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Archives for 2007

New Kids on My Block, Part 4

February 6, 2007 by Tony 9 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but I come across new gaming blogs all the time. I thought I’d highlight a few of them here.

I’ll start off with a blog that I thought I already had in my blogroll, but somehow had omitted. Siliconera has been blogging the good fight for a long time. I’ve been a reader for a while, but had no idea I left them off the Link List.

Sickr is a blog with a Nintendo angle like none other. Lots of good Wii stuff going up there all the time.

Wii Nation – Take a wild guess what they’re all about. Lots of videos. Maybe too many?

A Day in the Life of Video Games has some interesting stories from a couple guys who apparently work at a Video Game store. If you’ve ever read the Acts of Gord, you’re well aware of the comedic goldmine that is the retail video game store.

The Zen Space Chronicles is very well written blog that’s more than just video games – it’s got comics, movies, everything. Very much worth the read.

Intendo – Wow, you’d think we could get enough Nintendo blogs, but you’d be wrong! You’ve probably already been by Intendo before, as his little scuffle with Infendo garnered some linkage a while back. Still worth checking, as his stuff is still good.

Masem’s Gaming Blog is a no-nonsense gaming blog where he actually blogs about the games he’s playing, not linking to things like Mario wedding cakes or Bubble Bobble graffiti (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). Another well written blog that’s been added to my Bloglines subscriptions.

As PosionMushroom.org states – he’s “combing the internet” so we don’t have to. It’s true, he’s producing a metric ton of links. Tough to keep up with!

Video Jocks is a new site I found recently that, judging by the name, will be sports oriented, but what I’ve read so far has been pretty general gaming news. They also have a podcast that might be worth checking out.

GamingParents.org is a site run by a doctor (a pediatrician, actually) who’s also a gamer. They’ve got some good resources for parents, but what caught my eye was a section where you can vote on games and what age is appropriate for each game. This would actually be a good resource if the list was more complete and more people voted on the games. While the main site is updated very frequently, it seems like a good site to keep an eye on.

The Last Boss is a very sharp looking blog that has an interesting premise – they’re called the “Last Boss” because, as they say, “… we’re sick of playing heroes, it’s time villains had their say. This time the bad guys have the cheat codes.” Awesome.

I’m always on the look-out for new blogs, so let me know if you’ve found one I’ve missed. I’ve given up on keeping track of all of them, but I do check out most blogs I link on a regular basis. Not every blog is unique, but I have found a lot of good writing out there and it’s good to see gamers of all stripes.

Keep on blogging trucks! (A Podtacular reference, donchyaknow)

Previous New Kids:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Filed Under: Gaming

Games I’m looking forward to

February 5, 2007 by Tony 3 Comments

In what will hopefully be a recurring post subject, here are some links to information/media (videos, screen shoots, reviews etc) to games I’m looking forward to.

Lost Planet – Lost Planet is already out and hasn’t been getting very good reviews. I keep hoping for a glimmer of hope, but none have been found. I just finished Zonk’s review and Lost Planet is looking like a rental for me.

Sim City DS – This gameplay video from EA of Japan looks very interesting. The stylus is perfect for this type of game.

Crackdown – Crackdown is quickly becoming a “definite purchase” for me. After playing the demo, I was very excited about this game. There are a bunch of videos on YouTube showing some crazy stuff you can do. This Gamespy preview is causing me to salivate. Is that normal?

Lunar Knights – Lunar Knights wasn’t even on my radar two days ago. Then I watched this video and I’m immediately interested.

The NYTimes Crosswords – Corvus mentioned a NY Times Crossword Puzzle game for the DS. Sign me up. Like everyone says, if they can do it like Brain Age’s Sudoku, it will be brilliant. (more here)

Lots of good games out there. What are you looking forward to?

Filed Under: Gaming

Carnival is up!

February 3, 2007 by Tony Leave a Comment

Sure, I’m only a couple days behind on this, but Jason posted this month’s Carnival. You can check it out here.

Thanks to Jason for hosting. Brent at Virgin Worlds will be taking the reins for next month. Until then!

Filed Under: Gaming Tagged With: Carnival of Gamers

Light posting week

January 31, 2007 by Tony 2 Comments

I’ll be out of town the rest of this week, so there won’t be a lot of posting going on until I return. In the meantime, the Carnival is still on track for tomorrow, so make sure you’ve submitted your entry or get it in ASAP!

Once I get back, I should have spent the better part of a week with a pile of half-played DS games, so I should finally get around to a more in-depth discussion about games like Age of Empires, Contact, Elite Beat Agents and others. I’m even thinking of resurrecting my Animal Crossing town, after the horrible demise my last town met.

So to recap: Make sure you check out the Carnival of Gamers at Jason’s place tomorrow, get some serious gaming in over the weekend and we’ll discuss more next week.

Filed Under: Asides

Carnival of Gamers update

January 28, 2007 by Tony Leave a Comment

I know it’s short notice, but if you’re interested in participating in February’s Carnival of Gamers, get your submissions in right away. It’s less than a week away. If you’ve already submitted, you’re golden, as they’ve been received and forwarded to the Carnival host. If not, send it in!

Jason of jason-preston.com has volunteered to host the Carnival on short notice. Big thanks to everyone who agreed, it was nice to see everyone so willing to help out. We’ll be filling out some of the other spots for the future with some new bloggers, which I’m excited about. I’ll be updating the Carnival page soon.

Come and join the Carnival!

Filed Under: Gaming Tagged With: Blogging, Carnival of Gamers

Wii-mote controlled robot

January 25, 2007 by Tony 1 Comment

Check it out: WiiBot: How to build a sword-wielding, tennis-playing, WiiMote-controlled, friendly robot

My inner-geek jumped for joy as I read this. A couple engineers used a Wii-mote to control a robotic arm to swing a tennis racket and a sword. Very cool. Complete with a video.

(via MAKE: Blog)

Filed Under: Asides

Crackdown Demo

January 25, 2007 by Tony 4 Comments

I just finished playing the Crackdown Demo, and it is a blast! Crackdown is a cross between Mercenaries and Grand Theft Auto, except that instead of being, you know, human you’re some kind of a bionic cop. You can do things like leap 20 feet in the air, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, a-la The Matrix. You also have superhuman strength, lifting and throwing cars and dumpsters hundreds of feet. You’ve also got a mean roundhouse kick. We’re talking Chuck Norris-level roundhouses. I roundhoused some random car so hard I knocked the guy in the passenger seat clear out of the car, all the way across the street. It was funny as it sounds. I spent most of my time roundhousing everyone and everything in sight.

Visually, I’m in love with how Crackdown looks. It has a cel-shaded, comic book look and feel. Very pleasing, visually. I wasn’t a huge fan of the controls, but I am a huge fan of how big and wide open the game looks to be. I didn’t even complete any of the missions in the demo. I spent the whole time driving around the city, running over bad guys (and civilians), jumping from building to building and roundhousing cars. I was warned on more than one occasion that I was crossing the line of harming too many civilians. I felt like a robot renegade cop. It was quite hilarious.

Crackdown definitley will be going on my short list of games to get next.

Filed Under: Gaming

Site Updates

January 23, 2007 by Tony 4 Comments

We’re currently experiencing some issues here while I try to upgrade to WordPress 2.1. I did something that has broken something, somewhere. I’ve made a bunch of changes to things all at once, which was probably a huge mistake, but I’ll be messing with the site for a bit. It will probably look screwy for a bit, but please bear with us.

Update: Yup, I broke something. I was reactivating my plugins after a successful upgrade to 2.1, then something got borked when I tried to activate, then deactivate the Widgets plug-in. The fit hit the shan and somehow everything got hosed. I rolledback to 2.0.3 and restored my backup (always back up, kids!) but I’m still seeing things I don’t like. Hopefully I’ll figure out how to fix my screw ups. Again, your patience is appreciated!

I’m going back under the hood. Wish me luck.

Update 2: Well, it looks like I’ve managed to at least get almost everything back to normal. The only problem I’m having is that my static pages, like the Carnival HQ page, was not restored from my backup. Not sure if that’s normal or not, but the data for each individual page is still in the database, it’s just sitting there, not populating the pages on the site. It’s not a show-stopper, as I can just copy and paste them into new pages, but it’s still a hassle. I spent a bunch of time writing a whole new “About Me” page right before the update and now it’s gone. Gone, I tell ya! Nevertheless, it’s late, so I’m going to restore the pages and my sidebar modules real fast and then head to bed.

Update 3: Okay, I think I’ve got everything fixed and back to normal. What a pain! Anyway, I actually had some real site updates before I decided to upgrade to WP 2.1, so let me tell you about those.

First off, I joined the site “MyBlogLog” which is hard to explain exactly what it is, but I liked the little sidebar thingy that will show when other members of MyBlogLog visit my site. It also provides some rudimentary site statistics, but nothing fancy. Anyway, if you’re a MyBlogLog member, you already know all this. If you’re not a member, but you have a blog or are just intersted in checking it out, here’s the “community page” for buttonmashing.com. Feel free to join.

I also, finally, updated my “About” page to actually have some content in there. I figured that after two-and-a-half years of running the site I probably should have a real About page. So there it is. Check it out!

Filed Under: Asides

More Wii Fitness

January 22, 2007 by Tony 1 Comment

I mentioned earlier about a guy using the Wii as a way to lose weight, and there have since been articles popping up everywhere with success stories about people gaming their way to better health. I think we’ll see an increase in attention to this aspect of the Wii for a while, people will work on Wii Workouts (someone already has WiiWorkout.net, which redirects to the blog of the Wii weight-loss guy mentioned in the Reuters article) and then the media will move on to something else.

I figure it will be a fad that will shortly fade away. In the meantime, it will be fun to watch what people will do with the new technology.

Filed Under: Gaming Tagged With: Wii

Decisions, decisions.

January 22, 2007 by Tony 9 Comments

So I’m faced with a TV viewing dilemma: Today is the season premier of Heroes, the surprise hit show for NBC. I thoroughly enjoyed the first season of Heroes and have looked forward to the new season. Barring a few “huh?” moments (Hiro fighting a T-Rex? Huh?), Heroes is very enjoyable. The problem? It’s scheduled to go right up against 24. I have a long standing relationship with 24, something I don’t want to end yet. Despite my initial reservations for this season, 24 and I have a history together that cannot be ignored. So now I have to decide if I stick with the old stand-by or jump ship and shack up with the new flavor of the month. What should I do? Please note that “TiVo one and watch the other” is not the answer I’m looking for, for two reasons. One, I don’t have a DVR and refuse to record one of these shows on the VCR. It’s HD or nothing, baby! Two, I’m actually trying to cut down on TV viewing, so I’m thinning my watching schedule. Lost is already very close to being cut in favor of playing basketball Wednesday evenings. I just don’t know what to cut between 24 and Heroes. Decisions, decisions.

I guess another option is to watch Heroes on another channel. Doesn’t the Sci-Fi channel usually rebroadcast Heroes episodes a week or two later? That would mean no HD heroes, which really isn’t acceptable.

Regardless of what happens, I’m pumped about Prison Break starting up again tonight. No schedule conflicts there!

I’m pretty sure the audiences of 24 and Heroes are pretty similar, and I know a bunch of you guys watch both. What are you’re plans for this scheduling conundrum?

Filed Under: Entertainment

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