Samba De Amigo

I'm about to make a pretty bold statement: Samba de Amigo > Guitar Hero (notice the bold type).

Now, put down your guitars, heroes, I come in peace. Months ago I had the opportunity to play this Guitar Hero game. I loved playing with the plastic guitar in my best possible bad ass pose and making the whammy bar go wawawawaoo. Good times. I told myself once I had the cash I’d buy a pair of guitars, but who are we kidding? Those suckers are ‘spensive! Might as well buy real guitars (and a band!) And if you’ve read anything on this blog you know poverty is one of my main concerns when choosing games.

So anyhow, through much sacrifice I got my kids a Wii this Christmas, the plan was to convince the rest of the family to get them games and wiimotes. I only got 1 wiimote and 1 game out of the deal but hey, there’s birthdays coming up! Anyhow, we were now in the hunt for cheap games. Enter Samba De Amigo. Just 20 bucks for a SEGA classic. Freekin’ bargain if you ask mii! (err… me).

So I pop that sucker in and was immediately captive of the epic opening theme. Freekin’ EPIC, man. Then I got to playing. It’s just like any other rhythm game, there are your “keys” and thingies slowly move towards them, you need to hit the key when the thingy hits it. In this case the keys are six fuit loops arranged in a circle. Up, down and middle for left and right hand. You hold the maracas (wiimotes) up down or straight forward and shake when the ball hits the uh… fruitloop. So you see at this point the game competes with games like DDR or Guitar Hero. Same game play mechanic. Guitar hero has the whammy bar, SDA has “rolls” where you get to shake it like you just sat on an anthill, meh, I’d say the whammy bar wins. On GH you point your guitar up to strike a pose, in SAD you are shown a picture of a pose and you get to emulate it, Mr. Pose wins, plus there are some dance moves done this way. Then there’s the music. Sweet, sweet music. Every stereotypical “latin song” is there. I make a pause to mention the rampant “latin” stereotypes, but it’s only a bit annoying if you understand (and care about) the culture. The songs will make you tap your feet and shake it just a bit if nobody’s watching, whereas when you play guitar hero you end up all sore from holding the bad-ass pose for too long. Also notice the lack of monkeys in Guitar Hero.

It’s a cheap game, just go get it. It’ll be fun especially if you have friends over.

Tip: If you have 2 wiimotes use them instead of the nunchuck.
Look me up, my friend code is 5069-8936-5083

Rune Factory: the dangers of farm life

I have sustained a farming injury that will most probably adversely affect my gaming routine. The purpose of this post is to warn prospective farmers of the dangers of Rune Factory. The world of Rune Factory is a dangerous world indeed… OK, before I confuse you further this is about an actual injury I sustained while playing the game.

I have been playing this game whenever I have a chance for the last two weeks. The first thing that I disliked about this game I dislike about many Nintendo DS games, and it is how they make you switch between stylus and gamepad controls constantly. A good DS games plays entirely with either, or at least a comfortable combination. Adding to this is the fact that in order for the character to run, one must hold the L button, which is fairly inaccessible on the DS Lite because one cannot press it from the side but has to instead reach around with the tip of the finger and press straight down. Why is this, I wonder? If there is no real use for walking slowly in this game unless when certain precision is wanted for farming, why not make WALKING optional? AH! How much comfortable (and safe) my life would be if I had to hold that blasted button only when I wanted to slow down!

Well, the result is my right hand to be in a constant pain not unlike that you feel when you suffer after excessive typing. My farming days are over… for a few days at least.

What do you mean "just kidding"?

Probably what made gaming suck the most for me, besides being poor, was the fact that my native tongue is not English. Being raised in Puerto Rico we were taught English in school, and I knew pretty much for my age when I was a kid, but it was not enough, really.

Here’s an example from my early childhood: Super Mario Bros 3. I loved the game, and there wasn’t much (or any) reading to be done at all. But when we finally beat the game, when the princess shows up, she would say “Thank you. But our Princess is in another castle! …Just kidding! Ha ha ha! Bye bye.” It was at this moment when my brothers and I started cursing at the TV. “What the hell do you mean in another castle? WE’VE LOOKED IN EVERY CASTLE!! NOOOOO!!” We would reset the NES and try again, this time making sure we checked everywhere. How were we supposed to know what “Just kidding” meant?

Later in life I was cursed with the suckage of having no friends that would play any games with “reading” on them. Sure I could handle adventure and even *gasp* Role Playing Games, but my peers would only play action games where the action was intuitive. I would find it most annoying how they would repeatedly stab the “start” button as soon as they turned on the console (even when the game was straight-out-of-the-box new) to skip the intro scenes, because they couldn’t understand all the scrolling text, anyway. Also, my main method for acquiring games was through trading. So how can I get good games if my peeps would avoid Zelda like the plague?

As games got more complex, even action games would require some reading at some point. And you couldn’t help feeling you would at some point miss an important clue. Even a few days ago I had a friend who was having problems with a game because he couldn’t solve a puzzle, only because he didn’t understand the riddle.

If movies are made, then translated into every language possible, why couldn’t they do this with games? Most games were made in Japan then translated to English, why not localize for other languages?

Anyway, the other day I was messing around with my DS and set the console’s language to Spanish. I was surprised and overjoyed when I discovered 2 out of the 4 games I owned would also change to Spanish, including The legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Publishers should include this in the list of features in the back of the game box. I’m holding three DS game boxes right now and they all have the same warning: “FOR SALE, RENTAL AND USE ONLY IN USA, CANADA, MEXICO AND LATIN AMERICA”. So the game developer went through the effort of enabling the game in Spanish… I’m pretty sure having this clearly stated in the box would help sell the game to our amigos in that other half of the Western Hemisphere.

Unrelated fact: It’s a weird coincidence that my children are watching Dora the Explorer as I type this. Man, Dora sure speaks some crappy Spanish! Anyway, that’s all for now! ¡Muchas gracias!

Picross DS

I find it very sad that I don't know anyone that plays Picross DS. I am not surprised either. I only have about, say, 4 friends that own a DS, plus maybe a handful of online acquaintances. The other reason I am not surprised is the cover art for the game. Look at it. Gosh it looks boring! I had read a lot about the game and it got excellent reviews from pretty much every source I know, still when I stepped into the store and held the box in my hands, I hesitated!

I guess what I’m trying to say, if you own a DS, run and buy Picross DS! NOW! You can finish reading this when you’re back. It should be under $20 nowadays, brand new! (The game doesn't have a feature to reset the memory so do NOT buy it used, also, it only saves data for 1 user, so buy an extra one for your significant other.)

OK now that you have the game, let me tell you a little more about it. The game is incredibly addicting. It has an obscenely good learning curve, and the difficulty increases oh so slightly as you play. You’re given a grid with numeric clues leading to some random pixilated work of art. The music is quite groovy, there are a couple to choose from, and when puzzles get too long you can just turn it off when you get tired of the looping.

There’s also “daily picross”; where you get to test your picrossing skillz once a day. The system gives you a grade and keeps track of your progress. There is a puzzle creation mode where you make your own crazy drawings/grids to share with your friends. Speaking of which…

There are tons of neat wireless features (for playing with a friend nearby) without the need of having your friends buy the game. You can play about four party games, like a hangman-esque guess the word game, a Pictionary-esque one and you can also race to finish a random puzzle.

Using the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection you can challenge anyone for a duel, race to solve two puzzles. There are probably more game modes for when you’ve got friends online. Finally you can upload your home-made puzzles for friends to download and likewise you may download puzzles from friends or from Nintendo.

Now turn on your DS, hook it up to a Wi-Fi and add me to your friends list. My friend code is: 197688 952441. I’ve spent hours creating some neat puzzles you might enjoy. Post your friend code as a comment in this post and I’ll look you up. Oh, and thanks for getting Picross DS. You’ll love it.

EDIT: I just found out the came CAN be reset, it's on the instruction booklet. I'm a moron.

My Wiilemma

I got my tax refund a couple days ago, and decided I’d spend some of it in gaming stuff. I set apart a $100 budget for such things. It was a late Saturday night and the only place open for business was a nearby Wal-Mart. There I went intent on buying assorted accessories to further pimp out my Nintendo DS.

Ah, imagine my surprise when my beloved spouse stumbled upon an unattended Wii entertainment system! I inspected it carefully to assure it wasn't a decoy, and then posted a guard to watch the console while I went for help from a store associate.

Have you ever wondered why the heck don't they manufacture more of those blasted Wii things?! The demand is evident; why not meet it with an increased production ratio? Why not keep shelves stocked with these fabulous white boxes of joy? I had to put it on lay-away, simply because I wasn't able to afford it at the moment. But I surely wanted to secure it before some clueless lady buys it for her undeserving child! It was then when I realized Nintendo's clever marketing campaign! You see, by keeping the supply limited, people feel more compelled to buy!

Visualize these scenarios:

• You walk into the store and there's a stack of Playstation-3s there. You say to yourself: "Ah! The third station of play! I must have it! I desire it so that I don't care if it is, as its name implies, a Playstation upgraded with better graphics but no innovation!" Then your conscience tells you: “Dude, there’s no way you can cough up the money for this overpriced blu-ray player. Maybe we should come back later, not like they’re going to run out of those, anyway.” You sigh and walk away.
• You see a shelf full of Xbox-360s. Then you see the Microsoft logo on the box and run away.
• You spot that very last Wii in the store. It s also the first one you see in months. You say to yourself: “WIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111” You say it out loud, actually. Then your conscience says: “Look at that poor Wii! It needs a home! Somewhere it will be loved! I wonder how much I can get for a lung on e-bay…”

As you can see, Nintendo is an evil corporation, and they’re making me spend money I don’t have. Oh, by the way, did I mention I got a Wii? WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111one