Game Genie

If there’s one thing I’m not afraid to admit is that I totally suck at retro video games.  While others may defend the old school style of game difficulty as being normal back then, I argue that it was always a horrible experience for me.  Thankfully the Game Genie was released back in those days, so that terrible players could beat those difficult games.  Unfortunately people used to call them (us) cheaters for using the Game Genie; an attachment device that helps you enable special codes to play original games (for example extra lives, or jump higher).  While I never used one back in the day, I was able to get one this week at my local buy and sell store.

Initially I was excited because I would finally be able to beat those old school games that had haunted me for years.  So when I got home, I cleaned the Game Genie off, and set up my Nintendo console to play games.  In order to enable the Game Genie I had to attach it to a cartridge (my precious cartridge) and physically jam it firmly; then insert it into my NES with the damn thing sticking out half way.  Unfortunately the Game Genie didn’t even work properly; I either got a grey screen or the codes didn’t work.  They either have never worked properly, the chip has expired, and it’s not worth wasting your time trying to fix it (you have to remove the label to unscrew it).  And so I have to firmly warn everyone that you avoid getting this damn Frankenstein monster for your classic consoles.

Game Genie Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Genie

The Fresh Prince of West Philadelphia

With the supposed reboot of Fresh Prince about to happen I decided to share some ideas about how the show should be.  This time the main character is the son of Carlton who grew up privileged in Beverly Hills.  Carlton’s son is named William, after Will Smith, and is an absolute preppy.  Carlton, his dad, is now a Republican politician.  He's married to his second wife, since his first wife died (also the mother of William).  However Carlton (played by Alfonso Ribeiro), is involved in a major scandal (though he’s innocent).  As a result he loses his job, his wife leaves him, and he’s sued and is left penniless.  Carlton can’t handle the scandal so he runs away with his son to the only place where nobody will recognize them, West Philadelphia.  Carlton and Will must now adjust to life in Philly, where they soon realize it’s won’t be an easy transition.  However over time they become a part of the community and eventually find out why it’s called the city of brotherly love.

Lucky Charms Super Mario Edition Cereal

How kick-ass would it be if one day Lucky Charms worked with Nintendo to release a special edition version of Super Mario Lucky Charms; where all the marshmallows were Super Mario items and characters. Saturday morning gaming would never be the same!

Lucky Charms:

www.luckycharms.com

Nintendo Disappoints me Again

Tomorrow is the release day of the next installment of the 30^th anniversary Zelda amiibo which features 3 different versions of Link which are from Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword and Majora's Mask.  For some unknown reason Nintendo decided to release each amiibo as a store exclusive to EB Games (Twilight Princess), Best Buy (Majora's Mask) and Amazon (Skyward Sword) here in Canada.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to reserve any of these amiibo, and most likely won’t be able to buy them.  While I was aware of the pre-order dates, I decided to not pre-order because as a collector I prefer the experience of entering a store and selecting the best version I want.  It’s something I have been doing ever since the first amiibo released.  I never imagined that Nintendo Canada would make these so limited that they would sell out on pre-orders.  Online they sold out within minutes, and in-store some stores received between 8-10 figures while other locations didn’t receive any at all.

I’m now left angry and disappointed by Nintendo for using these evil marketing strategies to garner hype for its brand.  And I do mean hype because it’s not about the money.  If it were about the money, the NES Classic Edition would have been released in large quantities and made Nintendo millions.  While I’m sure Nintendo must have some reasoning behind its marketing strategy, I feel like there are times when intentionally depriving the market of some popular item can have negative consequences.  Beyond disappointing loyal fans, and leaving profits on the table I feel like it consequently creates a need for piracy.

As a disappointed Nintendo fan I now feel justified in looking for NFC enabled amiibo cards.  NFC (Near Field Communications) cards are unofficial Nintendo cards that contain all the data from one particular amiibo figure.  You then basically scan the tag on the card and it works as if it were the original amiibo figure.  If you can’t even buy the original figure in a store, then this is the best option for people who want to enjoy the full amiibo experience from their Nintendo games.  So this is my only option now, especially because the resell market is too expensive and profits don’t support Nintendo either.  I can imagine this is how people who weren’t able to get the NES Classic Edition must feel when they resort to getting a NES Raspberry Pi in order to play those games.

By the way, how can Nintendo consider itself a kid’s company when in order to get Skyward Sword Link amiibo you need to have an Amazon account, linked to a credit card, with a shipping address?

Star Wars Rise of the Jedi

Last week I got a little bored and started thinking of Star Wars.  I thought of how great Rogue One was, and how it paid so much fan service.  The movie fit so nicely into the Star Wars universe by adding to the story, expanding the story and most importantly binding loose ends together.  The fan service was so high that I was able to predict the ending of the movie; Spoiler Alert, everyone dying and their efforts resulting in the beginning of A New Hope.  I had hoped (no pun intended) that it would end with Princess Leia (R.I.P.) because that’s how episode IV started, and when it did I felt rewarded.

Well moving on to last week and thinking of Rogue One, I thought how nice a movie that went even further back in the Star Wars universe would be.  Of course it would also tie in with the past movies and also expand and define the current Star Wars universe.  My story abbreviated would be of a very young Yoda and Darth Plagueis The Wise.  It would be the classic story of good vs. evil, where it would show how Yoda (the good) became a Jedi and Darth Plagueis (the evil) became corrupt with power.  Eventually Darth Plagueis own thirst for power became his own agony as he was defeated by his own apprentice.  Though it was believed he had died, his spirit remained, tortured by his betrayal; he would stay in purgatory until one day he would rise again as Snoke.

As I started to develop my story I was able to connect parts from other films to my story.  But then I thought to myself that this was probably one of the nerdiest things I have done in a long time; develop my own Star Wars movie.  So I decided to forget the story.  Then suddenly yesterday I was surprised by the announcement that the next Star Wars film would be called The Last Jedi.  I thought it was funny because I would have called my movie the First Jedi; in honor of Yoda.  But now that the official title of episode VIII has been released, I would like to call my movie, Star Wars Rise of the Jedi.  In the future I hope to one day write the story of my movie and post it on here, but for now the build up to The Last Jedi will keep me fantasizing.

If I were a general manager…

If I were a general manager for a MLB team I would sign both José Bautista and Edwin Encarnación together.  It would be for a terrible team like the Minnesota Twins, or Chicago White Sox.  Not only do these teams have nothing to lose, but also have home run friendly ballparks.  While their contracts might be an issue at first, the amount of money they both would bring in from a winning team and attendance would more than make up for it.  And while age is an issue, the leadership (Alpha male) Bautista would inspire the younger guys, something a team like the White Sox could use with so many great prospects.

Playstation VR

A few days ago I had the chance to try out Playstation VR.  While I do think virtual reality is fascinating, I have also been disappointed by past horrendous and expensive VR hardware.  There have been way too many let downs along the years that I wasn’t too optimistic about a Playstation release.  What tickled my interest in this new PSVR, was during E3 2016 when Sony released a trailer for Batman.  I’m a huge fan of Batman, especially of the Arkham games, so to be able to play a game like that in VR got me excited.  However I wasn’t about to drop $700 plus on a new console without first trying it out.

I’m not the biggest Playstation fan, so I wasn’t going to be the first to line up for a Playstaion experience tour.  I thought I would let time go by and wait until the hype had gone so I could try PSVR relaxed and without time pressure.  Thankfully I didn’t have to wait very long because the tour came to a city near me and it so happens hardly anyone was lining up to experience Sony’s VR.

For anyone that hasn’t tried it out yet, the tour staff asks you which game you would like to try out from the menu.  I of course asked for Batman.  They then ask you to put on the headpiece, some earphones, and to hold on to the PlayStation Move controllers (all of which have been sanitized).  The headset is adjustable and the display resolution is clean and impressive.  Once the game started it felt as natural as playing a game on TV.  After Batman I “played” The Deep, an underwater game.  I was totally immersed by that world, and felt like I was somewhere else.

My final thoughts of PSVR is that it’s an incredibly amazing console.  It’s as easy to use as an Apple product, which makes technology seem natural; i.e. you don’t need to read a manual to figure out how to do things.  The graphics are great, but the gameplay is what really absorbs you into the world of the video game.  My only complaint of PSVR is that the lens kept fogging up on me; though I’m sure the solution to that is easy to solve.  I now hope to get PSVR one day, and I hope Sony keeps releasing games and doesn’t abandon it like they did with the PS Vita.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

I really hope Superman dies in the new Batman vs. Superman movie.  It’s not to say I hate Superman, rather I want to see the myth of Superman reach a whole other level.  (Spoiler Alert)

Collecting Gift Cards

My collecting habit went a little over board last year when for no apparent reason I started collecting gift cards from stores.  It started with a few here and there; when I would be near the cash register and I would pick one up because they seemed interesting.  I liked collecting unique ones that I assumed would be collectable one day.  Eventually I wasn’t able to leave a store without making sure there weren’t any gift cards available.  Thankfully this week I started doing a little cleaning and decided to throw all my gift cards away, and I now feel grateful that I won’t become a future profile on the show Hoarders.

Rant: Blogger Headache

I've been having issues with uploading posts on Blogger for many months now.  There's either a problem with how the pictures are showing up, where they're located, the size can be wrong, or even the font I use is off.  These issues have caused me to hate blogger, because it's not simple to use.  Writing a post, or uploading pictures is hard enough, but I hate dealing with upload glitches.  While I enjoy being able to express my opinion online, I have since neglected using blogger because of the glitches, and have instead focused on youtube videos.  So this is just a little update for anyone that likes my blog, and is wondering why I don't put much attention to it anymore.

Lego Minifigures

I never had a chance to own or even play with Lego’s as a kid.  I know the daycare I used to go to had the blocks, but they just didn’t interest me.  All my attention was focused on action figures.  Can you really blame me when the action figures that were popular around that time were Ninja Turtles and Thunder Cats?  Later on in life I discovered that Lego also made Lego minifigures, and then eventually even a licensed line (such as Star Wars and Batman).  Yet despite all these great releases I still wasn’t buying any Lego.

All that changed for me in 2010 when Lego decided to release a line of Minifigures that would come with distinctive characters, and that would be in a blind bag (meaning you couldn’t tell which character you had by just looking at the bag).  Of course there are ways around this mystery bag by either feeling around for distinctive accessory parts or using a barcode decoder to find the figure you want (link to the decoder is provided below).  What I like about this toy series is how unique each character is to one another.  

Most of the figures are of yellow flesh tone, come with a few accessories and cost around $3 here in Canada.  With at least 3 series already released and many more on the way there is bound to be figures that speak to each person that will make them want to collect them.  I’m more of a pop culture collector so I usually go for fun and modern figures such as the Spartan Warrior, the Mime, the Rapper, etc... and the list can go on and on.  Although minor complaints can be made about the figures (such as minimal paint on the back), these toys are still a great collectable and will standout when displayed.  Here’s hoping Lego will keep up the good work!

Lego Minifigures website:

http://minifigures.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx

Lego Barcode decoder:         

http://www.itsalltrue.net/?p=5750

YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2eNWnujfrs