Linkstew

Oh sweet monkey loving, Super Monkey Ball 2 is in development and should apparently be out this fall. Can you say Monkey Soccer? And looking at those screenshots, the backgrounds look amazing.

Whee!

Just skimming the news for the week, here's what catches my eye:

• Crazy Taxi 3 is coming first, and possibly exclusively, to the Xbox. D'oh. But then again, I haven't particularly cared for what I've played of Crazy Taxi 2, so perhaps it's for the best. (See Benjy rationalize away Xbox's every advantage).
• Here are some pictures of Pokemon Advance. While I'm interested in this game, there's absolutely no getting around the fact that the graphics are very disappointing. There better be some rockin' GameCube/Game Boy Advance interaction to make up for the graphics.
• Oh, Mario Tennis (And Mario Golf, but that's less exciting) is coming to the GameCube. Mario Tennis for the N64 was a blast. Now where's Mario Party 4?
• The notoriously harsh Famitsu gave the GameCube exclusive remake of Resident Evil (known as Biohazard in Japan) a 39/40. Wowie. I might have to give this game a try, though I've never played any of the Resident Evil games to date.
• Finally, some Sony guy has some interesting ideas about where he thinks video game consoles will go. Here's my favorite imaginary scenario involving this idea: The PS2 becomes even more popular, to the point that it's considered to have a monopoly on video game hardware. Then, Sony gets in trouble for trying to sell TVs with its Video Game monopoly. Heh, one unlikely scenario amongst hundreds.

In fact, if you're a fan of classic platform-game action, the GBA price drop comes at a perfect time with the impending releases of Sonic Advance on February 4th and Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World on February 14th. There's some sort of sick irony about a sonic game and a mario game both coming out for the Game Boy Advance within about a week of each other, but instead of worrying about it, I think I'll just pick up both games and enjoy replaying Mario World and exploring Sonic Advance.

And the icing on the cake is that Sonic Adventure 2 Battle is also coming out for the Gamecube on the 14th. Once I heard that Sonic Adventure 2 would be coming out for the Gamecube, I put off on buying the Dreamcast version. Even better is that Sonic Adventure 2 on the Gamecube can interface with Sonic Advance on the Game Boy Advance to exchange data to (presumably) open up extra gaming options in each game.

Ah, platforming goodness! How can you possibly go wrong?

As I walked around the train tonight, I noticed someone playing a Sega Game Gear. I did a double take, and discreetly stood behind him and watched for a few minutes and got nostalgic.

And you know, the Game Gear's graphics are still on par with what the Game Boy Advance just achieved. Ah well, I got to enjoy the Game Gear in its day and now I get to enjoy my smaller and less battery hungry Game Boy Advance.

I wonder if Sega has a Hall of Failed Game Consoles next to their Hall of Insanely Great Video Games?

I waffled for a long time on purchasing this title, but in the end I ordered it when I ordered Super Smash Brothers Melee. And I don't think a better spontaneous decision could have been made.

What is Monkey Ball? In its most basic form, you control a Monkey, in a ball, and your goal is to roll that ball across an obstacle and hole filled floor to a goal without falling off. Well, actually you control the floor, and tilting it different ways gets your Monkey Ball a'rollin'.

And Super Monkey Ball manages to execute this gameplay perfectly. And it's lots of fun, though some of the later levels do get a little frustrated. I'm stuck on two different levels at the moment, but that's not going to keep me down. There's more than 100 floors to roll through, and I've only played the 40 easiest ones so far.

Oh but wait, there's so much more. In addition to the main game, there are 3 party games and 3 bonus games: Monkey Fight, Monkey Racing, and Monkey Target. And Monkey Billiards, Monkey Bowling, and Monkey Golf.

And Monkey Ball superbly executes each of these extra modes as well.

Monkey Racing puts you in control of a monkey ball on a race track against three other monkey balls. Up makes you go faster, Down makes you go slower, and A uses an item you've picked up. Couldn't be simpler. Go, and attempt to win.

Monkey Fight drops four monkey balls onto a platform in space, and your goal is to knock your opponents off. Not by crashing your monkey ball into them, because by the laws of physics that just wouldn't out well. No, instead, you've got a huge retractable boxing glove attached to your monkey ball, and hitting A sends it flying! Plus, there are power ups you can pick as the fight progresses. The most points wins.

Monkey Target is by far the trickiest of the games, but once you get the hang of it, it too is fun (though perhaps a little less fun than those first two). After rolling your monkey ball down a giant ramp, your goal is to hit a target as accurately as possible. Once you launch from the ramp, A switches you into flight mode. You can steer a little, but too much will use up your momentum. That's the tricky part. Then, once you're above the target, hit A again once you feel you've aimed sufficiently, and hope for the best. There are a few more complications here, and it's harder than it sounds. This is my least favorite part of the game at the moment.

Monkey Billiards lets you play a game of Billiards, using a monkey ball as the cue ball. That's about all there is to this 1 or 2 player game.

Monkey Bowling lets you use a monkey ball as a bowling ball, but it's not that simple. You can't aim or pick your power and your spin yourself. Instead, an arrow is quickly oscillating back and forth across the lane, and you hit A to stop. And then a power gauge quickly oscillates, and you hit A to stop it. And then, between the time the ball is rolled and the time the ball hits the line, you can adjust the curve with the L and R buttons. And because of these insane reflex and timing restrictions, this game would probably be a blast while drunk.

And finally Monkey Golf, in which you play golf with a monkey ball. Monkey balls don't bring anything to the golf mini-game sub-genre, but that's not a bad thing, and this is just as much fun as Monkey Bowling.

So, this game is a blast. My roommates and I played it for several hours tonight. If you've got a GameCube, you should not hesitate to buy Super Monkey Ball. However, Super Monkey Ball is not a reason to buy the a GameCube. (Actually, for me, the only launch title worth buying a GameCube for was Rogue Leader.)

Super Monkey Ball doesn't attempt anything grand or breathtaking. What it does attempt is simple controls, fun game play, and lots of replay value. And what it attempted, it accomplished perfectly, and that means 5/5.

(Oh, also, I'd just like to share how freaking weird it is for a Sega logo to show up right after a Nintendo logo.)

When I first heard about Crazy Taxi 2 back in about December, the most notable new features mentioned included split screen multiplayer action and internet multiplayer action. The internet play didn't strike me as overly important, but it sounded nice -- it was the multiplayer action that really piqued my interest.

So when I heard that the Internet play wasn't going to make it into the final product a couple months ago, I didn't care too much, because the report explicitly stated that the split screen multiplayer would remain in the final product. That multiplayer action was all I really cared about. When I first played Crazy Taxi so long ago, one of my first thoughts was "This is a great game! But where's the multiplayer?"

I would have bought Crazy Taxi 2 if all that were added was two player split screen.

So I've been eagerly anticipating today's release of Crazy Taxi 2, which, so far as I knew, not only included multi player goodness, but also included new maps, mini games, drivers, and moves. It sounded like the perfect sequel to an already great game.

But today I read this review of Crazy Taxi 2, and, um, apparently, it's single player. And now, despite all the new additions, I'm not sure that it's a sequel I actually want to play.

Good god, this is just surreal. I read this article on Gamers.com about the newly available... Game Gear? Hey, cool, you can buy a Game Gear from Amazon for only $30! By the time you buy a couple games for $10 apiece, you can actually get a pretty good deal on some classic games.

I used to have a Game Gear -- I chose to get it instead of a Game Gear instead of a Game Boy back when I was about 12... It sucked batteries like I had no intention of playing it in an hour, and that was really only the bad thing about it. I enjoyed a lot of games on the system, it had a beautiful screen, and it was a shame that Sega stopped supporting it. They just couldn't compete with the Game Boy on price, though now they obviously can.

The GIA ran this story today about the security of Phantasy Star Online. It's a shame that PSO's been tampered with, but it seems like the architecture could have been easilly designed to make this sort of thing impossible. Hopefully they designed it extensibly enough that they'll be able to fix it.

What I found more interesting in the article, though, was the mention of the security measures in place to protect accounts from being stolen. While I respect the desire to protect the time investment of the players, the restriction that a character must be played on the Dreamcast it was created on strikes me as troublesome. What if my Dreamcast dies (as mine seems to be threatening to do)? What if I want to take my VMU to a friends to show off my character? What if my VMU dies? And there are so many possible solutions, it's a shame they didn't implement any of them.

The easiest is to allow the user to select what level of security they want for a newly created character. This way people who will only play from their cushy couch and broadband connection can feel safe, while wanderers will be able to play wherever they land. Still more complex systems could employ something based on RSA key pairs (which would also help prevent server spoofing). They could have even added a controller code pass phrase to a key-pair system (with the option of a zero length pass phrase) to allow even more security. It seems like limiting the security based on the particular Dreamcast is a big waste of the portability of the VMU. Well, I guess that as long as I can back up my character on to another VMU they didn't mess things up too badly.

I just read this preview of Sonic Adventure 2, and the news it brings is good in my eyes. You see, aside from slightly nutty camera angles, my primary complaint with Sonic Adventure was how all of the great action sequences were broken up with tedious and confusing adventure sequences. while I normally like story over flashy action, in the case of Sonic, it's all about the flashy action. The only reason I bought Sonic Adventure was because of the action stage demo that came with my Dreamcast. When I played the game and got muddled up in the adventure scenes, I lost interest quicker than I would have if it had been all action and zero story. If Sonic Adventure 2 focuses more on the action which defines Sonic, then I'll actually consider buying it. If Sonic Adventure 2 were just a new Sonic Adventure, with all the adventure stages that entails, then I would certainly pass it by for a truly story intensive game.

Somehow I ended up at a site that seems as positive towards Windows as most of the Mac and Linux sites I frequent. And then I found several articles talking about the future of Windows, which is Code Named "Whistler", and which will probably be called Windows.NET when it ships (Wonder how much Microsoft paid for Windows.NET when they realized they wanted it?). The are articles that start with the earliest glimmers of Whistler, things in between, and now on Windows Whistler Beta 1.

For better or for worse, there actually a lot of new interface ideas being thrown around in that soup, and it'll be interesting to see what ultimately emerges. Based on what I'm seeing, however, I do think that it will almost entirely be an improvement on what Windows is right now, even if the interface still has other fundamental flaws which Whistler isn't even going to come close to addressing.

All the same, I find myself being in the unique position of actually being curious about a Microsoft Operating System. Never before now have I wondered what will come of a system, but I'm almost looking forward to finding out how well Whistler will smash all these ideas together.

Between all the new ideas and simplification in Whistler, and all the new ideas and simplification in Mac OS X, it really looks like the next generation of Operating System wars is going to be very interesting. Both systems should be on equal footing as far as stability goes, even if OS X offers more things for the unix geek in me to do. Whistler has the Windows installed base going for it, while I'd say OS X has maybe a little more eye candy going for it.

The final thing I'd like to comment on is the task based interface paradigm which Microsoft seems to be embracing completely. I haven't thought about it much before now, but off the top of my head, it seems like the "What do you want to do today" interface should be very easy for beginners to comprehend and master. It should make it very clear what there is to do with the computer, which is a big problem I've seen people have. When I was an RCC, I couldn't count how many people asked me "So what do I do with the Internet now that I have it?" The "{What|Where} do you want to {do|go} today" interface paradigm seems to exactly address that issue, and I give props to Microsoft for using it. Now, I want to know where they stole the idea from.

So it looks like OS X versus Whistler is going to be a really fantastic fight to the death, and I don't think Linux has a chance in hell of competing with those two. And that's fine by me, because OS X offers me all the unix I need. It should be clear which side I'm on, even if I'm slightly enticed by the dark side. The battle should be nearly as fierce as the next generation video game console wars that are shaping up for next fall. Between Mac OS X, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo Gamecube, Microsoft Whistler, and Microsoft Xbox, along with the PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast, the second half of next year is going to be quite a spectacular thing to behold. Let's hope that one company doesn't come out on top of all this mess, because that would be a bad thing. On the bright side, the side I'm rooting for (Nintendo and Apple) should beat Microsoft (Xbox and Whistler) to market, giving them a headstart.

I just overheard someone in my office describe Samba De Amigo as "It's like playing basketball with maracas", which only piqued my interest in playing the game. Well, someday, maybe. Too bad the dang maracas cost so much. If they were cheaper, I might have considered it, but it's just too much.

You know, the PS2 has really generated a ridiculous amount of fanfare in 24 hours... Here is IGNs coverage of the event. I really find it ridiculous that some of their editors went to such extreme measures to get a PS2, when they already have them at their office. Baka!

I also find it ridiculous that people in my Japanese class today were talking about how great it was, and how the Dreamcast was dead. When I pushed, I found that they hadn't played it. When I pushed more, I also found out they hadn't played a Dreamcast. Further, they obviously haven't tried to program for either, though developers will program for where the marketshare is, and right now, unfortunately, I'm a little scared for Sega and Nintendo.

The only good reasons I've heard to get a PS2 right now is "I don't have a DVD player" or "My playstation died." Once my playstation dies, of course, I'll probably pick one up, but in the mean time, I'm set.

Also, read igndc's take on the launch line-up for the playstation 2 as it compares to that of the half as expensive dreamcast. It should make your christmas choices clear. Oh, and what the article fails to mention is the prices of peripherals, where the dreamcast is cheaper on every count:

$34 for playstation dual shock 2, compared to $29 for a dreamcast controller. $34 for a playstation 2 multitap, compared to $0 for the dreamcasts built in four ports. $34 for a memory card compared to $30 for the dreamcasts more functional VMU