World's Worst Man

I broke down and bought the Wii component cables from Nintendo's site, after I learned that EB Games wouldn't be getting them until January. They were $35.99 CDN, which probably isn't bad because I figured EB Games would sell them for $40. Of course, now I'm paying $7 for shipping, but at least I know I'll be getting it.

Even though I'm sure Sony would be raked over the coals for something frivolous like this, it's still frivolous shit. It's not like about 500,000,000 people couldn't have come up with the idea for something like the Wii-remote. Clearly Nintendo blatantly stole this incredibly unique and obscure idea from a small company based out of California.

Super Swing Golf, Wario Ware or Trauma Center. I need to see some reviews on the first two before I buy them, and need to think about Trauma Center a bit more before I buy anything.

Oh yea, it only uses the 512mb of flash memory

Wii remotes cost $45 in Canada, and the game looks to be retailing for $50 in the US. Which means it'll probably go for $55-$60 here, so if the game is crap, I'm not going to pay an extra $10 or $15 to get the game along with a remote. Although the complaints about depth of gameplay are interesting. What they said is basically what I think about Wii Sports, that it's just a glorified tech demo/tutorial. But Wii Sports seems popular, so that would say to me that Wii Play won't do a whole lot worse. Unless the mini-games really suck or something. Off-topic: Since I'm too lazy to look and don't remember if I've asked this, are GameCube games going to be released for the VC?

Pool and shooting sounds awesome. I'll probably get the game just for the Wii-remote anyway.

I'm actually watching anime again, and I started with Texhnolyze. It's quite moody, ambiguous and slow-moving so far, which isn't necessarily a negative. It's quite interesting actually.

1.78:1 is 16:9.

I like watching movies that fill my screen without having to distort the picture, so I went with 16:9. And for a standard TV, the black bars don't take up a ridiculous amount of the screen like they do in 2.35:1.

Chalk me up as another one who liked Super Mario World more than SMB3. Maybe because the SNES was the first console I ever really wanted (as a 4 year old, I didn't really know any better when I got a NES), so playing the game ended up having special meaning.

I liked most of the mini-games and the hidden skills (even if most of them were useless). They're just kind of smaller things, but it's all good. Oh, I don't hate the game enough to not it. I might sound like I'm dumping on the game, but that's pretty much the way I am with everything. I like to be thorough, so I might bring up some issues with a game, but it doesn't mean I think it's bad. Hell, I could put together a few paragraphs on FFXII's large flaws, but I still thought it was very good. Same with TP. Tales of Abyss, Valkyrie Profile 2, Grandia III, Magna Carta and Shadow Hearts: From the New World are all kind of recently released RPGs that aren't typical fare. I will admit that it's easier for RPG developers to mix things up, just because there are more options. They can significantly change how characters progress and how battles are fought, two things that can't change a whole lot in the Zelda series without making it a completely different game. As I said, there's not really much they can do to significantly change the games, outside of completely rehauling the battle and character system. And if they added something like character leveling, the game is then an RPG. Not like I'd complain Not really a matter of getting sick of them, more that I don't like certain parts of the formula. And I've probably overstated my dislike of the game and series in general. LTTP is still my favourite SNES game. And I still like a good chunk of this game, and my gripes basically amount to me not thinking the game is truly great, but it's still very good. The dungeons and mini-games are fun, I just don't like the battle, platforming elements and a lot of the forced events/puzzles that happen outside the dungeons. Aaaanyway, I still liked WW more than TP A replay might change my mind though, I kind of don't remember specific details about the game.

And how much of the game does this make up? That's what I thought. Jousting? I've done like, 2 jousts in 30 hours of gameplay. Hidden skills? Don't they have to actually require some effort to be found, to be considered hidden? The fishing, sumo wrestling and flying games are fun. But my god, that's such a pitifully small part of the game. The meat of the game, is unchanged. The combat plays almost exactly the same, the game progresses almost exactly the same, etc. Come now, there's no need to take such offense. Criticism based on some observations isn't the end of the world, nor does criticism necessarily mean the game isn't good. Indeed there are many cookie-cutter RPGs, even if you have exaggerated the situation by leaps and bounds. Lets just say I'm referring to the ones that provide some significant changes in gameplay, of which there are quite a few these days. Afterall, Zelda is such a fantastically great series right? Why not compare it to the high-end RPGs or action games? If you think the OoT and TP have massively different gameplay structures, I don't know what to say. Maybe I'd ask if you've actually played the games, but I don't want to fuel the smarminess that seems to be growing by the minute. But seriously, if you enjoy the formula, great. I enjoy the strategy RPG formula, so I enjoy cookie-cutter SRPGs more than I enjoy cookie-cutter action/adventure games. I just wouldn't consider the SRPG in question to be the greatest game of all time~! Funny you should mention DQVIII though, as the cookie-cutter gameplay was my largest complaint with the game.

Graphic cards are definitely the worst part of the PC right now (for having to constantly upgrade). These days, a top of the end CPU might last 3-4 years as "high-end", but graphics cards tend to get improved upon on a yearly basis. And a top of the line card will run you $400-500, the price of an XBox 360 or PS3

Surely the developers being disappointed with it proves that the game wasn't any good. Maybe they were disappointed it didn't sell well, ostensibly because Zelda fans tend to be fairly adverse to change. I'll take tighter control (better hit detection, in combat or otherwise, less of a "loose" feel when moving, making it easier to navigate small pathways and the like) and a slightly more in-depth combat system (WW had something of a combo system and more special moves I believe) over having to switch items out a little bit more frequently, thank you very much. Plus a more epic and interesting world (large worldmap, lots of out of the way places to explore), and less of a cookie cutter approach in general. 80% of Zelda fans also seem to be idiots who get offended at an 8.8 score for one of "their" games. I don't think the fact that they're clamoring for cookie cutter gameplay really proves that the game is any good. It's a smart move on Nintendo, since they don't have to be creative with the gameplay, but that's really not what I was getting at. I pretty much don't like the formula anymore, as I believe it's been played out. Add to that the hack and slash gameplay that is done much better by pure action games, and the story and exploration that is done much better by RPGs, and I don't see a lot to get excited about anymore. I don't even know what they could do with the gameplay to make it more interesting, short of fundamentally changing how the game is played. And I can imagine how that would end.

The thing with PCs is the price. At any given time, a high-end system will run around $2000, so it's quite a bit of a step up from even the costly PS3. Console software also tends to be quite a bit better. There's no way PC RPGs hold a candle to console RPGs in this day and age. Not only that, but the genre seems to be dying a slow death on the PC anyway. And as mentioned above, it's not just RPGs or fighters. Consoles just get a wider variety of games. I would argue that the XBox and 360 are more of a poor man's PC, while the PS2/3 is home to more "pure" console games. But still, a poor man's PC will sell to the people who can't afford the real deal. Even if stuff like Halo wouldn't even come close to cracking a top 10 FPS list on the PC.

Are we now at a point where nostalgia is applicable to 5th gen games? I guess I no longer have to worry about 16-bit era fanboys who complain that people only liked FFVII because of the graphics. Colour me confused about the OoT shot though. I mean c'mon, TP and OoT are basically the same game. TP's advantage is the crummy, uninteresting wolf gimmick (so not really an advantage) and a better plot. OoT's advantage is that it came out 10 years ago when the formula hadn't been played out already. Oh well, I'll take Wind Waker's better control and generally more interesting world anyway.

#3 in the US seems a more likely destination. If Nintendo goes another generation with mostly 1st party titles as their only worthwhile exclusives, it's going to be a tough go. Quality exclusives (or semi-exclusive) are what ultimately drive console sales, and Nintendo consoles haven't been able to touch Sony for the last 2 generations. As for multi-platform games, unless others are enjoying the Wii controls a hell of a lot more than I am, I don't think they're going to be a big determining factor. Which means the greatly superior graphics of the 360 and PS3 will attract the buyers of the multi-platform games to those systems. Now, world-wide I see the Wii being #2, just because it probably will be closer to the 360 in the US than the Gamecube was to the Xbox. And Japan, well, the Wii sold about 3x more units in 1 day than the 360 sold in 1 year, so yea. Which leaves Europe, which is a pretty good Sony market, but who knows how things will break down there this time around.

I get the same rupee messages. Very annoying. I think I had 7 hearts going into the lake temple, came out with 9. Now I just finished the desert temple (after lake) and I have 11.

Desert dungeon boss = awesomest boss fight ever.

Not as of yet. I ran into a nifty bug with the nunchuk though. A couple times yesterday, my analog stick direction input got "stuck" even though actual controller stick did not. Had to reconnect the nunchuk to the remote to fix it. I think it may have had something to do with me moving the stick in a certain direction, and then moving the remote well off the screen. At least, thats what seemed like triggered it both times. When you turned on the system you probably had the stick tilted in some direction, and that was set as the "neutral" position. This happens on every current system that has an analog stick. It happened during the course of the game. I think if you move the remote completely off screen to where it stops registering the remote as being there, and then move it back into the proper position while having the analog stick pointed in a certain direction, it's the same thing as if you turned on the system with the stick being pointed in a certain direction. Luckily all you need to do is reconnect the nunchuk and it fixes it up.

Not as of yet. I ran into a nifty bug with the nunchuk though. A couple times yesterday, my analog stick direction input got "stuck" even though actual controller stick did not. Had to reconnect the nunchuk to the remote to fix it. I think it may have had something to do with me moving the stick in a certain direction, and then moving the remote well off the screen. At least, thats what seemed like triggered it both times.

512 megs of flash memory really is way, way more than enough for game saves. I doubt I'll even use 10% of that space. Even on PS2, with 2 8 meg memory cards, I rarely ran into space issues. And Wii games seem to use even less space than PS2 games.

Not perfect = improved textures, less blur, and 480p support? That is, going by Mario 64. Of course, supposedly rumble is out, but we haven't seen a game that originally supported rumble yet on VC. Plus, Nintendo plans to offer updates to some VC games. Reggie himself said that they planned to have sold a million Wiis sold by December 1st, BTW. As far as we know, that many haven't even been released. I'd expect Nintendo would be touting that today if they'd have met that goal. I was referring to standard PC-based emulation. I would hope that the Wii emulation was perfect (or reasonably close) and by most accounts it seems to be. 5th gen PC emulation being flawed, while the Wii's emulation being good, makes the N64 games more attractive to me.

The convenience of the VC was never the issue, it was the price. $5 for an NES game with 20 minutes of playability doesn't seem like a good deal to me. SNES games are obviously quite a bit better, but then you're looking at an $8 price-tag, which is what you can get used PS1 generation games for. Add to the fact that NES and SNES generation emulation is basically perfect, and that sours the deal even more for me. Whereas N64 era emulation is not perfect, and the games will generally have more playability, which makes it a better deal for me, even if the price is still a bit high. So I think the price is too high in general, regardless if the person is a casual who doesn't play ROMs on their computer. I think a better price point might be $2 for 3rd gen, $4 for 4th, $6 for 5th. That way you're not paying as much or more than a physical game might cost, while keeping the 3rd gen games low enough to where you can buy a big chunk of games for a good price.

Nothing. Online = buddy list + Mii sharing + Virtual Console.