Smash Bros.

Brawl.

Is There Anything More Awkward Than Pop-Culture References in Family Circus Comics?

Not exactly pop-culture, but I couldn't find the Family Circus comics that reference Sponge Bob or Star Wars, so it will have to do.

There Are No Monks in My Band

Quote of the day:

"'Cyberspace can be very useful for monks,' Ladda said. 'But it's wrong to use it to pick up girls.'"

It reminds me of an ad I clicked a week or two ago:

You may need to click to enlarge this image. No, really, click it.

Wowee.

Thanks to a few connections I may be getting Super Smash Bros. Brawl tomorrow, and I am excited. It looks great all around - except for the voice-acting. For reasons I can't explain, video games never get voice-acting right. Brawl has been in development for close to two years and, as the successor to the GameCube's best selling game, most likely had an astronomical budget, yet we're still left with voices like this:



The funny thing is, these aren't especially bad for a video game. Would you like to hear the worst of the worst? I warn you, these aren't for the feint of heart. I'll give you a moment to remove your children from the room before I continue.

"No one can hire my feelings!" from Last Alert

"I'm hungry!" from Super Bust-A-Move 2

Hope I write before I get old from Disaster Report

"It's fashionate" from Firefighter F.D.18

"I like girls" from Castle Shikigami 2

"I will warm you up to your bones!" from Star Ocean: The Second Story

"As if a cat had just licked my heart" from Martian Gothic: Unification

And the worst of all...
Mega Man and Dr. Light talk about Dr. Wiley from Mega Man 8

You may argue that the problem has more to do with the writing, but I'll save that for another post.

All quotes from Audio Atrocities

You're Moving It! I'm Not Moving It!

Hasbro and Universal have released a joint statement announcing their new "six-year strategic partnership," which should bring "at least four" movies based on Hasbro properties to the big screen. The short list, apparently, includes Monopoly, Ouija, Battleship, Magic: The Gathering, Stretch Armstrong, and a new Clue.

Llamas

The first thing gamemakers always say when addressing those who want to enter the field is that making games is not the same as playing games, and while this is certainly true, the most enjoyable part of programming to me is getting stuck on some sort of problem and using logic to arrive at a solution. I find myself pulling on all of the thinking-skills I've acquired from a life filled with games. I'm working on a puzzle game right now, and I find that searching for a way to overcome development hurdles makes for more enjoyable puzzles than many of those seen in the game.

I believe very strongly in the value of a good education, but outside of a few great teachers, I think I've been failed by the school system. Something has to change. Many of the best gamemakers are quick to point out the educational worth of video games, but I wonder what potential lies in the form. I've developed more of the sort of deductive reasoning skills I need now through playing games than I have through thirteen years of formal schooling. Extra-curricular activities, like, theatre and ComedySportz have been very kind to me, as well. I'm not saying we need to replace textbooks with Gameboys, but there's certainly something to be said for the effect of fun on work on learning.

I have a lot of work to do tonight, so I'll return to these subjects with a bit more focus another time.

"[I've] always been somewhat disillusioned with the educational system. Some people have said it was originally based on the idea that we're training factory workers, so it was very important to teach them to do some repetitive task for eight hours a day. What's going to be really exciting is when this Nintendo generation gets a little bit older and starts becoming teachers in schools. I think that's going to make a bigger difference than any kind of educational reform ever will. In the future a lot more learning will happen in the home"

- Will Wright

Creator of SimCity, the Sims, and a bunch of other stuff with the word "Sim" in the title

Counting Down the Hours

Not long a go, I said that iSketch was one of the few games my roommates and I play together. The other is Super Smash Bros. Opinions about video games vary wildly at DigiPen, but I haven't met anyone yet who doesn't like Smash Bros. The anticipation for the series' new game has been unbelievable. We've been counting the days until the game's release for over a month now, and we're now at the one week point, but thanks to certain connections, we should have a copy of the game even sooner. In other news, I didn't know it was so close to midnight, so this post was written with appropriate haste.