Been a while out of GameSpot... actually, more than a year. Talking about years, 2007 haven't been the best for me, except for my new girlfriend and the fact that I ditched Chemistry for TI two months ago and got a new job in a fantastic place.

Unfortunately, these good news have the same downside: lack of time for electronic entertainment; which means my PC and Gamecube have been gathering dust for the past six months, even when I have a pile of 20 Gamecube games I bought from a closing rental shop, and never touched them... or the great PC releases, mostly RTS, that left my mouth watering.

I predict these will remain like that for at least two years, when I finish college, so now I'm considering selling out both hardwares and software, maybe keeping the real gems and games I consider revisiting again in a few years.

But I didn't forget gaming altogether, as I found a spectacular substitute for those: the Nintendo DS. You see, I owned a GBASP for a few years, and been a big fan of portable gaming, mostly for being able to harvest the few spare time I have left for gaming, like commuting to work/college, intestinal work or anything else that doesn't require my full attention (do not play and drive*, kids).

But the NDS took it to the next level. I never realized, from watching videos or reading reviews, what it actually meant to use the stylus and dual screen combo. I have flirted with a dozen games, to explore my current possibilities, and I'm really amazed by the results. But often I can only play one at a time, due to some unknown obsession, and here are a few examples:

Kirby was a nice surprise, the first game I elected to go from start to finish. Simple, fun, addictive and short enough, as the gameplay starts to wear down close to the end.

Then came Mario Kart, my all-time favourite franchise from Nintendo, that did not used touch controls (thank Buda for that), but delivered a good deal of time-tested gameplay and new features. Unfortunately I didn't get to finish all GPs, as my girlfriend took the task for herself, spending whole afternoons during two weeks. Her next gift will be a NDS, if she promises me she won't forget classes again.

But now, I've come to Legend of Zelda, in my opinion, the greatest feat of Nintendo. Our green boy showed the greatest transitions I've ever seen. From 2D to 3D, Ocarina of Time is something the gaming industry will never forget. Now, from joypads to touch controls, the house of Mario nailed it again with Phantom Hourglass.

The controls are fluid, simple, easy to perform and remember, and the use of the two screens was really creative. It isn't just another Zelda. It's a breath of fresh gameplay in a world we have grown to love. If you own a NDS and still didn't get to play this, repeat to yourself: I'm missing one of the greatest games Nintendo ever made!

Well, enough of reviews. I didn't get to play other games enough to say something consistent, so I'll leave that for another time.

One thing I never expected much on the DS was the technical aspects, always lacking on portables compared to consoles. Nintendo 64 like hardware meant no mind blowing graphics or audio, but most games did a good job compensating on style.

Some games are a bit rough, mostly due to lousy developers or rushed jobs, what makes me really sad because seems to happens on many of my favourites, like SimCity and Settlers. I hope these become more and more rare with the continued success of the NDS. I expected Nintendo to curb these practices, even if they needed a few more games being released at the time due to some game drought. Bad games and broken games are different, and the later often more frustrating.

Well, I didn't expect this post to end on a Nintendo DS fan fest, but it does show how I'm relating to games for the past months. I am a Nintendo fan, and these are some of the reasons for that. I never had the money to keep multiple consoles, and often choose Nintendo for their focus on fun/gameplay, and the PC for RTS and other games that I really enjoy.

The truth is, I can't be a hardcore gamer anymore, as time is a precious resource now. A resource that I must use for my responsabilities and social life, in first place. Gaming is a hobby, and can't be more important than such things.

But I'm happy about being able to turn myself in a casual gamer with an endless number of good games to burn my spare time, and the knowledge to research game quality and new releases, instead of bowing down to marketing campaigns that turn crappy games in instant sale success.

Happy holidays, folks, see you next year,

Paulo.

PS. Damn, had to remove the link to http://www.gamespot.com/news/6146221.html for the 'play and drive' joke...

Today Lik-Sang announced it would be closing its doors.

The reasons? Not enough money to compete with a megacorporation (I refuse to write the 'S' word now) on an european-wide lawsuit. All their business was legal, but they couldn't spare lawyer money on many different countries.

Now, it's gone, the largest import store online, where you could get all those weird games and accessories for your consoles/handhelds/pcs, or people like me on countries not officially supported by gaming companies could get gaming hardware and software LEGALLY.

But, of course, that's not the end of it. By winning said lawsuit, this megacorporation got the precedent to sue ANY importer. Not only that, the precedent extends to ANYONE who doesn't want to see their products being sold to other countries. Including other gaming companies.

So much for a globalized world. I hope other gaming companies don't follow suit; and we may see import stores stop selling products from said megacorporation, in fear of the same imoral legal tactics.

Ultimately, this will only hurt gamers that can't get the games they want, and those who don't sell their products because they made it illegal to sell those.

Maybe we'll be playing Bethesda's next installment of the Fallout series in our own vaults. North Korea just sucessfully tested it's first nuclear bomb.

I'm not saying they'll end the world by themselves. But the reactions to this may lead us in a post-apocalyptic Fallout-like world.

Let's hope our world leaders don't pull that out.

Well, seems like I can't get away from computers. But it's not just for hobby now. After playing around with Photoshop, I started learning PHP to automate a friends website.

Nice language, really easy because it's syntax is the same as JavaScript, which I used to program artificial inteligence for Diablo II on.

A month later I have a paying job, a rented server, one website to look for, and another one in the oven. Busy life, but learning a lot of stuff in short time. Make me forget about chemistry sometimes, maybe I am REALLY in the wrong path.

... at least when reviewing a game. I always try to be objective, but if I consider GameSpot's reviewing guidelines, I think the "reviewer tilt" was playing a bigger role than it should, so I decided to change some scores.

But most importantly, I reached the conclusion that it's impossible to have an absolute scale to rate something based on senses and brain reactions. How to know if a game is worth 9.2 or 9.3? Come on... it's absolutely subjective.

I decided to use 0.5 increments, and may try move to 1.0. After all, that scores should be used just as guidelines, keep the decimals for fanboy arguments.

Ok, something must be really wrong here. I know Jeff G. is a senior Gamespot editor, but why in hell choose him to Nintendo Press Conferences, "force" him to review Nintendo games, ask him about Nintendo marketing strategies, when he states himself he isn't interested on those things?

It's hard enough to have fanboys in forums and the news section randomly bashing something I'm really interested, now a Gamespot senior editor?

I already left those areas, but ignoring the hotspot, on the spot, and other features, that are the reason I visit Gamespot...

GameSpot Staff comments:

McDonalds + Nintendo DS + Free Wi-Fi == BAD IDEA.

Burger King + Xbox 360 + Crappy Games == GREAT IDEA.

And then, fifteen minutes later, on the very same podcast:

Halo 2 Tournament on TV: YAY!
SSB:M Tournament on TV: BOO!

At first, we got the games, and that's all.
Next, came the internet.

We got our games, after they were finished and went gold. And in ocasion of a bug, and/or the developer being kind enough, a patch was distributed.

Life was good.

A few years ago, things started to change. Developers/Publishers started to release unfinished games to keep release dates, and spent months finishing the games and releasing patchs. Dirty play, specially when a game was NOT finished at all. UFO: AfterMath and Master of Orion 3, the death of true great franchises caused by need of a fast flux of cash is a big example. I believe Atari may do it again with Neverwinter Nights 2, but I hope not.

Now, developers finish their games. But they won't sell you like that. You buy just half of it, and the rest is sold like bread slices for even more money. Welcome to the world of microtransactions. Ok, things are bad now.

But if the evolution continues, in the future the industry will release unfinished games and to get it working, you'll have to go trought the microtransactions way. Maybe that's the reason consoles now have hard disks? Money talks, as always...

It leads to the great question. How much a full game will cost in the future? $60-$70... plus $2 for each "content update"... let's say $80-$100... well, that's was exagerated, but that's the point of this post.

IMO, this Virtual Console idea is great. Not something new, as millions of PC owners already tasted the emulation wine, but indeed, a sick idea.

But the great idea here isn't the emulation by itself. It's the delivery method.

I see two kinds of response from gamers to this feature on Nintendo's next console:

1st. AWESOME!

2nd. OLD, I can do it on my computer.

But console emulation in computers or other consoles (even handhelds) is illegal, no matter what you think or say. It's is illegal to own a ROM, even if you own the game, even if you made the backup yourself.

Nintendo is just offering a legal way to own and play these games, other than finding working consoles, controllers and carts. For a price, of course. Offering their former competitors catalog, setting up servers, employees, bandwidth, all that costs money. And their ultimate goal, as for every company in the world, is profits.

Pretty neat, huh? Most are saying it won't work because of the prices, when you can ransack irc channels for ROMs and spend hours trying to setup an emulator.

Now, this isn't revolutionary at all. And no, I'm not talking about Live Marketplace, or GameTap. I've seen this before, years ago. And this is the reason I believe the Virtual Console will be a huge success: it's based on the iTunes model. And as Apple, Nintendo isn't first to serve it's good in this model, but they are serious. Serious to the point to make deals with old death-sworn enemies.

Ok, I'm running in circles. Lets end it here before it gets worse.

I'll start this by pasting a neat piece of information from Gamespot News:

The following is the list of the 10 best-selling games in Japan for 2005:
1. Animal Crossing: Wild World for the DS
2. Gran Turismo 4 for the PS2
3. Nou wo Kitaeru Otona no DS Training for the DS
4. Nintendogs for the DS
5. World Soccer Winning Eleven 9 for the PS2
6. Dynasty Warriors 5 for the PS2
7. Yawaraka Atama Juku for the DS
8. Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop for the DS
9. Kingdom Hearts II for the PS2
10. Mario Kart DS for the DS

Well, I dare say these are strange figures.

Six out of ten, including the top seller game of 2005, are handheld games. I never expected to see that in my entire life, as handheld gaming was supposed to be a complimentary form of gaming, not the mainstream in my point of view.

Aside that six out of these ten games (two for DS, all PS2 games) are sequels or remakes. Nothing new here, as "everybody" know a sequel to a good game isn't just a good thing for gamers but also for developers and publishers; but seeing four new franchises on the top ten bestsellers is something quite interesting.

The Japanese market is always referred to as quirky, with new and weird stuff being successful there, but most of the time, after a few months or years, the same happens to the rest of the world. Can we expect the western market to grow towards handhelds and new franchises in the near future? Well, it would be interesting at least.