Topics

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Nintendo Gaming / Zelda: Wind Waker Screen Saver

« on: March 22, 2003, 04:57:23 PM »

Wind Waker Official Site

The above link will take you to the official Zelda site, and you can download a beautiful little screensaver there.  It's just incredible.  I downloaded it and left the sound on, and I've so far been startled by it thrice.  The first time I could've sworn a bird was around the corner, but it was a gull on the screen, flying across, calling out.  

Later, I was downstairs watching television when I heard *SSSSSssssssssssSSSSSSS[crack]SSSSssssssss[rumble]SSSSSS* and ran upstairs thinking somehow I'd left a TV on or something only to find that the main island in Wind Waker was shrouded in a stormy night, just like Snoopy would've written.  (Sorry--it was there.)

This last time, an animated pig wielding a burning staff ambled by, and it was only after I saw the pile of dung in my room that I realized it had nothing to do with the screensaver itself.  It was just a pig.  With a staff.

Anyway, the point is, this screensaver is just another reminder of the craft and joy that is injected into games like Zelda.  The screensaver itself has all sorts of Animal Crossing-esque surprises that you'll just happen upon as I did.  It's mesmerizing.  Sometimes I just sit and look at it for hours.  Dreamy.

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General Gaming / WHAT ON EARTH? This can't be true. PS3 THIS YEAR?

« on: March 10, 2003, 03:15:38 PM »

PS3 THIS year, says BLOOMBERG.

This has to be utter nonsense.  I just can't imagine this being true.  Anyone???

3

General Chat / The Quiet American

« on: February 28, 2003, 04:49:27 PM »

I saw this film tonight, and I just loved it.  Terrific movie.  It's good to see Michael Caine making good movies on a regular basis.  Or fairly regular.

If you're interested in the "post-Vietnam War" Vietnam, by all means, check this movie out.  It has a lot to say both about the war and even the struggles of Vietnamese women, what with the fact that it was fairly routine for American soldiers (and others, of course) to seduce them while they were there, promise marriage, and jet off to their wives in America when their duties were done.

Very thought-provoking, well-acted, very well written, and contains scenes that will stickvery clearly in your mind, no doubt, for days and days.

Check it out.

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NWR Feedback / Is the Private Message System Working?

« on: February 28, 2003, 04:36:43 AM »

I only ask because I've sent out a few here and there, and a couple to mod's asking questions, and I've never gotten the first hint of evidence that anyone received them in the way of responses at all.  Can anyone tell me if problems exist concerning the PM's?  Thanks!

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NWR Feedback / 1632 vs. 32

« on: February 26, 2003, 01:04:30 PM »

There are, as of this second, 1632 users registered to PGC Forums.  However, I've never seen more than 32 logged in at one time.  What gives?

Why are so many people signing up, never to post?  I guess I understand the workings of such a thing as a forum and that many people will sign up and read but not post, but it does strike me as a bit odd.  What say you all?

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Nintendo Gaming / My Bozo Bose/GBA Dream

« on: February 20, 2003, 04:31:53 PM »

Bear with me here.  Inspiration has struck.  Struck like a balpene hammer to the knee-cap.

Here's a goofy thought I had that sounds unbearably appealing to me, however impossible.  Imagine if the next iteration of the GameBoy (not to get too ahead--I don't want the GBA hardware to go anywhere anytime soon) had a sound system developed by Bose.  Of course, the speaker system itself would raise the GB by about 800%, but who cares!??  It would be amazing!  And, like I said, probably impossible, at this point at least.

Maybe the speakers (yes, speakers--I'm asking for something called stereo sound here, Nintendo) could be pulled from the sides or folded and twisted out from behind (so that the speakers would actually be hidden face down in the back when stored).  Anyway, the whole thing would somehow be a very small version of the Bose wave radio (the sound system, I mean), as acoustically miraculous as the workings of the inner ear (a simulated cochlea would amplify the sound inside the GBA and send it catapulting out of he speakers, changing your life with every note), and incredibly affordable.  See, it wouldn't be 800% more expensive after all!

What I'm getting at is this: imagine if the GB actually had good sound--or at least a little bass?  That would be cool, no?

There could even be a merger: NintenBose.

The blurb: "Be witness to the awesome sound clarity of the revolutionary NintenBose WaveBoy GameRadio (TM)!  One note will open your bowels and leave your shiny entrails a magnificent heap upon the earth below you--below you, indeed, because the NintenBose WaveBoy Game Radio (TM) will send you into the STRATOSPHERE!"

Okay, so that blurb's too long, but after reading it a few times, I can't imagine removing anything.....  

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Nintendo Gaming / Konami, come back with Snatcher!

« on: February 18, 2003, 06:01:54 PM »

I absolutely adore this game on Sega CD, and I've spent years wishing (and doing nothing else) I could play the sequel, Policenauts.  Where, O where is this freaking franchise???  Hideo Kojima needs to drop Metal Gear (I realize it's a great series, but...) for a while and go back to the digi-comics (okay, maybe it shouldn't be a point-and-click).  It can be updated, "sequelized," redux'd, and/or ported for all I care.  But, dang it, that would rock to see a Snatcher revival.  Like living inside of Bladerunner.  Hmm...that doesn't sound too appealing, actually, but it was really cool if you didn't play it!  Oh, and Bladerunner is beautiful.  Yeah.

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NWR Feedback / No Posting Contests = Better Posts

« on: February 14, 2003, 08:47:45 AM »

One of the best things, I can already tell, about PGC Forums is that there doesn't seem to be this race to post the most, as there is at so many other forums.  I may have turned it off accidientally or something, but I don't see a post counter or a stat-ranking or anything.  The nice thing about this is that the posts tend to be longer and better thought out, and if you have two or three thoughts, you don't post them all separately, but together.  It's nice.  I'm not brown-nosing, by the way, it's just something I've noticed.  Can't someone say something nice?  Get off my back!!!  ;-)

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Nintendo Gaming / My Theory On Nintendo In The Modern World

« on: February 08, 2003, 06:26:16 PM »

Hear me out.  This, I know, is long, but see if you get me.

Okay, everyone, daily, hourly, constantly is talking about how Nintendo needs to change and do things differently if they expect to "win" the console war, etc. etc. etc.  It's never-ending.

Now, by no means do I mean to imply that Nintendo has never made mistakes.  Their reliance on certain things like Pokemon, for example, hasn't really helped their long-term image, and whatever image it helped to create, Nintendo is now, apparently, trying to downplay or even muddle, or even destroy (probably not DESTROY, but you catch me).

However, Nintendo has a clear image of who they are, what they do, what they are going to do, and how they fit into the gaming world.  This isn't arrogance, and the choices they make, I believe, aren't foolhardy or rushed or small-minded or conservative.  They have two main goals, and they are the two goals that they have always had--these two goals also come with a condition, you might say.

1) Make great games and make them fun.

2) Make money with great games to make more great games.

Condition: Never do anything to compromise your value system.

Now, hopefully since that's clear, you will see what I'm getting at.

Constantly, gamefans hear that Nintendo is "losing touch" (or has lost touch), that they are mired in the past, that they hold too dear the old ways of marketing, that Nintendo isn't paying attention.  This last assumption strikes me as the most ridiculous.  The question you need ask is how do people come to this conclusion, that Nintendo isn't paying attention?  Well, the obvious answer is this: when a new game, like Grand Theft Auto 3, takes the world by storm and sells untold millions upon millions and ushers in a new dawn of gaming (which it pretty much did.  Just read the way critics talk about the game--critics from magazines as various as EGM, Maxim, even Playboy--calling it one of the most "important" games of the 90s, etc.)  This game CHANGED THINGS.  It's a game FULL of plot and gameplay and story events and tasks, and yet watch how the average guy (which was nearly every person who bought GTA3, based on what I've seen) plays the game--he or she ignores the "tasks" and the "story"; they, for months and months, simply drive around town, running over pedestrians and shooting the legs off old women.

(Disclaimer: forgive the obvious comparison to GTA3, which really is terrific game--it's just such a cultural milestone, I can't help but use it.  Realize I am not beating up on it.)

Now, I am not trying to condescend.  If that's fun for you, great!  Really.  But the problem is, people take the current "Big Thing" and use that as the balance for the rest of gaming.  They look to Nintendo, or "Kidtendo" as they might call it, and they ask, "Does Kidtendo have anything like this?  NO?!!??  They must not be paying attention, or they would be all over this like the flesh-eating virus is on Michael Jackson!"  Do you follow me?

Since this obviously isn't the sort of game, however good, that Nintendo is interested in, the average Joe Gamer says they are irrelevant.  Am I rehashing what has been said time and time before?  I think maybe so, but perhaps something is striking you as you read this.

So, where does Nintendo fit into the modern world?  I know a lot of kids (I'm 24, and I have taught junior-high and high school English, so that's where some of my evidence comes from) who still find magic (I know, it's corny) in a game like Super Mario Sunshine.  They also just love running over prostitutes in GTA3 if their parents allow (or, as the case may be, the sneak a copy into their houses as I've heard), however insane that may sound.  A lot of these kids are also yelling about the new Zelda, the prospect of a new Mario Kart, even a few of my students really enjoyed the much-maligned (but in my opinion quite good) Pikmin and yearn for Pikmin 2.

The fact is, Nintendo IS who they ARE.  They will grow, they will innovate, they will make new things, IN THEIR OWN WAY.  It takes a special eye, in the increasingly competitive and flashy gaming war, to note the difference, but it is there.  We are very hung up on exteriors, so it's easy for us to take a single look at a game and literally write it off for good.  This is unfortunate.

Meanwhile, a lot of kids are having a grand old time, and the Nintendo Purists shout and fill up message boards ad infinitum (case in point, here).  Nintendo belongs where they are, and they know it, but most of the world thinks they are being left behind in the realms of the Old Fashioned.  Flaws and all, Nintendo does still matter though.  And for all the true gamers out there, we know to dig a little deeper before we judge, and that's why it's so much more meaningful for us.  And that sort of thinking is as cross-console as you can get.