Imagist

Because Nintendo promised it over 50 weeks ago (I'm making up numbers wheee).

I SAID I WOULD ALREADY jeez mang I'm just still confused as hell by this mention of points cards in blocks of value other than 2000 points for $20. Where have these things been hiding?

1) I get tax added to my purchases through the Wii so it's not any different buying a card in the store 2) I get an employee discount at Target that more than compensates for the tax so I get my points cheaper than you do sure it's like $0.50 difference with somewhat high sales tax in Texas but I'm at work anyway so why not pick one up when it's convenient?

Yeah this is why I'm asking "What?"

A... what?

Win95 hasn't been good for anything since 1998. Have we gone back in time?

Does anyone else feel like they're getting hoodwinked with the music updates? I mean, as nice as it is to appreciate the music apart from the game, I'd rather do so after experiencing the music within the game, not in small samples months before the game's release. More real updates, Sakurai, for God's sake. (He's waiting on the game just as much as the rest of us... )

Okay, uh, if this is spam then I guarantee you it's on behalf of the record label, not the band itself. The tactic would be very uncharacteristic of Spoon (trust me, I met them through a friend of a friend of a sibling's or whatever several years ago... they're not exactly devious), and also completely unnecessary--if they were really dead-set on viral marketing, they wouldn't be such a word-of-mouth phenomenon to begin with. Why pay for what fans already give you free? But since we're on the subject, this is a great song (much more diverse, instrumentally, than their past endeavors, and I mean that about their latest album as a whole) and Spoon is a great band that knows how to rock. If they didn't, the Austin music scene would have devoured them alive back in the 90's. If anyone wants to hear more of them, though, I'd suggest they start with Girls Can Tell or Kill the Moonlight... If you don't like Spoon already, there's no way you'd like Gimme Fiction (at least, not for the right reasons), and the new Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, while returning to the short, tight-knit composition of the older albums, is as I said much more diverse and less typical of the band.

They weren't up when I went looking at around 10:00 this morning (central time) and I was about to rage. Thank God Nintendo has seen fit to save themselves from disaster. (Except, I'm waiting until I go to Target for work tomorrow so I can buy a points card there and save all of a dollar with my discount.)

Yeah, I don't know what you were watching, but I never saw Sirius give Harry the mirror.

I have got to say that the scenes with Umbridge watching over her detentions (especially the first one with Harry alone) have got to be some of the creepiest I've seen in a long while. Though I'd imagined Umbridge to be quite a bit more plump (and round, very round), I'm willing to let that slide for a spot-on performance. Luna was also pleasantly surprising; when I first saw their choice of actress I thought she was completely wrong, but she absolutely nailed it. I'm really quite disappointed they didn't find excuses to give her even more screen time (the Rita Skeeter sub-plot would have been nice, if they hadn't practically abandoned it with Goblet of Fire already). Spoilers abound from here on out. There were a number of points in the film where there were obviously deliberate visual cues in the actors' performances and such that alluded to pieces of the book that were never followed up with any direct (verbal) references, like when Snape mentions that Umbridge interrogated Cho using Veritaserum and Harry and Hermione look at each other like "OSHI-" but no one so much as says "Looks like we were wrong," or "Sorry we unreasonably ostracized you when you were so clearly penitent and helpless." Or you get passing glances of the group's faces as they're riding the (as far as they know) invisible thestrals and you don't even hear a peep from Ron about how "bloody terrifying" or even "bloody brilliant" it is. I mean, if you're going to cut Cho's friend out of the film and pin her as the traitor, you've either got to justify it with some snooty behavior or force her into it and have a heart-touching redemption, not just force her into it. And if you're going to spend time on scenes about animals that some of the characters can't see, you'd better pay dutiful attention to the circumstance throughout the film, not just when it's first an issue. While there was at least one instance where I found one of these fan-teases excellent (the scene at the end of the last DA meeting before the holidays in which Ginny, as she walks out and Harry heads back toward Cho, turns around and looks sort of miffed--it was nice for people who have read Half-Blood Prince already to get a hint of the future), for the most part they were really sort of annoying to me, as the impartial critic I'm trying to be, because it's a blatant statement that the creators know they're cutting things fans of the books would like to see because they think fans of the movies don't care to see them, even though completing each and every one of these half-scenes would have added five minutes, tops, to the movie. In the past two films I've thought they could have (and should have) added quite a few things that would have extended the running time only a few minutes, but in this film it's like they started to add many of those things and decided to give up instead. Another issue: the flashing headlines of the Daily Prophet were particularly annoying, and although I feel this way partly because I had just finished the game for Wii in which they were utilized to a much greater extent to glance over large sections of the plot, it's also because, again, having actual scenes show or even imply those events would have added mere seconds to the film without cheapening the effect. The newspaper montages, primarily the segment immediately after the fights at the Ministry, were pretty much telling the audience, "Read the bloody book, 'cause we ain't showing you anything!" All in all, I thought the film started off great, but about halfway through turned into some sort of rabid race toward the finish line, making many more cuts and resolving issues in only the most half-hearted of manners. But as a movie, I can't honestly say I expected perfection, and even if all the issues I've mentioned were resolved it wouldn't have been perfect. The creators did well enough, and they'll make the money they were likely after. The only major concern I have is the absence of the two-way mirror. Not only did I think it should have been potentially the best way to show Harry's teenage arrogance, by having him forget such a simple way to be sure of Sirius' condition as the mirror, but Rowling has also said it will play an important part in the final book. Without a presence in the movies, what will we be missing once Deathly Hallows rolls into Hollywood? (One last thing: I'm almost afraid to say it for sounding like too much of a greasy fanboy, but it was kind of ridiculous that Bellatrix used Avada Kedavra to finish off Sirius in the film. In the book it was taken to be some sort of stunning spell which pushed Sirius backward into the veil, making for an extremely unexpected and mysterious death. On screen, while only a little less sudden, his death had nothing of the mystery and uncertainty it should have. And it begs the question: why wouldn't nearly every spell the bad guys shoot be Avada Kedavra, if it was as easy and casual a thing as it seemed for Bellatrix at that point? I kind of felt the same way about Voldemort's nonchalance in killing Cedric during Goblet of Fire, but that's excusable because it was written that way in the book and, well, he's fucking Voldemort. Whatever. Greasiness over.)

Hm... I didn't notice that before, but you're right. It does look like the platform is in different positions for each screenshot, and even entirely out of the picture for a couple of them. Whether the platform simply moves back and forth regularly or changes very slightly with each minute of the day is pure speculation, but unless the screenshots are extremely misleading then the platform definitely is not stationary.

Nice. Have we had any more information about Dewy's Adventure recently? I haven't seen anything in the E3 info I've scoured yet, but looking around I've found multiple references to a September 4th release date and I'm hoping that still stands.

From the looks of it, the second player only facilitates a game that is already possible to bit with one player rather than making it possible to beat solely with a second player. The only thing the second player seems to do that the first player can't is freeze/move enemies/objects (both players have been seen shooting stars with the pointer control). Now what would be infinitely more interesting is if the second player could actually hinder the first player's progress in a pseudo-competitive fashion, hurling obstacles into Mario's path to make him slip up. That would make me want to call a friend over for sure. And yeah, sucks about Project HAMMER, I glanced over last year's announcement and only a few months back rediscovered the content as more exciting than I originally thought. I hope Nintendo goes back to it eventually.

I finally got around to watching the Super Mario Galaxy footage from E3 and damn does it look great. I have at least one game I can't wait for coming out every damn month from now through the end of the year. And what the hell? This E3 brings word that Project HAMMER is on hold indefinitely? Did I miss the earlier memos, or is this a sudden bit of bitter news?

You can see him in the background of the first screenshot. Not likely he'll appear as a fighter.

After SimCity, I'm not surprised. What really gets me thinking is what they might be planning to do with the Wii version that will push it back to fall while other consoles see it next spring.

If you click on the blue-green star in the lower-left of the sky, it opens an email addressed to van@ethanhaaswasright.com with the subject, "I'm one of you... help me!" I'm assuming it's meant to provide people with hints on solving the puzzles. Anyone tried it out yet? EDIT: Also of note: http://ethanhaaswaswrong.blogspot.com/ http://jayisgames.com/archives/2007/07/ethan_haas_was_right.php (SPOILERS)

Eh, I spy six counts of stinky green idiocy in the original post alone. He at least deserved Nuts' last sentence.

I never realized it back with Bowser's screenshots, but looking at the shots of DK and the new footage with Bowser, hot damn is there a size difference between the big powerhouses and other characters. Were they so relatively enormous in Melee, too? If so, I never noticed it, but it's really obvious now.

stfu nub Get over yourself or get out. This sort of thing is standard procedure 'round here and it's not likely to change. deel wit it srsly

Um, pretty much all games have been released on Mondays for quite a while now. They may not be available in stores until Tuesdays or Wednesdays, but Monday release dates are the norm.

Holy shit if they're pulling my leg I'll pull theirs RIGHT GODDAMN OFF.

This is already being discussed in the DS thread?...

You only see one thing wrong?