Happy Ending

At last, the saga of the broken XBox "officially" ends. Actually, the saga sprang from this individual cartoon, which in turn was inspired by the conversation I had with an a pleasant woman at XBox tech support who suggested that we might want "share a private moment" with the malfunctioning machine before sending it on its way.

Sorry for the lateness of this post, but tomorrow I'll be at the IndieGamesCon in Eugene, Oregon. If you happen to be in the area, look me up.

More to come.

Withdrawl

The story continues. What happens when you take away GC's game machine? The result isn't pretty.

Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you know that the much anticipated Halo 3 is coming out this week. To be honest, I've never played the halo series, and really have no desire to do so. I think the last FPS (first person shooter) I played was Star Wars Jedi Knight II. Halo seems to appeal to a demographic younger than myself. However, if anyone's interested, I'll bite the bullet and tell you what I've learned about the game. Let me know.



Personally, I'm interested in the latest Zelda game, the Phantom Hourglass, due out next week for the Nintendo DS. I know I didn't start out liking the Zelda games, but then I started playing them and really liked the orderly way the world was laid out - the puzzles were logical, an you knew that any obstacle you encountered was only temporary and you would eventually make your way past it. The same went for the creatures you encountered. Even the toughest monsters had some chink in their armor you could exploit. Winning a major battle was an accomplishment. By the time Minnish Cap came out, I was hooked on Zelda. The Phantom Hourglass promises to take advantage of the DS touchscreen interface, adding a new level to the popular series.

One of the things I like about handheld games is that you should be able to pick them up and play them or leave them at any time. Picross is one of those games - you can save a game in progress at any time and come back to it later. The perfect diversion for those long commercial breaks. I've solved over 300 of the avialable puzzles in the game and there's only a few more to go. By then I hope there will be some decent puzzles available for download via the internet.

Inevitable

Sadly, the unthinkable has happened in the Gamecreature household. More on this drama in the coming weeks.


And I can't stop playing Rollercoaster Tycoon. I've even created a group that loosely resembles my own family. And no sooner had I created them, but they started roaming around the park, riding the rides and taking pictures. Here's a cheerful pic of them at the Scrub Gardens animal park. I am somewhat concerned that my simulated family is having more fun than I am.

Summertime...etc. etc.

You know, I really should post these entries when I'm thinking about it instead of trying to adhere to a schedule. As usual, things got busy and I wasn't able to make my entry when I usually do. Sorry about that.

Yes, it's summertime and hotter than usual around here. Needless to say, the extra heat plays havoc with delicate electronic components. I've heard that Microsoft has decided to extend the warranty on their XBox 360 systems to 3 years. Fortunately, all is well with the XBox in our house so far. Which is more than I can say for the mysterious malady that's affecting most of the headphones around here. Moving on...

As promised, I'm presenting a review of the Nintendo DS Browser. This product is a real Opera internet browser that takes advantage of the Nintendo DS built-in wifi capability. If your DS is already configured to use a wifi hub, then you can use your DS to surf the net in a matter of seconds. There are limitations, of course. The DS display isn't sharp enough for you to see your average page in the layout you may be used to. Fortunately, the browser has two configurations that either squeezes the page into the narrow DS aspect ratio, or a preview mode that lets you drag a magnifying window across the screen. Wait, I'm just getting started with the limitations. It's slow. 56k modem slow. And while you're waiting for your page to update, don't sneeze or it may start up all over again. Because of the speed limitations, you can forget about streaming video, music, shockwave and flash. The makers decided to leave those things out entirely. Also, cookies, downloads, etc - forget about those too. The only thing it will save are the bookmarks you decide to add to your favorites page. Everything else gets dumped from the memory as soon as possible - it just doesn't have the bandwidth for it.

The biggest problem I have with it is not the product itself but how they decided to market it. As you might know, Nintendo followed up the release of the Nintendo DS with the slimmer, "Lite" version of the product. Both products function the same, including having a second port for GameBoy Advance (GBA) cartridges. On the DS Lite, the GBA cartridge sticks out a bit, but still works. The DS Browser uses that second port for a memory cartridge for the browser. So, the marketing department had a choice - distribute the browser to stores with a full-sized cartridge that would fit all DS units, or distribute it with a scaled-down cartridge that only fits in the DS Lite units. You guessed it, they chose to disregard to users who bought their first products in favor of those who bought the new one. This is the sort of behavior I'd expect from Sony, not Nintendo. Users of the original DS can either buy an appropriately sized cartridge directly from Nintendo or do like I did and pull the board from the Lite cartridge and drop it into an old GBA cartridge that's collecting dust (this requires a small bit of effort, but I'll post the steps for anyone that's interested).

So here's the bottom line. Compared to other means of surfing the internet, the DS browser falls far short. Once the novelty has worn off, you might be using this browser on those occasions when you just don't have access to a regular computer or laptop. Certainly, I've found it useful when I needed to look up a picture of a llama or Steve Jobs and didn't want to get off the couch to do so. As I mentioned before, it boots up far quicker than your average computer. If you don't have a laptop or you're just nostalgic for 56k surfing, this might be the product for you. Otherwise, I'd suggest giving it a pass.

Coming up next - a review of Meteos Disney Magic.