sephfire

Has anyone been having trouble with logging into the Wii Shop? Mine refuses to do so 90% of the time. The other 10%, it lets me to the top menu and boots me out as soon as I select something. It's just a little sad when my poor little Wii can't even access its own store.

A rare moment of honesty on the internet. I salute you.

I should have clarified. The Wii doesn't "lack" good games. Some Wii games have been the best of this entire generation so far (Mario Galaxy, Wii Sports, WarioWare, Brawl, etc). The problem is that the Wii has a disproportionate number of shoddy games. The chart below compares the number of games with an average review score over 80% (green) with the number of games with an average review score below 60% (red). It's not Nintendo's fault: they've been bringing consistent quality with the first-party titles. Trust me, I'm not saying this as a hater of the Wii. I love the thing. It's the console I looked forward to owning most. That's why it pains me so much to see it go to waste on all of these half-assed third party attempts. That's also why I'm so glad to see a game like Boom Blox use the Wii to its potential. Hopefully, this will be the first of many.

It's been out for three days and I've seen no thread here. Unacceptable. As my fellow Wii owners know, this poor console has been hurting for quality games, especially from third parties. For every Mario Galaxy or WarioWare, there are ten pieces of shovelware dumped on the shelves to capitalize on the Wii's success and naive "casual" market. I'm happy to say, this game is fantastic. This game reminds you what makes the Wii so cool. I could spend paragraphs trying to describe it, but I'll just post this trailer. There are many more where this came from. http://www.gametrailers.com/player/33422.html It's exactly as fun as it looks.

Not quite a review this week, but fantastic nonetheless. Mailbag Showdown

Let me also put Dee Bradley Baker out there. There are a lot of great voice actors with amazing range, but this man is in his own league. But even he is overshadowed by the great ... Frank Welker This is the "Busiest Man in Voice Acting," possibly the most prolific who ever lived. He started in 1969 and he's still working today. He's especially masterful with animal noises (example: Abu from Aladdin). Just check out his imdb, seriously.

Sorry about the video link. Credited Jennifer Hale with Blossom's voice in PPG when she was actually the voice of Ms. Keane. Will fix video and re-upload. It's good to do proper research. edit: ok, fixed it.

I expect I'll do a Tara Strong video at some point. I think I'm planning on John Di Maggio for the next one.

Because they so rarely get the recognition they deserve. This is the first in a series of "Voice Actor Tribute" videos I hope to make. I enjoy following voice actors' careers and finding out just how many of my favorite games and shows they've been involved in. There's a lot of under-praised talent working in this field and I hope this kind of video exposes them a little further. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0JyDJcQ4Kc So enjoy this first video in the series, discuss your favorite voice actors and, if you like, make such a video of your own. There are far too many actors for me to cover.

I'm sure we all agree that the game is fun, but I still think most of Yahtzee's points are valid. I don't think the flaws outweigh the game's strengths, but the flaws do exist. This just isn't the kind of game Yahtzee tends to like. As such, the game's weaknesses are much more obvious to him and all the more off-putting.

This game is soooooo fun.

This piece has a very subtle beauty that's common in most of Soule's work. It doesn't go out of its way to grab your attention, but there's plenty of quality to find if you look closely. While it may not stray far from the source, Soule did a really great job of reinforcing the strengths of the original melody. All in all, this sort of mix is a real honor for our community; both as a contribution from the professional side of the fence and as a great piece of music. I'd love to hear more from Soule around here if he finds the time someday.

I have the beta ready to go, but it seems Konami wasn't quite ready for the number of testers they had. The U.S. beta opening was delayed until the 25th. Hopefully, they'll have things ready for us by then.

I'm not too worried about a small lull. I'll still take a mediocre South Park episode over the best episode of most any other show on TV right now.

I need to play the first one through all the way. I forget why I stopped, but now that I know the cop from Heroes voiced the main character, I'm double-excited to pick it up again. Shame they replaced the actor for the sequel.

Currently enrolled as an Animation grad student at the Savannah College of Arts & Design. However, I was also just accepted to a new program called Animation Mentor and I may be switching over. With luck, I'll finally be able to break into this accused industry within two years and get started with real life at last.

Whoa, where'd all the other character animators come from? I thought I was alone here.

It would seem that No More Heroes has finally made it across the pond. Yahtzee has opinions.

After renting the game, I really don't think it's worth purchasing. The gameplay is nothing special, every character is obnoxious and the whole thing just feels a bit juvenile. There are dozens of better shooters you could spend your money on.

Rejecting my WIP for this project is the biggest mistake you ever made.

You won't regret that decision. Rock Band and it's DLC are worth buying a 360.

I was an N64 owner myself during that era, but the PSX had way more than just those games going for it.

Becoming an animator. My music-making time has vanished.

I had a magazine a few months back that counted and listed the new IPs published by every big game publisher between 2006-2007. If I recall, Nintendo was one of those with the fewest. I want to say Ubisoft had the most. I need to find that article again. Nintendo has such a great track record for quality, it really would be nice to see what they could do with more new projects.

I don't know. The 360 easily has the strongest catalogue of games so far. It's true that most of the strongest offerings have been first party or multi-platform, but there are some serious gems to be had. Much more than can be found on competing consoles anyway (as of now). I hope the other two catch up eventually. Very, very true. I'd love to see that kind of 3rd party output somewhere this generation.