Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is one of my favourite games on the Nintendo DS, it’s up there with the entire Ace Attorney series by Capcom which I also hold in extremely high respect. However, unlike Capcom, Cing is a developer with very few games under its belt. A PS2 game, a few Japan-only mobile phone games, a few DS games and a couple of Wii games. Quality over quantity is the way Cing operates, and their recent games on the DS and Wii were all very well made, quality games.

Of course, even if the games are brilliant, it’s not necessarily going to ensure that a developer will find success. As gamers, we all know very well how there are some games that seem to catch on and others that, while excellent, seem to be swept under the rug by most. I feel that this has happened to practically every game Cing has ever released, but at the same time it’s not surprising at all.

Despite Nintendo’s on and off support over the last few years, Cing hasn’t really seen much exposure for their games. The first game I ever played from them was Another Code: Two Memories (known as Trace Memory in North America). Cing was one of the first developers to release anything significant on the DS with Another Code. Its use of the touch screen, built-in microphone and even (and brilliantly) the clam shell design of the Nintendo DS itself were used in the various puzzles found in the game. It may have been a very short game, but Another Code left a great impression with me with the level of ingenuity Cing used to make the game. It’s very lucky for Cing that Nintendo promoted Another Code at E3, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have been aware of the game at all.

When Hotel Dusk was announced, I immediately paid attention to it because of Another Code. I knew that it was something I shouldn’t ignore and when it was finally released, I bought it on day 1 and played it all the way through in one go, forsaking all other games I may have been playing at the time. As I said before, I love Hotel Dusk… and I made it my mission to tell people all about the game. I told anyone I knew who owned a DS about Hotel Dusk and even convinced a couple of people to buy the game even though they had heard nothing of it before I came along.

Nintendo always made sure to mention Cing’s games at various conferences, most prominently at E3 when showing off upcoming DS and Wii games. Another Code: R – A Journey into Lost Memories was another title that Nintendo had shown off as one of the key titles being released on Wii. Despite this show of support, Another Code: R was only released in Japan and Europe, with no release in North America, Australia or any other region… luckily for me though, it seems that UK games are actually playable on Australian Wii, so I’ve actually bought myself a copy of the game off of eBay which should be arriving this week. On the other hand, anyone in North America who was hoping to get their hands on the game will be sorely disappointed. I wrote an entry about this a few months back… it was one of the games that just wasn’t given a chance.

The sequel to Hotel Dusk, Last Window: Midnight Promise was recently released in Japan back in January and, at this point, is still set for a localisation and release in North America… I really hope that goes through because I know what Cing is capable of and from what I’ve heard and seen of the game in its Japanese form, it’s said to be just as well made as the first.

Cing is a very small developer and relies heavily on other companies to do all the big advertising. Unfortunately you don’t get much of that with their games. Most people out there don’t even know what Another Code, Hotel Dusk and Little King’s Story are or why they’re so damn good… hell, I don’t even know why Little King’s Story is good, but from what I’ve been hearing from people who have actually bought and played the game, it’s meant to be a gem that people aren’t taking notice of… kinda reminds me of how a lot of people ended up ignoring Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure by Capcom… but then Capcom is a pretty big and powerful company that can afford to have a few of their games sell poorly. Cing on the other hand depends on every game sold.

Whatever caused their downfall, be it lack of advertising, lack of general interest, piracy or ninjas… I salute you Cing. I hope that somehow, you guys pull through this and are able to continue on making great games.

As many of you in the community already know, I recently bought myself a Sony Vaio P netbook… so, naturally, just like everyone else I installed all of the usual programs and set it up the way I like it and have my perty wallpaper and everything all there. Along with those other things, I came to a point where I eventually put ZSNES onto it. The main reason I did this, was so I could have a portable copy of Super Metroid.

But then I stopped for a moment and suddenly asked myself. I do own a copy of Super Metroid of Wii Virtual Console, but does that make it right for me to download a ROM version of it and put it on my Vaio P?

Personally, I like to buy everything and try to stay away from piracy as much as I can. After all, these games are made by some talented people and this industry, as flawed as it may be in certain areas, is an industry I want to support… but there can be some grey areas of morality we get into when it comes to the subject of piracy.

I DON’T own a copy of the original SNES version of Super Metroid, I DO own the Wii VC version, but am I in the wrong for having the ROM version in my possession and playing it on my Vaio P? I mean, it’s not like Nintendo has lost any money from me having the ROM on my PC… and funnily enough, this line of thinking can be used to actually justify piracy for a lot of people. If I call up some guy over at Nintendo and go “I own a copy of Super Metroid on Wii VC but I have a copy of the ROM on my PC, what do I do?!” he’ll just be like “Okay… I don’t care.” and hang up.

It’s a grey area, but for me, it’s okay to have this ROM copy of Super Metroid since I already have the Wii VC version… but then I ask myself… what about that ROM copy of Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie? I don’t own a physical SNES cart of that and it’s unavailable to download from Wii VC. In fact, it’s unavailable outside of Japan altogether, but thanks to the Internet, I was able to download it and experience its awesomeness.

Just because it’s not available in my country, does that mean I have free reign to just download it and play it without paying for it? It’s not like I can do much about it… My reasoning is that it’s a very old game that you can’t get anywhere any more, so having the ROM of it is no big deal. Of course, that takes me further down the rabbit hole in terms of justifying my actions.

I’m sure I could go even further if I followed the thought, so where would I stop? I stand firm on not pirating new games, and if there is a version of an older game that’s available on Wii VC, PlayStation Network or Xbox Live Arcade, I’d definitely go for those rather than pirating them. I’m fine with people modding their consoles as much as they want just as long as they don’t use it for the sake of piracy.

I guess it’s more of a case of personal morality than anything else… Anyway, you’ve heard my thoughts about this, so where does everyone else fall on this issue? Or is it really not that big a deal and I’m just over-thinking this? Let’s hear your thoughts.

Oh, and for those of you wondering where the whole “You wouldn’t download a car” thing came from… take a look.

That VERY annoying clip used to be at the very start of most DVDs sold down here in Australia. I was able to skip it on my DVD player back in the day, but there were some DVD players which wouldn’t let you so you either had to endure it or be smart enough to realise you could fast forward through it. Obviously it never says “You wouldn’t download a car” in the clip itself, that is just another one of the many Internet jokes out there for the lulz.

That clip in no longer added to newly released DVDs and they never appeared on BDs to begin with. Not sure what they have now but hopefully it’s not as annoying as that one.

So what exactly IS the Super Guide and why should you care or not care? In short, the Super Guide is a feature that when activated will play the game for you… and this kind of description is what has put a lot of people up in arms and have condemned the feature outright without them even looking into what it really is.

Put your rage and your conclusions aside and let’s continue on and see what this is really all about…

The Super Guide really isn’t just some magic button that let’s the game play itself. What it is is a tool to allow a game to be accessible to those who may not be the best at video games and may not be self proclaimed pro-gamers that we all seem to believe we are. New Super Mario Bros. Wii is not an easy game and although it’s not anywhere near the hardest game either, the idea of adding the Super Guide is to try to level the playing field so that people who aren’t experienced gamers won’t give up in frustration in later levels.

Let’s go through the features of the Super Guide:

• The Super Guide is not accessible right away during the game. The green Super Guide block only appears in a level if you have died 8 times in a row during the level and will disappear once you have completed that particular level.
• The feature only works in single player mode, the Super Guide block will not appear if you’re playing with two or more players.
• If you do choose to hit the green Super Guide block, you are told what the feature is about and are given an option to activate it or decline. Once activated, Luigi will take control of the game in place of Mario. With Luigi in control, at any time through the level, you can deactivate the feature and take back control of the game to finish the level yourself.
• Using the Super Guide feature will not automatically score you all of the Star Coins, it will not help you find all of the secrets or have you performing super cool moves or have Luigi run all the way to the finish. It’s a very slow, safe and boring pace and not something you’ll want to sit through time and time again.
• The game will record the fact that you’ve used the feature and will show people that fact on your save file. (Oh, the shame of it all!)
• This feature is completely optional and to add to that, you may NEVER even see that green Super Guide block appear at all. To have it appear you must first truly SUCK at the game and be desperate enough to use it.

Now that you’ve had a bit of an explanation, let’s see the Super Guide in action so you can see for yourself exactly what it’s all about.

I personally haven’t seen the feature at all through my play through of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. At the moment this entry is being written I’m currently up to 8-1 which is almost at the end of the game. The difficulty level may not be up there with Ninja Gaiden, but New Super Mario Bros. Wii does get challenging enough during certain levels that will frustrate some and ultimately have them put down the controller and move onto something that isn’t.

I almost feel as if Nintendo purposefully made the game harder because the Super Guide feature was added on. If that really is the case, then hell yes, I want this feature in more games because even though I’ll never use it and will never see the option appear to use it in the first place, it will give Nintendo an excuse to make the overall game more challenging.

…isn’t that what we all really want?

I’ll try to get through this without giving too much away in terms of spoilers for all those concerned… and there will be warning where I have given some it away…

Following paragraph contains some minor spoilers.

The scene in question where you, the player, take part in massacring innocent civilians in a terrorist act during the game was apparently leaked to the public not long ago. Before too long, the game and developer, Infinity Ward, was being accused of promoting terrorism. It has even made a few gamers question whether they really want to play through this themselves.

// End of spoilers… for now.

Obviously it’s going to make people feel uneasy (or worse) about taking part in such a horrifying act, even if it is just pixels on a screen and no one real is getting hurt. You aren’t meant to feel good about it no matter where you stand on the issue… and that really is the point of why that scene is in the game.

There are some more minor spoilers in the following paragraph.

I did feel like this was wrong and that I shouldn’t have been there, I did feel like shooting my “comrades” to stop them from continuing the massacre… as a person with common sense, I can easily separate video game fiction from real life. These weren’t real innocent people that were being shot down, but I did still feel something from the scene from the very first moment I played through it (which happens to be about 20 minutes ago from the time I’ve written this part of the entry).

// End of second set of spoilers.

What makes some movies great while others are mediocre? The answer is that the great movies tend to evoke an emotional response from the viewer to pull them into what is going on on-screen. Of course, not all of the emotions felt while watching certain movies will be positive emotions, and that really is the point.

Strong spoilers ahead!

You’re an undercover agent that has infiltrated a terrorist organisation and you happen to be taking part in a terrorist attack on an airport in Moscow. As the innocent people start dying around you as the other terrorists open fire, you are given a choice. You can do one of three things during the first part of the scene (from the way I see it)… You can start shooting along with them; you can aim high and fire, missing the civilians and shooting over their heads; or you can simply not fire a single shot at all.

I chose not to fire a single shot during the first part of the level and simply let the others take the lead. I was actually surprised by the fact that the other terrorists didn’t notice that I hadn’t fired a single shot at a civilian yet. I was half expecting the leader to turn around and say “What the hell are you doing? Shoot!” I felt that Infinity Ward missed out on a very good opportunity to really put some extra pressure on the player during that scene if they didn’t fire a shot.

After playing through it, I understood what Infinity Ward was trying to get from the scene. They want people to feel outraged and sick at what was going on. You had to take part in something so horrible but being an undercover agent with an objective that involves saving the lives of potentially millions of people, you had to grit your teeth and suffer through it. After the level ended I started to understand, in a small way, what it must feel like for undercover agents who may have to do some horrible things for their mission.

// End of spoilers.

When you start the game for the first time you’re informed that there\is some “offensive content” and are given a choice whether you want to view/play through it or not. The choice is there for you to make yourself. If you choose not to play through them then the game will skip over those parts and you won’t have to go anywhere near them at all.

I for one am not offended by the content of Modern Warfare 2. I think it’s great that Infinity Ward and Activision went ahead with this game with all of its content. It pushes the boundaries and it creates discussion and debate over certain issues. I don’t want to turn away from such things; I want to see and play it for myself and see what it’s all really about.

I enjoyed playing through that scene because it made me feel so bad. The game has been called “barbaric and awful”. The scene in question is exactly that… barbaric and awful… just like how real terrorism is barbaric and awful and just like how war and the slaughtering of people no matter who is doing the killing is barbaric and awful. Now if only some people could get more outraged when it occurs in real life rather than in a video game…

But anyway, that’s it for me… don’t forget to vote on the poll that was posted not long ago. I’ve had my take, now it’s time to hear what you have to say about it.

As the technology used for video games advances, developers gain the abilities to add cinematic elements to their games. There is no single method for this and each game, depending on the developers chosen style, go about this concept in many different ways.

And now onto the first and very obvious game on the list…

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Firstly, before I say anything about this game… Chloe = Australian Lara Croft in red? I know that you were all thinking it when you saw her.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is a game that successfully spread its storytelling through cutscenes as well as in-game dialogue and masterful character interactions by some extremely talented actors. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves has all that, but oh man is it so much bigger, better, cooler and more thrilling than what the first game ever came close to. There are still moments when you’re put into a cutscene, but there are also a lot more moments where the story and character dialogue take place during playable events in the game. To add to that, 99.9% of all of the action, including huge explosions and thrilling fight scenes occur while the player is in control. All of this is bound together in what can be described as a perfect cinematic experience… so much so that Sony brags about it in their commercials for the game.

With the level of quality put into Uncharted 2, it makes me wonder how Naughty Dog will top themselves with the third game which we all know will come sooner or later. How can they improve on what already seems to be the best that anyone could possibly do for a series that has taken cinematic gaming to its peak? I look forward to seeing it with my own eyes years from now…

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

What the Uncharted series does during the game, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, as well as previous games in the MGS series, does during some pretty intense (and long) cutscenes. Even the die hard Metal Gear fans stopped for a moment to wonder “how long is this going to go on for?”… Of course, with MGS4 there really wasn’t any other way the story could be told… as convoluted as that story may have ended up being on some levels.

Some may criticise MGS4 for this, though when you think about it, at least they used the in-game engine to present those cinematic moments rather than the usual Full Motion Videos that were quite popular back in the day.

Back in previous generations when several consoles were starting to use CDs, there was a huge rise of FMVs showing up on practically every game that had the development budget to afford them. I remember a moment when my friend wanted to show off his new PlayStation to me back in the day. He booted up a game and showed me how awesome the FMV looked. He seemed to be really proud of how his system could do such a thing, but even back then when I was still a kid, I still knew that this was just a video playing. The funny thing is that once the game actually started it revealed less than thrilling visuals. Are FMV cutscenes a bad thing? If used well it can be a great cinematic story telling element and also show some great action that, in the past at least, couldn’t be achieved with the game engine itself. Final Fantasy VII comes to mind, though Final Fantasy VIII was the game that really pimped this feature out.

…and these other ones over here!

While some games let you watch a cutscenes in peace, others decide to throw button cues at you out of nowhere. The first time I encountered the infamous “quick time event” was in Resident Evil 4. All of a sudden an icon telling me to press the A button flashed on screen while I had my controller resting and then suddenly I was dead. It may have fooled me the first time but never again. Later on in the game I was pleased to experience the greatest interactive cutscene I had ever experienced with the knife fight between Leon and Krauser. What started out as an annoyance suddenly became awesome, and while some people will always hate QTE’s, when done right, they can make you feel like you’re a part of that cinematic moment…

Previous Resident Evil games should also be mentioned, though not for the cutscenes themselves, but rather for the in-game camera angles. Of course many gamers who used to play Alone in the Dark back in the day will recognise these forced perspective camera angles from the original Alone in the Dark on PC. These camera angles, which are used in quite a lot of different games nowadays to guide the player but also manages to add a cinematic flare to the games as well.

There’s also been a recent trend with some light gun shooter games for Wii that have their own cinematic elements. The entire game that is House of the Dead: Overkill is practically homage to every b-grade/low budget horror movie ever made. On the other hand, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles and Dead Space Extraction, both of which are heavily stylised first person rail shooters that seem to be heavily inspired by the camera shaking style of The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield.

One of the common threads that bind many cinematic games together is that they tend to be associated with more linear based games that have a single story path you must follow from start to finish. Anything that has particularly heavy story elements suffers from this effect, though in this current generation things have been changing. There is a PS3 exclusive called “Heavy Rain” that, if it can deliver on all of its promises, will lead players through a cinematic non-linear experience that have never been experience before.

I enjoy seeing these kinds of evolutions occur in video games. I’m also glad that developers are seeking out new styles of explore and not sticking with the overly used cutscenes that we’ve been used to for all these years. I’m also glad that we’ve moved on (mostly) from using FMVs and are starting to use the in-game engine for cutscenes more and more. I look forward to see what else developers come up with in the future.

I wonder how many times I’ve said “cinematic” in this entry… lol

…at least that’s what some characters go through. Other characters who seem to have changed over the years are changing for different reasons. Some characters change their appearance due to art style, others change because of their new circumstance, and some others don’t really change, they’re just a lot more… well equipped than they were before.

While playing through Batman: Arkham Asylum recently, I found myself wondering if Batman had hit the steroids to get that huge. Of course, Batman isn’t the only character in a game that has come out this year that has had some obvious steroid abuse going on.

Chris Redfield

There are many characters in the Resident Evil universe that have grown and changed over the years. Leon S. Kennedy started out as some rookie cop in Resident Evil 2 but then returned as an experienced government agent in Resident Evil 4. His new look reflected this and his new style was very well received. Chris Redfield went through his own transition over the years… though instead of experience reflected in his new look, you get the idea that he’s been hitting the steroids pretty hard so that one day, he’ll be able to punch a boulder to make good use of his huge pulsating biceps.

Chris does look pretty damn good in Resident Evil 5, but at the same time he does look very ridiculous with those HUGE (HUEG LIKE XBOX!!) muscles. We’ve had some time to think over why Chris is like this in Resident Evil 5 and one reason that comes to mind is that he needs to counter Wesker who has his own brand of super strength.

Samus Aran

While Chris wanted to bulk up, Samus Aran from the Metroid series seems to have shed her armour and made use of her other assets. Nintendo won’t want to openly admit it, but more and more they’re making an effort to sell Metroid using Samus’ sex appeal. Where before we only saw glimpses of Samus out of her Chozo power suit, now we get to see all of her in her Zero Suit. Of course, the justification that they have going on with it is that you don’t actually see any skin so it’s nothing bad… but come on, she may as well be naked considering how form fitting the Zero Suit is.

Samus is an attractive and athletic woman under the suit, we’ve all known it for quite awhile, and she does use common sense over fashion sense when it comes to her exploration of alien planets with hostile life… I’d just like Nintendo to remember that and not to pimp her out as much as they have… I mean, it’s not that bad, but Samus’ Zero Suit model in Super Smash Bros. Brawl had the most obvious breast enhancements over previous games, every time I look at her, I think “wow, that suit sure cups her breasts better than any wonder bra could”… *looks around* or maybe they just made her that way to take attention away from Snake’s ass…

The women of Soul Calibur

To be fair, Samus is nowhere near as bad as the women from the Soul Calibur series who seem to get breast enlargements between each game release. Many people in the gaming community theorise that eventually it’ll get to a point where all of the female characters will just be a large pair of tits and ass on screen and nothing else.

We all know that breast jiggle physics have been around for awhile now, but it seems, if things keep on progressing as they are, Soul Calibur is in dire need of some ass jiggle physics as well… though I suppose it’s better than what has been happening with the characters in Street Fighter. Chun Li’s thighs have never looked more huge and now she has some pretty “impressive” man hands going on as well. It’s a new style for the series… one that scares me a little.

Link

The legendary hero of Hyrule has also gone through his own changes over the years, though unlike other characters, the various heroes by the name of “Link” have all been different people. With each new hero comes a different art style, but not only that, the various different heroes have been of different age groups.

Pictured above are the two styles used for Link in his most recent adventures. The style changes The Legend of Zelda series have undergone over the years have been very well received… mostly. The initial shock of seeing the first images of The Wind Waker unsettled a lot of people initially, but they quickly grew to love it. I personally feel that The Wind Waker is a great achievement for Nintendo in terms of visual development and is a game that is (and already has) aged gracefully.

Unfortunately, Nintendo seems to be sticking to these two art styles for the moment. The Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks all share the same art style, and Twilight Princess, while being a modernised extension of the art style of Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask, is seeing its art style return (or so it seems) in the next Zelda game for Wii. When will we see a new style for Link? Maybe next generation…

Solid Snake

Unlike Link, there is only one Solid Snake… well, one Solid Snake, one Naked Snake, one Liquid Snake and then you also have Solidus… *cough* Well, my point is, the characters in Metal Gear, unlike most other series, age natura…er…not so naturally.

We’ve all seen Snake age over the years, though we never expected anything as radical as what we got from Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Very few video game characters actually get the chance to age, so it’s ironic that Snake happened to go from Solid to Old in quite a short time. Of course, once a characters starts to age, there will eventually come a time when they will experience a true end to their story. Snake’s story ended in MGS4 and although there is still a lot more to squeeze out from Metal Gear, we won’t be seeing Solid Snake in a new Metal Gear from now on… unless it’s a remake.

There are a lot more character to write about, but I think I’m going to do the lazy thing and leave the rest up to you. What other characters have changed over the years and how do you feel about the ways they have changed?

(And yes, I realise I’ve been quite negative in this entry… it’s not on purpose, it’s an accident, I swear!)

It can be an extremely satisfying experience when you’re standing at the top of a tall Gothic styled building and looking down at a group of thugs below. You then jump straight down and into the middle of the thugs and before they can yell “It’s the Batman!!” you’ve already taken them out with some brutal melee moves that send them flying to the ground. You are the goddamn Batman and you love it. That’s the feeling I got while playing Batman: Arkham Asylum and it really does impress me how far this game goes to make you feel like the dark knight. There are many games that feature established characters like Batman, and sure, they do feature their trademark moves and gear, though few manage to make you feel like you really are that character and can pull off all of their moves just like how it’s done in their TV show or movie or whatever.

After I finished playing Arkham Asylum for the day, I began to think of other games that made you feel like you really were playing through a scene just like in the movie/TV show or really were in that environment as that character.

Another game that made me feel like I really was playing through certain scenes in the movies was Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader. The game has become fairly old now and you can notice a lot of the visual imperfections now than you could back then, but since it’s a game set around the original Star Wars trilogy, it’s kind of like you’re watching your old VHS copies of the movies lol. The first level in Rogue Leader is an epic moment to start off with: The Battle of Yavin. Factor 5 did a great job setting the scene, using all of the assets available to them thanks to LucasArts and created a game where you really felt like you were going down the Death Star trench run. I love how they even mimicked the exact same camera motions and flashes of light you see when Luke, Biggs and Wedge dive into the trench. Very cool… almost too cool.

Two more games that gave me a great sense of immersion are the Metroid Prime trilogy (Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption) and Dead Space. The first Metroid Prime, like its predecessor Super Metroid, allowed us to experience a universe with very lush, alien environments that felt very much alive with every step you took. Metroid Prime also introduced the concept of looking out through Samus Aran’s eyes for the first time. We got to experience her universe through her visor with very effective HUD graphics and read-outs. It also gave an extra sense of immersion as you saw the rain drops hitting your visor as you looked up at the stormy sky of Tallon IV.

Dead Space took a different approach but was just as effective as Metroid Prime’s take of putting you inside the character herself. Just as I wrote in my Game Spotlight for Dead Space, there are no traditional menus in Dead Space and looking through your inventory won’t suddenly pause the game. Everything concerning menu’s and such appear to you through holographic projections that your character’s suit projects. Dead Space also does a brilliant job of using shadows and sounds to make you react, entice your senses and to even dull them on purpose. There are moments in the game where the sounds of the ships engines or ore processing is so deafening that it masks the approach of the necromorphs meaning that you have to be on your guard with your hearing no longer being a reliable tool.

These are only a few games mentioned, but I’m sure the rest of you out there can tell of your experiences of immersion with other games.

Many, many years ago (in December it’ll actually be TWENTY years ago) I moved from Fiji to Australia. Before that time, I don’t remember playing any video games, at least that I can remember. I look back at those times and wonder, “what the hell did I have to do back then?” I think really hard about it and come to the conclusion that I really didn’t have much to do as a child in Fiji… it was pretty boring for me actually… I’m so glad that we moved to Australia when I was 5.

I went back to Fiji for a holiday in 1992 after my family officially became Australian Citizens. I remember that I did get to play a lot of Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt on my cousin’s NES which made quite an impact on me. In fact, it made quite an impact that I didn’t rest until I got one of my own. Luckily for me, in Christmas 1992, my parents bought me a SNES and off I went…

It’s been quite a long time since then and while I remember some people there had a NES or the occasional Sega Master System (that most likely came from New Zealand), but nothing more. While I was in Australia enjoying all of the gaming I could handle, in Fiji, not many people can really afford to buy video games in the first place. I noticed when I went back a couple of weeks ago, that the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable has quite a presence in Fiji… though you can only find them in “Prouds” which is one of those ultra-premium department stores that no local who isn’t a white guy who owns a hotel/resort or a foreigner can afford.

I suspect that over the years the amount of people who own a video game console in Fiji has dropped quite a lot. In a country like Fiji, I could only see children being interesting in gaming in the first place, however any family with children wouldn’t be able to afford to buy one in the first place. Of course there are a lot more pressing issues in Fiji that are a lot more important than whether they have video games or not, but what did you expect from a blog based around video games? I for one am very glad that I don’t live in Fiji, because of the lack of vidya, as well as the many other reasons you’d come to realise if you ever went there and don’t hide away at one of the resorts that have no contact with the reality of the place… so very glad I don’t live there.

Oh yeah, and if you’re wondering, the island pictured in this entry is called “South Sea Island.” I happened to spend an entire day there swimming, snorkelling, taking in the sun, perving on the chicks in bikinis from behind my sunnies (lol)… great day, definitely the best day out of the 13 days I spent over there.

Well right now I’m wondering if it will ever get to the stage where the Australian government succeeds in its efforts to close off the country to anything they may find objectionable that they end up blocking my access to my own web site… sounds crazy, I know, but then trying to filter the Internet is some crazy stuff to begin with.

Recently I’ve seen some stories posted on the web telling of how the Australian government plans to use their Internet filter to block sites selling mature rated games. These are legitimate sites we’re talking about that are selling products that aren’t even banned in Australia. To add to that, this is a country that deemed DVD region coding to be an unfair restriction of trade practices and allowed PS2’s and other devices to be modded so that they could play discs from other regions (as well as pirated games, though that’s a whole other story).

To top it all off, this also affects online games that may contain adult content, including Second Life… maybe the Australian government just want to keep all the furries out of the country, or maybe they prefer the people to have sex in real life… or maybe it’s just “WON’T SOMEONE PLEEEEEEEAAASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN”… yeah, that sounds about right. Well it’s nothing new I guess, after all Sexy Poker for WiiWare was just the latest game to be denied classification in the country… though it’s not like we should really care about watered down porn where you have to work to get to the watered down porn part…

Meanwhile, whether Australia will ever get an R18+ rating for its video games is still up in the air and not going anywhere at all… but at least I know that the government is doing all it can to try to tell us what we don’t have the right to view/play.

I was really sure that Nintendo would announce that the DSi would be getting “Virtual Portable Console” support during this year’s E3. After all, it would make sense on so many levels… though at this point, I don’t really know what to think with Nintendo. They obviously have a plan they’re following which they think will get them a lot of money for the least amount of effort, that much is obvious…

Putting the “Are Nintendo supporting the hardcore or not?” argument aside, it puzzles me as to why Nintendo didn’t announce VPC. In fact, Reggie Fils Aime, Nintendo of America’s President was quoted as saying that they had no plans for such a service.

So then why would a company who obviously wants to make a lot of money as easily as they can pass up on something like this? I mean, it’s not like they’d have to put any huge effort into bringing back the library of ye olden Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games of the past. We all know that Nintendo as well as Sega and other third parties have milked quite a lot out of Wii’s Virtual Console. It really is easy money and would convince a lot of people who don’t already own a DSi to actually buy one.

To top it off, the DSi Ware I’m seeing at the moment is extremely uninspiring. There are a couple of gems in there, of course… but overall there’s nothing I would like to spend my free 1000 Nintendo points on. Maybe if they release a VPC version of Metroid II: Return of Samus and The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, I’d actually have something to look forward to on the download content front.