Tech – Page 61 – Robot Claw

No 3DS For Me?

January 20, 2011

Yesterday Nintendo announced the launch date (March 27) and price (US$250) for the new 3DS handheld.

If you hadn’t heard, this is a more powerful, higher resolution handheld that allows for 3D gaming without using glasses.

Now as you all know I’m quite the early adopter, but I must admit I’m cool on this device so far for the following reasons:

1. The launch games are poor. Not one of them interest me, and without a compelling game what is the point?

2. I don’t care (much) about the 3D. Sure it would be a fun gimmick, but I see myself turning it off most of the time.

3. $250 is a lot to spend for a dedicated device. This may be a strange comment coming from someone who has played one game on his PSP for over 400 hours alone, but given 1 and 2, there is very little else about the 3DS that has me excited right now. Other features will come in time (via OS updates), but why are they not present at launch.

4. The 3DS is region locked. This is a big, big one for me. I hate it. I hate that I wouldn’t be able to buy games in Japan (or Australia) and play it on my American device. Or send games to my Dad (were he to get one) from America. Boo-hoo Nintendo :<

On the other hand – and this is unfortunately significant – the L button on my current DSi is showing signs of deterioration. If it goes I’ll need a new DS immediately. It would be sad if that ended up being the principle reason I buy a 3DS.

Show me some good games Nintendo, and ASAP, if you want me to early adopt.

You Can Do It!

December 19, 2010

As promised, many moons ago:

Here’s Emi’s reaction to the above:

The 200 Club

December 15, 2010

I made a strange Tweet last night, that no doubt confused some of you.

I was jubilant (and for once, I am not being hyperbolic there) when I finally killed this guy in Monster Hunter Freedom Unite:

It’s name is Yamatsukami, it’s bigger than a house and it’s the monster you have to kill to get to the highest level in the game, HR9. He took me four tries, during which I had to learn and get used to his one-hit-kill attack. Once I knew what to look for, he’s not so hard to survive. He’s got massive HP though, so I beat him with less than a minute left. I look forward to going back and killing him some more with better weapons.

So now I am at the highest and most difficult rank of the game (G***) with the hardest-to-beat quests that give the best rewards. How long has it taken me exactly to get this far? I wondered, and I checked. These next three images are the save files of the three PSP Monster Hunter games:

The times are not cumulative, because when the old save file is imported it resets the clock. Turns out I played MH Freedom and MH Freedom 2 much less than I thought I did, and this is partly because they are very, very solo-unfriendly (guild quests are multiplayer only). As you can see, things changed with MH Freedom Unite.

So the total time played in this series is about 404 hours. Impressive!

And I still have much more to accomplish in the game, including (finally) some multiplayer with SFL 🙂

Monster Hunter isn’t the only series I have played like a mad-man this year. Here is a shot of the save-file from Dragon Quest IX on the DS:

And here’s a shot (grin) of the save file from Monster Hunter Tri (the Wii version):

I’m too scared to do the math myself, but I urge you all to get out your calculators and verify that in the past ~36 months I have spent almost a month just playing Monster Hunter games.

What’s scarier: that I did this, or that I am proud of it?