Frohe Whynachten

Oh yes, I forgot that I wanted to greet you all merrily for Christmas. Especially those who got some new pairs of socks! (°o° )

Long-living VG Oddities

 Did you ever ask yourself what the Space Pirates in the Metroid series really are?

I mean, they're an alien race appearing as outlaws and they're called Space Pirates, that's for sure, but what on earth makes them pirates? They don't seem to ambush civilists just for fun or mere random profit, since the Phazon came up they seem to seek galaxy domination, and they don't seem to gather in dark taverns to boast about unlikely adventures, spooky tales and pickup stories and most of all in order to drink GROG! GROG! GROG!. Instead those pesky wannabe-pirates seem to search for tactical advantages against the Galactical Federation, for example when they attacked Norion, Bryyo and Elysia at the beginning of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption or when they attacked Samus' homeworld in the online comic - almost like a military organization of their own. They even have a similar class hierarchy. So they're more soldier than pirate. I mean, okay, back in the days, on a ship there was a captain who was the highest rank on the ship and his crew probably was in some sort of order, too - but there always have been several different pirate groups and not a giant union of pirates. Unless you take the film Pirates Of The Caribbean 3: At World's End into consideration - which you clearly shouldn't ;^p [...]
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These soldier-pirates have been called like that since the SNES™-version, if not even since the very first game for the NES™. I mean, I can understand that. For the videogame developers of the eighties and nineties it was okay to take Space Pirates as foes, it was as okay as it was to make barrels and gorillas your foes or let the player walk on clouds. The videogamers didn't seem to care much who they fought against. It was still a primitive form of entertainment, these "videogames", they didn't have to have a great story. Just look at the Angry Video Game Nerd episodes to see what I mean. But the demands of us videogamers has changed and if you would bring out a videogame today where you're a space hunter and you'd have to fight space pirates, it better did not cost much money ... The same should approve for Metroid IMHO, but as a matter of course a change of conceptual things to invite some logic into this big name franchise is most certainly not going to happen.

What could be interesting to know is what they were called in the original, the japanese version - was it just a stupid translation? That wouldn't have been very unusual. But even as a translation error I don't think the japanese would have presented a better name for them.

Anyway, if you think further then you'll probably notice that Samus often encounters laboratories or research facilities where the Space Pirates execute their Metroid experiments, so the conclusion of this observation would be to think of them as scientists. But as you all know if Samus ever entered their territory they turned into firing and slashing annoyances to get rid of, every one of them. No behaviour that would be typical for scientists like hiding cowardly behind a counter until all the shattering is over or so. Of course, the low processing power of the system is probably the reason for that, just like the attitude of keeping things "simple": like creating a world where there's an alien race that is purely evil, without exception. Where there's a possibility of distinguishing between good and evil in the first place!

But that's just my low-value-view of things ...
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The SNES Handheld

 ... yes, but only if you count the Atari Lynx as a handheld, too. This not very beautiful yet purpose fulfilling large wooden box contains a Super Nintendo Entertainment System and can play every game your average SNES can play. There are more pictures and a vid, too, on the original site.

Even if it was boring gray - I still prefer the old classical original. [...]
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12/12/2007
Feature: Engineer Builds Portable Wooden SNES, Runs StarFox (Video)

An engineer decided to put a Super Nintendo he had laying around to good use by cramming it inside a custom-built wooden case, complete with speakers, modified PSOne (LED backlight) display, and headphone jack. Video after the break. Click here for first picture in gallery.

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sent by Foifur

The Millenium Falcon Controller

 Have you ever seen this mini Gameboys that already come with a game in it but you can't remove them to play another game? The ones that are more like a game that comes with a Gameboy instead of the other way around? Well, imagine one without a display, basically a joystick that you can plug directly to your big screen. Got the picture? Okay. Now think of one of those mini consoles/joysticks that looks like the all-famous Millenium Falcon from Star Wars - and it has only Star Wars games with the quality of cell phone games on it. There you have a brand new so called "Star Wars Plug And Play Game". Enjoy. Or don't. I don't care.

Now a controller for the Playstation or Xbox - or even NES - would be funny but in this world with controllers being almost more important than the actual consoles ... no chance ... or "Shangze" as Thomas Gottschalk likes to say ... and btw: I know how low it is to copy from a site that has copied from a site that has copied from a site that ... n'eh (-.- ) *shrug* [...]
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[ December 6th, 2007 @ 3:47 pm ] ... [ Vic DaSilva ]
The Force Is Strong With This Joystick
The Millennium Falcon makes the perfect vehicle for the Stars Wars Plug and Play video game. From the site:

"The battles of the original Star Wars trilogy provide the backdrop for four fast-paced games in this all-in-one Plug & Play controller. The Lightsaber Duel game allows you to recreate some of the most memorable and intense fight scenes from the films. The Assault on Hoth game pits the Rebel Alliance against the unstoppable Imperial Army’s ground forces. Take control of an X-Wing fighter as the Imperial Fleet attacks in waves of laser-blasting action in the Red Leader game. And in Battle of Endor, help Chewbacca destroy the Death Star generator on Endor, then take control of the Millennium Falcon and blast the receptor core to blow up the Emperor’s ultimate weapon. All 4 games are stored on the controller’s internal hard drive. No game console is necessary. Simply plug the unit’s RCA cable into any compatible TV, DVD player or monitor and let the Force be with you! Imported. Wipe clean.

I want one.
Price: $25

[via TFTS]
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sent by Foifur

Super Mario Galaxy & Super Luigi Galaxy

 Yes, I've played it. Got me some 241 stars and it took me some estimated 2o / 25 hrs. Was good fun. But not as innovative and ground-breaking as Super Mario 64, so I needed some time to realize, when Reggie Fils-Aime, head of Nintendo of America, called it "the true successor to Mario 64" on this year's E3 Media & Business Summit, he just meant that Nintendo absolutely agrees that Super Mario Sunshine, the de-facto-successor, was a crappy game ;^p [...]
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But ignore this comment and you have a brand new Mario game that is much like (almost) any other Mario game: accessive and easy for the little ones and sophisticated and demanding for hardcore gamers like me due to optional missions. Although I have to say I can't see the damsel-in-distress-"story" anymore ...

Some levels were quite nice and fun to play, some costumes were a pain in the ass but all in all it was a great single-player-experience. And now that I've completed it it's a nice dust catcher. But a Famitsu rating of 38/4o ? I don't agree with that, it's not that great, this game. It's not a must-have if you own the console, only if you like Mario at the very most. But who knows what would have happened to the reviewer if he/she gave it a bad rating ;^)

Oh and the controls, well the Wii™-specific controls: the standard attack besides jumping on the head is a swirl attack executed by a wristflick. That's it. There's some screen-pointing, too, but basically that's it. It's not much but it works way better than some still unclear controls in Wii Sports.

I didn't care much about the relatively high graphics, although they sure are beautiful. But hey, it's a Mario game! He could be a 2D sprite and I'd still be happy. And the music, well ... Mario 64 had one or two really outstanding tracks "Dire, Dire Docks" and "Ultimate Koopa" ... *looking at the OST* aaand there were also other not outstanding tracks but still very moody and catchy, like "Cave Dungeon", "Lethal Lava Land", "Koopa's Theme", "Koopa's Road" and others - all tracks that I really love the one way or the other. But with Galaxy, well, there were only tracks that were merely okay or all-too-familiar. But at least they were all orchestrated. I have exptected more from Mr. Kôji Kondô but I guess my demands were too high ...

I didn't like how you had to play the whole game a second time with another character, but that's better than "just meeting Yoshi on the rooftop of the castle" after completing the game, so ...

This game gets a 7 out of 1o from me.

Oh, and here's a funny little conversation I had last Friday with my brother on the phone, which went someway like this:
Bro: "Hi."
Me: "Hi."
Bro: "Wassup?"
Me: "Nuttin'."
Bro: "Yeah, I bought us a PS3."
Me: "..."

So yeah, I own a Playstation 3™ now. And I didn't even pay any of the 4oo Euros for it. Another thing to hate myself for ...
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The Mystery of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men

 It's funny with this game called Kane & Lynch: Dead Men because I really don't know what to think of it, judging merely from seeing the trailers and reading reviews. Some say it's a really good thrilling action game with some flaws you can actually live with and others say it's one of worst NextGen-games of the year. But am I really listening to the right people? I mean, I wouldn't describe a pile of shit as the shit it is if I wanted to sell a hundred million units of it, right? And the advertising of this game seems to be huge, measured from online banners and gamesite backgrounds. I guess I have to play a demo of it to really decide whether I like it or not. [...]
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But there are other things I don't quite understand: there's this guy, Jeff Gerstmann, a reviewer of GameSpot - or rather a former reviewer - who reviewed the game and rated it bad which seemed to got him fired. How can this be? Why do we live in a world where the rich people tell us consumers what to like and what not? Where bad reviews of maybe bad games are not "acceptable"? I feel very bad for this.

Jeff Gerstmann Video Review of Kane and Lynch

This somehow reminds me of Assassin's Creed which was highly advertised, too, although I don't like the game so far as I played. Okay, I didn't get very far yet but still I don't like certain aspects of the game. Like holding three buttons/sticks to run or spending a lot of time holding the X button to get past guards. I thought this was a tiny feature but it's as if I'll have to do just this for the half of the game. Well, let's wait and see. # top #