Messages

1

Mario Chat / Re: Bowser's speed Inconsistency ?

« on: June 19, 2010, 01:20:21 AM »

One theory on Galaxy--I think you'd run fast too if your tail was on fire. He doesn't really run at other times, rather he jumps around from place to place.

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Video Game Chat / SNES Woes!

« on: June 19, 2010, 01:12:56 AM »

Last fall I finally got a Super NES. Picked it up at a store called The Exchange, which also had a number of games for sale. I eventually splurged and got a copy of Mario RPG for it--had played the VC version but wanted to experience the original.

The last time I played the game, the console just blacked out entirely. Wiggling the cartridge around in the slot got it working again. I don't want to see this happen again, so I'm wondering if there's any solution to this. Should I clean the deck, the games, or both, and if so, with what? Compressed air, perhaps?

For the record, my SNES is the first generation model, not the mini version.

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General Chat / Re: Weird stuff written in our notebooks

« on: April 09, 2010, 10:03:43 PM »

I used to play the baseball game on my TI-83 calculator all the time. Somewhere I have an entire notebook of game details--I had a fictional team and would keep score during class or study hall.

My favorite though is from my first grade phonics book (yes, I still have it). One of the words was "hut" when we were studying short "u"s. I had written the word "pizza" on it.

For an example from a test, we were once asked what the "holy grail of chemistry" was on a test. This was from a sidebar in the text that I didn't know we needed to know (it was the first test of the year). I had no idea what to put for the answer so I wrote "Monty Python". The teacher wrote "funny" next to it, but marked it wrong. (For the record, there is no holy grail of chemistry, at least according to our text--I'll never forget that after missing that one with such a far-out answer).

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Mario Chat / Re: Peachtelligence Quotient

« on: November 16, 2009, 08:50:58 PM »

Perhaps it's time for "Dr. Mario: Psychiatrist Edition". They could use some sort of hypnotic device, perhaps.

I don't know if anyone remembers a series of children's books by Louis Sachar called "Wayside School", but if you do, there was a story that could be a great inspiration in there. It was in the third book of the series and was about a guy who hypnotized people so bad that things actually happened (I think a woman's cigarettes turned into bugs or something in the book). Imagine Bowser gets hypnotized like that and pictures Peach as, say, Wario. Now THAT would make for an interesting plotline.

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Video Game Chat / An Outsider's Perspective

« on: November 15, 2009, 07:03:35 PM »

I have admittedly never played a Pokemon game. When the franchise was becoming popular, I was in middle school and there were two camps of people--those who loved Pokemon and those who hated it. I was the latter because I didn't like what it was promoting from a psychological standpoint--the attitude of "gimme, gimme, gimme" (which came out mostly through the trading cards, more popular than the video games in my neck of the woods). I think another part of me turned away from the series because it appeared to threaten Mario as Nintendo's flagship product/franchise. The folks who were into Pokemon in my school used to get in a lot of trouble for arguing over trades, putting the idea of collecting every single card before school, and checking through their collections during school hours.

Pokemon was much more popular with the folks still in elementary school about a decade ago (those born between 1988-1994 are probably most likely to remember it as a phenomenon).

As far as the games, I never played them in the day and still haven't, but even from an outsider's point of view there are things to consider, especially if they are compared to a franchise I know more about (Mario). From what I understand most of the Pokemon games are RPGs, but even if this is disregarded there are some points to make, especially using the original poster's points as reference.

1. SIZE OF GAME: The original Pokemon games were for the old GameBoy. These cartridges seemed to be about as powerful as NES cartridges except the older ones couldn't handle color. Mario games have become bigger and longer but the idea of a limited number of objectives still remained, with either 90 or 120 seeming to be a common figure. 400+ objectives (Pokemon to catch) seems like an awful lot. Why not limit it to 120 but just make the quests more elaborate much like Mario did?

2. GAMEPLAY STYLE: All Mario games were sidescroll back when the world was black and white. Since then there have been various RPGs and 3D platformers released. Why not change things up with a platform that is exclusively RPG, especially given today's better technology?

3. MULTIPLAYER: I can't really comment on this since I'm not familiar with how the Pokemon games handle multiplayer, but perhaps more than one form of multiplayer could be introduced to a single game.

4. ANTI-PIRACY: This is a problem that goes back to the days before Nintendo was around in America. However, it's illegal no matter what and something needs to be done to crack down on it. Everyone has tried their own scheme--Microsoft has internet-based methods of checking for genuine products, some old computer games used to require a code or the insertion of a master disk (which could not be duplicated), and EA games have DRM measures installed. Here's one idea for Nintendo--have firmware/software updates block support for piracy-related devices. Apple has done this with Mac OS X 10.6.2--it evidently refuses to run on modified netbooks with Intel Atom processors. The only way to successfully implement this is to ensure that new games require new firmware/software so that the user is forced to download it. This would probably work on the Wii, but I'm not sure about the DS since I don't have one.

5. BLAST TO THE PAST: For some reason, people who play video games seem to like older stuff placed in their games, whether it be the return of an old item or an old soundtrack. Bringing back classic elements to new games would be a good thing.

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Mario Chat / Re: Peachtelligence Quotient

« on: November 15, 2009, 06:40:36 PM »

Time to enter psychologist mode here...

We've all heard cases on the news about people getting kidnapped. A lot of them have problems and almost appear to take a step or two back from the point they reached when they had developed. If you got kidnapped as often as Peach, I'm sure you'd exhibit signs of not appearing too bright sometimes because of the trauma it caused.

To further back up this point--sometimes, there are conditions that are the result of kidnapping (Stockholm Syndrome comes to mind in particular but I'm sure other conditions could develop--this would be an interesting study to conduct).

Let's add to this another variable--Peach's age. I'm going to assume she is 23 in the first game and because video games can distort things, this age remains constant over time (in other words, she is 23 in both 1985 and 2009 as well as every year in between). Folks going through this time in their lives are still developing in many ways. Mental capacity, physical strength, and brain development have yet to peak. It's also at the beginning of Erik Erikson's "Intimacy vs. Isolation" stage, and Peach may be regressing because she doesn't have a steady love partner in her life (Mario does not count since she is kidnapped and isolated from him a good bit of the time and also because I can't see them spending every waking minute of their lives together--after all Mario has to unclog toilets and fix shower heads). Failure to "pass" this stage in life may have led to a good deal of depression, which can cause mental performance to lag due to feeling down. Mental performance and capacity can also appear to be limited when trauma is part of one's life--ask a former POW about this one.

From my observations, Peach is probably a very intelligent young lady, but various psychological factors don't let her true mind shine through all the time. However, her personality appears to be unchanged by any of this, which is evident when she throws mushrooms to Mario in SMW even when she's being held hostage inside the clown copter.

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Mario Chat / Re: Should the 1-Up Mushroom just die?

« on: November 15, 2009, 06:28:57 PM »

I don't see this happening. Even if they were to be placed on hiatus, they would likely be returned much like the fire flower was after a period of absence.

Let's use Super Mario 64 as a good save-based game example of why the 1-Up mushroom is still useful. Suppose you are in Lethal Lava Land and are trying to get the fifth star (one of two inside the volcano). When you re-enter the painting, you are placed directly into the volcano and no longer have to find a way inside. Yes, there are wing caps and shells available to get there, but some players (especially younger ones) may have trouble with coordination and need to try many times to reach the inside of the volcano. By accumulating 1-Ups, the player may have, say, five chances to reach the inside (instead of one). There are other moments, in both 64 and subsequent games, where the same thing happens (it's nothing new, either--even the original SMB had the midpoints in each level).

Also, some of the more recent Mario games (64, Sunshine, and Galaxy) have required the player to go to a particular area far away from the starting point, which often is a hassle for those who are very focused on the level at hand. I think we've all had to do this at some point or another. In this case, having extra lives is a blessing.

If there were no 1-ups, we'd be stuck with the following alternatives:
-Start the game over from the beginning (not really an issue with the way modern games use saves, but think about, say, playing on a GameCube without a memory card)
-Give the player infinite lives a la Super Princess Peach, taking away the challenge for more experienced players
-Make the player go to a far-away area every time they die (think about some of the places in Sunshine for an example)

The current system works fine as it gives a nice compromise between helping out and adding to the challenge--the challenge of the level and also to accumulate these mushrooms is still there, but there are still consequences if the player dies too much.

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Game Help / Re: Farmville

« on: October 21, 2009, 02:36:09 PM »

I refuse to ever play the game because I'm sick of seeing 1,000,000 lost cows or sheep and everyone's 1,000,000 reward ribbons all over my news feed. It's annoying to see all this stuff showing up when in reality nobody cares what kind of score you got on an online game. Besides, I don't need the virtual reality farm because I grow vegetables already and can get real beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, etc whenever I want them during growing season.

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Mario Chat / Re: Doing the Mario in Heaven

« on: October 14, 2009, 03:30:35 PM »

Rest in peace, Captain Lou. We shall all "do the Mario" in your honor.

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Video Game Chat / Re: Sometimes Nintendo makes no sense...

« on: October 13, 2009, 10:30:12 PM »

If you want to design a system without that flaw, use a CRT. Try lugging THAT around in your pocket.

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Mario Chat / Re: "I hate that singing tape."

« on: October 13, 2009, 01:23:19 AM »

This thread reminds me of something my mom said when MarioKart 64 first came out.

She picked me up from school the day after we got the Nintendo 64 and told me that she had been playing MarioKart 64 all day (no surprise since my mom has always been a video gamer, going all the way back to pong). When I asked how she did, she said she did fine but lost one of the races to "some guy who says 'ribbit' whenever he passes you".

To this day my mom still calls Donkey Kong "the ribbit guy" whenever she plays MarioKart 64 despite knowing now that it's Donkey Kong (which I guess she couldn't tell from behind him in MK64--I'm pretty sure she knew who DK was long before the N64 thanks to the arcade game).

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Video Game Chat / Re: Sometimes Nintendo makes no sense...

« on: October 13, 2009, 01:16:57 AM »

Dead pixels are a fact of life on LCDs, just like questionable geometry was always an issue with CRTs. I have a dead pixel on my GBA but never once thought to return it since I know that the problem exists with the screen. Thankfully things have improved over time to the point where dead pixels are rare.

My current laptop has no dead pixels but my older laptop, which is nine years old, has two. They were there from the day I bought it brand new in 2000. However, it was a huge improvement over the days of old--my 1993 model PowerBook has five. My old Macintosh Classic may not have dead pixels even after nearly two decades, but CRTs have their own problems--I had to manually adjust the focus on it after about 13 years since it had come out of focus over time. (It still looks good, I must add--the machine works great and actually gets used now and then).

I remember when the old PowerBooks first came out. Apple had a policy where you needed to have something like eight dead pixels to even consider replacement. I'd imagine there is still a similar policy in place not only at Apple, but also at Nintendo, Dell, IBM, Sony, etc.

I'm going to say the DS is not a toy either. I'd classify it as a handheld electronic device much like the iPod Touch, except that its primary purpose is to play games, not music or videos.

Also, if there is a post that you can't delete, my recommended solution is to edit it and write <<erroneous post, please ignore>>.

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Video Game Chat / Re: Sometimes Nintendo makes no sense...

« on: October 11, 2009, 08:33:41 PM »

The world is nothing but a business. Once you get to be old and almost done with five years of college like me you'll come to realize that.

Nintendo is a money-making business that caters to families, much like Walt Disney or Hasbro. Instead of making movies/amusement parks or toys, they make video games. They want to make sure their product and customer service is tops for the same reason Honda always tries to beat Toyota--so that people will buy their products and keep coming back to them. They also want to go towards specific demographics that others do not. In Nintendo's case, this is easy--the Wii and DS have been selling even to non-traditional video game players thanks to the fitness/sports games and brain games, respectively. Wiis are popping up at nursing homes, are recommended by doctors, and have helped Nintendo sell more systems than they had during the past few generations. Likewise, the DS can be found in the hands of an eight year old just as frequently as it can be spotted in the possession of a 45 year old using it for sudoko (or even MarioKart--both of my parents and my uncle are approaching 60 and all of them play MarioKart and occasionally will beat their son/nephew).

With that in mind, let's talk about the games and the DRM contained within. About ten years ago people started sharing files online. Music was the biggest problem but other folks started sharing Nintendo ROMs. The problem with both is that they are copyrighted (well, most of them--there are always non-commercial/public domain files out there, but we'll ignore them for now). Apple stepped in to make the legal purchase of digital music possible when iTunes was launched six years ago. Software had been sold online since at least 1995 (one of the pioneers was a tiny company that sold Mac clip art, in fact; I bought a package of clip art from them many years ago). Nintendo realized that they had the same problem as the music industry, except the content in question was old games that hadn't been on store shelves in years. They tried re-releasing them on other systems, but some purists felt they were not true to form (i.e. the added voices in the Super Mario Advance line for GBA seemed to make some upset; I personally like the voices).

This is an area where Nintendo really catered to its customers--it made the old games available for purchase. Suddenly, the folks whose NES no longer worked could play SMB3 again for the low cost of $5 (which is actually half of what SMB3 was going for at The Exchange last week). Old games could now be played on modern hardware that was still under warranty. In fact, a "classic controller" was even released to accommodate some titles (namely SNES games). Nintendo also released Sega games, killing two birds with one stone in the process.

Just as Apple's iTunes had come up with a legal way to buy MP3s, Nintendo suddenly offered a way to get old games legally (and even supplied the emulators right inside the Wii). DRM was installed for one reason--to prevent piracy.

Piracy leads to lost sales. If everyone was pirating Wii VC games, what do you think the odds would be that Nintendo would develop more games for VC? The chances would go down because nobody would be buying anything. DRM was necessary and proper and still is despite what music companies have done (I actually get a feeling we'll be going back to DRM files within three years if the sales start to slip).

Sure, DRM has its problems, which are well-documented online, but every system has its problems. I'm a supporter of DRM because I am an aspiring writer and realize that there may be online textbooks in the future. (I hope to write mathematics textbooks specifically for gifted elementary students). If we can't control piracy, the economy will tank!!!

I've done extensive research on copyright laws due to my aspirations of publishing my works someday so if you have any questions let me know and I can see if I've got an answer.

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The White Mushroom House / WTB: Mario Syndrome (old Japanese tape)

« on: October 10, 2009, 12:19:43 PM »

I'm looking for the Mario Syndrome tape (I'd prefer the tape over the LP but would take either). It was released in Japan only and had some remixes of Mario songs on it.

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General Chat / Re: What Gets Your Internet In A Bunch?

« on: October 08, 2009, 08:49:08 PM »

I use it mostly for research since I'm in college, study both education and psychology, and am in the process of writing an honors thesis. Communication would come second for me since I have found that e-mail and social networking is convenient and easy. I can't say I use it much for media--I do buy songs on iTunes to use on my iPod but I'm a sucker for CDs since I like having liner notes with lyrics, enjoy the portability of the format, and still get a thrill out of going to a music store and buying a new album. I do shop online sometimes but only for certain items--if it's something like clothing or shoes I'd rather try it on in person and if it's something big I'd rather just pick it up than have it shipped for a huge amount of money. (This would be something like a TV).

Aside from MarioKart Wii I don't use the internet for gaming. I'd rather play with folks sitting next to me, not 100 miles away from me, because human-to-human interaction has always been the great part about multiplayer games.

Lately I've been using it as a TV substitute as well. I like getting the news online since I can pick and choose what I want to hear (I hate watching the TV news--if I have to hear about something trivial like John and Kate one more time I'm going to blow a gasket). If I'm working at my desk I'll use the online game trackers from NHL, MLB, and NFL to see what my favorite teams are doing if I can't actually watch the game due to other work (believe me, if I could watch hockey every night instead of work I probably would). I've used the online weather since it was a feature on AOL; the same goes for stock quotes (way back in middle school I played the stock market game so I used to check quotes online al the time and still do since I own some stock these days).

I honestly don't watch much, if any, TV outside of news, weather, and sports. I'd rather be playing video games since I hate just sitting around with nothing to do.