Nintendo Wii

For Nintendo, the name “Revolution” had always been a codename. People might say that it had caught on with the public and changing it now will confuse people, but Nintendo were very up-front about this: Revolution was just a codename, just like “Dolphin” (Gamecube) and “Project Reality” (Nintendo 64).

Yesterday, Nintendo announced the official name of their next-generation console.

Wii.

I’m on two minds here. Part of me thinks it’s a brilliant, bold move – “Revolution” was too western, and didn’t mean as much to its home market. Wii is a standard non-specific word bordering on onomatapaea. Whee!

The other part of me is wondering what names were rejected to come to this one. I’m reminded of an Eddie Izzard sketch, describing how Jerry Dorsey changed his name to Englebert Humperdink.

‘Zinglebert Bambledack! Yingeebert Dangleban! Zanglebert Dingleback! Winglebert Humptiback! Slupbum Waller!’

‘What?’

‘Alright, Kringlebert Fishtibuns! Steveibuns Buttrentrunden…’

‘No, Jerry Dorsey! I like Jerry Dorsey…’

‘No we can’t… Let’s see, we have Zinglebert Bambledack, Dinglebert Wangledack, Slupbum Waller, Klingibum Fistlbars, Dinglebert Zambeldack, uh… Jerry Dorsey, Englerbert Humptiback, Zinglebert Bambledack, Engelbert Humperdinck, Dinglebert Wingledank’

‘No, no, go back one’

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Every Girl’s Crazy ’bout a Sharp Dressed Man

No updates because I’ve been too busy rocking out on Guitar Hero (which got its proper release today – hurry!)

Once I’ve played through a game, I rarely go back and play it again, unless it offers a significantly different experience the second time around. For example, when you finish Shadow of the Colossus, it unlocks a “hard” mode. Balls to that. I’ve got an ever-increasing list of games I have to play and an ever-decreasing amount of time to play them in. And especially not when it took a monumental effort to stop myself from smashing the controller to smithereens even on the “normal” difficulty.

Guitar Hero is so perfectly balanced, I can’t help myself. I’ve worked through “easy” and “medium” and now I’m halfway through “difficult.” Why? Because, unlike most games where luck has as much to do with your progress as actual skill, I can actually see myself getting better at Guitar Hero. When I first started playing through the game on “medium”, I thought it might be fun to see what “I Wanna Be Sedated” was like on “expert” difficulty. I found out: Scary. I was booed off stage before I’d even reached the first verse. Now that medium is a long-distant memory and “difficult” is making me its bitch, I went back to “I Wanna Be Sedated” on expert. And y’know what? I finished it. On my third attempt. But I finished it.

To make matters worse, I’m finding myself replaying songs on “easy” (and “Medium”), just so I can fill the scoreboard up with top marks.

The last time a game hooked me like this — improving my skill and beating my own scores, just for the fun of it — was Super Mario Kart on the SNES. An odd comparison, to be sure, but one that makes me happy. I really didn’t think people made games like this any more. Fun little games with no real narrative depth that can consume hours and still have you coming back for more.

One other thing I’ve noticed… playing this game has strengthened up my baby finger no end. It was always the runt of my fingers and even when I played normal guitar with it, it never really did what I wanted to when I wanted it to. Now, it’s kicking my other fingers’ asses. So, bonus!

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Guitar Hero!



Guitar Hero

Originally uploaded by THRILLHO.


This isn’t supposed to be out for another week or so. During the week, I was whinging that it had the same release date as the new Tomb Raider game. But hooray for Smyths, breaking the release date and selling Guitar Hero early.

Now I’m waking up at 9am on a Sunday morning just so I can rock out to Megadeth’s Symphony of Destruction.

Feels like I’m 15 again.

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