Crayon Physics Deluxe

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Nintendo, you must hire this guy before someone else does. 

Thanks to Dubious Quality for the find. Don’t read DQ? You should.

December 7, 2007 | Filed Under Noteworthy, PC, Video Games | 1 Comment 

The Ultimate DS Library

Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan

I’ve been playing my DS Lite so often now I should probably change the name of the site from “buttonMashing” to “screenTouching” or something like that. Touching is indeed good. I’ve been speding some time on eBay recently, hunting for some DS titles to round out my library. It got me thinking about what would make up the “Ultimate DS Library.” So I present to you my idea of the “Ultimate DS Library.” (Note that I don’t, as of yet, own some of these titles. But I have enough faith in them that I am actively pursuing a copy of them.)

Read more

August 7, 2006 | Filed Under NDS, Noteworthy | 22 Comments 

Carnival of Gamers #14

tilt a whirl.jpg

Welcome to the one year anniversary of the Carnival of Gamers! A little over a year ago, I tossed out the idea of holding a blog carnival for fellow gaming bloggers. The idea was well received and since then, we’ve had thirteen other carnivals. So now, here we are, one year later. Welcome to the first annivesary of the Carnival of Gamers. Step on up and wander around the Carnival of Gamers.

I wanted to do something different with this Carnival, but I just drew a blank. I initially tried to make witty comments about everyone’s submissions but realized I was out of my league. Something clever like Thomas’ old-school interface or Cosmic’s screenshot Carnival would have been nice, but I just couldn’t do it. So instead, I categorized, as best I could, the links and will present them with little commentary, letting the writers speak for themselves. Besides, they do a better job than I would. So without further ado…

Casual and Hardcore Gamers

Gianfranco Berardi at GBGames’ Blog asks if Can You Envision a Casual FPS?

Finster at Top of Cool proclaims We Still Matter. That’s “we” as in us hardcore gamers. Some people get “us”. Some obviously don’t.

Nintendo’s Wii - [You knew we couldn't get through this carnival without at least a couple mentions of Nintendo's newly named console! -ed]

Brinstar at the Gaming Chair would like to remind us that Wii isn’t alone in the naming weirdness.

Kehaar, projecting the Comic Store Guy, proclaims the Wii is the Worst.Product.Name.Ever. He goes on to say, “Wii will be the straw that breaks the back of the camel that has been carrying Nintendo in the horse race that is video gaming these days.” Time will tell…

Jason has thoughts on the name Wii. In particular, the marketing implications of choosing such an odd name. Is it genius on Nintendo’s part? Not likely, as he says, “it’s more like nakedly exposing how much they don’t understand the American gaming market.”

More thought on Wii from John Watzke at Pure Digital Thought, where he asks, “Do they really think that naming the console the Nintendo Wii that it will grab these new fans?”

Violence, Politics, Public Service and video games [Oh my! -ed]

Greg at Among the Dust points out “Media influences people, and it influences them strongly. This is true of all media, and it has been true for a very long time.”

Kim Pallister talks up Public Service Gaming. Public Service games? As Kim says, “A mini-meme seems to have caught regarding government funding and ‘public service games’.” Check out to see what he’s talking about.

Violence, immigration, and bad taste. Johnny Pi tackles them all in his post “Shock Value.”

Our MMO-World [Who am I kidding? It's a WoW world and you know it. -ed]

The Curmudgeon Gamer thinks gamers can deal with gold farmers in a similar way some people have dealt with getting people to quit smoking in his post, Gold farming and the war on smoking.

Tobold at Tobold’s MMORPG Blog compares players that don’t interact with other players in WoW as the dark matter of this game.

The Prognosticator asks what makes us go Ding?

Bill Harris looks at what could be a rather startling precedent started in the virtual world of Project Entropia and being able to access in-game cash at real-world ATMs. This could be huge, both for good and for bad. As Bill says, “What matters is that the door is opened and it will never be closed again.”

Foton relates “Seven Things I Have Tried Unsuccessfully to Ban from My Guild,” where he tries, and fails, to improve his own guild experience in World of Warcraft.

Time to take some Tests (Tests? At the Carnival?)
Jeff asks Carnival readers grade a test for him. What kind of test? You’ll have to read on to see.

After you’ve graded Jeff’s test, you have to take the MMO Proficiency Test from Van Hemlock. I was stumped with question #3. “Nerf” means “b) To have one’s character victimised by God,” right? I sure hope I passed!

Everything Else
Jacob at the Gaming Chair asks Microsoft “Where is my co-op Gaming?”

In what could be a first, we have a video blog from Resident Gamer, their interview with Marc Ecko, talking about the urban gaming space. .

Corvus ruminates on the inadequacy of Evil. “Evil, I always felt, was simply inadequate for the task of giving people someone to be truly afraid of.”

Over at Tea Leaves, psu discusses the decline of a strong narrative in video games, comparing the recently released Oblivion and the venerable Planescape. Me, I simply can’t get that picture of that character from Oblivion. shudder

Josh at Cathode Tan is talking about “ESRB’s Line In The Sand.” He says, “The ESRB needs to focus on their actual job - reviewing and rating content intended for gameplay.”

That’s all, folks!

Well, this brings us to the close of the Carnival. A year older and a year wiser. It’s been a great trip and we’ll be pulling into another blog next month. The schedule over the next couple months is currently up in the air, but once I get that straightened out, the Carnival will be back before you know it!

Thanks for reading and enjoy all the great gaming bloggage this month. Read ‘em all!

May 4, 2006 | Filed Under Blogging, Carnival of Gamers, Noteworthy, Video Games | 16 Comments 

The Carnival of Gamers

Carnival of GamersWelcome to the inaugural edition of the Carnival of Gamers! Here you will find the best and brightest video game bloggers from around the world! Never before has such a group been assembled to bring to you the latest insights and observations from the gaming blogosphere. We’re a diverse group here, as you’ll see from the posts but we all have one thing in common — we are passionate about video games. So let’s get right to them –

The first submission award goes to Tea Leaves with a blistering piece on the state of video game reviews, taking just about everyone to task.

Bill from Dubious Quality was at E3 and saw some themes rise above the din that is the spectacle of E3. Great “macro” view of E3 and all the trimmings.

Everbody always roots for the underdog and Adam at render gaming thinks Nintendo has assumed the role of the underdog for this generation of consoles. And like everyone who’s ever rooted for the underdog, he wants Nintendo pull the upset.

Foton says he knows better than to read gaming message boards. He claims to be aware of the dangers. Problem is, he can’t help himself. Somewhere, someday, someone could post something relevant, interesting or amusing. So far, no luck. But he can dream, can’t he?

We’ve all felt that pang of shame when we tell someone who isn’t a gamer that we love to game. But should we? Troy at Portico doesn’t think so.

Corvus gives should get a standing ovation for the defense of PC Gaming and independent PC Gaming here. Bravo, Corvus. Bravo.

Guild Wars has enthralled me lately, but Ethic is right - the pathing and instancing both leave something to be desired.

Jason wasn’t impressed with the art of i-am-8-bit and it shows.

Aggro Me asks: why look for Queen Antonia when they’ve already got Queen Heather?

Electroplankton is an enigma to me and this piece from Thomas doesn’t really clear it up but makes for a great read. I don’t think Thomas is alone in hopthing that gaming goes in this direction.

Alex at Damned Machines looks at Video Game Magazines and finds them wanting in more ways than one.

Finster does some excellent research about the Xbox 360 and the PS3 and comes to some interesting conclusions.

I’ve got mixed feelings about selling virtual game items for real life cash but Cosmik has some pretty strong feelings about it. He makes some pretty convincing arguments.

I hope your sitting, because this is a long one from Krones. He takes John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment, out behind the woodshed and does all manner of unspeakable things to him. I will admit that I laughed, cried, and felt bad for humanity while reading this entry.

Joseph has seen the future and the future is the PS3. Not only will it cook you dinner and do your laundry but it will also “age”, grow up and then, as a teenager, take your keys and crash the family sedan into the neighbor’s mail box. Then you’ll get a disc read error. How about that for the future?

Mike looks at the specs of the Xbox 360 and then waxes on the future of online play, and more specifically Microsoft’s Xbox Live. I’m still not convinced I want to get nickel and dimed to death but Microsoft does have some ambitious plans and I think this will be the future of gaming.

Is GTA an RPG? Simon would like it to be. Read what happens when he tries to role play Grand Theft Auto.

Vanhemlock wonders what The Business of Teamwork is all about. Rather humorous stuff.

If danking is wrong, The One Eyed Man doesn’t want to be right.

Newcomer Ninjack compares MMORPGs to the buffet line. And now I’m hungry.

Well that wraps up the first edition of the Carnival of Gamers. It has been a lot of fun reading these entries (some of them for the first time) and it has been great to see the support from gamers to see this succeed. I look forward to future Carnivals, and we’ll have the next one in two weeks - hosted by Thomas at Mile Zero on June 9th. If you’re available and willing to host a future Carnival of Gamers, let me know!

A big thanks to everyone who participated and made this happen. If you wanted to participate but didn’t have the time to submit this go-round, please don’t miss the 2nd edition. Let’s keep this going strong!

GG everybody.

Update: Honor of honors, we have been linked by the Shigeru Miyamoto of Bloggers, Instapundit. A super huge thanks to Glenn for the linkage. (Now I await the dreaded Instalanche!)

Welcome Instapundit readers, hopefully some of you, like me, are gamers and will find some new bloggers to add to your feed readers. These guys are excellent bloggers, enjoy!

Another Update: We’ve now also been linked on games.slashdot.org. Welcome games.slashdotters, hopefully you’ll take the time to read some of the blogs here. The initial reaction over there wasn’t the most positive but others have come to the defense of the bloggers and the Carnival (thanks, Josh). I took a stab at defending the carnival as well. Hopefully people will actually read some of these pieces before they make broad, sweeping assumptions about video game bloggers.

Update #3: Now we can add Kotaku and Digg to the growing list of Carnival referrers. Thanks to Brian and Mike for the links, this has really taken off (3.2k hits as of 2:30 pm EST). I am on my way out of town but I wanted to thank everyone again and wish everyone a nice Memorial Day weekend. I’ll check back in later for a recap.

Really late update: To be listed in The TTLB ÜberCarnival I needed to add a link. That should take care of it.

May 26, 2005 | Filed Under Blogging, Carnival of Gamers, Noteworthy, Video Games | 25 Comments 

Resident Evil 4 Translation Guide

Resident Evil 4As you may or may not know, RE 4 is set in an old, run-down, decaying European town. As luck would have it, it turns out to be an old, run-down, decaying Spanish town. Luckily for me, and all you loyal ButtonMashers, I spent two years in Spain and I am endeavoring to translate some of the sayings you’ll hear the possessed villagers yell as they try to kill Leon. My hats of to the guys who wrote the Spanish lines, most of them are well done, including the naughty i words. I am trying to keep this a PG-rated blog, so you’ll have to use your imagination for some of the definitions here. This list will grow as I progress further in the game and remember more of what is said. (Update: I have since beaten Resident Evil 4 but decided to keep this list updated, based on the daily hits I get looking for these translations

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:

“Vocabulary:”

Resident Evil 4 PS2Updated (11/12/2005) - Thanks to Dudeman, RE4Fan, Marcos, SpikeRevell, Darkzeta, and Angelo for the latest request and additions. I know that with the recent release of RE4 on the PS2 that we’ve had a new influx of people searching for translations. Hopefully all these will make the enjoyment of this most excellent game. Let me know if there’s more! Keep ‘em coming!

Updated (8/29/2005) - Thanks to Marionette, Mark, Kasage, David for reminding me of some of the phrases I’ve missed. Keep ‘em coming!

January 15, 2005 | Filed Under GCN, Noteworthy | 309 Comments 

My gaming pedigree

One’s gaming experience, or as I like to call it, “gaming pedigree,” is often a source of pride for us old-school gamers. We use it to give creedence to our opinions and it gives us a sense of superiority over the casual gamer. So before I spout off any more gaming knowledge, I thought I’d share my gaming pedigree. I’ll list a handful of my favorite games here but look forward to top five lists in the future.

Updated (2/24/2005)

1984-1986

Atari 2600 - This is where it started for most of us. I still remember that frigid Christmas morning, seeing the wood-trimmed piece of hardware, thinking I ruled the world. I played the heck out of my 2600. Favorite games included Space Invaders, Missile Command, Pitfall, and many others. I think my favorite 2600 game was Kaboom! I played that game at every chance I got.

1986-1990

NES - Definitely a big change for me. Christmas of ‘86 brought me the cherished Nintendo Entertainment System. I played my NES past “Nintendo Thumb”. It was more like Nintendo Raw, Cracked, Blistered Thumb. I don’t think I could imagine what path I was taking as I played countless Nintendo games. If you would have told me twenty years from then I would still be playing video games I would have said you’re nuts. But here I am, playing away on a my Gamecube.

Trying to choose favorite games would be foolish, there are so many, but a few of my favorites were Baseball Stars, Rygar, Bionic Commando, Contra, any Super Mario Brothers, many many more.

1988-Present

PC’s - While PC gaming has always taken a backseat to console gaming I still take time to get in as much PC gaming as I can. I started out on a whimpy 286, playing Sierra adventure games on my 4-color CGA monitor, but I also played my share of Commodore 64 (even though I never owned a C64), Apple IIe, TSR 80, and others. I played most of the D&D Forgotten Realms and DragonLance games. I played Doom before it was released, when all you could play was the first level, with no weapons or monsters. My favorite genre of PC games is either RPGs or RTS games. I love Blizzard games, played the Age of Empires series to death, and currently play Neocron. While MMORPG appeal to the most basic needs to me, I don’t play them as much as I wish I did.

1989

Game Boy - While I owned the Classic Game Boy I didn’t play it much. I played Tetris on the crapper a lot but I would much rather play on the TV so Game Boy didn’t have much of an impact on my gaming repertoire until much later in life. Tetris still logged hundreds of hours and my mom still plays my original Game Boy.

1991-1994

Super NES - Like many people, I consider the SNES to be the pinnacle of gaming. I hold dear my memories of playing my SNES. I actually remember when my friend rented an imported Super Famicom months before the SNES was released on the masses. We played F-Zero and Mode-7 owned me. I had a crap-load of SNES games. Some of my favorites included Act Raiser, the Final Fantasies, Final Fight, Street Fighter 2, NBA Jams, Super Mario World, the list goes on. Man I loved that machine. I am still waiting to find a good deal on a used SNES with a handful of games on eBay to relive those days. (Update: I purchased a SNES this past November, along with Super Mario World and NBA Jams SE. I am always on the look out for games to add to my collection)

1994-1996

I lived in Spain for two years as a Mormon Missionary, effectively cutting me off from gaming from May 1994 to May 1996. I did get a chance to play a Playstation in one area I lived in, but I didn’t do much gaming from 1994-1996.

1996-2002

Nintendo 64 - I was first in line to get my gaming on after returning from Spain. I got my N64 the day it was released, along with Mario 64, easily one of the greatest games ever. Words don’t do that game justice. I played a handful of games on my N64, but my interest sort of waned as my interest in a certain lady-friend grew. I paid more attention to her and less to the N64, and we were married in August ‘97. The N64 came along for the ride down to Columbus but only got pulled out occasionally to play Killer Instinct. I missed out on most of the seminal N64 games, like Perfect Dark, Ocarina of Time, Goldeneye (I played this a couple times) and others. I spent most of this time on the PC but my interest was sparked by the release of the Gamecube. My N64 was sacrificed as a trade for my Gamecube. I will own another N64 and go through some of the games I missed.

2002-Present

Gamecube - Ahhh, the Nintendo Gamecube. I hold the Gamecube near and dear to my heart. It was what made console gaming relevant for me again, easing me back into the gaming scene. So many good games for the little black box. My favorite Gamecube game is easily The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker. I think there is so much detail and beauty in that game that gets overlooked by the A.D.D.-generation. Scenes in the underwater Castle are breathtaking. Easily my number one game, EVER. Metroid Prime is top ten, as well. NCAA 2004 has consumed many hours of my time (I am a HUGE college football fan). There are countless others: Viewtiful Joe, Prince of Persia, NFS:Underground. The list goes on.

2003-Present

Game Boy Advanced SP - I don’t know why I waited so long to pick one of these up, but the GBA-SP is an amazing piece of hardware. I have a back log of good games, so it will take me a while to catch up but I am currently playing classics like Advance Wars and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Doom on the GBA takes me back to my old PC Doom days.

2004 and beyond

Don’t get the idea that I have only played Nintendo Systems. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve played all the Sega Systems (Man I was jealous of Altered Beast when the Genesis came out), I have played PS1/2, they don’t do much for me. I played the ill-fated Turbo-Grafx 16, the Neo-Geo, sheesh, I could go on but you get the point.

Who knows where I go from here. I am still contemplating the XBox angle. (Update: I picked up an XBox and have played the heck out of Halo 2. I also played the very disappointing Fable but traded that away a while ago because it SUCKED SO BAD. I’ve got other XBox games, I’ve just got so many games that I need to play) There are a handful of games that look good that I want to play and I can’t deny the allure of Halo 2. I’ve never been drawn to the PS2, I don’t know why, but I doubt I’ll ever pick one up. But if I can convince Greta of that XBox, mmhhmhmmm.

June 23, 2004 | Filed Under GBA, GCN, Noteworthy, PC, Video Games, XBX | 2 Comments 

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