I’ve stopped caring so much about Nintendo products, just got a Wii a few months ago, I haven’t really played my DS since I bought it, and my purchase of the 3DS was very regretful. Now, Nintendo is bringing out the Wii U, another console with another gimmick. I’ve already bitched about the Wii and motion controllers before, so I will skip that part.

Nintendo DS:

So I bought the DSlite when that came out, it was pretty okay, but there were never any games for it that were a must have. I’ve passed up a couple of Zeldas and Pokemons but eventually I decided to give the DS another go, playing Pokemon Black.

I’ve noticed how horrible the DS is to use for gaming. The bottom screen was unused for the beginning of the game (being used only during battles) but then the player unlocks some online game tracker thing, making the bottom screen display a bunch of pointless crap for most of the time. Since I didn’t finish the game yet the online part of the game was pointless and I would much rather have the main menu available at all times. Sadly, that is not the case, and you are forced to pause the game if you want to use any items, or HMs.

So there’s an example of a useless bottom screen. Now here’s an example of an overused screen. Zelda: Phantom Hourglass/Spirit Tracks. Oh god how I hated playing this game. Just the fact that I had to hold the DS with one hand the entire time I played this game pissed the hell out of me (my hand was tired, I ended up having to place my DS on a table in order to play.) To move, you point in the direction you want to move, to roll, you scribble in the direction you want to move, to attack, you tap what you want to kill. Basically, the whole game involves touching that tiny screen. And with all this touching around, I ended up randomly doing things that I didn’t want to do. If I was playing this on an iPhone things wouldn’t be so bad, as the iPhone has no buttons, but the DS does, and it shocks me that the entire game can be played without pressing any buttons. Also, Nintendo, please, NEVER ASK ME TO YELL INTO MY DS EVER AGAIN.

Now, I tried playing Pokemon online, however back when the DSlite came out, Nintendo didn’t think that anyone would need WPA2 encryption for their wifi. While this could probably be fixed with a software update, Nintendo didn’t think that this was necessary either, what a shame.

Nintendo 3DS:

I will start off where I left off with the DS: software updates. Fortunately Nintendo added software updates to the DS but the problem is the option is so painfully hidden that I actually had to Google how to get to it.

But anyways, while the 3DS was not a first day purchase for me it was still within the launch window, I didn’t really want it, the price was high (not anymore) the system looked weird and came in weird colours (even the black one has a few different shades of black,) However, there was one game that forced me to get the system. Ocarina of Time. Yes, the game I loved when I was a kid game back in slightly higher definition, and that’s the problem. The commercial showed some nice prerendered cutscenes, but sadly, they are not part of the actual game. If this game came out on the upcoming Wii U it would be much, much better. Actual HD graphics, good controls, and something that I can play on a 50” TV.

While playing the 3DS I’ve noticed a huge flaw in the whole glasses-less 3D concept. You have to look at it at a certain angle to get it to work. So, if it’s a mobile device that means the angle is constantly changing. Furthermore, the 3DS has accelerometers and gyroscopes and those ACTUALLY make you move the device. Meaning if you want to shoot your slingshot in Zelda, you will instantly lose that 3D effect and start seeing double images.

Wii U:

Yet again Nintendo proves that all they can market, is a gimmick. The DS had two needless screens, the Wii had all that waggling, and the 3DS had that horrible portable 3D crap. Now, Nintendo saw the massive popularity of the iPad and thought to themselves “this is a good idea for gaming.” So they created a 10” controller, which could double as a food tray, and they tried showing how it could be used to play games. The problem? They didn’t actually show any REAL games.

The first problem with this thing is the size of it, my god it’s bigger than the original Xbox controller. It’s bigger than a PS2, and they expect you to wave that thing around. Basically, this thing is going to be your lap the entire time giving you carpel tunnel.

The device is so pointless Nintendo even showed it off for themselves, if games can be streamed over to the device without relying on a TV, that means that the screen on the Wii Pad is optional, if it’s optional, then it’s just a gimmick. Apparently, all old Wii controllers will still work with the Wii U, making the question even more confusing. How many alternate ways of playing the game will there be? If you play a shooter, what will you have to do? Will you have to waggle a Wiimote or will you have to waggle a Wii Pad? It’s all so confusing adding in ANOTHER controller. Nintendo already has the Wiimote, the Balance Board, the nunchuck, the classic controller, the Gamecube controller, and all that plastic crap.

The worst thing about it is that Nintendo stated that only one Wii Pad would work per Wii U. Meaning that all your friends/siblings will be fighting over who gets the cool controller. Honestly, Nintendo has been trying this concept forever. We all remember the Gameboy Advance with the Gamecube link cable. However, with the mobile and wireless technology we have today, why can’t the 3DS just double as the Wii Pad? That way 4 people can all play the same game without screen looking or whatever.

Overall:

It seems like Nintendo is making too many quick decisions lately. People ate up the Wii so much, but the Wii quickly became just another thing collecting dust. Parents played their Wii Sports and WiiFit, but what then? Will people be fooled again? Will the magic of the Wii still be there? We are yet to see the next Xbox or the next Playstation, and those can just blow the Wii U out of the water completely. Sony’s already got the Vita, and no doubt that’s going to interface with the PS4. Microsoft is working on the whole Kinect/Windows 8 thing and without a doubt the next Xbox will support Kinect. The only question is, what else is over the corner?

I’m sure most of you heard of Geohot, but in case you haven’t here is a little back story. Geohot is a hacker famous for hacking the iPhone, PSP, and now the PS3. Because of him publishing the hack online and documenting how to do it yourself Sony decided to pursue legal action. Sony quickly went after all those responsible in the matter. Geohot defended his actions and tried to stand up for freedom. He claims his intentions were not to open the doors to piracy.

Whether the piracy thing is true or not, he still opened the doors. Within hours the torrent website were flooded with “back-up” PS3 games free for anyone to download. Geohot’s attempt to free the PS3 was only used by pirates, because in all honesty, it’s not about the “homebrew” anymore. For the PSP it made some sense, as that is a mobile device and you want to use it for as many things as you can. I’ll admit, I had a modded PSP for a bit, and I used it to play SNES roms. But would I want to do the same thing on a PS3, nope. If I am at home I have far more devices that can do the same things with far less effort. Why should I spend an hour hacking my PS3 when I can spend 20 seconds downloading an emulator on my PC?

But what about the Linux functionality that Sony dropped? Geohot’s exploit brings it back. While the OtherOS functionality in the PS3 is a much missed item from various users, I personally never found a use for it. Again, why should I bother trying to manipulate the PS3 to do OtherOS when I have a perfect computer right beside it? Regardless of whether I used it or not, some people did so I suppose it was a loss for them. I do agree that Sony shouldn’t have removed it. But the only reason that they did in fact remove it was because of Geohot’s previous exploit which used the OtherOS functionality to run arbitrary code. Thanks Geohot.

The real intentions of Geohot can be a bit confusing. After he published his exploit he tried getting Sony to hire him (unconfirmed) , well fat chance there. If you truly wished to get hired by Sony you should have contacted them with the details of the exploit BEFORE you published it. Many hackers get credited or employed due to finding exploits. Every time Apple puts out a security update they credit to whoever found the exploit.

What the hell where you trying to do man? If you were an ethical hacker you’d keep silent about this whole thing. If you were rebellious you would have released the code without your whole “anti-pirate” attitude. Face it, you knew that people will exploit your code to pirate games. You’re a hacker for Christ’s sake. Don’t tell me you didn’t see that coming!

While I do not agree with all of Sony’s decisions about the PS3 (such as removing PS2 compatibility) Ido not in any way support what Geohot has done. He don’t offer any kind of fix, and instead he just create more of a problem.

While Apple itself has done a lot to piss me off nothing compares to how much the fanboys have done it. Apple does a lot of illogical things which the fanboys always defend, no matter how bad it is. The absence of a camera on the iPad caused fanboys to scream and yell how cameras are useless, yet at the same time Apple was working of FaceTime with the ability to have a video conference between multiple devices. But this post isn’t about FaceTime (again) instead I chose to write about some of the arrogant things fanboys have said in a while.

No maximize button

If you’re a Mac user you know that OS X does not have a maximize button anywhere on the operating system. The trade-off here is that instead of a “full screen” maximize Apple has implemented a stretch-to-content like feature. It’s a decent feature, but I don’t think it’s very necessary. If you need to resize a window to content, you could do it manually, quite easily. Maximizing takes a whole lot more work because you have to stretch the window so all corners in the window hit the corners of screen.

The feature is not the problem though, it’s the fanboy response to that.

“It’s because the Mac is all about multitasking, full screen does not allow multitasking”

I’m sorry, what? That sounds like you’re implying that we’re forced to run it full screen. Quite the opposite, we have the option of maximizing. I can have multiple Explorer windows open transferring files between different folders, I could be chatting on Messenger, and any other crap you might throw at it.

I do agree that maximized windows are against multitasking, but it’s far from being anti-productive. If you’re working in Photoshop, or editing a video in Final Cut, are you going to run it in a small 800×600 window or are you going to run it in full screen? In reality, having multiple windows open leads to distractions. Though the computer might be able to “multitask,” the human mind can only process certain things at once.

I’m going to go as far and say Windows 7 is better than Mac OS X at multitasking. The classic taskbar is faster at switching between open applications than the OS X dock, and ALT+TAB displays all open windows while Command+TAB displays one instance of the application. So if you have multiple Terminal windows open then it would only display the one.

I’m just confused why these fanboys are anti-feature. What’s wrong with having both a maximize button, and a scale button. A fair compromise would be hold shift and press the scale to fit to maximize. There, everyone wins.

The iPad 2 resolution

Recently there was a rumour going around that Apple would double the resolution of the current iPad in the iPad 2. While this rumour was based on the packaged files in the new version of iBooks, Apple fanboys jumped to conclusion and assumed everything was going to be new and different. To explain, when the iPhone 4 came out with its doubled resolution Apple added a naming scheme “x2” so that the appropriate resolution was chosen for the correct generation of iPhones. Well apparently someone found a file called “iPadx2” somewhere in the package.

The file was a background graphic (wood tile) and the original resolution was 768×400, where the x2 graphic was 1536×800. Mind you that the original iPad resolution was only 1024×768. Wouldn’t it be more possible that Apple just doubled the size of the graphic so that there would just be a large graphic, instead of a small tile?

What is the rumoured resolution of the new iPad? It’s a highly impressive 2048×1536. But the question is would Apple include such an impressive DPI/resolution on the iPad before including it in a Macbook Pro?

Another issue that affects this whole thing is price point. I don’t think Apple is the kind of company that would offer such an impressive resolution, with IPS at that very appealing $499 price point. Take into account that a large resolution like this would need a beast of a processor to render everything. Games at that resolution would demand an insane amount of processing power that I don’t think we’re able to achieve yet with mobile processors. With stronger processors, the battery life would be compromised and what would be very disappointing.

Verizon iPhone

In Canada this is totally unnecessary. Our CDMA carriers have switched to HSPA networks, and thus all carriers are able to carry the iPhones (well, all carriers that matter anyways.) However in the States this is some new dawn of time. I guess it makes sense since it used to be exclusive to a single carrier and now it’s available on two. This is not a significant jump at all.

The rest of the world is allowed to enjoy the iPhone on any carrier they wish, because there is no technology war between different technologies. While in concept CDMA is superior to standard GSM phones as it allows more simultaneous connections (and other technical reasons.) Modern GSM phones use wCDMA for the 3G.

Anyways, the fanboys are treating this like it’s the end of Android. Though the iPhone is technically available to more people, it seems like a pretty niche market. Most people who wanted an iPhone already had an iPhone. The whole Verizon deal opens the door to people who were never thinking of getting an iPhone before. Also with it being so close to the release of the iPhone 5, I see no point in investing in a Verizon iPhone, yet.

But by far the worst thing I’ve heard was:

“This is going to be awesome for developers.”

Yeah, how might that be? It’s still the same phone, it doesn’t offer anything new to developers. If Apple announced the iPhone 5 for Verizon then it would mean a lot. For now it’s just slightly larger sales numbers for developers and the same old for everyone else.

While I’m on the topic of the iPhone 4, where the hell is the white iPhone, Steve?

How many times have you been at a bar and needed to go to the washroom. You go in and do your business only to find out that there is a dude there who’s paid to dry your hands. You try to avoid him and want to do it yourself but you realize that there is no way around him. You’re stuck accepting his services and at the end of it all, you feel guilty for not leaving him a tip. So you reach into your pocket only to pull out a five dollar bill. You don’t want to be a dick and ask for change, so you just hand it to him. You walk out of there feeling angry and ripped off, and from now on you never use bathrooms at shady clubs ever again.

This is one of the reasons I try never to use washrooms and clubs or bars. I’m worried about coming into one of these people and be forced to pay for something I didn’t necessarily need. Sure, it’s not like I actually need to pay, but are you seriously going to be that one asshole who doesn’t leave a tip?

I wouldn’t classify myself as a sucker either. I don’t leave tips to waitresses who fuck up my order, or take 20 minutes to return and ask me if I want another drink. Nor do I give spare change to homeless people (unless the dude forcefully cleans my windshield). But in this case the guy actually has me with my pants down. Sure, I can just not wash my hands… but that’s just not hygienic.

So the other day I picked up a copy of Halo: Reach and I started playing through it. It was a pretty good game with some minor issues. After I completed it I decided to give online a shot only to discover that it was filled with thousands of little kids yelling at me for “getting their team killed.” Pardon me son, I have other things to do during the day than play Halo all day. But after a few rounds I started to get a hang of the game and started doing pretty good. I stopped for a few days and decided to play some online again. This time I sucked even more. It’s like the same 13 year olds were trash talking me again. Again I asked “don’t you have anything better to do all day?”

Playing games is fun and all, but these people spend all their time playing a single game. But it’s not like they enjoy the whole game, they exclusively play online. I was told that I was crazy for not playing Modern Warfare 2 online. Well sorry, I have a plethora of other games to play instead.

Online games don’t immerse me at the same level as a single player campaign. The single player has a deep and rich narrative which brings the player into the whole experience. During online games, your enjoyment relies on others. If you’re playing against 12 year olds in Call of Duty you’ll most likely have a pretty frustrating experience. But that’s not the game fault, it’s the fault of other players.

Am I saying that online games suck? No, it’s just that the single player experience is also really rich and shouldn’t be ignored. All games do not need a forced online mode. Just look at Metal Gear Solid 4, the online in that game was totally not needed. It was also crippled by the horrible Konami ID system. It just seems like too much people focus religiously on online games, and just they play Halo or Call of Duty all day. PROTIP: There are other games out there, give them a shot!

If you live anywhere near Toronto then you probably watch CP24. It’s only the single greatest news channel in the country. You’ve got weather, news, and traffic on the screen, at all times! Sadly it isn’t perfect and it really bothers me.

The first is the horrible CP24 breakfast. I turn on the television in the morning to catch up on news while I eat breakfast. Instead of being presented with news I am greeted with a bunch of bullshit such as a “wake up call.” Seriously? Is this a necessary part of the show? I’m sure everyone would be able to live without it. It serves no purpose. All you guys do is piss off the people you’re calling, it’s not fun and good spirited, it’s just annoying. So many times the person doesn’t answer so they simply call back. Wow? Seriously, just sell more adspace, get rid of that bullshit segment.

The second issue isn’t really one that pisses me off, but it’s one that shocks me. It’s the fact that there is no HD version of CP24. When I watch it on my TV there is so much empty space which could be utilized. I know channels aren’t free, but I’m sure that you’ll get enough viewers on the HD version to make it all worth it.

The G20 in Toronto is over and done with. I didn’t really have a problem with it, but some people did. Natalie Gray was one of them. She is some environmental activist from BC (though other sources say Montreal.) During the G20 Gray claims to have been shot by rubber bullets, sexually abused, denied medical treatment, and strip searched. She is now suing the police for a whopping 1.6 million dollars.

At first I’d like to point out that the whole “being innocent” thing doesn’t work at all. If she in fact DID come here all the way from BC then she must have had a reason for it. She is not “an innocent bystander.” She came here for a reason, and that was specifically to protest. I’m not sure what she did, but she must have done something. She claims that the officer aimed his deadly weapon and shot her twice, if it was a deadly weapon, she would have been dead. After she got shot she claimed that she wasn’t resisting arrest, yet in the video, we see her standing up. Now when a cop says “get down,” then she is in fact disobeying the cops.

Recently in court her lawyers said that she was stripped searched and asked to remove her piercings, Gray claimed that she could not do so without pliers. According to her claims, the police said to her to “try harder or else we’ll cut them off.” However, it wasn’t until the second day of the trial when Gray claimed to have been “sexually harassed.” Apparently one of the officers made a comment about “banging her” and the lawyers interpreted that as “threatening to rape her.” Right, because everyone wants to rape a fat chick who pissed herself while getting arrested.

She is seeking 1.6 million dollars out of this whole ordeal, which to me seems very unreasonable. Even IF the police did use excessive force, I don’t think her damages come anywhere close to that much. I’d give her $300,000, which is pretty fair considering that she is still fully able-bodied and wasn’t disabled because of this. But to ask for 1.6 million? Where does she think the money is coming from? Well, from her own tax dollars. It’s funny how these kinds of people protest the government, but then turn around and abuse our judicial system in order to make money.

Now some of these rebels are making up bullshit conspiracies such as “the police cars that were trashed were fakes.” Really? Fakes? The cops created perfect working replicas of the actual cop cars just for show? The left some riot gear in the car just for show? Bullshit.

I don’t get why people protest the G20 anyways, if anything people should encourage it. The G20 is when the world leaders come together to fix problems in the world. Want shit changed? Stop throwing bricks at windows and write to your MP. Write to your governor. And if you do decide to protest, then well do so. However a protest should have a purpose, if you want to legalize abortions hold up a sign that says “LEGALIZE ABORTIONS,” give out pamphlets, or talk to people. Yelling “FUCK THE POLICE” doesn’t count as protesting, it counts of being a jackass.

For everyone crying “police brutality” give me a fucking break, what we’ve seen at G20 was nowhere near police brutality.

So yet again we have an Apple press conference. I have talked about Apple press conferences before: here, here, and here. Now the media has a thing for blowing this shit out of proportion, making a big deal about every minor thing that Apple releases. I guess I do too.

First came the iPod Shuffle. After the last shuffle which was the size of a quarter. It seemed Apple did some market research and learned that people actually want buttons on the device. What a shocker! So the current Shuffle is practically the same as the one we had 2 years ago. Great! It’s a nice device for anyone who just wants a cheap device to load up with songs. It does not need a screen, it does not need wifi. It’s just a simple-ass music player. Along with adding the controls, Apple also added an additional 5 hours of battery life. Fuck yeah.

Following that we had a dramatic change to the iPod Nano. While the Shuffle got controls, the Nano lost them. The Nano is now an 1.5 inch square screen that plays music. Not the change I hoped for but at least they got rid of that pointless camera on the back of it. Apple boasts to have multitouch on the device which leads me to my next question. Why the hell is multitouch important on a 1.5 inch screen? I don’t think that an 1.5 inch canvas is enough to do any gestures. Another thing that pisses me off is the clip. It’s basically an iPod Shuffle, with a screen.

Next comes a device that I actually want: the iPod Touch. Take the iPhone 4 and take out the phone (and LED flash) and you’re left with the iPod Touch. It’s fairly impressive: you have the retina display, you have the 1ghz processor, and you have the dual cameras capable of recording 720p. All is good, but the price of it sheds some light on how over priced the iPhone 4 is.

The 32GB iPod Touch is 320CND.
The 32GB iPhone 4 is 780CND.

That’s a difference of 460CND.

The 32GB iPad is 650CND.
While the 3G version is 780CND.

That’s a difference of 130CND.

So what’s the deal with the other 330 dollars? Okay, so add in the cost of the GSM antenna and LED flash. That’s nowhere near 330 dollars.

Apple also announced some bullshit social networking service aimed at music loves. Totally ignoring the fact that Myspace exists, Apple decided to show their spin on it. I guess it’s kind of a neat idea, if it wasn’t run by Apple. This whole service is just a way they can push you to download more music. Joe Biden likes “Love Game” by Lady Gaga, WOULD YOU LIKE TO BUY IT RIGHT NOW FOR 99 cents? A friend of mine mentioned a great idea: what if you could share your music with a friend kind of like what the Zune had? You can share the song with a friend and he can listen to it a limited amount of times before the song expires. Brilliant! But instead you are force to buy it.

But the worst of the worst has to be the new Apple TV. They took the current device, and just gutted it. They removed the ability to watch 1080p, they removed the hard drive, they removed all the syncing and other “complicated” bullshit. You are left with a device that can only steam movies and TV shows. You no longer “own” any content. Watched a good episode of Glee and want to show it to your friends? Well, you’re going to have to re-buy it. Sounds great no? They did drop the price of it to 120CND, but that makes me wonder, what made the old one ~$250 anyways?

Also, Apple showed no love for the iPod Classic and continues to sell it for $270. That’s an incredible price point by today’s standards. If they dropped the price of it to 199 that would be great! Hard drives aren’t that expensive anymore, are they?

There’s a new “original” reality show coming to Toronto, it’s called Lakeshore. It follows a group of twenty-somethings as they venture into parties and clubs. We get to see them prance around with hair gel, creatine, and tanning oil. Oh yeah, the ultimate lifestyle of today’s generation.

To get away from being called a total Jersey Shore copy, the producers have made the cast multicultural instead of being all Italians. However that doesn’t really change anything: everyone will still look the same, and speak with the same slang. What’s the point of marketing this as a multicultural show?

The cast of it isn’t all that bright either. It’s a bunch of sluts trying to get their 5 minutes of fame. People say “any publicity is good publicity,” but once you start acting like a slut and getting known for it, then that’s what people are going to judge you. You can deny it and say “I’m a classy girl” but if you get into a hot tub with 10 naked guys then come on, that class goes away.

Since the show doesn’t exist yet I can’t really write more. If this show does come into fruition then I will write more.

So last week I watched Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Great movie! However when I got home I saw a review that filled me with rage! It seems that some professional reviewer decided to call it “Twilight for boys.”

Well MaryAnn Johanson, explain why I wasn’t horny watching Scott Pilgrim. Twilight was written for women, by a woman. Instead of writing a book for everyone, she wrote a book for her own twisted fantasy of vampire sex. Scott Pilgrim was written for everybody: fans of video games, fans of music, and even fans of Toronto. When I went to the midnight screening there were tons of chicks dressed up as Ramona or Kim, there were also groups of girls and it wasn’t like they were tricked into seeing it by their boyfriends.

Another review by Wired called it “Harry Potter for hipsters.” On the contrary, both the film and game have an anti-hipster stance. Basically saying, you kill hipsters; hipsters are the enemy. The movie is just a story about how some guy wants to date a chick, and has to “prove himself” to do it.

A note to these “professional” reviewers: stop trying to compare the movies to others. Instead of saying stupid shit such as “twilight for boys” or “hipster’s Harry Potter” you can easily say. “It’s a movie meant for a different generation.” I would not get pissed off if the reviewer said that, because it would make sense.