FYI

Hey everyone:

in case you're wondering what I've been up to, I'll have a new blog up soon. It'll be more focused on artwork and I'll show off things I've been working on and talk about different things that inspire me and whatnot. 

As for this blog, i probably will not be updating it. I'll still talk about video games occasionally on my new blog, but there are plenty of sites around for news, great reviews, and insight. For now, I've said the things I want to say and I'd rather not regurgitate what other sites are saying. For Nintendo stuff, be sure to check out my links in the panel on the right. 

Stay tuned! Thanks everybody!

Jesse

Barina's Got a Blog

Barina Boxkid

My best bud just started his blog, def check out.

Hey everyone, just wanted to give some props to muh bud Barina, who I've spoken of several times on da hallowed halls of dese pages. Barina just started a blog at boxlande.blogspot.com , so please check it out. Have some laughs, have fun, and be good. He's irreverent but it's top notch stuff. Check in with him and leave him nice comments as he builds up a backlog of postings. 

For those that don't know him, I won't say much except to say that Barina is my best friend and he lives across the street from me. We have somewhat similar senses of humor and share a couple interests. 

What's your take?

Wut da freak!?

Time Readers Vote Zelda Creator Most Influential of '08

Shigeru Miyamoto wins the popular vote in a landslide. Stephen Colbert gets third place, too!

Source: "Time Magazine Readers Vote Miyamoto Most Influential", Spong

 Time readers voted Shigeru Miyamoto, famed Nintendo designer, as the most influential person of 2008. It's honestly a little ridiculous, but I imagine it can be traced back to the popularity of Wii Sports and the Wii itself. Check out the results at Time's website here.

To Samm: I haven't played Mario Kart Wii yet, but reviews have been really positive. It's supposed to be really good and a lot of fun. Check it out and let me know what you think because I'll probably end up getting it!

Who do you think was the most influential person this past year, for better or worse?

Nintendo's President Speaks

Satoru Iwata Addresses Concerns Over Attach Rate

Nintendo claims Wii attach rate is good, better than DS, contrary to what some publishers and journalists are saying.

I saw this article, Iwata: Concerns Over Third Party Sales Don't Reflect The Fact, on Nintendo World Report yesterday. It was a really long analysis of some fiscal briefing Satoru Iwata gave about Wii's third party sales. Frankly, I didn't care enough to read it because it had all these great slides and graphs to illustrate it! 

Here's one of them:

This graph shows that while Nintendo sells many games on the Wii, they're not selling as much, at least in the latter half of '07, as third party games. Yeah, so? I still see one company comprising two fifths of the consoles software sales! Which means that even if the attach rate is somewhat higher than people are led to believe, it's still mostly Nintendo games. Nintendo is one company here, and all third party publishers are lumped together for this graph. 

This isn't all Nintendo's fault, except for the fact they make awesome games and you'd be an idiot not to buy them (if you like games and have a Wii). Third parties DO need to realize that Wii owners will buy their games, they just need to put more development resources into their Wii offerings. Third party Wii games suck (for the most part), and if third parties put half as much effort into their games as Nintendo does, maybe they could comprise a significant chunk of Wii software sales too.

Wouldn't you buy a good game, whether or not Nintendo made it?

A Great Influence

Nintendo Games Don't Just Provide Me With Simple Fun

As my favorite games excite my imagination, they've had a big impact on my art style.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is far and away my all time favorite game; nothing has shaped my character, personality, and,above all, my imagination so much as this one game. When I was in fifth grade, this one legend in entertainment obsessed me and gave me my love of games. But when I turned off the TV and went upstairs to get in bed, I pulled out my strategy guides and the instruction manual. And before I went to sleep, I pulled out my sketchbook.

 An old drawing from my late elementary school days.

When I was younger, I used to whip out my sketchbook every night before I went to sleep. Everything that made up my daydreams in school or made me restless during the day escaped onto the paper. The things that would inspire me the most could come from anywhere, but one thing that dominated my mind most often (as they do to this day) were the games I played. But Ocarina of Time was very special, so today I was happy to come across a neat interview with the game's lead illustrator: Yusuke Nakano. This is an old interview, mind you, and I found it here. It's taken from some issue of Nintendo Power a little before the release of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

This interview is great, for me at least, because Nakano discusses his time illustrating Ocarina in detail:

"When I first heard about the Ocarina of Time project, and the need to create a new Link, I knew it was the job for me. I put my name out there for the project by creating some sample illustrations of my ideas. Fortunately,Yoshiaki Koizumi, one of the game's directors, liked the drawings, so I was put in charge of the illustrations. I loved the project and drew constantly; it was almost like I was giving vent to all of my passions through those drawings."

"And I'll tell you one thing: drawing bad guys is worthwhile work. It felt great to draw characters like Ganondorf, exaggerating his fearsome, powerful presence." 

"But my favorite Ocarina illustration was of Impa, Zelda's royal protector: It was extremely rare that Nintendo had such a muscular woman in one of its games."

Since I don't read graphic novels or comic books much, most of my influence these days comes from artwork like this, and you can still see Nakano's influence in my drawings. Take, for instance, his illustrations of Link for Twilight Princess. You all saw the Shakespeare book covers I did, so compare the illustration I did of William Shakespeare and my Macbeth illustration with the lines in Nakano's Twilight Princess artwork:

Please bear in mind that I didn't look at these pictures while I was doing my illustrations! Certainly these images are already registered in my mind and create an influential framework within which I do any of my drawings. Truly, the similarities are almost a little embarassing to me; I thought I was more original! But honestly, I'm glad when I see my skills and style improve and adapt to the things I like. 

Years ago when I originally planned to go to art school, I used to spend a lot of time studying Michelangelo and Da Vinci's sketches. My style has been influenced tremendously by those two. Especially my prominent hatching technique.

How many of you enjoy drawing? Who or what would you say influences you?

It's All A Journey

Setting Sail for Philly (I hope)

Two and a half years after refusing to ever consider going to art school,  I'm hoping everything works out so that, in a few months time, that's where I'll be.

WARNING: THIS IS A RAMBLING EXPOSITORY POST. READ ONLY IF YOU'RE TRULY INTERESTED IN KNOWING ABOUT ME.

I've been drawing almost my entire life– from the time a college student showed me how to draw humans that weren't stick figures when I was in K-5 I've loved it. Even when I was young I could satisfy my imagination by drawing things out on paper. Many people never draw because they aren't satisfied with what they produce, but I've always been mostly happy with the lines I put down and it's always felt natural to me. 

Recently I decided I want to transfer to Tyler School of Art (Temple University's college of art) in Philadelphia. College has been an emotionally difficult thing for me from the beginning:

When I was in twelfth grade, I was at a portfolio review at Tyler when I decided, right there, that I did NOT want to study art. I did not want to spend my life competing for jobs with other artists and I did not want my profession to suck away my love of art. Art wears me out when I try at it, just like everything else. I was very nerve-wreaked by the whole college admission process to begin with, in addition to my senior year being a nightmare (academically speaking), and countless other things weighed on my mind as well. I just couldn't take it.

I started college as a freshman at Eastern University. I was an undeclared major, one of 24 students in their honors college freshman "cohort". For a variety of reasons, one of them being my still lingering, festering anxiety about college from before, I withdrew from Eastern within a month of arriving. Since then I've debated how much of a mistake that was. I was depressed, anxious, even anorexic. I came home and spent the semester working at Kohl's in Lebanon. That was the worst two months of my entire life.

Last spring I started at LVC. It was a great school close to home where I was given a great scholarship. I decided to attend LVC while I picked up the pieces of my academic career and decided what I wanted to do with my life. 

I love LVC, but I don't like being a commuter. I'm not the most extroverted person in the world (and I can't drive), so it's very difficult to forge any meaningful new friendships here though I have made a few. I also just don't like living at home. I come from a family with two siblings, and it's very strange for me not to have them around in a familiar place: our home (one's in college, the other just graduated). I feel stuck when I'm at home, like my wheels are spinning in place: it's hard motivating myself to do something about my life when I'm stuck in a place I associate with my childhood. And God I want to be a child forever. 

It's also hard to be motivated when I just don't care. Art may wear me out, but so does everything else. Everything else wears me out AND bores me. I've always been good at drawing, it satisfies me and other people appreciate it as well. College has been difficult, especially gen-ed classes, for this one reason: my heart just isn't in it –math, science, whatever- it just isn't me. That's why I'm an English major: it's the closest thing I have here to art that isn't actually "art". Writing papers is compelling enough for me to actually do, unlike regular homework papers in other classes, because I feel like I'm creating something. But it's not enough, and it's not what I want to do with my life.

I'm glad Bob had us make these blogs. It's fun to be able to create something personal and useful. It feels good when I click "view blog" and see how my efforts are realized. I love playing around with the type and finding good photos, creating my links to wikipedia (I love Wikipedia). These are the sorts of things I actually get excited about in my life and people appreciate them.

 Beyond that, I can be lazy and useless if something doesn't fulfill me. Though I didn't bother applying, I know I wouldn't have gotten the job I had last summer (working for the computer services department at Lebanon High School) because I heard from friends who go to school there that my bosses were upset I spent too long engraving inventory numbers on calculators and computers. You should have seen the way I engraved those four digit numbers! That was artwork; (and sorry I'm a human, get a robot next time you want some drone doing that shit). 

My sister is about to finish her second semester at Moore College of Art & Design in Philly, and seeing her go through the process has made me feel much more confident about it. The whole idea of studying art was daunting to me in the past. I've never felt comfortable being a leader anyway (not to say I can't be one, it's just out of my comfort zone), so I'm following in Sara's footsteps I guess (which isn't how I pictured it two years ago). 

Getting into Tyler shouldn't be difficult for me; I passed the portfolio review years ago, so the hardest part is out of the way. Wish me luck!

This post is getting really long, so I'm going to make another. This is all pretty much background anyway, so if anyone actually takes the time to read it– thank you. And also many thanks to all of you for your nice comments about my book jackets. I loved that project and it really felt good to see how all of you felt about them; it meant the world to me. I have a very loose style of drawing that isn't always conducive to finished pieces, but in that case it worked beautifully. Thank you very much! 

This is a book cover I designed several months ago. It was for a book I gave to my girlfriend, Michelle, which contained all of my letters to her. I publish my books using lulu.com. There are two illustrations on the design made out of construction paper. The first is on the back, and it's a scene from my short time at Eastern University: there's a pond with a stone structure jutting out into it. I used to sit there and read in the evenings. The front illustration is my profile combined with a flower blooming through a pile of rocks. This is taken from the first lines of U2's "Beautiful Day" (the heart is a bloom, shoots up through the stony ground), a song that reminds me of the first time I fell in love with Michelle (it was stuck in my head, and it was ironic because it was actually downpouring at the time). I put black boxes over some of the text on the cover for personal reasons!

IMHO Slow Day; Let's Talk About:

Thursday's Office Episode

Just watched last night's office episode for the second time, and I like it even better. But I need your opinion on something...

I've got nothing on the Wii today. I haven't even played my Wii in a couple days because I've been so into Animal Crossing: Wild World. Honestly, I am so into that game right now! I've had outstanding status in my town for the past three days (that means my town is freeaaking beautiful!!) and I just nailed a classic carpet today thanks to my bud, Barina.  Things have never been better for Gay Nerd in our tidy village of Nor' Tit. 

*If you've never played Animal Crossing, I apologize if you had no clue what that meant. Noelle, since you asked, Animal Crossing is a quirky life simulation game where you play as a human who's set out on their own (just like all of us college kids!... sort of) and move to a small country town full of anthropomorphic talking animals. Those are your neighbors and they say the most hilarious things. You're pretty much free to do whatever you want. Lately I've been gardening and that's why my town is so beautiful. You get rated by the HRA (Happy Room Academy) on how well the interior of your house is set up, so when I say "classic carpet" I mean that I got the flooring that belongs to the "classic" furniture set, which I've been collecting. You can read more about Animal Crossing games here. 

I want to talk about my current favorite show as of the past two years, The Office. I'm sure many of you, like me, watched the new episode the other night. "Night Out", as it's called because Dwight and Michael head out to the big apple to pick up femininas. 

Like the "Dinner Party" episode two weeks ago, The Office has been really painful to watch, much like the original UK series. Watching Jim eff up everyone's night with what he thought was a good plan to prevent them from coming in on Saturday was not pleasant. This was interesting for me just to see the evolving dynamics between Jim, Pam, and the other coworkers. 

The real hilarity for me, and why I love this episode, is Michael's whole "it's not the horniness as much as the loneliness" mantra. Seeing Ryan's new douche character turn out to be on drugs was a great dose of dark humor to compliment Michael's at times ironic behavior: best example of this is the classic ending Michael epiphany scene after Ryan passes out from the drugs and Michael looks at the camera to say "best night ever." Michael goes on to say how this night was so awesome in spite of him not "getting laid" because "it's not the horniness, it's the loneliness" and he's spending the night with "his boys" (Ryan and Dwight both sleeping in the background, after anything but a fun night -except perhaps for Dwight).

I'm wondering how everyone feels about Jim and Pam? I really think they're going to break up eventually. I know there's people who interpreted last week's episode as the pair's definitely going to be engaged, but I couldn't feel more the opposite. Jim said he got the ring one week after they started dating? I'd be amazed if he ever proposes. That relationship's gonna hit the fan eventually. 

What do you all think will happen with Jim and Pam? What would you like to see happen? I've got more questions: What did you think of this episode or any of the post-strike Office episodes? Please discuss!

Taking A Closer Look at Wii Fit

IGN Discusses Wii Fit With Fitness Expert

Esquire Magazine's fitness columnist, James Mitchell, tests out Nintendo's killer app: Does it live up to its name?

Great rundown of Wii Fit over at IGN today– they've brought in fitness guru James Mitchell of Esquire to help turn a better trained critical eye towards the game. You can read the story, Wii Fit: The Professional Opinion, here. 

Overall he seemed to like it a lot, especially the aerobic portions and clever use of the Wii Balance Board. 

"The good thing about the aerobics and balance stuff is that it's fun so just crack on. It's a great way of doing fitness, it's interactive. One of our biggest problems with clients is getting over the fact that training can be boring – some people can't stand gyms, can't stand running. Wii Fit can potentially make fitness feel more accessible to people who don't think it is –a gym is a very intimidating place for a lot of people."

"If someone has a use for it and uses it in a responsible, educated manner, then it's definitely worth it," says James, "after all, it's cheaper than an exercise bike and, frankly, a lot more fun."

It's going to be really crazy when Wii Fit is launched in North America. I can definitely see my mom being interested in it, not to mention millions and millions of other Americans. The fitness obsessed culture here is going to eat this up like noone's business. 

Are you (or do you know anyone) interested in Wii Fit? What sort of splash do you think a Wii game like this will make stateside?

New Installment in Malstrom's "Disruption Chronicles"

Malstrom Delves Deeper into the Blue Ocean of Disruptive Technology

Fascinating series of essays continues with Disruptive Storm

I happened upon Sean Malstrom's site today and found out he added a new piece to his series of articles about the Wii and disruptive technologies. The new essay is called "Disruptive Storm" and it's comprised mostly of quotes from business leaders and market scholars in addition to giving examples of previous disruptions. You can read it here.

These essays are really long, but I can't stress enough how interesting they are –even if it isn't video games you're interested in. If you didn't catch it when I blogged about Malstrom's article, "Birdmen and the Casual Fallacy", these are a series of essays explaining what Nintendo is hoping to accomplish (and, so far, succeeding) with the Wii:

"While the Wii may be inferior in graphics and horsepower, it contains attributes that fringe customers value such as cheaper, smaller, simpler, and frequently more convenient to use. Due to the experience and investment, the developers of disruptive technologies will always take over the older markets."

"Well managed companies fail because the very management practices that have allowed them to become industry leaders also makes it extremely difficult for them to develop the disruptive technologies that ultimately steal away their markets."

This may be of interest to those of you in our mass communications course when we're asked: why are newspapers giving way to the internet, blogging, and beyond? The internet has been a disruptive technology to more than one industry. These articles are great for understanding this concept.

What do you think of disruption theory? Do you think Nintendo's plan with the Wii is working, or is the real revolution a ways off?

Potential in the Press

Gray Lady Discusses Wii's Poor Attach Rate

A New York Times article this morning looks at a problem belied by the Wii's tremendous success, a problem Nintendo fans are already well aware of. 

I named this blog "Wii Potential" because the Wii has a lot of potential, mostly unused. An article in the Times today, "New Wii Games Find a Big (but Stingy) Audience", focused on that untapped resource. It's not often that video games garner a careful observation by the mainstream press, unfortunately.

An important thing in video games is the attach rate of a console, which refers to the amount of games purchased per console. The Times quotes one source saying the Wii's is 3.7, compared to 4.7 for the Xbox 360 and 4.6 for the PS3. This comes off a great month for Nintendo: in March, Nintendo sold 720,000 Wii's in the U.S. alone (a ridiculous amount, easily beating other systems by more than double) in addition to having the bestselling game, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Unfortunately, many retailers are surprised by how quickly sales of smash dropped off:

"Some major retail chains – including Wal-Mart and Toys "R" Us – have already begun bundling the Smash Bros. game with Wii machines for sales online, a sign that the base of hard-core gamers who went looking for the game has been depleted."

It's something I fear all the time: that there are mostly people out there just buying Wii Sports, getting bored with it, and letting their Wii gather dust. Nintendo hopes to expand the casual market, and that's fine, but until they do that they must work harder to attract hardcore gamers to the console. Just this morning an article on Spong, "Epic: Nintendo's Wii Like a Virus", quoted an interview with the head of Epic Games, the makers of Gears of War. Apparently Epic Games has refused to develop for the Wii; here's what he, Mike Capps, said:

"It's a virus where you buy it and you play it with your friends and they're like, 'Oh my God that's so cool, I'm gonna go buy it.' So you stop playing it after two months, but they buy it and they stop playing it after two months but they've showed it to someone else who then go out and buy it and so on. Everyone I know bought one and nobody turns it on. Obviously there's a class of people who really love it and enjoy it and are getting into the games but I'm still waiting for that one game that makes me play it. Who knows, maybe Wii Fit will be it."

I'm not sure if he was being facetious by saying "Wii Fit" or not, because that of course is a game directed at the non-gamer –exactly the people he wishes not to develop for, and the ones he sees not playing the Wii after two months with Wii Sports. The entire interview with Mike Capps can be found here, at IGN's Xbox 360 Channel.

One analyst quoted in the Times Article would agree with Capps; his name is Colin Sebastian, and he had this to say about the Wii's user base:

"My in-laws from Texas have a Wii sitting on their living room floor next to the TV, which to me is kind of amazing. They have Wii Sports, a Brain Age game, Wii Play. That's about it."

Can't say I'm surprised. This is exactly what Nintendo wanted, but it could so easily backfire. And it already backfires for third party publishers who still can't seem to grapple, or are loathe to try like Capps, this new demographic. According to the articles by Sean Malstrom about the disruption theory and Nintendo, Nintendo hopes to raise a new, greater generation out of these non-gamers and casual gamers. If they succeed we'll be in gaming paradise, if not –we'll remember the fad that was the Wii and Wii Sports. 

For the time being I have high hopes for growing the Wii base with Mario Kart Wii, set to be released on the 27th, and Wii Fit. 

How do you feel about the games available on the Wii? If you only play Wii Sports, is there more you'd like to know about what's available for the Wii? Or are there types of games you'd like to see made in the future that aren't available right now?

Animal Crossing Diary

Flower Fest in Animal Crossing Over, My Garden Begins to Bloom

Up until recently, gardening was one aspect of Animal Crossing: Wild World I took zero interest in. Now my special breeds are starting to appear: pink roses, pansies, and cosmos, and I'm sorry I've missed out up to this point. 

My friend Stephen, "Barina Boxkid", tried very hard to breed flowers and beautify his town in Animal Crossing a few months ago in an effort to attain the golden watercan. If you've played Animal Crossing: Wild World, you know what I'm referring to –maybe. Barina would spend hours every day for weeks watering his flowers in the game for this purpose. One time I stole one of his Jacob's Ladders and he freaked out. 

In Animal Crossing I've traditionally enjoyed fishing and bug catching, talking to my neighbors and designing clothing –and that's been about it. But now I've started to enjoy gardening too. Maybe it's because it's Spring, but I really think the concept of it just intimidated me before. 

A week ago the Flower Fest ended in Animal Crossing. It was a week-long event where I compete with my furry neighbors to see who can maintain the best garden in our town, Nor' Tit. Unfortunately I lost to Bill (a duck in my town), but it got me started on growing flowers for once and, for the time being, I'm not looking back.

Now I actually understand how to arrange the flowers in order for them to breed properly, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. 

In the past week, my first un-Nook-purchasable flower breeds have begun to appear -all pink- and it's always a joy to wake up and visit my town to see what new colors have sprung forth.

Have any of you spent time with the flower breeding component to Wild World? What types of flowers have you bred?

Looking Forward to Playing:

Okami (Wii) Meta Wiki

This 2006 Playstation 2 classic has finally been rereleased for the Wii

I remember hearing about Okami two years ago because there were constant comparisons to the Zelda series, not to mention it was winning multiple Game of the Year awards. I've never played it, so I'll be happy when I get the chance to experience it fresh on my Wii in widescreen. 

Okami is an action-adventure game heavily influenced by the Zelda series (as said by its director) about a god named Amaterasu, the sun god in the Shinto religion, who has taken the form of a white wolf. The game, as you can tell, builds a lot on Japanese religion and mythology. The game itself is well known for its outstanding gameplay, storyline, unique graphics and art direction. 

Anyway, if you have a Wii, definitely look into buying this game; it won IGN's GOTY award in 2006, beating out Nintendo's own Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and, from what I've heard, it's aged not at all. 

What do you think of Okami? Do you like action-adventure games like Zelda, or do you find them too time-consuming?

Currently Playing:

Super Paper Mario (Wii) Meta Wiki

Contrary to what I originally thought, this game is pretty fun.

I ordered this game from some dude on eBay back in January and got a really good deal on it. I downloaded the original Paper Mario on the Virtual Console and loved it, so I went to check out this Wii sequel. For some odd reason, I couldn't find this one game in any stores. Good thing though, because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get Super Paper Mario AND Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (GCN) for the price of one game! Pretty sweet. Unfortunately, Super Paper Mario wasn't what I expected.

Super Paper Mario is not a "true" Paper Mario. The Original Paper Mario and its sequel, The Thousand Year Door, are RPG's mainly with some platforming elements. Super Paper Mario is primarily  a sidescrolling game (except when you "flip" dimensions, whereby it switches to a 3D perspective for a short time -though after a while it will affect your health if you do not switch back), unlike the two previous games, and is tilted a heck of a lot more towards being a platformer than an RPG. 

The game feels very old school because of its sidescrolling style, but that's misleading due to its RPG characteristics, namely hit points. In a typical Mario game you get hit by an enemy and you die, but in this game you get a large number of hit points and you can take a couple (a lot) more hits. This makes the game very easy. Emphasis on very. 

This is one of my favorite parts in the game (above).

The difficulty can make it tedious early on, but the game picks up after a few chapters. The game's focus is on puzzles, and the game really shines in that department. One of the main gameplay mechanics is that Mario can "flip", albeit for a short time, to another dimension. That other dimension is the same world, only turned to a different, 3D, perspective -as if from behind mario and looking down his path, down the level. It plays on and makes fun of the concept of the traditional sidescroller, and it's quite clever most of the time.

As in previous Paper Mario games, the writing is top notch and hilarious. Though it's not up to par with Thousand Year Door, the text and characters in the game are very funny and engaging. I put the game away for a while, but I'm giving it another shot and it's a lot of fun. Just don't expect it to be like previous Paper Mario's.

Have you played any Paper Mario games before? Have you played Super Paper Mario? What's your take?