buttonmashing

Mashing buttons since 1984

Tony

Let the marketing onslaught begin!

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There’s a post over at the Gamerscore Blog listing all the upcoming promotions that will accompany the Halo 3 release next month (they’ve already sold 1 million pre-orders! This is insane!). They’re going to market the heck out of this game. Mountain Dew, 7-11, Burger King, Pontiac (Wait, what?) and others.

I don’t understand this. Is Microsoft paying for this? Halo 3 sells itself, it really seems like their marketing money could be better spent marketing other games that are juggernauts like Halo 3 is. Or, I don’t know, redirected to make a better system that doesn’t overheat. That sounds like a good idea, right?

Maybe it’s the other way around? Do these other companies/brands want to be associated with Halo 3? I’m pretty sure I’ll be no more persuaded to by a Pontiac car because it was tangentially related to the Halo 3 video game. I’m also positive my Whooper with cheese (extra tomato, onion, no lettuce) will not taste any better because it came in a Halo 3 wrapper. I just don’t understand marketing.

I guess that’s why I’m an engineer.

Xbox 360 price drop!

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Major Nelson (and the rest of the free blogging world) is discussing the price drop across all the Xbox 360 models. Throw in the 3-year warranty and you’ve got a pretty good looking deal.

For people on the fence, the 50-dollar drop of the Premium 360 should be very tempting. Even with the horrific failure rates, you’ve got three years of protection and a fall lineup that is absolutely loaded. If you’ve been considering the 360, consider no more. Go forth (on August 8th) and purchase.

Ultimate Supreme Identity

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Bourne UltimatumJust got back from Bourne Ultimatum. What a ride that was! Two hours of crazy non-stop action — chases, fist fights, free running, car crashes and all manner of mayhem that makes men smile from ear to ear.

I mentioned to my friends after we saw Transformers that even though I really enjoyed it, I thought Bourne Ultimatum was going to be the best summer blockbuster. I whole-heatredely stand by that statement. While Transformers was a good time, I had a laundry list of things that bothered me. That is not the case with Bourne Ultimatum. My only complaint is the shaky camera. It can be used to great effect, but when it’s over done (the way it has been in the Bourne trilogy) it’s simply annoying.

That single complaint aside, Bourne Ultimatum was extremely enjoyable. It never really took a breath, grabbing you by the collar and dragging you along for the ride. Without spoiling anything, just about every dangling story line was wrapped up, with a few twists thrown in. It was an excellent end to a most excellent trilogy. I will definitely be seeing this one again.

It may be premature to rank this movie in my Top Five Movies All-Time™ but it is definitely in the running for insertion in the Top Ten™.

Some people are dumb

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But this is ridiculous!

Surely this is a joke. Surely no one would pay to have their Playstation 3 game “installed,” would they? Surely this is just some guys on the Geek Squad having fun!

Should I stop calling you Shirley?

Baby Buttonmasher #3!

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Our newest little buttomasher has arrived:

Baby Boy Rice

I don’t know if I ever actually mentioned that Mrs. Buttonmasher was expecting, but our little boy was born this morning! He doesn’t have a name yet, but he’s still cute as ever. Mom and son are doing great!

He’ll be mashing buttons in no time!

Televising video games?

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Surprisingly, the first time I heard that CBS was going to air video games as “sports” was last night when I read Zonk’s post on games.slashdot. I figured it would be a shame for me to miss them, seeing how this would make some excellent blog material. Something to really rag on! Spike TV’s Video Game Awards all over again! I couldn’t wait to begin the snark.

The snark never came! I must say, I was actually impressed with how CBS presented the show and handled the overall production. Everything that Spike did wrong (garish music and sets, celebs that mailed in their appearances, backhanded jabs at gamers)? CBS did it right — it was about the games and the gamers. They took the high road. It wasn’t about making fun of the hobby we love or mocking the “geek lifestyle.” It seemed like they recognized it for what it was — video games are something people get a lot of joy out of. Even the people hosting the shows weren’t completely clueless.

Of course, everything wasn’t perfect. When they did the Fight Night 3 competition, they interviewed one of the participants in between rounds, which came off as really lame. Every once and a while a backhanded comment would slip, but for the most part they seemed to be taking things seriously.

One of the biggest complaints people use when they hear about televising video games is, “I like to play video games, I don’t want to watch them on TV.” I may be in the minority here, but I’ve always enjoyed watching others play games. This goes way back to the days I’d go over my friends house to “play” the old D&D SSI games like Pool of Radiance. I put “play” in quotes, because it mostly consisted of him playing and me watching. I really enjoyed that and still do, even now. That may explain why I enjoyed more than others might.

While I don’t think televising video games will ever reach the level of any type of sports broadcast (even “Xtreme Sports”), it’s a step in the right direction. It was fun to see people compete in games that weren’t First Person Shooters. The World of Warcraft 3v3 match was interesting, especially since I haven’t played WoW myself. Overall I give it a thumbs up.

Did you happen to watch it? I’d love hear what others thought of it.

Share your NCAA 08 Videos with your friends!

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Ok, so I’ve been pretty harsh to EA lately, so I figured I should give a little back. Sure, their online presence with NCAA 08 leaves a little to be desired, but they’re trying. They’re even doing things right. So I decided to put up a little how-to on sharing your uploaded videos of NCAA 08 with your friends. Hit the jump to read on.
[Read more…] about Share your NCAA 08 Videos with your friends!

Minor milestone

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After awakening “The Immortal” in Prince of Persia I reached a minor milestone — I hit 5000 Gamerscore points.

(Pay no attention to the fact that my co-blogger Dark Reyule has 20k.)

EA makes me cry

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This is getting ridiculous. I mocked EA earlier because they weren’t able to deliver on the on-line community promises. Turns out the data was handled by a third party, and their systems were fried. My bad. They still could have put up a notice about that.

So easportsworld.com is now accessible and so is my NCAA 08 profile. Funny thing is, I still can’t find a way to share my uploaded videos with friends. I don’t even know how to send them a link to my EA Sports World profile. It’s ridiculous. Unfortunately, it gets worse.

I went over to their forums, hoping that someone else was able to figure it out. Surely I’m not the only one who wants to do this. Besides the fact that the forums are populated by 13 years olds who love to use the Caps Lock key, the forums were completely worthless. No one had a straight answer to the question, “How do I sure my uploaded videos?” Simply worthless. So nothing could be worth less than that, right?

Wrong. The forum search is atrocious. I did a simple forum search for “share uploaded video”. “No search results for “share uploaded video”. You should try a less restrictive search.” was the result. Fair enough. I try “uploaded video link” nothing. “Video Link”, “Profile Link” and “I sure wish I could send my friend a link to my cool video” all failed to produce any search results. Deflated, I simply tried to search for “NCAA” hoping that something would result. This is what I got:

EA Search SUCKS!

Did I mean NASA?! No! Why the hell would I be searching for NASA on EA’s NCAA 08 forum? The name of the flipping forum is NCAA 08! Is search that hard for one of the biggest electronic entertainment companies? I can use NCAA 08’s recruiting system to search for a 5-star QB that is 6’2″ and from Ohio and I can’t do a simple text search on their site?

I’m speechless.