Sara’s Grandmother just passed.

I’m going to be driving up to Chicago to return at a later date.

If you don’t hear from me for a while it’s not because I don’t like you.

With my ulcer has come many complications of eating and stomach issues. Mostly I just get these crazy stomach pains for seemingly no reason. I keep eating because that keeps the pains down. I also drink a lot of fluids.

The first fluid I cut out quite easily was soda. The carbonation just killed my stomach and made me have terrible heart burn. The next thing to cut out was coffee. I usually drink about 4 cups of coffee a day, and initially I had cut back to two because I couldn’t really function with that complete withdrawal of caffeine. Well, even that small amount was starting to catch up with me in the mornings, so I have switched to tea. I can still drink about as much as I want, and it will total up to a hell caffeine (which will agitate my stomach and cause more acids which will burn my ulcer).

I’m at the 4th day of tea rather than coffee and I guess I cut enough caffeine out of my system so that I’m not getting migraine-esque headaches from caffeine withdrawal. I had tried to switch from coffee to tea a while back, but I just needed the extra caffeine in the morning. I do like tea quite a bit, but I also really enjoy coffee.

Other than that I’ve just been watching more Doctor Who. I can’t seem to motivate myself to do much else unfortunately.

First: the second half of my interview with Trip Hawkins is up. This half has some much more interesting quotes in it, but the section I recommended cutting because it was a little too PR sounding (and not really as relevant because there were visual aids involved) was kept in.

“I’ve always said great games should be simple, hot, and deep.”

Great stuff, anyways. Technically the third section should be up in the next issue of TGQ, but that’s only going to be a couple of lines of quotes, mainly it will just be tied into the thesis argument.

Next up on my many-things-to-cover-today-because-I-forgot-to-post-all-weekend list is my semi-review of Kororinpa (subtitled Marble Mania in the US with a horrible cover) for the Wii.

I figured that I should say a bit about Kororinpa now that I’ve played most of it because it seems like the game is mainly getting panned or completely overlooked.

This game is better than it should be. At first I thought that I may be disappointed with the game because it seemed like it would have been better as a downloadable game (i.e. too short and easy). Then, after the first level I was a bit disappointed that Kororinpa seemed like it wasn’t going to require as much crazy flipping as I had hoped (i.e. it was going to be on a fairly level surface like monkey ball), but this isn’t the case either.

The game is really competent. Shockingly so. After getting the last game that Dessgeega recommended–because “OMG LIKE CAMELTRY BUT DS!”–I finished in about 45 minutes (some where less than two hours anyways) and felt like it was pretty disappointing. I was just happy that I had gotten it fairly cheap. I had kind of been keeping up with what Dess was saying about the game and it seemed like it wouldn’t end up anywhere near as short, and I started thinking about how great is would be to play with a physics engine in a sort of psudo-VR environment.

The game starts out fairly easy. The pacing is pretty much perfect: you start out with only the easier balls available so that you’re not overwhelmed at first. As you progress you slowly unlock things in a manner that somehow feels entirely natural to your progression with the game. By performing above average on the first level I was rewarded fairly quickly with the harder balls, and secret levels. The game doesn’t really dangle these over your head either: like how some games say “you have 5 out of 250 secret items!” this game seems as though there could be infinite hidden items. (I’m honestly holding out a freakish hope of a speed run mode where there are no gems to collects.)

It seems like I have been playing the game differently from other reports of people. When I complete the level, the first run is solely for collecting green gems and finishing the level. Then I go back through all the levels to gain the silver medal. At first I thought that perhaps the medal system was broken because I couldn’t get a gold medal to save my life, even on the easiest stage. So after that I progress onto the next level. I complete that once, go back through for Silver medals, then I go back to the previous stage and work on the gold medal. So far I have gold medals on the first 19 stages (screw that last level on the candy world (and I also have silvers on all of the first eight sekrit worlds)). The levels are so well crafted that replaying them over and over for time isn’t boring or insipid, they just continue to reveal their genius more and more. At worst they’re just straight forward, and at best they require full use and abuse of everything the game has to offer.

As for a difficulty curve, well, if you look at how I’ve been progressing with the medals (Silver, wait a level, and then come back for gold) you’ll see that the curve works well for learning. You’re forced to learn techniques and control of the world that will make earlier levels easier, but those levels still hold a challenge to get the gold. After the second level don’t expect to be able to beat these levels on your first, second or even fifth run. Some of them begin to become exceptionally challenging, but these levels allow for something else entirely: full control creativity.

See, it wasn’t until one of the earlier stages in the third level (city themed level) that I started to go a little nutty from repeat play throughs. Since you only have to pick up the gems on your first run and there is no time limit with infinite retries, you start to see if you can jump certain sections, or take shortcuts, that will get you to that last gem or to the exit, without needing to go through the part you keep falling off of. So I started to get creative: as soon as the time counted down and my ball began to roll I would kind of flick the controller to throw the ball in the direction of the goal. I would do this over and over again, just slightly adjusting the trajectory and speed of the throw. I finally got it once and was shocked that I actually accomplished the feat because it landed the ball in the corner of a small square with the exit that was the entire distance of the level away.

Another point I would like to make about the game is that the sound design is nearly perfect. Outside of unlockable songs from Star Soldier and Load Runner, there’s also the added benefit of great sound effects. Sure, when you pick the piggy ball you get oinks and squeals, but looking outside of that there is much more. The sound of a marble rolling on wood is near perfect: it will speed up and slow down and change tones based on how thick the wood is. On top of that, when you bump into things or land from heights, the knocking sound will come out of the wiimote (and the wiimote will vibrate just enough for the perfect tactile response). It all combines together creating an experience that is even more engrossing, and will draw you into the game further.

In summation: the game is very malleable and expertly crafted. If just making it through all the levels is your thing, there’s the Panda ball which is very easy (described as a last resort), if you want to fly through the levels to get the best speed, the ball is available, but expert precision is required. The game has a lot of hidden and unlockable items for people who have the sick need to do that, but it doesn’t beat the more casual player over the head with the fact that they’re missing part of the game.

I want to give this game a score, and score it nearly perfect for a skill based game, but I refuse to score it! I will say that it seems like a healthy portion of the people who have reviewed this game so far have completely missed the point of what the game is trying to be. Most people blame the game for being too easy, or too short, or having “no incentive to complete the level in one go without falling off the edge.”

Also, shock of all shocks, I found myself immensely enjoying a television show over the weekend. A hokey/cheesy/campy SciFi one at that! See, ever since Eric-Jon forced the entire house of people at E3 to watch the newest episode of Doctor Who last year (the episode was The Empty Child) I’ve been mildly intrigued with the show. I had these preconceived notions of the show that I realized were completely false. So finally, after all this time, and many, many posts by Eric-Jon since then, I finally took the initiative to download the first season of the new series.

I got through the first five episodes when I realized what the show was and then became insanely interested in all of Doctor Who. I started chatting with Eric-Jon about all this and he let me in on some of the stranger things about the series (like the 100+ missing episodes that got burned) and how the progress of the series went with the Doctors and behind the scenes items. Something inside my head turned on and started to burn with mystery and intrigue. So I started watching more. I started with two different serials from the 7th Doctor (McCoy) who seems to act and look a bit like Bilbo from the P. Jackson LotR trilogy. The first episode I watched was Dragonfire, which was insanely campy, cheesy, and bizarre. But it was at the same time pretty entertaining. It had the film quality that I’m use to from the time so that wasn’t too hard to get use to, and many of the characters in the show are defined by the era it was filmed in.

Up next I watched another serial with the 7th doctor titled Ghost Light. It was one of the last serials (where Dragonfire was one of the first) from this doctor and it was so much better. The characters were much more developed, things seemed less incidental to the story, and the quality was boosted overall.

Going back to the 6th doctor (Colin Baker) I watched the serial Vengeance on Varos. This one was also quite good: better than Dragonfire, not as good as Ghost Light. The writing was pretty well done for what it was, as it was still at a pretty high level of camp, but the writing showed insight into what the show was and how it was viewed.

If you see a pattern, stop me. I went next to the 5th doctor (Peter Davison) and watched a serial from the last season that Davison was the Doctor. It seemed like, from my discussion with Eric-Jon, that the last seasons for all the doctors seems to be the most interesting with the most development. Either way, this was where my interest started to wane with watching these older episodes. The Doctor is pretty much completely flat, and the story was a fairly generic Wicker Man in a scifi skin rather than horror.

At this point I decided to go back to the new series and watched a couple more episodes, most prominently episode six: Dalek. I’ve always known what a Dalek looked like: they’re the iconic evil creatures from the series. It was pretty amazing to see what new writing and seriousness can lend to something that I’ve always considered to be fairly boring and non-threatening. I mean, seriously, these creatures were designed in the sixties by using vacuum cleaner parts and light bulbs: they’re corny. But see, this is the key to the show: they start off almost like children’s program, having fun with make pretend cheesy monsters and special effects, but then somewhere along the line the writers will subtly shift the perspective and before you know it you care about what’s going on and you’re invested in it. It’s very clever and excellent. The 6th and 7th Doctors understood this too, but it seems like the 5th did not. So, I guess I’d give the most iconic and widely recognized doctor a shot next.

Enter: Tom Baker, the 4th Doctor. According to fans this is the benchmark for the show. I watched one of the earlier serials (because it seemed most relevant to the new show that I had just watched) titled: Genesis of the Daleks and totaled six episodes. It was tedious at points and the Doctor seemed just like … well, someone who was there. It felt like Tom Baker injects almost no personality into the Doctor outside of a very few moments. Anyways, it was an interesting episode to see because it tied in directly to the previous episode I had just watched from the new series. Tonight I’m going to watch Spearhead From Space an episode with the 3rd Doctor Jon Pertwee.

I’m becoming scarily well versed in Dr. Who, and in a very short time. After I get a decent grasp on the entire show by watching at least one serial per doctor, I’ll start watching some more slowly. My father in-law has a gigantic collection of Dr. Who VHS and DVDs so my wife is going to bring some back with her for me to watch… I’m going to try to grab the entire set because I’m sure he doesn’t watch them anymore. It will be quite a bit to sort through (and I’ll have to hook up a VCR again) but it should be fun.

Interesting side note of information that I learned from all this: The Wii is much better equipped to watch YouTube videos on your TV than the PS3 is. The PS3 attempts to smooth out the video a little which causes it to lag a bit in the audio and it only displays half as many frames. The Wii doesn’t load the entire video as fast, but it loads it at a rate where the is no stops. It’s equal quality to on the PC and it doesn’t add any processing effects so it’s blocky, but fast. It is a little scary that I’ve gotten use to the terrible quality of YouTube on my huge TV. But it works well for watching full TV shows if you’re not a fan of sitting in front of a PC.

Taito Legends 2 Officially Coming to US.

I held off for so long…

I just hope I can use my PS2 Saturn pad this time.

So, as many of you know I went to GDC this year and got quite a few interviews. Originally, when I interviewed Trip Hawkins I felt a little bad for thinking I may have wasted his time. He gave me a good thirty five minutes of his morning and I was only going to use about five minutes of the interview.

When I got back I decided to see if there was anything I could do with the rest of it, and contacted Mathew Kumar of Games on Deck. He said to write it up (in a format I don’t really like) and send it in. Apparently he liked it, so it got printed. Quickly too!

Anyways, here’s my interview with Trip Hawkins. It’s so good it’s getting broken up into two weeks worth of feature. Or something like that.

Ok, so, from that failure list, I now have two things done! WooHoo! The second one took much longer than I expected, but it should hopefully be up somewhere soon when I will link to it.

Also, I’m starting to really like my new phone. With my old phone it quickly became apparent to me that it wasn’t going to work out the way I wanted it to, and every time I tried to find a work-around I just couldn’t do it. With this phone I feel like I have so many possibilities and that I’m hardly tapping into the potential of it all (since it’s running a palm OS). I like how clear the screen is too. My only internet related problem with it is that browsing forums sucks. Everything else works much better than it should honestly. IMing from it is fairly easy, if a little slow because of the small keypad and buttons I’m not use to pressing yet.

Also, the weight of the phone is pretty much perfect. I would almost call it bulky, but I just like the heft of it. It feels solid and substantial, where my last phone felt weak from the start, and it just got worse as it began to break. The battery life is just about perfect. I can still check my email just about every hour, check the internet for a couple hours, IM for a bit, and make about an hours worth of phone calls and still have a quarter bar of juice when I go to bed. If I’m ever to go on a trip, or have a day where I know I’m going to be using it a lot I have a spare battery that I can just change out if it gets too low.

I do need a new carrying case though. The one I’m using is designed for a slightly different model of phone, so the shape is a little off. Nonetheless I’m very satisfied with the thing.

Roger Ebert has officially been a film critic for 40 years now.

That’s a damn long while. I know that he’s given games a hard time as of late, but I cut the guy some slack because that’s kind of like me saying “all TV is crap” just because I don’t watch it (which I do say quite a bit).

While I don’t always agree with Mr. Ebert on his opinions of movies, I still think that he’s the best one out there. When I read one of his reviews, even if he doesn’t like a movie, I have a damn good idea if I’ll enjoy it.

He also has two really great books out (The Great Movies I and II) which will give anyone an excellent resource to dive into the history of film. I plan on picking up Awake in the Dark later this year if it ever comes out in paperback, and expect a similar quality of excellence to it as well.

So, without further adieu, I declare today: Ebert Day.

I feel like a complete failure. I had a to-do list of 5 things to accomplish this weekend. I managed to get one of them 95% complete.

Granted I did end up doing a few things that I hadn’t planned on doing (moving a friend and spending a lot of time on my new phone getting things set up), but it’s still only an excuse, not a reason for this failure.

So, I’m going to slowly work on these things over the week and plan on getting them done by Fridays so that I can enjoy this weekend. There’s a free Italian Film Festival somewhere in town so I will use that as my reward for accomplishing this task list.

ATTITUDE FOR GAINS!

Ok, so I officially have a new phone now. Which also means I’ll be using AIM once again. So, if you really-really need me, you can aim me at shapermc on aim. And I may be on google talk at work more frequently too.

SO, feel free to call me once again!