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Archive for November, 2007

DDR workout update

mario November 30th, 2007

I’ve been chatting about this off and on in the discussion thread for the previous entry, but I figured I’d give all y’all a more official update on my Dance Dance Revolution workout experiment. Since my initial post, I’ve transitioned over from Konamix to the GameCube’s Mario Mix. I seem to get a little extra kick out of dancing along to classic Mario tunes (though my favorite song in the game is the “Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka”-inspired “Always Smiling”), and the songs tend to skew a little easier than DDR games proper. It felt good to be able to ace the whole set of Hard mode songs and get a workout out of the deal too. I’ve reached a bit of a stopping point in terms of personal advancement; I got an ‘A’ in every song on Very Hard except for Bowser’s Castle (that green ‘B’ mocks me!), but the Super Hard songs seem to generally be beyond my ability to get above a ‘C’.

My initial goal was to burn at least 100 calories in a half-hour exercise session. I’m proud to say that I’ve improved well enough to obtain this goal well within the time frame (usually 7 or 8 songs can hit the mark, since I tend to stick to the World 4 songs, Very Hard, Mush Mode off), and often am not even breaking a sweat at the end! So today I decided to try and bump it up to 120 calories. If I can’t make it work in that timeframe, I’ll do my best to wake up a little earlier in the morning, but I’m very excited by what I see as a marked improvement in my workout times.

On top of that, I found out that I have access to a scale in my house! I don’t know how much of a good thing that is, but maybe it’ll give me a better indication of progress. We’ll see how that goes!

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PokÃ©mon Snap Updated For Virtual Console!

mario November 30th, 2007

Huh, can’t say I expected something like this (though I did kinda hope). According to IGN, the Japanese Virtual Console release of PokÃ©mon Snap (a wonderful and underrated N64 game where you try to take the best possible photographs of PokÃ©mon in the wild) will be updated to include the ability to send your photos to friends via the Wii Message Board! I absolutely loved this game back in the day, and would buy it up immediately, if the game ends up over here as well. I’m assuming it won’t offer some kind of magic Wii Remote pointer integration as well, but the analog stick worked just fine for its purpose. Even if you didn’t care for the original game, this is pretty exciting news! A Virtual Console game is getting a Wii overhaul! Dare I dream for eventual online multiplayer updates? I probably shouldn’t dare, but I do anyway. Just a little.

(courtesy of IGN)

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Charles "It'sa Me!" Martinet To Write Autobiography

mario November 29th, 2007

Charles Martinet photo Charles Martinet, perhaps better known to most of you as the voice actor for Mario of Nintendo fame (I don’t think he provides my voice, I’ll have to look into that), has announced his intention to write an autobiography detailing his history working for Nintendo. I’m always intrigued to hear from various folks on their perspectives on the videogame industry, so there’s a good chance I’ll be picking this up when it’s available. Plus, come on. It’sa him, Mario!

I must say, however, that his perspective on the ever-present issue of violence in video games is…. well it’s not exactly troubling, but it’s not like he’s bringing anything new to the table:

Violence in videogames, if you can call it violence – you have to take it into perspective. I don’t think that people go out and steal cars because they play a car stealing game, any more than I think that someone is going to shoot somebody because they play a shooting game. You don’t do that because that a game.

I suppose if the only person he was arguing against was Jack Thompson, this might hold some water. But I don’t think any rational person decrying violence in video games (and yes, there are intelligent people making this argument intelligently and reasonably, as in people who aren’t Jack Thompson) is saying that performing X action in a game equates to X action in real life. I guess I’m getting a little off-base here, but I hope that the finished product ends up being a little more insightful and a little less “duuuuuuh, really?“. I’ve enjoyed the man’s work (even if he did do the voice of *shudder* Toadsworth), and I feel like his decade+ of experience in an industry I hold near and dear to my heart should make it an interesting read.

Now he’s just gotta write the thing.

Oh yeah, don’t watch the video on his seemingly-made-like-10-years-ago website. You’ll probably like him less.

(courtesy of ComputerAndVideoGames.com, by way of Nintendo Wii Fanboy)

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