http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Semi daily fourhman.com newspost. en-us joe@fourhman.com 2005-07-17T01:06:18-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2005/07/animal-crossing-2k5-the-return.html Lately my Animal Crossing Log has generated a few nice emails, from people who are new to the game and perhaps looking for trustworthy non-cheaters with which to trade. When one kind soul (Hey Simon!) offered up a Basic Painting, I knew it was time to play again. 824@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Animal Crossing Log 2005-07-17T01:06:18-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2005/05/animal-crossing-theories.html Planet GameCube has a preview of Animal Crossing DS up, straight from E3. This being such a huge game for me, I thought I'd dupe their article and include my commentary. In our interview yesterday with Takashi Tezuka and Katsuya Eguchi, we learned several new details and got some clarifications on features for Animal Crossing DS. One of the driving forces behind the development is to encourage communication between players. They feel that the DS's touch pen and wireless features really help to facilitate the next step in Animal Crossing's evolution. The touch screen simplifies the gameplay significantly, allowing you to access menus and type more naturally or even navigate the world by pointing the stylus in the direction you want your character to run or by tapping objects to interact with them. 785@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Animal Crossing Log 2005-05-21T12:33:04-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2004/07/animal-crossing-log-entry-29.html All things must pass, even great games. I've played AC only sparingly for several months now. I'm still missing an obnoxious list of catalog items and I suppose I'll have to make peace with that... but the long honeymoon is over. I've seen every special event, I have all the NES games Nintendo is willing to give out, I'm positive I got more out of this game than 95% of everybody else who owns it simply because of the real-time == real-life attitude I had when I played it. The last couple times I visited Adamsvil was because we have a couple friends who just got into the game, so we all travelled to see each others' villages. Two of these friends happen to be under the age of 13; I always like to see kids embrace video games. Not just simply playing them or hunting down cheat codes... I mean embracing them. Talking about the characters outside the gameworld, sending artwork to Nintendo Power, and, in Animal Crossing's case, making rock-solid appointments to return to the game on Saturday night because K.K. is in town. 597@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Animal Crossing Log 2004-07-03T01:24:39-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2004/02/animal-crossing-log-entry-28.html 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. 535@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Animal Crossing Log 2004-02-29T23:56:13-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2004/01/animal-crossing-log-entry-27.html I know I said I wasn't going to bother listing my missing items for you, but what the hell. What follows is everything I need to complete my catalog (according to the Nintendo Power Player's Guide anyway) and my level of irritation with it: Minor, Major, Extreme, and Suicidal. If you want to help me out with some trading, toss me an email, but be warned, I don't cheat and don't use universal codes. FurnitureBlue Tartan, Dump Model, Museum ModelThese are just some items I missed last year. The tartan shirt is entirely tradeable; I just either forgot to buy it last summer or never saw it. The Dump Model and Museum Model are untradeable, but easy enough to get... although the Museum Model does ride on me getting Crazy Redd's damn Basic Painting first. 512@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Animal Crossing Log 2004-01-18T19:03:12-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2003/12/animal-crossing-log-entry-26.html The streak is over. Yes, I finally missed a day after playing for over thirteen months straight. It was a Friday, I worked late, we had some running around to do, I came home and passed out. Woke up and realized I had forgotten to play Animal Crossing. Hey, I did the entire year. Got nothing for it, but I did an entire year. The experiment is still a success. So it's not a big deal at all, just the first chink in the armor against inevitable obsolescence. I have found several missing catalog items since the last Log Entry. I now have no further need to talk to Saharah or Gulliver. I'm missing four Wendall wallpapers and nine Gracie shirts, a handful of Redd items and Island items, and fifteen Gyroids. Once I find the Basic Painting I'll completely finish up the Museum, and then there's the Post Office items and a couple of Camper items. Not much, really. Most of these items aren't tradable or I'd give you a list. 496@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Animal Crossing Log 2003-12-07T15:01:29-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2003/10/animal-crossing-log-entry-25.html Hopefully my second year of Animal Crossing will be the year I complete the catalog. To that end I am aggressively recording what items I need - although many are Crazy Redd items, which leaves me at the mercy of A) randomly generated Redd events or B) online trading. Then there's the Station Models, which I'll have to hunt down on the eCard games. I have started keeping track of the weekly turnip prices in hopes of discovering a trend. I read somewhere that good turnip prices are the same over the life of your town. Meaning that if the turnip selling price spikes when you buy for 80 bells, then the price will always go high when you buy for 80. Could be true, could be crappy internet rumor, like the one I started about flying your Arwing. If this pattern is true, it will make the uber-rare $$$ post office items a reachable goal. But the really good news is that Bitty is gone. I've always hated her. I have a low tolerance for the snobby personality types, and when that rudeness is combined with a fat pink monster I am even less affable. (Although I don't mind the attitude on sexy villagers like Olivia.) 473@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Animal Crossing Log 2003-10-13T11:59:12-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2003/09/animal-crossing-log-entry-24.html Nothing happened. Today marks my one year anniversary of playing Animal Crossing. I've played every day since September 17, 2002. I was hoping that something cool would happen today, but nothing did. I can't say I'm surprised; that would be a pretty awful way to hide a secret in the game, wouldn't it? Very very few players would hit that goal. But it would have been great to get Super Mario Bros. in the mail this morning. I would have went straight to the message boards and posted in all caps. So let's reflect on what I've accomplished after a year living in Animal Crossing. Catalog completion: fossils, stationery, K.K. songs. Completed the fish and insect collection screens. One painting to go, and my entire museum is finished. For several weeks, I had every single villager wearing the Noble Shirt. Collected the complete Harvest series, Jingle series and Igloo item sets. 449@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Animal Crossing Log 2003-09-17T23:30:30-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2003/07/animal-crossing-log-entry-23.html I really hate fishing. When you're searching for a particular fish, the whole process can be exceptionally frustrating and lengthy. Since you can rarely tell what kind of fish is lurking below the waves, it's a lot of trial and error to catch them all. Compare that to insects, where you can see exactly what type of bug you're about to catch. The tradeoff is that more fish sell for more money than insects. But I'm happy to report that I have very little fishing left to do. Namely, the hunt for the jellyfish that appears in late August. I finally snagged a piranha, and I fully expect that to be the last difficult catch. I must have put in ten to twenty hours just in fishing for the piranha. Ugh. 431@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Animal Crossing Log 2003-07-29T12:10:42-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2003/07/animal-crossing-log-entry-22.html We've already seen all the fireworks I need for the night, in our respective towns of Adamsvil and Holliday. Mayor Tortimer handed out fake bottle rockets, and Crazy Redd set up a booth by the lake. He's like those seedy carnies who hawk calamine tubes and knockoff Spider-Man balloons at state fairs. And he has regionally diversified his stock this visit. In Adamsvil he sold only balloons - a crappy choice since you can get balloons for free at every Nook sale. In Holliday, Redd had an assortment of freaking paper fans, a rare series of items you can only get during the Fireworks Festival. You can be assured that Adamsvil and Holliday will engage in some sort of balloons-for-paper fans trade arrangement shortly. 418@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Animal Crossing Log 2003-07-04T21:06:25-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2003/06/animal-crossing-log-entry-21.html This past Saturday night I completed my collection of K.K. Slider songs. I've been working on it pretty diligently since January when NESJoe moved into town. Just so you know, the game offers no additional bonuses for collecting all 52 music files. Having a fully stocked jukebox is apparently reward enough. This actually finishes one of NESJoe's assigned tasks. Helping me collect K.K. songs was one; creating a venue for all the NES games and Mario items is the other. Thanks to series 4 of the AC eCards, I now have Ice Climber and the original Mario Bros. I found the Ice Climber card in a pack, but I had to snag the Mario Bros. card from eBay. I don't like Ice Climber, but Mario Bros. is one of my all-time favorite classic arcade games. This version - the NES version - isn't as nice as the original coin-op game, but it's more or less equivalent. Jumping isn't as tight as I'd like, and many of the graphics were dumbed down for the NES... but, heck, it's easily one of the best 2P NES games going. 400@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Animal Crossing Log 2003-06-16T11:10:41-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2003/05/animal-crossing-log-entry-20.html In a directionless game like Animal Crossing, it's easy to fall into the trap of "I've done everything I want to do; this game is over." By this point (eight months after the original release), I've seen many message board postings saying "How can anybody still be playing this game?" Here's how. #1) I don't cheat. That's the biggest point of all. Many gamers have bought the Action Replay cheater add-on, entered in the code for Complete Catalog, played level 1.1 of hidden item Super Mario Bros, and traded in AC for credit towards a new Xbox. But with no catalog cheats or sneaky time travelling I still have secret items and future events to look forward to. 387@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Animal Crossing Log 2003-05-25T13:11:44-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2003/04/animal-crossing-log-entry-19.html April really is a kind of anticipatory month in Animal Crossing. When May hits, we'll be able to find a new assortment of bugs and fish, including the eagerly awaited frog. By mid-summer, I will finally have reached the capability to have caught a complete set of both categories, if not the actual ability. On the fish side, I have yet to find a goldfish... but the missing fauna that really bothers me is the bee. The only way to catch a bee is by shaking one out of a tree and netting it before the bee swarm stings you. I have plenty of stings to show for it, but no bees. Two new rare items were available in April: the Tree Model and the Pink Tree Model, prizes for Nature Day and the Cherry Blossom Festival, respectively. Between myself and NESJoe, I have two of each, and they will be stored on Dred Island with the rest of my model collection. Thanks to some eCards, I have two more of the Station Models, bringing my total to four (of fifteen.) That's great for my catalog, but not so great for my cramped island model shack. It's a good thing June never peeks in there. 351@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Animal Crossing Log 2003-04-26T13:34:05-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2003/03/animal-crossing-log-entry-18.html I actually took off work to follow along with the Spring Sports Fair on March 21st. (And I had Mike and Scott over to play Doomtown and other stuff, so it wasn't just an AC holiday.) The short of it is, the Sports Fairs are a non-interactive ongoing festival. Beginning at 9am, every two hours a new "event" occurs, and the animals involved simply continue their animating over the course of the two hours. Naturally, the real brass ring to the Spring Sports Fair is the Spring Sports Medal you get from Tortimer for showing up. The Medal has Mario on it, so you know it's good. 287@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Animal Crossing Log 2003-03-23T21:27:47-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2003/02/animal-crossing-log-entry-17.html With February 25th marking an official end to the blanket of snow that has covered our village since mid-December, I thought I'd send you all an update on Adamsvil. ITEM. We have a new human in town. His name is NESJoe and his responsiblity is to create the best NES arcade in town. In truth, NESJoe is a soulless automaton manipulated by yours truly, which allows me the dual purpose of finding out what the animals think of me and building a bitchin' NES arcade. Since I am covering NESJoe's debt to Nook out of my own vast bank account, I estimate that there will be a second lifesize statue by the train station within a few weeks. ITEM. Groundhog Day completely sucked. I had heard that festivities began at 7am for the big ceremony at 9am (thank you, Nintendo Power Strategy Guide)... but in fact the ceremony was held at 8am. I showed up at the Wishing Well at 8:45am, and all I saw was the post-Groundhog afterglow. 250@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Animal Crossing Log 2003-02-25T23:40:29-05:00