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

MY character

More than ten years ago I remember seeing a certain ad for an accessory for the SEGA Genesis. I can’t recall what the name of the product was, not even clear on what it did exactly, but I remember it offered the possibility to save your game characters and take them with you. At that moment my mind went on this trip about being able to save your character and play it in other games. Keep in mind I was a kid then.

It was pretty much hours of fantasizing. “What if I could take this guy and play it on that game?” I wondered. Take a second and think of a situation where this would not kick ass. What if I could load Sonic The Hedgehog into Street Fighter? Better yet! Mortal Kombat! Of course we all know this is not possibility. It would be impossible to program every game to be able to accept every kind of character. I figured that out that same day, duh!

Fast forward to the 90s. I gawk at the concept of M.U.G.E.N. I see glorious “Sonic VS Mario” fights. I was right, it DOES kick ass to bring characters into other games. Of course in this case whoever did that had to reprogram the characters to fit in a fighting game engine, and was probably violating all kinds of laws, but that’s not my point.

When the Playstation came out, it faced the challenge of not being able to save your game into CDs, for that they invented the memory card. By now you should have figured out this is a spinoff from the previous article. I would scan through magazines waiting for the chance to see my dream come true; a game in which you could save your character to the memory card to play in another game. To this day I have seen no such thing. That’s one of the reasons I cried when the Dreamcast died. I knew the promise of the VMU and the Naomi board died as well.

Character customization is a big deal nowadays (especially since the advent of MMOGs) as well as cross-genre sequels. I hope the dimwits at Silicon Valley eventually put 1 and 1 together. Maybe I like this custom character so much I’d like to see how it does in this other game. Maybe after I get my “guy” to level 900 I’ll get tired of your RPG. Maybe I don’t want to buy that sequel cuz I don’t feel like starting over. Maybe I should go back to bed. *yawn*

Insert coin(s) to start!

I think my brightest memory of an arcade game was a booth they had at a local theater when Street Fighter II came out. I could just stand there and watch the "demo mode" forever. It was something about the bass on that one booth. The music was thumping and the manly announcer made you wanna poop your pants. ROUND ONE... FIGHT!!

They had Darkstalkers and MK2 at a bakery near my high school. Sweet times. I also loved when MK3 came out. The one I played was fresh out of the box and the game seemed to be in beta mode or something, because some features didn't work. Still it was awesome.

Honorable mention to the Simpsons’ arcade, a rare beat-em-up game that I barely ever see, Point Blank, and Chase HQ.

What I loved about arcade games when I was a kid was that they weren't always there. Like you'd go on vacation and there'd be this game you'd get obsessed with there, or when you'd beg your mom to take you with her to the Laundromat so you could play some puzzle bubble. Knowing that you'd eventually have to leave the game made it special.

Also, at least back in the day, arcades always had something you just couldn’t have at home. Usually better graphics, but also that sweet arcade stick, the big, mashable buttons, and of course the ones with a steering wheel, pedals and a seat. Later on the racing games had subwoofers in the seats, and the steering wheels and light guns had motion feedback. That just made it worth it.

Sadly, most of the time I just didn't have a quarter on me so I would have to just stand there and enjoy the intro sequence over and over again. When I did have a quarter I’d shy away from games that seemed too challenging, fearing I’d lose my investment too soon. In some games I'd only play when there was nobody around to challenge me and beat the crap out of me. God I hated that.

Still, I find it disturbing that the arcade game business is dying. Every year less and less arcade games are made for the US arcade market. When you go to your local arcade joint it’s all about the kiddy rides, the DDR and those 3 Marvel Versus Capcom booths they have. You go there for old time’s sake, but nothing surprises you anymore. Why is this? Have they run out of ideas of machines with features that cannot be mass-produced for home use? Are they not making profit at $2 a pop?

I’m pretty sure with proper distribution the market could soar again. They could sell booths to businesses like restaurants and such, not just TimeOuts and such. There could be games with online features, and mad, mad hardware.

They could complement console games, like they wanted to do with the Dreamcast and its arcade counterpart, the Naomi board. Back then you would save your game to your VMU, play it all the way to the mall, then stick the VMU in an arcade console and do some crazy shit with your character. That would be so freakin' sweet. Just imagine playing Phantasy Star Online all week at home, then taking care of your MAG as a virtual pet on the VMU, then loading your pimped-out RAcast on some whacked up high-speed FPS or something.

Why, I say, WHY do they hate us so?

Blogfreeze!

I just created this blog only to realize I won't be able to post anything for the next 6 days. Sorry bout that. Stay tuned!