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Tag: Nintendo

  • Week 47.21

    • Went out for coffee and it turned into a night. Ended up with a hangover the next day, a thing which hasn’t happened in a while.
    • Messed up my YouTube feed by watching a couple of new micro-genres: Leica Q2 Monochrom reviews (I won’t buy one, I hope), “Day in the Life” videos of various people in Singapore (enlightening because, well, you just don’t know how others live until you see it), and Chinese street interviews in Tier 2/3 cities designed to teach the language but that are entertaining to me because, well, most of us just don’t know how Chinese people live.
    • Saw No Time To Die, and liked it a lot better than Spectre, although that’s not saying a lot. Like others have already observed, it sends Daniel Craig off while (for the first half) feeling like the first time he’s truly been in a classic Bond outing with glorious globetrotting, stylized set pieces, one-liners, and a new female co-star every 30 minutes. The villain’s entire plot is still nonsense if you think about it afterwards.
    • Got started on Netflix’s live-action Cowboy Bebop series. It’s kinda bad, but works better if you turn on the Japanese soundtrack. The dramatically OTT performances on it better complement the visual and tonal schizophrenia, which attempts exaggerated silliness and deadpan noir almost at the same time.
    • In case you didn’t know, Netflix also has a Japanese audio track for Seinfeld, and it’s surreal to try out. George is played like a timid, wheezing ojisan, and Elaine is a vainsexy mature woman.
    • I also saw the first episode of My Name and it was the rare Korean television show I could watch through without skipping ahead in frustration. It’s not above relying on revenge movie tropes, but moves quickly and the fight choreography is better than Cowboy Bebop’s.
    • Also got back into Animal Crossing New Horizons for the first time in a year — I found a pile of red leaves in my driveway from the last time, and hey it’s fall again now — there’s so much new, while the world feels soothingly familiar. Several friends have said that just hearing the game’s music instantly brings them back into the memory cocoon of playing it in mid-2020 amidst the chaos, and to me it’s an untouchable place we can visit any time. I’m glad so many of us had that one nice thing in common.

    ===

    • Cleaning up some of my old stuff over at my parents’, I found a couple of things worth keeping.
    • One, a pair of Olympus film cameras that I remember fondly. The XA and XA2 were marvels, much better compact point-and-shoots than anything else you’d find on eBay in the 90s and 2000s. It’s years later now, so I can finally confess that I once won first place in a Lomography photo walk contest using the XA2 instead of an LC-A (mine wasn’t working that day); they are distant cousins, I reasoned. They probably need a good cleaning out and restoration before being used again, but will make nice shelf objects in the meantime.
    • Two, souvenirs from the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka that we visited once, a decade ago. Still in the paper bags and plastic sleeves they came in, these pins, stickers, animation flipbooks, and music boxes may now find a place in our home. A drawer in our home, at least.
    • Three, a slim autographed volume of what I suppose you’d call juvenilia by now-published author Alexandra Kleeman, probably from my university days when I read her blog (technicolor.org) in awe and jealousy. I can’t remember how exactly I came into possession of it; perhaps it was offered in an early homerolled Kickstarter project. Googling its title, Matchbox Gods, turned up exactly zero hits, so I pinged her on Twitter with a photo (I live on it and yet the internet still amazes me) and got a response within the day. She said she only knows of one other person who still has a copy, so I’ll just record this info for future rummagers and closet cleaners coming online to find some context. I have nostalgia for how reading strangers’ blogs used to make us feel like we knew them a little through their thoughts, in a way you don’t get from Instagram or Twitter updates. I hope she’s having a great life.
    • Four, a couple of Game Boy Micros including one commemorative edition in Famicom red and gold. I tossed out many compact digital cameras because their batteries don’t work anymore, can’t be replaced, and their bodies weren’t particularly beautiful and worth keeping. The Game Boys still look great, so those can go somewhere.
    • Threw out all my iPods with some regret. Really anything with a battery that’s sealed or discontinued is pretty much useless today without extraordinary effort, unless used as display pieces. And my iPods were scratched up and haven’t held up, quite frankly. The whole white plastic phase of industrial design will not be looked back upon fondly by anyone. They were objects to be used and enjoyed in their time, but not any longer. AirPods aside, it’s nice to see most of our devices today being made with recyclable and longer-wearing materials that should look better a few decades from now.

  • Week 43.21

    • Apple unveiled their long-anticipated MacBook Pro redesign on Tuesday, and for once it wasn’t about thinner and sexier, but thicker and comfier. Pretty sure I saw a joke somewhere along the lines of “who among us isn’t thicker now”. I’m glad to see the reversion to more ports, MagSafe, and an integrated SD card reader, more because it shows the company is still willing to correct mistakes, but don’t actually want or need anything I saw — I’m happy not being a Pro and just puttering around doing casual normie shit on my Air.
    • Some people have waited a long time for the 3rd-generation AirPods, and while I’m a little annoyed the AirPod Pros have now been bested at battery life, not resuming music inappropriately when in a pocket, and charging via MagSafe (unless you buy a pair now and get the updating charging case), I understand they’re on their own development path and will someday get new features. Until then, there are attractive new Beats earbuds coming that look like they’ll fix my continuing fit issues with AirPods.
    • A couple of weeks ago I wrote that Covid cases here went nuclear, reaching up to 2,000/day. Well, in the days since we’ve become numb to numbers of about 3,500/day, and they’re not letting up. The majority of us have been vaccinated, so these cases would mostly be without much consequence (well, who can say? This Swedish report is worrying), but as long as it spreads widely and we have people who won’t get vaccinated, we seem unable to risk opening up further. So the authorities have extended restrictions for another month into November. It’s still dining out and movement for people in groups of two only.
    • I finished Journey Mode in Tetris Effect Connected for Switch, which I wasn’t able to do when I played it on the PS4. Maybe a matter of controllers, or luck. The multiplayer modes are novel, and I love the one where you team up with two other human players online to battle the AI, occasionally joining up your three individual playfields into one super-wide collaborative screen. When you pull off a win, it feels like a moment of miraculous teamwork with strangers; good natured, fun, and communicative.
    • I managed to complete last season’s Battle Pass in Call of Duty: Mobile, but just barely in time. For those who don’t play, that means I spent enough time grinding for in-game currency that I can enter the next season without paying real money. But fatigue is setting in. I don’t think I can do four consecutive tours of duty. Will probably drop out after this new Halloween-themed one is done.
    • Tricky released a new album with some friends under the banner of “Lonely Guest”, which is also the name of the album (Apple Music). It’s very high on my to-do list, but I’ve heard a bit and it doesn’t disappoint.
    • Verve/Impulse Records also released a live performance of A Love Supreme from Seattle, 1965. It’s not really mixed for headphones, sadly, so put this on your HomePod if you’re fortunate enough to have one, as they are STILL NOT AVAILABLE IN SINGAPORE DESPITE THIS WEEK’S ANNOUNCEMENT OF NEW ONES.
    iPhone 13 Pro macro photo from a walk this week, film look via the Prequel app

  • Week 42.21

    • As a careful handler and frequent upgrader of iPhones — I joke that it’s one of my few excesses, and if I get hit by a bus, I don’t want one of my regrets to be that I’d spent the last 11 months tolerating the old model — buying AppleCare+ has been a waste of money. I pay for two years, only use one, and don’t actually use it because I never put a scratch on it.
    • This year, I discovered thanks to my friend and colleague Henry that Singapore has also implemented the ability for you to cancel your AppleCare+ plan at any time and get a pro-rated refund. In other words, pay only for what you need. This change happened a year or so ago in the US, but I assumed it wasn’t ever coming here (like the HomePods). So I was able to end my iPhone 12 Pro’s coverage with just a phone call.
    • Afterwards, I managed to sell my iPhone without having to deal with hagglers and trolls on Carousell (local eBay equivalent), or going around to used mobile phone stores and negotiating with them. Reebelo.com literally brings those merchants to you. You specify the condition of your phone/tablet, and get an instant quote from one of them. Set a date and time, and someone will come to your doorstep with cash (there’s still a bit of haggling as they will invariably find a scratch you never noticed before).
    • Last week I mentioned succumbing to a new “Nintendo Switch (OLED model)”, which, hand on heart, is its official name, which should tell you something about the migration process to expect. It is NOT an elegant or lovable user experience. There will be no plug-and-play on Christmas morning with Nintendo at the helm; I spent over an hour individually transferring each user profile over wirelessly (although they were already on the removable SD card), and then redownloading all the games over the internet (already on said SD card), and then manually downloading a separate app onto both systems just to transfer Animal Crossing’s saved data over (yup, SD card) because it’s just a special game don’t you know. Obviously I’ll draw a link to restoring a new iPhone from iCloud (the Switch actually has cloud backups of all save games!) and how comparatively easy that is.
    • The OLED screen is unbelievably, eye-searingly vibrant, and while it’s definitely an improvement over the muddiness of the original Switch’s screens, it will take some getting used to. It’s made by Samsung, and maybe having that knowledge is making my brain go “yes, the saturation does sort of remind me of using a Galaxy phone”.
    • I’ve been playing Tetris Effect: Connected, a game I already bought once for the PS4, but Tetris has such history as a handheld game (especially on Nintendo platforms), so it had to be done.
    • Despite all the wallet emptying or maybe because of it, I’ve really appreciated being funemployed this week.

    • TV-wise, we binged the new season of Love On The Spectrum on Netflix, a reality dating show following people with autism, started on the new season of You, a dark comedy-drama following a romantic serial killer, and continued watching Seinfeld, a period sitcom following a politically incorrect group of friends through romantic misadventures.
    • I’ve been slowly taking in Godzilla Singular Point, an anime series on Netflix that seems to be slowly making its way (reluctantly?) to a story that must have Godzilla in it at some point, driven by an interesting cast of human characters and one adorable AI assistant in cartoon dog form.
    • The new Super Deluxe remastered edition of The Beatles’ Let It Be is finally out, and it sounds pristine as one might expect. I don’t know what Beatles fanatics think of this album — do they think it’s patchy? Aren’t they all in some way? — but it might be one of my favorites.

  • Week 41.21

    • As sabbatical weeks go, this one was more social than most. I saw my parents for a bit, met long-time blog mentionee Cien for coffee and a photo walk, and had a marathon-length FaceTime catchup with my friend Tōbi who’s been back in Germany and out of touch since before the pandemic.
    • Starting a podcast may have come up, an idea I’m not mad about, because who needs more audio content clogging up the internet (said as someone who almost never makes time for podcasts)? Still, there might be value in pursuing things that never will see the light of day, if only for the process itself.
    • Last month at the 9.9 sale on Lazada and other local e-commerce platforms, I successfully avoided pre-ordering an OLED Switch. This month on 10.10, I succumbed and picked up a white one. I’m looking forward to using my Switch undocked, which I almost never do these days because of the awful screen quality. In reality I know this will only be an hour or two a month, at best.
    • I really shouldn’t have, though, because I also fell victim to a sort of phishing scam this week and lost some money. It got me really down for a couple of days, beyond what the money called for, because I just blamed myself for being so stupid. The cure was just spending more money, in the end.
    • We’ve been watching Seinfeld which is now on Netflix, sequentially and from the top. It holds up amazingly well, picture quality aside. Yeah some jokes and topics probably wouldn’t fly today on primetime TV, if such a thing even exists. But it’s a cozy show, with a great cast of characters, and perfect for evening just-one-more viewing.
    • We also binged a French mystery drama called Gone For Good in an entire afternoon. It’s based on a novel of the same name by one Harlan Coben who seems to have bulk-sold his oeuvre to Netflix-owned studios in various countries; there are Harlan Coben shows from Spain, France, the UK, and the US if you go looking. It starts off well enough, with lots of puzzles and twists, but the resolution eventually relies on massive coincidences and unwinding all the complexity to reveal not quite enough in the middle. I suspect all of them might be like that, so I won’t see another unless told otherwise.

  • Week 31.21: Calling… you hear the calling

    Let’s start with games; skip this if hating on games is part of your identity. I spent way too much time on Call of Duty Mobile this week. It’s the mobile game addiction I’ve always been searching for, but not the one I expected: all stupid guns and camo instead of illustrated gacha. The new season has started and I’ve already cleared half through the Battle Pass objectives which are meant to last all month.

    A couple of weeks from now, there’s gonna be some sort of new undead/zombie survival game mode that I’m looking forward to. Call me old and an MMO noob, but games with timed events and “seasons” are fascinating. I’m used to being able to play any level or mode you want once you’ve bought it or it’s been released. But here, in Fortnite, and I’m sure many others, the principles of live broadcast TV have been co-opted to create time-limited community experiences. Is this how the metaverse works? 🤪 I’m into it though (while acknowledging Episodic Everything calls for a huge time commitment).

    I don’t know who this might help, but do not go into Nintendo’s Famicom Detective Club games with high expectations. I got Game #1 of 2, The Missing Heir, and was thoroughly disappointed. Specifically, I wrote down “what a crock of shit” in my notes. I ended up finishing it with the help of a walkthrough just to have it over with.

    These are game designs from the late 80s, remade with all new graphics (honestly good), but the core gameplay and writing survived for this first-ever release outside of Japan. For historical reasons, I can see why they did it. But nobody really needs to click through obtuse dialogue and travel-to-location menus over and over until some new option gets unlocked, not in 2021. I would have preferred if they went for a linear visual novel with less interactivity. As things stand, it was a dated, painful experience and I’m glad I didn’t buy the two-game bundle.

    In anticipation of playing NEO: The World Ends With You which just came out, I started watching the anime adaptation which covers the events of the first game. I wasn’t expecting much because other such series have suffered from cutting the story down too much, or low budgets, or the inability to translate an action-oriented game to a different format.

    Wow, this one seems to be an exception. It’s all here, the stylish character designs, graffiti and hip-hop inspired art direction, and even new mixes from the soundtrack. The battle scenes are actually dynamic, three-dimensional, and inventive. It captures the excitement, look and feel, and atmosphere that the old Nintendo DS game implied and articulates it. If the new game is anything like this, I can’t wait to get started.

    (The post title is a reference to this song from the original game.)

    ===

    Otherwise, lots more Olympics. If I just tune into some live event, that’ll be a couple of hours evaporated in mushy minded sloth. It’s too easy to have it on and kinda pay attention. Michael C. mentioned in his last weeknote that he’s a conscientious objector to the games on account of the public health hazard and incompetence surrounding Tokyo now. I’m not joining in solidarity, but since I’ve started watching them I’ve developed an opposition to certain events because they are just unnecessary suffering, especially in the Japanese summer heat.

    Take weightlifting: why do we need to see men carry the equivalent of 10 fully packed travel suitcases above their heads? Someone lifted 226kg today. His knees were wobbling. I saw several bruised and swollen knees being iced, actually. Their elbows probably pop out all the time. It’ll be wheelchairs and discount vodka for many of them in their later years. Do we need this? Why isn’t Russian roulette at the Olympics then? I’m sure it’d be a hit.

    ===

    Did I do anything productive? Erm… I took some photos (without leaving the house)! We get some nice sunsets in my area, and while this example was far from the best, I decided to get a camera out and play with some RAW processing on my iPad. I got some shots over an hour and a half and made a collage.

    Also got back to some 3D modeling in Dreams, but discovered my brain is currently not wired to do it very efficiently, so I’m in for some painful neural trench digging over the next few weeks.

  • Week 28.21:

    • This week was partially lost to the lasting side effects of my second vaccination. I spent several days feeling ill, fragile, and tired. There was a local case of a teenager who experienced cardiac arrest while exercising a week after his first dose. So when I had to move the couch a little on Wednesday and it caused my heart rate to spike again, I just elected not to exert myself at all afterwards.
    • I didn’t have any coffee for about four days, which might have made the headaches worse. I didn’t have any alcohol for seven. Probably the longest stretch since the pandemic began.
    • Felt like the perfect conditions to finally get started on a visual novel, so I’ve begun Root Film on the Switch. I played the (narratively unrelated) Root Letter years ago on the PS Vita, and it was a shoddy game. This one’s much better. It’s got great atmosphere and vibrant, lovely artwork, with almost all dialogue fully voiced.
    • Nintendo also announced a new Switch model that appears to address my main gripes with the original: the awful, dim screen and poor battery life. The latter was already “fixed” with the silent gen 2 upgrade over a year back, but now we’re talking OLED. I may be tempted when it finally gets here, provided the markup isn’t extreme.
    • We were meant to visit Gardens by the Bay for a walk and to see the Chihuly exhibition, but since I wasn’t feeling up to it, we settled for the new Fast and Furious movie instead; our first time in a cinema since you know when. Hey what do Apple and F9: The Fast Saga have in common? Most of the people we used to like are gone, a successful formula is followed all the way to the bank, and they’re just obsessed with magnets.
    • I’ve been coming up with lame standup routines in the shower. What do you call sexist jokes? Classical humor.
    • During the movie, the sole of my barely worn New Balance sneaker damn near came off. I had to hobble home to avoid it falling apart in public. I don’t get why shoes do that when you wear them a few times and then leave them in the cupboard for a couple of years. The glue disintegrates? Does that happen if they’re unsold in a store too? Anyway, managed to find a new pair of Nikes in my size on their official Lazada store, which used to be almost impossible. Feeling good about my future shoe needs.
    • Pushing our luck even further with the going out, we had dinner at an izakaya over the weekend which, as many others have noted, feels really weird now with the ruling that no music should be played in restaurants (to keep people from speaking loudly). It was… libraryesque. One more reason to choose outdoor seats.

  • Week 20.21

    • Community Covid cases in Singapore continued to rise. We were getting over 20 a day for a bit, which prompted new soft lockdown measures. Although stores can remain open with fewer visitors at a time, dining out is now on hold. Restaurants will have to survive on takeout and deliveries. You can’t be out walking about in groups of three or more. Basically, we’re staying home again for the next month unless absolutely necessary.
    • This coincides with the start of my vacation time, but it’s alright because I wasn’t intending to do much outdoors for the time being anyway. There’s a long list of entertainment options to get through, so I just need to focus on the content and resist the stupid urge to buy a PS5 or new TV.
    • Back in the days of the Nintendo DS, I absolutely loved The World Ends With You (TWEWY), a rare action RPG that nailed combat, music, art direction, setting (Shibuya), and story. Just thinking about it invokes the sort of nostalgia normally reserved for long-gone places where I used to hang out. A sequel is coming out this July after 14 years! So I’m now replaying the original on my iPhone and watching the new anime series in anticipation.
    • I’ve mentioned before how open-world games set in real cities have become a proxy for being able to visit them during the pandemic. If I started playing TWEWY in 2007, then it was probably shortly after my first visit to Tokyo. Perhaps this played a part in how much I like being there. Well, I bought Judgment for the PS4 last week, and will be getting on that as soon as I give finishing Yakuza Kiwami another go next week. The Yakuza games are great for this sort of virtual tourism, replete with all the sounds you hear on the street, like the actual Don Quijote jingle for instance.
    • I discovered a new Apple Music feature by accident: since iOS 14.5 you can search/browse by record label. I got really excited about this, because it means you can look up, say, the entire Verve catalog of jazz classics. When I shared this with someone, they didn’t understand why someone would want to do that. Okay then.
    • Reading: still on The Diamond Age, if you can call 10 minutes a week active reading. Just not been in the mood.
    • Netflix: we watched the new Vox Explained series about Money, which is really about Money in America, which is really about how fucked up Money in America is. We all know about student loans (and the high cost of education), credit cards, scams and misleading ads, casinos, and lack of retirement savings, but I couldn’t see the scale at which these problems impact American society. We have them too, but there are thankfully some non-optional systems that help people save and insure themselves.
  • Mobile or Console, the Name of the Game is the Same

    Mobile or Console, the Name of the Game is the Same

    Playing Oceanhorn on the new Apple TV, with a Bluetooth game controller like the SteelSeries Nimbus, feels distinctly like a traditional console gaming experience. It’s been compared to a modern Zelda title, and if you’re in the mood to explore, its large world lends itself to leaning back on the couch for a good hour or more.

    What’s interesting is that you can pick up your iPhone later and continue your savegame synced over iCloud, at which point its modified-for-touch controls and mini quest structure actually turn it into a modern mobile gaming experience.

    What might be undersold by a simple bullet point — “Cloud Saves” — is really significant: one game that can be played in very different contexts, made possible by having the same OS in your pocket and living room (and car, one day). It’s probably the future of gaming.

    Much like how we now commonly design for the web, going mobile-first in gaming makes sense for companies looking to the players to come. That means not making the mobile bit just a simplified companion app with minigames connecting back to the “proper” console version. The level of control complexity and engagement can and should scale to the device, all within the same game.

    Geometry Wars 3

    Many of the guidelines for apps on the new Apple TV force developers to adapt the experience to the available controller. Geometry Wars goes from a dual-analog stick shooter on a regular gamepad to an auto-shooter when on Siri Remote, where the player only has to steer. You get what fits, but never less than the whole story.

    The experience of seamlessly jumping from a phone to a 60” TV reminds me of how it felt to play the first iPhone games. I remember Crash Bandicoot, in particular, as a sign of things to come. You could get games like it on the Nintendo DS, but they weren’t downloaded over Wi-Fi in seconds, for mere dollars, or paid for electronically. It made the portable gaming systems of 2008 feel dated. And as Apple added more power, multitasking, social features, and cloud saves to iOS, the iPhone overtook them completely.

    Games on the new Apple TV have more than a whiff of that to them. Even if the platform doesn’t come to dominate gaming a decade from now, I believe the winner will work and feel like it.

    In a sea of diminished companies out-innovated from changes they didn’t see coming, it’s gratifying to think that Nintendo may have played their cards right with the upcoming NX. It’s rumored to be a home console with a detachable mobile device, playing games that also work with smartphones and networks from its rivals. God knows how they’ll do it, but that describes the right shape to survive: experiences designed to shift context, open to different forms of interaction (hey, even VR), ready to fill varied slices of time, long or short, in a busy user’s day.