Keepalive: Father's Day

written on Monday, June 22, 2009

No games got played today. I enjoyed Father's Day with the family.

Then I bought the rest of the Republic Commando books.

Then I watched a bunch of The Angry Video Game Nerd, who rants about bad old games. It was sad to hear him rant about Fester's Quest. It was a crappy game. But it was largely the same as the on foot portions of Blaster Master. So admitting it was bad feels like a slight to an old favorite. It's fair, though. The on foot portions of Blaster Master were the weakest part of the game. Will that game ever get a proper sequel / remake?

And somewhere in there I wrote up a post about what I'm looking forward to at PAX and took the first step towards organizing a Sacramento area pre-PAX gathering.

I also tried to look up some reviews for Ghostbusters on the Wii. It's the only version of the game with local co-op. The HD versions have online co-op, but the Wii version lets you co-op through the story, whereas the HD versions have separate co-op modes which don't interest me as much. The PC version has no multiplayer of any kind (but is cheaper). What a mess, eh? Anyway, I've heard that the Wii version, even with its simplified, cartoony graphics, may have frame rate issues and annoying controls. It's definitely a wait and see at this point.

Oh, and I ordered Super Mario Strikers: Charged, the Mario soccer game I enjoyed so much at PAX 2007. I kept waiting for it to have a good sale, then forgot about it completely, but thoughts of PAX brought it to mind again. It's still $50, so I bought a used copy. Way to price fix yourself out of my money, Nintendo. :)

I don't like the idea of a download only future where used copies won't exist anymore. I would never have paid $50 for Strikers. And I wouldn't pirate it, either. In a download only future, I'd have no way to ever play the game.

I'd like to think that eventually consumers will fight for and win the right of resale on downloaded digital goods. I'd like to think that eventually people in Congress will be replaced with younger people who can understand that right of first sale shouldn't have evaporated when distribution changed from discs to downloads. And while I'm at it I'd like a billion dollars and super powers. :P