Mass confusion never felt so...confusing...?

What am I so confused about?  Anybody reading the title of this post could fairly ask the question.  The title implies that something is stifling my thought process and the fact that I'm taking the time to write something about the subject would seem to suggest that I have a fair bit of something to say about it.

On the other hand, the title goes beyond implying confusion and announces it outright.  The addition of the word mass is the key here.  My whole line of thought is wrought at the moment with confounding, nearly tangible confusion.  I therefore cannot rightly express what precisely I'm confused about.  The idea itself confuses me.

Life does this people.  I warned you about it.  Not in this particular forum, but I'm sure that somewhere sometime I would have tried to warn you people about the dangers of living a life.  I have to wonder exactly how many people go through this at least once in their lives.  I wouldn't be surprised if most people did.  In fact I would wager that most people do.  Otherwise I wouldn't have warned you so.  But how many people spend years going through this?  And since we're on the subject, how many of said people ultimately end up in some kind of  assylum?  Not the political type mind you. 

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.  Most everyone has heard this little nugget of wisdom at some point in time.  This idiom has legs because there's truth to it.  No one talks about Richard Gere and his intimate gerbil fiasco because there's no truth to it.  But this grass thing.  Legs. True.  What happens when you approach the fence one day, and there's no grass at all?  On either side... 

I played with a Wii

If it weren't for the odd spelling and capitalization, that would be an odd statement indeed.  For some it may still be an odd statement, so to clear up any confusion I am of course referring to the Nintendo Wii.  Of course after having experienced it for myself, I had to post something about it.  It's been quite a while since my last post anyways.

Upon seeing the display my heart did not skip a beat as I had anticipated.  In fact I'd seen the unit several days earlier while on a reconnaissance outing to the local Target.  Perhaps I've done my homework a little too thoughroughly this time, but the size and appearance of the system did not take me by surprise.  It was really just a confirmation of what I've already known.  In the past there had always been something about the system that surprised me.  This was not the case.  So this afternoon, I took the controller in my hand for the first time.  I had in fact thought the controller to be a bit smaller than it really was.  Perhaps I was setting myself up for disappointment, but Nintendo was not going to have any of that.  The controller was ample and comfortable in the hand.  The ergonomics leave little to be desired but the focus was definitely on form and not so much function with regards to the physical shape of the "Wiimote". 

After plopping down my license to assuage the fears of the nervous Gamestop clerk, I took the controller and powered the unit on.  Since the system was already booted an merely in a standby mode, the screen came to life with in a second and quite lacking in the fanfare department.  This is not neccesarily a bad thing as you get sick of booting systems after roughly the third time give or take perhaps once.  So it was a pleasant surprise to see that there will be no waiting involved for the Wii boot sequence.  Taking note of this, I have resolved to acquire all munchies and beverages before sitting down to play as opposed to getting those items while waiting for my system to grind to life.

The movement of the pointer was translated nice and smoothly to the screen.  For those requiring even less jittering (people annoyed easily and those afflicted with Parkinson's) there's a nifty sensitivity setting that makes the pointer usable for most anyone.  Foregoing the option to play the only available title immediately (Excite Truck) I decided to play around with all of the various options and build my own personal "Mii", a virtual avatar that can be inserted into Mii compliant software.  The menus and options are slick and simple but quite functional.  It seems to allow control over most any option you would want, but without adding menus in menus for the sake of menus.

So I played the game a little.  Honestly, the lack of "next gen" visuals is a bit disappointing.  Don't get me wrong.  it's not earth shattering and it has no effect on my ultimate decision to purchase or not purchase the system, but we've been conditioned to expect a quantum leap in graphics with the release of every system and it's noticeable when a system doesn't deliver that graphic orgasm in spades.  I chalk this up as an oversight in Nintendos corner because while it was definitely planned this way, I don't think that they thought this through entirely.  Four years from now, PS3 and 360 games will look dated.  Wii games will look downright archaic.  Again, this doesn't mean the system is throw away status or even flawed.  It just means that potential customers are going to have to face a very real truth.  You can have innovation or graphics.  But you can't have both.  Excite Truck was fun.  It did not deliver full body shakes or make my jaw drop.  The experience was however very engrossing.  Could I play hours of it?  Not that particular title.  But the control is very immersive and quite responsive after the initial five minute or so acclimation period.

All said and done, the system seems solid and will likely be a very good value at $250.  Of course the games must come though.  Nintendo delivers quality but without 3rd parties, they lack in quantity.  That has historically been the Big N's achilles heel since the days of the N64.  They seem to think they've got it licked, but I'll believe it when I see it.  I like the system.  I even love it.  But I'm a Nintendo whore.  Others are not.  Nintendos made some very good moves over the past several months.  They've made some bad ones as well.  The clock is ticking and there are only several days left for the "race" to start.  Time will tell if this system has the legs for it.  

Be all that you can be

Or is that, "an army of one"?  I don't know.  The U.S. military, it seems, refreshes their marketing pitch more often that most local car dealerships these days.  So my twin brother has at long last joined the U.S. Army.  Wow.  At the mere mention of his joining I was presented a rather sharp dichotomy.  On the one hand, I would never criticize anyone for wanting to join the military.  We are after all from a military family.  I'm proud of that.  Proud beyond explanation.  I simply lack the heart to do it.  But then I lack the heart to do most things that need to be done.  I suppose that makes me a coward.  Or lazy.  At any rate, I worry for my brother.  I guess that's normal.  That was really the only dichotomous dilemma I experienced.  Anyways, after he swore in on the 28th of September, I've put all that behind me, and I stand firmly behind him.  My brother has made me incredibly proud.  I always thought one of us would amount to something.  That settles that then.

The big "N" never gets everything right

The title of this post could imply that the post would be quite lengthy.  This post could go in depth about such horrific historical Nintendo follies like launching a purple system along side a black one...and marketing the purple!  It could go into fine detail on the merits of sticking to your guns and launching a cartridge based system, when half the world warned it might be a bad idea.

The point is Nintendo does good things and bad.  The make decisions for better or worse based on market research, experience and perhaps a drop of juice from the gut.  Even launching the N64 with cartridge based media could be argued for in a very positive light (I certainly liked it).  But tonights revelations definitely land somewhere in negative territory. 

Nintendo's launch details go something like this: $250 on November 19, Wii sports packed in one controller loads of games new and "virtual" available on launch day.  Now I said this lands in negative territory, not awful, or terrible or OMGWTF!!!!111111oneone!!!!1.  It's just that for as long as I've been following the development of this system, I've been overwhelmed by how much Nintendo has finally done right.  I won't support that argument here solely because I'm very tired and I have to wrap this so I can go work in hell tomorrow morning.  BUT, it seems to me for everything they've done right, launching a full week after Sony with a price point a mere $50 south of the 360 core unit is a bit of a gamble.  Granted, Sony has already botched their launch.  It's done.  it couldn't be what you might consider "wildly successful" if they wanted it to be at this point.  There simply won't be enough units to go around, this argument supported by Sony's announced decision to cut their own launch by 75% due to supply problems with the blue laser diodes.  And even if there were, a $600 price point will have much deeper impact on sales than they have estimated, mark my words.  Not that it will sell awful or even bad, but it will not be the out-of-the-chute-rocket-fast-success that PS2 was.  Physics, economics and God do not support such a claim.  This tells me that launching after Sony isn't exactly like shooting oneself in the foot.  It would be more akin to stubbing your toe on the way to the bathroom at 2:00 A.M. in a dimply lit hallway on the damned kids rollerblades.  Not life threatening but not pleasant either.  Launching $50 shy of the 360 "tard pack" isn't so bad either.  Sales simply do not support the existence of the core system.  Microsoft knows this as anyone who can read a chart knows, but the cheap option is a way to save face.  Still, it looks bad to be so close to the next major player, who's graphics and surprisingly robust library are within one holiday price cut from your bottom line.  This could be an issue. 

Having said all of this, I stand by my beloved Nintendo.  $250 is not only fair I'll happily pay it.  The Wii represents a brand new experience and I'm on board.  $250 gives them leverage to drop the price by surprise (as they often do) to boost sales one year from November.  The inclusion of the Wii Sports pack in and the weather / news channels, plus web surfing out of the box in the comfort of my living room with no additional hardware to buy all help to shore up the purchase and also help to seal the deal for a non gamer who is straddling the side line.

Unfortunately this impromptu analysis ends here because my eyes suddenly have a burning hatred for my monitor and in fact anything that emits visible light.  I think they are trying to tell me something.

I sure I'll write more about this tomorrow once I read Matt (Cassamasina of IGN) and others on the subject.  Plus having ALL of the details would be nice...

A tale of two blogs

Actually this post has nothing to do with me or my state of affairs so much as it is a statement questioning a friend of mine.  Dream Theater has released a live DVD and CD in the past week.  This is a celebration of their 20th anniversary of making kick ass music that their own influences could never even touch with regards to musicality.  On the day it was released, I checked Yarsh blog and found....nothing.  No mention.  No glowing review, or "by the way" comment.  Nothing.  Zip.  Ziltch.  No big deal.  I checked the day after, assuming that my friend was deep in ingesting all that comes with any Dream Theater release, live studio or otherwise.  Nope.  Nothing.  Day three, four.  If I had been to his house last night to see the awful season finale of Entourage season three, I might have though Yarsh was dead.  Just an observation.