buttonmashing

Mashing buttons since 1984

Gaming

Arrgh!

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[ Mood: FRUSTRATED ] [ Listening to: Whatever is on the TV ] (This is what my entry would look like if this was a Live Journal blog.)

Holy fricking crap am I frustrated right now with Resident Evil 4. I’m currently stuck at the point where Ashley is driving the big dumpster/bulldozer and you’ve got to run up and raise the elevator lift. Ashley lamely sits in the truck while you’ve got to fight off the bad guys, hit the button, and keep the baddies away from Ashley. Get out of the driver’s seat and run away, you nit! Anyway, I’ve got that part pretty much down pat. The truck then drives on some more, fighting off waves of baddies, before you’ve got to take out a runaway truck coming straight at you. I must have done this sequence twenty times this evening. Something would always go wrong — I’d miss the peep-hole target in the runaway truck, Ashley would get shocked before I could get back to her, or one of the ganados’ head would turn into monster-tentacle-death dealing claw-head and would get me with one hit. It’s frustrating for so many reasons.

If I hear Ashley say, “I’m leaving it to you,” I’m saving the ganados trouble and I’m blasting her myself.

So I might be taking a short break from RE4. Or I might be right back at it tomorrow night.

I’ve got needs, after all.

Opera and the DS – surf the web!

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This is the coolest news I’ve read in a while: Opera (my personal browser of choice) is building a browser for the Nintendo DS.

In Opera’s agreement with Nintendo, Nintendo DS users will now be able to surf the full Internet from their systems using the Opera browser. The Opera browser for Nintendo DS will be sold as a DS card. Users simply insert the card into the Wi- Fi enabled Nintendo DS, connect to a network, and begin browsing on two screens.

This is very cool news, just in time for the DS redesign! Right now, the article only mentions users in Japan, but I can’t see any reason why we can’t expect this here in the states. I can’t wait!

Poor reporting

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I just read an article that makes me angry. The amount of mis-information and fear mongering is just amazing. The article starts out

We have an important warning for parents. Today marks the three-month anniversary of the launch of the Nintendo DS Wireless Connection. But Action News has learned this popular gaming system could put kids in harm’s way.

Huh? Right away, the red flags are going up. I assume they’re going to talk about the WiFi Connection. Sure, there is always the possibility of gaming with unsavoury people online, but Nintendo’s friend code system does a decent job of filtering those type of people out. So far, there are three games that use the Wireless connection (Tony Hawk, Mario Kart, and Animal Crossing) so right off the bat we’ve got some poor research being done:

It has built-in wireless capability. That allows kids to battle fellow Nintendo DS players across the room or across the world.

“They can play somebody they’ve never met.”

While this is technically true, my guess is that most kids aren’t playing with people they haven’t met over the WFC. I’m guessing most of these kids are playing with real life friends. (Let’s not forget that connecting to the WFC isn’t exactly simple. I’d say most kids under the age of 14 would struggle to get on without parental help). So what exactly is endangering the children? The super-horrible Picto-Chat!

Theresa’s 11-year-old daughter, Emily likes to doodle so she’s using the Nintendo DS Pictochat feature. Pictochat puts you right into a chatroom and let you send messages wirelessly – and on this day we are in one of Philadelphia’s many Wi-Fi hotspots.

Theresa Keel/Center City: “This screen name pops up and asks her what her name is and how old she is, and she answers.”
Emily Keel/Center City: “And I just felt a little scared and confused.”

This has happened to the Keel’s once before. But this time the screen name is so offensive, we can’t even show it to you.

“It frightened me. It really did.”

Wait one minute! Pictochat is not WiFi-enabled. At all. In fact, in order to chat with someone, you’d have to be in close proximity to the other DS your chatting with (about 60 feet). Unfortunately, this parent is so clueless that they have no idea what the technology in their child’s hands is capable of. All the mother has to do is tell her child to turn of the DS. If she was worried that they might be in danger, they could alert mall security and have them look for the scary person with the offensive screen name. But turning off the DS instantly severs any connection to the bad person. That’s all it takes. No one is “in harm’s way.” But of course the reporter couldn’t be bothered with the facts.

This is simply a case of not doing due dilegence with your research before you run a story. Sowing seeds of fear accomplish very little.

Even when we’re thinking of the children.

(via Digg. Slashdot, too.)

What I’m playing

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Even though I have a stack of unplayed games (hereafter to be referred to as “The Queue”), I am currently engrossed in Resident Evil 4. Even though I finished the game over a year ago, I’ve been playing the Mercenaries mini game, off and on, for the past couple months. Just recently I decided to endeavor to get 5-star scores on all four boards with the five characters. I unlocked the last character (Albert Wesker) and then spent some time racking up the scores needed on each board. Upon doing so, I unlocked the “Handcannon” which would be available to me next time I played. So I started the regular game over again, this time with the “Pro” difficulty. I figured I’d get to the first encounter with the merchant, buy the Handcannon, go blast some baddies with it and be done with the game. Things didn’t go as planned. I got to the merchant and the handcannon wasn’t available. But I had been enjoying myself so much that I decided to finish the game on Pro difficulty. I just rescued the President’s daughter from the church and now we’re trying to get out of dodge.

Having played this game extensively the past week has reminded me why this is such a great game. The game defines what a polished game is. The attention to detail is what gets me every time. From the authentic Spanish phrases (I will be updating the list with words and phrases I missed the first time through) to the gun reloading animations, I can’t say enough. Just a fantastic game, top to bottom.

Ashley Resident Evil 4I decided to go with the “Special Costumes,” an option you get once you beat the game. Leon is now decked out in his Raccoon City Police Department Uniform. It’s a nice touch. Little did I know that Ashley (the President’s daughter) would also be sporting a new, *ahem*, costume. I couldn’t find any screen shots of the new costume, but she’s gone from the demure and preppy skirt and sweater combo to a revealing cowboy outfit, complete with a rather revealing halter top. It was rather unsettling to see her risqué side. I guess I should come to expect such things.

So yeah, I’ll be playing Resident Evil 4 for a while. I’ll eventually get back to Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and the rest of The Queue, but for now it’s RE4 time, all the time. I still try to squeeze in a game of Guild Wars when I can and I also check in on Animal Crossing: Wild World to check the price of turnips and to water my red turnip, but that’s about it. My animals will probably be complaining and leaving town sooner or later, but tough for them.

I got escort the President’s floozy daughter to safety.

Mr. Monk and friends

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I know I’m not alone in my enjoyment of the TV show “Monk“. It’s usually a funny show with enough quirkiness to make anyone laugh. I think they cut some corners today in the set department.

In the episode, Monk is trying to find a stolen diamond and claim a big reward. He’s being followed by a group of wanna-be detectives also after the money. One of them, played by DJ Qualls, is a nerdy detective with all sorts of spy gadgetry. Things were going good until he pulls out a PSP and calls it his “stress detector” (or some such thing). Huh? Is that all the prop people can come up with? Did someone say, “we need something high tech looking. Oh, and black!” and a stage hand pulled his PSP out of his backpack and said, “how about this?” Come on, USA! You can do better than that!

And what does this say about the PSP? It’s already been relegated to bad props on a TV show? That can’t be good.

True Swing Golf, again

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True Swing Golf
Thanks to Bill, now I’ll have to rethink my feelings on True Swing Golf. He says it’s a blast. He also notes what other reviewers have pointed out – you can’t have a bad swing. That sounds like bad design. Maybe it is, but it isn’t a deal breaker:

Here’s the strange thing, though: it’s almost impossible to mishit a shot. Using the stylus on a regular shot always seems to result in a nearly straight outcome, no matter if you’re contacting the center of the ball or not. That sounds like an absolute deal breaker, and it should be, but course management, even with straight shots, is very challenging, and I can’t seem to stop playing. The effects of lie and slope are almost flawless, and in particular, it models shots to uphill greens better than any golf game I’ve ever played.

I like reading Bills reviews and he’s usually spot-on, so now I’m considering TSG again. Man, I wish my Blockbuster rented DS games!

Carnival of Gamers #11

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Is up at Slashdot Games and was also posted to the main Slashdot page. Very cool! Zonk told me that he didn’t use a few of the submissions, opting to go with quality over quantity. If your post was selected, don’t take it to personally. With 25 entries chosen there wasn’t enough room for everything.

Thanks to Zonk and Slashdot for hosting this, the Carnival looks great!

(Click here to digg this story)

To play or to blog…

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One of the comments about gaming blogs from Zonk’s last call for submissions gave me pause:

Gaming blogs are for people that don’t actually play the games, and would rather write about them than fire them up and play them.

When I stopped to think about it, lately I’ve been spending more time with the blog then actually playing video games. I’ve been busy with real life stuff and the Carnival that I just haven’t played much. Just in the past couple of days have I had a chance to sit down a do a little gaming. I get my daily Animal Crossing in but I hadn’t played much else. I’ve finally been able to get back to Fire Emblem on the Gamecube and I’ve started blasting baddies again in Resident Evil 4. The mercenaries mini game, to be exact. I can’t get enough of it.

So I don’t want anyone to think I’m not actually playing any games. Sometimes it just seems like I’m not.