buttonmashing

Mashing buttons since 1984

Archives for May 2006

What to do

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You’ve probably read that Target and other fine retail establishments are already selling Nintendo DS Lites, almost two weeks before the release date. It is tempting to pick one up, as I fully intend on picking up a DS Lite. Nevertheless, this presents a conundrum: I lust after a black (or navy, whatever) DS Lite, not the white DSL. So while I could be jamming on a brand new DS Lite right now, I find myself compelled to wait for the sexier, darker DS Lite.

So do I take the early plunge, get the white DS and then wait until the others are released and trade the white in for one? Or do I hold out longer? There’s nothing wrong with my Electric Blue DS. It’s strictly gadget lust. I must have one of those Lites!

EVE Online, 90 days later

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I’ve been meaning to start a new thing here at buttonmashing.com where I expound on my initial impressions. I’ve posted a lot of “first impressions” but I don’t follow up as often as I want to. Often, those initial impressions are the “honeymoon” stage and you look past flaws. Now that I’ve been well past that stage with EVE, I thought I’d share a little more on my experiences.

[Read more…] about EVE Online, 90 days later

Another blogson is born

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He’s been blogging for a couple weeks now, but another one of my buddies has taken the blog-plunge on account of my encouragement (pressure? insistence?). He’s a fellow Buckeye fan, video gamer, and all-around good guy. He also has excellent photoshop skills and he’s crafted me a mighty fine looking banner that I plan to get on the site soon. He prefers to keep his identity private, only to be known as the “Monkey.” I present to you: MonkeyPi.net.

Stop on over and say hey.

Wii’s pricetag…

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… and other things that make me happy.

I don’t post a lot of the news that other sites pick up before me (I try not to blog from work too much) but when I read the announcement of Nintendo’s pricing for the Wii, I couldn’t stop smiling. I had to post something! At less than 250 bucks, Nintendo hit one out of the park. That price is the proverbial sweet spot for gamers.

I did read a rumor earlier this week, though, that Nintendo was ready to announce a $200 price point, but after Sony announced their ridiculously overpriced PS3, Nintendo held off and went with the $250 price. That’s just a rumor, but it makes sense, from a business point of view. Fricken Sony!

The only thing I’m worried about now is if the Big N can meet the demand. They say the want to sell six million units by next March, but if they had that many ready by Christmas, they would sell every single one of them. And then half of them would be on eBay the next day. I also worry about price gougers retailers bundling the Wii with all manner of unnecessary crap. It’s already being done with the DS Lite, and I after what we witnessed with the 360, I see no reason why it won’t happen again. All of this adds up to some serious frustration, come launch-day. That bothers me, because I refuse to “pre-order” and I’d rather not wait out in the cold at 11:30 at night outside of Best Buy to get my Wii.

I just want to get my Wii on, is that so wrong?

You?!

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123814201_2470a1cf13_m.jpg (**24 Spoilers Below. But honestly, you missed the season finale? Shame on you!**)

Wow, what a finale!

“You?!” That’s the question (or was it resignation?) Preisdent Logan asked Jack as he took his helmet off and took control of the Marine 1 helicopter. It’s also the question Jack was probably asking as the final minutes of his day came to a close and Cheng Zhi came into focus. So where does this go next year? Will Jack be a double agent? Will he simply work for the Chinese government? Or will we simply follow Jack as he tries to escape? I had no idea what the direction the next “day” would take, but it’s already looking intriguing.

I thoroughly enjoyed the 24 finale. I was surprised to see that Jack shot Henderson, but let’s be honest, he had it coming. I was also surprised to see that Rooney (I don’t remember his first name, he was the guy on the submarine) didn’t bite it, considering the fate of others that have crossed Jack’s path. Good for him. I also liked the contrast of President Palmer’s body being ceremoniously loaded into Air Force One, en route to Arlington Cemetary, while President Logan was unceremoniously loaded into a limo, mostly likely on his way to jail. Palmer was a man of honor and integrity, Logan a whiny little weasel.

So yeah, no complaints here. The show ended with a cliff-hanger which means you know I’ll be tuning in next January!

Big Carnival Update

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First off, thanks to everyone that has offered to help out with the Carnival. I appreciate that. For the June Carnival, Kim Pallister will be hosting the Carnival at his blog “…on pampers, programming & pitching manure“. It’s the post-E3 Carnival, so make sure you get your submissions to the Grumpy Gamer (and creator of some great games), has offered to host the Carnival. He’ll be taking the July Carnival. Ron has been involved in some of the greatest adventure games of all-time (mmy personal favorite is Full Throttle) so I’m pretty excited about having the Carnival at his blog (which is also a great read).

Next, CheapyD, the proprietor of Cheap Ass Gamer has also offered to host a Carnival and he’ll be hosting the August Carnival. CheapyD’s site has single-handedly populated my gaming library with more games than I’ll ever have time to play and is a great resource for finding games on the cheap. While he’s not strictly a blogger, he does a regular podcast that is a good listen and his site has a wide audience of passionate gamers. Having CheapyD host the Carnival will be an opportunity for them to read your stuff. Make sure it’s good!

I received offers from both of these guys over the past month or so and I was surprised, to say the least, at the offers. What really struck me was that this really opened my eyes to who is reading the Carnival. I know that the audience of game blogs is relatively small, but maybe I’m under estimating that. It’s cool that many people are involved in one way or another and I hope it continues to grow.

We’ve also had offers from past hosts that have offered to host the Carnival, along with a couple other offers from other bloggers. That means we’re flush with hosts for the foreseeable future. Again, thanks to all that have be involved in one way or another with the Carnival. It’s looks like we’ll be going strong in our second year.

I’ll be updating the Carnival HQ page with all the new informaiton soon.

Carnival Happenings

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Things have gotten a little crazy recently with the Carnival for June. We had a host lined up, but I just realized they never followed up with me after the initial offer, so things are in limbo for the June host. I’m working on getting things straightened out, so bear with me and things will be clear as mud soon.

That being said, don’t hesitate to get your submission in for this month’s Carnival. I will forward them on the host and we shouldn’t have any delay in the Carnival. With the glut of E3 info, I’m sure there will be plenty of bloggable material.

Also, I’ve got some pretty exciting Carnival news, but I’ll hold off until things have settled down with the hosts. Besides, that’s what the news is about anyway, so it will be worth the wait.

Let me know if anyone has any questions.

How do they keep up?

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blah blah blahWhen I was into the BBS scene, I was a pretty active message board poster. My main haunt, a place called Inverted Reality, had some pretty lively discussions on a variety of topics – sports, video games, high school (I was 18 at the time), things like that. I would probably average 20+ posts a day. There were probably 50 active users, with about 10 of us being “heavy posters.” Since then, I’ve participated in various message boards and the like, but I have never returned to my prolific posting ways. I still participate in the occasionaly discussion over at Evil Avatar, but that’s about the extent of my posting nowadays.

A while back, I came across a link to the site Forum Rankings, which ranks the most active message boards across the ‘Net. I was simply amazed by the numbers some of these boards are boasting. Unbe-fricken-lievable! Gaia Online, the #1 board, has 3.8+ million members and 630+ million messages. That is insane! (Don’t even get me started on the way the message threads are laid out, what an atrocity that is.) Honestly, how do the members of these forums keep up!? If you go into the actual discussion areas, there are threads that are 25 THOUSAND posts long! I simply can not wrap my brain around those kind of numbers. The Boards at IGN (aka the Bane of Gamers everywhere) come in a distant second, with a paltry 132 million posts. Honestly, are there that many things to say about things? That’s a lot of things! With those kind of numbers, shouldn’t the internet be full by now? Holy shnikes!

Funny thing is, I wonder how many of those messages are “me too!” and “O RLY?”. Is anything really accomplished in these threads? Are people ever convinced by the other side? Or is it simply the inane cacophony of millions of disparate voices? The mind boggles at the collective hive that is the internet. I think the singularity may be farther away than some people think.

How not to break out of Prison (Spoiler Alert)

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So last night was the season finale of Prison Break. All things considered, I enjoyed it. What did you guys think? Was that how you thought things would go down? Me either.

SPOILERS BELOW, so if you haven’t seen the episode yet, don’t read any further. But you’ll have to reevaluate your TV viewing priorities. I mean, come on!

AbruzziSo first off, I wasn’t exactly happy to see the plane take off without its cargo. I know if they safely made it on that plane then the series certainly would lose excitement in season two, but I’ve long thought this series could only be good for two or three seasons, top, so I thought them getting to Mexico would have been interesting.

I will say that watching Abruzzi (or as I like to call him, Zydrunas Ilgauskas) hacking off T-Bag’s hand with an axe was one of the most gruesomely satisfying moments this season. I don’t think anyone could have watched that scene and not wince. What makes it better is that the wincing wouldn’t be for T-Bag. It was simply for the pure brutality. There is no sympathy for Theodore Bagwell. They did such a good job developing Bagwell’s character that you couldn’t help but hate him. He was such a conniving weasel! He got what he deserved. It was equally satisfying that Abruzzi did it, as Peter Stormare has been one of my favorite actors since he was Lev Andropov, Russian Cosmonaut, in Armageddon. “I’m a very important person in Russia!”ilgauskas_zydrunas060411.jpg

I was disappointed how quickly Dr. Tancredi was discarded. I honestly thought she and Scofield had a future together, helping out the orphaned children in Mexico or something, but she was definitely much more unstable than I thought. Her demise wasn’t pretty and Scofield will shed a tear when he finds out.

Overall, I enjoyed the finale and I really liked Prison Break as a whole. A good show, interesting premise, decent character development and enough action to keep everything going. I am definitely looking forward to next season!