Nintendo Wi-Fi

I just got Metroid Prime Hunters and a Nintendo Wi-Fi USB adapter for my computer. I didn't even know it existed before, but am happy they thought of people who don't have wireless routers.

My excitement over the Wi-Fi was promptly crushed after I got pwned 0-7 by some dude in MPH and dominated 0-3 by some Japanese person in Tetris.

Games and Reality

When video games first started out, no one tried to make them realistic. The technology simply wasn't there. Games had bad graphics and were mostly limited to a 2 dimensional space. They were so abstract from anything real that "real" wasn't thought of as anything that had to do with gaming.

But as game systems have been getting more advanced for the past decade or so, a major goal and criterion games are judged on are how "realistic" they are. Historical like Call of Duty try to emulate real-life situations. New games like HL2 have sophisticated physics engines that try to make the game world act just like the real one. Whenever we look at a new game, the first thing we notice and look for is how good the graphics are (in comparison with real life).

What I wonder, why should realism even be a goal? I mean, isn't one of the reasons why we play games because they aren't real? They are different dimensions where we can do things we couldn't and wouldn't normally do. Why should we impose these arbirtrary restrictions on ourselves just because it would be more realistic? If you want realism, why don't you put down the controller and go do something in your real life?

For example, I just got Quake 4 (I know, I'm on the tail end of that curve). I was optimistic because it is the sequel to my favorite game of all time, Quake 3. While I am impressed with it and I do think it is a pretty good FPS, something didn't feel right.

When I thought about it a little more, it dawned upon me - it's too realistic. When you run around, it's a little slower. When you try to jump around, you feel sorta tied down to the ground. The rockets fly slower. And the models, well, they look pretty real.

"But Jon!" you might say, "that's GOOD! That's how games should be!"

That's not how I think games should be. IMHO, Quake 3 is the purest FPS ever made. There isn't any story. All there is is you, your enemy, and the arena. That's it. There's no real physics to ruin the fun either - you can get a nice chain of jumps going like nothing. You can shoot a rocket at the floor and have it blast you halfway across the level. The models make no attempt to be realistic. You can be a fat lady, a dude riding a hoverboard, a skeleton, or even a walking eyeball. And it runs fast - you are encumbered. The only limit to what you can do is pretty much your own ability.

And when you put the shackles of "reality" on the purity that is Quake 3, you get games like Quake 4 and HL2. Yes they look good, yes they are advanced. But as games get more realistic, we lose a lot of the fun that comes out of playing in an unrealistic world.

Red State, USA

You know, Colorado is a nice place to live. In general, don't get earthquakes, hurricanes, or other horrific natural disasters like the coasts. The weather is great - it is mild most of the time.

However, the one thing that has always really annoyed me is that when some interesting movies come out, they always come out in NYC + LA first, then they will roll out over the next few weeks to other theaters. Sometimes they get here, sometimes they don't play here at all.

For example, there's a lot of buzz about Al Gore's new film, An Inconvenient Truth. I want to go see it. In New York and Los Angeles, it came out last Wednesday. But for some reason, it won't come out here until mid- to late June! I feel so out of the loop.

Wii Bias

Apparently Japan likes the Wii.

Umm... Duh?

I mean, Japan tends to be more pro-Nintendo that here in America. I don't think that it's much of a surprise that the Wii is the most anticipated system there.

What I wonder about is how anticipated it is here. If you read the internet, you would think that come october the Wii will rule the earth and no one will ever by a PS3 or a 360 again. However, I think that the games community on the internet (blogs, forums, IRC, etc) and even the community that likes to post and talk about their games tends to have a "Nintendo bias," meaning that they are more pro-Nintendo than the general gaming population.

Because of this, any survey results in a selection bias with a slant towards Nintendo, simply because the people that are most enthusiastic and willing to answers such surveys will also tend to be more enthusiastic about Nintendo.

For example, I think the base of games like Halo, Grand Theft Auto, and Madden tends to get underestimated in the face of games like Zelda and Mario. Obviously (according to sales) the majority of the US population supports Microsoft and Sony a lot, even more so than Nintendo.

I'm not sure we have taken the non-rabid gamers into account. So I can't but help thinking that maybe the Wii hype has been a bit overblown. We just need to put it in perspective that the enthusiastic gaming community that writes, thinks, posts, talks, and interacts about their games is a very small part of the larger gaming community that buys and plays games, and it stops there.

Web Overload

The internet is a great thing. The greatest invention in the history of the earth. It allows us access to an infinite amount of information, the entirety of which no one person could ever know.

A problem, however, is that, given this infinite pool of information and knowledge, I often feel like I am drowning. I have read many times that the ability to prioritize and navigate information will be critical for people in the future to deal with all of it.

Personally, I haven't fully developed this ability yet, and sometimes I just get overloaded with the internet. I mean, when I finish a book, that's pretty much it. When I finish that last page, there is a finality there that says "I'm done." With the web however, each new page I visit brings up a million other questions and a million other pages. You look one thing up, and in that definition there are 10 more things to look up. You go to any blog, and there are links that lead to more links that lead to more links that lead to even more links. It doesn't end.

Just take all the things that are happening on the web right now: blogs, podcasts, web 2.0, flickr, del.icio.us, myspace, facebook, semantic web, RDF, attention economy, folksonomy, crowdsourcing, youtube, micromedia, search engine optimization, design thinking, social networks, memes, rss, dsflkasdjfsldfjl;sdkfjsdlfjsadflkjsadlfjsdlfjsadl;fjkss sdlfjksfjsadlfkjlasdld
MY HEAD IS GOING TO EXPLODE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Socrates said "I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing."

Until the internet, I don't think us humans could really grasp and feel how much there really is out there that we do not know. When we confront our ignorance, it is a difficult, scary, and overwhelming thing.

The MMORPG business model

I just realized how brilliant the MMORPG business model is.

1. Unlike normal games, you not only charge players to buy the game intially, but you can charge them to just to play the game every month after that!

2. Even if a player gets tired of the game, they feel obligated to keep playing it or else they lose all the characters and items they have accumulated until then!

Right now, I'm pretty tired of WoW. I haven't played it in weeks. But I am reluctant to stop the $15/month fee because I have invested hundreds and hundreds of hours into building up my characters and getting items! Brilliant!

The Borg

As much as I put down Star Trek for being not as cool as Star Wars, I have to say that the Borg are pretty fuckin sweet.

I mean, take this quote:

"We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile."

If that isn't the pinnacle of awesomeness, I don't know what is. I mean, if I was in the Star Trek universe, I'd purposely get assimilated by the Borg just so I could go around freaking people out and saying shit like that.

Interface

I spent like 2 hours today doing a really thorough cleaning of my keyboard. I took everything apart and washed it - the face, the membrane, and every individual key. After like 6 years of use, it was getting pretty nasty. There was like an 1/8" layer of a goopy mixture under the keys, comprised of dust, hair, food, and anything else you can imagine a gamer's keyboard encounters with hours and hours of daily use. I got pictures, but for the childrens' sake I won't post them.

Because of this, my fingers are in heaven - normally I wouldn't pay any attention to how the keyboard feels, but it really feels good to put your fingers on a clean keyboard. I felt the need to type something, which is partially the reason for this post.

If it was just a normal keyboard I would have just thrown it away and bought a new one, but this is a great one - something that I think is hard to find nowadays. It came with my computer, but it has very responsive keys and is very well built.

Nowadays we really don't pay a lot of attention to keyboards (and to a lesser extent mice). Back in the day keyboards were a huge thing - they would cost more than 100 dollars and be a major feature of a new computer system, the most legendary keyboard being the Northgate Omnikey. There are still some companies that make those premium keyboards nowadays, but I think it is a very tiny market.

But if you think about it, shouldn't we focus even MORE on the keyboard nowadays? If you think about it, it is probably the one thing we touch the most every day. I didn't realize it until today, but a nice keyboard can really elevate your computing experience.

Required Reading

I think that blogs are at a sort of semi-maturity stage.

Their original purpose was to appeal to a certain audience - they have a certain specialization, and are supposedly read by a very targeted audience.

Some blogs, however, have become so popular and widely read that they, in effect, become required reading. While you may not be interested or enjoy reading the blog, the simple fact that everyone else reads it necessitates your reading it, lest you be left out of the loop (I think that is the first time I have ever used the word "lest" in writing or conversation - I feel dirty).

While one may not find them particularly compelling, one might feel obligated to read blogs like kottke, boingboing, or wonkette just because the stuff they blog is what everyone else reads and talks about.

This is a lot like traditional media. A classic example is the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. EVERYONE reads these two papers, and as so if you are in business or most circles, they are required reading. Like 5 of my business classes required us to read WSJ - not because we would necessarily get anything out of it, but because everyone else in business reads it. If you don't, you're in the dark.

When applied to blogs, this creates a peculiar tension. They were not meant for this type of forced readership, but have it thrust upon them by popularity.

It's interesting to see how new media develops as it gains more attention.

Game Dev links

I've been looking into game designing lately, and here's a compilation of useful links for future reference:

articles:

How To: Create your own game company, Part One [download squad]
How To: Create your own game company, Part Two [download squad]
Starting Your Own Game Company
Ten Ways to Screw Up Your Game Company [gignews]
Ten More Easy Ways to Screw Up Your Game Company [gignews]
Game Design Documents


sites:

gamesindustry.biz
gamasutra
basecamp collaboration software
sloperama

Purgatory

I've had this weird feeling lately. I'm sort of in this awkward transition state - I went through the graduation ceremonies at the end of the semester, but I still have to take a couple classes in the summer to graduate. No interviews lined up, let a lone a job, so I'm in this weird state of balance and uncertainty where I have no idea where I'm going to be or what I'm going to be doing a year or even 6 months from now. For the first 20 or so years of our lives, we know exactly what's coming up - 4th grade, 5th grade, 6th grade, high school, college etc. But now, I really have no idea of what my future looks like.

Hopefully it's something good.

vegas

Vegas was pretty good. I had been misinformed - the arcades suck. Maybe I'm just getting older or something. The food was good - buffets ftw. Definitely an interestng place

Viva Las Vegas

goin to Vegas this week.

I aint much of a gambler, but i hope to eat some good buffets and check out some nice arcades, which have long gone extinct here in CO

omg

I just thought of something:

SUPER PUNCH-OUT WII

man if that isn't in the works, they better get on it!

Huh?

Denver-Boulder metro is America's best city for singles? Who woulda known?

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

I have to say that I am really excited after watching the Nintendo press conference today. From watching the feed, you can feel the energy and can tell that the audience was really into it and excited as well. I mean that opening with Miyamoto conducting the symphony is classic.

The new details about the wiimote are pretty cool (3-axis movement on both parts, speaker). One thing that I didn't undertand (at least from a business standpoint) is their decision to launch Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on the Gamecube as well - if you are launching it with your new system, why launch it on the same day on your older system - doesn't that eliminate a lot of the incentive to update? I'm also looking forward to Starfox DS and Pokemon Mystic Dungeon - and picking up a DS lite.

But what was most interesting to me is Nintendo's new strategy and philosophy. Mr. Iwata's point was interesting about bringing in new people to gaming as well as bringing people back to it. I'm one of those people who have lost interest in console gaming - I haven't played a console regularly since the first Playstation. The DS is my first one since then, because of interesting games like Nintendogs and Brain Age. I haven't been this excited about non-PC gaming for a long time.

I'm not sure that its because they have somewhat lagged in the past two generations of systems that they are forced to do something new, but Nintendo is definitely are taking gaming into an entirely new frontier. They are focusing on the "experience" first, and the graphics only second. In my mind, this is revolutionary.

If you think about it, we have reached a point in gaming where it isn't that hard to make good graphics. Anyone can charge thousands of dollars for a system and give it the best graphics ever. But if it isn't fun to play, what's the point? In the end, who pays attention to all those little details? It is the experience that you remember.

For decades we have assessed games on their technology and graphical abilities, simply because that was the limiting factor. Companies had to squeeze out what they could from the past systems, because there wasn't simply a lot there. Now, technology is no longer the limiting factor. Now, the limiting factor is FUN. It is easy to throw a team of developers at a game and make it look beautiful, but if you don't spend time thinking about how to enhance the actual experience with new and creative approaches, it won't matter.

That is why I think Nintendo has taken a brilliant strategic move with its Wii. By focusing their resources primarily on the player experience, it is a lot more efficient way to maximize what a player gets out of each game. Because in the end, you can through billions of dollars down the graphics hole, but that doesn't increase "fun" at all.

As an example, just take the 3 companies' conferences as an example. Microsoft's had a lot of content - a lot of big announcements, a lot of flashy, good-looking gameplay videos. But it was still pretty much some dude lecturing you - very sterile and boring to watch. Nintendo, on the other hand, focused on the total experience. The music playing was upbeat and exciting, and the flow was controlled very well - The Regginator narrating the whole thing, and Iwata and others coming in at well-placed times throughout. They opened with the Miyamoto symphony thing, and it looked like the executives were actually having fun playing tennis. And while the in-game graphics looked pretty weak, no one cared - it was a good time. Notice another difference: In the Microsoft one, most of the video was to show good their graphics looked. At Nintendo's, most of the video was to show how much fun the players were having. I think that is very indicative of each companies' focus.

I do have to say that Gears of War and Viva Pinata for the Xbox 360 looks pretty badass. While Wii is cool, I still don't think Nintendo has more intense, adult-targeted titles as a priority. I saw Project HAMMER and Red Steel, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. I think maybe people will pick up a Wii for the fun and general gaming, and either get a 360 or a PS3 to supplement it wth more action, blow-shit-up type gaming.

But I guess the bottom line is that Wii is new, 360 and PS3 are more of the same.

Damn, I need to work on making my ranting shorter.

lol!

Mac Owners: Crash Different.

Sony fails at life.

PS3 @ E3:

20GB: $499
60GB: $599

Are you fucking kidding me?

I do have to say, however, that the graphics look amazing. Gran Turismo HD looks so badass. Metal Gear 4? OMG.

The fact that the controller has Wii-like motion sensing is interesting. Seems like they just copied Nintendo - sorta lame. Anyways, I sorta wish they would create a new controller, it's still pretty much the same as the original PS1 controller, shape-wise. Since the controller is intimate interface with the system, I tend to think about systems through the controller. If they don't change it, it's hard for me to think of it as a new system. I mean, think about this controller evolution: SNES > N64 > GameCube > Wii - that's progress!

Despite my constant bitching, I am a tool and will probably still try to get one. Hopefully at that point I'll have a job to finance it.

Brain Age

Wow, Brain Age is a sweet game. I once again bow down to Nintendo.

I was pretty shocked to learn that my brain at first responded as if it was 55 years old. Luckily, I got it around 30-ish depending on the time of day. 20, here I come.

WIRELESS SUCKS

I WILL NEVER USE A WIRELESS JUNK! NOT WIRELESS ROUTERS, NOT KEYBOARDS, NOT MICE!!!!!!!!
NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ethanol FTW?

On Meet the Press last Sunday, Jim Cramer (who I think is better than Jesus) called for the abolishment of our tariffs on Brazilian ethanol. I only heard about this now because he occasionally likes to blow his own horn on his own show, Mad Money. This is a great, simple idea

Instead, Dick Durbin (D) of Illinois disputed this by saying that the tariff promotes development of the domestic ethanol industry, which I guess would be necessary if the goal is energy independence. The most alarming thing about it was that he sounded serious.

Tariffs may help domestic ethanol, but at what expense? First, it promotes a weak industry, which cannot compete by itself in the world economy. Two, it raises the price for ethanol on the rest of the United States, because we could be getting cheaper otherwise. Are a few votes from some dumbass farmers in Illinois worth all that?

If we must use tax money to promote internal development, do subsidies instead. While still bad policy, they are not AS bad as tariffs in that there is a little more room for market forces to take place.

In any case, protectionism never works. If we want to make real, meaningful steps to solving our energy problem in the US, we need elected officials who have taken a few economics classes and have the cojones to stand up to special interest groups and lobbyists.

Suck it, Tancredo.

An interesting article on how 2/3 of illegal immigrants pay their taxes.

Reason

If someone pays their taxes when they dont have to, I say let em in. There's a bunch of rich assholes who find all sorts of tax loopholes and deductions avoid what they owe - let's deport them instead.

Immigration FTW