I was scrolling through my daily dose of current affairs goodness on MSNBC when I saw a little Today Show video clip titled "New Nintendo Causing Home Chaos?" which snagged my attention. Watching it, I realized that this whole media blitz about the Wiimotes wrist strap breaking has gotten to a point of idiocy. The reporter also spoke to a guy who had a site dedicated to these kinds of problems, which upon further investigation turned out to be this site right here. Going into the site, I was a little skeptical because I noticed the guy owned a 360 in one of the shots of him in the video. Not that 360 owners are liars or anything, but in the middle of console wars I've seen some dirty, dirty mud slung by fanboys. (I would have inserted picture of guy with 360 here, but MSN Video is being a POS) After visiting the site, though, I get the feeling this is more of a blow to the weak handed people who can't seem to hold on to the Wiimotes. One shot in the video even showed someone who had impaled their TV with the Wiimote, which I thought was probably fake. Turns out so did the guy who runs the site, as he says "The investagotary journalist in me has doubts about whether or not it actually stuck in the hole. I quietly wonder to myself if they just didn't shove it back in after the event. Why don't we give them this one on charity." I amount of idiocy I am seeing surrounding this whole Wiimote killing women and children thing gets me pretty angry and, at first, my anger was directed toward the guy who made this site. Once I realized that he wasn't so bad, I shifted the anger toward the people profiled on the site. But after looking a little deeper, it's even hard to be mad at them. Of course there are the liars like the guy above and the cases where you really have to wonder just how hard these people are throwing these things (because, really, even if the strap breaks it would provide some resistance). But, for the most part, many of the people really feel stupid for what they've done. I can sympathize with that. So I guess who my anger should really be directed at is the media, who is blowing this whole thing out of proportion. From all the press I've seen on it I began thinking I was in danger of being sexually violated at night by my malicious Wiimotes and left for dead in a ditch somewhere. The Today Show video claimed reports were "streaming in" of problems regarding the Wiimote either flying from people's hands or the wrist strap breaking. To me, even if my wrist strap did break (which it won't, because I have something called physical restraint) I don't think I'll be launching my Wiimote with any kind of velocity capable of cracking my TV or making holes in my wall. So I don't think I'll be worrying too much about losing too many electronic devices or pieces of furniture anytime soon. I'd be better off sleeping with one eye open in case the evil Wiimotes decided to kidnap me in the middle of the night.

After running into the initial DNS error that seems to be going around, I finally got my Wii connected to the net. Not that I have anything to play online, but if anyone wants to add me, feel free: 8323-9176-5234-0348 I've been really busy lately, so I've only been able to play short spurts of Wii Sports every now and then. I played a few more levels of Trauma Center (fun, want to play more), tried out the first 20 minutes of COD3 (controls are a little tricky), and explored the initial village in Zelda (pretty cool so far, love the little details they added). I'm really having withdrawal from FFXII, though. I don't know when I'll get to play it again, though, with finals coming up. *sigh*

So I finally went out and got a brand new PS2 awhile back. Decided against buying a used "big" one and just went ahead and got the new slim version. I also picked up Kingdom Hearts II around that time, but I had to go out of town on business for a couple of weeks, so my wife got to sink hers claws in first. I just beat it tonight, and I liked it a lot. It did have its share of problems, though. One thing I didn't like was the story. Well, not the story itself, but how it was told. It seemed a little too loose and overly complicated for its own good. I guess my not having played the first one might have something to do with that, though... Another thing is the Gummi Ship levels. The negative response to them is one reason I held off on the first game, and I really don't understand why they kept them for the sequel. I could see them being a mini game or side quest, but why are they required to get to a new world? They don't seem to fit the mold of the game at all, and they break up the narrative. My last complaint is pretty small. I didn't like how you had to read certain hints or prompts while still being expected to fight the enemy and/or hit action commands. It really only happened a few times, but it was frustrating when it did. After all that it may seem like I didn't like the game, but those things didn't take away too much from the game. The graphics were great, for the most part. A little simple, but the variation between worlds kepts things very interesting. The voice acting was also stellar (with the exception of most of the Pirates people), and the music was great. I loved hearing themes like Winnie the Pooh and Nightmare Before Christmas. Brought back memories... Speaking of Nightmare Before Christmas, that was one of my favorite levels. Mainly because I'm a big fan of the movie, but I also loved the look and feel of the environments. The same goes for Tron. The changing of your character was great in levels like the Lion King and the Little Mermaid, too. Again, kept things interesting. The fighting took me a bit to get used to, but once I did it became pretty fun. I ended up levelling up several times by just running back and forth between screens to fight respawned enemies. Overall, I thought it was a really good game, minor flaws and all. Oh, and I have a newfound love for Donald Duck. He's **** awesome. Other than that, I picked up Jaws: Unleashed and have run through the first few levels of that as well. I won't defend it and say it's a good game, but I have fun playing it. I always liked the idea of a game that let's you explore the (mostly) open ocean and destroy things as a shark. Although, how a **** barracuda manages to kill an extremely large great white still gets me. I won't write much more on this game, though, since it doesn't really have much to it. I also picked up Batman: Dark Tomorrow for $3. Although it has terrible, terrible reviews from everywhere, I couldn't pass it up for only a few bucks. I'm also a huge Batman fan, so it hurts me somewhere deep inside every time I see a new Batman game out. The last time he had a good game was... well, I don't think I've known one. I hear Batman Returns was good, but I remember it being a little difficult to manage. Ah well. Someday...

I would never call myself a Nintendo fanboy, and I can't recall too many times I've been called one by others. But I have been a huge Nintendo fan since the NES days, so every new system gets me really hyped. Of course I had to have an NES when I played Super Mario Bros. at a friend's house for the first time. The SNES followed with it's alluring Super Mario World and the N64 had the beyond-amazing Mario 64. The GameCube had Rogue Squadron II, along with the promise of some other great games. But as I was caught up in the flurry of Wii news today, I had to look at the game list and wonder why I was so excited. Don't get me wrong, some of the games coming out for the Wii have me really excited. Super Mario Galaxy, Twilight Princess, Dragon Quest, etc. all sound like a lot of fun. But I've played those games before, in one form or another. Still, why wouldn't I be excited for sequels to some of my favorite games, along with the promise of strong third party support in the coming years? What caused my sudden nervousness about buying a Wii at launch? I think I am afraid that the wonderment will wear off after a few months. How many swords can I swing, guns can I shoot, and sports can I play before it no longer feels fresh and new? I can see that, at this point, the potential for the Wii controller is far reaching... but how far? Five years or more of potential? Or will the ideas dry up in a couple of years, at least from the third party end? Maybe I am just getting the pre-launch worries. I had them for the PS2, so maybe it will become normal. After all, it wasn't MY money being spent on all of those consoles as a kid. Now that I'm slapping down my own $500+ I am growing conscious of the potential risk involved with paying a lot of money for something you give up on halfway through it's life cycle. I think I just need to get my hands on the damn thing. From the impressions I've gotten from E3 and beyond, the controller is amazing. So maybe I just need to pick it up and fall in love again. Not that I've fallen out of love... I think it's more of a pre-wedding scare kind of thing. Oh well. I think my overanalyzation of it is just making it worse. Damn it. I guess I will just have to see come November 19th...

I read these two articles regarding the insane amount of money Sony and Microsoft have lost on the PS2 and Xbox, and are going to lose on their next gen systems: Speaking Up: Redefining Success PlayStation 3 component prices: Why so high? But in the first article they mention that Nintendo actually made approx. 4 billion on the GameCube. And I hear the Revolution is going to be equally as cheap to produce. So where is everyone coming up with the idea that Nintendo is "losing" the console wars? I know software sales make up for some of the lost money, but I'd be interested to see what the total profit margin is for all three companies when it comes to the gaming industry. I still think Nintendo would be ahead, or at least fairly close to the others. And with the format war now going on between Sony and MS, will Nintendo be the real "winner" of the next round of console wars? They may not sell the most consoles, but I think they will make the biggest impact.

I had never played a Dragon Quest game before VIII, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I had heard that it was like "older" RPGs, so that's pretty much what attracted me. I fell in love with RPGs on the SNES, so I was looking for something to help me relive those glory days. Dragon Quest VIII does that and then some. It is easily one of the best RPGs I have ever played. Now, I understand a lot of people can't get past the turn-based random battles. I myself am not such a big fan of random battles, but they didn't seem to bother me at all in DQ VIII. The battles themselves were beautifully animated and took a fair amount of strategy and forethought to win, which probably helped a lot. And the enemies themselves are very original and not too-oft recycled. Speaking of beautifully animated, the entire game is almost perfectly crafted. So much detail is poured into every town, house, room, and person that I often find myself wondering how long it took them to make this game. The music is equally as awesome, and the writing was great. RPGs don't usually make me laugh, but I found myself laughing at quite a few parts in this game. The excellent voice work helped out a lot with that. And I hear a lot of complaints that the story was kind of generic and cliche. I agree it was a little on the sterile side, but amid all of the modern RPGs I actually found it to be refreshing. Plus the alternate ending and extra level made things much better when a sadness crept over me as I neared the final boss. With a lot of modern RPGs, I find myself actively trying to make it to the end. With DQ VIII, I found myself avoiding it at all cost, taking every side mission and extra quest I could. So I ended up beating it the first time after 112 hours, and 127 after the alternate ending. I'm still working on getting all of the best weapons and making it to level 65 to get the secret power that I've heard about. And I'm still enjoying every minute of it. I haven't touched the FF XII demo yet, and I'm not sure I want to after playing DQ. I may be in for quite a disappointment.

Yeah, MGS3 blew me away and Doom 3 was pretty good. Didn't get into Conker that much, but since those games I've been pretty busy so I haven't been able to sit down and get into anything else. But I was able to take two weeks off of work and come home to the Chicago suburbs for Thanksgiving, which in turn gave me lots of time for gaming. Some games I've played: SOCOM 3: Haven't delved into the online play yet, but played through most of the levels in a LAN game. And damn, they are huge. The game pretty much retains the same gameplay besides the vehicles, so there's not much to write about other than the gigantoid levels. Can't wait to play a full room online soon. Soul Calibur 3: Awesome, as expected. Played some VS and made a few custom characters, but haven't gotten into any of the new modes. Even if they're boring (as many reviews seem to indicate) I'll probably play the hell out of them just for the unlockables. I loves me some unlockables. MLB 2K5: Ok, not exactly a new game, but I try and buy a good baseball game every few years. My last was Triple Play 2001 so I figured it was time for a new one, and it was only $15 brand new so I couldn't pass it up. Anyway, the game is pretty great in the multiplayer games, and I love the split screen HR derby. Lots of options to suit both hardcore and casual baseball gamers too. LEGO Star Wars: I wanted to get this game when it came out, but I had heard that it was very short and easy, so I held off. Again, it was on sale so I grabbed it. It is very easy, but also very fun to play. Replay value is also great because of the pick-up-and-play gameplay and unlockables. Silent Hill 4: The Room: I hated the first SH, loved the second, got annoyed after the first hour of the third, and am now playing the fourth. I'm actually really liking it, although the enemy encounters still yield very little reward or sense of accomplishment. SH, for me, is great for the atmosphere and story. Now if they would just tweak the fighting... So I'm very much looking forward to playing all of these games more in the coming weeks. I'm not interesting in the 360 at the moment, so I need some stuff to fill my game time. But the one game I am most excited about is Dragon Quest VIII. Never having played a DQ game I wasn't paying very much attention to the previews or anything in the press. I glanced over the articles in EGM and on 1up, but playing it was far from my mind. And then, out of the blue, I had a "moment". I was in a gaming store the day it was released and I saw the display for it. For some reason, just glancing at the cardboard display caused something in the dark recess of my mind to snap. I knew I had to to have it even though I knew nothing about it. I didn't buy it there (didn't like the store) so I went home and scoured the internet for info. The reviews were amazing and the screenshots were glowing, which only furthered my need for it. So I recently picked it up and am aching to dive in. It seems like my kind of RPG, harking back to the great days of Chrono Trigger, FFIII, Secret of Evermore, etc. So I'll post some thoughts on that once I begin. I'll try and post more often from now on, although my audience is scarce, haha.

I know many people (especially on this site) have dreams of working in the gaming industry. A lot of people I talk to want to be testers, programmers, artists, journalists, etc. I have never come across anyone that wanted to specifically write video games, but this has been my dream job for the past 8 years. Ever since getting into the huge RPGs with scripts that dwarf their Hollywood counterparts, I've wanted to be a writer of video games. All the research I did, however, indicated that there was no such thing. For the most part it is the producer's job to write the story and dialogue. I knew that had recently changed with some of the current gen games, but still held no hope of getting this dream job. It seems like there are very few positions, and I'm sure you need some kind of connection to get the ones that ever do become available. Then I read this: http://www.gamespot.com/news/news_spots.html?date=2005-12-01 BioWare looking to hire a writer? For their RPGs? Like Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR, and Jade Empire? Holy **** It's hard to believe, and actually, I never would have believed it a few years ago. Sooo I'm going to enter. Seeing as how there is only one open slot I'm not very confident in my chances, but I can't pass up the opportunity to chase my dream (as cheesy as that sounds). And even if I lose, maybe it will motivate me to start looking for similar opportunities? Either way, this is a kickass contest and I would encourage anyone to enter. The max word count is only 3500 so it's not too much of a strain.