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zohar

Jelly Beans

March 5th, 2009 by zohar

Categories: NES, Wii

I really liked “A Boy and His Blob” back in the NES (even though I completely sucked at it), and it looks like it’s getting a remake on the Wii! The hand-drawn graphics look great on the Wii.

Anyway, if you’re not familiar with it, it’s about.. a boy and his blob. It’s a puzzle-solving game where you can feed jelly beans to your blob, and it will transform into various objects that let you progress farther into the game. Example: feed it a licorice jelly bean and he’ll transform into a ladder. Hopefully this game doesn’t get TOO dumbed down for the “casual” audience, but I also hope it won’t be as hard as the original.. T_T

Pics and videos courtesy of Kotaku.

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zohar

Famicom Tantei Club Part II

December 20th, 2008 by zohar

Categories: SNES

I’ve been a big fan of text-based adventure games ever since Phoenix Wright came out here, thinking that it was one of the first of its kind (at least from Japan). Wow, I was sure wrong. Apparently there are a lot of these kind of games out there, one of them being Famicom Tantei Club Part II which was originally released on the Famicom Disk System (an add-on for the original Famicom), and later ported to SFC.

Though extremely linear (moreso than Phoenix Wright), it has a great story. Murder, detectives, old ghost stories, and the occassional bit of light humor. Amongst all the next-gen (or is it current-gen now?) games I’m playing, it makes for a good “old school” game to play. Sometimes I just NEED to play something 2D and completely outdated (this is not sarcasm). Man, I feel old. Stupid kids with their polygons and what-have-you.

So, if you’re interested in playing it and not completely and utterly put off by 16-bit graphics… unfortunately you can’t play this game through normal means. Not only was the game released in Japan only, but the SFC port was available ONLY through Japan’s version of Nintendo Power. Isn’t that awesome? We didn’t get cool stuff like that… Anyway, the translation patch is available here. And then after that, Google is your friend.

Aaaaaand actually, while we’re on the subject of Nintendo swag, Club Nintendo finally launched! I have 480 points so far. Need… to earn platinum status… anyway, I’ll let someone else blog about that… :)

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zohar

Goods Exchanged

December 17th, 2008 by zohar

Categories: Miscellaneous

Thought I’d give a plug for this service. Goozex is an online service where you can trade games with other people. By sending games to people, you earn points — and they’re reasonably set, unlike the trade-in value you get from Game Stop. With the newer games trading at 1000 points, I’d estimate 20 points = $1.

After you earn points, you can use them to request games from other Goozex users. Goozex does, however, charge a $1 transaction fee (“trade-in credits”) for the service (yes, that’s how they make $$$ for themselves).

The Good:
+ A much better alternative over Game Stop (low trade-in value, also hate them), eBay (seller/paypal fees up the wazoo), and craigslist (too many fake/spam users and people who generally waste your time).
+ Great for if you want to collect some older games that don’t have a lot of people requesting it.
+ Reputable service; in November 2007, it was ranked best website to trade games, ranked by EGM and GamesRadar.com.

The Bad:
- Newer games have a huge queue, so not recommended for getting games near launch date. (Still in line for Fallout 3 and Tales of Vesperia..)
- It’s the internet, so there are always douches out there. Some people never receive their game (you don’t lose points if you don’t, it’s just annoying), and some people receive games in bad shape. But hey, you make the same risk with Game Stop (online) and eBay.

Overall, I’d say it’s worth a look. You get 1 trade-in credit and 100 points for joining. And if you do join, please use my referral link :)

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zohar

Oh, you Chinese people…

December 13th, 2008 by zohar

Categories: NES

Saw this on Tomato’s blog (the guy who translated MOTHER 3):
Chrono Trigger — ported for the NES. I particularly like the gameplay at 5:20.

Reminds me of the FF7 NES port from a while ago…

P.S. I am Chinese and therefore the title is not racist. :)

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zohar

A Pirate’s Dilemma

December 2nd, 2008 by zohar

Categories: Random

I think the most legitimate excuse for someone to pirate a game is that they wouldn’t buy it in the first place. But I wonder how true that statement really is?

This doesn’t apply to just games. Obviously it extends to songs, movies, software, etc. I know all of you who use Adobe Photoshop didn’t actually buy it. And most of someone’s music collection, probably all ripped. But without the choice of pirating something, how much would you really spend on all this stuff? And if no one pirated music, would iPods and MP3 players be as popular as they are today? (Side note: if every MP3 had DRM, I think Zune would be beating the crap of the iPod simply because they have a subscription service model.)

I think it’s getting to a point where piracy actually makes something more popular. Let’s think about areas where piracy is most rampant… China, India, Russia, etc. Because the people there really can’t afford software at the retail price. But once again… is it hurting the creator? Those Chinese tofu stand owners could probably live with a bootlegged Bluray copy of High School Musical 3, but could they live without Windows, or Office?

With game piracy getting more and more widespread, especially for the portable systems, I wonder how much the gaming world is going to change because of it. I was talking to a friend the other day, and he told me his 8-year old cousin or something had a DS flash cart. Damn, that’s young to be pirating. But it is for good, or for evil… ?

Yawn. Tired. Thinking too much.

(P.S. Let me know if this is against the rules of this blog.)

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