The Damned

Well, there goes my budget for games in 2007. Thanks a lot.

Pic of the new headset. Plug it in, and let the "NOOBS! PWND!" begin... Also, it was recently revealed that if you want to use your GBA Pokemon in Diamond/Pearl... well, let's just say that it might be easier to just use a cheat device and make them from scratch. The way it works is that you "transfer" the pokemon to your DS game, and then, instead of it being there all ready for you to use... you have to catch it. Again. And there's no word on how easy it will be. But if it's anything like the previous Safari Zones, you'll need a lot of luck and even more patience. Also, there's no info on how it will effect said pokemon. Will it reset IVs and EVs? Tameness? Oh, and you can only transfer 6 pokemon a day. That means that if you try to send all your GBA pokes over, it will take you 64 days, or 2 months to do so. Two months to transfer over what you have already found. Ugh. Between having to send them over at a frustratingly low rate, and then catching them again... maybe I'll just make a new team. What a stupid move.

Confirmation accepted. Awesome. Now to just somehow make it to a US city with a Toys R Us... Should only be about a six hour drive. EDIT: make that a twelve hour drive. The nearest store I could find is in Veradale, Washington. And that assumes that they are even participating in the event in the first place... I guess that I am screwed, and will only ever have one by finding someone to trade with on DP, use a cheat device (not my style) or risk mailing my cart to someone in the US who will do it for me... No, the DS won't work. I suspect that they will do it one of two ways; 1. Either by hooking up your GBA to a Gamecube, like a demo station, or one specificly setup to handle this event, and just download one onto your cartridge. 2. They will have GBAs with special carts in them that download Mew onto your carts. Either way, you will needa GBA. The DS has no cable port to connect with either a GBA or Gamecube, and the DSs wireless is completely incompatible with the very limited Gamecube wireless (namely, the Wavebird controller, which wouldn't be used for something like this anyways). GBA only, I'm afraid. Same.

Is the October issue out yet? If so, could you please go to page 97, and tell me if there is an article about the Toys R Us Mew giveaway thing. I want some extra confirmation. Thank you.

Toys R Us is giving away Mew on Saturaday, Sempterber 30th. If you live in the US, and have a GBA with Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Fire Red or Leaf Green, you can show up and they will download a Mew onto your game. This is just like a similar event they did back in 1998 for RBY (from which I still have my legit Mew on Silver). Then when the DS games come out, you can transfer it over. Hopefully, other countries (hackhackcoughCanadacough) will have the same sort of event in the future. Of course, with the DSs online abilities, we could jsut download such things from our homes, negating the whole hassle of finding a store that is participating. See, I managed to put something vaguely DS-releated in there.

Rain and Sunlight in RSE had effects in battle. Rain would weaken all Fire attacks and cause Solar Beam to charge for three turns instead of hte normal two, while boosting all Water attacks to cause more damage. Sunny weather would do the opposite, and make Solar Beam a one-turn powerup and use attack, meaning you could deal out fuckloads of damage over and over. Both effects were introduced in the second generation, Gold and Silver, but it may be that in Diamond/Pearl, they will also add Sandstorm and Hail effects too. They normally just cause a small amount of damage to most types at the end of each round for five turns. Maybe they could add similar effects this time. I do recall reading on the game directors blog thingy that he had been toying with the idea of making a more realilistic weather system, with changing patterns and locations. But nothing was mentioned on the subject since, and that was months ago. Who knows? They haven't revealed everything yet, and it would be an interesting feature to have. I's sort of possible. There's a feature in the game that uses a globe to show you where your trading partner is located in the real world (each peron is going to be represented by a little flashing dot showing their approximate position, and the game keeps track of everyone you trade with, so you can see where all of your trades have come from), so the system can tell where you are from. But I suspect that there's an option to just turn chat off. We'll see in about six weeks when it comes out in Japan. /pokenerd

Like I said, the first time is several years that I've been excited over a new game. Even the awe from Twilight Princess wore off pretty quickly. Diamond/Pearl? It's only been getting stronger.

I've never even heard of such a program. But it would make sense.

Hey, it's my right to vomit at Disney-themed games that don't actually add anything to gameplay. Kingdom hearts, at least, was an original story (as original as RPGs get these days) with varied settings. I suspect that Meteos: Disney Edition will simply throw a bunch of Disney faces and logos on everything, leaving it almost exactly the same as the original version. Hence, puke.

I... I just threw up a little in my mouth.

Sometimes I question the point of the internet, and then something like this comes along and I remember why I find it so useful. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNX6jm8V6Tg Thank you, YouTube.com. A three minute long trailer for Diamond/Pearl, with new areas never seen before, new effects, shots of evolution, trading, and other stuff. Points of interest: -A ship going under a drawbridge at 0:35 -Walking under some sort of railway or tracks at 0:36 -The new "Fly" animation at 0:39 -A grass effect when entering a battle at 0:45 -Pokedex features at 1:11 -The new evolution animation at 1:41 -Some footage of the new Contest stuff at 1:51 (including some sort of costume change for the player at 1:52... this is strange. When you enter a Contest, you change outfits? That's new. I wonder if it's just for show, or actually does something) -The new trading animation at 2:14 -Verification of online voice chat at 2:26 -Footage of some giant mansion at 2:46 -And of course, a Japanese release date and price at 2:55 (September 28th, at 4800 yen Looks like that graphical upgrade fans have been asking for the last five or so years has finally come through. And the new areas, wherever they are, look very interesting. I haven't felt excited over a new game in quite a few years. Note: if you hear a sound, like a messaging program bleeping, that's from the video. ISomeone recorded this on their computer. It turns out that the original video was only available for viewing in Japan, as the server it was on rejected addresses from outside the country.

Nope, Canvas Curse came out in June of 05, and you know how Nintendo doesn't mark down their games for a looong time. I've seen Pokemon Red (not the GBA remake, the original) in several stores, and they still have their original release price. I thought it was just some stores forgetting to mark them down because of their age. But then I also saw other games from the same time (roughly, maybe a couple of years or so either way) that had lowered prices. And these are pristine, unopened boxes in major chain stores, not some used ones in an EB. The price tage were recent, maybe a year or so old. I have even once asked the people behind the counter why such a high price for such an old game. They said that something along the lines of "we haven't been told to mark it down." Now, did he mean Nintendo jasn't told them, or their sections's supervisor hastn't told them? Incidently, if anyone wants pristine, unopened Gameboy games for $40 CAN, let me know, I can hook you up.

Close, but more third party. And then with the Color, it was one of these: . God damn day and night cycle in Pokemon Silver ruined my sleep pattern for about a year.

Yeah, I've noticed that a lot of the DS games I have are like that. I haven't spent this much time playing into the morning since I got my first Gameboy. That blocky light thing that you could slip onto the top? Yeah, that thing. I must have used up more batteries playing at night than anyone other point in my life.

The site, not the videos. Duh.

It's in German or something (damn my weakness with other languages), but if you want to see all the released videos from Pokemon DP, here you go. They show some footage from the new underground area, which is fucking huge, by the way, and some Capture The Flag action. About the giant underground place... looking at the top screen of the video, I see that there are solid thick lines that seem to completely enclose areas, and it looks like there's no way to get out of one and into another. In fact, there seems to be a small zig-zag shaped area in the center. I can only speculate that they have each area closed off to prevent people from getting lost or to prevent flooding of one area by lots of players. But until it's out in about a month and a half, who knows?

I R 1337 |-|/\[|<3R! I wonder how the US will take a game where you break into people's computers and hack the megabytes? Sounds like something parents and law officials could get behind and use as an example of how video games teach your children bad things.

But it was released. In Japan.

Oh yeah... I don't see why not. Two screens, you're on the bottom one, and can use the touch screen for various tasks, maybe even taps or something, I don't know... and your opponent is on the top. It's been a long time since I'e even seen that game.

What the fuck? Page two? Not on my watch... Yeah, so Pokemon stuff has been revealed through CoroCoro magazine, and it's something. First, what appears to be the new starters have been revealed, and one of them is a monkey with a flaming ass. Seriously. Look for yourselves here. And then we have the online stuff. It's not just battling (although that's been expanded as well). Contests's have returned and been expanded a bit, and there's this whole underground world you can play online in. Secret Bases from RSE make up this giant cave system where you can play games like Capture the Flag with other people, and set traps for each other. You can also take part in treasure-hunting, and maybe even more. Looks to be the most feature-filled generation of the series. Oh, and there's this one pokemon, looks like a parrot, that you can use the DS's microphone to record your own sounds/words, and have it scream it as an attack. Think of how many people will have one that screams "FUCK!" at you in a battle. Oh, and a Chocobo game for the DS. I would like more details, but it's all good.

Hmmm... Contact, Pokemon D/P, Zelda... this is going to be a very expensive season for games. Oh, and that whole Wii thing, that too.

Considering GBAs don't have an "x" button, that would be a little difficult.

Not happening. GBA games were never designed for touch screen use, and trying to make some sort of unifying system for converting/adding on such support would be goddamn impossible. You would have to make such a system customized for each and every single game. And I hardly think that anyone would be willing or even capable of doing the programming and manufacturing. Nice fantasy.

Fixed. How else can I properly save Lucca's mother from a horrible, crippled life by pressing her name out using the buttons? Oh, and spoilers.

It's for item management, issuing attack commands during a battle, and what appears to some form of decoration or item use on your pokemon. There isn't any info on that last part. I would expect there to be some more info later this month.