buttonmashing

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Archives for February 2005

EverQuest II – /pizza

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EverQuest II – /pizza – At first I thought Jason at loonyblog was kidding. Then I actually followed the link.

Ever get those nasty hunger pains playing EverQuest II?

You’re in luck – pizza is just a few key strokes away! While playing EverQuest II just type /pizza and a web browser will launch the online ordering section of pizzahut.com. Fill in your info and just kick back until fresh pizza is delivered straight to your door.

Now I will admit I’ve used pizzahut.com to order pizza before, but this is just crazy-talk. Do I ever get those nasty hunger pains? Heck yes, I do. But I think I’ll just satisfy them the old fashion way – by leaving my computer and making myself a dang quesadilla.

(BTW, shouldn’t that be “hunger pangs”? Or are they assuming you’ve been playing EQII so much that you’ve ignored the initial hunger pangs and now the sides of your stomach are scraping together, causing actual, physical pain? Something to think about)

Poor Best Buy Plebes

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A few years ago, on my first blog (currently our family blog/baby picture site), I railed against the salespeople at Best Buy. I know they serve a special purpose in the eco-system that is a retail store, but why is it that the one time I go to the store with a specific purpose, there isn’t a salesperson in sight to help me out? I was just there the day before and I was bombarded by kids asking if they could help me. Now, in my time of need, there’s none around. Sad.

Anyway, my purpose in going was to purchase a new monitor. There’s nothing wrong with my old monitor, it’s a nice ViewSonic 19″ CRT, but it was taking up a lot of desk space. So with birthday money in hand, I went to upgrade to an LCD flat panel. I studied the review sites, read user reviews and scoured every bit of info I could find. I wanted something under 350$ and I wanted a DVI connection. I was this ” ” close to buying a Samsung 17″ 712N. The reviews were positive and the price was fantastic but it didn’t have a DVI connector, which caused me to hesistate. Then I saw the LG Flatron 17″ L1720P, also at a sweet price. I’ve only recently heard of LG, but I’ve heard really good things about them. Choices, choices.

By looking at the two monitors in the store, you couldn’t really tell the difference. Why is that? Because those renobs at Best Buy aren’t running the LCDs at their native resolution. Almost all the 17 and 19 inch LCDs run at 1280×1024. Their little demo/screen saver is running at 1024×768. (It doesn’t help that they split one signal for like thirty monitors) It looks like crap! I didn’t let that deter me, though. After deliberating (and waiting for someone, anyone!) I decided I go with the LG. Of course my Best Buy was out of stock, so I had to go this afternoon to pick one up at another store.

My first impressions? WOW. Simply WOW. It’s only been running for about 2 hours, but I am stunned at how nice it is. A pure work of art. I was worried that 1280×1024 wouldn’t be enough resolution, but it is perfect. It’s just wonderful. My arm hurts I’ve been patting myself on the back so much. After I give it a more thorough test I’ll post some more observations.

I wanna see Mario, daddy!

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Ever since I rented Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, my two-year old daughter loves to watch me play Mario games. The title is the first thing she says to me when I walk through the door. She’s been watching me play video games since I could prop her up on a pillow (she watched me play Wind Waker all the way through) but until recently, they were just pretty colors on the screen with funny sounds.

Now that she’s realizing what is going on, now that she internalizes what she sees, it’s been a lot of fun to play games with her. I enjoyed the week of Paper Mario together, it was a fun game. (I didn’t get very far before I had to return it, unfortunately). I’ve gone back to Super Mario Sunshine and she loves that and I finally got around to opening one of my Christmas 2004 presents, Mario Power Tennis.

Super Mario Sunshine has been a mixed bag. It is still a really fun game with moments of insane difficulty and frustration thrown in. I still feel nostalgic when I hear the old-school Mario songs. I think Mario Sunshine is underappreciated.

Mario Power Tennis, on the otherhand, is pretty fantastic. The tennis is fun, the mini-games are a blast and while I haven’t tried the multiplayer yet, I’ve heard it rocks. I haven’t played a tennis video game in ages but Mario Power Tennis has filled the void, in the same way I hope the new Baseball, Nintendo Pennant Chase Baseball game can fill another void. Oh, that Pennant Chase is like SNK’s Baseball Stars. (But what about Mario Baseball? I’m so confused!)

The best part of all this is my daughter is getting a history lesson in Mario-lore. She already can tell the difference between Princess Peach and Daisy and she knows Mario is in the red and Luigi is in the green. I couldn’t be a prouder dad right now!

Gamecube and online gaming?

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Google does lots of things very well. Translating Japanese web pages is not one of them (YET!). But I do appreciate their translation tools. If nothing else, you at least get the gist of what the content you can’t decipher means. That’s the case with a link I found on del.icio.us. The Gamecube game referenced here is called “Homeland” and it seems to be a RPG that also uses the Broadband adapter. Follow the other links on the first page and Google will handle all the translations. Expect funny stuff like this.

While there’s no mention of a US release, stuff like this always gets me excited. Here’s to hoping!

Law & Order takes on Video Games

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I’m a fan of the Law & Order franchise and I catch most of the Special Victims Unit (SVU) episodes. One thing that makes the series compelling is that the cases they deal with don’t always end up tied up with a happy little bow where the bad guy is caught and the victim can pick up and move on with their lives. Sometimes, the bad guy (or girl) gets away with murder. It something that bugs the heck out of my wife (she needs everything packaged perfectly) but I enjoy it. I don’t enjoy the fact that bad people do bad things and get away with it, I like the fact that life isn’t fair and sometimes really crappy stuff happens. So it was this reason that caused a little trepidation when I heard that tonight’s episode was about some kids doing a crime they have done over and over in a video game. I thought for sure they were going to hammer away the “violent video games make violent kids”. At first it seemed like that was the path they were going to take. It wasn’t looking good.

The officers come across a body of a hooker who’s been hit by a car, beaten and robbed. Det. Stabler’s son recognizes the M.O. as the object of a video game called “Intensity” (*cough* I mean Grand Theft Auto *cough*) where the object is to run people over and beat them up to take their money. Again, I don’t like where this is going.

Long story short, they catch the teenagers who did the crime, and their high-profile, ignorant-as-nails lawyer cooks up a plea of not guilty because they were addicted to video games and couldn’t distinguish right from wrong. My favorite character of the series, Dr. Wong lays the psychiatric smack-down on the lawyer and basically says the narcissistic adrenaline junkies knew exactly what they were doing. When the lawyer asks him if he thinks video games make the kids that play them violent, he basically says “No”. What’s this? They are actually saying the violent video game “Intensity” didn’t drive these kids to do a heinous crime? That they, of their own conscience, ran a girl over because they were sickos, not whacked-out video game players? Astonishing! I can’t believe it, but the “Main Stream Media” (the evil one?) is actually saying violent video games don’t make kids do violent things? I thought this was a no-no! Someone is gonna get it over at NBC! Didn’t they get the memo? But sure enough, there it was, laid bare for all to see. Complete with the guilty verdicts for the two teenagers on the count of 2nd degree murder. Amazing.

Overall, they did a pretty good job of portraying video games in the episode. The don’t just show them off as mindless entertainment and they definitely don’t make it seem like they’re a breeding ground for an army of killers. The company that made the game Intensity also made children’s games. The gamers weren’t nerdy looking teens, although of the game programmers did. I’d have to ding the kids who played the perps. They weren’t convincing gamers. The boy in particular seemed more like a frat gamer than a “real gamner”. But I give them credit, they did a lot of things right. The even had Stabler’s son playing a Tapwave Zodiac at the end of the episode (shameless product placement? Probably. My guess is the kid owns a GBA in real life). I thought the episode was well done, and I applaud the writers from avoiding the knee-jerk reaction of blaming the video game and getting to the root cause — these kids were just plain bad seeds.

Update (2/9/05) – It appears I wasn’t the only one who caught this episode. Andrew at Tales of a Scorched Earth posted his comments here.

Update (2/15/05) – Here are some more comments, by new-to-me Clubberjack. He also made some pretty good points.

The big Three-Oh

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The day I never thought has arrived. This day, thirty years ago, my sweet mother was in the throes of labor, thrusting the cruel world upon me in a most unceremonious way. That’s right, today is NOT my un-birthday. It is officially my birthday. But not just any birthday, this one is the big three-oh. While it’s not the end of the world, it sure feels like I’m supposed to have grown up and matured, but sometimes I still feel like I’m twenty. And not just because I still play video games. I guess I can wait another ten years to see if I’ve “grown up”.

Of course you, as a loyal Button Masher, would like to shower me, your fearless Head Button Masher, with gifts and well-wishing. Alas, I would be remiss to accept said gifts, but send ’em any way. I’ll just be remiss and deal with that myself.

As I looked back on the past thirty years, I can say I’m happy where I am at. I wouldn’t change any of it. Here’s to thirty more!

New Kids on my Block (#2)

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Here’s in the second installment of the New Kids on the Block, which has already been renamed the New Kids on my Block, since a lot of the blogs I’m highlighting are new to me, but not the blog or gaming blogosphere. As this feature grows, it may return to its original name, but for now, it’s the “New Kids on my Block”. So on to the new kids:

I haven’t been reading loongy boi for very long but I like what I’ve read so far. It’s definitely a blog that’s more about games, but Jason (who works for Take 2) seems to love his games. He’s definitely been doing this much longer than I have, but remember, this is the New Kids on my Block.

Wonderland was a site I stumbled on when I first started this blogging thing but somehow got lost in the shuffle. A women’s perspective on things is always good, and currently there’s a dearth of said perspective in the world of video games. It’s slowly coming around, but Wonderland is a good place to get it, with pop culture peppered to make it more authentic.

arcon is a blog from across the pond, where comments about gaming pop up now and then. He seems pretty passionate about gaming, and that’s good enough for me.

I don’t know why I haven’t been reading Water Cooler Games before, I see mention of them all the time, I’ve just never taken the time to read them. Now that I have, I regret not taking the time sooner. Grade-A stuff there.

There will be more sites forthcoming, I’ve got a handful bookmarked that I still need to go through. Stay tuned!

Some light reading.

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I know it might be hard to believe, gamers do have other interests. For me, I am fascinated by the financial world, with a particular interest in the world of investing. I’m pretty green (pun somewhat intended) when it comes to investing, but over the past 3+ years, I’ve been doing dollar based investing through ShareBuilder (a great service and a great way to get your feet wet). I’ve done fairly well, but I’ve got a lot to learn. As such, I try to follow as much stock-related news as I can. Currenlty, I’m subscribed to the Motley Fool newsletter for their insight and tips. It’s nothing great, but a couple weeks ago, this article was highlighted. As I read it, I was reminded of this, which I read over at Video-Fenky. I think these articles really get to the point of what can and needs to be changed over at Nintendo.

I think we can also throw this little tidbit (hat tip, Joystiq) as well. Nintendo has definitely embraced the kid-friendly image but maybe the embrace has turned into a bear hug and Nintendo can’t let it go.

Nintendo DS “Another Code” Movie

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I’m not totally enamored with the DS yet. I toyed around with the Metroid game, which was pretty cool, but I still haven’t been “WOW”ed by anything DS-related yet. Well that was until I saw this. I don’t understand any of the Japanese, but the game looks pretty amazing. The use of the dual screens looks really intuitive and blends the two together really well. If this is plays as good as it looks, they might have something with those two screens.

I’m still not sold on the DS yet, but this game looks extremely promising.

Back in business!

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Our friendly Time Warner tech came over this afternoon to reconnect us to the virtual world of broadband and cable TV, just in time for Monk. Whatta guy! It’s been strange being disconnected from the internet at home. I still my work access, so I was able to follow my blogroll on Bloglines (I have a convert in Jeff Freeman, my first convert. I’m working on more) but being detached from ButtonMashing was good.

It was good because the move has been a big change for the family and I was able to attend to more important things, like hooking up the washer and dryer, and not have to worry if I’ll miss a big gaming story. I love doing the blogging thing and I love doing the gaming thing, but this past week had presented me with some more valuable ways to spend my time, so I’ve been enjoying my time away.

But I did miss it, all the same, and it feels good to be back. I’ve still got non-gaming things to take up my time (like making mortgage payments) but I can also have some gaming time, too. All in moderation. So the Button Masher has made a return to the video game blogging world, and he’s all the better for it.