Nintendo finally learns: match making w/o friend codes

News out of the Nintendo Media Conference this last week seems to have slipped under the radar a bit, but a spot on this week's 1up Show discusses Nintendo's implementation of matchmaking in Mario Strikers Charged, Pokemon Battle Revolution, and Big Brain Academy Wii Degree.

Still need codes for a friends list though. Maybe they will come around to unique player IDs eventually. But this is at least a positive sign.

R-Type... Tactics?

It would be unsightly for me to adeqautely make us of explitives to emphasize the confusion that this creates in my tiny mortal brain.

R-Type Tactics Site Opens (story from Kotaku)

Starcraft 2: Told ya so

Ok, maybe I didn't tell ya so HERE, because I got kinda busy and just didn't have the time to make any entries. But those of you I've spoken to individually know what I'm talking about.

Anyone who thought Blizzard would actually invest in a SECOND MMO, doubling their overhead and splitting their audience into two, was completely fooling themselves.

Starcraft II

Wii Blaster - don't call it a light gun

Of late a particular pet peeve of mine relating to the Wii has been increasingly exacerbated. Several games in the offing are shooters for which many are touting the need for the "light gun" attachment. What all seem to forget in this regard is that the Wiimote is a relative, and not absolute, pointer. However, the compelling feature of light gun games is that the interface behaves exactly as one would expect of a gun - you hit what the object at which you are aiming. The game, the skill it tests, is your ability to point accurately, is that of aiming with an actual gun.

The Wii remote is not capable of performing this feat. The best you can achieve is an onscreen reticule which is moved relative to the movements you make with the Wiimote. On SOME setups the 1:1 performance is better than others. Usually the smaller screen the better. But it still isn't completely right, and it certainly is not a universally achievable effect.

Any gun like attachment to the Wii remote is only going to make these glaring innacuracies apparent. Forget a gun "shell" and give us an actual light gun.

Square-Enix Party 2007: Don't let me down

Setting myself up for disappointment has ever been a favored pastime. Rarely can a press event or convention present itself without my mind forming an indelible list of expectations which could never bet met. In just a few short days, the Square Enix Party 2007 begins. For surprise announcments I expect:

Final Fantasy VII remake announcement for PS3/360
Final Fantasy XIII and Vs. XIII becomes cross-platform to appear on 360
Kingdom Hearts (new series) to appear on consoles instead of the reported handheld/mobile

Come on Square, is that much to ask in exchange for the servitude and loyalty I've given you these past twenty years?

Prepare to party

It's been a long time since I actually bought a Mario Party game. At the time that the original was released I frequently hosted gaming parties for college class mates. Tetrisphere and Puzzle Fighter tournaments were the rule of the day. When Mario Party was released, I gleefully purchased it the day of the next gathering. It was a surefire hit.

Except that everyone hated it, save for me. Even the shortest game settings provided less than acceptable levels of gratification. My friends all insisted on a clear winner after rounds of no more than a few minutes. The trivial winnings garnered by the mini-games of Mario Party were not enough to massage their egos into a moment of victorious extacy.

A few years later I'm at a friends house. This friend had not been a part of that afore-mentioned group, being an aquaintance made as many of those class mates were moving away to high paying jobs in other states. We're playing some games and he busts out Mario Party 3. I'd previously enjoyed several rounds of the original Party, but I'd since soured on it after many attempts at getting people to play, and most giving up halfway through. I didn't even want to bother at first when he presented his copy of 3, but I relented. I discovered that not only could I enjoy Mario Party still, but in the company of someone who truly enjoyed the format of mini-game competition it held the potential of inducing me into a state of gamer rage. It can get ugly.

When I started dating my wife, I learned that she had a certain passion for the Mario themed video board game. She wanted me to play with her, but I resisted for a long time for fear of scaring her off with a fit of anger inspired by Bowser taking all of my stars and givine them to my competitors (ie, her). Eventually she won out, and obviously everything turned out ok.

This weekend, I placed a pre-paid pre-order for Mario Party 8. It's the first time I've given a pre-order as a gift, but also the first time I've bought a Mario Party game since the original, and I'm just as exicted as she is.

Cross-regional Content Lockdown for XBLA

Over the last few days a number of people have expressed displeasure over Microsoft's recent announcement of their decision to begin closing up certain loop holes which have allowed Live users to download content intended for regions other than their own. For those not in the loop, a user can currently create a fake Gamertag marked as being located in another country in order to access Xbox Live downloadable content from that region. In truth the how of the matter isn't as important as the what. Users are gaining access to content they weren't intended to have in the first place.

I understand that people are upset by these actions. None of us wants the world to end when they can't download those amazingly cute bunny-slippers for their iDOLM@STER character. But they are really looking at it from the wrong angle and not keeping control of their expectations. Let's take a moment to consider several facts:

1) The company is Microsoft
2) As stated above the content in question was never intended to be accessed outside of specific regions
3) You had to create a fake account, misrepresenting who you were to get to it

It doesn't require a herculean effort of logic to realize that this window would only be open for a limited time. You had a good run guys. But you had to know it was coming.

EA's "skate." demos new stick-flick controls.

For my inaugural posting I direct you to this GameVidoes-hosted presentation of the analog stick control scheme implemented in EA's upcoming skateboarding game "skate." Yes, just like that, no capitals and with a period. Expressive of the games rejection of the fantastical trappings of the older Tony Hawk games, EA tells us to leave behind infinite combos strung together by ridiculously long manuals and simply "skate." Appropriate for a game that intends to strip away the nonsense and bring a graphical exploration of the technical aspects of skateboarding to the living room.



Keep in mind I've not played Tony Hawk's Project 8, and may eventually. I appreciated the ideas behind the 'nail the trick' functions and isn't entirely unlike the ideas behind the entire framework of "skate." But the philosophies behind the game are mutually exclusive approaches to the sport. For now, my faith is placed in "skate." for a renewal of my love of video-game skateboarding.