(I really, really hate the name of the Wii. It goes way deeper than the Freudian pee-pee jokes - the Wii is the cuter-than-cute industrial design of the Gamecube graven onto our very language. It shouldn't be allowed.)

So here we are Holiday 2006. I'm not buying a PS3, being mere mortal and having no definitive genetic link to Zeus. I already have a 360. The Wii required more consideration. But I've decided to pass, at least at launch.

I was playing Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2 on the DS when I had an epiphany. The bosses levels of MvDK2 all have the same conceit - you have a cannon attached to a bicycle chain and this chain is attached to a big paddlewheel. You can spin the wheel back and forth to move the cannon from side to side. Pressing the center of the cannon launches a mini-Mario up into the top screen. If you hit Donkey Kong a certain amount of times you win. The boss levels I don't like - it's another gimmicky Nintendo "Hey look! A touch screen! C'mon - it's a touch screen LOVE MEEEEEEEEE!" that I've ranted about before. (I suppose I should count my blessings in that I don't have to "blow on" the DS to activate the microphone. This alone makes the game one of a very small minority of DS titles.) In contrast I do like the regular levels and feel they actually need a touch screen to work effectively. So I suffer through the boss levels. Anyway it hit me: everything Nintendo does lately is all about making carnival midway games. It's all paddlewheels and blowing up the balloon with a water gun. And the Wii looks like more of the same. Does anybody really think that Mario Galaxies will feel control better than Mario 64? Or that Zelda: Twilight Princess will control better than Zelda: Ocarina of Time did almost 10 years ago.

Now don't get me wrong - going to the carnival and playing the ring toss can be fun. About once a year. But the other 364 nights you can have my controller with more than four buttons when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. The Wii's controller is not enough. It's not a complex enough system of verbs to support the games I play as somebody on the wrong side of 30.

I'm sure I'll buy a Wii eventually, but  I'll predict that it never sees 10% of the playtime my 360 does. Or the eventual PS3 will once Prometheus brings the secret of fire down the mountain and we can all buy one. As for Wii launch titles? Piffle. Wii(tm) Sports might be interesting, but I don't really do  video game nights anymore. Zelda? Zelda suffered on the last two generations from a controller that had nine buttons and two analog sticks (or one stick and another four buttons for the N64). I'm willing to bet all this analog "swing a sword and pull back the bow (With Real By-Ear-Bowstring-Sound(tm)!)" makes the game have less depth than the last few Zeldas. Mario Galaxy? Maybe but it's not coming out before next year sometime (and I'll be surprised if it doesn't slip past March). Wario Ware? Maybe - but I've bought four Wario Wares that sucked, and only two I liked. That "franchise" may have been the "Come On Eileen" of Nintendo franchises.

I'll save the money and buy 360 games thanks.

technorati tags:Wii, gaming, Nintendo

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The holiday onslaught has well and truly begun. This week alone brings a new Tiger Woods (I realize many of you will scoff - but four player online golf with friends is pretty cool), Lumines Live (on 360), Splinter Cell: Double Agent, and Sid Meier's Railroads (OMG, SUCH a time sink). Destroy All Humans 2 comes out this week as well, but definitely loses in the face of such an assault. Bully might be interesting - but that's a definite renter first I think.

I gave up on Okami after some more play. The art style is fresh and new, and the story was somewhat interesting, but the gameplay itself is dull and repetitive. How much "Hit square repeatedly" is fun? See I have media for marveling over the art and linear storytelling. I call them "DVD's". Okami ends up being an anime that makes you push X after every two lines of dialog. No thanks.

Gamefly redeemed itself partially by shipping me the first two titles on my list (Dead Rising (finally) and Lego Star Wars II). Interestingly, both titles showed as "Short Wait" and "Not for sale" until they actually shipped and suddenly had sale prices. Why they are selling titles that they haven't had in stock for weeks is beyond me, but OK, whatever.

If you had trouble with the Gamertag display over the last couple of days - blame Microsoft. They had Xbox.com down for 24 hours of maintenance on Tuesday and then did something as yet unexplained which messed up certain areas over Wednesday. It's Thursday morning and I STILL can't access my Friends List from the web. Nice "upgrade" MS, glad to see you're still maintaining high quality standards!

technorati tags:gaming, Gamefly

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Coming this Monday: Free This American Life podcasts! We're thrilled to announce that starting this Monday, October 16, we'll begin a free weekly podcast of This American Life. Each week's show will also be available as a free individual download.

From WBEZ in Chicago | This American Life

I really enjoy listening to This American Life - enough so that for a while I actually had an Audible account in order to get them. But Audible is so DRM-ified that it all eventually broke down and I gave up on caring. Now, two years after I starting getting more programming than I can handle via podcasts, TAL is finally catching up. Starting next week, I'll listen again.

technorati tags:This_American_Life, podcasts

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At one point in time I had two CRT monitors hooked up at home and things were good. But that took up an awful lot of desk space, and so at some point in time I ditched the second monitor. My thinking was that I would shortly thereafter replace the single monitor with twin LCD's. But life intervenes and it's been a long time - I never ran the dual CRT's at our current house and we lived here for two years. But finally a little over a week ago I acquired two new Dell widescreen 20" LCD's. Here's some before and and after pics of my desk setup. (oooh, how exciting!)

BEFORE:

So before I had my 20" CRT on the left, tucked into the corner below the Penny Arcade print. (There was a light behind the monitor - that's not some fancy Photoshop glow.) The monitor, keyboard, and mouse all went through a 4-way switchbox so I could flip between my Windows box, my Linux box, and the Powerbook. In these pictures they are hooked up to the Powerbook and I'm using it as a second monitor for the Mac. This worked pretty well unless I needed to access the Windows and Mac desktops simultaneously. Then I had to either move the laptop to the right or type on the keyboard way back there. I was just stuck in single-monitor land when using the Windows box. This is frustrating for programming. Once you get used to two monitors it's difficult to go back.

AFTER:

Much better! The left monitor is hooked up to the switchbox again, and the right monitor connects directly to my Windows PC. The left monitor can swivel left and get connected to my Mac - it has multiple inputs so it can flip between the Windows box and the Mac. If I want to use both desktops I set the Windows box to only use the right monitor and then get two screens on the Mac, and the rightmost screen on Windows. As a extra bonus I now get to look directly out my window.

As for the monitors themselves - Dell was having a 15% sale on LCD's so the pair of them cost just over $800 which is nice. I priced the the Apple LCD's but the 20" is almost as expensive as a pair of Dell's and they support the same resolution (1680 x 1050).

I've been using this setup for a week now, and I'm really happy with the change. Two monitors rock!

technorati tags:office, monitors, LCD, desk

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So I caught up on Lost in time to watch the season 3 premiere tonight. I wanted to post about Season 2 earlier today but the day got away from me. This is not the post to discuss Lost though - I'll write that next. I was looking forward to watching an episode in Lost in HD because one of the things I've been hearing from some of you folks lately is that DVD is "good enough" - that a HD-capable disc format is overkill. I didn't believe it but I wanted to make sure I had a good A/B case to present. Well here you go - I watched the Season 2 finale on DVD on Monday night. Brand-new discs, presumably pretty much state of the art in DVD compression. I watched the season 3 premiere off my DirecTV HDTiVo , pulled in from my rooftop antenna tonight - and some of the "previously on Lost" footage is the exact same shots. I'm here to tell you - y'all are on crack. The color range is better, the lighting detail is better, it's just a better picture. And I don't want to hear what puritan "mainstream America" has in their homes - I have a high end TV because I value quality entertainment, and I can clearly see the bandwidth limitations of DVD. From what I've read Blu-Ray and HD-DVD look even better than broadcast HD television - and I'm excited to see content become available for these higher-bandwidth formats. Was it as big a jump as from VHS to DVD? No, not quite. Maybe about comparable to going from laserdisc to DVD. Meh. If you want to cling to your NTSC sets, and your combination filters and your red pushes go right ahead - I'm not even going to argue anymore. It's not like I personally own either a HD-DVD or a Blu-Ray player right now - the content isn't available yet. But I've seen better than DVD-quality video - I pretty much watch it every night when new programming is available. And I'm ready for a disc format that provides it, and I don't really much care what some mythical "mainstream" consumer thinks on the matter.

technorati tags:HDTV, Lost, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray

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