February 2004 Archives

Today it occurred to me that I've never taken you on a tour of my home. I've posted some Hiptop pics, but those are as detailed as Gene Shalit's average movie review... so here's some megasized screenshots of my house(s) in Animal Crossing. (Click the thumbnail for the big version, suitable for desktop backgrounds!)

Standing outside my estate, you can see how I've tried to put on a show of terror and dictatorship. Notice the bones. And the black roof. I used to love watching Puck wander around the back of the house, trying to look in the window. Avert your eyes, lest you see that which would blind.

The horror theme continues inside. That's all of Jack's Spooky Furniture series, plus some of the scarier Gulliver items. Three poltergoids are conducting an unholy ritual by the fireplace, and a complete pteradactyl skeleton looms over the right hand side of the room. The music playing is either K.K. Dirge or K.K. Lament.

I would suspect that most AC players have a mess of a basement like this one. I have a completed chesspiece set in the top left corner (which dates back to some of my very first weeks playing the game.) The green model pieces in the center are awaiting transit to Dred Island, where I store all of my town models. Also, two birthday cakes, a legion of Lawn Gnomes, and extra pitfalls. Ever since playing Fatal Frame, the Japanese doll stand (the Hinanyango) has struck me as a particularly frightening piece of furniture, but I just haven't found room for it upstairs yet.

This room is my pride and joy: the finished Western Series. After my last post, I received a couple of emails from folks willing to send me the last piece I needed, the Well. Thanks, guys! Gaze upon the awesomness of it all! I supplemented my Western set with the four totem poles, the phonograph (playing K.K. Western, naturally), a barrel and a campfire.

Across the street is NESJoe's house, a mule for all the cool Nintendo items. Check out his front yard; he's a total eCard pattern whore!

Here's the Adamsvil Arcade: every possible NES game. There's three empty places, awaiting Punch-Out!!, Legend of Zelda, and Super Mario Bros. The Nintendo set and the Lucky Nintendo set is stuffed in there, alongside the complete Mario furniture series. I think it looks pretty damn cool, but the HRA doesn't think so. The Mario Series is especially cool because each piece makes a Marioppropriate sound.

NESJoe's top floor started out as a tropical paradise, but it soon became crammed with every Island and Gulliver item I could find. There is literally only one open space of floor here, which makes stomping cockroaches much easier.

This is where I keep stuff that I don't really want, but couldn't bear to sell. Like pets... there's several insects and fish (and a bird and a hamster) that I kept as pets at one time or another back in my house. When I needed the space, I dumped them all in NESJoe's basement. Other things I used to collect are stashed here: all the different TV sets, the poker symbol t-shirts, some Camper items, and the friggin' Moon.

And that's how I've decorated my quarters. Lately I've been thinking of taking over the other two empty houses in the neighborhood. If Nintendo remains silent on any possible AC sequel, I may tackle that someday.

Sometimes you just get lucky.

There must be something about my office lunchroom, because most of my rare catches have occured in its cinder block walls. I wasn't even going to take my GBA into work today, I grabbed it at the last minute going out the door simply because I vaguely remembered having nothing to do during Thursday's lunch. And I don't like having nothing to do.

The Feebas hunt had left me beyond apathy. But repetitive fishing seemed better than noontime television, so I cracked open the onyx clamshell. The first thing I did was check the Dewford phrase. Still "GOING TEACHER." Being unsure if that idiot kid was going to change it on me, I reset and went straight to Fortree City to do some fishing. On that hateful river I headed north, right to the base of that skinny waterfall.

And within eight squares, I found it: a Feebas spawning ground.

I caught four of them right then and there (three females and a male.) I killed a couple too, just out of spite. I came back later in the day, but couldn't find any more... do not tell me that the magic Feebas squares reset every time you turn off the game, I may cry.

Now I can puzzle out how to raise one of them into a Milotic. I never read that far in the FAQ because I was too consumed with just catching one. Finding Feebas has renewed my interest in completing my R/S Pokedex.

Even though Pokemon Colosseum is still a month away from release, I'm already experiencing the first bitter pangs of Stadium Ennui. I'm fairly certain this is a common malady among Pokemon Trainers. Remember when the first Pokemon Stadium came out, and you were all excited about 3D pokemon, and transferring your GB team, and watching big-screen fancy-dancy battles? And then the whole game ended up as this repetitive, visually redundant snoozer so you spent most of your time playing the multi-player minigames?

And then Pokemon Stadium 2 came out, and the exact same thing happened?

Everything I read about Colosseum leads me to believe that I'll be again struck with Stadium Ennui. The interview in this month's Nintendo Power left me cold, and the preview videos on the Bonus Disc all point to the same problems that Stadium had. Again: crappy sound effects. Again: pokemon battlers never move out of a three foot radius and never actually touch each other.

I know that it's a daunting task to create interactive combat animations for over 380 characters with innumerable attacks each. I know that Colosseum would still sell a zillion copies if it was an iTunes AudioBook. But that doesn't mean they can't try, does it? Is it too much to want a full-on battle mode where you can instruct a Machamp to pick up and toss an opponent for his Vital Throw attack? Or to watch your Bulbasaur's vines actually entangle the enemy and whip him around the field?

And why oh why can't they integrate the Pokemon monster voices from the cartoon, instead of those horrible Game Boy Color-era white noise sound effects?

I'm hoping that Colosseum's RPG mode will temper these feelings, and even if the battles remain cheap then perhaps the overarching story will add incentive to play.

Failing that, there's always the minigame mode.

Time: 143:34
Badges: 8
Pokedex: 189 (seen: 195)
Party: Metagross lv66, Salamence lv50, Razorbeak (Swellow) lv64, Golduck lv50, Jirachi lv12, Feebas lv20

Matt Bekelja, you made the bigtime with that remark. As if straight people couldn't have energy. Alas, that is far into the past - plus today's current climate concerning homosexual marriage and gay rights is much more important and intriguing.

Let me blunt straight out. I completely favor the rights of gay people to get married and have the same legal protections us heterosexuals have. I can think of absolutely zero reasons why gay marriage shouldn't be allowed. In addition, I have heard absolutely zero reasons explained to me why gay marriage should be prohibited that do not eventually come down to religion and tradition (and when those are your planks, your outdated way of thinking is on the out). That's just sad. When Christianity was formed it was such a radical, zany idea. Love and respect they neighbor. Don't cast the first stone. Or the second or third for that matter. Funny how that has changed. Now we support a militant regime in Israel (and the Palestinians are no better either), invade foreign nations (see Iraq and Iran in the next year), and repress our own people because they do not fit into the world view of our state religion and flag waving public.

I don't know. I set down to write this little piece of the rights of others, and of course it brings to the surface so many feelings and emotions. How can a person possibly be against the rights of others to marry and have legal protections that make their lives more like those of first-class citizens? Are we really that afraid as a country to extend that olive branch? Like gays and lesbians don't have it hard enough as it is? Do they really need an amendment prohibiting them from having their love and livestyle accepted?

And shame on you George Bush for advocating an amendment that limits the rights of others. Quite a far cry from not abridging the rights of others toward free speech, freedom of the press and religion, isn't it. When you look at yourself in the mirror, how can you be proud of a discrimatory piece of garbage? Great job there buddy, you are actually motivating me to vote for the first time in my life. Just not for you and your extremely narrow, shallow, and unintelligent platforms. (But I don't doubt there are plenty of other redneck folks who love your ideas. Feel free to have their votes. I wouldn't want them anyway.)

Which leads me to this idea: why even have religious marriage ceremonies as the matter of course? What if we were to adopt a two part marriage system? Since our marriage licenses come from the government and not a religious body, why not have the first ceremony be completely secular? Folks can just pay their X amount of dollars to the state of Y and have the legal rights accorded to all married couples. Then if people choose to, they can have a second ceremony in the church(es) of their choice. Leave that ceremony up to the discretion of the people getting married and their relgious beliefs, along with those of the marrying church.

Not a bad compromise I say. I wonder what Matt Bekelja would say about it.

I just want to quickly point out that President Bush is a raging asshole who needs to be ousted. We were lied to about Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction, we're still no safer post-9/11 than we were pre-9/11, and now Bush wants us to write discrimination into the Consitution. Fuck him.

We really need to stop pulling Presidents from deep below the Mason-Dixon line.

You know, I highly doubt that Kerry is going to be any better. (He waffles on gay marriage rights, for one.) But hopefully he can't be any worse. He's going to inherit one mess of a country.

Homosexual marriages. I have yet to hear a compelling argument as to why they should remain banned. Is a marriage specifically intended to produce children? No, so biology is out. Is a marriage controlled by and created for religious reasons? No, it doesn't have to be. It's your state that issues the license and rights, not the church. Is the US Christian cabal afraid of men having buttsex? Yes, despite millions of hetero men having buttsex with women in perfectly legitimate marriages. As a nation we're finally getting over mixed-racial marriages. It's time to get over same-sex marriages.

All of Bush's bullshit about "protecting the sanctity of the institution" is meaningless politico-speak. And if you can't recognize a man courting the nation's largest pool of voters - Stupid People - you're missing something pretty fundamental about our government. I honestly believe that any anti-gay marriage argument comes down to people being repulsed by homosexuality and/or trying to avoid legitimizing gay culture. Which is only a hair's breadth away from how America treated(s) women and minorities and any other adjective that wasn't white and male.

Here in my hometown we had a great newspaper editorial asking why all the fuss and an actual article which mentions the challenges faced by gay and lesbian couples... which surprised the hell out of me because we live in a massively conservative WASP area. The writer's main point was, we can have it both ways. Homosexuals can enjoy the rights and privileges of a true marriage, and homophobes can continue to be married in churches.

I had a near-fight with my uncle on this matter, and I've had some ugly entanglements in the office. It's not a pleasant thing to try and discuss, because some people's hatred of homosexuals runs disturbingly deep. (And it's always rather obvious that it comes from a conservative religious worldview.) I'm not gay, and as far as I know there are no homosexuals in my family. But if I was, I'd hate to think of my co-workers and family striving to deny me the right to publicly pronounce my love for another man... to be able to change my name, or claim his dead body, or visit him in a hospital, or share bank accounts, or file joint tax returns, or whatever.

And just to be clear, if we do have to reach a compromise, the only acceptable one is to grant civil unions all the privileges of a marriage. I'm not hung up on the word "marriage" here. Sure, today there's a positive allure to having a "marriage" but after 50 years of full-service civil unions, the vocabulary will be blurred anyway. If it must come to it, let the babies have their word, just give homosexual couples the benefits and rights.

So far, 2004 has been the Year of Mappy. My favorite classic arcade game has had two exciting announcements in as many months. DATELINE JANUARY: Nintendo is celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Famicom with special GBA re-releases of classic NES games, including Mappy. They're mainly collector's items and they're priced as such: around $20 US... but of course these puppies aren't going to reach the States anyway. But there is no region lockout on GBA cartridges, so I've already imported a copy of Mappy. The only downside (apart from the price) is that this is the NES version, not the original arcade game. If you'll recall, the NES one is a low-res, high-sucky version.

DATELINE FEBRUARY: Toy company Jakks Pacific is continuing their mega-successful TV Games series with a new Namco unit that includes Mappy. Last holiday season, their Pac-Man and Atari TV Games toys were huge hits... you've seen them, the things that look like an old video game controller that plug directly into your TV. Very retro. So a Ms. Pac-Man edition is forthcoming, and Mappy has made her playlist. This is actually better news than the GBA game since this will be the real, true Mappy game. And it's for your television, not a tiny GBA (or MAME) window. Although the GBA game will still be the one I can play in airplanes and car rides.

So I've added my own hoo to the hoo-hah by re-designing my Mappy website. I still have some bits to work on, but it's more or less complete. I must be in a red phase this century. I also took the opportunity to re-christen the site "Mappyland," an obvious nod to Mappy's second crappy NES game. I was beginning to think that the old name, "Mappy Mecca," was the teensiest bit insensitive. Plus, who wants to add more weight to anybody's religious claims. I wouldn't call a Mappy FAQ a "Mappy Bible" for the same reasons. Just taking back a little word power.

Mappyland has also benefitted from some new content courtesy a fan who sent me pics of some truly crazy crap from Japan. Sure, you'd expect to see Mappy keychains... and you've always hoped somewhere there's a plush doll... but a Mappy cigarette lighter shaped like a pistol? It's true, and it's in the new Mappyland scrapbook.

And this little tweak I hemmed and hawed about. I took down the ROMs for four Mappy games. Number one, I don't follow the MAME scene to know if/how they work with the latest version. I assume they do, but I'm not sure. Number two, it just isn't right to give them out, especially since the original Mappy is readily available for purchase... on Windows, on PlayStation and soon on the TV Games toy. I may put Hopping Mappy (the Japan-only sequel) and Mappy Arrangement (the rare two-player remix) back up, because they are still just about impossible to find anywhere but MAME. I don't know yet, and because it is a legal and moral problem, I'm erring on the side of respect for Namco at this point.

I bought another GBA SP. Now we have a Flame (red) one to go along with my Onyx (black) SP. Add that to my Indigo (blue) GBA model, and now we can play Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles three player.

Although I must point out that I have four link cables so if we should happen to have a friend with a GBA SP, we can go foursies. (Hint: we do!)

I tried playing FF:CC with my non-lighted GBA, but it was just too pathetic. Rhonda was skating through inventory screens on the Onyx SP, while I'm tilting my GBA 360 degrees trying to catch some rays in our minimally lit living room. Earlier this weekend, I actually said "Getting another GBA SP is a good idea. Because not only do we have Crystal Chronicles now, but that new Zelda Four Swords game will be coming out." Such is my zest for life.

I did find an old third-party GBA light for the Indigo, for those inevitable four player sessions. We searched everywhere for a stupid light, and ended up buying a pre-owned Nyko worm light (with pass-through port). Third-party and pre-owned, disgusting. Judging from the store shelves around here, the venerable worm lights are completely out of fashion. Instead, everybody has those awful clamshell lights, that "protect your Game Boy!" as well as lighting it up and making it look stupid. Plus, I couldn't find a single clamshell design (out of fifty million) that would allow for the GC/GBA link cable to attach. The pre-owned worm light will be fine, but I'll feel dirty using it. Rhon claimed the Flame SP for all future gaming, by the way.

Oh, and the game? Yeah, it's worth me buying another damn SP. Imagine 4P Gauntlet, but make it worth playing. Hey, I used to love Gauntlet... so much so that I was once pick-pocketed while playing it. But today the game is all but unplayable. Crystal Chronicles takes the spirit of Gauntlet into the modern generation, smashing wanna-be crap like Diablo 2 into the mud.

We also picked up Karaoke Revolution, a PS2 music game where you sing. Really, you sing. Not press buttons like PaRappa. Sing. You use a mic/headset (the SOCOM one works, hooray!) and sing along with the screen. Very much like DDR, where accuracy is judged by the notes of your voice. My best song is Son of a Preacher Man.

The song selection hurts a bit. Only thirty-couple, which just isn't enough. A game like this should have 100 songs to choose from. There is the possibility of expansion discs, but that is predicated on how well the first one sells. If Karaoke Revolution flops, hopefully somebody will crack the code and figure out how to burn your own music. I'd slap together a They Might Be Giants compilation quicker than you could sing "Minimum Wage."

This entry is dedicated to the Pokemon Mini, Nintendo's forgotten handheld system, about halfway between a Pokemon Pikachu 2 and a Game Boy Pocket. It's roughly 2" x 3", with an inch-and-a-half B&W screen, and has four swappable cartridge games... all Pokemon-based. The system also has an infrared port for multiplayer gaming, a rumble feature, motion sensor, D-pad + 3 buttons, and a pleasingly chunky post-iMac plastic design aesthetic.

In the US, you can only get this at the NYC Pokemon Center store (or via their website.) When it was first released in 2002, a complete set of Mini + all 4 games cost over $90. Last December, they kicked it down to $40... plus they threw in all kinds of crazy Mini crap, like a pillow, bath towel, lanyard, notepad and bracelet charms.

Nice price. Mine is in Wooper Blue (as opposed to the purple and green models.)

I had read some pretty lousy reviews of the Mini back in '02, so I never thought much about it. And the Mini "sampler" you can play inside the sleep-inducing GameCube title Pokemon Channel didn't sell it to me very well. But $40 in my wallet has a way of spending itself almost without my knowlege...

And you know what, it's not bad at all. Here's how the games fall out:

Pokemon Party Mini: This one comes with the system, and it's easily the worst. It contains a bunch of simplistic games that usually revolve around timed button presses. Almost like Wario Ware if Wario Ware sucked. One game changes it up by having you shake the whole unit instead (so you freak out the motion sensor), but it's still boredom city. Toss it.

Pokemon Pinball Mini: It would seem difficult to screw up pinball. This cartridge does a pretty decent job at attempting that. First of all, it's not what you're thinking. This "pinball" is actually a very small playing field filled with holes, and you use a plunger (usually positioned bottom center) to launch the ball into the holes. Each board is timed, so if the randomness of pinball goes against you, you're out of luck. One nice thing is that you can play this one with only one hand, because the C button does everything. Erm.

Pokemon Puzzle Collection: Now things start getting good. There's four types of puzzles, mainly of the sliding tile type. Shadow Puzzles have you arranging opaque tiles to fit a form. Motion Puzzles lets you swap tiles to create an image, but the image is constantly moving. Rescue Mission has you shifting tiles to create a path for a trapped pokemon. The fourth type (an unlockable!) requires you to arrange tiles to complete an electrical circuit. There's only 20 of each type, however, so there's limited play value here.

Pokemon Zany Cards: Four card games, but only three are playable by one person. (Two support up to five players, and one requires two players... and all players must have their own Mini, so good luck with that.) One game is strikingly like Texas Hold 'Em, just with Pokemon-themed winning hands. The second game is an Uno clone. And there's a unique Solitaire variant. All three of these are quite good, and the cartridge lets you save at any point just by turning the Mini off. Zany Cards is also the most graphically interesting of the bunch, with lots of different animations based on the cards you play.

Overall, not a bad little portable for $40. (Use coupon code P4E33 to save another $5 on your online order, by the way.) Given that my mobile GBA collection has to be carried inside a small backpack these days, it's nice to have the alternate choice of an even smaller complete system tucked into my shirt pocket. There's another couple of games available in Japan, but I highly doubt we'll see english versions of them, given the absolute rarity and frivolity of the Mini. One of them is freakin' Tetris, which would be spectacular. I wonder if there's a region lockout on Mini cartridges...

There's been two main reasons why I haven't done a Sapphire Diary update in a while. One is Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, the spiritual successor to Paper Mario... M&L pretty much owned my GBA SP for a couple months. Go buy it!

The other is Feebas. The hunt for Feebas has all but sapped my will to keep playing. Part of my problem is that I don't understand how exactly the stupid Dewford hip phrase changes. Does it change every time you talk to the goof outside the building, whether he likes your offered phrase or not? (I know it changes whenever you mix records with another cartridge, but does it change when you just trade?) I have now been up and down that awful river west of Fortree two and a half times... and I think I inadvertently changed the phrase in the middle somewhere, accidentally shuffling the magic Feebas tiles.

Fishing is maddeningly boring. I read that you should stick with the Old Rod so that you don't trigger as many battles with non-Feebas pokemon, but I'm not sure if I believe it. Feebas = Hate.

As for the Pokemon eReader cards... well, remember when I complained about the Battle Tower? The eReader cards are like that, but worse. As I later found out, you do get rare items and badges for your Battle Tower runs (although I would still rather have the experience points.) The eReader card battles don't even give you that.

You scan a card and the trainer on the card shows up at the old man's house in Mossdeep. You fight a 3-on-3 match... with absolutely no results. No experience, no additions to your 'dex, no rare items, no badges. These battles don't even add to the battle count in your PokeNav. Sure, some of the card trainers have pokemon that (to date) can't be seen in Hoenn, but they don't increase your pokedex records, so what's the point? I fought a Houndoom. Big deal. Just showing off the hidden art files, I guess.

The card sets also come with rare berry cards, which are another letdown. Scanning a berry doesn't add that berry to your inventory. This would be too useful. No, it simply turns all existing Enigma Berries into the berry on the card. Scan a new berry card and they all get unilaterally transformed again. I guess the idea is to puree them all into Pokeblocks right away.

I think the concept is solid, and Nintendo hyped this up like crazy... but what we got was a pale shadow of what could have been. I'd consider this as Nintendo testing the waters, to see if the buying public would go for the idea before doing something really amazing with it. Considering the overall cost involved (eReader + 2nd GBA + card packs + link cable), I doubt many gamers bit.

Still, imagine if this idea was tied to the card game cards instead. Scan a Potion card and get a Potion in the video game. Scan a Bulbasaur card and get a Bulbasaur doll, or a semi-rare item, or even a damn Bulbasaur, for crying out loud. Being able to choose from a collection of trainer cards for new battles is a great idea, but those battles have to actually mean something. Or else the whole enterprise is a waste of time. Give me experience, give me items, give me a filled pokedex... just don't give me that old man saying "Wow, that was a great battle! Thanks!" Bite me.

The Pokemon Colosseum pre-order bonus began today, and I already have my Bonus Disc. It's not much of a disc, though. It consists of two movies (one for Colosseum and one for an upcoming Pokemon movie) and the ability to download the rare Jirachi into your game. How about some other game demos? Or an exclusive (and better) eReader card? But holy crap am I looking forward to Colosseum's RPG mode. You'll be hearing about that one here in the diary.

The whole transfer-Jirachi-to-your-game bit was adorable. And it's doubly interesting in that Jirachi is actually a trojan horse: sure, you get to add this uncatchable oddball pokemon to your collection, but it also carries along a bug fix. Several months ago, Nintendo realized that the berry patches stop growing after a year. Something to do with the internal clock. So the Jirachi download somehow fixes the berry problem! Pretty nifty stuff. A patch for a GBA cartridge! Unheard of.

Time: 142:44
Badges: 8
Pokedex: 188 (seen: 195)
Party: Metagross lv66, Salamence lv50, Razorbeak (Swellow) lv64, Golduck lv50, Alakazam lv22, Jirachi lv5

I know I've said this before, but I just prefer the atmosphere and look of the Fatal Frame series to both Resident Evil and Silent Hill. RE still has this cheesy veneer to it (although I can't wait for the online-enabled RE Outbreak.) And Silent Hill just gets too disgusting to stay scary. What the hell were those twitchy, pulpy things in SH3 anyway?

Fatal Frame 2 is just like the first... a slow spooky walk through abandoned Japanese villages. It's the pace that gets you; heroine Mio just doesn't have any hustle to her. And wouldn't you know it, this village is also guarding a gate to Hell! If anything, FF2 is too similar to FF. Both cast you as innocent waifs chasing a sibling through an ethereal spiral into the horrible past of ancient Japan, where children must be monstrously maimed and sacrificed to appease the demons of Hell. Despite how moody and involving the sequel is, it does feel like you've been through this already if you played the first Fatal Frame.

In a game like Ratchet & Clank 2, that feeling isn't as important. In Fatal Frame 2, where the storyline is so integral, it hurts it a little bit.

But I still love it; I'll still be playing it at 2am and happily freaking myself out. No game does scary audio like Fatal Frame. In fact, remember the exorcismally-sensitive camera of FF? FF2 adds in a radio. The radio replays spectral recordings of the spirits you meet. In true FF fashion, they are wonderfully frightening and haunting.

I was wondering what happened to Tecmo's other dark and gloomy game series, Deception. I adored all three PS1 games in the series and that franchise just seems long overdue.