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Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 4.7.06

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Bloated cash cow, I choose you!

Nintendo engineers talk about the process of designing the DSLite
I personally find this article to be fascinating. More interviews with hardware designer’s would be a welcome thing.

Nintendo has great year financially
Despite having a dead console, Nintendo made a lot of yen this past year, thanks to the “favorable” performance of the DS. Maybe one day they’ll stop living off of handhelds and Pokemon and be a real player in the console wars again.

First Amendment bitch slaps anti-game lobbyists
Said the judge, “Video games are a form of creative expression that are constitutionally protected under the First Amendment. They contain original artwork, graphics, music, story lines and characters similar to movies and television shows, both of which are considered protected free speech.” →  Read the rest

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 3.31.06

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Must miss
I did my part to support UMD movies by buying 25 copies of this classic story about a girl who wakes up a slut.

UMD movies failing
Is it possible Sony somehow is responsible for a failed format? Of course it is, they love failing, and I love to see their new formats fail. This is a good sign for those of us who want game systems to focus on playing games. To read more complaining, read this.

Blizzard sued by some guy who wants to sell Warcraft guides on the internet
This is a very interesting and possibly important lawsuit. The guy suing Blizzard sold his guides on eBay until Blizzard complained and they were taken down. They say he is trying to make money off of their good will and recognition they’ve built with their games, whatever that means. →  Read the rest

Yuji Naka to leave Sega?

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Word on the street is Yuji Naka may leave Sega to start his own company. Naka is Sega’s most well known employee primarily because he was behind the success of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. His programming wizardry combined with Naoto Oshima edgy and xtreme character design and Hirokazu Yasuhara’s excellent level design (hold right to win) created a game that arguably made Sega what it is today. Naka also programmed Phantasy Star, a technical marvel for an 8-bit console and the first game to include an enemy who vomits on you.

body language tells all
Smug as smug can be.

Perhaps the most beloved game Naka produced is NiGHTS into Dreams, which was both one of the Saturn’s best game’s and an admission that the system could not pull off 3D like its competitors. →  Read the rest

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 3.17.06

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OMG itz a remote control!11111

Miyamoto confirms the new Zelda will use the Revolution controller.
Though in what regard, we are still not sure. If it’s simply for mini games or something silly like that, many fans may pissed off. I think Nintendo painted themselves into a corner with this new Zelda game. They wanted to release it as a GC game but then there are no other big games coming out on that system… possibly ever. So instead of supporting their own dead system they decided to launch it with the Revolution. Making it a Rev launch title makes sense, but then Nintendo would just alienate more fans because the game was originally promised for the GC. So now they’re trying to dress it up like a Revolution title to sell the system. →  Read the rest

Fevered Dreams of Video Games

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the ultimate lasers…

…black and white… all rotating, is one superior? lasers everywhere…

white and black two way… four options but with homing blast, but which is the most true?

This is a rough transcript of my thoughts during a recent fever induced delirium. They may not make much sense to you, but I had pictures going along with the words in my head. Also, they didn’t really make sense to me. All I know is that when I’m very sick, I dream about shooters. This specific half asleep half awake episode seemed to be both comparing the minimalism of Ikaruga to the chock full of weapons Gradius V. I also thought I had come up with the perfect laser approach in all games. This makes no sense, of course.

Since this illness has kept me away from the site for almost a week it makes sense that I’d have writing on my mind. →  Read the rest

Gold Farmers: Destroying the Fun (and economy) of MMORPG’s

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If you have not read Billy’s take on gold farmers, you may want to now.

Anyone who plays World of Warcraft knows them: they often have strange names (Ihugirls, Jobsister), but they may also have a name unnoticeable from others. Their guild tag might be your average WoW lore fluff, or it could be something along the lines of “Knightsofthepiratekitty.” They play as much, if not more, as any hardcore addict: 8-12 hour days. But rather than roaming about the game’s many dungeons and zones, you find them in them alternating between the auction house and the same hot spots: Winterspring hunting herbs, camping elites in Tyr’s Hand, or patrolling Burning Steppes for rich thorium veins. Every hour of the day.

Who are they? Gold farmers. Somewhere along the line, people figured out that there was in fact more money to be made in the secondary market of MMORPG’s (selling gold, items, and characters) than their was in the primary market (selling subscriptions). →  Read the rest

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The Ethics of Farming part II

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Continued from yesterday’s part I…

  • If you buy gold, you support Chinese sweatshops.

You’d think people on computers made in Chinese sweatshops would catch the irony of their argument. They don’t though, know why? It’s because they don’t want Chinese people on their servers period. It isn’t about keeping the game servers clean of trouble, it’s about keeping out people who don’t speak English or live in a country they like. Here is the truth though. There are no gold farming Chinese sweat shops. I have spoken to gold farmers in person and in the game. I was curious about the way they operate so I am always asking questions. Here’s what I have learned. There are no sweatshops; the majority of the gold farmers are college students. They usually operate three or four in a company and alternate between classes and so on and so forth. →  Read the rest

The Ethics of Farming part I

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As someone who once used to rent the old school NES “cheats” videos (it’s how I learned to beat Castlevainia 2) I am not sure if I am the right person to talk about what is ethical in the gaming world. I will anyway though, so take that!

Anyone who has ever made it beyond level 10 in World of Warcraft knows that there are people in places usually not the US that grind away all day in game collecting items and gold (in game currency) to sell for real world currency. Big deal, right? Well here is what I think… No, it isn’t a big deal. Blizzard, in one of their more incandescent moments, decided to combat this by making the best in game items BOP, which means Bind on Pickup. →  Read the rest

For absolutely no reason, here is Golden Axe

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Axe Machine
Why yes, that is a Van Gogh to the right of the machine. Thanks for noticing.

I learned how to ride a bike at 13, so it should be no surprise that it’s 2006 and I have now had my first experience with a digital camera. At this rate, I’ll kiss a girl by the early 2060s. Sadly, I do not own the camera, it belongs to my girlfriend (I know, that could easily ruin the last joke, but luckily for us, and Jesus, we believe in no touch love) but that hasn’t stopped me from taking as many stupid pictures as possible. The first pictures I took were of my video game collection, my crotch (soon to be featured on this site), and then my Golden Axe machine.

Having an arcade machine in a small apartment sounds like a great idea, but is it really? →  Read the rest

Review – Ys 6: Ark of Napishtim

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Ys 6: The Ark of Napishtim
Developed by Falcom Corporation
Published by Konami
Released 2.22.05

Big sprites talking
Character sprites displayed during key dialog are big and well done.

I lie somewhere between the average gamer, blissfully ignorant of the Ys (said to be pronounced “ease,” but I’ve been saying it “eyes” since I was 7 and I’ll be damned if I’m going to change my life for something as small as the truth) series of games and the ubercore, those who have played every Ys, including both versions of 4. You see, I know enough to know there were two Ys 4s, and I know that this game I’m supposed to be reviewing here, The Ark of Napishtim, is really Ys VI. I managed to play Ys on the Master System when I was a wee lad and then Ys 3 on my Genesis when I was a little older and many are the hours I’ve spent on eBay, contemplating a purchase of a Turbo Duo just so I might play Ys Book 2. →  Read the rest