Archive for March, 2006
Tetris DS
Thursday, March 30th, 2006
I recently picked up Tetris DS and am thrilled by its retcon stylings. That was maybe my favorite part of being in Japan last year, there was a massive retro Famicom movement fueled by the 20th anniversary of Mario.
The NES was the beginning of my obsession with videogames, watching the older kids play and eventually actually (imagine that) playing the games. It was a slippery slope from there, but there will always be a soft spot in my heart for Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!, Contra, and their ilk.
Tetris DS totally exploits my heartstrings.
In addition to the classic line making gameplay, this newest game adds up to 10 player local multiplayer, online play, and several single player modes that sometimes incorporate the touch screen of the DS. That’s all fine and sounds fun but the real kicker is that everything is classic Nintendo style. The music is all remixes from Mario, Donkey Kong, Ice Climber and more (originally by Hip Tanaka of course, the god of all videogame music), and the top screen displays a mini movie of gameplay that constantly threatens to distract you from the game at hand.
Beyond that, the Famicom fan in me nerds out when the background looks like this:
because that is the classic Famicom cartidge logo, or like this:
because that is the Famicom Disk System loading screen. Those little touches just blow my mind and as I slowly ease into a more casual gamer mode, I’ve noticed that Nintendo has really won me back.
When the Playstation came out I was all about its edgyness and zombie dogs. But now I don’t really want to spend 80 hours running around the Ghvbabehyue Kingdom, I just want to have fun for a little while and then put the game down without it being in my “pile of shame,” (this is the same logic that applies to why I like Shmps). I even bought several books in japan reliving the glory days when games were simple and characters were chunky.
Chunk on Nintendo!
Oops, almost forgot my friend code:
193051
Rebirth!
Saturday, March 11th, 2006
Did you just get re-directed from Frubbing Journal (brad.readordie.org)?
Good, because I am not updating that site anymore! Expect everything you loved from that site here, and less. Expect new wisdom, shiny layout changes and features your mind cannot begin to comprehend in the coming…period of time before the end of time.
