Tag: Wii

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Mind over matters, E3’s motions controllers. (project natal)

After following the news for E3 for awhile I knew MS and Sony would announce there motion controllers.  The funny thing that comes to mind is that for 2 years most people complained that the wii motion controls were a gimmick .. alrighty than.

Interesting yes but, As far as the Microsoft motion controller is concerned it has many faults that are not pointed out.  I could point out that this system is the eye toy but thats been beaten to death with a dead horse. From the demos I have seen there are seemingly a lot of lag time in motion to screen reaction, at one point in on of the demos you could clearly see that the person and on screen avatar were completely out of sync, The wii’s controls seemed more in sync than this and I’m curious that the people playing around with natal were just in a state of ZOMG NEW TOY mode rather than objectively using the device.

The second thought of this is natal with more than one player it just doesn’t seem like it will even work,  If it does it maybe more a space issue since your stuck in the field of view of the lens. Just imagine trying to play rabbids in the point of view of a camera with two or even 4 people, Hospital visits would rise to the point of Armageddon and Bruce Willis would have to be sent in to nuke your console.  From another site

Natal is so smart, in fact, that, if your room is narrowed by a pair of couches, it can signal to a game to narrow the level. It can see about 15′ x 20′ of a room, according to project leader Kudo Tsunoda’s informal estimation.

(this was part of a post I made on june 5th but I decided to hold off to see if this held water or not.  I left this part of the post originally to show where my thinking was at the time. Anyways)

2 weeks later and finding out where the motion controller is now, and many articles later.

gamemediasites

Sony’s motion controller seems to be playing the same Houdini game where its a announced and disappears. I think its because its closer to the wii controls and everyone’s uppity about the project Nu-toy, As i had Started to point out the Microsoft Motion controller seems to have more faults than positives.  Even further It seems that the technology in this “controller” (to which i lightly say) implemented is going to confusing as fuck compared to the normal – In a video of them playing burnout paradise it looked closes to step dancing for dummies playing that game. Car Racing games is not really the best format to show responsiveness.  Microsoft here has put up the unicorns farting rainbows approach to marketing this device, Hyping the living hell out of it.  It almost feels like a Fail in motion.

the second thing about the microsofts control setup is that all gaming sites have jumped on this like its the best advance since pong(again eye-toy).  As far as I’ve seen with the pre-natal, It just seems more of a “gimmick” than the wii-mote, I mean since “you” are the controller do you really think people are going to play Halo with this? also the lack of a device will make the experience more confusing, it will basically come back to the hell people went through of getting the powerglove to work  right.

Everyone’s gone bullshit over this to the point of gollum and the one ring.  but as far as the experience is concerned microsoft is expecting you to fill in too many blanks, There has to be some device in between to work and feel correct.

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Console Gaming without a TV part V (Samsung 2333HD monitor)

From my last post I had talked about getting a new Monitor and retiring the Wii VGA cable . The thing is the post was getting to the epic dictionary size so I felt the need to make another post, After doing much research after my first failed attempt at getting a monitor I noticed they were making Monitors with TV tuners built on to them. Personally I don’t want a TV with a VGA input on it for many reasons, TV generally have very limited resolutions as far as computers are concerned.

Looking around I stumbled upon Samsungs lines of monitors with TV Tuners built in, the T2#0HD line of monitors are basically monitors with an HD Tuner built in.  I like the idea of a monitor that has a built in TV tuner,  It removes the need for a TV and also it is more convienent for me,  The major problem with these monitors is there fucking imposible to find locally in a store, best buy has them on there site but there all WEB ONLY which is a pile of moose shit, they went you to purchase a TV rather than taking more convienent route of getting a monitor with built in tuner.

After the fun I had with the Samsung 2253BW, I just for the hell of it looked at TV’s on the Office Depot site- which hit me with a profound yet silly answer– I had to look twice because the model number did not make sense- Samsung 2333HD 23″ Widescreen LCD HDTV? Wait a sec.. 2333HD? And I just had a 2253 ? and the T220HD ????? What the.. going to google it made alot more sense after.  The model number didn’t look like a HDTV Model number, after dealing with a TV problem in the house that needed to be replaced I became familiar with model numbers. Usually a model number from samsung for a monitor would be ####AB where-as tv’s used a much differnt sequence like – Samsung LN26A450. The only exception I’ve found was the T###HD monitor line, which is still much different than any model numbers for TV’s.

Comparing the T220HD to the 2333HD yielded another interesting result. The 2333hd Can goto 1080p while the T220HD could only achieve 720p.  After a call to Office Depot I manages to get the 2333HD.

For A TV analog channels do look a little fuzzy but on HD channels this monitor really shines, as for the Wii, It Removes the need for a VGA cable, it also has enough inputs to not clusterfuck the back of the pc with inputs and outputs. The sound from the built-in speakers is very tinny. The easy fix is to use the optical out on the back of the monitor which provides excellent sound through a Stereo reciever. As for the wii using a RGB Component in with the audio inputed in through the TV Also is a huge bonus (less cables all over the place).

As for the monitor end of things the monitor give an excellent response time for gaming with no noticeable trails or other things that would otherwise annoy you. Also the monitor goes into standby when you turn the PC off which is the BIGGEST thing I wanted and the reason I did not want to buy a TV. When you turn off a TV with a PC connected 95% of the time your left with a screen that says “no signal” and your just wasting power. the 2333HD does not do that after you shut down your PC the monitor happily goes to standby.

the Images look great as far as I’m concerned and this really is the best of both worlds when considering your options for a setup for a console without a TV.

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Console Gaming without a TV part IV (Samsung 2253BW monitor)

I’ve written in the past about not having a TV to play Console games on , And through many trials I settled on the VD-W2 Wii VGA cable.  The cable definitely served its purpose, after trying many TV Cards that just could not hold up to console gaming I decided to try that cabled on a whim.  Honestly it was one of the best things I bought to use with my monitor.  So if you have a small room and do not want to deal with the annoyences of  TV Card or having a TV and a Computer monitor in the same room with your console and PC, The Vdigi Wii VGA Cable is worth the buy!

well….

The cable earned its retirement after almost a year of faithful service, I had given away one of my monitors due to the fact we still had a monstrosity of a CRT monitor in the house, That given, It started me on a new quest.

To find a monitor to fit my needs….
Since I was using both the VGA and the DVI inputs that meant I needed a monitor to have at least 2 inputs. The last time I had purchased a monitor was 2007 and, I was not sure exactly sure how things have changed in that technology.

Well I took a little crash course.

(click more to read on)

Continue reading “Console Gaming without a TV part IV (Samsung 2253BW monitor)”

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Wii have a problem with Media? Media Thinks your Wii is going to kill or injure you….

Recently I’ve seen alot of news on how the wii “injures” people and at first I was going to ignore it but, Instead of going away its just grown into the flavor of the month of Media trying to scare people.  Reading this article is pretty hilarious on its own because of how badly its sourced and the numbers they are coming out with. anyways on to the goods.

The article starts in huge letters

Wii puts 10 in hospital a week

Wow…. so they bait you with that. what the hell is the Wii doing beating people down who play Xbox? Its very interesting how an inanimate object is “putting” people into the hospital.

The growing toll has prompted NHS doctors to warn of the dangers. Wii-itis sufferers usually have excruciating pain in the right shoulder or knee.

The Toll? WII IS ON A RAMPAGE!!!! LOOK OUT ITS GOING TO CAP YOUR ASS! no, seriously this bugs me because usaully the people ending up hurt by the wii are either playing like jackasses or have no concept of moderation. They fail to state the conditions leading up to whatever caused the injuries, in most cases the Game system did not cause the injury the person caused the injury themselves by not following instructions,  reading further…

A rheumatology consultant said: Most are admitted after playing the tennis and running games which involve sudden movements and violent tendon stretching. Dr Dev Mukerjee, of Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford, Essex, said: There has been a 100 per cent increase in patients complaining of Wii-itis.

I don’t know about this it sounds like a load of bullshit to me,  Tennis maybe , Running ? What the hell? Even with wii fit it tells you not to slam down on the board, so again this comes back to the person playing the game. I’ve seen some people who play the Wii and use crazy amounts of force or movements while playing, When you play the wii you dont have to swing the controller like your hacking an axe through a tree, using fairly slow movements can actually acheive the same results as swinging like a madman.

Thinking about it further something about this article stinks badly enough to think a landfill with used diapers is nearby and someone is just trying to get there 15 minutes of fame, my logic is the numbers dont play out. Think about this for a moment, This asshats are just playing with numbers to make them look alot worse than they are.

10 People a week get “injured”, in 52 weeks that means only 520 people get injured in a years time. Given the population of the world. Your chances of getting “injured” by the Wii beating your ass in any given day is  0.0000077%, There something seriously wrong with this. This doctor is Should not even be considered remotely useful. if you really think about this

the odds of you getting injured by your Wii is

1 in 12,884,615ish

Lets look at the odds of things than your  Wii Injuring you and see how retarded this article is for all its worth.

  • becoming president: 1 in 10,000,000
  • dying from parts falling off an airplane: 1 in 10,000,000
  • dying from contact with hot tap water: 1 in 5,005,564
  • dying from food poisoning: 1 in 3,000,000
  • winning the lottery (single state): 1 in 18 million
  • being struck by lightning: 1 in 2,650,000
  • killed in an airplane accident: 355,318 to 1
  • asteroid colliding with Earth in the next 100 years: 5,500 to 1
  • becoming an astronaut: 12,100,000 to 1
  • drowning in the bathtub: 693,000 to 1
  • dying due to a shark attack: 300,000,000 to 1

The news networks and various blogs are Picking up the story and focusing on the injury end, where the statistics speak for themselves. its all Silly medias fascination and irresponsibility with scaring people with stuff that is next to impossible to happening and the fact they blame the machine rather than the person is just poor writing on there behalf.  From the articles i’ve found theres no stated sources, no actual facts, No history, and no clues to the actual cause of this.

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A year with with my Wii………..and let the puns begin!

This month is comming up on me having the Wii console for 1 year.. How has the Wii stood up as time has progressed? After owning the wii this long, there have been a few thoughts  i’ve had as far as how the system has matured, Honestly the system is still good but still needs to grow up a bit.

I Do Still pay with the wii, but Not nearly as often as I used to due to the fact of a lack of games with depth to them,  Some games do come out with depth but, the issue is quantity. The fact that developers have shunned the Wii kind of makes for an interesting senario. Sure its taken the market by storm but, im seeing where the Wii’s weakness is, theres just not the title market out there.  Forevery good game for the system theres a SHITLOAD of vomitware for the system and it shows, Goto gamestop and look on there used shelves and you will see TONS of craptastic games.

As far as price has gone, The wii is not the lowest man on the ladder due to the x-box 360’s agressive pricecuts but in the long run the Wii is cheaper due to the online component being cheaper (Free). The Wii’s online component severely is lacking still due to lack of interaction in games, If you play Mario Kart Wii , Theres just no feeling to it due to the lack of interaction between players. Sure you can see the asshat that just knocked you off the track as you swear your brains out at the screen but, does the person on the other side of the connection know your mad …. NO. They did add keyboard support awhile back but, its so unused the most it maybe used for is to put in a creditcard number for more Wii Points, Nintendo could highly benifit from at least adding chatroom or some other way to talk to players while using the system.

The system has been pretty faithful to me with one exception of having the send in the wii to Nintendo for service. But The repairs were extremely quick and had the system back within the span of one week.

While the Wii’s gaming library has some good games that come out every few months, I’ve never really been stuck in a situation of a choice to make over one game to another. Nintendo’s first party titles are pretty much unmatched in terms of gaming on the system theres a few noted exceptions such as Raving Rabbids, No More Heroes, Final Fantasy Fables, and Starwars the force unleashed but, The lack of quality 3rd party titles I think is my biggest mark against the system.

Given that fall us upon us maybe we will see the Wii mature a bit or maybe we will see the Wii not Mature. I said wii huh-huh-huh…

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Review: Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon

I Picked up Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s dungeon not sure what to expect after buying Dragon Quest Swords , You see Dragon Quest Swords I figured Might be good but instead it turned into a steaming pile of Suck after the first 20 minutes of play realizing that you were stuck on rails, In the Sense of an RPG its not because you are firmly stuck on rails with no real choice of where you can explore. BlueSteel really has the game Pretty much nailed in this review on his site.

As For Final Fantasy fables though its a complete turnaround from DQS , I Started out playing and i was taken back how it reminded me of final fantasy 9. Final Fantasy 9 i personally enjoyed due to the fact you dont get clusterfucked by Cut scene movies, The Story so far seems to be fairly decent but what had caught me as the funniest thing was the dungeons. As i started play around in the dungeons something came to mind a game i used to play.

fatal labyrinth an old yet addictive game on the Sega Genesis it seems all the dungeons are randomized and Loot is randomized, If you die you also loose everything you had, that said its best to use the storage in game. I’ve so far made it through half of the game. Some parts are just outright agravating to the point you want to fire your wiimote out a window, but as Agravating as it can get theres always another path you can go and just go back to the spot your stuck in later.

One of the hardest parts of the game is the “special rules” dungeons.. basically you have any number limitations that makes your life harder than being awake two weeks straight without an ounce of coffee, If you feel like your going to fail a dungeon best thing is to bail out and retry it, because the randomization affords you a luck factor of getting an easier setup.

Overall so far, I really like the game, but due to the content it may fly under the radar for alot of people , Its a great experence so far. also it lends a little nastolgia to old school gaming.  The gameplay effectively nonlinear in a way. but inorder to advance the story you have to play with the story.

The name roguelike  Rpg as everyone calls it is sort of fitting but theres a sence to why stuff is randomized.

but as far as FFFCD Its Definantly worth a buy because the replayability is up there.

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VD-W2 Wii VGA cable part III.

Over the weekend i picked up a few GameCube games, Metroid Prime , F-zero GX, Killer7and Need for speed Hot pursuit 2. Now i previously wrote about the VD-W2 Wii VGA cable, This is the first time I’ve had a problem with the cable. The first game i tried was NFS:HS the game starts up and the display on the monitor goes nuts. Typical, EA and more crap they put out, You would figure as the one of the “top” gaming manufactures, it would support 480p. The gamecube supports 480p , but theres a catch. in order to get the game in 480p you need to hold down the B button on the gamecube controller when starting the game.

this is a small problem in my opinion since i don’t play too many GC games. But, if you intend to play Game Cube games using the VGA cable There is a list too help you out at Mobygames.com .

Overall the cable in my opinion is worth it with the one minor downfall of not supporting GC in 480i , but Most of the good games are supported in 480p for the game cube.

overall i’d say the cable too me is a 9/10 with that small drawback (to me)

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Wii: Mario Kart impressions.

Well its another month and Another Good wii game comes out. As a big fan of Mario Kart for the SNES, I’ve not really played any mario Karts till i purchased the Wii, I had downloaded Mario Kart 64 for the wii and my reception to that was pretty blah..

Usually when it comes down to games I have an interest in , I tend to stay away from prerelease reviews and anything to do with the guts of the games. I have 2 reasons for doing that, I’d Rather figure out things for myself and I want an unbiased opinion of the game in my mind. Anyways…

Continue reading “Wii: Mario Kart impressions.”

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Console Gaming without a TV part II..(VD-W2 Wii VGA cable)

I do not usually watch TV, the last TV i had I ended up giving up because it just took up too much space. So I’ve always used my PC to watch Movies, Play games and such , until i purchased the Wii. From my last post
Console Gaming and Movie watching

I have tried almost every PC HD TV card under the sun in order to get a better picture/ less lag time out of the display with results fairing for the worse rather than better. One of my biggest problems was screen lag time.. On the HD Cards you had at least a full second of delay while moving the cursor around, on the analog card the lag time was barely perceivable but enough where it was noticeable if you had played on a TV, also If the PC is doing ANYTHING what so ever , you will get graphical corruption in the display thats the fault of the PC not the Wii. As far as using a TV card the display is fuzzy in fullscreen.

Wii On TV Card
After all those cards my thoughts on internal tuner cards for PC’s are they are all piles of shit… But, looking around i saw one possibility the VD-W2 Wii VGA cable from Vdigi I had taken my time on ordering this because I didn’t see any sort of review for this cable. Also being from HongKong and I am weary of Ordering from sites i don’t know. Resellerratings.com had next to No information about them, After much thinking I finally decided to order the thing…

After an impatient 2 week wait the cable arrived in a simple brown envelope from hongkong. Following the USPS tracking site.. Not really worth even tracking because they barely update you on the location of your goods. Anyways the packaging is dead simple , right to the point, you don’t need user testimonials on how it works. Anyways anything with a billion testimonials usually is a pile of shit.

the cable seems to be built of really good quality, Setup is a breeze as long as you understand the basic premise of what your doing. since the monitor your plugging into does not have an analog tuner, you have to use the component cable plug in on a tv

Wii VGA cable closeThe Green RCA jack you just plug into a TV and power on the wii , After doing so you goto your system menu and Display selection of 480i or 480p , You want to choose 480p , but doing this will look like something bad is happening . the screen will look completely fucked, don’t worry here,  because the TV doesnt know how to handle the signal. after this Power down your Wii , Disconnect the Green RCA than proceed to connect the Cable to the monitor , you will need a male to male VGA connector/Wire to complete this action, After that you should be all set on Connecting up to your monitor.

As far as quality goes , the cable kicks ass.

it removed every problem you would have with a TV card and basically gives you the same response as you would get on a TV screen. with the added bonus of You can turn off your PC to play the console if you run your Console like i do.

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Console gaming and movie watching… When you dont have a TV.. Wait what?

When I got my Wii, it was a thought to exactly how i’d play the console since i don’t have a TV so to speak. Eventually I just ended up going to most efficient route for myself. I connect the Wii to my PC via an analog TV Card, it works fine for me. but there are little things you do notice between having the Wii connected to a TV vs connected to a PC through a TV card.

Personally i use my PC as my center for media, Watching movies, playing games(PC), and playing the Wii. I don’t need a super huge screen, having one would be nice but eh… what can you do. I don’t watch enough TV to validate the idea of getting cable or anything, the way channels are these days its just all rehash of programs anyways… what are we on now “survivor 923 – Night with the power out” edition? About the only thing I tend to watch is mythbusters.

The only thing about having the wii through an analog tv card though is that the screen looks a bit fuzzy and lagged a bit. I’ve tried out many digital Tuner cards with no luck whatsoever, Either I have some sort of weird problem or perhaps my pc is getting a bit aged.

I have tried –

  • WinTV-HVR-1600 – This card is ok, If you have an Via Chipset/Nvidia Video card you will run into an overlay problem, easily fixed but …. the Crashes are not, generally HD channels look spectacular but on occasion the software would crash on channels with a low signal or format difference. Using it to play a console through was worthless, Trying to play the wii on this was like trying to play the Wii underwater , You would move the cursor, and the screen would always be half a second behind becoming extremely annoying fast.
  • Pinnacle PCTV HD Card – out of the box the card was purely annoying… the install software DEMANDED to have WinXP Service pack 2 installed, Nothing would progress unless you did that. as far as channels it did not have the problems that the HVR1600 had, but there was a noticeable unsynchronized Audio, For having the Wii hooked up , Again Display lag issues made this card useless.
  • Visiontek TV wonder 600 – based off the ATI TV wonder 600, installation was painless, Installation of software was relatively painless, Operation was terrible. Trying to pull in any sort of digital channels was totally out of the question no matter the position of the antenna NO channels were received. I even Put the antenna outside the window in hopes of seeing some sort of life from the tuner itself, For the Input part of the card for the Wii, This card got the Worst of the ratings – Display lag was far greater than the other cards, Up to 1.5 seconds of display lag which made any sort of console gaming Completely out of the question.

These card were all tried through about a years time, and Likely in the future possibly there will be a Digital HD TV card that will serve my purposes for both a TV Card and a Console hookup. but I have discovered theres a 4th option that would remove the PC completely from the math , which hopefully will remove all my percieved points that i dont like about running my Wii to Tv Card to PC output. while its the cheapest of the options I’ve only heard and seen very limited reviews on this I’ve ordered the VD-W2 Wii VGA cable . This will skip having the PC as an intermediary and plug directly into my monitor , which thankfully has 2 VGA inputs and 1 DVI input.

My hope is this will solve all my complaints about having the setup i do and having a more direct setup which eliminates a device which the console Passes through