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Gaming
Extravaganza #2
Well, it’s strawberry time, which means that the buttonWife packs up the kids and heads to her parents house to help out at the strawberry patch, leaving the buttonMasher with a weekend of free time. It’s not as much time as last year, but it’s cherished alone time nonetheless.
The schedule is already filling up, with golf Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, along with yard work squeezed in there somewhere. That should still leave me with plenty of time to get my gaming on. I’m currently a little sour on EVE-Online, so I think I’ll be diving into “the Queue.” I’m about halfway through Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, so I think that will be the first on the list. I’ve got my Metroid Prime Hunters match with Brinstar, so I’ll need to get some practice in with MPH. I’ll also probably pick up the new Super Mario Brothers game for the DS.
So much gaming, so little time! Hopefully I can pull myself away from my current game obsession: Spider Solitaire.
Hadoken!
Wanna know what gets my goat?
When I go into the video game section of Blockbuster and I see the PSP section without a single game being rented but there’s no DS section. I know there was a lot of hype surrounding the PSP and Blockbuster was probably caught up in it but It’s frustrating that they’ve completely ignored the DS rental market. There are a handful of games I’d love to try but I can’t justify purchasing all of them. Blockbuster is missing out on some serious business.
Maybe I’ll have to give Gamefly a try, afterall.
Carnival of Gamers #15
Kim has posted the Carnival of Gamers 15: Hard Times Besiege the Midway. Go check it out!
Unfortunately I didn’t feel like I had anything “Carnival” worthy, so I sat this one out. Fortunately, there were plenty of submissions elsewhere, so I think this will shape up to be another great carnival. Thanks goes to Kim for hosting the Carnival.
(I’ll update the Carnival HQ page this evening The Carnival HQ is now up-to-date, with all the upcoming hosts for the rest of the year. We even have people lining up for next year!)
What to do
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!
Carnival’s a-coming
It’s the last day to get your submissions in to Kim for the Carnival. Don’t delay!
EVE Online, 90 days later
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.
Wii’s pricetag…
… 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?
Big Carnival Update
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.