Archives for October 2006

Stand strong!

I saw Jet Li’s Fearless this weekend. It was a very enjoyable movie, even if it stuck to “the script” pretty closely. The script being that of a warrior’s arrogance, over compensation, failure, and finally, redemption. Based on a true story, the movie was good drama with moments of the mellow dramatic. There were scenes where Li wasn’t able to completely convey the character’s emotions, but he still held his own. The supporting cast was good, even great in some parts. (The Japanese actor who played Jet Li’s final challenger, Shido Nakamura, was most excellent) The martial arts were amazing and the cinematography was gorgeous. Although it moved slow in places, I really enjoyed Fearless.

It’s a shame that it’s Jet Li’s “last” martial arts movie. He is art in motion.

jet li.jpg

360 Demo Thursdays

Unfortunately, there won’t be a “360 Demo Thursday” this week. I downloaded the multi-player demo of Splinter Cell: Double Agent and I had a chance to try it out was last night, but Xbox Live was going through some growing pains, so I never got into a game. I was going to try again tonight but got caught up watching the NLCS and now it’s too late to start a new game. So this week’s demo Thursday has been canceled. It will return next week.

For impressions of the Splinter Cell demo, you can read Gabe’s impressions. He’s a fan of the series, you could say.

This is some cool stuff

I know I’m late to the game-o-sphere with this one, but it’s too amazing to not post. Be sure and check out the video, too:

The boy, a 14-year-old who suffers from epilepsy, is the first teenager to play a two-dimensional video game, Space Invaders, using only the signals from his brain to make movements.

Someone forgot to tighten the levels

Via Matt from PTB, it looks like the new Bubble Bobble game for the DS has shipped with a game-crippling error — there’s no level 30 boss. So ya, all those hundred levels you paid for? You ain’t seeing the last 70.

Opps. I’m sure Nintendo will make things all better, but this is pretty embarassing.

There’s a video of the “glitch” at Go Nintendo.

RIP, iPod Mini

May the most excellent piece of electronic gadgetry I have ever owned Rest In Peace:

It’s dead. I killed it. It’s a shame, too. I had recently purchased a replacement battery (from here) and tried to replace it myself. The battery itself is excellent. I was getting less than three hours on the original battery and decided it was time to replace it. I bought the battery, which came with a great instructional video on how to replace the battery. Everything went swimmingly and I was getting 6+ hours on the new battery. But then the click will started going flakey. So I disassembled the unit and made sure all the connections were good and I think that’s where things went bad. I crimped the little ribbon cable that connects the click wheel to the main board. Only I didn’t realize I had crimped it. So I patched it back up and it worked like a champ for another week or so. Then it went flakey again. It worked intermittently until it finally stopped working all together. I took it apart for the final time and noticed the ribbon cable had a tiny tear and some of the wires were frayed. It was my own dumb fault, crap!

As I said, it’s a shame, because I was really getting into podcasts. I have a whole post of podcast reviews half-done because I never finished listening to the ones sitting on the iPod. I don’t really like to listen to them while I’m at my desk, it was easier to turn them on in the car, while mowing the grass, that sort of thing. So I’m over a month behind on my episodes.

Luckily, I have a replacement on its way. I bartered with my brother-in-law and we’re making a trade — my old Xbox and some games for a new iPod Nano he got for signing up for an account somewhere. His wife is getting one as well, so they decided it was a fair trade. Hopefully it will show up before the end of the week and I’ll be jamming again on another piece of most excellent gadgetry. I can’t wait!

Now I have to figure out what to do with the Mini. It still “works” in that the hard drive is perfectly functional and has a new battery. A replacement click-wheel is $50+ which didn’t make sense to me (I’d rather put those 50 bucks towards a new iPod w/video), so now I have to decide what to do with it. Surely someone on eBay is looking for a iPod to cannibalize!

Gilbert Arenas will own you

I’m still working on a larger post on this topic, but this was too rich to pass up. If you’re an NBA fan, you know who Gilbert Arenas is. If you’re not a fan, he can be described as a guy who’s seen as a little eccentric (maybe old-fashioned) and is pretty grounded, considering his talent and fame. But honestly, most people will say he’s just weird. Anyway, there’s an article in Esquire that plumbs the depth of his mind and is quite an intriguing read.

Why am I bringing this up on Buttonmashing? Because there’s a Gilbert Arenas has an video game playing style that most of us are familiar with. Gilbert has a huge library of DVD and video games. In fact, he says he wants them all. He plays Halo. So he’s a gamer. And of course he plays NBA 2K6. To the point – he’s good at NBA 2K6:

… he will take on all comers at Xbox. He won’t just beat you. He will beat you by as many points as you want. Just name the amount. He treats it like a golf handicap. For this game, he’s giving away two hundred points to his friend John …

There’s a minute and a half left, and Real Gilbert is up by 191. Then Game Gilbert gets a steal and throws a long pass—only to have LeBron pick it off. “Sorry, Gilbert,” says Gilbert. “You can’t stop the King.” As the game ticks down, the Cavs and Gilbert—Real Gilbert—are up by 201. John has the ball and is running the clock down for the final shot. At the last second, Antawn Jamison flips in a layup that makes it 331–132. John screams, circling the room, knocking magazines here and there. The man just got beat by 199 points and is ecstatic. Gilbert shakes his head.

That is just rich. I love the delicious irony that the real Gilbert is playing as LeBron James, the player that had him so spooked in the playoffs last seaso that he missed two CRUCIAL free throws at the end of the game. Gilbert Arenas doesn’t miss many free throws. But now, he’s playing as LeBron and referring to him as the King. I love it.

So, to recap: Gilbert Arenas can KICK YOUR TRASH at NBA 2K6 and he’s not afraid to prove it.

360 Demo Thursdays (Tiger Woods 07)

I had planned on trying an older demo this week, catching up on some of the demos that came out before I bought my 360, but the Tiger Woods demo dropped earlier this week and I thought that would be more enjoyable. Even though I haven’t been kind to EA lately, I read Tycho’s praise for the demo on Monday and had to give it a try. Tycho groks, as they say, golf.

The download itself comes in just under a gig and presents a pretty sparse demo – you play as Tiger, you’re given a handful of holes and your thrown into the game not needing much else. The last Tiger Woods game I played was TW ’05 on the Xbox, which I loved, but it had too many frilly extras I didn’t care for. Luckily, the basic swing mechanics were the same, so there wasn’t much of a learning curve.

With such a basic demo, what could be gleaned? A lot. Tycho followed up his initial praise with a more substantial post yesterday and it succintly captures the truth — this looks like it is going to be a good game of golf.

EA Sports, surprisingly, is headed in the right direction here. Gone is all the hyper-drama. No more flaming drives. No more shots of your swing from thirty different angles. No more controller-shaking heart beats. Just a simple golf swing, a flying, spinning ball. It starts with the crisp sound of metal on ball and ends with the soft thud of ball landing on green. No dramatic zooms into Tiger’s squinting eyes as he wills the ball into the hole. As far as I can tell, there’s no “doing the worm” after sinking a long putt. Just the golfer, the swing and the landing. Quite beautiful in its simplicity.

I also like the changes to the putting game. It’s different from the 2005 version (not sure how it matches up to the 2006 version). Gone are guessing what “4 feet long, 19 inches left” looks like. Now you see the contours of the green and where they break. Very intuitive and much easier, in my opinion. This change alone makes me very happy.

But not all is perfect. I still don’t like that you can add spin to the ball as its flying through the air. That’s bothered me since TW2003. It just doesn’t fit for me. I also wish they put a big Swoosh watermark on the screen and get it over with. Every shot of Tiger has two or three prominent Nike swooshes on full display. We get it! Tiger and Nike are synonymous any more. We don’t need you to shove it down our throats. It sure would be nice if the game was cheaper, though, with all the eyeballs your advertising to. But that’s a different rant.

Overall, I’m very intrigued by TW07. They’ve distilled previous versions of a decent game into a game that is approaching reality. Based on the demo alone, Tiger Woods 07 may be the first 360 game I actually purchase. It was that good.

Bully watching

So Jack Thompson wants to see someone play Rockstar’s new game, Bully. And it looks like he and his buddy-pal-judgey are going to get their way.

Thompson said that he and the judge plan to watch the game played in its entirety, no matter how long that takes.

Of course, anyone paying attention to the initial reactions to the game knows that there isn’t all the much violence in the game, at all. It’s rated “T”, afterall. So what’s Jack really after? Of course he doesn’t care if there’s violence or not. We haven’t had any substantive controversies lately, so he’ll just make one up. He ~~wants~~ needs to reinsert himself into the public eye and finds his perfect target, another game by Rockstar. He “bullies” his way into this public display, hoping for resistance and the chance to point fingers. And that’s exactly what he’s going to get.

How ironic. Here’s to hoping it blows up in his face. (Figuratively, of course)

Read “Bully for You” at Wired for more info on Bully.

Game Politics has some more information about Thompson’s hearing being denied.

Wii 100% backwards compatible

I was going through my monthly clean-out of my Yahoo email address I came across this tidbit from Gamespy:

From: Joseph
In a recent news article you mention that “530” gamecube games are playable on the Wii. Is this the entire cube library, or are there limitations to the backwards compatibility as with the Xbox 360?

Li C. Kuo: I did a quick search on Nintendo’s official website and found a list of every GameCube game out so far. According to the website, there are 549 titles available for the GC right now. More are still being released. That’s a bit more than 530, however, Nintendo said “more than 530” GameCube games are playable on the Wii. We then asked Nintendo about this and were told that the Wii is “100 percent backwards compatible.”

The jury is still out on how much backwards compatibility actually matters, but it’s good to know I’ll still be able to break some necks with HUNK and RE4 Mercenaries.

This may be common knowledge, but it’s the first place I can remember seeing it in “print.” So there you go, future Wii owners — all your Gamecube games will work on your Wii.

Taking EA to task

Good post over at Dubious Quality, wherein Bill takes EA to task about the future of their sports games. Thoughtful stuff. Thinking about this is disconcerting, if Bill’s vision of the future comes true.

In other words, NBA Live might be an absolute train wreck, so bad that EA wouldn’t send out advance copies for review, but fixing that is totally unimportant to EA. What’s important is to make sure we can buy the fourth alternate unis of the Pacers.

Yikes.

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