That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

I've been trading emails with a friend discussing Nintendo's announcement that the Revolution will be sold under the label "Wii." My friend tells me that after the initial shock, the name has grown on him. I can't say the same. But he does make some excellent points.

Rle bo Rlu Shi Oh N.

More or less, that would be a challenging pronunciation in Japanese. But that's assuming that it would have to be composed of katakana; that there is not a word in Japanese for "revolution." Babelfish tells me that 回転 would suffice, but whether that's referring to progressive change or circular motion, I don't know... I can only assume that with the rise and falls of the Shogunates, surely someone came up with a word for it.

My point is only that I would have thought there were so many other options available. I would have been intrigued by a numbering system (everyone else is doing it). Suppose Nintendo announced that the project formerly named Revolution would be sold as the NES V (NES, SNES, N64, GCN, REV == 5). It would signal to people that Nintendo has been doing this a lot longer than the rest of the console companies and they've weathered some tough competition.

Also, I would think that attaching the NES moniker would give even the most hard-hearted fanboy pause. Nintendo would basically be saying "Yes. It's that freaking good. You're going to need to get one of these."

I'm told there are even conspiracy theorists saying that it was all some (not-so-) cleverly orchestrated hoax, and that the true name will be revealed at E3. Maybe, maybe not. But in the end, who cares? Nintendo's new console will either be the revolutionary leap forward in the video gaming industry that their marketeers promise, or it will be the next step forward for their company. Ultimately, it will succeed or fail based on its merits, and not on its name.

Its terrible, terrible name... :P

I just had to try out the new GameSpot video feature. So instead of trying to type up another Gamespace banner tutorial and take screenshots, I dug up some really old screen-capture software I had in the back of my desk.

The banner is the one I created for Giants: Citizen Kabuto, and was created in the GIMP (of course) and the video and audio editing were done with VirtualDub and Audacity.

So, completely open-source on this one. Nice! :P

VirtualDub is something I've never used before, so it may be really powerful (with it's AviSynth scripts) and I just don't know what I'm doing. But from a first use perspective, it's definitely no Premiere.

I think if I get some feedback on this & people seem to like it, I may do some more. Which will probably prompt me to buy that cheap version of Premiere that Adobe makes now. Anyway, here's the video. Let me know what you think. Thanks!

[video=ICZmxDL-5bgIvA]

I realized today that I've had quite a few posts about Nintendo lately. Well, make it plus one. I'll admit that I have a soft-spot for them since the first console I ever owned any games for was the NES.

For a little more background, my first exposure to video games was actually the Commodore 64 (Ducks Ahoy is still one of my favorite games ever!) by way of a Compaq portable computer my dad received from work. It had Pac-Man on a monochrome orange screen. Yeah...

But I was reading the aforementioned Game Informer article about Ubisoft's Red Steel project, and I couldn't help but have flashes of greatness pass before my eyes.

Imagine if you will, Punch Out with a controller in each hand. Soul Calibur with free-form swordplay. Guitar Hero X that has gameplay for the one-armed drummers of the world. An entire realm of gesture-based puzzle game mechanics waiting to be explored. Software that can teach you proper Tai chi hand motions. A painting game that allows you to create and share artwork in virtual galleries.

With video games, there are numerous bottlenecks relating to the technical limitations of hardware. Memory bandwidth, data storage, processing power... In all of these areas, games have advanced at an astonishing rate. From that to this in a little over 15 years.

Sony and Microsoft, in fact, continue to remain very focused on improving the way that games interact with themselves: how many objects can collide realistically, a function of bandwidth and processing power. And they continue to innovate in how the game interacts with the player: the fidelity of the audio and video, again a function of computational power.

But Nintendo has chosen to focus on the other side of the equation, how the player interacts with the game. Despite staggering improvements in video game consoles' hardware, there hasn't been a change to the human interface in about 10 years. It's a little bit hard to believe, when you actually think about it.

So which is more important? It's hardly a question so simple. Do I think that we will still be directing characters with our thumbs 3 years from now? I don't really know. The real question is, do you actually want to? Fortunately, we'll all know a little more in 16 short days.

I've never quite understood how the most important Christian holiday got roped into something that involves a giant rabbit distributing candy to the children of the world... Allegedly, it has something to do with the abundance of eggs around Easter time (which were then decorated), due to the forbiddance of Catholics to eat eggs during Lent fasting. But it just seems terribly wrong.

Anyway, I'm going out of town for the weekend, to visit my grandmother for Easter. So, I thought I would post up some quick thoughts before I go.

I think I've mentioned this before... I'm an active member of the GameSpot HeadCrab Union, being a news editor. I write brief articles detailing daily news about all things Valve, as well as edit the other writers' work (when necessary) to ensure style compliance, proper linkage, etc. It mostly involves removing unsightly tags from the HTML that is generated by the GS embedded editor.

However, I'm interested in learning more about the Union system. I've indicated that I'm willing to be a charter member of a Union about the GNU Image Manipulation Program (open-source photoshop, or close enough). So if that happens I won't be able to do anything else formative for another 30 days.

But there are plenty of nonexistent (or dying) Unions that I would love to be a part of. For example, the Magic the Gathering Union & the Dragon Quest Union are both languishing in either MIA or AWOL(!!!) status, which is just disgraceful. As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of all things Enix, and I was really into MtG a few years back. I'm also a fan of mixed martial arts (e.g. UFC) but I don't know how successful a Union about it would be...

Speaking of Dragon Quest, I'm about 40-50 hours into Dragon Warrior 7 with no end in sight. There hasn't even been much mention of the game's villain. My group is pretty powerful though, with my main character about half-way to mastering the Dragoon class. Gabo's a pretty powerful fighter, but I think I'm going to take the summoner route with him. And Maribel is my master of all things magical. This is a great game so far, but nowhere near as difficult as I remember the older DWs being (1, 2, 3, & 4).

That's it for now. I hope everyone has a nice Easter, if you observe. Or if not, just have a great weekend!

I was just reading Penny Arcade (funny, yet unsettling today) and I saw that Tycho had made a reference to the new Ubisoft project for the Revolution code-named(?) "Red Steel." I had seen the released cover for the May issue of Game Informer on digg a few days back, but I hadn't seen any of the screenshots from the article.

Incidently, the Joystiq article linked from Penny Arcade has removed the images at the behest of Game Informer. But you can still find them if you look.

First-person Shooters seem like a gimme for a game designer looking for a way to utilize the Revolution's controller. I'm more excited about the potential for new ways of playing games, rather than any gameplay that's about as interactive as a cat and a laser-pointer.

But I was really impressed by the graphics in the few images that I found, doctored or not. It makes me even more interested to see what will be revealed next month at E3.

Oh! That'll have to do it for now. It's time for Prison Break. And then 24 @ 9pm. That's just 2 hours of great TV... And makes me hate FOX slightly less for cancelling Arrested Development.

I started playing Guitar Hero this weekend (I borrowed it from my brother) and it's equally insanely addictive and frustrating. I seem to do much better on the metal music, like Helmet and Motörhead, than the crazy 5/4 off-beat stuff. That Incubus song on the 'Medium' difficulty is beyond my brain's ability to function. So I don't even want to think about it on 'Expert'...

I'm going to visit a good friend of mine today and check out the new Georgia Aquarium. I'm really looking forward to it, despite never getting a callback from them about a job in their IT department. Ironically, the job has been filled and their mail server still doesn't properly accept external messages. :roll: Not that I want to do IT, but it seems like a cool place to work.

Anyway, Guitar Hero is one of those games that you (or at least I) have to play in very small doses. So to fill in the time, I think I'm going to start Dragon Warrior 7. I picked it up about a year ago for $5. I never got around to playing it, because the only thing I had at the time was PSEmu. But now that I have a PS2, I think I'll give it a try. Plus, Jekyll just finished it and really enjoyed it.

So no updates for the HCU from me today, I'll be staring at all kinds of crazy sea creatures, humorously enough, while crammed inside a building like sardines, with a billion other people. I wonder if the fish will appreciate the irony?

I'm not one for the "w00t!! LEVEL insert number!!!!" posts, but being a huge Dragon Warrior/Quest fan I just had to bring it up. Can you kill it before it runs away? Because if you can, get ready for insane amounts of XP...

So I started playing ICO the other day, and so far I have to admit that I'm a little disappointed. I had assumed that it was one of those under-appreciated games that I (with my GameSpot-endorsed 'Good Taste' :P) would really enjoy. But it's sort of the proto-Shadow of the Colossus.

Side Note: Just what exactly is the deal with GameSpot's crippling of the post editor. I've begrudgingly accepted being unable to use <embed> tags for the HCU, but what nefarious deed could I possibly accomplish with the <acronym> tag? Not even to mention that this is my third attempt at this post, clicking the "Toggle HTML Source" button having crashed Firefox twice!

But I digress... I appreciate the peacefulness & artistry of ICO's setting. And the thoughtfulness of the puzzles from the game are a refreshing break from the other 3rd person titles I've recently played (God of War & Jak II). But when the shadows appear, you'd better get ready for some tedious button-mashing madness. And that's where it starts to break down for me. More on this in the future.

I mentioned in a Union Improvement thread that I was going to be attempting a Ruby on Rails proof-of-concept for my Union Frontpage enhancement. Just as an update, I'm still reading and learning about Ruby/Rails, but my brother is looking for an application to help track client data with his law firm, and I'm going to be working on that for a while. So progress on my Ruby education will have to take a backseat for the time being.

That's all for now. I'm going to check out the premiere of "Thief" tonight at 10pm (ET) on FX. I'm a big fan of Andre Braugher's work, so I'm looking forward to seeing this new show. Although, when I saw a promo for it (featuring Michael Andrews' excellent Mad World of Donnie Darko fame) that showed Mae Whitman from "Arrested Development," I couldn't help but think to myself:

"Her?" :lol:

GDC has come to a close, and I can't help feeling a little bit let down by GameSpot's coverage. They did allow cameras in the Conference Hall, didn't they? But that's not the point of this post...

Despite the fact that in recent weeks I've been scratching my head at some of the comments made by Iwata Satoru (Graphics have reached a saturation point? Maybe in content produced by Sony and Microsoft, but hardly on any Nintendo console to date), I'm impressed with the direction Nintendo is going.

With games like New Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, & Magnetica (I love me some Zuma) I pretty much have to get a DS now. I didn't buy one initially because I was so disappointed with the hardware. Compared to the brilliance of the GBA SP, the original DS looked like a proof-of-concept rather than a completed piece of consumer electronics. But now we have the DS Lite, which is probably the best looking handheld Nintendo, or anyone else for that matter, has ever produced.

And then there was the news of the Nintendo Virtual Console (NVC) being able to play Genesis and TurboGrafx16 games. So not only will titles from the NES, SNES, N64, & GC libraries be playable on Revolution, but the rest of the 16-bit generation as well. Wow... That's simply huge news.

It makes you begin to understand why Nintendo so vehemently defended their intellectual properties against emulation. But maybe it's just a coincidence.

It is easy enough to remember how, in the last console cycle, people derided Nintendo's decision to steer clear of networked gameplay, while the Dreamcast, PS2, and Xbox forged ahead. Nintendo simply said it wasn't time.

Now, they have a runaway success with the DS connectivity and the unbelievable money-making potential of the NVC. They have jumped into networked gameplay with a solid plan and are succeeding. And that success is a quiet one. Hardly anywhere near as much attention is being given to it, as was given just a few short years ago, when they decided not to support networked games.

So I will wait for E3, and the promise of more information on the Revolution. Among a cacophony of Marketing-Speak touting The HD Era™, BluRay™, & The Key to Winning the Console War!™, Nintendo is staying true to a simple mantra...

"Games"

And I for one, am excited.

On March 15th, AOL launched their IPTV service In2TV. Available on the In2TV website are about 30 television shows (with currently 10 episodes each) mostly from the 1980s and 90s that you can watch for free, without advertisements. Here is a list of the shows:

+ Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
+ Alice
+ Babylon 5
+ Beetlejuice
+ Chico and the Man
+ Dark Justice
+ Eight is Enough
+ F Troop
+ Falcon Crest
+ Freakazoid
+ Freddy's Nightmares
+ Growing Pains
+ Hanging With Mr. Cooper
+ Head of the Class
+ Histeria
+ Kung Fu
+ La Femme Nikita
+ Lois and Clark
+ Maverick
+ New Adventures of Batman
+ Perfect Strangers
+ Pinky and the Brain
+ Scarecrow & Mrs. King
+ Sisters
+ Spenser for Hire
+ The F.B.I.
+ The Fugitive
+ V
+ Welcome Back Kotter
+ Wonder Woman

To take advantage of this service, all you need a broadband connection, Internet Explorer, and Windows Media Player 10. Go ahead with the obligatory "Booo!! IE is teh sux0rz!" comments, I'll wait.

I'm a Firefox user myself, and In2TV will work with it if you install the ActiveX plugin... But I just can't think of a reason why you would want to do that. Anyway, with the added installation of a Kontiki-powered plugin, all of the shows are also available in what AOL calls "HD." This is simply NOT true. It's a marked improvement over the regular streams to be sure (1500kbps instead of around 300), and the content is downloaded to your hard drive, so no nasty WMP "Buffering..." messages. But it's hardly HD.

Most of the downloaded episodes are clearly poor transfers from some type of analog tape backup, complete with unsightly artifacts. But they look at least as good as television quality, if not slightly better.

Also, the AOL Hi-Q Video plugin is spyware, being powered as I previously mentioned by the Kontiki Delivery Management System. For those who remember, this is the same Kontiki software that CNET licensed to build their Download Accelerator software a few years back. But it's easily enough removed, if you choose. Just google "KClean.exe" ;)

Kontiki allows their customers (e.g. AOL-TimeWarner) to track which files have been downloaded, viewed or otherwise opened, most likely copied, et cetera. Creepy stuff, no doubt about it, and you would think it would be illegal. But it's a strange world we live in. Currently, the law is more concerned about Viacom maintaining their exclusive rights to redistribute episodes of "Walker, Texas Ranger" than about the consequences of purposefully further insecuring consumers' personal computers to the potential theft of personal and/or financial information.

Anyway... Back to In2TV. The Hi-Q Video player is an embedded instance of WMP10. However, the controls have been disabled and replaced by controls in the webpage. So what does this mean? For one, fast-forwarding and rewinding is somewhat broken. You have to wait for the video to have made it approximately 5% through before FF and RW will work properly. Also, the default WMP pause hotkey is CTRL+P, which also just happens to be the hotkey for printing in IE and every other piece of software ever made. So, no pausing with one command either. First you have to break out of full-screen mode and then click the pause button. Just take my word for it, it's annoying. At least managing your library of downloaded shows is straght-forward enough, but it would have taken some work to screw that up.

Also, as you might have guessed, the content is encoded as WMV10. Which means that (of course) it is governed by WMP DRM and cannot currently be played outside of the Hi-Q player. But also, no Mac or Linux support. Which is just ridiculous.

Well it seems like I've had nothing but bad things to say so far. So what do I think about In2TV?

I love it! Make no mistake, it's very poorly implemented, and a somewhat frustrating user experience. But it's some great television shows on demand, for free. Granted it's not completely on demand because AOL decides what you see, like the cable companies decide their programming schedules. But it's the first digitial distribution model that comes close to getting it right.

When you download an episode of a show, you're granted a license to watch it as many times as you like until June 1, 2006. That may change, but that's the way it works at the moment. If you can't get around to watching the show by then, you need to take a vacation.

Despite all of it's flaws, if you are a fan of any of the Warner-owned shows I listed above, then you should give In2TV a try. Between Babylon 5 and Perfect Strangers I'm loving it, not to mention all the others I haven't even watched yet... In2TV made me realize that I like Babylon 5 enough to go out and buy the DVDs. So, this is also a perfect example of why content owners are fools to not use p2p systems to distribute limited amounts of their IP for free.

Hopefully, in the future they'll decide to actually do some UI design testing and maybe license BitTorrent instead of some spying piece of garbage like Kontiki. Or maybe they'll realize that consumers would be willing to spend $2 to download a DVD-quality episode of a show that they could actually watch on a display larger than their iPod. But that's another post.

I got a PS2 from by brother last Christmas, and I've been working my way through the tip of my 6-years-of-brilliant-games iceberg ever since. Most recently I've been playing Jak II. My initial impression wasn't as good as with the original Jak and Daxter. It just didn't pull me in like the first game did. But having made it about 50-60% of the way through, it's grown on me.

It's a great game, in a different way than J&D was. But I think they went a little crazy with the free-roaming-city element. It doesn't significantly add to the gameplay and just boils down to you spending a lot of time going from Point A to Point B. Anyway, I've got to a point in the game where the mission tree-path collapses to one possibility. I have to destroy those 5 hover tanks to move on, and it's ridiculously hard. I thought the part right before that where you had to get past the unending horde of Crimson Guard troop transports was hard... Jeez!

So, I'm taking a break. I think I'll start Ico, or maybe a nice RPG. Before Jak II, I finished off God of War. I never got around to writing a proper review, but wow! That game is simply amazing! It's a rarity for me to play a game and not find anything wrong with it. I also played through with a friend on God mode, and we made it as far as the part where you have to protect your family from the Kratos clones... Yeah, that's just obscenely hard! I have to raise my eyebrow in skepticism now whenever anyone tells me that they got past that...