Sunday, November 26, 2006

-yoshis island 2-



iv'e mentioned before that the first game i played was yoshis island. did i mention it IS my favorite game!

i bought yoshis island 2 with high expectations and i was horribly crushed by this game.

the first dissapointment is that they used the stupid annoying yoshi sounds from yoshis story instead of from the origional yoshis island. the second annoyance is thay ditch the nice music that was subtle and replace it with an annoying jingle that goes on forever.

the forst boss is exactly the same as the first boss in yoshis island except there are two at once, which doesnt make any difference since when you hit one with an egg it hurts both of them sequentially.

the first game was compelling and fun this one feels boring, and im just ~waiting~ till the next boss.

the gameplay is boring and so is this game.


this game get a "this bites score" which is surprizing this is a 4/10


i think nintendo is losing it.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

the wii part 3

well, 14 hours in the freezing cold, and three days recovery has led me to a world of wonder, and enjoyment. i may have spread it a wee bit thick but let me continue to my opinion of the the wii, and zelda: twighlight princess, as well as my opinion of wii sports.

people have been saying that the wii might be an overclocked gamecube with some better graphics, and although this could be true, i think anyone who wants the wii is probably thinking, they would rather not hear that, i know i dont.

the forecast channel and the news channel still isnt up yet, the shop channel has some ok games on it, the photo channel will probably remain unused for quite some time, and the mii channel leads something to be desired. there i said it, it hurts me to say it, no matter how much a nintendo fan i am, i cant be a serious reviewer if i dont say what is the truth. when the shop channel gets some games going, maybe i'll be a little more inthusiastic. when the news and forecast channel are released, perhaps i'll use them to their advantage. when they update the miis so you can roam around and talk to other people, ill be impressed, but for now, theres nothing to be excited about.

on to sports.

to start, is tennis. the movement of the wiimote, is not to intricate, so the racket doesnt follow your movement exactly. but it does a good job of recognising just when you've swung and in what direction. i thought it was a bit too focused on timing, you hit left and right by when you hit the ball, not how. but its fun and easy to get into.

the golf is relaxing, but the club is not too responsive to my swing my arm will in full reach ready to strike, and the club on screen will still be level with a pill bug behind me. but it was still fun, easy to get into, and overall is fun when playing with someone, expescially since you dont need a second controller.

baseball was pretty good. theyve simplified it to the point where its only swinging a bat and pitching a ball, but it still makes for excitement and an overall good time. again it focuses on when you swing your bat, not how. but it does focus on how a little more on tennis. you can swing the bat at the perfect timing, and still miss, which i like, but it coud've been better. bowling is a lot of fun if youre playing with someone as, again you dont require another remote, but there is a problem which i just cant justify. whenever i throw the ball it leans to the right, which means i have to take this into account everytime, either im doing something wrong or theres something wrong with the game, its just not right.

the most fun i gotta say was with boxing. this would be so much fun, but it not only require two remotes, it requires two nunchucks aswell, that kinda bites, but theres no way around it. the gloves are very reponsive to the nunchuck and remote and recognises almost everything. although sometimes it doesnt recognise a right arch when it sees it, its about as good as its going to get.


as for zelda. my favorite zelda game still stands. majora's mask. i liked the interaction with the people, the intricate puzzles in the dungeos, (im talking about majora so i can compare) and most of all the connection between zelda and the homey town you spend most of your time in. i dont know, when i play that game i become so familiar with the town and become to feel so at home. i miss that feeling in this new zelda, you spend most of your time traveling to the next task, either that or just accomplishing something. theres not a lot of stop and talk, its just move on the next thing. overall i find this new zelda game wayyy too straight forward. refer to bottom to see what i mean but you have been warned. the graphics are ok. things seem very blurry to me, sometimes i cant even tell whats going on.

as far as the puzzles are concerned, i have stopped to think once in a while, its challenging but its again straight forward. thats not to say it isnt a lot of fun. ill play a zelda game, but they arent my favorite, i perfer something a little more cartoony, and if not im going to play something on the polar opposite, thats why im not keen on zelda games. they have the feel of a platformer, and they.... seem to be serious and kind of creepy, but in the end they're still a cartoon at heart, and thats why i loved wind waker, which was seriously underated.


the style is neat, especially in the twighlight zone, but the story.... blech! im so tired of this whole evil versus good, and lets go to the forest temple! i know thats what zelda is and they dont want to change the formula and all, but find a new storyline for chist sake, this one is soooo stale!

stick to your ganondolf and your imps with the cursed mask, they simple but at least when they destroy the world, they dont use "the forces of evil"


plech, but overall i give zelda a 8/10 its pretty damn good, or at least its good clean fun, which is what were looking for in the end, but just dont expect to find anything too inovative. save that for mario galaxies!




*spoiler alert*


the gernal outline of what you actually have to do, is enter the "twighlight zone" become a wolf, and go searching for little lightning bugs, then when you collect these "tears of lihgt" everything goes back to normal and your a person again. then you go to the temple and fight the boss.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Well the day of the reckoning is finally upon us, the excitement is building and the people are gathering... At least they are for the ps3. I heard people started lining up yesterday, at 3 in the morning for the ps3... And yet.... I've talked to many people at school and many people have not even heard of a Wii. its discouraging and sickening! I understand it I just don't like it. The Wii is a far more innovative machine, bringing things into a new light, and the ps3 is just another machine, and yet people line up around the block for the ps3.

anyway I don't want to put a negative vive on such a happy occasion. I know people might not care, but I do know there are select few like me who would like to share in the fun and to that I would like to tell people my plan, and what exactly I will be buying.

it will be around six the seven in the afternoon when I leave. Of course this will be on Saturday. I will line up for the wii with money in my pocket, prepared for anything. I will have an umbrella and my ds, because this is the only time in the world where there will be people on pictochat.

I will be bringing one of my friends hopefully, and if either of us need be, one will stay and another go, be it for food or to use the restroom. I will be buying a wii of course, a copy of elebits, a virtual console controller, and one 2000 Nintendo points cards, totaling to 505 dollars.

there will be two of us so well be prepared for anyone thinking of getting the better of us. Yah its going to be a mace wielding, blood bathing, horror of ultimate delight, and there is nothing, to stop me from being the very first in line!

Thursday, November 16, 2006

ps3 enters the arena -

today my dad was fortunate enough to be invited to the ps3 event, and i was fortunate enough to get some footage. exculivley for this blog i will state my true feelings about the speaker for ps3.


can you believe this guy? he thinks sony has revolutionized everything! this guy seriously makes me angry, but ignoring this i tried to make this look as good as i could.

to be frank, the graphics look absolutely amazing, especially compared to the Wii. but the games, dont look like anything special. seems like another dull console, to riddle our lives away, and this time our money as well. the ps3 is of course is 670 dollars canadian. the controller alone, is 60 dollars! if you bought a wii remote, WITH an attatchment, it would come to 40 dollars. the games will be 60 each, the wii games are 50 each!

i guess money isnt an issue when comes to being a fan. so go ahead consumers spend up to 800 to 900 on your amazing sequals.

here is my video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4peFze1kpZY

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

The Wii part 2 - it was really knocked it up a notch. Yesterday i spent the day at the Nintendo wii press event, where i fell witness to the wii and some of its launch titles. i can say without a doubt, that the wii is just about everything I've been expecting. Although there are a few problems i had with the hardware and yes some of its software.

first of all as people have been saying and i agree, the graphics are nothing to be proud of. i was expecting just a wee bit more then what i saw. The wii's graphics are about a tiny bit better then that of the gamecube, which is ok but its not going to hold itself up in compared to the xbox or the ps3.

personally i don't care about graphics and i think people who do are just a bit silly, but even i was a little surprised at how primitive the graphics looked on the wii.

that's my one problem, another problem which i forgot to mention was that you cant charge the remote, you have to buy new batteries. This sucks big time. But on the up side, you can just by rechargable batteries, and hey whose to say madcats wont come out with a little recharble pack that goes in the back. Also Nintendo might release a rechargable version later in 2007. This is a simple problem, it bites, but i can easily be fixable.

you can see the games i played by scrolling down to bottom but the real issue was that the launch titles looked pretty feeble. The Zelda game was the best thing i saw, besides wii sports which is a phenomenal game considering its free. Red steel was a bit of a disappointment, but i didn't really see too much of it, so don't take my word for it. One of the really good games i played was surpassingly chicken little, a Disney game coming out. It was pretty funny because i was playing it on a prototype version of the wii, there was a cord sticking out of the remote and when i blew things up they turned into black and purple checkered....Things.

remember it was a prototype and it was the only one i saw, the rest worked fine. As for the chicken little game.. Its violent and actiony and everything you shouldn't expect from a Disney film, but hey.

also the new spongebob game was not terrible either, but like i said pretty feeble. Excite truck was fun, for a racing game, you tilt the remote sideways and rotate it like a steering wheel, it made for some fast blurry goodness.

but honestly the most fun i had was with wii sports, they were easy to pick up, although they did take some getting used to, and with a partner they can be buckets of fun. Anyways enjoy this little video i whipped up f all the great moments i spent at the event L-3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVoXdRmBlLs

Saturday, November 11, 2006

The wii part 1 - two days remain...

that's right two, for i am not only looking forward to the release of this fine example of future hardware, but i am also looking forward to the showing and the playing, which apparently comes first, on Tuesday.

to prove my devotion, before people make assumptions, at my school in the darkest of dustiest corners. In the abyss of culture there lies "the few known room". It is only known by me, a fe friends and of course some assistance that run around and do this and that. And in this room there is a fridge, which is locked to all and holds a mystery of wonder.... Well a bottle of water and some frozen TV dinners (i don't know why they keep the fridge locked). And on this fridge there is a piece of paper tagged to the door. Please note that as you read this your suppose to feel suspenseful and a slight creepy at what could possible by on this paper. Its not very interesting, its a calendar, dating this year with only two months on it, October and November, and there are two dates on it circled. November 14th and November 19th. I've been counting down the days for weeks now and the time is drawing near.

for reasons that i am not about to divulge i have been invited to a press event. The nintendo press event where they will present the wii, and many of their games. Some launch games and possible some coming up this Christmas, i don't know what to expect.

all i know is i will be there with my camera getting as much footage as i can because this is as close as I'm going to get to getting that sweet inside coverage.

ahhhh, excitement rises.


but enough about that. Lets talk about the wii. For those of you who don't know much this is a nice summary of what you can read on wikipedia, i am just telling you what i know.

I'm not going to bother going into details on the controller, because everyone already knows this but here are some things you may not have known that shocked me.

  • the wii will have sort of a series of TV channels where you check the forecast, the news, and even surf the web. Also there is a neat avatar system that allows you to make cute little customizable people called "miis". You can interact with them in a small level and you can also take them into a game, included with the wii package called "wii sports". You can then play tennis, and baseball, yadda yadda yadda.
  • you can buy old Nintendo titles online using something called "Nintendo points". How you buy them is still unknown to me but they are basically chips for cashing in for games. 2000 points will cost about 25 Canadian. This can get you a combination of different games, which leads me to the price. N64 games will cost 1000 points, SNES games will cost 500 points, and NES games will cost 200 points. So basically you are buying a game you probably already own for a very cool price. Its true you are buying these games again but speaking from experience it is a LOT cheaper then playing them on old systems. The only thing I'm going to say of this is, today, even on eBay, SNES games can still cost you up to 15 bucks, NES games, 10, and N64.... jeeze, i bet you can still pay up to 30 dollars for one, if its popular enough. But with Nintendo points you are paying 12 Canadian for N64 games, 6 for SNES games and less then three for NES games. i guess that why they made Nintendo points, it would look kind of silly paying three dollars over the internet just for one NES game, so you buy some points and spend the points, and save the points for your next purchase.
  • the wii takes standard sized discs (i know can you believe it?), SD cards, and its backwards compatible 100% with Gamecube stuff. There's more I'm sure but this is the main stuff.

anyways, i will be uploading my findings on youtube, November 14th, and i will post the URL here, straight to there. Hope to see you real soon

Friday, November 10, 2006

virtual vs. The real world.

it is not hard to miss the popularity in online poker these days. People from all over the world are join these online poker games, and betting away on the virtual table. I am not really familiar with these, first hand its more for my mom then anyone. But watching and witnessing the excitement of the game, compacted into a little screen I can almost see the attraction. However, recently I have taken part in a social gathering, and have been playing some fun poker, for pretend chips. I have to say its quite a rush. I cant really see someone fully experiencing the full thrill of poker online. It seems that nowadays, people will discard their real life traditions, just because a smaller version has appeared on our digital machines. It worries me. I fear a world where everyone is transfixed in a virtual world. It would be kind of like the matrix, where people could fly and experience it on a whole new level. Thinking about it more I believe this would be very cool, however, people should use this ability responsibly, and I'm not talking about, taking breaks and walking around. I'm talking about going outside and finding some real world experiences. I know this is kind of hard to conceive for a gamer. Why experience the real world when you can stop all over a city with your mech?

I will attempt to answer this question.

alright... Say you really like fighting games. Say you've played mortal kombat, street fighter, and all those virtual fighters to death, and there is no one who can challenge your awesome skill. What now? This is not healthy. If all you do is play fighting games, then you are sucking the fun out of the experience. I suggest you go and join a karate club. Experience it first hand, then not only will you be enjoying yourself and experiencing something you love at a new level but when you go back and play your fighting games, you might notice or recognize, some moves that your character does. It's like the guy who does nothing but watch movies. Sooner or later he should go and try to film, even if he's not very good, he will be experiencing it first hand and it will be a healthy balance.


I'm not saying playing video games isn't hella fun, because it is, but experiencing it in the real world is always better. But just because I think this does not mean I'm going to roll people into a giant ball and set them on fire, or buy some guns and go on a rampage.

you've obviously got to use moderation, but I shouldn't tell you this, your smart enough you can figure that out on your own.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

I had a discussion with one of my friends today about violence in gaming vs. Violence in the real world. I think its sad that some people have bought so much into the media and propaganda, that they are not willing to experience new things. Our main game was of course grand theft auto.

lets get a few things straight here. If someone goes outside a kills a few people. Its not the game, he needs professional help. Then people try and argue that it was the violence in the game that triggered the idea, that violence was the way to go. When your at the sociological level, that you feel the urge to murder, anything can trigger this idea. Most likely you'll get the idea from TV, from watching the news. You be flipping through the channels and suddenly there will be that familiar monotone voice, that we have all identified as the news person. "and also today a women and her four year old child was killed today as a madman flung though the mall with an AK-47....." And then it'll hit you. WHACK! "oh yaaaa, I don't need to put up with this shit, I'm old enough I can go buy a gun, and blow whoever pisses me off, straight to the moon"

its not the games, its the people. people drive people crazy, literally! If a kid is picked on or spanked by his parents, he's going to remember it, and so it'll only be a matter f time before he'll be the one with the AK-47.

people think games are the cause, the influence, the trigger. Games are a source of entertainment, that's it. Just like reading is a source of entertainment, just like music is a source of entertainment, just like movies are a source of entertainment. Just about anything you do outside of work and school is a source of entertainment. So you have to ask yourself, is it really the shooting in the game that caused that guy to go nuts, or is it the shooting outside of the game that caused that guy to go crazy.
Aren't you tired of it all? Tired of all the sequels, the brand name mascots, and the overall same junk being overused to the point where we are left asking the question "what was it we were rooting for in the first place?".

I am.


my name is Baron von Boxman and I am an old time fan of the gaming world.


what do I mean by old time fan? Well in cruder words, basically I am an old time gamer. I know there are people who doutb my experience, who say you have to be old to be an old time gamer. This is not true. The first game I ever played was yoshi's island. I loved it and replay it from time to time. But that's a few generations of gaming lost. I have made it my goal to experience past generations of gaming and have even gone to the extremes of rebuilding past consoles.

yah I hear you, "what do you want a medal?"

I am simply proving the fact that I have a few high scores under my belt as far being a gamer. Maybe if you thought I was serious about what I do you'll take my opinion seriously. Now back to my original point. I have a list of games. A list of games, where when I hear any name of a game on my list, I quiver and expel a look of complete disgust.

here is my list:

  1. final fantasy
  2. halo
  3. devil may cry
  4. street fighter
  5. resident evil
  6. Jag and Daxter (anyone one of them)
  7. ratchet and clank
  8. Socom
  9. and Metriod

if you play any one of these games, you are no lesser then most people, I wont think negatively of you or start calling you names or anything like that, but be warned if I hear someone ranting on about how cool any one of these games are and how the next one is going to be even better, I have lost all respect for you.

of course that's not to say I don't do the same things, but I do them for a large range of different games, I don't just wait for the next sequel.

the sequels that I'm looking forward to are super smash bors, Mario galaxies, and half-life: episode three, of course, if I may say something about half-life, I am only looking forward to it for the kick-ass additional material that comes with it such as portal and team fortress 2.

but what do you care eh?

all I'm saying is before you go on about the next halo, try something else, first. There are many, MANY better alternatives, and if you cant see that I only got two words for you,

game over.