Kuefler’s Blog

I just started a new blog, Game Influence. With this new site I hope to cover different aspects of gaming news, add some reviews, and talk about some gaming memories that I have. Hopefully It will grow as I add more contributers to the site.

Yet another commercial that pissed me off, or should I say commercials. This time these commercials involve cell phones.

First of all the Dropped Call commercials of Cingular, now these commercials somewhat claim that a dropped call for other networks cause people to believe a conversation is going on even after a call is dropped. I know that all my Verizon phones
make a very large and annoying beep when a call is dropped.

Next it’s a concept that many mobile company have been using, These commercials claim that a small amount of minutes make people have phone calls less than like 5 seconds, or something like that. They make these commercials despite the fact that most phone companies round up minutes, so in most cases a 5 second call would still equal 1 minute.

Back to another commercial by Cingular. This commercial claims that their Go Phone will change the conversation about phones, this concept doesn’t really work thou, if you turned the conversation back to what supposibly should have happened, the events would work properly with the dialog. Now I’m not going to go into to many details, so to put it simply she, wouldn’t have gotten the phone in the first place, so she wouldn’t have gotten to complain.

The commercial said:

“Now your getting this new phone.”
“It’s so small,”
“I really like it!”

When negative the conversation would sound like this:

“Now your [not] getting this [old or new] phone.”
“it’s so [big],”
“I really [Hate] it”

Why would she talk about how the phone’s small after her mother said she’s not giving her a phone?

These are the things that keep me up at night. Now there’s a lot more cell phone commercials like these that I really hate that I could show you, but to save you all the time I’ll stop myself there. Just to close this post, I would like to say that commercials like these don’t make enough sense. I would never buy any of these phones because of what these commercials say(I still might buy them, just not because of the commercial), because they are too out of touch with what cell phone users want(Cingular’s dropped calls commercial), they are simply lies(T-mobiles auction like conversations commercial), or they flat-out don’t make sense(Cingular’s conversation changing Go Phone commercial).

I haven’t posted much recently because I’ve been busy carving, finishing school, and playing my new DS game. I’ve owned the Pokémon Game Boy games Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver, Pinball, and Trading Card Game. I never really bought all that many games for the GBA, so I never played any of the GBA installations to the Pokémon series.

Pokémon Diamond and Perl came out four days ago. I have been waiting for this to come out for quiet some time now. I finally bought Pokémon Diamond two days ago from a Gamestop. I absolutely love it, I’ve played Wi-Fi and I love the voice chat. I love the new features and the kick ass soundtrack, I will post some more when I have some more time and impressions. But for now if you want to play against me in a Wi-Fi match, Go to Insaneent.net and post your friend code on the Pokémon thread.

(from left to right: A sonic 2 damaged due to Stickies, 2 NES games somewhat damaged by Stickers, 3 GameCube game cases damaged by stickers, An unnecessary sticker on a Hitman 2 case)

These damn stickers that game stores keep putting on there used games are really making me mad Pissing me off . Starting with modern games, game stores like EBgames and Game Stop, tend to make it hard to take their products stickers hard to take off, I don’t know why that’s just what they do. But when game stores put stickers on the cover of classing NES, SNES, N64, and Sega Genesis’s, thats a slap in the face to those who think that these classic games deserve some respect for there presents in the establishment of the gaming industry.

I had bought a Hitman 2: Silent Assassin game for my GameCube, on the front there was a sticker of the ESRB rating for M for Mature, Even know M for mature was clearly labeled on the same side of the box, this sticker serves no purpose, there was no reason for this sticker to be on the box, So why is it on there? Why would they waist money for stickers that are not needed?

(from left to right: 16 movie cases bought from Blockbuster with Stickers, Sticker on the paper itself rather than the plastic, 5 failed attempts to remove the sticker from the DVD Cases, 2 stickers on cardboard movie case)

And Blockbuster seems to know that stickers on there dvd’s piss people off, because rather than them simply putting the stickers on the plastic cases so they’re easy to come off, they choose to put the stickers directly on the paper cover clip, to make sure if you try to peal them off you tare of some of the movie description with it. Also If blockbuster puts there stickers on the special Warner Brothers DVD cases, they are nearly imposable to get off, but that’s partially not their fault, but the fault of warner bros. for trying to brake down the standers of the DVD casing industry.

All right, I have every Tony Hawk Game made cross-console, Except for the current generation’s release. I bought Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4, Tony Hawk Underground, Tony Hawk Underground, Tony Hawk Underground 2, and Tony Hawk American Wasteland all at the “brand new” Game Cube price of $50. I also bought Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1,2 and 3. used.

Less then a year ago, it “killed me” to hear that they were not going to make the Project 8 for the Wii. Instead they chose the kiddy, Non-free roaming, SSX Tricky Style, slap in the face, Tony Hawk Downhill Jam and even now they are making that Downhill jam the for the PS2. Downhill jam was still published by Activision but instead of Neversoft the game was developed by Toys For Bob. So basically Neversoft forgot about Nintendo. It wasn’t about graphics because the game was made for all other systems: PlayStation 3, Playstation 2, PSP, Xbox 360, Xbox. It not about controllers because of the classic controller, or even if they thought not enough people had the classic controller, there is style the Game Cube controllers. So WTF Neversoft? WTF happened?

If your looking for a game that will fill the free roaming void that THDJ, Dave mirra is the closest thing you’ll get soon. Carve Entertainment plans to publish a ported version of The PSP game Dave Mirra BMX Challenge some time around June this year for the Wii. Although the the Mirra Francaise is coming to the Wii, I have yet to see any Information for a Skating game for the Wii.

I’ve usually have two Television sets setup at my gaming area. One to play games and one to watch cable or DVDs.

Recently I can recall playing Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2 on Game Cube, and thinking of George Lopez Quotes from an episode that I watched years ago. When ever I go back to Tony Hawk Underground 2 I think of Simpson’s Quotes, the same With BMX XXX.

I never actually beat Luigi’s Mansion, every once in a while and play it for a few minutes and try to remember where I was at, whenever I play it I remember the day I got My Game Cube, Luigi’s mansion being the first game for the system I ever had. I also remember the fact that I didn’t have a memory card until after a weak or so of having the game.

Tony Hawk American Wasteland, I beat on it’s hardest setting in 2 days. I beat it in my basement and every time I play it I think of things that happened to me those two days, I remember my brother was home and he Kept yelling at me that I’m waisting my life playing video games.

When ever I play Pac-Man World 2, I think of kanYe West’s The College Dropout. I probably played the majority of the game listening to that album.

Metroid Prime and WarioWorld and Hitman 2 were that last three games that I bought before Getting a Wii, I definitely associate these games with the few months of anticipation of getting the Wii.

I Know whenever I play a retro game, Like Super Mario Bros 1 or 3, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Caveman Games, and what have you.

Anyways I was wondering if other people have these type of thoughts? Do you ever associate games with something else, something that happened to you while you were playing a game?

Because of the power outage, My Wii shut down, Sense my Wii shut down not using it’s own software, as the power went back on the Wii was no longer was connected to 24 connect. So when I woke up there was no chance of me receiving a message until it was turned on. So with no oh so beautiful pulsating blue light to tell me I had a message, It wasn’t till I went on my computer that I got the news that the full versions of the Wii’s Opera Web Browser was available for download. So after seeing the news I rushed to my Wii, turned it on, and told it to update; after that I went to the Wii Ware section of the Shop channel, and saw that the new update added the ability for downloaded programs to update, So that’s exactly what I did. After downloading the new update, I found some cool new features. The message sent from Nintendo is as follows:

===========
Internet Channel
===========

Now even more convenient to use!

The Internet Channel allows everyone to enjoy the Internet from their living room. We’ve just added some new features to make it even more convenient to use! Best of all, it’s still free!

New features include:

• Faster start-up time!
• Search button added!
• Text is clear, even when enlarged
• You can now hide the tool bar to see even more of the screen

It’s a great way to surf the Internet with family and friends, and allows you to experience the Internet in ways you never thought possible with your PC (on your TV!!)

To get this latest version of the Internet Channel, you’ll need to download it.

To download the Internet Channel:
First:
Press the “Update” button at the bottom right, and update the Wii console.

Next:
Select “Internet Channel from the Wii Ware section of the Wii Shop Channel. Download the new software and start surfing!

Please Note:
You can download the Internet Channel for free until the end of June 2007.

Parents who want to control access to the Internet Channel should refer to the Parental Controls options available in the Wii System Settings. To access these settings, return to the Wii Menu and select the Wii icon.

Despite these many improvements I still have a few problems with the browser. One is that the Opera Web Browser for the Wii still only supports up to Flash Version 7, which makes some sense because that is the most standardized version, but I still find some sites that require Opera Version 9. Also I know I’m dreaming here but it would be nice to have some ActiveX and Java Support for services like LogMeIn and Browser Friendly AIMs. Despite these few problems I have with it, I still like this new version, and seeing the new update I’m sure eventually Opera will get around to adding support for Flash version 9 and other support to a new update. Anyways with this new update I’m probably going to do some cool changes soon on my Wii Page, also, if I find there will be no support for Flash version 9, I may join up with some friends of mine to program a page that bypasses Flash detection either through a proxy or what have you.

Oh yeah, and speaking of Super Paper Mario, I’ve played it for nearly 7 hours and I’m still loving it. Who needs Super Mario Galaxy when you have World 4 for Super Paper Mario. From what I can see, it may not be as I said earlier when it comes to length, But I can say with out a doubt that the hilarious script itself is much longer than that of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. The script spoof, parodies and makes fun of everything that you could possibly imagine. The script talks about everything from the internet, computer geeks, cellphones, Zelda, the Wii’s hardware itself, computer archiving, 2d platforms, 3d platforms, dating and anything else you can think of.

Any How, speaking of power outages I still didn’t know what caused the huge power outage of 2003, I couldn’t figure out, yesterday, why didn’t the news cover this enough. At any rate today I looked it up and the final conclusion was that the power outage was caused by FirstEnergy Corporation’s failure to trim trees in part of its Ohio service area, seams kind of boring, that’s probably why I missed it, not interesting enough.

Not tired yet, I played my Nintendo DS lite for a half hour or so, The power went back on about 4 hours later, 3 hours before I went to sleep.

Today I set out to get Super Paper Mario, after a failed attempt yesterday resulting from a misunderstanding of the terms Shipped and released. First I called the store to see if they had any in stock. After that I had to get the money. I had five bags of change 3 containing 10 dollars each. I then brought the change in to a Coinstar at VG’s, the service charge rate was 8.5, but i swear they took more than that. I exchange the little slip for 46.47 dollars. Combining that with the 7 dollars in my wallet was enough to buy the game. An EB Games store was in the same complex So naturally that’s were I decided to go.

I when in the store, grabbed the game, bought it, and had a short discussion on the validity of reservations for upcoming games with the stores manager after he asked if I wanted to make one for any Wii games. After coming Home of coarse there’s the ritual unwrapping of the game. After that I used my Wii’s internet browser to inform various forums that i had bought the game. Then I popped the game in The Wii. after playing it for a few hours the game case then took it place next to my other Wii games.

The game is an absolute must buy for the Wii. I know it’s not as good as Zelda, but I can say it’s my second favorite game out for the System. The game requires that you go from 2d and 3d through the entire game. The game also adds new ability throughout, including the use of new playable characters, items, and none playable characters. The game has SNES like cut scenes and vibrant and colorful graphics. It appears that throughout nearly every area of the game you can go from 3d to 3d. The game is very long, from what I’ve heard it take about the same length to finish as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Oh yes and the script is Hilarius’s and I strongly recommend reading everything, the script alone is reason enough to get this game. This game so far met all my expectations and I’m probable going to spend the majority of the rest of the week playing it.

My goal, to learn Japanese and to be able to completely understand imported video games in two to three years. As you know japan is basically the video game capital of the world, and being that many games come out much earlier in japan than the united states. After learning Japanese, I can import games, and become more informed on gaming news. As of now I’m only learning online, but next year I may take courses in collage. Anyways that’s whats new with me.