I have been trawling youtube recently watching older Nintendo of Japan advertisements from years gone by and was preparing a post in regards to which ones I had found which I found to be the most odd when gamesradar did a write up of purely Japanese commercials from all the major players which can be found here:

http://www.gamesradar.com/f/the-evolution-of-japanese-game-commercials/a-20090903104029668011#20090903104029668011

While not a bad article I think I can safely state that the commercials below come in as being far more bizzare and clearly could only originate from the Japanese.

Starting off at number Five:

Donkey Kong Country 2 – Diddy’s Kong Quest

Released in Australia in 1995 to critical acclaim on the SNES it was the follow up to the hit title Donkey Kong Country. In order to promote the release of the game the following advertisement was run in Japan and I truly cant believe the amount of awesome displayed by this video. SOUP A DAWNKEY KAWWNNNNG TOOOOOOO:

Number four:

Donkey Kong Country: GBA

Another entry from the Donkey Kong Country series this time from the re-release for Nintendo’s GameBoy Advance released in 2003. This one is just plain bizarre and features acts that one should not try at home with another species:

Number 3:

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

Produced for the release of the GameBoy title in 1993. It contains a group of puppets which are characters from the game who sing and dance on an island. If you speak Japanese it probably makes sense however it contains very little game footage so what to expect from the game going by the add itself would be difficult but I could only assume it involves the worlds scariest puppets.

Number Two:

Mario Kart DS

This is my personal favorite of the lot to be honest. Its overly bizarre and has strong homosexual overtones which I am sure was NOT the intended point of the ad from Nintendo’s point of view. First of all it contains some odd ideas of what Japan seems to think of the worlds cultures, some rather stereotypical views if you would but its funny as all hell. I’m pretty sure its the same actor in all four and features them playing in a multi player game and ganging up on the Luigi character.

Number 1:

Legend of Zelda: A link to the past

Nintendo? Check. Zelda? Check. Theatrical Dancing? Check. Attitude? Check. Rap? Check. Wait whats that you ask? Rap? Yes its true I don’t know why but Nintendo of Japan thought it was a great idea to announce the release of the title with a rap promoting its release and its relaxing qualities.

Led by link the main charachter the troupe performs a rap about the title with such glorious quotes as:

This adventure is GORGEOUS!

You will have to watch the rest of the video to get the full affect but I can state that it has to be one of the best adverts I have ever seen for a game and you cant blame them for trying to reach the young on their own level eh?

[Setting the scene]

It’s 3am in the morning, you sit in the basement of your mothers house and stare with the fury of a thousand angry fire ants at the screen of your PC as you heat up another burrito in the microwave oven that you keep on a box in the corner of the room. The night has been long and dark, in fact you feel as if you have been awake for days, the battle taking place on your screen has taken a heavy toll on your body.

You take a quick glance at your burrito, it appears to of finished warming. You remove it from the microwave and attempt not to slam it down in one go, hell dominoes Pizza does not open for at least another four hours and you must conserve energy for the coming battle less you pass out due to lack of greasy invaluable nourishment.

You place the burrito down on the table and turn your attention back to the screen, panting as you do from having walked the two metres back to your desk. You can see that the battle on your screen is being lost, your men tired and fatigued from battle. In a last ditch effort to rally your men against the opposing army you raise your hefty man arms high above the keyboard and bring them down like the thunderous hammers of Thor himself and proceed to commence your attack:

“OMG FAGG0TS U GUYZ IS SO FUCKING GAY. EVERON KNOZ THAT PLAYSTATYIN IS THE BEST NUBS!!11ononE XBOX IS GAY AND WEE IS 4 K!dz!”

You lean back in your chair, your thunderous weight shaking the very foundations of the house itself. You wipe the sweat from your brow and smile as you place the last of the burrito into the gaping hole in the middle of your face. You rest easy knowing that for now at least, the battle is at an end.

[Scene Ends]

The above scene while perhaps over generalised is the impression that I am given everytime I read a forum or blog article referencing any of the current generation consoles or even in some cases PC gaming.

The current generation of consoles has divided people in ways which I have not previously seen during such a console war. I wonder if this is simply because of the age and demographic of each console owner or is it simply the fact that more people then ever before have access to the internet to allow the rampant shit that they spill to be heard by the many. These people often result to insults, anger and threats of violence to get their point across and to bash yours should you not have the same opinion when it comes to the right “Choice” of console.

The arguments presented are often ill thought out and some even border on the downright hilarious! It is with the above in mind that I have decided to sink down to their level and finally weigh in on this hotly debated topic for the amusement of you and others.

First off the bat I think that we will take a look at the following argument:

1. “I bought a xbox360 cause im a hardcore gamer and I need hardcore games so I can be like you know hardcore”

This has be the funniest of the so called arguments for buying one console over another. Whenever this argument is presented I proceed to expel whatever liquid I should be drinking at the time over my keyboard like some crazed pervert with a fetish for the nets darker side.

What exactly makes a hardcore gamer you might wonder? And what makes them hardcore exactly?

While actual photos are hard to come by given the low chance of these people ever leaving their basement to join the living, limited snaps have been taken. The following is an image presenting the average hardcore gamer in their natural habitat:

If these “Hardcore” gamers are to believed they bench 300+ the gym, sleep with thousands of women, eat nought but steel and are thunderous men of wonder. Woman swoon at their feet in anticipation of what game these Hardcore fellows will load up next on thier xboxes.

On a more serious note what the hell is hardcore about gaming in the first place regardless of what you are playing? Does choosing Gears of war over say something like that Katamari or Super Smash Brothers really make you harder and more awesome then the average man? Who exactly makes this distinction? What do they get for being so hardcore? Is there some sort of awards ceremony where we give these people the key to the city for being just so awesome? These people present playing an FPS as the ticket to bitches and good times when in reality it does not make their choice of activity any more appealing to the general public then the ability to rattle off a listing and history of every season of Star Trek.

The very arrogance of these people striking off countless genres and game series which helped to build this industry is amusing enough but to actually claim that the very fact they do so is what makes them so awesome in the first place is a little hard to swallow. I feel sorry for these sort of people due to the amount of great games that they miss out on as they refuse to drop the jelly donut and their copy of Halo and perhaps try something that has a little more variety to it rather then shoot, jump and strafe.

2. The xbox and wii are both failures because I am an awesome sony guy and I have Blu Ray and all this other awesome home media shit so suck it. You have to buy all these add on for your xbox before shit even comes close to touching me! eat it!

This is the other argument that you will primarily see during the current generation. This argument is normally put forward by owners of the PlayStation3. The crux of their argument is that the higher price of the PS3 is warranted because in order to get the same experience from the cheaper xbox you must actually add extra items to the xbox which come at a hefty price.

The point that these people always seem to miss is that you dont NEED the the extra purchases for your xbox to actually you know, play games. Out of the box both the PS3 and xbox can both do what they are primarily intended to do. You can however if you wish add on to the core xbox however it is not needed to simply play games, you know the point of these things in the first place. Despite what these people would like to believe the Add Ons are NOT required to enjoy the system.

I actually like the choice rather then being forced to pay the premium for something that I may or may not ever actually use in the first place.

The point above brings to mind however an issue that has confused me in regards to the current arguements about both the xbox and the PS3. Througout the years I have been primarily a PC gamer and during the last few generations of consoles my primary point in defence of my PC being my primary gaming machine was always that it could do other things rather then just gaming which made me feel that the cost of maintaining and keeping a gaming PC was justified. This was always heavily refuted to me by the console people who would inform me that they dont care about the ability to watch movies, go on the net, check mail, play music or anything else. They just wanted to game and consoles gave them awesome graphics for a very low cost and they could see no reason to choose a PC over a console.

Why the hell now then is the primary argument for the high cost of the PS3 and to a lesser extent the xbox the fact that they can do many other things apart from just gaming? I mean hello welcome to the last ten years of PC gaming I am glad to see that you guys have caught up. You are acting as if somehow online play and downloadable content was created by Microsoft and Sony. It’s rather funny to watch as those who paid the PS3 premium justify their purchase by spouting technology that the rest of us have had free access to for years.

The primary reason I can see for the current sales figures between the xbox and the PS3 is the simple fact that while the vendors themselves may of decided to target a different market with their consoles the actual market for these devices has remained the same as it did two, five or even ten years ago. People just want to play games, thats it. They want to spend as little as possible, configure it with a minimum of fuss and just start playing. You know, the whole reason these people did not simply buy a PC in the first place.

If you are in the market for a console to play games and just too play games you are not going to choose the console which is vastly more expensive compared to the other just because it includes a specific media format over the other, I am sorry but it just does not happen. If you are in the market for both sure but I just really dont see it swaying the average console purchase especially in the current economic conditions.

This rant has gone on way to long and I have drifted far off track because I am too tired to continue. Let me just point out before I go that you may feel free to flame me as should you feel the need to do so because you take offense at my article.

This article is opinion and should be taken as such, I am not going to tell you which console you should or should not buy and nor do I care.

One of the most often criticised habits of so called Apple “fanboys” is that they are so easily led around by the collar by Steve Jobs that they might as well be simple pawns in his chess game. A mere squeak from the mighty Steve on any product good or bad is enough to drive thousands of the Apple faithful to spend, spend and spend some more.

Well there are another group of people displaying some similar behaviour of late however this time it seems to be the technical media who are driving this fad. On any given day of the week at any of the major technical blogs/news site you will see stories and adds promoting the “Ultra portable notebook” that every man and his major Chinese assembler seem to be pumping out of the factory these days.

What am I referring to? None other then the fad created by the ASUS EeePC of course. While there has always been a sub notebook market if one scratched under the surface of the notebook industry none were ever really affordable to the common man, they instead remained the plaything of those with enough dosh not to care about such silly things as overpriced hardware in comparison to a full size unit as the portability was it’s selling point not its high price.

ASUS saw a gap in that market and decided to strike and I gladly will give them a standing ovation for what they have been able to cram in such a small unit and for such a small price. It’s practical, sturdy, well priced and able to complete most tasks that full sized notebooks are often used for.

The EeePC has quickly become the darling of the tinkerer and the businessman due to its size, relative ease of use and the flexibility for those that look a little further under the hood. I don’t deny that the unit has a place in the market for those who do need such a small unit. Perhaps they like to travel and don’t want to carry a full size 13 inch or larger at all times, who really knows.

The problem however is that due to the success of the unit and the amount of media coverage it has generated it is now reaching a new audience, one which perhaps would do well not to jump on the bandwagon so quickly.

I’m referring to the “OH YA I NEED ONE OF THOSE THINGIES I WOULD USE THEM ALL THE TIME!” and then realise that they wont ever actually use the thing after taking it out of the box.

I have done some research into this however I will present to you how I came to this conclusion. I myself was convinced by someone who himself did not have one of these units but used the large ball of rolling hype and reviews to have me jumping up and down to get my hands on one. I was actually convinced that I had a genuine use for a notebook of such size and all of this portrayed to me by someone else who had never actually touched a unit.

Armed with no facts at all and only the unfounded claims of a friend I went right out and picked up a unit, went home and ripped it out of the box and prepared to be blown away.

Blown away? I was blown away all right. By its almost unusable keyboard, the abysmal battery life however most of all I was blown away by the realisation that it only took ten minutes of usage to realise that I had made a mistake. I convinced myself that after a couple of weeks of usage I would come to see it’s strengths, its usefulness that I could adapt to the keyboard. Well here we are a month later and I no longer have an EeePC.

Once I had realised that I had no real use for the unit I then attempted to sell it via a few forums that I am member on only to run into about 20 more auctions under very similar circumstances as mine. The story was always the same:

“Oh yeah I bought the unit for a laugh and then realised that I did not actually have a use for it, unit is only 1 week old, barely touched and comes with all these add ons, must sell ASAP!”.

If you do a bit of research you will find this almost everywhere you go. The purchase of a new unit quickly followed by a sale of that same unit within weeks usually with a vastly reduced price and various extras in order to entice you into a quick sale.

The same methods under which I bought my own unit are then used in order to try and sell it quickly to you however I often wonder why people don’t simply turn around and ask the seller the following question:

“If the unit is as good and as awesome as you say it is then why are you selling it for 300 less then you paid a week later?”.

The reality is that while it is a great little device it is not meant for everyone which I am sure a lot of people will point out that I should of known from the get go. That however is not my point, my point is that the sales of these units is being pushed by people and purchasers that have no such use for any of these products.

If you do fall for the hype or you genuinely feel that you could use one of these units I recommend that you actual spend a decent amount of time with the unit getting a feel for its keyboard and its usage before slapping down your hard earned cash.

I am constantly hearing of this new and emerging market and the competition that is heating up within in it and every time that I hear this I always think to myself what market? Now forgive me for I will admit with ease that I am not the head of a large notebook/hardware company and may not be able to predict the market or even see the current shape that it is in now with the clarity of which they do however as a consumer I just don’t see that such a market exists at this time and if it does then certainly not to the size which we are being led to believe. I just don’t buy that we all want to be carrying a notebook around that has the power of a 6 year old desktop, twice the size of my wallet that has a keyboard your average sized professional will be unable to use.

I’m just not ready yet to trade away the advancements and the work which have allowed me to have all the power and use of my desktop at my fingertips no matter where I go. I enjoy my larger screen and the ability to perform powerful complex calculations should I need to do so.

What is wrong with the current size of notebooks now anyway? When did we all become so lazy that it has become a pain in the arse to carry more then a few hundred grams of weight? Its called a bag, you can get them pretty much anywhere to fit any device that you would like. I was on a MacBook before I got my Pro and I never had any issues with getting it around the place. I simply threw it in the backpack and off I went, did not really weigh me down at all. In fact I cannot even really say that I find the MacBook Pro that heavy either, then again I could be considered a bit larger then your average person in this line of work.

Even for those that do have issues with the current size of notebooks there are still options on the market which are smaller and lighter then those which I have listed above but are still actually usable over something like the EeePC and by useable I mean that you fingers will still actually resemble fingers when you are done attempting to type on the unit for any length of time greater then entering your system login.

The sales of the EeePC have also convinced ASUS that it is a good idea to release a desktop based on the same theory of the EeePC. That is light, small and cheap and with just enough power to sneeze or perhaps power a text editor. Oh it can run Linux and blah blah and and its so cheap!

You want to know what else is cheap?! Older computers, it’s called recycling. Take that old box that has almost identical specs to the EeePC or hell even buy one for 50 dollars and use that instead of paying 400+ for the warm warranty fuzzies and funky fashion statement that you will get to make to all of your geeky friends. You know, just like apple users do.

I encourage you to discuss this as always in our forums:

http://snatchforums.net/index.php?topic=18.0

I recently reinstalled steam and rather then wait hours and hours for the thing to download all of the content again I decided that I would simply copy all of the cache files and other content from a copy of my steam directory that I had laying around.

This worked fine for portal and I was up and playing without issue within minutes. I then tried the same process to get half-life and counter strike working and needless to say this did not go quite as well.

Everytime I would attempt to launch a game of either I would simply be presented with a validating 100% issue upon which the game would never actually launch. I decided the best course of action rather then screw around all night trying to figure out what was going on would be to google the issue and see if others had encountered a similar issue. It was during this search that I came across the following blog and another guy having the same issue as me:

http://cathodetan.blogspot.com/2008/01/steam-validating-and-validating-and.html

While the issue does not appear to of been caused by the same thing the end result is the same. I can gather from his blog that he tried a few different things including contacting valve customer support but to no avail. His path led to a few other things that you can read on his blog such as the following:

http://cathodetan.blogspot.com/2008/02/valve-says-no-refund-to-broken-software.html

Anyhow his issues are not my point just figured that I would point it out. At any rate I appear to of discovered a really simply fix for this issue which I have been able to use on multiple games to resolve this issue. At first it was so simple I could hardly believe that was all I had to the entire time.

Enough blabbering, the fix is as such:

• Right click on the game which is displaying the issue
• Click on the “Local Files” tab
• Click on “verify integrity of game cache”

It will go through an identical process as the initial “Validating files” process however this time it will take a little longer and what it is done it will actually work. I tried this process on each of the three games and each time it worked so while I cant promise that it will work for everyone it is at least worth a try as not a whole lot else that was recommended seemed and that includes the following:

• Deleting all files from the steam directory except for the steamapps file and the steam executable
• Reboot of both steam and Windows

If anyone tries this and it works let me know in the comments.

The things that I continue to see people whine about constantly amaze me. I was innocently reading through a Digg.com story today regarding a score given to the new Mario Kart title for the wii.

I scrolled through the comments looking for anything of note when I came across a comment that really irked me, well part of a comment really. At any rate take a look at the 3rd comment down:

http://digg.com/nintendo/IGN_Mario_Kart_Wii_Review

For those to lazy to actually click on the link I have quoted the relevant part of the comment below:

“I got MKDS with the thought that I would enjoy playing games of Kart against random real people and I would have the ability to play against friends online. The reality was non-fun random matches due to snaking/players leaving/assholes”

Now snaking for those not familiar is a technique involving the “hop/drift” in the Mario Kart series that became popular originally with the nintendo64 Mario Kart title and of course has since also been used in more recent Mario Kart titles such as Double Dash and Mario Kart DS. A better description of the above is available using wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Kart_DS#Snaking

Anyway the point of my rant is that people such as the one who posted the comment shit me to no end. As they are unable to master a particular skill or move that other players may have the time or ability to master they then decide that they must turn to the degradation/non acceptance/rubbishing of said tactic or skill in question as they are unable to compete or even with participate with players on such a level even though what is being performed is 100% legit.

Stop crying fattie and man up a little, learn to step up and compete on the same playing field or dont play at all, oh wait thats right, you dont play now do you? BOOHOO!

/rant

As I was trawling through my old collection of files I came across a CS map that I created a long time ago. It is spread throughout the net now through various CS mapping sites however figured I would create a shout out to it here now.

Dont expect too much from it as I only created it when I was testing how to make steps and what not. There is also a odd glitch where if you walk under the bridge your head can be seen through the top of it. Still its a good map for a laugh, I would suggest between 6-12 players for optimal play.

Anway if you want to give it a go you can grab it below:

snatchbot.net/downloads/awp_twofaced.zip

If you wish to leave any feedback just let me know what you think in the forums

snatchbot.net/forums