Nintendo Music: Wind Scene

I love music because, like many other forms of art, it has the ability to produce feelings in the human being. Oftentimes, these feelings cannot be described in words, so music is its own beautiful kind of language.

Today's music selection comes from the SNES game Chrono Trigger. It is a great example of a piece of music that creates a feeling that is hard to nail down. Not to mention it augments the feeling that the actual game is portraying at the time it's played.

By the way, in addition to having awesome music, this game is just an overall amazing experience. Enjoy the tune!

Why Wii Play: Motion might be worth your money: A Review

Wii MotionPlus is an under-utilized accessory, without a doubt. Frankly, I can see why. The thing needs to be calibrated to start with, and that initial balance is quite fragile besides.

But when the player gets past those two minor gripes, a rich gameplay experience awaits. Wii Play: Motion packs a variety of cool motion-based activities into an admittedly small package. Some are better than others, but all have something to offer. Many can even be played with multiple people, so bring on the party with this game!

If you could make use of another MotionPlus Wii remote, the $50 for this game and the pack-in is definitely worth it. And...I guess that's all I have to say!

Does anyone remember that one Wii remote function...?

It's the Wii remote speaker!

There were a lot of things to be excited about when the world was learning what the revolutionary Wii remote could do. Motion and point sensing capabilities were chief among those. The remote would also be wireless and have the rumble function. But there was one other thing...ah, yes! A built-in speaker!

The sound quality of this built-in speaker was so poor, we muted the volume after the first month or two of having a Wii, never to turn it up again. The sound was particularly obnoxious in my favorite Wii game to date: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

We're all excited about The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. I have been for literally years. But it only just occurred to me that the game's remote sound effects might actually sound good. Only time will tell!

Are there any Wii games you have played that effectively use the built-in remote speaker?

Books into video games?!

The first book in the Keys to the Kingdom Series!

They have made movies into video games and video games into movies. Who skipped the step of making books into video games? Had it never occurred something was missing? It should go books to movies then to a video game! I mean imagine how awesome that'd be! Since it's a video game they could follow it to the book exactly! With movies they only have, what, two hours to fit a whole book into? Well unless your Breaking Dawn or Harry Potter that is. Why would you have two parts to a movie anyways? I mean it's just a scheme to make more money! Wait, this isn't what this is supposed to be about that. Anyways I think an awesome book to be turned into a video game would be . . . uh . . . to tell you the truth I don't have one.

Now that I think about it I don't read very exciting books, so I really have no clue as to what book would be a good video game! If you have any ideas, please tell me! Wouldn't it be so cool though? I mean man, oh, man!! They could get it like completely right! Anyways, this subject is really sorta narrow to talk about! Not much here just the fact that they could make it exactly like the book! So exciting!! Wait I have one! It's Keys to the Kingdom by Garth Nix! That'd be so awesome! It's a pretty legit book! Anyways if you have any ideas for books that'd be good video games tell me! I wanna know these things!

Here's what my trip taught me about video games

What a great trip I had this last weekend! I didn't go into much detail in my thank you post, so I'll let you know now: I went on a three-day trip to the historic Hole-in-the-Rock trail. I don't think you want me to go into too much detail, so I'll just say that it included a lot of rough off-roading.

So what did the trip teach me about video games, you ask? If you haven't already, take a look at the video above. I've never had a knack for creativity: I'm jealous of people who can come up with great ideas for video games, even if they never see the light of day. But can't you see something like this making a pretty good video game? Some of the most intense racing experiences are really slow ones. A realistic off-road racing game would force the player to move quickly, but not so quickly that the vehicle tips, because that would mean a lot of lost time. I found that a lot of skill and concentration goes into maneuvering a vehicle on this kind of terrain, and I think a video game would benefit from using that concept.

If that made any sense, congratulations. It's a powerful skill to interpret other peoples' gibberish. For your entertainment, here are some other images from the trip:

One of our many vehicles climbs a rock. Going down won't be so easy.

See what I mean?

Some of the scenery around our camp in the morning.

An ATV tackles one of many tough spots.

We also brought along some special types of ATVs we call Razors.

Tough spots are really no problem for the Ram, but it was slow going.

The Cherokee probably had the most trouble, but it made the trip just fine.

Some more ATV action.

In the distance you can see the actual hole in the rock.

A look at Gray Mesa from inside the Cherokee. Pretty flat.