Moving shop
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Well, after I hit “Publish Post” on this quick post, I will be packing up all things gaming and computing into boxes. Tomorrow, I will be loading them into a Budget Rental Moving Truck and moving my family about 2 miles down the road to our new home. I will be incommunicado until at least Friday, when Time Warner comes by to jack me back into the net. Until then, I am looking forward to the evenings disconnected from the world of blogging and reconnected with what matters most, video games. (Okay, okay, family matters most, video games second most).
The time down will give me a chance to actually play games instead of blabbering about them here. If you miss me, there’s plenty of other good stuff going on in the gaming blogosphere, I’m sure you’ll make do.
Until then, good gaming.
What prevents me from playing video games.
(What follows is a little more detail to my “Gaming Pedigree” that I wrote when I first started this page. It needs updating, but you’ll get my drift)
I played video games, pretty much non-stop, from when I was eight or nine until I was nineteen. The first video game I remember playing was Space Invaders and the last was Doom. I then took a three and a half year hiatus from pretty much all video games. I lived in Spain as a Mormon Missionary for two years with next-to-no access to a PC or console and then I worked as an apprentice mason for a year and a half when I returned. I did buy an N64 when it was released in 1996 but I didn’t play it much for two reasons. One: there was this cute girl (okay, she was a total betty) I was courting and I couldn’t be bothered by video games when I could be with her. I married her so I could be with her a lot more often. Two: As I mentioned before, I was an apprentice mason.
What does that have to do with anything? There are many construction trades out there, and it’s all hard, back-breaking work, but besides roofing and concrete finishing, masonry is one of the most labor intensive jobs out there. I would work 50-60 hour weeks and I would come home everyday tired. Down-right beat. I would hang out with my friends for a bit when we had the chance but I had next to no energy to play video games. So for almost two years I didn’t Mash very many Buttons. After I was married, I came to my senses and released I didn’t want to break my back for the next thirty years so I decided to go back to college. Don’t get me wrong, I loved working with my hands and I respect those who make a living (a very GOOD living, at that) doing manual labor. They are the people that make this world go round. But it wasn’t for me. So we moved to Columbus so I could attend the College of Engineering at THE Ohio State University and suddenly I had all kinds of time to play video games. So I broke out the N64, upgraded the computer, and have been gaming ever since. My wife has been mostly supportive (she prefers console games, since she can at least have her turn at Animal Crossing or Mario Party, etc). Many Buttons have been Mashed since.
What does that have to do with anything? Well, the past few days have thrust me back into the world of manual labor as we prepare to move out of our condo into our new house. We’ve been packing and cleaning here, painting and cleaning at the new house, and just running around like crazy people. In other words, I’ve been too tired lately to play many video games. It’s a shame, but family always comes first, and moving them into the new house is my current project.
So this was basically a big post to reminesce and say blogging activities will probably become scarce as I’ll be packing up the PC soon (probably Thursday night) and move things to the new house. Hopefully Time Warner will seamlessly move our broadband connection over there and we can be up and running by Sunday night, but I’m not holding my breath. Either way, I hope to be back in business soon. In the meantime, I hope you get some gaming in, because it’s not happening here. I’m too tired.
I’m going to bed now. Good night.
I Heart Bloglines
If you read blogs or maintain one yourself, I hope you’re using Bloglines. I’ve been urged many times to give it a try and I’m only now beginning to see its usefulness and flexibility. I’m already using it to keep track of almost all my links on the right. Being able to make folders to store your various feeds is perfect and highly customizable. Being able to share/publish your links is equally brilliant. I am really liking Bloglines and I guarantee that, if you’re a blogger, you will dig it too.
In fact, I imagine the majority of ButtonMashing readers are and intrepid bunch, so you’re probably using it already!
Leon S. Kennedy, Trash-Kicker.
Many buttons have been mashed and this guy whom we’ll call Leon (for no other reason than he answers to said name) has kicked some serious trash, but now the Presidents daughter is safely home with her family. Yes, that’s right, the great Button Masher himself has completed Resident Evil 4.
After dying an unimaginable eighty times, killing nine hundred nine zombified Spaniards and other forms of unimaginable grotesqueness, connecting sixty-seven percent of the time the trigger was pulled and taking a little less than nineteen hours I have finished one of the best games of all time.
I won’t mention anything that could be spoiler material, but I will say that from start to finish, this has been one of the most enjoyable and intense games I’ve ever played. It was difficult and challenging, but never became frustrating. I try not to put too much stock into audio and visuals but here they are undeniable. Absolutely stunning visuals and spot-on sound. I pay attention to the little details and RE 4 is polished. We’re talking U.S. Army Boots spit-shine polished.
I’m mulling where this game ranks in “The List”. I will say, unequivocally, that this is a top ten game, all time. Game of the year contender.
Hyperbole aside, Resident Evil 4 is a great game.
New Kids on the Block (#1)
I mentioned I wanted to highlight some of the gaming blogs I’ve come across recently. As of right now, this isn’t a list of new blogs, but they were new to me when I found them. I’m not really endorsing any of these blogs, but if they end up on my bloglines blogroll then that might mean something more.
I found Hidden Peanuts from a link on Kotaku, and I haven’t checked it out much since. It seems like a regular blog with occasionally comments on video games.
bisti.org is a site that was, unbeknownst to me, linking back here. I noticed it in my referrer logs. Anyway, I haven’t seen much there, but maybe it’ll float your boat.
I am really liking These Damned Machines, they’ve already been added to my Bloglines subscriptions. Keep an eye on this one.
8Bit Joystick is a good site for all things gaming. They seem to have been around for a while. At least a lot longer than ButtonMashing. (They did support Kerry, but we won’t hold that against them.)
Another site that’s been around for a while that I just found is Geek on Stun. Lots of good stuff here, I’ll be reading these guys a lot more.
Idle Thumbs is a site that is very well designed site and is very witty and smart. I like it.
Insert credit seems to have a bit of a Japanese gaming bent, which is cool but not necessarily my thing. Nonetheless I’ll keep on eye on the site, Looks like there’s a lot of stuff there.
Intelligent Artifice seems like another decent site. I’ll give a few more reads before I pass judgment.
So ends the inaugural edition of the New Kids on the Block. (Okay, some aren’t new, but they’re new to me.) I’ll be using Blogline folders to organize these links over on the right side-bar. Just not right now, I’m going to play some RE 4. If you’ve got a gaming blog or you know of one you think I’ll like, drop me a note at buttonmashing at gmail dot com.
IGDA - Culture Clash - Jan05
IGDA - Culture Clash - Jan05: I picked this article up from Joystiq by Matt Sakey, whipping the current state of games magazines on the bare bottom. He says as gamers (that’s us) grow up, the print media should as well.
“It’s time for the gaming press to grow up a little bit. Stop acting like the Nintendo Fun Club and start taking seriously the discipline of game development, and how the products of that discipline can uniquely affect us. The weird irony is that we’re seeing websites/blogs take this responsibility and run with it, while print media devolves to little more than delayed advertisements for technical features. Really the web’s timeliness and occasional amateurism is more appropriate for quick-turnaround reviews and impressions, while professional print is better suited to more deadline-inspecific meditative content.”
It’s a good read, check it all out. I like the tip of the hat to bloggers. My kind of guy.
Electronic Arts, ESPN hook up in exclusive 15-year deal - News at GameSpot
Electronic Arts, ESPN hook up in exclusive 15-year deal - News at GameSpot: First and foremost: Electronic Arts is a company in the business of making money. Having exclusive rights to things like the NFL and ESPN will give them the only game in town. Having said that, they are playing quite dirty with Sega/Take Two. From Kotaku comes this story on Gamesport. From the post:
“Electronic Arts broke the calm of a national holiday today by announcing a licensing deal of epic proportions. For the next fifteen years, EA will be the sole licensee of the ESPN brand in the area of sports games, which will include console, handheld, PC, and wireless games.”
Right now, ESPN is on an extended time-out with me with the way they’ve treated Ohio State, so they are only a couple notches below EA on the “Eveel, like the Deveel” ladder with me.
I see like this: Sega gets hooked up with Fox Sports (who currently has the rights to the Super Bowl and World Series). I’m not a big fan of The Best Damn Sports Show, but they do have Max now in their lineup and they could roll some of their personalities into Video Game personas.
This does suck for most NFL video game fans, who have had their right to choose swept from under their feet, but as I said at the beginning, this is a business (currently a big business) so I don’t fault EA for the moves they’ve made, but this certainly doesn’t bode well for the little guy.
Week in Review, Vol. 2, #2
Well, I’ll have to do this while the new Iron Chef America is on, because I won’t be able to pull myself away from RE 4 after it’s over. So here are some notable going-ons for the past week. (Great, Blogger just lost my post. I suddenly lost interest to finish this post, but I’ll carry on.)
So we had Gatmog from Tales of Schorched Earth giving his top ten for 2004, with Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines as his top pick. I’ve heard alot of good things about this game, I’ll have to give it a try.
Kyle at VGO wonders who he would run a video game TV station. He’s been talking a lot about G4/TechTV (I guess just G4 now) and I think he’s got some good ideas.
I started working on a translation cheat sheet for all the Spanish phrases you’ll here while playing Resident Evil 4. That games is absolutely amazing. You can find the guide here.
I’m thinking about maybe making the “Week in Review” into a biweekly or monthly thing. I also am working on my list of “new” gaming blogs I come across. Things are always evolving here at ButtonMashing.
Resident Evil 4 Translation Guide
Update 2: Ever since the release of Resident Evil 4 on the Playstation 2 I’ve noticed an uptick in google requests for “Resident Evil 4 Translations”. I’ve been keeping the list updated as much as possible, so feel free to add anything I’ve missed, whether you know how to translate it or not.)
So, as a public service, I present you the buttonmashing.com “Unofficial” Resident Evil 4 Spanish Phrases translation guide, complete with your additions:
- Cabrón - Literally translated, this means “mountain goat”. Slang, it means “mothertrucker”.
- ¡Jefe! - Boss!
- ¡Voy a romperte (unintelligible) pedazos! - I’m gonna break you into pieces!
- Mierda - Shnizzle
- ¡Allí está! - There he is!
- ¡Es el forastero! - It’s the foreigner!
- ¡Te voy a matar! - I’m going to kill you!
- ¡Te voy a hacer picadillo! - I’m gonna make mincemeat outta you!
- ¡Detrás de tí, imbécil! - Behind you, imbecile!
- ¡Cogedlo! - Grab him!
- ¡Agárrelo! - Grab him!
- Mueren, Mueren, Meuren - Die, die, die
- ¡Mátalo! - Kill him!
- ¡Mátenlo! - Kill him! (another form)
- Morir es vivir. - To die is to live.
- ¿Qué carajo estás haciendo aquí? ¡Lárgate cabrón! - What the funk are you doing here? Get the funk outta here, cabrón
- ¡No deje que se escape! - Don’t let him escape!
- ¡A por él! - After him!
- ¡Te jodiste! - You’re screwed!
- ¿No estás soñando? - Are you sure you’re not dreaming?
- Es hora de rezar - Now is the time to pray
- ¡Tenemos que irnos! - We need to get outta here!
- ¡Puedes correr, pero no puedes esconederte! - You can run but you cant hide!
- ¡Imbécil, quiero matar! - Imbecile, I want to kill you
“Vocabulary:”
- Los Illuminados - “The Illuminated Ones
- Los Ganados - While this does directly translate as “livestock” or cattle, it can also be used to refer to a group of people, like a mob.
- Las Plagas - The Plagues
- La campana - the bell
- Cerebros - braaaaains
Updated (8/29/2005) - Thanks to Marionette, Mark, Kasage, David for reminding me of some of the phrases I’ve missed. Keep ‘em coming!
True Love, Defined
What exactly is this nebulous true love? When your pregnant wife (7 months) goes to not one, but two Blockbusters to locate you a copy of Resident Evil 4 because you’re stuck in cubicle purgatory until 4:30. And you know if you don’t get a copy when they first go on the shelves you’ll never find one, what with Blockbuster’s new “No Late Fees” policy. So you ask her to see if she could get one of the stores to hold a copy for you. When they wouldn’t, she loaded up your two-year-old and her pregnant self and went to the store in person. Man, that’s love.
No, that’s true love.
ButtonMashing.com Exclusive! Hands on with Resident Evil 4!
An exclusive, hands-on preview of a game, here on ButtonMashing? Okay, not really. I did get a hands-on with Resident Evil 4. I say it’s exclusive because there was no one else in the store, obviously because they were waiting for me to arrive for my exclusive hands-on! Alright, it was a slow night at the store, but I do have a funny story leading up to my “exclusive” hands-on:
I went to the local rental shack to see if they had put RE4 out for rental yet (I have enough games, I don’t need to buy any more, but RE4 looks too tasty not to at least rent) and unfortunately it wasn’t out yet. In fact, after my hands-on, I can safely say I wouldn’t be posting this if it was. I’d be playing it. Anyway, I mosy into the attached Game Crazy and it’s empty, save one employee. I’m not sure, but the lights may have been dimmed a little. It did seem strangely eerie. The worker is engrossed in a game. I walk up to the TV to take a look and the guy jumps out of his shoes. “Whoa! you scared me,” he says. I notice he’s playing Resident Evil 4. “Heh, that’s what happens when you’re playing a Resident Evil game.” We both have a chuckle. Off in the distance I think I heard screaming. Something about, “But mommy! I want to watch Harry Potter!”
I watched him play for a couple minutes and I must say - the game looks tremendous. The surroundings and environment look gritty and muddy. The bad guys look, well, bad and intent on employing farm tools in your harm. The animation is fluid and the frame-rate looks solid, even when there’s a lot of action going on. After a couple of minutes, he asks if I want to play? Me? Absolutely. My exlcusive, hands-on preview! He hands me the platinum Wavebird and I can tell he’s been gripping it pretty tightly. It’s not just warmed up, it’s downright hot.
As I took control, the game felt a bit awkard. Within the first few minutes things felt natural. I have no idea what the story is but I do know that a 12-gauge shotgun can take down some serious walking meat bags. There seems to be a lot of interaction with the environment and things look and feel organic. This is a must-play.
I only got about five minutes worth of playing but I must say, RE 4 is looking most excellent.
Bad back = no games
I threw something out of whack in the vertbrae area this weekend and so haven’t been able to do much gaming. I didn’t feel like sitting for any extended period of time, so I avoided gaming for a little while. Right now the laptop is propped up on my legs while I search for a comfortable pose to write this.
On a non-gaming note, I love the show 24. With the first four hours out of the way, we can now get down to business. 24 is hands down the best TV show out there. Lost is a pretty close second, but 24 wins out for me. I don’t watch much TV, but I don’t miss my 24.
Week in Review, Vol. 2, #1
Here we are for the first Week in Review for 2005. Let’s get right to it.
First, from Kotaku is a link to a story about a professional Halo 2 player. We all dream about making money playing video games. It’s crossed my mind before. In fact, I can say I have made a little scratch playing Diablo 2. I’ve sold a handful of charactes and items on eBay, pulling in about 300 bucks. While it pales in comparison to this guy, it’s better than nothing. But working out how much time I put getting those items works out to about 15 cents an hour certainly not earth shattering.
Age of Empires, I love thee. Let me count the ways. One, Ages of Empires. Two, Age of Empires, Rise of Rome. Three, Age of Empires 2, Age of Kings. Four Age of Kings, The Conquerors. And now five (and probably six), Age of Empires III.
Bad reporting and pirated games - a poor little ground playing a Disney-based game on her GBA. See Video Game Ombudsman for the full story.
Of course, this past week also ushered in the new year (sort of), so here’s a run-down of some of the blogosphere’s Top Ten/Year in Review lists.
At Render, there isn’t a top ten list, but this sounds like a Game of the Year to me.
Half-Life 2: Simply put, this was the most compelling gaming experience I’ve ever had. Plus, Counter-Strike: Source. Worth the wait, and the sixty bucks.
Mike at the-inbtween has more than just the run-of-the-mill awards. I really like this one in particular:
The “It Has Vin Diesel In It And I Don’t Absolutely Hate It, How Did That Happen?” Award:
Chronicles of Riddick
Mike at Pixel du Jour had a “Top Two” of popular culture, including games. #1 on his list (on many others, I’m sure) is WoW.
World of WarCraft, in particular, has devoured my soul. I’m usually the first to criticize the MMORPG genre for requiring little to no skill to play, but I cannot help but trounce around Azeroth for hours at a time, alone or with friends. I don’t even fully understand the game’s appeal. All I know is that I feel an undying desire to make it to the next level and improve my characters.
Of course many of us look toward Penny Arcade for the thoughts. I was surprised that Halo 2 didn’t make the cut but I was proud that Metroid Prime 2 did. Penny Arcade crowns World of Warcraft, as well.
It’s called World of Warcraft, but the addiction profile is really more along the lines of Diablo.
That’s all I need to hear to know I must avoid it like the black death.
Update (1/9/2005) - Posts on Sunday always fall into the ether when I do my week in review, but I just read this on the-inbetween, which looks at different pictures posted of Flickr with tags like “Videogames”, “Nintendo” and others. There’s a lot of pictures to wade through, but there are some interesting pics there.
ButtonMashing.com is evolving
There have been some minor cosmetic and content changes being made here at Button Mashing. The first change I made was the removal of my Blogroll. There’s nothing terribly wrong with the service, I just felt I had more control over my links by coding them myself. I know Bloglines has a similar service but I haven’t tried that out yet. I’ve also added a third category of blogs I’m linking to, video game blogs I’ve recently discovered. There’s also a link for non-gaming blogs, which will range from tech/gizmo/gadget blogs to blogs of friends, etc.
In addition to my weekly review of the world of gaming blogs, I’m also going to highlight some of the new gaming blogs I come across. Hopefully this will be a way to make more people aware of new/up-and-coming gaming blogs. Hopefully they will garner some new readers (and vice-versa) with all that huge traffic I’ll generate for them (uh huh, right).
This site is primarily dedicated to my gaming experiences (and thoughts) but I am also interested in the blogging phenomenon in general, so I also plan to comment on that as I see fit. I read this post over at render, where he mentions he’s thinking about commenting on things non-gaming, i.e. movies, books, websites, etc. I would love to see that. I have mentioned such things here, from time to time. It adds variety and flavor to a blog that has a single dedication. I don’t expect this blog to become a day-to-day journal of my goings-on at work, or as a dad or husband, but my family is inextricably tied to the rest of my life that it’s hard to separate the two. In addition, my opinion on such things as “I, Robot” (thoroughly enjoyed it, it didn’t try hard to be something it’s not) or what’s in heavy rotation on my iPod (”Shimmer” by Fuel, “Great Expectations” by Jurassic 5, others) adds a certain credence to what I say on gaming topics.
In scholastic terms, ButtonMashing.com is majoring in video gaming, minoring in blogs, and taking a handful of humanities courses.
Halo 2, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Style
First a disclaimer - I hate cheaters. More to the point, I hate people who cheat in online games. I don’t cheat, plain and simple. I don’t care how easy it makes things, how powerful it would make me, how cool it would be. As a matter of principle I won’t do it. Those who do are lower than pond scum’s scum. There is a special place reserved in the bowels of despair for cheaters. They ruin the game for the rest of us who try to play far and square. But, for the most part, I pretend cheaters don’t exist. I won’t let them ruin my experience.
But glitches are a different story. They are usually difficult to execute and even harder to master. I can live with glitches. Such is the glitch (bug? trick?) of the Flying Sword in Halo 2. After I read how to do it, I had to try it. Some friends were over last night to play some two-TV Halo 2 on Live, so before we embarked on some trash-stomping, we made a game to give the glitch a test. Much hilarity ensued.
The gist of the trick is to line up an enemy in the distance with a non-sword weapon. When the aiming reticule turns red, you switch weapons, and before the sword reticule appears you pull the trigger. If it’s done correctly, you zoom (fly?) right up to the unsuspecting sucker and disembowel them. It is hard to do. HARD. But the first time you do it is exhilarating. My first thought was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, with Li Mu Bai gliding through the air, sword in hand. The difference is, when Li Mu Bai glides through the air he does it gracefully and effortlessly but Master Chief charges with impatience and anger. Watching the strike from a third person’s perspective emphasizes this point. You see Master Chief half-running, half-flying through the air, death in his hand. It’s a sight to behold.
But as I said, it’s a pretty hard trick to pull off, even if you do get the rhythm done. Executing the move in-game will be extremely tough, but my friend did pull one off last night. This is one glitch I will be proud to use, even more proud to execute, and will be honored if someone eviscerates me with. I will pick up my intenstines, stick them back into place and pick up a sword and bring it!
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