No game since then has had the profound sense of escapism that I found when I flicked the switch on, adjusted to the appropriate viewing angle, and held my breathe that the batteries would hold out, then the little blue cartridge that could…Pokemon Blue. Now up until that point in my life early Nintendo games, and even the quite immersive Super Metroid had stimulated my mind, but nothing could have prepared me for the arduous, addictive, and engrossing game play that Pokemon presented.

I was no longer in a beige and crème 1986 GMC Suburban; instead I was transported to a world where my expectations of reality were shattered. Yes this may sound a bit deep for what it actually was, a grind fest hardcore JRPG, but at the time the simplistic yet satisfying game play was in a league of its own. As I grew older my taste in games changed but Pokemon remained a constant.

Being a Pokemon fan has become increasingly difficult, as the years have passed. What started and became one of the best selling game franchises in history has become so cluttered spin off games I could have sworn Square-Enix owned the series rights. At first I played along, Pokemon Snap, as confirmed by my recent VC download, is still awesome and even though it is a re-skinned Planet Puzzle League/Panel de Pon, Pokemon Puzzle League is still an amazing game, but the buck stops there.

My hatred of the Pokemon Games began with Coliseum and any game since that has brought Pokemon battles from 2d into the third dimension. What once was fast and interesting became slow and mundane. I soon became a jaded fan, disliking anything not related to the main game.

But the real question is, why write about his issue now? I have one simple answer…My Pokemon Ranch. Now I won’t say that I spent money on this, as my younger brother did, although I guess I am an enabler as he used my credit card to purchase it, but any use of ten dollars would be better spent then buying this piece of garbage. Almost any VC release would be an improvement over this incredibly shallow cash in of the once great Pokemon franchise.

Gone is any sense of order or direction, replaced in favor of a Mii like interface allowing your mii-ified Pokemon to roam free within an enclosed area where they bump into each other like some sad game of Marco-Polo played entirely by the deaf and blind. If ever a video game captured the awkwardness and erratic movements of a middle school dance, “My Pokemon Ranch” would be that game.

Nintendo it is time to take a break. Go back and rethink what made Pokemon amazing. Make a new game, and give me at least one more amazing life changing experience, and I will savor it to the last drop knowing full well that it will soon be buried under the marketing machine.

-Eric Wall

Now as we flash forward a decade Apple has become synonymous for it’s chic design philosophy and pension for quality. With the move to Intel processors, Apple has shed its monopolistic style to business even allowing, and supporting programs that allow for multiple operating systems (including Windows) to be installed. For around two years my current PC has actually been a Macbook Pro, and I couldn’t be happier. I get the best of both worlds, a stable Operating System and the ability to use a PC for its intended purpose…..Games.

With the release of the 3G iPhone and the launch of the application store in July, as well as an uncharacteristic release of the iPhone development tool; Apple may be preparing for its own entry into the handheld, and perhaps console war?

Apple is placed in a very precarious position, they have a very successful product in the iPod, yet they still have yet to break through the home PC market to the extent that their commercials make it seem. In order for Apple to enter the games space it has to be an economic winner, which is still to be seen. Sure iPod games have been around for more then a year, but with the application store, Apple has a real chance to see the viability of making the iPhone not just a phone, iPod, GPS, or whatever the hell else one does, but also a gaming platform.

If the iPhone is a successful handheld, I see it being a distinct possibility of Apple entering into the home console fight. With the release of the Apple TV last March, a transfer from the desk chair to the couch was initiated for many Apple diehards. Just a casual look at the specs of the Apple TV show that it has power that is comparable to the most successful home console of the current generation, the Nintendo Wii.

With its relatively low cost, and development already complete, it wouldn’t be that hard for Apple to begin releasing games for the Apple TV with just a simple firmware update. This new gaming platform would offer many of the features that are already available in other home platforms including built in wifi, a standard hard drive, as well as an hdmi port for high definition content.

Having comparable specs to the Wii would allow for publishers to develop for the Apple home console at almost no risk. It would be in Apple’s best interest to partner with Gametap to bring an instant library of games, and then allow the download of new original titles via the iTunes store, which could easily be a built in function of the new console.

With all of this hinging on the probable success of the iPhone application store, as well as the burgeoning casual games market. Apple could pull an “Apple,” and have a home console out for Christmas and become the 4th major console make. For a company that should have died ten years ago, only to make a resurgence with a portable music player, anything is possible.

-Eric Wall

That said, it seems as those days are gone. Yes, there are still folks that don’t have powerful gaming machines but most store bought PCs these day come with enough power to play games at least at their lowest requirements. But, the real issue is the increasing similarities that home consoles are beginning to share with PCs. Let’s be honest, the PS3 is essentially a PC gaming monster. You have to INSTALL games for Christ’s sake. That’s absurd. The mere fact that there is a chance you won’t have enough space on your PS3 hard drive to play a 60 dollar game you just bought is unacceptable.

With PC’s, it was different. You had to know your system inside and out and be sure that whatever you were purchasing would be playable. With a console, it’s expected to be able to just put the damn disk in and play to your hearts content - no lengthy install and no hassle. Yes, we are moving in a powerful new direction with home gaming, but we have to be careful that we are not soon looking for new hardware upgrades to our physical consoles.

-Joey Esposito

I’ve spoken to multiple friends that have complained that it’s too difficult to control the karts with the wheel, yet I have had no trouble doing so. Yes, it would be nice if it was anchored to something, but that would defeat the purpose of being the cheap accessory that it is.

My main problem with the complaints is this - you’ve been playing Mario Kart with a normal controller since 1992. Don’t you think it’s time to try something new? Especially considering that half the courses in Mario Kart Wii are rehashes of old courses, and they’ve done away with the two-people-in-a-kart thing from Double Dash, this edition really needed something innovative, and the motion controls with the wheel is it. Why buy a new game if you want it to play exactly the same as the old one? Not everyone was awesome at Mario Kart when it first came out, but those people are pros now. People should be excited to have a new form of control to master, not angry.

But for all you gaming cynics out there, feel free to plug in those bubbly GameCube controllers and wiggle the heart out of that analog stick.

-Joey Esposito

Yes, Nintendo has officially been successful in bringing in the casual gamers - from the elderly to the nerd-phobic, it’s undeniable that people that have never before taken an interest in gaming are currently flocking to get a hold of a Wiimote. Even in the newspaper not a week ago, there was a lengthy article about an old folks homes using the Wii has a primary source of entertainment in the community. The article focused in on a 93 year old man that played Wii Sports Bowling like nobody’s business. With the Wii, Nintendo may just break the stigma of video games meaning that you are a nerd, or even an outsider.

And while this is all well and good, this also brings about the issue of a flooded market. When new gamers can’t tell the difference between gold and shit, why should third party companies care? Right now, they could pump out nearly any level of quality work and someone would buy it. But more to my point: is Nintendo going to be taking this same mentality? Before you slit my throat, don’t get me wrong. Nintendo is by far the only gaming company I fully support, and have supported since I was old enough to hold an NES controller. But with the Wii, they have found themselves catering to a new market, which doesn’t necessarily match up with the hardcore gaming community, the ones that have been with Nintendo since forever.

As such, we have seen various innovative peripherals from Nintendo that bring about new ways to play when coupled with their already influential Wiimote. The most recent of these is Wii Fit, a workout centric game that features a balance board to physically stand on, that reads the way you shift your weight. And just weeks before Wii Fit came Mario Kart Wii, packaged with a steering wheel to place your Wiimote in, for use in the game. The other major accessory Nintendo gave us that has been sorely overlooked is its Zapper, a light-gun like setup that places the Wiimote inside, which came packaged with Link’s Crossbow Training, a simplistic target shooting game used for playing around with the Zapper.

My worry is that Nintendo will unconsciously begin to successfully release peripherals like these and then never continue to support them with new games or improve upon them. Wii Fit is all the rage right now, and the recently announce Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party will be making full use of the Balance Board, as will Shaun White’s Snowboarding, and that is a definite step in the right direction. But will these titles be any good? My hope is that companies, including Nintendo itself will utilize their accessories to their fullest potential. If something doesn’t quite work in one game, improve upon it in the next, don’t simply give up on it. We’ve seen this before from them with things like the Donkey Konga drums, which wound up having only 2 or 3 games compatible.

As we look to the future, here’s hoping we find fully developed concepts, instead of brain spurts that somehow made it to market.

-Joey Esposito

For a game franchise that’s nearly twenty years old, the Final Fantasy fan base continues to grow with the sort of fervor usually reserved for science fiction television shows or Joss Whedon projects. Recently, two projects sprung from the fandom, however, have caught my attention.

The student-run bar at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark recently hosted a Final Fantasy night, which naturally brought out the usual cosplayers you’d find at other such fandom-based. What was different, however, were the Final Fantasy-based drinks, and the site for the event includes the recipes so that you can make a Summoner Yuma or Corrupted Life Stream at home.

Then, for the Craft cross over, there’s fan-created cross-stitch designs. I never really imagined there’d be a cross over between the cross-stitch crowd and gamers, but apparently there is:

-M. Elizabeth Williams

Why Nintendo will survive:

1. Brand Loyalty
This is something that Atari wished they had. If you have ever talked to a so called Nintendo “fanboy” you know how much loyalty they have towards the Nintendo name and the characters created by Nintendo. No matter what happens to video game hardware, the Nintendo name will live on as long as video games because of the unabashed love that most gamers hold for the brand.

2. First Party Games
The gems of both the Wii and DS, first party games make up most of the software sales on both consoles. One of the problems with Atari was that their internal studios were weak and they pushed marketing dollars towards projects destined to fail (ie ET the Extra Terrestrial). Nintendo has never had this problem and as Miyamoto has always said “A delayed game is eventually good; a bad game is bad forever.”

3. Expanded Audience
Nintendo’s concept of expanding the video game audience has worked immensely in their favor so far. New gamers are being converted each day and even old gamers are coming back. This expanded audience is exactly what the industry needs to see growth, and allow for a greater sense of innovation.

4. VC
Even if Nintendo stopped releasing games all together, and just did virtual console games, the Wii would still sell. The ability to download games not only from Nintendo, but Hudson, Sega, and SNK lets the Wii be the ultimate old school arcade machine.

But here’s why Nintendo could fail:

1. Shovelware
The amount of shovelware on the DS and especially the Wii has increased with each passing month. With ports from PS2and PSP it seems like developers are seeing the Wii purely as a money making machine, which it is, but fans may soon realize that they may have to go elsewhere to find quality.

2. Lack of third Party Support
Just like the problems that plagued the Gamecube, third party support is a huge issue that is surrounding the Wii and DS. Although support is getting better with games such as Dragon Quest 9 going to DS, it is still an ever present issue that continues to hold Nintendo back from true industry domination.

3. The Nintendo Seal of Quality doesn’t mean what it used to
The Nintendo seal of quality was conceived as a way to insure that games were of a certain quality following the video game crash that was caused by Atari. However with games like Ninjabread Man, and the ….Z series by Ubisoft (Babyz, Dogz, Catz), it seem like the Nintendo Seal should read as the Nintendo Seal of Mediocrity instead of Quality.

4. The HD Era
As HD content continues to grow over the next five years, the graphics and overall feel of the Wii may hurt it. With the 360 and PS3 being equipped to handle and show off gorgeous graphics on an HD set, Nintendo may see a drop in sales. This realization may lead to the much speculated end of the Wii as a “fad.”

So as you can see, we are at a point where Nintendo could either succeed or go out in flames. We have seen what can happen to a once great, market leading company (Atari), but in Nintendo’s case only time will tell.

-Eric Wall

Ubidays 08 yielded a lot of interesting info. Check out Kotaku’s round up of their coverage complete with a Prince of Persia video and some Far Cry 2 info!

BioShock PS3 Super Official Now (kotaku)

Formerly a 360 exclusive, Bioshock is now making it’s way to the PS3, and apparently we’re all going to want to buy it again because it’ll have sooooooooo much more to it this time ’round!!

Guitar Hero: On Tour’s disturbing demo video (joystiq)

This video contains 300% more rock than any other video you see today…. or ever.

-MIKE KURZ

Set in 1922, in the town of New Arcadia, the game includes familiar faces to fans of the Penny Arcade comic, and includes all of the wit, charm, and in-jokes you’ve come to expect from the comic. And, of course, every one’s favorite rapacious robot with a hard on for fruit, which combined with some of the tools and weaponry you’ll be using gives the whole game a very steampunk vibe. (Okay, a rake isn’t very steampunk, but you’ll lose that before long!)

You, in case you were wondering, are a turn of the century home owner whose house is destroyed by a giant metal creature being hotly pursued by our favorite two-dimensional duo, Gabe and Tycho, and together (along with a rather useless cat) you must fight this iron giant and his little, rude underlings.

The game play is awkward on my MacBook, which is to say that charging up attacks is sometimes a slower process than it would be with a controller, and I had to switch to my Mighty Mouse sometime early on in the game for comfort’s sake. Battles are turn-based team play, which sometimes makes the game play seem drawn out. But the storyline is solid and full of a lot good, laugh out loud jokes that make the comic entertaining, so much so that avid fans may find the $20 price tag almost like stealing the game! If you’re a fan of longer games with a straight-forward plotline, however, you might want to steer clear, or at least wait for Episode Two.

-M. Elizabeth Williams

Oh wait, yes there was.

So now, we’ve got the guitar peripheral accompanied by a microphone and what looks to be a more advanced drum kit. While much has been said about the old argument that if players were to spend as much time learning the actual instrument as they do playing the game, they could be pros by now, I don’t want to delve there. What I would like to comment on is the illusion that music games are only any good when there is some elaborate fake instrument to play it on. As an example of yet another gold mine that all of my friends passed up on when I offered, I ask you all to look no further than the greatest music games ever made, the Harmonix created Frequency and it’s superior sequel, Amplitude. Two games that, because of the success of the mainstream Rock Band and Guitar Hero series, will never see another installment nor probably ever get the recognition they deserve.

These games were amazing. They featured licensed music that was split into different tracks for the different instruments. This could range from anything like guitars to synths, from vocals to percussion. The track moved to the beat of the song like most rhythm games, with three different locations in each track to hit to keep the beat, with the L1, R1, and R2 buttons. Once you completed a certain amount of measures on one track, that track in that section of the song would become automatic, and you used the D-Pad to direct yourself to the next track, your goal being to get all the tracks going at once, and keep them going. Throw in some crazy distracting backgrounds featuring music videos and lasers, a variety of powerups, freestyle tracks, online play and a rather in depth remix mode, and you’ve got one hell of a game.

For other awesome music games you probably missed, see also:

-Gitaroo Man
-Donkey Konga (yes, it’s sweet)
-Taiko Drum Master
-Rez

-Joey Esposito