Acid for Blood

Geek on Stun uses Mario Kart DS to help heal a broken heart. It's so simple!

I'm waiting patiently for DS colours that I want to come Stateside. Come on, Pure White! Meanwhile, if someone wants to donate a DS and Mario Kart DS to me for my mental and emotional well-being, I wouldn't oppose it. I'd still spring for a better colour later on, though, because I am that picky.

The Family Media Guide has released a list of games that parents should not buy for their children for Christmas. Parents should take the extra step of consulting the Family Media Guide, because the ESRB ratings, conveniently placed right on the fucking game box, are not sufficient for parents to make an educated choice.

All of the games on the list are rated 'M' for 'Mature' by the ESRB and state that the content is for players aged 17 and older. The ratings on the box also provide a list of reasons why the game was given the rating.

[Via Joystiq]

Nielsen says video gamers are everywhere:

"Games are a part of a broader number of people's leisure time, as evidenced by the findings in our study," said Nielsen's Michael Dowling. "Playing video games, once considered the domain of teen boys, has evolved into a medium that is now capable of reaching expanding demographics of gamers, including females, Hispanics and older players. As games continue to increase its share of entertainment leisure time, it's quite possible playing video games will assume a significant role as a common cultural experience, in the way that movies and television do today."

Notice how he says that games are "once the domain of teen boys".

A "common cultural experience". I like that. It's true (to gamers) and it will eventually be true for the rest of the population.

[Via Game Politics]

According to Play Magazine, Guild Wars will see introduction of a new Profession with the expansion, due out next year. Those who love stealthy, sneaky types, rejoice, for the Assassin is on her way!

From The Guild Hall:

Gaile Gray (Guild Wars Community Relations), commenting on the picture in the article and confirming the new Assassin Profession:

Yep, that's our girl.

Play Magazine is a great publication. We love the coverage that they've given Guild Wars. They loved the game so much, early on, that they expanded and extended one of their previews over two issues.

We were happy to have them premiere the concept art (which I happen to think is absolutely lovely) and the lore and other info present in this issue. I don't have a copy in my mitts yet, but I'm eager to see it!

Alex Weekes (Guild Wars Community Relations), reconfirming the information:

Actually, it's from a well-respected source (Play Magazine) and has already been confirmed as legitimate by Gaile (and now by me). The source is not an adult publication, it's a gaming publication... and as Gaile has already noted, Play Magazine have previously provided some excellent Guild Wars features.

Nothing dubious about it at all, the Assassin will be available to players when the game releases in the First Half 2006.

From Play Magazine:

Introducing Nika, your world-exclusive first look at Guild Wars' next major character profession: the Assassin. With Guild Wars surging past one million registered users in later '05, NCsoft and ArenaNet have a certified smash online hit. Set to debut in the game's massive 2006 expansion, the Assassin profession will add thrilling stealth and combat techniques to Guild Wars' dynamic online gameplay.

Brilliant! I'm quite looking forward to this, because of my predilection towards such character classes (at least in D&D). I tend not to go for straightforward melee types. Right now, my main character is a Necromancer Primary, and I love her to bits, however the other Professions are not as interesting to me (except, perhaps the Ranger). I'm looking forward adding the Assassin to my character roster. I would imagine that everyone will try out the Profession, so it will be overpopulated for a while. Perhaps Monks and Warriors will see high demand when the next chapter is released (not that Monks aren't already in high demand).

Check out the link above to see official lore on the Assassin for the next chapter. It mentions one Skill, 'Shadow Step', and a hint that Assassins will be able to dual-wield weapons.

There seems to be a lot of doubt amongst the fans, just from reading a couple of forum threads. There are no press releases on the official Guild Wars website, probably because they want to whet our appetites, but I have to ask: Are our chains being yanked?

[Via MMORPGDot]

If you have not been reading Old Grandma Hardcore, you should correct that grievous error immediately. I started reading this blog, written by her grandson Timothy, round about July or so. One does not hear much about older gamers, so her blog is always an entertaining and refreshing read. Grandma is very passionate about video games, and it's awesome that she hasn't 'outgrown' them. My parents sometimes ask me when I'm going to give up playing video games and watching cartoons (anime). They have the classic mindset that those hobbies are for children and adolescents, and yet the statistics clearly contradict this view.

Grandma's popularity on the interweb grew as word spread rapidly about her passion for gaming. She doesn't hold back on the expletives, just like a lot of gamers. In short, she keeps it real and speaks her mind. The gaming media and blogs were quick to find out about this uniquie lady after her readers kept talking about her and linking to her. Eventually, the mainstream media caught on. She has done interviews for major news outlets.

Most recently, she has realised her dream of becoming a video game reviewer. MTV. Fuck yes. I am so happy for her, because this means that MTV is a lot less shite than before. I don't have cable, but I do remember when MTV used to be good. I'm not quite sure where video games fit in to the whole "Music Television" thing, however that does not matter, because Old Grandma Hardcore is a games reviewer now. Old Grandma Hardcore is going to have a much bigger audience, and this is a good thing. Not only that, she'll get free games to play, which is also awesome. And and and, she (I know she will) will realise her other dream of going to the mecca of the video game world, E3.

Congratulations, Grandma. You rock.

I have finally replaced my lost mobile, after about a month of being without one. In the end, I didn't get the Nokia 6230i or the 6230. I decided that it would be more prudent to simply replace my Nokia 3120 instead of spending $100+ more on a phone with a camera and MP3 player. I got quite a good deal for a new, unlocked phone on eBay and it included accessories (such as a PC link cable!), so I'm satisfied.

Yesterday's project was to replace my SIM card. The Cingular customer care folk on the service hotline had said that they would charge me some fees to replace the SIM card. The manager at the Cingular store was nice and he simply gave me a new SIM without charging a replacement or installation fee. One of his co-workers asked him about it initially, and he looked at me and said, "No, she's cool, she's been here before. I remember her". Amazing! I can't believe that he remembered me from when I made the change from T-Mobile to Cingular all those months ago.

Prior to my hellish, suburban mall adventure, I spent some time looking for (free) video game music ringtones, and it's harder than one would think. I finally found this site. Most of the songs are from old Nintendo games, though there are one or two themes from more recent games. Irritatingly, I found that my mobile could not play certain ringtones, and the only thing that they have in common (that I can tell) is that the file size is significantly larger than the ringtones my phone could play.

Right now, I have themes from Ninja Gaiden, Contra, the Metroid series (durh!), Zelda: OOT, Double Dragon, Castlevania loaded on my phone. Damn, I'm a nerd. I'll be putting ringtones from Mega Man 2 into the mobile as well.

Does anyone know any other sites where one could acquire video game music ringtones for free? I know that there are loads of video game MIDI sites, but the lengths of the songs are generally too long to use as ringtones. Even the site I linked to above has quite a few ringtones that have not optimised for use on mobiles.

I doubt that I will be able to do NaNoWriMo this year. Some emo shit has gone down recently, and it's dominating my thoughts. I know that novel-writing would be a good distraction, but I'm just not sure that I can focus enough to write. I'll see how I feel next week.

As for games blogging, I'll try, but at the moment I'm not inspired to do anything creative or constructive.

For the longest time, I have been tempted to play an MMORPG like World of Warcraft just to see whether my experiences would differ from what this girl experienced. I play Guild Wars, but this game isn't defined as an MMORPG, because it lacks the "massive" part of the equation -- e.g. you and your group get your own instance of the gameworld, and there is no way that you can meet other players randomly whilst questing.

Despite not having had the special experience of someone disbelieving my very existence, reading that article induces frustration and exasperation at the male online gaming populace, because I know it's all true. The anecdotes in the article are played out every single day. It's difficult to argue rationally against the argument that, if you don't show your picture on the internet, you must not exist. Even if one showed one's picture to prove one's existence, they would simply argue that you stole the picture from someone and that it's not really you. Even using their flawed logic against them, "You don't exist because you're not showing your pic!" probably wouldn't work, since the cacophony of their voices would likely drown out my lone voice of reason.

Playing WOW would be an expensive way to slake my curiosity. Every so often, a couple of people I know will bug me about getting into WoW. This has been going on for months and months. How could I possibly justify spending over $200 a year on a game in which I'd play no more than two hours per day, on most days, if that? Anyway, the article is a good read.

There will be some interruptions to the games blogging here, as I will be participating in NaNoWriMo. I will make time to play games, particularly D&D, since that's on every weekend. However, whether I will have time or inclination to blog about games when I have other things to do, is another story.