« January 21, 2007 - January 27, 2007 | Main | February 11, 2007 - February 17, 2007 »
February 1, 2007
Eric Burns-White: Many notes, in various forms.
Work started just before 7 and ended... hm. A couple of minutes ago. No breaks today. There was... a problem last night. Tomorrow will be the same. No Wiiplay tonight, and restricted before that (I was deathly ill at the start of the week, and this much exhaustion can't possibly help with that.)
I haven't written my Order of the Stick snark yet, though it keeps getting better and better. This is amazing stuff. If you're not reading it, you ought to be, really.
PvP launched its animated series today, which served as a backdrop while I worked. As Scott Kurtz himself admitted in comments, the pacing wasn't as solid as one would like, and he promises improvements with that. The voice acting was pretty darn cool (I know there was the Skull controversy, but at this point I can't hear him any other way). The others were at least serviceable -- and Brent is spot on perfect. If I had my wishes granted by scantily clad djinni... well, first off I'd be mind numbingly rich, the workstuff would be dealt with, and Wednesday would be declared Canada's Ambassador Without Portfolio to New Hampshire, but at some point we'd reach my PvP animated wishes, and they'd include a little more of the really good incidental music and more of a patter. However, it's worth noting I'll be back next month to see the next, and that's the core thing you can ask of a first episode.
Note to T and Phil. I will, I swear to God, write back. I'm just exhausted.
Note to Frank. See above, times six. Man, do I have things I owe you.
Note to WiiFolks. I'll be adding everyone tomorrow night when I recover from round to from Oh My God Work Is Eating My Soul. I'm excited to see the enthusiasm.
Note to Wednesday -- I love you, and I'm sorry I'm not exactly focused at the moment.
Note to Activision. Marvel Ultimate Alliance for the Wii is f-f-frickin awesome.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:41 PM | Comments (32)
January 30, 2007
Eric Burns-White: A brief Wii update, for *yooooou.*
WarioWare Smooth Moves is startlingly awesome.
I can't get the freaking glass-drinking thing, dagnabbit!
I grabbed that and Marvel Ultimate Alliance, on the theory that A) dude, Captain America, and B) I won't get Zelda until I can give my life to Zelda for a week, which isn't yet.
I did start playing Zelda: A Link To The Past, downloaded from the Virtual Console. It is just as cool as I remember. And highlights that one does not need state of the art graphics to have an amazingly cool game.
In other news -- dude. Burns needs Mii Parade fodder, yo. E-mail or comment to open dialogues to gets us some friends codes trading going.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:32 AM | Comments (62)
January 29, 2007
Eric Burns-White: The current necropost list, as of the 29th of January
For those who haven't seen my slow but steady efforts to 'make up' posts done after the fact, here's what I so far have. I call these necroposts, because they revive a dead day and give it the horrible false impression of life in the form of a post.
The January 11 Necropost was on Malfunction Junction.
The January 12 Necropost was on culling iTunes.
The January 14 Necropost was on the superhero fiction site Star Harbor Nights. (Which also gets the sweet spot for the first post in the archives after the proposal.)
The January 18 Necropost was a brief, random note about Apple's hold music.
I still owe necroposts for: January 15, January 19-24, and January 27-28. Each day my intent is to do the day's post first, so as not to go farther into post debt, then with luck do at least one other necropost until we're all caught up and happy, shiny people.
I should have made this a necropost for like January 28, thereby cheating and cutting down on the backlog, but that's just not the way I roll.
(For those who've wondered, oh Hell yeah I intend to write about Order of the Stick.)
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:31 PM | Comments (7)
Eric Burns-White: All this said, even after all this time I'd wait in the cold for a ROM Spaceknight. But we knew that.
On friday, temperatures were below zero, especially in the early parts of the morning. Saturday was also bitterly cold. Sunday, on the other hand, saw a spike of temperature, up to a practically balmy 18 degrees Fahrenheit as of 4:45 in the morning.
I was standing in that cold. It was approximately four and three quarters hours since my 39th birthday had ended, and I was spending that first morning waiting outside a WalMart in Windham, Maine. A WalMart that would be selling 19 Nintendo Wiis at 6 am. And I was not alone.
I am not a passionate gamer. Not really. I loves me some City of Heroes as you all know, and I'm forever beholden to Soulcalibur and its ilk, but for the most part I'm a casual gamer. I do not own an XBox 360, and currently I do not plan to buy one. I do not own a Playstation 3, and as near as I can tell no one who doesn't already own one plans to buy one of those. They sit on the shelves next to excited handwritten signs declaring that they are in stock, and people just sort of shrug. There is something to be said for the additional muscle these 'next generation' consoles have, but almost every review I've seen for almost every game released for them is the same -- the graphics are generally slightly prettier (though to be honest, it doesn't look that different to me. I've never cared about being able to see the sweat on a game avatar), but the games play exactly the same way as their lastgen versions did. The same button combinations, the same moves, the same modes. And all too often, the games lack some of their predecessors' functionality. For no good reason I watch XPlay, and review after review they go over this is essentially the same game as Madden was on the original XBox, only with slightly better graphics and fewer game modes. And so forth.
That will change, by the by. Games like Gears of War couldn't have effectively existed on the original XBox, and as developers get comfortable with the greater power and capacity of the XBox 360, the games they release will become bigger and grander. Which is all fine and good for the serious gamer, but of less interest to the casual gamer. As for the Playstation 3? At this point, it almost doesn't matter what they do. It's had the kiss of death in the popular culture -- it's considered lame. Half the people (it seemed) who waited on line to get one turned around and sold it on eBay for a profit, and now no one's into them at all. When prices get slashed way down, they may regain share, but I wouldn't count on it.
The Nintendo Wii, on the other hand, is a casual gamer's dream machine. It's innovative. It doesn't have the graphical power of the other nextgens, but in part that's because they decided to make the console more fun instead. It was the Christmas must-have. It continues to sell out whenever it becomes available.
Which is why, two months after the system release, I was standing in the cold for one.
I wasn't alone. There were a good number of others waiting too. High school and college guys who didn't luck out before. Parents (and grandparents) trying to make good on Christmas promises. A couple of little kids who were so excited you could power a turbine with them. Every new person who showed up kind of chuckled, too. "I'm glad I'm not the only one," was the common refrain. "I was gonna feel ridiculous if I was the only one."
At the same time, there was a way I was the only one. I was neither a late teens/early twenties guy, nor a parent or grandparent, nor a ten year old kid. I was a full adult, waiting in the cold for a toy. For myself. For my birthday.
Which might be 39 in a nutshell.
This is your last chance. Your last shot. Right now, I'm still thirtysomething without kids. I'm not beholden. I can cling to the extended adolescence that has been the hallmark of my generation -- the first generation of Generation X. I don't have to be all the way grown up just yet. I can still get excited for a new toy. I can still wait in the cold to buy it. I can still drag my amused parents on a pre-dawn quest. (Which was nice, as they could run to Tim Hortons and grab me coffee.)
The time came. There was acrimony as it looked like they opened other doors first and there was the possibility of line jumping. The doors opened. There was a mad dash to electronics. And everyone who waited got a Wii. (Though the first guy in line -- who sent his 12 year old son at a full on sprint to be the first to the electronics counter -- wanted to buy all 19. The WalMart employee just snickered, said "one to a customer sir," and moved on to the next.)
I bought my Wii. I didn't get any additional games or the like, just then. I wanted to try it out on its own merits. And I was in no way disappointed. The Wii is fun. We brought it back to my folks' house and set it up. We downloaded patches. We created Miis. And we bowled. And I was stunned at how... well, good the bowling was. My mother, who became disenchanted with video games after Zelda went 3D and the maze games of the Ladybug era were phased out, happily did the same kind of bowling dances you do at actual alleys when she did well. And the bowling went exactly as bowling always does for me. I do really well for four or five throws, and then I overthink it and it becomes harder. My Dad hooked to the right generally, too. And all that just amazed me.
Boxing? Really cool. Tennis? A lot of fun. Baseball kind of bored me, but golf was okay. All in all, it was a fun thing. A good thing. A good game that everyone enjoyed.
Tonight, I'm going to buy my first real game for it. (Not counting The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past that I downloaded off of virtual console last night, of course.) Everyone tells me I should grab the new Zelda, and of course I will. I love Zelda. But the thing that really, really stood out for me was how much fun the party game aspect was -- so I'm thinking I'll grab WiiPlay or Warioware -- quick, easy and fun games that don't take long and really use the Wiimote and the like.
Next year, I'll be forty. Chances are likely I'll have a wife and household. I trust I'll still enjoy fun, but I don't anticipate I'll wait in line at four forty-five for a toy, no matter how cool it is.
But this year? I got the best toy on Earth for my birthday, and that just plain rocks.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:54 PM | Comments (26)
