I want to write about Dragon Quest IX, because Dragon Quest IX is awesome.
I’ve never been super into the Dragon Quest series. I’ve always appreciated it from afar, mostly because Akira Toriyama is my favorite artist and I’ve always loved his character and monster designs. I was always more of a Final Fantasy guy, because I got into Final Fantasy first.
I am going to try, most likely in vain, to use mere mortal words to describe Nintendo’s E3 press conference today.
Ahem.
It was freakin’ awesome.
This is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down. I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there, I’ll tell you how I became… engaged to Christina!
Our story begins in September of 2002 on a summer day in Roseville, California. I was 18, fresh out of high school, and enjoying the time before I started college. I was working as a bagger at a local grocery store, which wasn’t terrible at the time, and I made good enough money to support my gaming habits. I had taken a trip to my local awesome mall (oh Galleria, how I miss you) and stopped in at my local GameStop, not really looking for anything in particular.
I mentioned it on the last podcast, but we have to send our Wii off to Nintendo for repairs. This is the first time I’ve ever had to send a system away for a repair, and I’m kinda nervous about it.
Whenever we try to load up the Wii Shop Channel, the whole system just reboots. I have no idea why. It literally worked one day and stopped working the next. A Google search for some kind of remedy showed that it’s a common problem, but only on systems that have been modified, which our system is not.
I just saw this over on Kotaku and I thought it was really neat. The fine folks over at GameTrailers have tackled the decades-old myth, confirming once and for all that Mario can indeed jump over the flagpole in Super Mario Bros. for the NES. I remember attempting this many times as a kid, but never quite making it.
I heard my share of rumors of things hidden in Super Mario Bros. way back when, none of which ever panned out because little kids are liars and I should have known that none of the kids in my kindergarten class had relatives who worked at Nintendo. Live and learn, I suppose!
By now you’ve probably seen the commercial for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 racer Blur, because I don’t even watch that much TV and I’ve seen it probably 70 times. This commercial is awful and represents a lot of what’s wrong with video games these days.
Also, yes, I know Kotaku kinda wrote about this today, but I was going to write this up yesterday but decided to do the contest instead. Whatever. I didn’t steal the idea.
Imagine if they were able to take the concept of awesome and refine it into something tangible, like a powder. The FDA approves this awesome powder for use in foods and medicine. The most talented baker in the world discovers that awesome powder can be used to make the most delicious cake in the entire world. Now imagine it’s your wedding day, and your totally smokin’ hot wife smashes a piece of the awesome cake into your face.
This is what Super Mario Galaxy 2 is like. Having tangible awesome smooshed into your face by a hot chick.
When I was in elementary school, times were very different. I only had one console, and the controller only had two buttons. There was no Kotaku or Joystiq. Getting a new video game was a rare treat, not a Friday evening. My parents would surprise me with games they’d purchase while I was at school, hand-picked not based on review scores or my own personal requests, but whether the box art was something that would appeal to me or not. I acquired some pretty rad NES games that way, but one stands out in my mind as being extremely special: Trog!
There’s been a little bit of buzz (more like a dull hum, actually) on the internet lately about Nintendo’s update to the Classic Controller, the Classic Controller Pro. You may be wondering “Wow, what did the Classic Controller Pro do to lose its amateur status?” Well, I’m here to give you the details.
We’ve been jumping back into Virtual Console games a bit lately, and once I finally found out that the white one was out in America I decided that it was a good time to check it out, especially after all the great things I’d been hearing about it from people who had purchased it in the bundle with Monster Hunter 3 Tri.
Okay, so yesterday I downloaded the best game ever to my DSi. Photo Dojo is the raddest thing to ever rad its way out of radtown. Photo Dojo is the simplest of beat-em-ups, but what makes it so great is you play as yourself!
Using the DSi’s camera, you’ll take photos of yourself or your friends in various battle poses, record some sounds, and then tear through the game. You design your fireball attack, your ultimate move, your taunt and victory pose, and record all kinds of cool phrases just like in a fighting game.
My fireball attack is the Domo Hadoken (as you can see in the picture), and my super move is the Ultimate Booyah.
Read that sentence a few times. I shoot a giant Domo face across the screen! THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS.
Photo Dojo is available on the DSi shop right now for free, and will go up to 200 DSi points soon, which is still a fantastic bargain. Seriously, go download this right now.
