A Reminder…

I Will Write About Other Things…

I know this seems like a video game blog, but it’s not. I will write about other things. I just have games on the brain right now, and I’m sure things will just get worse when my new video card arrives tomorrow…

Random Video Game Facts from the Mental Vault…

So…I’m going to try to think of all of the random video game facts that I can think of “off the top of my head” and post them here. A lot of people will know about this stuff already, but many will not - this is for you! Avast!

Atari Screwed Nintendo, Nintendo Screwed Atari…

Pretty much everyone can agree that the Atari 2600 was the first “mainstream” video game console. Sure there were others that came before the 2600, but it really cornered the market. Part of this success had to do with all of the great (and some not-so-great) ports of popular arcade games available on the system. Many of these popular arcade games were made by a little Japanese company called Nintendo (literal translation: from the sky/heavens).

After a while, Nintendo saw the need to develop a more powerful gaming console, so naturally they went to the console kings: Atari.

Unfortunately, Atari didn’t want to go into business with Nintendo to produce a new console, so then Nintendo just went ahead and created the “Nintendo Entertainment System” on there own.

Atari says: Whoops!

Nintendo should have known better…

After totally crushing Atari with their “NES”, you would think Nintendo would know better than to repeat Atari’s mistake themselves. Apparently not.

When the “SNES” was getting near the end of it’s life span…you know…when they had to start adding extra chips in the cartridges to make it do new things…another Japanese electronics company approached Nintendo and struck a deal to create the SNES-CD add-on.

If my memory serves me correctly, this add-on actually made it to the development stage…but I’m not 100% sure on that. What I do know is this - Nintendo pulled out before the add-on ever came out. Who was this Japanese company that Nintendo “screwed”? It was Sony…and we all know what happens next, right.

Sony makes PS which trounces Nintendo’s N64. It took Nintendo two console generations for Nintendo to catch back up.

To be continued…

Check out Joystiq’s E3 Coverage

If you are a gamer, you should already know about Joystiq. In my humble opinion, it is the best video game news site, bar none. And if you are a gamer, you should also know that the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is going on - right now! E3 is pretty much the single most awesome event in gaming news.

Check out the latest:

• Ubisoft’s Shaun White Snowboarding to use Wii Balance Board
• Nintendo selling 200k DS’s a week, 700k a month
• Animal Crossing: City Folk coming to Wii in 2008
• Nintendo introduces the Wii Speak community microphone
• Wii Sports Resort coming to the Wii, with Motion Plus in tow
• English version of DS recipe application coming to America in November
• Nintendo announces GTA: Chinatown Wars
• Nintendo announces Wii Music with 50 instruments
• Joystiq interview: Sonic Unleashed producer on nighttime stages, Werehog Sonic, more
• Hands on: Gears of War 2 multiplayer
• New Halo Wars vid shows off ‘Ice Level’
• Ghostbusters gets new E3 video
• Video: GLaDOS assures us Portal is ‘Still Alive’
• Final Fantasy XIII: 360 development starting after PS3 version
• Details on New Xbox Experience (dashboard), Avatars, Netflix, Primetime, et al

More @ Joystiq…

Wii Music to Feature 50 Instuments, Improv, Composition…

This is awesome. Don’t get me wrong - I like Guitar Hero and Rock Band - but this sounds waaaaay better. Plus, I’m pretty sure that Konami can’t sue Nintendo over patent issues with this game. It seems to me that this might help to silence complaints that these games just keep people from playing actual instruments. It seems like this product would make people want to try to learn to play a real instrument…but probably not…it’s because people are lazy - it’s not the games’ fault. People always seem to need a scapegoat, though…

From: Joystiq

At Nintendo’s E3 press conference this morning, the company showed off the long-rumored Wii Music. The game uses the Remote and Nunchuk, along with a foot tapping on the Wii Balance Board, to simulate a drum set. The game also lets players blow into the Wii Remote speaker to simulate the play of a saxophone. There will be over 50 insturments in the game, including the piano, violin, guitar and marimba.

“Wii Music is a slightly different play experience than you’ve seen with other music games,” explained Nintendodesigner Shigeru Miyamoto. “Now most music games require you to press buttons with precise timing to symbols on screen, but we’ve designed Wii Music to allow everyone, inclusing those who can’t read music to enjoy the experience of playing music.” Instead of following a strict set of notes, Wii music will let players improvise and create their own music using the Wii. The game will record videos of your on-screen play sessions. More to come.

So, Now Everyone at the Bank Will Think I like NASCAR…

I just purchased a one-year GameTap (which totally rocks, by the way) subscription. I was looking over the details of the transaction and I noticed that for some reason GameTap told my bank that the transaction was for a ‘nascar.com’ subscription. Lame.

(P.S. - I don’t actually care, I just thought it was funny.)

Something to Think About…

This always brings a smile to my face…

Let’s “Bring Smart Back”

What do you say?

We have been conditioned to accept that being smart means you are “uncool”. If that is the case, then if you are not smart then you are cool. This seems to be the mindset of most people in the United States. We seriously need to do something about this. I don’t know how to go about this, but I just wanted to enter this idea into the collective consciousness.

Intelligence is cool. Knowledge is all the rage.

Go Ahead and Release Earthbound, Already…

Ok, Nintendo - we know that you registered Earthbound with the ESRB back in May, so go ahead and release it for crying out loud!

I don’t care whether it’s a Virtual Console re-release of the SNES version or a DS remake just put it out - please.

And while you’re at it - just go ahead and release the rumored Mother (Earthbound is Mother 2 in Japan) Collection with all 3 games.

So far, Earthbound (M2) has been the only Mother title to be released in the US, and the cart alone goes for a minimum of $50 on ebay and that’s only if it’s without the box or manual and is scuffed up. I would gladly pay $8 to download the game on Wii and never have to worry about replacing the battery in the cart.

If you’ve never played Earthbound, you are only missing out on playing the single most awesome video game - ever.

The dialogue is some of the funniest material ever written for a video game, in my opinion. The enemies range from evil aliens to crazed hippies. That’s right - you get to kill hippies.

Not that I have a problem with hippies - but, the fact that there are actually hippies that attack you in the game is just really funny to me. These hippies and other people who attack you are under alien control, of course. So it’s totally ok to kill them.

And yes, that’s Ness “from Smash Bros.”. Kids…sheesh…