The Red Card Group gathered at Binkle’s house for a scheduled recording of our up and coming podcast. Unfortunately, the night turned into an extremely lengthy train wreck that would have been more enjoyable had Brian simply brought Metroid Prime Hunters.

Let me explain.

It was somewhere between 1:30 and 3:30 that Binkle was asking me over MSN about any recording to occur Friday night in regards to the podcast. The group had not formed any plans, and Binkle said he would be recording something with or without us. So, I asked him what he had in mind. We agreed that we’d meet at his house for 7:00.

I got in touch with Brendon and Josh over Google Talk, and told them of the plans. They confirmed that they would be able to attend. Brian was inaccessible.

So, shortly before 7:00, I was picking out news stories for commentary and leaving them open on the iBook. I was preparing to leave when my grandfather came over to talk to us about something, and delayed my progress. I hastily drove to Binkle’s house, where Josh and Brendon were already waiting.

Unfortunately, due to a scheduling conflict, Binkle had made plans to be at David H’s house for 8:00, which would have left us about 45 minutes to record the podcast had we begun at 7:00 (assuming Binkle has not invented teleportation and is just holding out on us). This travel difficulty was compounded by the fact that Binkle’s mother was supposed to pick up his sister at 8:00 (bumped to 8:30 after a phone call), which posed considerable difficulty to the one vehicle family.

We delayed recording on the assumption that Binkle would return in approximately half an hour after fixing David’s computer. David phoned at 8:45ish asking where Binkle was, and Binkle explained that there had been transportation difficulties. Binkle was finally able to leave at about 9:00, and he left Brendon, Josh and myself at his house to work on the website.

In Binkle’s absence, Josh, Brendon and I began work on the website. Or, rather, Josh worked on the website with Brendon pointing out necessary tasks to be completed. I was just surfing on the iBook. Binkle phoned once to confirm the location of David’s house. While working, Josh managed to inhale some compressed air, which turned out to harbour a chemical that causes “drunk-like symptoms”. For the rest of the night, he was slightly tipsy…or perhaps just being a dick.

After a while, Brian left work and came to Binkle’s house, and was confused when he heard that we were there, Binkle was not, and we were in Binkle’s room. Between 9:45 and 11:30, we were pondering the fate of Binkle. Brendon phoned his parents to persuade them to let him stay out past 10:00. He gained permission to stay out until 11:00. Josh, Brian and I went downstairs and played Perfect Dark and Star Fox 64 (woot!).

At 11:30ish, after Brendon had gone home, Binkle phoned to tell us that he would be a bit later than his originally estimated half an hour (which was quite obvious, at this point). Apparently, David was having some difficulty with video files on his computer and burning them to a DVD for a university interview the following day.

So, Binkle asked us to bring him a spindle of CDs and some software. We departed, stopping over at McDonalds because Brian had not yet eaten, and continued onward to David’s house. When we arrived, the house looked as if everyone was asleep, so we went towards the back door, and upon seeing Binkle in the window, we began to try and tap on it. Unfortunately, there was a surprisingly sturdy screen in the way, and we could not make any noise without damaging it.

Fortunately, David’s mother entered the room and turned out to be far more in tune with her peripheral vision than Binkle, and pointed us out to him.

Long story short, the night was a bit of a waste. We saw a good chunk of Befogging Exposure 2: Obscene Exhibition and our efforts to help David were in vain, since Binkle apparently figured it all out while we were en route.

With any luck, we’ll have a podcast recorded next week. Maybe we can make it extra long as an apology.

Originally, this topic was intended for the podcast of Friday, March 24th, 2006. Unfortunately, the podcast was never recorded due to unexpected circumstances. So, it may be a little late, but I am bringing it up anyway. Kiss my ass.

The internet is abuzz with rumors of the Nintendo Revolution being renamed the Nintendo GO before the console ships in November. The news was widely expected to debut during Satoru Iwata’s keynote speech at the Game Developers Conference. Unfortunately, he provided very little information about the name change, and instead dropped a Zelda DS title into our laps, which will be playable by E3.

The Nintendo GO, in theory, is intended to mean Nintendo Five (GO apparently means “five” in Japanese). The name change has been debated about, many fans claiming that “Revolution” is catchier. To date, we do not know if the name change will be official, although the new logo was witnessed on a presentation slide.

While the name change seems to be a step back from the Revolution (which sounded epic), I can appreciate the logo design. It features elements synonymous with previous logos. The N64 and Gamecube both featured a logo that was “three dimensional” in its design, the N64 featuring N’s forming a cube, and the Gamecube being a G formed out of a cube. However, while the cross shape is not evident in the word “GO”, it does resemble one other creation of Nintendo.

The D-pad. It has since become the universal home gaming control device, and has been on every system from the NES to the XBox 360. The fact that the D-Pad is in all directions is likely symbolic of Nintendo’s controller that functions in three dimensional space. If such is the intent, then it is certainly quite clever. Otherwise, someone just mangled a cube.

Despite all of this, I’m inclined to think this is a fake. The photo looks as if it was taken from a computer monitor, and tilted at an angle to make it appear to be a larger presentation screen. All in all, we’ll have to wait for Nintendo to say something about this before anyone can claim it is “fact”.

Source 

And with that announcement, Blizzard effectively gave the middle finger to my friend Fraser, and told him rather rudely to go “fuck a goat”. After all, Fraser was supposed to receive the Starcraft action title for Christmas almost three years ago, and has been frequently disappointed by Blizzard’s announcements about the game - namely when it was removed from the Gamecube roster.

Now, the company is claiming that they are interested by next-gen console hardware, and they are delaying the game indefinitely while they “lay the foundation for future console titles” and tweak Starcraft Ghost so it meets next-gen perfection.

What Blizzard has seemed to neglect is the fact that console life cycles now only last 5 years, and that length may shrink (although we all hope it wont). Blizzard - known abroad for their extremely long development times - cannot effectively complete a game that is to their liking within that expanse. So, perhaps Starcraft Ghost will forever be in development limbo a la Duke Nukem Forever.

Source 

Unless you use the vastly inferior IE5, you will not have noticed the tweak. Basically, I just synchronized the entire site for being viewed in IE and other more intelligent browsers.

Merry Christmas.

I just cannot get it out of my head.

Yesterday, at work, the Nintendo representative was there putting up all sorts of posters about Tetris DS. Blocks were falling in creative patterns all over the place, and I could not stop myself from salivating. I was tempted to ask her when the official release dates for Tales of the Tempest and Children of Mana were due to hit stores, but it occured to me that it was likely she did not know.

Nevertheless, Tetris has got my mind tied up in knots. I’m not kidding in the slightest. I was in the shower and was thinking of the most beneficial combinations of blocks if they were to fall in a certain order.

Why do block-falling games have this effect on people? I felt the same way after Meteos. This is pure and unadultered madness.

Apparently, there was something about the GDC worth commenting on. During Satoru Iwata’s keynote address, he displayed a new and upcoming title for the Nintendo DS. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is coming to everyone’s favourite portable within the year (after E3 though, so, probably July or the holidays - yeesh).

The demo video used by Iwata during the conference is all over the place.

The game looks kind of cool, although I haven’t seen enough yet. It makes a lot of use of the stylus, to which I must say “It is about fucking time.” You use the stylus to draw the path of your boomerang, draw symbols to open doors, chart courses with your boat, as well as make notations on your in-game map (a feature that was neglected by every game that COULD have used it to date).

It is supposedly taking place after the Wind Waker storyline, and it uses the same graphics type. With any luck, this game will be more well received than its Gamecube counterpart. I fear Nintendo will aim for a dual release of Phantom Hourglass and Twilight Princess, and the dark and sinister fanboy orgasm-inducing game will overshadow the DS gem.q