Updated as often as I can manage

 



Wednesday, October 27, 2004  

Today is an important day. It's the day GTA: San Andreas comes out, a game I've been eagerly anticipating for over a year. Regular blog readers know my GTA addiction by now anyway.

So it figures that I trip, fall, and suffer a suspected fractured arm today at work. I'll know more when I get X-rayed tomorrow, but needless to say: I'm not going to play any more GTA any time soon.

Posted at 4:11 AM



Saturday, October 23, 2004  

More Xbox Live action! I picked up NBA Live the other day and had a crazy game with Mukund. A brief Lakers rant first: Oh my god the 2004/2005 Lakers suck. They are so bad it's unreal. Lamar Odom is rubbish (seriously, he can't hit a shot). Caron Butler is rubbish. Brian Grant is rubbish-er. Vlade Divac is near useless, which perversely makes him the second best player on the team. And Kobe is pretty damned good and pretty damned clutch (dunno if there's actually a stat for it, but he seems to come up big late). But Kobe is just one guy, and he's not God -- he does miss shots. Which leaves me with a very big problem. I'm a Laker guy. Not being the Lakers hurts me inside. So I had to be them, and I got pasted by Muk (Sacramento Kings) in the first game before he disconnected. I just had no options anywhere except Kobe.

So, I gave in. I picked a team other than the Lakers. And I went with the obvious choice: Shaquille O'Neal and the Miami Heat. And despite giving up almost 10 points in ratings to Muk (the Heat are rated 83, Lakers 88, Kings 92) it was the perfect fit for me. I had the most dominant inside presence possible with Shaq. I had a good outside threat with Eddie Jones. I had a slasher with Dwyane Wade. And I had two decent role players in Christian Laettner and Rasuol Butler. I say again: I'm a Laker fan. I live and breathe the Lakers. It knaws at my conscience to be someone other than the Lakers. But I had to do it, and it worked.

I was down by 6-7 points early, but no panic: I was getting into the groove, Eddie Jones was doing well on the fast break, Shaq was huge inside, and Wade was making some highlight reel plays. But every time I cut the gap down to a point or two, Muk would suddenly reel away and start a scoring binge to get the lead up to 12 points. The main problem was I kept fouling him and he kept making free throws... but when he fouled me, I kept missing mine.

Roll on the fourth quarter. The game's getting tight. And then things start happening. Muk starts missing easy jumpers. He starts making stupid plays (getting called for charging and three-in-the-key). Shaq starts making blocks. Eddie Jones hits a pair of HUGE threes. Wade slashes inside for monster dunks. And Laettner hits some clutch jumpers. While the Kings start choking and frittering away a 12 point lead (I'm starting to think the clutch stat is real, and as in reality the Kings score a solid 0 on it). And what do you know? With two minutes left, it's a one point game. At this point, we're going nuts. Muk is standing up. I'm screaming with every play (it's 4am, remember). We're trading blows. Peja hits a three. Wade gets a layup and foul for a three point play. Shaq rejects Brad Miller. Miller blocks Laettner. It's end to end stuff. And then Muk gets desperate and starts intentionally fouling me. I couldn't believe it -- he's using Hack-a-Shaq not on Shaq himself, but on ANYONE because he knows I can't make a free throw to save my life. Except now I dial up my own clutch meter and I start making free throws, much to my relief and his annoyance.

20 seconds left now and the Heat are up 65-64. Muk calls a time out (as you do to advance past half-court) and inbounds to Miller. I figured he'd use all the time available, but instead Miller finds good position and hits a jumper with 13 seconds left. So I call time and quickly inbound it to Wade. I know I could give it to Shaq, or Eddie, but I was worried about Hack-a-Shaq. So I figured there was only one play to run: Wade driving to the hoop. I waste time, waste time... then a quick crossover and Wade drives hard to the hoop, Miller and Webber move over to block him, Wade goes up, gets contact, throws up the layup and nails it. Miami up 67-66 with 2.6 seconds left. Muk grabs the ball, hits the time out button, and...

TECHNICAL FOUL.
MIAMI BALL.

He had no time outs left. HE HAD NO FREAKING TIME OUTS LEFT! He obviously totally forgot (and in fairness, so did I) and gave up the last possession of the game to me. I kept it, time ran out, and the Heat squeaked it 67-66.

And I still can't believe he used Hack-a-Shaq against me.

Posted at 6:40 AM



Friday, October 08, 2004  

I hate to say it, but I'm totally underwhelmed by the DS.

I think maybe my hopes were too high. I just thought that when Nintendo unveiled a handheld with a slew of outlandish (for gaming, anyway) features like two screens, a touchscreen and a stylus I figured they actually had some revolutionary ideas to back it up. So I kept waiting, and waiting, and waiting for something that makes their wacko hardware decisions make sense. And I'm still waiting.

Before that though, just LOOK at the list of US launch titles. It's embarassing. Nintendo's lone title is a remake of Super Mario 64, while the rest of them are ports (Feel the Magic XX/XY is a notable exception, as is Ping Pals which curiously seems to provide the same service as the built-in PictoChat, just not as good). Those 11 titles aren't terribly impressive, but then to add insult to injury not all of them will be available at launch anyway. The Japanese launch is better and gives me slightly more hope, if only for the appearance of Sawaru! Made in Wario.

But this is the thing: This is a revolutionary piece of hardware, and the two games I want... are a sequel and a port. I LOVE Made in Wario (I'm counting down the days until the GBA sequel Mawaru! Made in Wario comes out), but come on: It's a collection of freaking minigames! Super Mario 64 I want solely because it's Mario, but I'm not exactly pumped for it because of the DS's controller. Super Mario 64 was made for the N64's controller, and I just can't see how it'll work on that d-pad.

What really bugs me is that we still have yet to see a use for the dual screens. Look at that list again. Do any of those games have a good use for two screens? No, not really. I don't consider a map or (however useful it may be in Animal Crossing) an inventory screen a good use for a second screen. In fact, the best use is probably in Madden, and that's a... map. And the touchpad seems awfully gimmicky too, though I'm reserving judgement until they can work out whether it's feasible to turn the touchpad into a pseudo-analog-stick.

To be honest though, the root of the problem is that I don't think even Nintendo knows what to do with the hardware. Instead of a situation like the N64 where you have a console and controller that were pretty much moulded to fit the needs of Super Mario 64, with the DS Nintendo have made this admittedly interesting piece of hardware and have asked developers to make sense of it. And I don't think they have yet. Made in Wario makes decent use of the system's features, but that's a collection of minigames. Feel the Magic does as well... but that's ALSO a collection of minigames. Yoshi's Touch & Go? A game built around the Baby Mario Balloon Trip tech demo. Notice how the announced games have a whole bunch of extra modes and control schemes attached? That's because a month and a half from launch they STILL don't know what they're going to do with it. Super Mario 64 isn't a great fit for the DS... so they're porting it anyway and throwing in a bunch of minigames that DO fit the DS.

On the bright side (yes, there is a bright side)... despite Nintendo's best efforts, this thing might actually do pretty damned well against the PSP. It's cheap, it's out early, and it's getting a good deal of hype (and I've heard from a few developers that it's actually generating quite a bit of interest from publishers). But on the other hand, the unit itself is damned ugly, it's pretty underpowered (those screens look more PSone than N64, warping textures, pixellation and all), and it's not sure what it wants to be -- it has a stylus, supposedly has more "mature" PDA-esque functions, but is sold on the basis of a Mario game and a wireless chat advertised by kids doodling funny pictures. Contrast this to PSP, which has no trouble whatsoever in knowing what market it wants to nail: It's cool-looking, it's powerful, it plays MP3s, and it's gunning for the iPod's place as a hip young adult's signature gadget (whether it succeeds however is an entirely different story). The DS? I can't picture it with a kid or an adult.

Still, part of being a Nintendo fan is being stupidly optimistic. So I'm hopeful that somehow, somewhere, Nintendo will pull a rabbit out of Miyamoto's hat and make everything better. Deluded? Oh yes...

Posted at 11:06 PM



Thursday, October 07, 2004  

Sorry for the outage in bloggage, but a few things have been going on recently. In general, I just have too many games that I have to play. But on a more pressing note, my room is being renovated and so in the meantime I've moved several key items (G5, Xbox, GameCube, PS2, iPod er, wallet...) to my grandfather's room and I'm living there while he's away. This means I'm struggling to do anything, since although I do have wireless access throughout the whole house I didn't install an AirPort Extreme card into my G5 (one of those "like I'm ever moving my G5, why would I EVER need a wireless card?" moments that I now totally regret). So, no email, IRC, or the usual IM stuff for me for the next two weeks, and all my Earthly possessions are scattered around the house for people to prod and peck and touch. On the bright side, once this trial of fire is over I'll have a revamped room with a nice surround sound system waiting for me.

Posted at 2:41 AM