Monthly Archive for January, 2007

Yoshi’s Island DS (Nintendo DS)

Published on January 31, 2007 in Video Games. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .
Yoshi’s Island DS

Yoshi’s Island DS is a direct sequel to the now classic Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. The game mechanics are essentially the same, with a few small but not particularly significant additions. This time around, Yoshi can swap between carrying Baby Mario and other babies, such as Baby Princess Toadstool and Baby Donkey Kong, each with unique abilities. This would work except for the fact that you can only do it at specific spots, which really slows down the game. The art style is also consistent with the SNES game. What’s weird is that it’s not nearly as charming this time around.

The controls are really solid and responsive, but the game is far too easy. The challenge comes from finding all the red coins and flowers in a stage, but it’s actually more tedious and time consuming than challenging. The pace is far slower than a traditional Mario game, to a point where I almost feel aggravated by it. The same thing happened to me with Super Princess Peach, which feels oddly similar to this game.

Nintendo farmed out the game to a third party developer, Artoon. I’m left wondering if Nintendo would have done more to make this game stand out from its predecessor as opposed to just giving us more of the same. Super Princess Peach was actually made by an uncredited third party developer, Tose. I’m hoping that explains the lackluster quality of both games.

Rituals

Published on January 30, 2007 in Stuff. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Today I did my regular pre-project procrastination ritual — cleaning up my desk and filing all my old bills and receipts. I sifted through four to six months of crap that I couldn’t have been bothered with before I felt the need to procrastinate, and realized that for the last few years I’ve been doing this before I start any major paper, project, or lengthy task. I didn’t think I had any rituals that I really felt compelled to do under specific conditions, but I guess I do. I’m curious to see if I’ll catch myself doing another, but so far I can’t think of anything else like this.

This came at a good time, too, because I have to start thinking about taxes, and I should have gotten this shit together earlier in the month. Next step is to talk to my dad’s accountant to see how much he’d charge me.

Tonight I saw Children of Men again, this time with Asher and Lannice. The movie was just as good as it was the first time. I still don’t understand how the long take car shot was done… guess I’ll have to wait for the DVD special features.

The Wallet Debacle: Epilogue

Published on January 28, 2007 in Stuff. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

It’s been one week since the incident happened. I’m curious to see if the culprit will have the gall to call me up and ask about poker tonight, since as of last time I spoke with him on Monday he still maintained his innocence.

I’ll update this post if anything happens.

Update: He didn’t call.

Cars (Lasseter, 2006)

Published on January 26, 2007 in Movies. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .
Cars

Pixar’s animation is as beautiful as ever in Cars, but the film leaves much to be desired. When compared to a movie like The Incredibles, Cars is mediocre at best, and a huge disappointment for me in terms of my increased expectations from Pixar.

I was bored through the first half of Cars. The second half was better, but not good enough to save the movie. It just felt like a poor rehash of Pixar’s now typical fish-out-of-water fare, which is beginning to grow stale.

Now I’m just looking forward to Pixar’s next movie, Ratatouille, which seems much more promising, particularly because it’s being directed by Brad Bird (The Incredibles, The Iron Giant).

The Wallet Debacle: Conclusion

Published on January 25, 2007 in Stuff. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Last night I got a call from a someone saying they found my wallet. It was a kid that goes to Patrick Henry High, and he and his mom came over earlier tonight to drop my wallet off. It turned out he found it in the canyon across the street from the school’s football field as he was walking on the sidewalk. It looked like someone had tossed it out a car window. Everything was still in the wallet, except for the $80 in cash I had in there. Even the receipts I had mixed up with the money were still in there. However, I’ve already wasted my time canceling credit cards and getting a new ID.

The fact that the wallet was actually found basically confirms my suspicions. I’m not upset about losing the money, except maybe for my lucky $2 bill. But I’m completely pissed off that someone who I trusted enough to invite into my house stabbed me in the back for $80. He’s had three opportunities to man up and admit his theft, but he hasn’t. He’s burned any bridge that he has with me, and perhaps with several of my friends by association. Fuck that guy.

The Wallet Debacle

Published on January 24, 2007 in Stuff. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

I’m sitting here waiting for video to render and export, so I figured it’s as good of a time as any for an update.

I played poker Sunday night, which went phenomenally well. My incredible luck led me to make $64 in profit, which is highly unusual for me, since I tend to lose money or break just over even. But that’s not the interesting part of this story. Some time between wrapping up poker and leaving for lunch with Asher the next day in the afternoon, my wallet vanished into thin air.

I strongly believe that someone took it intentionally. After the game, I went to my desk and put my money back in my wallet, and then put it safely in its place. In the events that transpired after that, only one person had the opportunity to take it, and because of the complete lack of evidence to prove otherwise, I’m left with little recourse but to believe that this was the case.

WalletSince I didn’t touch it after putting my money back, there is no chance whatsoever that it fell or got misplaced, especially since I looked all over for it despite this without result. If my wallet isn’t where I left it after someone else witnessed me putting it there, and I can’t find it in my house, then obviously the wallet is outside of my house. If I didn’t leave my house during that time, then that must mean someone else left the house with my wallet.

I didn’t know the person that I suspect very well. I guess I knew him even less well than I thought. I ended up confronting him about it on the phone, and obviously he denied any wrongdoing. As circumstantial as my evidence may be, I’m still convinced this is exactly what happened. Needless to say, I feel perturbed by this whole ordeal.

Then of course, there’s the issue of the inconvenience. I’ve had to cancel all my credit cards, go to the DMV for a new ID, replace my insurance cards, etc. Bah.

Trauma Center: Second Opinion (Wii)

Published on January 22, 2007 in Video Games. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .
Trauma Center: Second Opinion

Trauma Center: Second Opinion is a surgery game for the Wii. The game uses the Wiimote as a pointer in an interface that involves mainly pointing, clicking, and dragging. The nunchuck is used to switch between the surgical tools at your disposal.

Second Opinion is a remake of Trauma Center: Under the Knife for the Nintendo DS. While I haven’t yet played the DS version, the game feels more suited for that system. The controls in the Wii version are great for the most part, but it gets tiring and frustrating after long stretches, especially when you throw in stuff like holding down two buttons while drawing a pentagram on the screen to activate “Healing Touch,” a power that slows down time. Even in Normal mode the game requires superhuman speed and precision, and I’d feel more comfortable playing it on a touchscreen system.

In between operation stages, the story progresses through text-based dialogue cut scenes that aren’t particularly engaging. To be fair, this isn’t the central draw of the game, but they could have been a bit better, especially when you compare them to the stuff in Phoenix Wright.

Trauma Center: Second Opinion is a solid game, but be prepared for some frustration.

Wario Ware: Smooth Moves (Wii)

Published on January 20, 2007 in Video Games. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .
Wario Ware: Smooth Moves

Last night I played through Nintendo’s latest installment of Wario Ware.

Wario Ware: Smooth Moves succeeds where Wario Ware: Touched failed — using the system’s control interface as the game’s central gimmick. In Touched, nearly all the games revolve around using the stylus on the DS touchscreen, which becomes boring after a while. In Smooth Moves, the Wiimote becomes the Form Baton, which you hold and manipulate in various ways in order to play. These “forms” start off with the Remote Control, the way most people would think to hold a Wiimote. As the game progresses, more ways to use the Wiimote are introduced, getting increasingly more ridiculous — the Waiter, Elephant, Thumb Wrestler, and Mohawk, to name a few. You’re forced to switch back and forth between various forms as you play minigames specialized for each. This makes for a fun time, especially when you play with other people. This is the first game since Wii Sports where the Wiimote really shines.

Smooth Moves has a staggering number of mini-games, and each one is a golden nugget of pure happiness. They showcase the franchise’s trademark sense of humor, as do the cut-scenes. A huge part of the charm of the series remains as great as ever here, which is that many of the mini-games involve doing extremely menial tasks, such as scanning produce at a supermarket, raking leaves, cleaning dishes, or even drinking water, yet Wario Ware makes these a blast and turns them into frantic Keystone Kops style comedy as the timer gets shorter, especially when you watch your friends play.

Part of the fun also comes from fucking up in the mini-games. Take water drinking, for example. What happens when you tip the glass too fast? You splash water all over the on-screen character’s face when you lose. Pure genius and comedy gold, especially when you watch a friend screw it up. It’s never as good as success, but the game still often gives you small rewards like this for failure.

The game’s downside is that it’s short. Taking turns with Lannice, we finished the game in a couple hours. We didn’t, however, unlock all the mini-games or try to break any records. The multiplayer modes also aren’t stellar, but taking turns playing the single player mode is still a blast.

I love the Wario Ware games, but I tend to get tired of them fairly quickly and stop playing them altogether until I feel an itch to play them again, which is why I’ve kept my copy of Wario Ware for the GBA. My recommendation is that you rent Smooth Moves, play it for a week, then buy it used cheap in a few months if you feel you’d like to own it.

Here’s another excellent review for the game, from 1up. The critic makes a lot of great points.

Final Fantasy VI (GBA)

Published on January 18, 2007 in Video Games. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

I read something about the Final Fantasy VI release for the GBA due out next month that made me pretty excited.

As for the English version, word has it that Square Enix is mostly sticking with the game’s original localization … But it won’t be a simple rehash; memory limitations reportedly forced the SNES team to cut roughly half of the game’s Japanese script, and everything previously lost will be restored on GBA. Although the decision not to completely overhaul the dialogue will inevitably rankle some of the game’s more frothing fanatics, the resulting balance between fidelity and nostalgia should offer the full depth of the story with the charming personality of the fan-favorite translation.

(Source: 1up)

If that’s not exciting to you, then you’re obviously not an FF whore like I am.

Boring

Published on January 18, 2007 in Stuff. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Despite my rather uneventful day today, my renewed commitment to update this thing regularly forces me to bore you with the details.

To give you an idea of just how dull it was, the highlight of my day was playing Final Fantasy V on my Nintendo DS while waiting for forty minutes at the Social Security office. My actual business there took about seven minutes, but that wasn’t the fun part.

Other than that, I’ve sent work-related e-mails, made a couple phone calls, and wasted time on the web.

Last night I watched four more episodes of 24 Season 5. While not as good as previous seasons, it’s still a fun show. I have two more discs left, and I’m looking forward to finishing it off. Now I’m catching up on season 3 of The Office. Hopefully I’ll catch another movie this weekend, maybe Letters from Iwo Jima.