Portable Awesome

...That right there is all that you need to say, DS. Just flash that logo and let the world revolve around you.

Plus- It was just announced by Joystiq that Microsoft is supposedly planning on launching a multimedia portable, like the PSP, to combat the iPod. Seriously, DS and iPod know how to take care of business against these all-in-ones. MS can't possibly think that they can target the iPod exclusively, without going toe-to-toe with PSP. I wonder how they feel about their handheld intel getting leaked just a couple hours after Nintendo announced DS Lite.

A true handheld war is coming and guaranteed to be more interesting than both the current handheld situation and the console scenario right now.

How's that for drama?

[Infendo]

Nuff Sed

[From BGB]

The Coup is Done

Now i can officially pretend this is a real DS wifi hub- I got Tony Hawk DS. Man, i am so glad i didn't buy it back when i wanted to. It gets old very fast. I got it free from a friend who lent it to me, forgot to take it back, then went back to college over the weekend. Mum's the word, folks...

It plays pretty well, but the tiny face buttons are not ideal for this game. I still wonder why the Micro, of all things, has bigger buttons than the DS. Anyway, it's a good version of Tony and looks great. You can tell the amount of work that was put into it. It features the typical friend code system to play against your friends over wifi and an automatch option, like Mario Kart's Worldwide. I haven't had a friend match yet, so i can't comment on that.

I've done the automatch a couple times and it's ok. You and another guy get thrown in some park in Free Skate mode until one of you picks a game to play. Horse and graffiti aren't there, don't ask me why cause i don't fucken know. That pretty much makes multiplayer pointless for me. I mean, everyone on wifi busts out 12 billion combos each time, but still. Gimme my fave modes, damnit. All you can do is trick attack, combo mambo, and a few other useless modes. Unlike Mario Kart, all levels are playable online, so there's that.

The absolute best thing about Hawk's wifi is the downloadable goals. You can log onto wifi, download the latest goals, and play em right there without logging off. The best part is that they are actually challeging. Vicarious Visions seems to put some thought into these, so that's cool. It sucks that you can only do one-on-ones in these large skateparks. I think they coulda pushed 3 simultaneous players.

As a wifi game, it's a pioneer for the DS with downloadable content, probably the second handheld game ever to do it after Wipeout Pure. It's cool that you can form skate clans with your friends and increase your rank against clans from around the world, too. Other than that, it's a decent Tony Hawk with half assed online. The online features are good, but the online play is crap. Don't buy it, but if you have it, post your friend code below. You know the drill.

[Sorry for the essay. Anyone listening?]

Fanboys are Vicious

These guys are rabid wolves, man. I never expected the Jared Fogle story on Infendo to attract so many comments, but the real shocker here is the contents of those comments. The readers tore Jared apart! I think it's all overreaction on their part. The guy only joked that Nintendo was his other childhood vice, which in all fairness didn't help his eating problem. He wasn't trying to blame Nintendo for it. But speaking of fairness, i did title it "Jared Blames Nintendo"...Hehe, mah fawlt.

Check it out here, discuss below.

[Unrelated]- Watch Blake flip on some Anon. Too funny!

Statue of David

This may be a little late, but as usual, when my cable internet goes, my (neighbor's) wifi comes back. That's exatly what happened this time. That homo "bryant" is no longer around and the linksys is friendly again. Wifi's solid, stable 2 bars, 3 if i move around. Been playin MKDS when no one's town is open, getting my ass kicked by snakers with 0/3 records. Metroid Hunters and Tetris DS with wifi? Bring it.

AC update: Got cool with this guy Mike from Terra. Met Cocoa's 10 yr old neice Chey aka "Chey Now" who fished her ass off. Finally met Damiam aka "Swiss Cheese", he's a cool bastard too. Knoah was busy watching Aeon Flux so i fluxed my way back out that gate. The Owen Wilson to my Ben Stiller (in Zoolander) was nowhere to be found (ur lucky Ruben!). I tried to seduce Cocoa in her sweet master bedroom; it was very awkward, we both left crying. And Dael was as rican as he'll ever be. Maybe.

I'm back, bitch!

While I Chisel...

...Life goes on. In AC, that is.

Lasant hasn't been on much since i was taken out by The Man. All he probably does now is sit on his bed and pretend that the T-Rex skull in front of his window is actually alive and coming for him.

Dave/Folax (known as "The Moped Bandit" in Crooklyn) has been cryin to me everyday about how he never sees anyone with their gates open, and when his are open nobody comes. Poor bastard. Send him a valentine.

Amy, who was there in the beginning of the AC days (and the 2nd girl i ever saw on it), has finally found her own group of animal people. She hangs with those guys now, which is probably why you haven't seen her in a while.

Dael i guess is still chillin, proud as ever, draped in his countless Puerto Rican flags. He should change his town name to "PRide".

Tony aka Mugwump aka Big Poppa i'm sure still leaves his gates open while he feeds his 1 yr old, ignoring all his visitors in the process. What a host.

Garyaga, or "Status" as he calls himself, i assume continues to play the most retarded form of tag i have ever seen.

Knoah i believe has never found his groove in AC. As a result, last i heard i think he bought Sonic Rush and went back to Mario Kart with his new dong(le). Mario. Kart. Obviously it's a cry for help. Hook him up with some friend codes, guys.

Juan, whom you've probably never seen, has only been on wifi once in his life. He hasn't been on because he switched from DSL to cable, leaving his wireless router behind, and is now looking for a dongle to call his own. Any suggestions on the Best place to Buy it?

Cocoa, my woman of women, did what all women do when they dont see their men during war time- she cheated on me! I hired a Private Aye (yai yai!) to do some sleuthin and spy on her to see what she was up to. This is what he brought me (she's the redhead):

Scandalous!

Anyhoo, as i chisel away at the stone wall, they continue to live. But can you really call it life without Rollin?

Nope. You can't.

Rough Venus De Milo

I just tried to go on wifi...and it worked. I had 3 bars and a whole world a head of me. At least that was the sentiment before i hit the road. There was NO ONE hosting online. What the duck? I wanted to surprise someone! I tried to host, but it froze up like usual. Looks like i can sometimes bypass wifi security in AC by visiting other towns, but it is rare. After the first try, i failed to get through 3 subsequent times.

Do me this solid, guys. Leave your gates open. Please. I might drop by unnannounced. If i don't have your friend code, leave it in the comments. Maybe next time i breach the wifi wall i'll have somewhere to head to.


...They'll release the hounds!


[Screw Mario Kart.]

Crude Sculpture is Made

Mario Kart DS is my sweetheart. With AC, the problem i have is that it freezes whenever i try to access the wifi connection. In attempting a connection, you have to tap ur touch screen through so many pages of dialogue that it sues you for harrassment. When ur trying to hack into someone else's wifi like i am, you don't wanna waste half a minute tapping through stupid questions. "I will now attempt to establish a connection. Are you ready?" Yes, mutt. I just told you so.

Anyway, MKDS makes it so easy to access wifi, it's ridiculous. You press "Yes" once and you're on your way. I've been on and off of wifi with Mario Kart for the past couple of days. Sometimes i stay on for a good while, other times it bombards me with errors. Still, MKDS gets me around whatever wifi barriers my "friendly" neighbors have put up and that's what matters. AC is an absolute bitch to use with these circumstances, but for now i can tell you this: Bring them sparks, bitches!

Rollin
330771-905074

[I'm close to getting AC back to work; this isn't the end of it, I can't stress that enough. In the meantime, post your Mario Kart codes/names in the comments. It's mid-November all over again...]

Chiseling The Stone

You're all aware of my wifi troubles with AC. Well, a little while ago i decided to try to work around whatever the problem was by taking Mario Kart online. And it worked, dagnabbit. After a worldwide race, i slid AC back in to see if MKDS had loosened up the DS' wifi or somethin, cause the wifi sig was clearly there. But no doubt, AC still froze up at the gate with Copper's ugly mutt face doin a Growing Pains freeze frame.

I decided to insert Kart again to see if it was still operational. Guess what? Nuh-uh. Wifi was there, but the error message told a different story. I headed for the rarely visited WFC Settings menu and started tinkering. I searched for routers and found 3, triple the amount of routers i used to "borrow". The first was the good ol' unlocked Linksys i've always used. The second was another unlocked one, this time a Mac router. The problem with both of these was that the signal was there, but i couldn't obtain their IP adresses for some reason. Hopefully i can crack this (with your help..?).

The third signal was coming from a locked *gasp!* router named "bryant". It seems as though this bryant is the culprit robot keeping me from my tribesmen. This bastard's probably infected all the others to malfunction when i access them. It could just be a router some guy named after himself, but no. Look more closely. The one locked router in the vicinity has a human name. Even more malicious is that this beast didn't even capitalize the "b"! You know what, bry? You're a DOUCHEBAG.

Booted: No Soup For Me

[The following is an account of a true event. All racial slurs were born out of anger at that point in time, none were meant to offend entire races, only the persons on the receiving end. If you take offense, ur an idiot. Then again, there are no idiots reading this, so i shouldn't have to explain myself. But in this PC world, anything that's not PC needs a disclaimer, so here it is.]

You may have noticed the peculiar sub-header to the site that reads: Boycott The Nintendo World Store. Today, i finally explain why.

It was 4 Mondays ago, i think; the early days of the AC craze. Me and Dave (aka Folax, to you) were hangin out at the Nintendo World Store doing local and wifi pillaging. We sat at the Pokemon Card tables for max comfort. Some weird lookin dude came up to us, name was "DOOM". It was the three of us, chillin. At one point, one of the employees, a petit little girl came up to us, friendly as can be, to see what we were playing. We small talked with her, all chummy-like. She gave herself an RSVP to our little group for after she was done with her shift. We didn't care, what the hell, right?

A little while later, she returns in plainclothes with her DS and sits next to me, DOOM and Dave on the other side. The chumminess picked up where it left off and it seemed like we had a new friend. So we're talking and getting along, then Dave (was it Dave?) started talking about something that made me bring up something i did months earlier, even before the Miyamoto event. I mentioned how this one time while i was upstairs, i nabbed one of those Mario patches. Not that i was gonna put it to use or anything, but it was outside of its container and i thought, "what the hey". When i sed it, DOOM smiled, homegirl's grin faded, and Dave nervously chuckled. He then sed something to the effect of, "Dude, you're saying this in front of an employee?" I replied with a don't-worry-about-it expression and "Oh come on, she's off the clock. She's cool." I sed it in a very jovial tone.

I noticed she stopped chatting with us after that, silently concentrating on her DS. After a bit, she got up and walked away, but we didn't think anything of it. Then about 10-20 minutes after that, the latino security guy comes up to me- let's call him Officer Hick-- tells me to bring my DS, and brings me to the counter side. He says, verbatim, "We found security camera footage of you upstairs. Did you take a Mario patch?" Here's where i fucked up- i sed yes. I usually play the nice card in these situations to hopefully get the safest possible outcome, but...it backfired big time.

~Intermission~

Officer Hick proceeds to tell me that i am no longer allowed in the store. If i walk through those doors again, i would be trespassing. He said that if i do go back, "the bouncer in [him]" would grab me, throw me in the backroom, and beat my ass till the cops arrived. What a gentleman. So as i'm pleading for forgiveness and offer anything outside of sucking his dick to be allowed back in, we're standing by the GBA Bar with the tall black guy. Tall Black stands quietly as me and Tito Puente go back and forth. ThenTall Black chimes in and interrupts me with "Look, bottom line, you can't come back". What the fuck!? Who the hell asked your burgeouis ass!? Prim and proper black fuck, probably came outta junior college and thinks he's worth shit cause he works in midtown Manhattan. No one asked for your 2 cents, jackass. Juansito has it covered.

It was such a dick move. I shoulda lied. There was no camera footage. It was that cunt-faced twat who told Officer Carlos-Jose what i sed. And for what? Does she really think she's gonna get some bonus because she tattled on a patch thief? Nigga please. See if ur boss gives a shit about this incident when he fires you after the holidays are over, you fuckin temp. And clearly-ex-convict Officer Guillermo, with his jacked up teeth. He sed i "disrespected" him by taking that patch. You know what, Pablo? Keep earning ur minimum wage by nodding at customers. Bravo, man. You're real big shit. Stereotypical latino motherfucker...

Morale of the story is this: Screw the Nintendo World Store. The only good thing about it is that they get their games a day earlier. Forget that though- their handheld games, namely GBA games and certain DS ones, are overpriced by 5 bucks. It was never a great place to begin with. They kick you out after an hour, even if you are purchasing (ironically, on this particular occasion we were there for 2 hours+). There's not much to it. It's not the Mecca most people think it is. If you've seen it once, you've seen it a hundred times. Nothing more than a tourist stop. Can't say i'll miss it. The only thing i regret is that i didn't make a fool out of their lying asses. All i can do now is implore all who read this to boycott that piece of monkeyshit store. Go once, get ur fill, and move on. Do it for me. For Rollin! *black power salute*

And remember, for all your gaming needs, there is only one stop: GameStop! ^_^

In Limbo [Fanboyism Must Die]

[In Limbo is a feature of this site where i will basically post articles that were "sent out to print" on Infendo, but never published. This one here is the 2nd article that got canned by the powers that be, and the 3rd i ever wrote for Infendo. It's a topic that's near and dear to my heart, so i'll post the original uncut, then probably make a follow-up later on. Might be a little on the soft side, but bon appetit.]

If someone were to ask me what i hate most in gaming, fanboys would win. These guys are biased beyond belief. Whatever you say about a system you own, if it aint theirs, you get called 14 different variations of the word "homosexual". If their console's marquee franchise gets 9.5s [instead of straight 10s] everywhere, they crash the reviewers' email servers with massive amounts of hate mail proclaiming superior knowledge and appreciation for art. You just can't talk to them.

Sure, i was a fanboy once upon a time, but at some point it became clear to me that i didn't have to feel down just cause the GameCube section in BlockBuster was so tiny, or cause every celebrity says they have every system and play every game then only name Xbox and PlayStation. I sat down and realized that i'm a fan of games before i'm a fan of Nintendo, not the other way around. Arguing with misinformed people in GameStop wasn't changing a thing, so i cooled off and decided to stop my occasional hate of MS or Sony games and hardware.

Ever since this happend i've had a growing hate for fanboys. Especially Nintendo fanboys. They give the rest of us a bad name. Currently the "points" they make in arguments are: Nintendo are the only ones that make profits, GameCube was a success, and PSP is a failure. A couple of those are subjective, but horribly spun. Sony and, to a far lesser extent MS, do make profits from software sales.But it's marketshare that needs to be gained before thinking about whether or not profits are made. I know you want to have something to brag about coming out of this generation, but you have to cut your losses and move on. Nintendo had a bad generation. They may not be competing with MS and Sony in the coming generation, but they sure were with the Cube. Get over it. And just cause DS is on an amazing 20 week winning streak on top of every other system in Japan doesn't make the PSP teh d00m3d11!. It destroyed the DS's UK launch record of 87,000 units in 2 days with more than twice that number in 3 days. It already is a status symbol and a household name in the US, beating DS sales monthly. Let's chill out and give credit where credit is due.

If i see another comment on Japanese hardware sales with a fanboy saying "the Xbox is stupid trash that once again fails to sell! Har har har! (*FIRST!!11*)" my taint will explode. I'm willing to bestow reason unto fanboys in hopes to solidify a basis to shed the extreme bias, but it's hard to get through to them. They're missing out on some great things by being loyal to only one party and denouncing the rest, encasing themselves in a bubble. How can you call yourself a gamer if you only play one of three systems? I could understand if you only play Nintendo cause you can only afford that and nothing else, but to exclude yourself from other great offerings is plain stupid. Don't play games to join a team. Play games because you like games.

[Written on October 18, 2005]

Out of Commission

*takes podium*

If anyone still reads this, you've probably been wonderin where i've been. Well it sure as hell wasn't wifi. My real, non-AC neighbors seem to have either: a) taken a vacation, b) locked up their wifi, or c) swallowed their router in a drunken haze. My money's on all three.

Idaknow when i'll be able to get back out into the AC world, but right now i'm helpless. I don't even play it as much at the moment. Without wifi, AC's half the game. :( Don't cry for me, i'm already dead. Until my wifi returns, that is.

That said, nobody dare think that this is the end of our AC tribe. There'll be no domino effect here! I'm gonna return to grace and tear apart all your towns Howard Dean style. YEAAAAAAH!!!

I miss you Spic Floyd!