be happy with just "more of the same". The experience was so immersive the first time around, especially the sound which is often overlooked. I'm also a little worried since this is most likely the last PS2 title ever created with a big budget and AAA specs all the way around, something I'm a little sad over. The PS3 and 360 have yet to deliver any great platforming / adventure games (save Tomb Raider Legend on the 360, but that was more of an up-port than a true next-gen game). Is this going to be like playing Zelda, where I kept playing longer than I needed to just because I didn't want the experience to end? I hope so and I hope not. Here's to you Kratos: it's going to be bittersweet.

Crackdown Includes Halo 3 Beta - It's Official

2007-01-17T15:06:00.000-05:00

Well it's official ... after months of speculation about how to get into the Halo 3 beta program, and then the black hole signup on their website (I call it that because you signed up, and then jumped into a black hole--waiting to here anything). Now, you can get yourself into the Halo 3 beta program by purchasing a copy of Crackdown ... only the first print run will include keys to do so ... others will be SOL and have to wait for the masses to play this monster upcoming game.

The good thing is that Crackdown looks like it's going to be a good game, and it should be -- it's coming from the mastermind, David Jones, behind the original Grand Theft Auto and -- surprisngly perhaps -- the cute Lemmings title that won numerous awards in the 90's. I've seen some initial footage of this game and it looks pretty interesting ... it's more of a 3-D free form playing game than ever so we'll see how this all pans out when it releases on February 20.

December 2006 Video Games Sales Numbers

2007-01-12T15:53:00.000-05:00

The NPD released the following game sales numbers:

HW Sales (month and LTD)
Nintendo DS 1.6 mm 9.2 mm
PS2 1.4 mm 37.1 mm
GBA 850.7 K 35.1 mm
Xbox 360 1.1 mm 4.5 mm
Wii 604.2 K 1.1 mm
PSP 953.2 K 6.7 mm
PS3 490.7 K 687.3 K

Top 10 Video Games
360 GEARS OF WAR - MICROSOFT 815.7 K
PS2 GUITAR HERO 2 W/GUITAR - ACTIVISION 805.2 K
PS2 MADDEN NFL 07 - ELECTRONIC ARTS 737.1 K
GCN LEGEND OF ZELDA: TWILIGHT PRINCESS - NINTENDO 532.9 K
WII LEGEND OF ZELDA: TWILIGHT PRINCESS - NINTENDO 519.2 K
PS2 WWE SMACKDOWN VS. RAW 2007 - THQ 484.5 K
NDS NEW SUPER MARIO BROS - NINTENDO 427.5 K
360 CALL OF DUTY 3 - ACTIVISION 410.8 K
NDS YOSHI'S ISLAND 2 - NINTENDO 407.2 K
PS2 CALL OF DUTY 3 - ACTIVISION 365.3 K

So the XBOX 360 is dominating the next gen for the end of the year ... no big surprise, considering the Wii was unavailable for most of the month. The PS2 is still kicking butt though with its lower price point ... so all 12 of you that don't have one can get one for sure.

I am a little surprised at some of the software numbers.... not that Gears of War was #1, that is a no-brainer...but that Guitar Hero with the controller is number 2 ... that is a LOT of units for something with hardware, so good for them -- it's a great product, but that doesn't always translate into great sales.

I was also surprised to see there are over 6 million PSP's ... the media tends to kick the PSP a bit, compared with the DS (maybe because the DS is the underdog when it comes to power, the same with the Wii) but really, 6 million is respectable and they should be able to get some decent software sales out of it ....yet, there isn't a PSP on the list of best selling software. That is a bit worrisome and I think about myself -- I'm only buying PSP stuff when it's cheap but have no qualms about buying a 360, PS3 or Wii game for full price..... maybe if the PSP games weren't $50 or $60 new (in Canada anyways) that would be less of an issue.

The other big surprise I saw was that the Gamecube version of Zelda outsold the Wii one ... but that's probably only because of a lack of systems.

I've been taking a bit of a game break since finishing Twilight Princess but I should have some new reviews up here soon.

Zelda: Twilight Princess on the Wii

2007-01-03T09:34:00.000-05:00

It's over. I hate to admit, I hate to think about it. 92 hours later and it's over. Why did it take 92 hours for me to complete The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess? Well, that's what happens when you get every heart piece (sans 3 that I just couldn't be bothered with) and open pretty much every treasure chest and spend a couple of hours just fishing.

There are few games out there that offer what Zelda does. Maybe it's the environment, the music, the awesome controls on the Wii ... or maybe it's all of those things. It's the familiarity of the universe combined with new things like snowboarding and boating and incredibly improved fishing (by far the coolest min-game I've ever played). Most of all, it's Zelda.

I don't want to ruin the story for anyone that is playing through it or will play through it ... but there are some great twists and turns especially near the end.

The bad: some people have critcized Zelda's presentation (ie: no voiceovers) for being outdated and due to the "cartridge" sized mentality...clearer that's no longer an issue although I'd be curious to know how much of the disc space they used without voice...I imagine it's quite a bit. Maybe the gameplay is a little bit rehashed from what we've already done, but that's not necessarily a bad thing--especially when they added in some new stuff. The worst part of the bad? Waiting. Please don't make us wait another 1336 between Zelda games.

The good: pretty much everything else. It's hard to find fault in this game ... it might start a little slow but once the ride begins you don't ever want it to end. Despite the minor notations, I can't give this game anything other than a 10 out of 10!

Here come the Christmas Titles

2006-12-13T10:43:00.000-05:00

Christmas is always brutal for me when it comes to games. I have to go on a "buying freeze" at least for newer titles and that always sucks. I see now that the Gamecube version of Zelda: Twilight Princess is out. I'm currently playing TP for the Wii and let me tell you: it's awesome. My full review will come out later but right now I'm in the middle of it and it's just great... I am not sure how the Gamecube version will be in terms of the controls...here I thought the Wii version would be gimmicky but now I wonder how tough the Gamecube controls will be ... the Wii ones are just awesome.

I've also heard that the 'Cube version may be in short supply. This HAS to be a temporary situation. I know that any hardcore Zelda fan (myself included) will be suckered into buying both versions. Why? Because. We. Have. To. Just ask George Lucas--he knows what it's all about.

Genji: Dawn of the Samurai

2006-11-29T14:15:00.000-05:00

Genji is beautiful, there's no doubt about it. Although it's not made of fully 3-D environments, the ones that it does provide are just amazing. There has never been in my experience a nicer looking Japanese architectural review. You truly feel like you are there and that's a great thing.

So what's the bad thing? Well, Genji's depth isn't really there in the gameplay department. Other reviewers have claimed it's too short ... well, I didn't find that but maybe it's because I had a hard time mastering the 'killer' move that makes defeating the toughest enemies easier. So I died. And died. Yep, there's me dying some more.

But I finally made it through and the ending was quite the battle and a little disappointing ... but it was a beautiful ride that's for sure. This is one of those games that makes you appreciate the culture in this world and the beauty that other cultures have to offer.

This game is not for everyone, but if you like some hack-n-slash with your hashbrowns, this one won't disappoint. A 7 out of 10.

PS3: My first impressions

2006-11-28T09:37:00.000-05:00

It's big, it's black and it's beautiful? I seem to remember everyone making fun of the Xbox and described it this way when it first came out in the last generation. This time, things are reversed: the Playstation is the bigger, bulkier and most certainly heavier brand ... and, the most powerful. I find it somewhat amusing that Sony fanboys (and Sony themselves) laughed at Microsoft for releasing two sku's on the 360, and yet here's Sony doing the same thing. Just goes to show you: choose your battles. But what about the machine?

The PS3 is a great machine and does deliver on the bulk of the promises Sony made, although to a lesser degree but that is Sony for you. The graphics are great, the sound is great and the games are decent for launch titles (those that I've played anyways). Resistance: Fall of Man does not disappoint as a great launch title even though first person shooters are not really my thing. I gave it a chance because of Insominiac (developers of one of my favourite series, Ratchet & Clank).

So here's what is good: built in Wi-Fi (even though I probably won't use it) and this is only on the higher priced version, HDMI output for my LCD TV, Blu-Ray movies are a nice bonus: but I'm not rushing out to replace my DVD collection...oh wait, I couldn't if I wanted to (but I can get 'Click' with Adam Sandler .... HOLY! rolling my eyes), the graphics and sound, rechargable controller with motion sensitivity....jury is still out on the games but they will come.

Here's what's bad: the menu system: it looks and works like my PSP but unfortunately that is NOT a good thing. The monochromatic display may be functional, but annoying: the 360 wins out here hands down....their "Online system that will rival Xbox Live" -- sorry Sony, not even close. Not that we blame you: it's free and it's first generation for you. Just don't sit there and tell us it will be better than Microsoft's because it isn't. The online store is nothing more than a webpage and it feels just like when you move around the web browser on the PSP: ok in a pinch but you wouldn't want to live there. Not being able to do anything else while downloading something is a major bummer and Microsoft fixed it with an update to their service--why would you not have learned from that? Finally, no rumble in the controller. Yeah, it makes the controller yet: and yeah, that makes it feel kinda cheap actually. I will miss rumble in my games, although it's not a showstopper...it's disappointing that business issues and legal issues for Sony are resulting in the consumers losing out. Pony up the cash to Immersion and fight them about it later, for chrissake.

Bottom line: The PS3 is a great console... it's potential will wait to be seen (just like the 360 which is now starting to get some great titles, one year later). The bigger question is, with Sony losing many exclusives will they be much like Nintendo is and the only exclusives become ones from their own studios? That could be . There will still be great exclusives. That's why I'm lucky to have all the consoles: they are all great in their own ways and will have games on them I want to play. The 360 will have Halo 3 and the Wii has Zelda and the PS3 is going to have another Ratchet & Clank.

I'm going to give the console an 8.5 - TODAY. Maybe by this time next year it will hit a 9 or higher but it loses points for price, lackluster interface, no rumble, poor online mode and a less than stellar launch lineup. These are all things that can be worked on, let's hope they do it right!

Death Jr. for the PSP

2006-11-27T15:07:00.000-05:00

Well I finally finished this puppy up after a long time, but I have to admit something: I had to enable a cheat to get past a few parts....it just got NUTS with the guns and ammo and everything else. It was challenging but then it went a little beyond challenging to plain annoying. Overall though, I found the game to be good. A lot of people complained about the camera and I didn't find the camera so much of an issue as I did trying to line up to do the jumps that were required....it just required that you be really precise, which I was.

Overall, given the format I think they did a very good job and I give Death Jr. a 7.5 out of 10... of course, I would finally finish it up just in time for a sequel!

The artwork featured here is from the limited edition, which I have ... sort of. I picked up this version (with the different artwork) and apparently it comes with a comic (which I don't have) and that's it ... otherwise, it's exactly the same. I picked up this one for completeness in my collection (I like to do variants, except the whole "value priced" stuff on all the platforms).

Playing with my Wii Wii

2006-11-17T05:57:00.000-05:00

OK so I was one of these lucky people who has received their Wii early. Don't worry Nintendo, I didn't break any legal agreement with anyone and "purchase at retail" prior to Sunday. Let's just say I got it, and leave it at that.

I was actually surprised to come home Thursday evening to find it waiting for me! It was a great present.

The only downside? The games weren't there... just the included Wii sports. But that's ok, early adopters have to suffer sometimes. Hopefully the games arrive later today (it's now Friday at 5:59 am). Why is it so early? Because I decided to go see if I could pick up an extra PS3 from Wal*Mart or Future Shop. Didn't happen. I got up at 3am, and headed over before 4. At Wal*Mart, they told me they only got six and they gave out the coupons for them already and the line had disbanded. When I headed over to Futureshop, I saw tents...and a line....small line...looked promising. However, they also had handed out their coupons but these guys were waiting until 8am to actually pick their units up. I thought I was hardcore. Yeah, right. Anyways, the Wii: I played with it last night and am happy to report it was a blast. The 5 sports games that are included are all a lot of fun. There seems to perhaps be a little something going on with the remote where it jumps a bit but I'm not convinced I have it set up perfectly. The baseball was great--I think I actually pulled a shoulder muscle though! Boy games are getting more physical. I have only two complaints: 1) The video cable included is a composite video cable. Nintendo, I realize you need to accomodate the lowest common denominator, but I have news for you: COMPOSITE SUCKS AND IT SUCKS LARGE. At least make s-video and preferably component available AT LAUNCH not sometime later. You are going to piss off the people that have the TV's to go with it. The second complaint I have is that I have a problem with the Internet connection: it's just not working and I don't know if it's because it's prior to launch or what. I'm getting an error 32001 and it says to go to support.nintendo.com for more information. Well if you go there you get an Apache error ... nice. Again, I'll reserve complete judgement until Sunday but you'd think this stuff would be working early for retailers setting up demos and such. Anyways, enough bitchin. I tried out my Zelda Collector's Gamecube disc just to make sure it boots and works. It does. So for those that have it, I guess you can save those Wii points by NOT downloading the Legend of Zelda from the classic gaming service-- really, why bother it's got to be the same. I am not sure why I'm thinking of downloading ANY of the games since I have pretty much all of them as originals, but it might be nice to load up Dungeon Explorer on a high definition television. Well, I guess I should get some other work done or I'm going to end up playing that Baseball game again. I really think this system is going to be fun. And Sony: screw you. You made me get up at 3am for nothing. At least I had a nice breakfast at Tim Horton's with my brother. Did you know some of them start making those breakfast sandwiches at 4am? At least I learned something. Other than low blu-ray yields suck. Bad.

Xbox Emulators

2006-11-01T13:52:00.000-05:00

I've been playing around lately with some classic emulators for the Xbox... ones that emulate laser disc players (Daphne), the original Nintendo, the Super Nintendo, and the Genesis. I don't have overly big expectations from the little box with the hefty weight in terms of processing power compared to today's modern PC's, so running things like a Nintendo 64 emulator to me just seems like you're asking for trouble (even though they exist).

What a pleasant surprise. I haven't spent an extensive amount of time with them yet, but the MAME emulator runs the classics with ease and the Genesis emulator does it spot on. Dragon's Lair looks awesome on the Xbox - just awesome.

It's getting to the point where I might almost consider not having the actual machines out to play on. In the museum, I am definitely going to put the emulators out there because I don't have the space for the classic machines ... so running Pac-Man on the 122-inch screen has got to be an experience every arcade kid should have.

The amount of dedication and work that has gone into this stuff is truly amazing - to all those who have worked on these emulators, a big THANK YOU. Your work is very much appreciated.

Will I put away the three N64's I have out? Not yet. But maybe. One day. Maybe.

The Sense of Achievement in Gaming

2006-10-30T11:10:00.000-05:00

When the Xbox 360 launched it introduced a new element to games - achievements that are shared on the Live system. Having bragging rights about completing things in games has been standard for years, but now your achievements are posted publically so everyone can see them. Does this make it more desireable to achieve things? Damn right it does. The last thing anyone wants is to feel "lame" so maybe we play a little longer, explore a little further in a game to make sure we hit those achievements. It actually got me thinking about game completion too. In the old days, "completing" a game meant simply tiring of it, or reaching a point where the difficulty went beyond impossible (Space Invaders aliens starting out on the bottom row anyone?). Almost all games today are more like movies, with "stages" and levels with a definite beginning, middle and end.

Is that sense of achieving the end making us play games through to the end we might have otherwise tossed aside for the next iteration of Grand Theft Auto? In my case, I'd have to say yes. I have many games that I've started and "abandonded" and I find myself reluctant to try new games until I've finished those ones off. I feel guilty about those abandoned games and so I go back and finish them up. I'm playing NeoPets: The Darkest Faerie ... yeah another kid's game, but it's pretty decent... long though (just by the nature of what it is, in general it's not a long game).

So are games guilting us in to completion? Maybe. What do you think?

Indigo Prophecy

2006-10-26T08:55:00.000-05:00

David Cage's Indigo Prophecy (known as Fahrenheit outside of North America) is an adventure game for the PC, PS2 and Xbox. I played the PS2 version, but the other ones are very similar.

The game is all about story, with the gameplay elements consisting of some arcade-type simon-says action sequences with the dual analog joysticks and some simple puzzles. The game also uses a fairly unique "mental health" meter than can go up and down based upon the things you discover and the dialog choices you make.

The creators call the game "elastic" in that you can slightly change some of the game paths, but only to a small degree--hence, elastic. You are still bound to follow the main story arc, but you hear different dialog and find some other clues depending on your choices.

There are also several different endings, which I discovered after reading an FAQ on the game...turns out I got the "best" one if you can call it that. The story does fall pretty flat at the end, and Cage admits it in his post mortem on Gamasutra.

I did enjoy this game for the most part. The climbing sections (especially climbing down) I found overly difficult and frustrating compared to everything else and there are a few stealth sections that were interesting, just sometimes the difficulty level was uneven. Overall, a good experience. I give it an 8/10.

Tomb Raider: Legend

2006-10-16T09:32:00.000-05:00

Well I finally finished my first Xbox 360 game. Usually, I don't finish a game that is made in the same year (with some exceptions) but I've been trying out my new LCD TV and it really has brought my 360 playing back to life.

This game was great, and if you have a choice of platforms you don't want to play it on anything other than the 360. The texture detail is incredible, although you can tell the engine in the background is not really next-gen as there was some slow down. Seriously, with that much horsepower there should not be.

Some people have complained about the motorcycle sequences... well there are really only two of them (of any significance) and they are not that long (although the train one seems to go on longer than it needs to). I thought they were just fine and broke up the gameplay a bit.

My biggest complaint is that the game is quite short (which in some ways I don't mind because I get that sense of accomplishment easily) but the difficulty spikes a lot. In most cases, the game is way too easy -- occasionally, there are some places where things have to be so precise that it's frustrating. A better mix is needed.

Overall, Lara returns in a big time positive way with this one and I'm looking forward to other Tomb Raider games from Crystal Dynamics. 8 out of 10.

Pushing the "I WIN" button

2006-10-12T11:11:00.000-05:00

I was talking to a co-worker the other day about games, and he was telling me about how his kids actually choose games that they rent based upon whether or not they can get cheat codes for those games. He said that if they couldn't hit what he called the "I WIN" button they just weren't interested. They boast that they beat the game, and that "it's not cheating if it's posted out there".

What happened to exploration? Sure, it's great to get to the end, but it's the journey that counts (this applies to many things in life, I'm sure you might know what I'm talking about!).

Many games are frustrating, and I understand the need for some "help" along the way. I've had to do this myself many times, but there's a big difference between consulting an FAQ / Walkthrough guide and blatently using cheat codes to get through a game or become "invincible".

I've noticed some of the games of Japanese origin do not have these cheat codes. Is this because their culture teaches them that this is not necessary? Is providing cheat codes teaching young game players that in life if you get the right code, you can just get ahead and not have to earn or achieve things?

Maybe today I'm being a bit too serious, but it's certainly concerning. Game developers probably don't think about the role they play in teaching - but it's certainly there.

Curious George the Video Game Review

2006-10-04T10:30:00.000-05:00

I've been actually making it through more games lately than I would have thought, considering I seem to spend so little time on them anymore. I started out playing Curious George when it first came out because I was, well, curious! I knew it was a "kiddie" platformer, but sometimes the exploration and enjoyment of just finishing a game can make you overlook its flaws.

Let me set the record straight from the outset. This really isn't a good game, nor is it a terrible game. It's actually inconsistent. If it is supposed to be targeted towards kids, that's great but then why make some of the platforming sections overly difficult? I'm not the only reviewer that found this to be true. Some sections require multiple tries to get it right and I can't see a younger audience not feeling frustrated beyond belief at this.

The mini-games are mostly uninspired. What the game does have going for it is decent graphics (the 'toon shading' is particluar effective for this title) and the environments are colorful and well laid out.

I have to give this one a 5 out of 10. If you really think your kids might enjoy it, grab it as a rental. It probably won't last beyond the due date anyways.

I wanna build me some Tetris shelves...

2006-09-26T15:34:00.000-05:00

So these are really cool.... but I don't want to buy them, they are crazy expensive. The solution? Build em ... it's quite easy, you don't even really need a pattern since everything is all equal sizes! So I just need to find some wood, and more importantly, some TIME and build my own set of these. They can be reconfigured infinitely, backing or no backing, the color choices are endless... OH MY!

Tetris shelves.....coming soon to a museum near you!

MyMame Project Finally Begins

2006-09-25T14:18:00.000-05:00

For a number of years (too many to count now) I've been trying to build a MAME cabinet. I've had the actual cabinet for 7 or 8 years I would gather (maybe more) and it's just been doing nothing. Well yesterday, Jeff and I finally got the cabinet into the garage to start working on it.

You can see that the cabinet is not in the greatest shape. It needs paint, it needs some TLC and the insides need to be completely reworked. Once we got out all the guts, we had to talk about the monitor. I have been saving this really nice 19" CRT monitor for my MAME project for a long time, but the reality is that it just isn't big enough ... so I decided to go with a TV that has nice output. I found what I was looking for in this Toshiba 20" TV. I compared it to other 20" TV's and you can't beat the quality and sharpness on this one.

So Jeff managed to prop up the screen enough to give it that authentic arcade angle, and he's working on making some sort of bracket to keep the screen securely in place. I need to pick up some marine paint and I was looking at side art decals today. We need to also build a shelf/bracket for my X-Arcade stick (which I've had laying around for years) ... it will finally be put to use!

So this is basically how the cabinet stands now. Jeff is working on a lock replacement, we need to figure out how to mount that screen and the joystick and I think we'll be ready for determining lights, artwork and getting the painting done!

Personal Computer Museum 1 Year Later

2006-09-22T13:13:00.000-05:00

So last weekend was the 1 year anniversary of the Personal Computer Musuem in Brantford, Ontario, Canada and all went very well. One of the big things we've done is improved the website and now include pictures, system descriptions, and more! The musuem is doing really well and my volunteers have been great! We are starting to get more and more quality items for display and the interest seems to be picking up. I am still hoping that we are able to obtain a larger space and really make it worthwhile and a major attraction. Who knows what the future will hold? In this case, the future is firmly cemented in the past.

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

2006-09-21T08:54:00.000-05:00

Yes, it certainly was. I am not sure what made me want to try out this adventure game for the Xbox and PC but I'm glad I did. I've been wanting to play Indigo Prophecy (which I understand is an even better game) but I didn't have the chance. Next thing I know, Dreamfall is gracing my Xbox like icing on a cake. The cinematics, character development and storyline all draw you in. Wow. After spending something like 10 or 12 hours with this game I still have questions but the point is I want to know the answers!. I've already ordered the previously title, The Longest Journey and it should be in soon.

Yeah, ok I concede that the "action" parts of the game leave something to be desired (especially the fighting) but the exploration and puzzles make up for that.

I'd have to give this game a 7.5 ... it loses points for a couple of things. I read an FAQ where the guy said the game was WAY TOO SHORT. Well ... I would not say that. I appreciate the work that went into the sound, graphics and story and it's a LOT of content to fit on a DVD. So the gameplay knocks it down a bit and the loading was a bit annoying, even from the hard drive...I understand the Xbox only has 64MB of RAM but streaming might have been better. The puzzles, although mostly easy were sometimes annoying with the Xbox controller versus a PC keyboard/mouse and that should have been taken into consideration on the port.

Other than that, well done! Think of it like a nice 12 hour movie!

My annual coffee bitch

2006-09-19T10:14:00.000-05:00

You know I'm not really a tree hugger but I do recycle, and I'm fairly vigilant about it. I think leaving lights on unnecessarily is also a waste. I think the waste from things like excess coffee trays is crazy and unnecessary and it bothers me.

For anyone that works at a Tim Horton's (or any coffee place for that matter) please take some advice from me. If somebody orders two drinks at the drive-thru, ASK if they need a tray. Don't ASSUME they do. Almost every modern car today has at least two cup holders in the front.

Nothing bugs me more than being handed two drinks on a tray and then I have to take them out and give the tray back...and techincally they are not supposed to take it because it's against health regulations. How about environmental regulations? There should be something stating though shalt not waste unnecessarily.

GRRRRR!!!!

Games that should be remade - part 3

2006-09-13T13:55:00.000-05:00

Before I get into this next post I wanted to share with everyone that the Personal Computer Museum (located in Brantford, Ontario, Canada) website has been updated to celebrate the first anniversary. For more information, visit the site here. Now... the next game on my hitlist. Cinemaware, known for great hits like Defender of the Crown brought us another cool game, Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcon. This was a cool game, at least on the Amiga. I never had the chance to play the other versions but I imagine they lost something in the translation. I remember the one-eyed cyclops and the woman that mesmerized you and huge map that you could control with your big magnifying glass. The sound design was great for the time and the whole experience quite immersive. I can just imagine the varied gameplay making a smooth transition to a 3D environment if this was remade. Heck, I'd like to go back and just play the original. Good thing I have several Amigas all set up ready to go!

Malice

2006-08-30T08:45:00.000-05:00

OK so I was asked the question: what do I give Malice? I played this game a while ago so my recollection is a little bit hazy. Here goes anyway. Malice was touted as an Xbox launch title and was originally voiced by Gwen Stefani. Let's just say, neither of those things happened. By the time it made it to market, the Xbox was well along the way and Gwen was out of the picture (and more accurately, the sound). I played the Xbox version because the game was originally designed for the Xbox by Argnonaut software. Honestly, the game felt somewhat unpolished. The textures were kind of muddy and the camera was typically a bit of an issue at times. However, I felt compelled to keep playing. So much so, that I finished the game. My friend Adam (who asked me what I'd give this game) was playing it roughly at the same time as I was. What I remember was that it was short, it was reasonably fun but I hated the whole Beach of Souls thing (when you died you went to this beach with other dead people). I didn't really get that at first so it just made it ... well, strange. I also discovered a bug in the game... I finished off a boss and you are supposed to get a key that appears in the center of the room. Well, I beat him and for some reason, the key did not appear. Well I wasn't sure what was going on so I wandered around trying to figure out what to do for a LONG time. I don't think there was an FAQ out for the game at the time but when I talked to Adam he said yeah a key appeared and blah blah....well, fortunately, I had a save that wasn't too far back (a level or two) and I went back to that and redid everything and this time it worked ok. This is the second time I've discovered a major nasty bug in a game (the other time was Dragon's Lair 3D). All in all, I have fond memories of Malice and I would give it a 6.5 out of 10 - better than average but there are better games out there. Obviously, unless something strange happens there will be no sequel.

Tak and the Power of JuJu - Finished

2006-08-18T08:50:00.000-05:00

So I can now add another game to my list of completed ... Tak and the Power of JuJu. If you mix the letters up you get Jak and the Power of TuTu, which very well might be the next game in the Jak & Daxter Series (or is it Takster?). Man, these names are so similar. If it wasn't for the JuJu I might be confused.

I started playing this platformer close to when it came out ... I dunno, a bazillion years ago ... but I gave up. I got frustrated and confused and stopped. The level design in this game is probably its worst enemy.

Getting to the final boss...well ... that took some work. You need to collect 3 moonstones. OK, been there, done that. BUT here's the catch. Getting each of the 3 is very different (this is good) but their approach to getting them ranges from super simple to super hard (this is very bad). Fortunately (or unfortunately) I did it from hardest to easiest. The final boss battle isn't overly hard in certain ways ... I just hate the "cheap" deaths that cause you to restart. And you need to restart the entire battle. That gets frustrating, fast.

Overall, I had fun. .... 7.5 out of 10.

Physics Hardware, so what's next?

2006-08-08T10:36:00.000-05:00

With Ageia's new Physx chip, game players are looking at more realistic explosions and interactions with the game environment.

I wrote about this in the Expositor on August 12, 2006.

So my question is, what's next? An XML chip to make your Internet pages blindingly fast? A Google chip that connects you directly to the mothership of digital information?

What do you think?

E3 Cancelled? Wow does that suck

2006-08-03T09:39:00.000-05:00

So readers of my blog know that I went to E3 this year for the first time and was just stoked about it. Apparently, it's a good thing I made it this year because they are talking about cancelling E3 - or at the least, making some major changes. I thought removing the booth babes was as big a change as they were going to make but apparently that was just the tip of the iceberg.

So now, they are slightly changing the name "E3 Media" something or other... moving it to July and making it much much smaller.

OK I understand that the publishers are putting out all this money for little return. Or are they? How do they know? Do they think because the Internet gets information into the hands of the hungry so quickly that a trade event is no longer required? Have they forgotten one of the biggest reasons that I went was to meet the people behind the games? There wasn't much there in terms of games that I hadn't already seen or knew about so that wasn't the big deal for me. It was being in the presence of such gaming greatness that was the draw for me.

If they do make this smaller show a reality, maybe they can keep the Gamestop employees out - that should cut the attendees down by about 1/2 and leave more space for journalists and true game extremists such as myself.

Oh E3, such fond memories we will have. Hopefully the new version will be better but so far, I'm not holding my breath.

When Rare Games Aren't Rare

2006-07-11T13:37:00.000-05:00

I'm kind of on the fence about something that is happening in the industry right now. Some rare titles like Gitaroo Man and Rez (both PS2 titles) have been reissued. GameQuestDirect has commissioned reprints of these titles (and others) that dilute the market just when you think you'll never find a copy at a reasonable price again.

While I applaud this when I'm looking for a title, it's kind of annoying when you already own it to think that the value of your prized posession has suddenly gone down.

I think as long as the title is exactly the same, and the "reprints" are somewhat limited in scope, the rarity and desiredness will still be there. Look at the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney game on the DS. The third re-printing sold out within a week and the next installment is not due until mid-August. The game is selling because it's a good game, the publisher just didn't think it would do as well as it did.

Overall, this makes you wonder: do publishers really get what we want as gamers? I don't think so.

Sly 3 - Finally Finished

2006-07-04T10:03:00.000-05:00

So I finally finished Sly 3 on the weekend. Yeah, I know it's been out for over 6 months...but when you have as many games as I do, it's hard to find time to finish or play ANY of them. Sly 3 makes the 32nd game I've finished (since I've been keeping track anyways, for the last few years). I found it *really* hard to get into at first. Not hard to play, just hard to keep my attention. In fact, I had started playing it before and then got distracted by Genji, Harry Potter, Zathura, NeoPets and Ape Escape 3.

All in all, the game was very well done. As I find with many sequels, some of the "magic" gets lost that is present in the first titles. You certainly can't complain about the variety of gameplay .... from controlling a large squid, to driving, to fending off sharks not to mention the platforming. I found the platforming was really light in this version and was complaining about it just up to the point where I entered the Cooper family vault. Then I shut up. :)

The game was challenging but not hard. Just how it should be. Couple of frustrating moments (I didn't like that 'controlling the shark with the guru' thing AT ALL). There seemed to be some closure in the storyline ... but with the building of the time machine (yeah, sorry no spoiler alert).... maybe there will be a next-gen Sly on the PS3. Sucker Punch is clearly up to something. I think maybe a new IP would be great, but I'd be happy to revisit Sly again.

Games that should be remade for the next gen - part 2 of ?

2006-06-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

David Crane created history when "Pitfall!" came to life over 20 years ago. Another of his titles, however, was creatively just as powerful. Based on the hit movie of the 80's, Ghostbusters had you start out by taking a loan from the bank ... fixing up with some equipment, and heading out to bust some ghosts. An excellent mixture of strategy and action, Ghostbusters had it all and the coolest opening ever (the Ghostbusters theme with the bouncing ball for the lyrics).
I can picture a next-gen Ghostbusters being much more elaborate than the oft-compared "Luigi's Mansion". You could retain all the strategy elements in regards to money and resources (and "upgrades") but move the ghost bustin' action fully into 3D. Make it multi-player co-operative while you're at it, and increase the challenge by making the environment a factor (ie: missed beams cause walls to start falling in, ghost(s) able to create havoc in environment). The Ektomobile should be driveable, and you should have limited storage for the ghosts, requiring an additional "dispoal" element. Don't take care of it in time, and Walter Peck from the EPA will be by to fine you and reduce your cash...or worse, shut you down completely. Dammit, now the theme song is stuck in my head...

Amiga CD32 - No Respect

2006-06-27T08:58:00.000-05:00

When game sites give a history of game consoles, one is almost always missing. The Amiga CD32 was marketed as the "World's first 32-bit game console". Probably not technically true as the FM Towns Marty seemed to beat it to the punch, but it certainly was in North America. Why is it never included? It had a bunch of really good titles. Defender of the Crown 2, Lemmings and anything by the BitMap Brothers to name just a few.

This unit was based on the Amiga 1200 and had great graphics, s-video output, stereo sound and more. The development was easy because lots of developers were already familiar with the Amiga and very little additional development was required to make stuff work on the CD32.

Although history shows us the "computer turned game console" never works (Atari 5200, Atari GS, Commodore GS, Apple Pippin) this was just totally seems to be forgotten.

Live on CD32 ... I'll always remember you and display you proudly in my game room.

Game collecting..the hunt continues

2006-06-06T12:12:00.000-05:00

So I'm back in OKC and hoping to get some time to go out game hunting. This time I'm cleaning up some old business. I often get the empty box to a game but no game. I rescue these things from the garbage because it helps my collection. I brought with me a list of empty Gameboy and Super Nintendo game boxes I have--without the games. Once inside, they look great and nobody is the wiser!

This is game collecting tip #1 .... the first in a series. LOL.

Work is stressful this week so I don't know how much time I'll get to hunt -- but with my PSP in tow (with my game list) and my Video Game Collector magazine, I feel confident I will be making excellent purchases.

Have a good day!

My five (real) seconds of fame

2006-05-23T14:56:00.000-05:00

While at E3 this year, I mentioned earlier that I was interviewed by Maxim Online. Well, I am happy to report that a whopping 5 seconds of that 30-45 second interview has made it's way on to the Internet:

The Maxim Online video is of course just my stepping stone to real stardom (eyes rolling). Yeah. My next step is to actually star in a porno with Pac-Man.

E3 is over and I find myself already thinking about next year. I have to go again, don't I? I can't just say "been there, done that" and leave it be. I mean, I could, but ... hey .... it's E3! It's video games. The whole industry is just so cool.

Enough blubberin'. Go watch the video. Now.

E3 - Day 3

2006-05-19T15:29:00.000-05:00

I wasn't sure on the last day of E3 if I was going to go to the show or just do other things. First things first, I followed Kristen to work and got inside Treyarch. I can't really talk about what I saw inside (since I'm under an NDA) but I can tell you that it was a great experience actually being inside a development company. It felt oddly familiar but fresh and interesting at the same time. Some of the home grown tools they use are just incredible. It's quite the challenge taking the regular game assets and moving them into the game to be usable, and I really got a better understanding of that before I left.

I dropped down the street to photograph the head office of Activision and then let my Garmin take me over to Naughty Dog's HQ. I didn't get to inside of course, but it felt interesting being in the place where so many great games that I love were created (realizing they have moved offices of course several years ago, but the vibe is still there).

I ended up heading back to E3 to catch some of the content I missed first time around. The coolest thing was definitely the Indian Jones 2007 game--this looks really hot and not to be missed. I left around 3:30 and headed back to the car and up to Universal to meet Kristen and Shavonne for dinner. What a great trip!

E3 - Day 2

2006-05-11T21:27:00.000-05:00

So I wandered back to E3 today, this time by myself. Kristen had to work so he said "adios Amiga" and I went back the same way we went yesterday.

I walked into the Sony booth and started downloading Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters demo on the PSP. I look over, and it's David Perry (former President and Founder of Shiny Entertainment). Dave is responsible for the Matrix games and Earthworm Jim among other titles. We taked for at least 15 minutes, what a great guy! I'll post a picture with him shortly.

I also got to see Diane Mizota of G4 and even ran into Kevin Rose and Alex A. formerly of G4. I couldn't believe how many of these guys were just walking around doing their thing.

The first conference session I went into had Richard Garriott (aka Lord British) the creator of Ultima. I was actually brave enough to go up and ask a question to the panel. The second conference had David Jaffe, creator of God of War. True to his style, he let 2 f-shots go before the end. Yeah, I knew he wouldn't let me down.

On my way out I decided to stop by the G4 booth. Adam and Morgan were there, and so were Olivia and Kevin. Saw them up close and actually got ON "Attack of the Show" in a crowd shot. I yelled out "Hi Mom" but I'm pretty sure it was drowned out by the dozens of other bumbling idiots.

On my way back I found out that my friend Ed Jenks lives just 1 mile from where I parked the car at the subway, so I went to Universal with him and had a drink. Wow, it's such a small world. Ed made a donation to the Personal Computer Musuem (http://www.pcmuseum.ca) and even had some old Nintendo games for me. Thanks Ed!

Anyways, off to dinner. Tomorrow I get to tour Treyarch!

E3 - Day 1

2006-05-11T13:15:00.000-05:00

Well I did it! I'm finally here, E3 for the first time. Wow this is a busy place. Fortunately, my press credentials get me in a full two hours before the general populous gets let in. Yet, there is still an incredible number of people walking around.

The first thing I see is the new PS3 -- at least, the empty shell of it. Some of the games are running and they look pretty sweet. As I walk up Kaz Hirai is being interviewed by Geoff Keighley (Spike TV and G4's Electric Playground)...I almost walk into the shot! Then later I see Peter Moore (Microsoft) and that's where things just get started!

Besides the incredible games like God of War II and Guitar Hero II, I also met Tommy Tallarico from G4's Electric Playground and also Reviews on the Run. We talked for a bit and I got a photo with him. That was just after I was interviewed on Maxim Online (www.maximonline) -- we'll see when (if) that shows up!

I also had the pleasure of talking with David Foster from Digital Leisure and see the new upcoming Dragon's Lair HD - yes, DL remastered in HD and it looks amazing!!! Can't wait for this one.

Finally, I got autographs from Morgan Webb and Adam Sessler from G4's X-Play. They were really nice and we had a few laughs. I can't believe I finally got to meet them. I also saw Tina Wood and Laura Foy wandering around as well.

So many people, so little time it seems. Feet completely SORE after walking around. And for any of the nay-sayers, the Nintendo Wii is actually pretty cool. I'm surprised.

More tomorrow!

Games that be remade for the next gen - part 1 of ?

2006-05-03T10:39:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking lately a lot about the "old games" as I usual do. There is something about them that's attractive. I used to think it was just the "warm fuzzy" feeling we got because it was a different time in our lives when things were different, we were different, and so on. To some degree it is, but in other cases it's not. Some of these games are just downright fun.

Today, I'd like to mention Miner 2049'er. Bill Hogue's incredible game back in the day still brings back the warm and fuzzies for me, and I can just picture Bounty Bob in a 3D platforming world, struggling with mines that have incredible booby traps.

Big Five software has an emulator written specifically to play Miner on today's machines and you can find it at their website.

Did the donkey have a name? Now I need to know. Not sure why. I didn't really play Bounty Bob Strikes back and of course, Scraper Caper was advertised but never released. Maybe Bill (please, please, please) could take the elements of all three games and put them into some next gen love. My XBox 360 screams to play Bounty Bob on the widescreen!

More Comments on eBay

2006-04-27T13:10:00.000-05:00

I recently acquired a lot of used equipment for The Personal Computer Museum and in there were some great software gems. I've mentioned this before, that this software in the box is just the only way! Well, I went through a lot of it and discovered that I had doubles of quite a few of them. Doubles are GOOD in my books because I can sell the duplicate on eBay, make some cash, and put that towards obtaining different equipment that I don't have for the musuem. I mention this to donors and they have all agreed that's a good thing.

So one of the games I had two of was "Loom" from Lucasarts. This might be the actual first game I ever played through to completion back in the 80's and it really captivated me. It was an adventure game and you caused certain actions to occur by playing musical notes on the staff. For example, you could learn the "notes" to turn straw into gold, and then use that gold to buy something else you needed to progress in the game. Later, when you are faced with a scary and daunting Dragon, you appear to be stuck with nowhere to go. If you figured out (as I eventually did) that playing that previous little diddy backwards would turn gold into straw, you would find that the precious gold the dragon was guarding was suddenly dry straw and his mere breath set it all on fire, causing him to flee the cave and allowed you to continue on. Sounds a little silly now, but it was pure genius at the time.

So I throw this copy (complete with the audio cassette covering the backstory) onto eBay and yep, it's already gotten a bid. I imagine I'll get $5-$10 for it (because that's all it's worth). I take a quick look at some other auctions. Wow. Loom for the PC, on CD-ROM (with voices) and the PAL edition to boot sold yesterday for over $170 US. Is this just me, or is this NUTS? And then to top it all off, I check the history for previous copies of Loom being sold and discover that the FM-Towns edition (autographed by the author mind you) went for over $650 US!!!!!!! For a game over 15 years old. See the comments from my last post to understand where this comes from.

Yet, other times I list things and can't get $0.99 for them. It's all about the right person(s) at the right time....which I guess is true in real-life too!

Shopping in the land of eBay

2006-04-26T11:07:00.000-05:00

Why are people stupid? I ask myself this everyday but never seem to get an answer. I see it all the time on eBay though. I just wish people would be stupid when they bid on my auctions and not be that way when they are bidding AGAINST me. .

eBay is a great way to find just about anything you are looking for. I, for example, am looking for an Apple Lisa, an FM Towns machine amongst others. Why do people have to be dumb though? Either they ask too much for machines, or some idiot comes along and pays too much. Is it a lot of shill bidding going on or what?

If you have an original PET or a Spectravideo computer (or the ones mentioned above)...I'd like to talk to you! But please, don't be dumb.

Old style gaming

2006-04-25T10:42:00.000-05:00

There has been some recent buzz about bringing back "abandonware" ... you know, the software the has been abandoned by companies because it's a million years old (in computer years anyway...so like 10 in real years) so that people can buy it legitimately. Many "console" game companies have already been doing this, dipping back into their libraries for the "ultimate" collections. These are "OK" and I do buy them, although I've not been entirely pleased with all of them. The problem is that most of the titles you don't know or don't care about (and it's kind of hard to get addicted to Bionic Commando in 2006 if you've never played it before) and the titles that you MIGHT want to play could be from some obscure company you've never heard of.

I love The Underdogs because you can download your favs (at least the PC versions) and play what you want. They are great about respecting Copyright issues and most companies only complain about their IP if they are still making money off it somehow.

I must admit though, recently when I received a great donation of old Commodore equipment for The Personal Computer Museum there was nothing better than holding those oringal game boxes. I've said it before, but it's soooo true! Emulators are ok but nothing beats the real thing with the disks, joysticks, keyboards etc. in your hands. I guess I'm just fortunate enough to have the space and systems set up to do this with.

The Problem with Easter

2006-04-17T09:51:00.000-05:00

You know, I've been thinking about Easter as a Holiday and I've decided I know what's wrong with it. There's no associated "sound" you can make that says "Easter" definitively. I'll give you an example. When I was at the grocery store, going through the checkout, I was bored as usual and thoughts entered my head. I wanted to say "Have a great Easter" to the cashier, but sometimes I'm just lazy with saying words. Had it been thanksgiving, I could have uttered "gobble, gobble". If it was Christmas, "Ho, ho, ho!" or rang some jingle bells. Instead, with Easter, I'm stuck twitching my nose like a freakin bunny rabbit in the hopes that she'll see me.

Yeah, sure, you might think that the Cadbury cluck like a chicken commercial should work... but it just doesn't. The only chicken sound I can make sounds like "krbaaaaach" which in turn actually sounds like a chicken getting goosed (get it!?).

So, until somebody comes up with a sound that is Easter, I guess I'm stuck. I ended up spending a small amount of time with the Tomb Raider: Legend demo on the XBox 360 (oh, so yummy) and playing a little bit of Zathura on the PS2. Man, that game is awful looking yet I keep playing it. The framerate is terrible and the character models were obviously recycled from some unreleased Nintendo 64 game. I tried to think up an Easter sound during that game, and all I can say is that it was all so painful, so painful.

Escaping those Apes

2006-04-13T09:51:00.000-05:00

I just recently finished Ape Escape 3 for the PS2 (http://www.apeescape3.playstation.com/). Great game but it's got me thinking about a few things.

I've never played the other Ape Escape games for more than a few minutes. I understand that this one has some new elements (monkeys can capture YOU) but it pretty much looks like Ape Escape 2 that I've booted up and played only briefly.

So the thought is this .... when are graphics considered an 'art style' versus just lower production values? Ape Escape 2 came out in 2003 and surely in 2-3 years time they could have made the graphics better. Did they leave that that way because that's what we expect an Ape Escape game to look like and would they piss off just as many people with new graphics as they are with the outdated ones?

It's clearly a decision every developer has to make at some point when working on a sequel. I think most opt for improving the graphics in some way or another. Maybe the Ape Escape 3 developers did improve them with more on-screen items or something else that I can't see-- but maybe I can experience.

Preserving the art style or being lazy? You decide. Me, all I care about is nabbing those damn monkeys.

Next gen gaming

2006-04-11T11:40:00.000-05:00

I had a game party on the weekend and it was great. Smaller crowd than usual but you know, it was actually better because people got to play some actual games with each other instead of a few people hogging all the systems (and couches). I went with a music theme, having the Nintendo Gamecube running a dual-set of Bongo drums and Donkey Konga, the Dreamcast with the maracas (I'm really not sure if they were working right, they need to have a 'calibration' test or something) and of course, Guitar Hero on the PS2. Can you believe someone actually coded a Guitar Hack to let you use the controller as a real instrument on your PC? Check it out at http://www.myfavoritebutton.net/guitar.html.

Anyways, we had Jeff's XBox 360 hooked up at the museum on the 122 inch wall and ran the Tomb Raider: Legends demo out there. Personally, I found it amazing. What I don't understand is that everyone out there is bitching because the 360 version just 'looks prettier'. Yeah? Your point? I would hope it does! And it's HD. These are advancements people! Was I expecting it to be different from what was on the current generation? No...and neither should you. It takes time to design a game and the developers always leverage existing assets where they can. I'm not surprised at all. Did they take the time to redo some textures and improve the normal maps so we can see her jiggle in even more detail? Yes and the rest of the benefits just come with it.

With Microsoft entering the Next-Gen battle earlier than anyone predicated, it's going to take time for the software to catch up. This is not unusual and has happened in all of the other console launches that were first too. The nice thing is that by the time the 1st generation of PS3 titles hit and there is some excitement there, the 360 will start getting some titles that leverage the hardware more than they are doing today. Progress takes time.

Do I feel ripped off paying $10 more a 360 version? Not really. I wish it was the same price (duh) but I understand I'm getting a better product. I don't understand why everyone thinks everything (especially things that are better) should be free. Don't like it? Buy the other versions then.

Well enough of my bitchin' for the day. I gotta write my column for the Expositor (http://www.theexpositor.com) -- maybe I just gave myself a column idea.

Why Game-X-Change Sucks

2006-04-04T16:34:00.000-05:00

So I'm in Oklahoma City (again) and I'm out on the great video game hunt. I love coming to new cities looking for games, and when I stumbled upon this Game X Change (http://www.game-x-change.net/) I got excited. Why? Well....they had boxed Super Nintendo (SNES) titles out the wazoooo. And cheap! $1.95 for some sports titles and $6.95 for some others. Yep. Bought a lot. Had a stack so high that I couldn't see over it and spent a good deal of time just trying to figure out how I was going to get all these games home.

Then, the worst thing happened.

They pulled my games from behind the counter (common practice to not put the actual game inside the box for security reasons) and then started putting the boxes back OUT! What!? I said "Don't I get the boxes?".... uh ... NO. The boxes are for display only!

How unfair is that? I buy only boxed games for my N64 and most of the other titles weren't such a deal sans box. So I said "Well, I don't want any of them then" and had them put 'em all back. What a croc. So what happens when they sell the last copy of "insert game name here"? They are going to throw that box out eventually, aren't they!?

I couldn't be more po'ed. I went from being the most elated gamer to the most pissy in 0.5 seconds.

To the management of Game X-Change: you just lost yourself a ton of business and do everyone a favor: put up a sign if you are not selling the boxes, any other way is just false advertising.

Revolutionizing the PS3

2006-03-17T10:24:00.000-05:00

There's been a lot of buzz lately about the PS3.... the biggest things are:

1) It's not coming out until November 2006. In 3 major markets: Europe, North America and Japan
2) It's most likely going to include a hard drive
3) Their online network is going to rival XBOX live

I'm not trying to put Sony down, honest. I love my PS2 and I'm sure I'll love the PS3. But I gotta say, I'm questioning some decisions. Either Sony is really being tight lipped in order to pull a surprise attack, or they might be making some poor decisions.

On point #1 ... I understand delays (oh boy do I) but trying to pull of 3 markets at the same time is tough. Microsoft proved that. If a company with the resources of Microsoft has a hard time pulling it off, how is Sony going to fare? They have already indicated their capacity will be maxed at 1 million units a month. There are going to be some disappointed customers.

On point #2 ... it's been back and forth. They don't want to have a two SKU solution like Microsoft (although I honestly don't think that ended up being such a disaster after all.... but the truth is, nobody really wants the machine without one anyways). People are saying 'well, you can't count on it being there so you can't take advantage of it'. Not true. Well written software will take advantage of it if it's there, and one thing Microsoft does know is software. Sony needs to make up their minds and fast. I love how they criticized the XBOX 1 for having it saying it wasn't necessary, pretty much abandonded their own hard drive solution when poor security made it a pirate's wet dream. I think they took one look at what Microsoft is doing with game demo, trailer and XBOX ARCADE downloads and realized they need something similar. Some sites are reporting Sony saying "Hard Drive will be available at all times" so maybe they really have made a decision.

On point #3...partnering with Gamespy networks is surely a good move on Sony's part. I think it's premature though to compare what Sony does with what Microsoft has done. They have had 4 years to make Live work as well as it does. I'm not saying it's impossible, but Microsoft has a way of making things good after trying over and over again. They rarely get it right the first time (can you say Windows/286?) but keep hammering until it gets better (Windows 3.1).

I think this year's E3 is going to be really important to this generation. I can't wait to go!

The Great Video Game Hunt

2006-03-10T11:33:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting in Oklahoma City right now on business and although travelling can be hard and not as glamorous as some people think it is, there is one bright spot for me. When I am in a new city, the first thing I want to do is embark on the great video game hunt. Finding games that I have been looking for, for several years, is just so exciting. For example, I've been looking for 'Futurama' for the PS2 for at least a year. Nobody seems to have this game. Couldn't find it new (or used) anywhere. As we drove down this road in the middle of nowhere heading to dinner, I passed a Game XChange store. How I can spot these things from miles away I don't know, but on the way back we stopped and sure enough--I found it. The thrill of the hunt and finding that title (and at a good price) is the greatest joy to a collector. Maybe that's why I look for games when I'm away .... finding that rare title and the joy it brings on just (kind of) makes up the fact that I'm away from home.

Why Airports suck

2006-03-06T13:10:00.000-05:00

So I'm sitting here in Atlanta. I should be on a plane. But no, it's been delayed. My 1.75 hour layover has been extended by almost 2 more hours. Lovely. So I figure hey, why not do some work. They have these 'relax and charge' stations where you can plug in your laptop and do some work. Would be great if you could actually get a seat. I think it's American March break this week, because there are way too many stinky people in this airport for a Monday.

So I find a spot with a plug....and plug in ... yeah. Not as good as the comfy seats (and this Dell on MY laptop is HOT!) but it's ok. Plug in my new wireless card....find a connection. Yeah. Four choices of wireless. All cost freaking money though. You would think with the 'airport improvement fees' we pay in every single flight they could afford to give us access. Nope. $7.95 later and I crashed the page twice. Finally get it working, my computer happily displays the blue screen of death (twice).

So if you think I'm frustrated, irritated, and perhaps a little cranky---you'd be right. Hopefully this post saves before I crash again. And hopefully, that's the only crashing that happens today! Cheers!

The State of the PS3

2006-02-20T11:57:00.000-05:00

Sony better start doing some damage control, and soon. The problem with this thing we call the Internet is that news spreads faster than wildfire. With Merrill Lynch releasing a report that the PS3 is going to cost Sony around $900 to produce and that there is all likely-hood that the console will be delayed until 2007 for technical reasons is concerning. As someone who loves all consoles (I'm more about the games than the hardware) my concern is that certain titles that are slated for release on the XBox 360 and PS3 for say the fall or upcoming holiday season will get delayed until the PS3 is ready, leaving gamers in the cold. Is Sony really going to release an online system that will rival XBox Live? While it's possible, they have a lot of catching up to do and spent a lot of time during the life of the PS2 claiming that Microsoft has the whole business model wrong. Though I'm not a big Microsoft fan, XBox Live is something they have done right and they have proved (as they usually do) that they keep banging away at something until they get it right. The first XBox Live was 'ok' but the current setup is pretty awesome and I've found myself in the 'Marketplace' more than I ever dreamed I would. The year ahead is going to be interesting. I keep thinking about this 360 vs. PS3 talk that goes on, the Revolution quietly sneaking around in the background for the Nintendo fanboys (yeah, I'll be getting one!) but does any of this result in 'next generation games'? So far, I haven't seen anything to prove that. As usual, time will tell.

When did games make the big change?

2006-02-16T14:55:00.000-05:00

For anyone that's played the classics like Asteroids and Space Invaders and Pac-Man, you know the drill. You keep playing until you die. The scores go up, maybe the game gets harder and faster but really there is no 'end'.

Games continued like this well into the early 80's with the Atari 2600 and I don't think there really were any games back then that had the progession today's games have.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I think it was more born out of the commerce of it all. See in the arcade, they didn't want the thing to end because that meant more quarters from you. At home, where you own the game, they want it to end after 5-20 hours of gameplay (for most titles) so that you will now turn around and buy the next game.

So that is, I believe, when the change happened. When the arcade made it's decline and the home computers rivalved their capability, a shift occurred in how games were made. And yet, there's a whole generation (or two) of gamers that can't even fathom a game you just simply can't beat. I wonder what I'll think of this article 20 years from now. :)

Guitar Hero Rocks....literally

2006-02-13T16:50:00.000-05:00

If you haven't heard of this game .... and it's controller, you really should. Guitar Hero for the PS2 has been taking up a lot of my precious free time lately. For all of those out there who wish they have the talent to be in a rock band, now's your chance! This thing is just amazing. I am rocking out some pretty good tunes and for the most part, not doing too bad. Sometimes, those chords mess me up! All in all, a great gaming experience I would recommend to anyone. I can't wait for the sequel and my next game party is going to feature this game for sure!

My great videogame idea

2006-02-09T14:12:00.000-05:00

OK all the big video game developers and publishers out there, here's a great idea for you. Take a great fighting engine (hey even a not so great one).....something along the lines of Super Smash Bros. Populate it with all the great marketing icons you can get your hands on. Heck, they should be paying YOU to put their characters in game. I'm talking about The Jolly Green Giant and the Pillsbury Dough Boy and even someone like the Marlboro Man. The Green Giant can shoot peas and carrots and the Pillsbury Dough Boy (after making tons of those 'tee hee' sounds when he's getting his ass kicked) can lob stale pieces of crescent rolls at his enemies. The Marlboro Man can let out a huge puff of smoke, distracting the enemy while he goes in for the kill.

Could you imagine? I can. In fact it's one of the greatest runs my imagination has had in a while. Now I can see Tony the Tiger putting the moves on the Energizer Bunny........yep, my mind keeps going and going and going and going........

My Thoughts on Game Cinematics

2006-02-03T10:43:00.000-05:00

God of War game director David Jaffe's recent comments about cinematics in games being unnecessary (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3147692) and the 'fireback' article by Alexander L. Fernandez (http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=11754). Jaffe's new PSP effort will NOT include cinematics, because they (paraphrased) 'take the player out of the immersive experience'....

My solution is somewhere in between. I think cinematics can move a story forward, connect separate pieces that might not come together through usual gameplay, and so on. The concern that I have actual comes from a different angle.

Although (ironically enough) the cinematics in 'God of War' are incredible looking (and sounding!), it is somewhat of a disappointment to go from those to actual gameplay. This has always been the case since cinematics became big on the PC and Playstation. In addition, the extra modelling and development of these cinematics has to contribute to the overall project cost fairly significantly.

Why not do what 'The Legend of Zelda' series has done? (at least in the past). Use the in-game engine for the cinematics. Talk about immersion--if you cut down a tree during gameplay, that tree does not appear in the cinematics. You don't get that 'let-down' feeling coming out of the cinematics into the gameplay. And please, keep them interesting and short! I've seen too many kids just skip past them anyways.

Both of these guys have points....as usual, the best answer, I think, lies somewhere in the middle. What do you think?

Insuring your Video Games

2006-01-31T09:11:00.000-05:00

I had a visit last night from my insurance broker. When I explained to her my video game collection, I'm not sure she really grasped the concept. It took a walkthrough of the gamerooms to get her to understand. But did you know that many insurance companies limit the amount payable on 'high-risk' items like video games and televisions? I found this article, http://www.ntsc-uk.com/tech.php?tech=InsuranceFAQ that contained some useful information (although it is from the UK).

Either way, cataloging your assets is always a good idea. Most people who suffer from losses due to a fire end up losing a lot more than they had because they forget what they own! For me, this is very critical as sometimes you don't realize what you have until you write it all down.

Thankfully I have a secure home with good security. Nobody should be playing my XBox 360 except me. :)

I'm going to E3!!!

2006-01-26T11:16:00.000-05:00

Well it looks like it's official! I have my E3 pass thanks to my writing endeavours and I can't wait. Hopefully I can stay with a buddy to cut down some costs if not, it's all good. I can't believe how inexpensive the flights from Buffalo to LA can be.

I'm looking forward to seeing the upcoming XBox 360 titles and of course I am pretty sure Sony will be there with a playable PS3. Will Nintendo actually reveal the Revolution for everyone? I am thinking they will. What will be up their sleeve in the handheld arena? Well since the Nintendo DS 'Lite' as already been announced, I think their 'surprise' may be a whole new console, as powerful as the PSP at a better price point. Or they may just choose to ride the DS wave out for a bit--- I think even Nintendo is surprised at its popularity.

Mostly I am looking forward to actually seeing and meeting some of the industry greats that I have read about and seen on television and followed through the years. Mr. Miyamoto, I'm looking for you bud!

Look for some great information to come out of the event as I am sure I will have soooo much to write about!

Video Game collecting a Legitimate Hobby

2006-01-24T09:42:00.000-05:00

When people look at my video game collection, they have this indescribable reaction.

Sure, it's not stamps and it's not coins but does that make it any less legitimate? I personally don't think so. I like collecting games because it's something that so few people do. Sure, you have your occasional gamer that keeps a mint copy of Final Fantasy II from the SNES around even though he may have the system in a closet. But I am hardcore.

I now have two game rooms dedicated. A total of 6 televisions and one projected screen play host to around 40 systems. I have thousands of games. You will hear this annoyed response in my voice when the EB Games employee asks me for the millionth time 'Do you have anything to trade?'. Duh. No. This is the number one reason I don't shop there anymore.

You won't find me trading in 3 or 4 triple A titles to pick up the latest and greatest, or selling my 300+ cartridges from the Atari 2600 on eBay. You'll find me dusting off my Fairchild Channel F and my 3DO and even the Intellivision from time to time to remember our roots. I think I ought to make sure the Colecovision still works and try out that steering wheel with Turbo!

Do I even want to consider lending out one of my 225+ BOXED Nintendo 64 games? Not really considering how freaking hard I've worked to get that many games in the box. And that brings up another point. PEOPLE PLEASE. WHY? Why do you throw the game boxes out? Sure, not everyone has a ton of space but for the LOVE OF GOD please stick the boxes in a closet somewhere until you make that trip to Microplay to trade in your old junk. Please. You will be surprised that you usually get MORE money when you do this and you'll make a collector like me drool and salivate at the pristine condition you've kept your manuals in. Can't keep your peanut butter finger kids away from the manuals? Give them photocopies to thumb through and hide the real thing for the day it makes the trip back to the game store.

Video games really are like salmon I guess. Trying to swim back from where they came from to mate / reincarnate, whatever. But for the odd guys like me that drain the water so we can adore, share, and play those beauties for all eternity....don't look at us like we're got a screw loose. At least we're passionate about something.

On Used vs. New Video games

2006-01-23T15:10:00.000-05:00

I buy a lot of games. Anyone that knows me knows that. For this generation alone, I have (combined) over 1,000 games spread out across my PS2, XBOX and Gamecube. Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about buying new vs. buying used. Revenue from new games go directly to the publishers and distributors, with the retailer only getting a small slice (ie: a $50 game often costs the retailer close to $45). With slim margins like these, the retailers must turn to used sales.

That is, the smaller stores do. The EBGames, Gamestop's and (if you're in Canada) Microplay chains specialize in games. Their employees (usually) know a little bit more about games and you won't feel the need to 'bother' the person behind the counter at Wal*Mart to get that new copy of Grand Theft Auto out for you. I like buying in the smaller stores and supporting jobs for independants. What keeps them going however, is used games.

So what can we do? You can be like me. I buy (upon release) the games that I *really* want to support. Like innovation in Shadow of the Colossus.... or publishers taking a chance with platform games like 'The Legend of Kay'. Don't wait for the price drops, get them at full price. Save your money for later for the games you want but don't NEED. Then buy your used copies and help out the smaller stores. It's all about spreading the wealth.

Until the industry can figure out how to sell new games for $25 like the movie industry, we're going to have this issue. Maybe we'll never get there until we settle on one standard platform. Will we ever? I think we will, but it's still a long ways off.

Welcome to my BLOG

2006-01-23T11:46:00.000-05:00

You know, I tried this BLOGGING thing before and I didn't keep up with it. I think this time it will be different. I feel different about it, about sharing my thoughts and everything else that goes with it. I think I've also grown as a writer. I find myself actually starting to think about how I'll write something in my head before it actually hits the screen (didn't we used to say 'before it hits the paper?').... yeah.

I had an interesting weekend to say the least. A had a nice group of people visit the Personal Computer Musuem (http://www.pcmuseum.ca) and they also looked around at my videogames. A friend brought up an interesting point about the marketing of videogames, something I definitely will look into writing an article about in the future.

Getting back into the BLOGGING thing has made me want to write about it in my weekly computer column that it's the Brantford Expositor every Saturday (http://www.theexpositor.com) so for all of my readers out there, thanks for reading I hope you enjoy my future columns as well.

My thought for the day is the old stand by of 'LIFE IS TOO SHORT'. Need to get on with things, get on with them and quit pissing around. Now, I just have to listen to my thoughts!