March 2011 Archives

Now that's a nice touch:

The blister for the Spectre fig in the DC Universe Classics line includes embossed skulls. If you don't buy this toy, he turns you into a stack of loose pennies to demonstrate your cosmic hubris.

Here's a line that is entirely Green Lantern-related. Guess we're expecting some interest in that sub-brand soon, eh? Looks like "Low" is the new go-to Sinestro Corps It Boy. He now has two appearances in the toy aisle, including this chibi version. Unbelievable.

The option of Low vs Maash is hilarious. They are the same exact figure; you get all the same pieces in either pack. It's only the marketing that differs. Somewhere this will generate an amazing graph of which figure was more popular on the pegs. A room full of suits will examine this metric and nod knowingly as they consider future designs.

Aw, and look who made the packaging backer!

Ch'p! Or whoever the H'lven native is who replaced Ch'p after he died. Ch'p keeps showing up in outside media cameos, though, so we might as well decide Ch'p is the dude and call it a day.

Finally, eight years later, I found the one guy on the planet who agrees with me about Beyond Good & Evil having a lame-o script: Jeffrey Matulef, writing for Paste Magazine. Suck on this nine, balla:

In practice, however, the writing is pedestrian. Within the game's opening moments it's abundantly clear that the suspicious military presence known as the Alpha Section is up to no good. When Jade eventually learns this hours later she reacts with shock ("But the Alpha Section is here to protect us!"), despite them having been obviously sinister from the get go.

The rest of the populace is equally daft, and while it's fun to see their attitudes change based on Jade's accomplishments, it's hard to shake the feeling that most of the characters in the game are easily influenced sheep, or worse, racial stereotypes. Despite the game's title, there aren't many shades of gray in its story. In a game as narrative heavy as BG&E HD, its simple parable falls short.

This review is in reference to the recent HD re-release of the game, as a $10 XBLA title.

For YEARS, this game keeps coming up on lists with themes like Games You Be Ashamed You Haven't Played, Games With Better-Than-Hollywood Writing, Games That Should Be Made Into Movies, etc. The gamerati will literally not stop talking about it. And look at this, finally, someone who writes about games agrees with me that BG&E is shallow and does not hold up (as far as plot goes anyway; Matulef still gives the game an 8.0.)

Over at Brainy Gamer - where the above review was linked - Michael Abbot remarks that maybe he's had some rose-colored glasses on, now that he has made his way through the HD remake.

It pains me to say it, but BG&E's innovative-for-its-time open world feels confining and geographically unimaginative eight years later, and its stealth and combat sections suffer in comparison to most modern games, especially when camera issues arise...and they do. Often.

In the comments on that article, reader Grayson Davis singles out that quote from Abbot and adds:

"I don't know that "for its time" is the right way to describe a game released in 2003. "Open world" seems too generous a term when many games prior to BG&E had 'overworlds' of their own. (Zelda games are a great example.) Meanwhile, Grand Theft Auto III was already on its second installment. Similarly, BG&E was released well after other successful stealth games, like Metal Gear Solid, Thief, etc. Frankly, the stealth sections in BG&E are no more complicated than, say, sneaking around the garden in Ocarina of Time."

BING-FREAKING-O.

In other words, there's something else highly obvious that the game does not get right. And never had.

As I said IN FEBRUARY 2004:

"Take the main city area, for instance. Once you drive in on your hovercraft you see a busy main street. Looks very nice. Lots of details, lots of boats and ships zipping around. But it's only one street long. If you make a right, you leave the hovercraft and enter a new walking area. If you keep straight you enter a new outside hub area. That's it. All that life and splash... with barely anywhere to go."

Even in 2003, "open world" meant more than three rooms.

I have lots of other great quotes from my hot-off-the-rant 2004 review. Most paragraphs are far meaner than that one.

Come on. You guys have got to stop genuflecting before this title. That, or I want a signed affidavit that you were twelve years old when you first played it, and the most complicated plotline you had experienced until then was The Land Before Time IV.

We watched the first Hellboy movie last night. Clark rather quickly decided Hellboy was a funny guy. After the movie ended, he scurried off to draw "the main characters."

Hellboy, front and center. The big circles are the sawed-off horns... the eyes are little dots below those. Clark included both the oversized hand and Hellboy's favorite gun. Note Hellboy's six-pack. Liz is below him, clearly powered-up. Agent Myers to the right; Abe and a Sammael monster up top.

The reanimated zombie torso clearly left an impression. After drawing the half-corpse, he asked Rhonda to write in "If I had legs, I'd kick you." That's the sanitized version of the movie's actual subtitled-from-Russian "If I had legs, I'd kick your ass."

Gruber just linked to this:

The iPad is actually opening up technology to more people. None of this crap about it being closed is accurate. By giving people freedom to explore the app store without having to worry about anything (except their wallets), Apple has possibly made the best move they could make by locking down the iPad's installation sources. That's the one that's the most helpful for the general state of technology. Apple is encouraging people to explore and play around. The iPad only does less than a regular computer to us geeks. To everyone else, it does more. This is what Motorola and Google and Samsung and BlackBerry and everyone else, with the sole exception of Apple, do not get about "open" computing. It's powerful, but for ordinary people, it's too powerful.

Well put from a weblogger, who happens to be in eight grade.

And it's so spot-on you can't stand it, can you.

I know, I know, we can get all elitist about how open is better, but nobody really gives a shit. Just an insulated community of would-be-coders who are increasingly talking only to themselves. Feel free to go save the world with open source programs and the Android Anything Goes Marketplace, it's cool. It's great to have multiple options so that we never again get that Microsoft situation where one group of assholes controls absolutely everything. I'll take small groups of assholes controlling their own things, and I'll value the freedom of choice to decide which assholes I like. That's democracy.

Way to go, J-P Teti. You've nailed something that a lot of experts have been talking around for years. Usually with alternating furrowed brows and condescending snark as they struggle to understand how Apple grew to become so successful.

Can you imagine what the world would be like if computers had not spent thirty years riddled with viruses and incomprehensible interfaces? Imagine a world where we didn't lose decades scaring people away from computers and technology.

You know what I like? My Amazon Wish List.

It's a holding cell for items that have yet to graduate to OWNED status. I almost feel like I already own them; we're that close.

Sometimes I scroll through the list reminding myself of stuff I like, deciding if the price has yet reached the tipping point. And I always have to go for Super Saver Shipping, that's a must.

I always forget that I put Afrika on there about a year ago. And the tipping point for Afrika keeps getting lower and lower. A year ago, you bet I would have paid $34.46 for it. Now I'm thinking something sub-$20.

FLCL complete for $20? That's a sure grab, someday. Probably when I want something else for under $10 and need an item to ensure the free shipping. That's the game, you see. Divide the Wish List into as many Super Saver Shipping orders as possible. I'm also following various sets of Dragon Ball Z and Case Closed, waiting for the price to slip.

And an all-Joel MST3K boxed set for $40? Why, I'm surprised I haven't already ordered that one. I may take of that tonight. I'd combo it with Venture Bros Season 4, but I don't have to. They both earn free shipping on their own.

Having never played the original nintendogs, I've been looking forward to getting into the new 3DS version, nintendogs+cats. Mainly for the cats, although the game forces you to get a dog first. Depending on what kind of dog you get, you might not even have enough money to buy a cat immediately. I selected a female corgi, then went back to get a cat and was several hundred dollars short. And I have no idea how to make money in this game.

Anyway, here's Clover.

I'm going to name all my nintenanimals after defunct game development houses.

Right now I'm just sort of feeling my way around the game. Seems like you have to feed the dogs and walk the dogs. Which costs money. I guess you make more by winning competitions.

We have been doing a lot of walking during (real time) night, so I'm sure Clover's internal clock is all kinds of messed up.

I'm just starting out in teaching her tricks, which the dogs learn by both stylus gestures and voice cues. Clover can sit, lie down, stand up, and do the thing where the dog gives you a paw. On both paws. I've never owned a real dog, either, so I'm not sure why people bother making a dog shake hands. From my limited dog experience, the best trick you could teach one is to shut the hell up when outside. Or inside.

Instead of a guided walk, you can put the dog on a pedometer-based walk. Sort of like the Pokewalker. Close the 3DS, tuck it into a pocket, and your actual steps count as dog exercise. When you open the system up again, you usually get a free prize.

It looks like your steps count both for nintendogs+cats AND for the 3DS's own internal step-counting Play Coin system, so that's cool. It's double-dipping for walking.

Another big 3DS gimmick is that the game uses the AR cards for augmented reality photography.

Probably wouldn't take much to get the dog to look life-size. Most of the time, Clover would only appear on the generic ?-box AR card, but for a split second as I was fiddling with the set, she appeared on the Kirby card wearing a Kirby hat.

I'm getting to know my glossy new 3DS... and naturally one of the first features I investigate is the photo export.

I imported a heap of Miis from my Wii (you have to activate a secret Connect to DS option in the Mii Channel, Nintendo and their secrets!) because one of the AR Games cards lets you pose Miis in live photos.

These pictures export to the SD card in 400x240. On the 3DS, they appear in 3D, but the jpegs are normal no-D when viewed in iPhoto or whatever.

There are stock poses for single Miis and groups, but you can edit them on the fly.

You can also use the other AR cards to drop Nintendo favorites into your world. I'm very glad to see the Pikmin appear as an AR card. It's proof Nintendo hasn't forgotten about the franchise!

Obviously good lighting makes all the difference. I took those photos at 11pm in rooms that are missing half the light bulbs. I had to artificially lighten the Annie+Pikmin photo.

That was all inside the AR Games app. If you just take a picture from the Home menu using the shoulder buttons (same as on the DSi), the pictures come out in 640x480.

Again, these are 3D when viewed on the 3DS and 2D everywhere. On the 3DS, the depth of Josh's thumbs-up pose is obvious.

You can also export head shots and full body shots of any Mii. The head shot comes out in 480x480, uncomfortably large. There's a note in the manual that Nintendo owns Mii characters in all shapes and forms. I don't know if this is the first time they've asserted that right, but if it is, that should put a stop to those sites that used to sell bootleg Mii t-shirts and whatnot.

You can also generate QR codes for each Mii.

When captured by a 3DS camera, this QR code will drop my Mii into the system. My advance 3DS unit came with a QR code that gave me a gigantic, huggable Reggie Fils-AiMii.

If you shoot that QR with a smartphone, you probably get a free $50 bill, or it stops raining on your house, or something.

We've been into the make-your-own Hot Wheels track sets since Christmas. The challenge is to craft as many of the pieces as possible into a complete, working track. We have a launcher and a booster, plus we just got two of those low-powered robot launcher sets. The booster is tricky to use, because it tends to shoot the car way too fast. Depends on the car. Finding a car that consistently finishes the track is tough.

In this setup, we positioned the booster near the end to get the car through the 180 turn and into the jump. I was deadset on having a jump go through the loop.

I've taught Clark how to play Pirates. We do 40-point fleets and keep complicated keywords to a minimum. We're also real generous with movement and range.

Target has those old purple Ocean's Edge tins marked down to $5, so when I grabbed one of those last weekend, that sparked Clark's interest in playing. For Clark, there are two key points to the game. He likes rolling for cannon attacks (especially when I go for multiple sequential turns losing on 1s), and he likes stashing treasure since it involves peeking at facedown numbers and secretly picking the biggest points available.

This Sea Monkey set was a birthday present. I can't report much success with it, however. After the mandatory five day waiting period, we had a heap of monkeys in there... but a week later we're down to four or less. I'm wondering if I shouldn't have used tap water. Or maybe they didn't get enough sunlight or something.

Also, the cool-ass lid-mounted light died right away, which sucked.

This was at a pizza place we tried out. Something about small pizza shops makes me get out the iPhone cam. I must have a hundred stupid snaps of Clark sitting across from me at various pizza shops.

I went through the Nintendo Power Awards last fall in three entries, and now it's time to see how I did. Just like last year, I'm going to grade myself against both the NP editors and the NP readers. Starting with a score of 0 in both, I get a point for each correct prediction and, duh, lose a point for each brilliantly reasoned but unfathomably flawed mistake.

WII GAME OF THE YEAR
Let's not even waste our time discussing this. I predicted Mario Galaxy 2 would win both editorial and reader and I was right. Although I will pause to bitch about my vote, Kirby's Epic Yarn, not winning. Anything. At all. In any of the five categories in which it was nominated.

DS GAME OF THE YEAR
NP picked Dragon Quest IX; the readers picked Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver. I expected the readers to go for DQIX and the editors to pick something no one has ever heard of... so I was way wrong here. I'm glad the readers renewed their vows with Pokemon, after that year where freaking Phantom Hourglass beat Pokemon Diamond/Pearl.

WIIWARE GAME OF THE YEAR
I was dead-on here. The magazine went with indie-fave Cave Story and the readers went with fanboy-fave Sonic 4: Episode 1.

DSiWARE GAME OF THE YEAR
Another round win. I said both camps would back Shantae: Risky's Revenge, and they did. Not that DSiWare had a particularly robust year of competition.

BEST WII GRAPHICS
Complete crazy talk from the editors, selecting Sonic Colors over Kirby's Epic Yarn. Same old Sonic trumps a living quilt?!? No way. The readers played it safe: They saw Mario and voted Mario. I said both would go Galaxy.

BEST DS GRAPHICS
Pretty cool that a DSiWare game took the award for Best DS Graphics! I did not predict that NP would give the honor to Shantae, but they did. The readers went with DQIX; I said they would support Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. Double miss for me.

BEST SOUND/VOICE ACTING
Crap, another whiff. NP said GoldenEye and the readers said Professor Layton. Good on you, readers!

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
I counted on the general hairiness of magazine editorial staffs to see a Final Fantasy win from NP in this category. I was wrong; they picked Galaxy 2. So did the readers, but I knew that would happen.

BEST ADVENTURE GAME
Huh. Somehow I skipped this one. WTF. NP picked Cave Story and the readers gave Epic Mickey their first of many undeserved awards. I guess I have to gave myself negatives on this since I failed to predict anything.

BEST SHOOTER
Yup, both halves went for GoldenEye. Bonus: as I extra-predicted, NP had to fill the blurb with a bunch of mealy-mouthed junk about the game being so faithful to the original.

BEST MUSIC/RHYTHM GAME
Half right from me on this one. I said the mag would pick DJ Hero 2 and the readers would pick Rock Band 3. Turns out, they both went with Rock Band 3.

BEST ACTION GAME
Another double-miss. NP gave the award to Tatsunoko vs Capcom and the readers voted for Mega Man 10 (!!!) Long memories from the readers on that one.

BEST RPG/STRATEGY GAME
Man, I had no faith in the voters to choose Pokemon this year. I predicted they would fall in for Golden Sun. I nailed the editorial selection: DQIX.

BEST SPORTS GAME
NBA Jam on all fronts, which is more or less what I saw in my little fanboy ball. Boom-shaka-laka.

BEST PLATFORMER
Mark me down. I am so down. I said Galaxy 2 would win "on both hands." Bingo.

BEST MULTIPLAYER
Aw, nuts. I said NP would go with Monster Hunter Tri and the readers would go with Tatsunoko. Instead, both voted for Rock Band 3! Even though I've lost plenty of points this year, I am quietly proud of how some of these hashed out.

BEST PUZZLE GAME
The good Professor Layton swept both fronts, although I only expected the editors to choose it.

BEST STORY/WRITING
I should give myself triple points for COMPLETELY NAILING THIS CATEGORY TO THE WALL. I said the voters would go for Epic Mickey and they did. I said NP would get all hipster for 999 and they did.

BEST NEW CHARACTER
Epic Mickey in 2010 was like a Sonic game in any other year: the readers voted for it every time they saw it. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was the reader choice for Best Character. And he won the editorial choice as well... which makes this category the only award NP gave Epic Mickey. I should have seen that coming, and I did not. Double error.

BEST NEW IDEA
Apparently, "Best New Idea" does not have to mean "Best Good Idea" to the readers. They backed Epic Mickey's woefully undeveloped and inconsistent paint/thinner mechanic. I figured they'd go for DQIX... man, where did all the RPG nuts go this year? After that terrible year with Kingdom Hearts DS winning every awful thing, I was planning on plenty of mad Dragon Quest Support. The editors and I agree: this award belongs to Warioware DIY.

BEST RETRO REVIVAL
Donkey Kong Country Returns took both awards, and deservedly so. Not that I predicted that.

OVERALL GAME OF THE YEAR
Mario Galaxy 2, predicted on both by me, and won by both.

(Related yet unrelated: NP tossed in two additional categories that were not up for public vote. Best Bonus Content was given to Galaxy 2, because it needed another award to win. And the Finish Strong Award went to Professor Layton and the Unwound Future. The mag lists nominees for both secret categories, which is sort of weird since we were not allowed to vote on them.)

Not bad at all! Certainly better than my -1 / -5 tally from the 2009 set.

Last time I brought up the DC Action League figures, I mentioned the unusual appearance of Guardian on the cardboard backer. Tonight we opened up the three Lantern-focused packs (the last of the 2011 birthday presents, finally attended to!) and I could take a closer look at the background image.

When the toys are in place, the backer is heavily obscured. You mainly see only Superman at the top. If you take the chance to scan the edges, you see the Big Five Male Heroes in solid colors - Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman - around the edges, alternating with other characters that have been faded out. We're in the boy aisle, so Wonder Woman gets faded, which sucks. Martian Manhunter and Firestorm are on the top; Captain Marvel and John Stewart on the sides.

I had noted Guardian (faded) in the bottom corner, and Green Arrow has the other corner. But thanks to the packaging bottom, I did not notice the trio riding the bottom edge: Guy Gardner, Kilowog and the Blue Lantern Saint Walker.

So we already have Action League figures for Atrocitus, Low, Tomar Re, and Sinestro. If Saint Walker is on the backer art, that gives me great hope that Larfleeze could make the cut.

And geez, how about some female figures? Between this and the Imaginext line, it's a total female freeze out. Let's get a Wonder Woman / Star Sapphire two-pack on the pegs.

The crow on the Plants vs. Zombies menu screen caught Annie's attention. As you can see, her fur is growing back in after the big shave.

Plants vs. Zombies is really good. Before this new PSN version, I had never played it. I wasn't avoiding it, just never stumbled into it, even though I have three other devices that could run it. No doubt you have at least one system that can display some flavor of the game; it's everywhere.

It's giving PixelJunk Monsters a fight for my favorite tower defense game.

And there you have it.

Although the year 2011 seems barely underway, we already have four entries for the 2011 edition of Best Cheapest Game. Two of which I actually bought in the waning months of 2010, but since I have yet to rip the shrinkwrap, I'm pushing their noms into next year. Unless, of course, I continue to neglect to play them. No suspense here... I'm referring to Bioshock 1 and 2.

The other two early horses are Drawn to Life and Trauma Team, two Wii entries arriving after a year of almost entirely PS3/PSN nominations. Can either Wii game secure the 2011 win for the Nintendo team? Or will this month's sale price on Castle Crashers reduce them to second place finishers? We've got a long way to go to find out.

And there he is, ringmaster of Justice League International, recipient of awakened metagene powers, killer of not one but two Blue Beetles... in Mighty Beanz form. His gun is raised, ready to pop the first Beetle Bean that crosses his path.

All the visual giants of the DC Universe, and they waste a Mighty Beanz slot on a guy who dresses like Steve Jobs.

Is it easier to make an app that plays converted Flash video clips, rather than make the website HTML5 compliant?

A couple of weeks ago, Cartoon Network and Adult Swim video apps showed up in the App Store for both iPhone and iPad. As a fan who recently dumped cable TV, this is very good news. I didn't even know Chris Elliott was doing a Walker Texas Ranger parody for Adult Swim, and now I've enjoyed two episodes.

The apps are both near-identical to the channels' website video players. So you still do not get full episode availability. You get whatever they currently want to share, according to their obtuse internal schedules. The Adult Swim app is much more friendly towards full episodes than the CN version.

The video clips have the option to send to Apple TV... except only the audio. Which is weird. If these apps could send actual complete shows to Apple TV, that would be killer. No doubt there's some terrible playback limitation enforced by Turner and WB and who knows who else that precludes users enjoying app video on TV. These shows are also not available en masse on Netflix instant streaming, so there's obviously a business model at work behind the scenes. A business model that revolves around people actually paying for television shows.

The apps are also not entirely stable at this time. I've had the AS app suddenly vanish or refuse to play clips, and the CN app tends to have the episodes cut up into sections that can stutter (and drop the Apple TV audio connection, if that is active.)

But you know, free. Getting Tim & Eric on my iPad at no cost is worth an install, for sure.

Just announced on the DisneyParks Blog: Vinylmation figure sets for Disney Afternoon characters. Finally, enough time has passed that we can wax nostalgic about DA shows and start getting oddball fan-baiting merchandise.

The TaleSpin set is out first, AS IS ONLY RIGHT, available tomorrow to buy online. $25 for the set, which includes Baloo and Kit.

As you can see from the picture, the other sets focus on DuckTales, Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck and Goof Troop. No Gummi Bears, which is a pretty common thing with Disney Afternoon memorabilia, since the Gummis were the first show to be rotated out, and they were a fairly old show when DA premiered in the first place, having run on Saturday mornings for a bit.

That Max figure is going to be continually mistaken for a slightly off-model Mickey.