If there's one thing that's worse than something freezing...

...it's something freezing and you being unable to figure out why.

Yes, I posted yesterday about my poor, scratched up Animal Crossing: City Folk. But was that really the problem with the disc? I'm not sure anymore. Don't get me wrong, the disc's label has a nasty looking scratch on it, but I'm wondering if it isn't a problem with the disc at all.

I'll admit, I haven't been playing a huge quantity of Wii games lately, so my assumption that Animal Crossing was the only one with issues might have been more of a fluke than anything. I have a feeling hat Animal Crossing loads a lot of data at the same general time when you start up the game. And I have a feeling that therein lies my cause of freezing, coupled with a classic Wii issue...

Overheating. I've always been worried about it. I've never quite been sure whether to lie my Wii horizontally or vertically, and I've always been worried when it gets pretty hot in WiiConnect24 mode. And there lies my problem, I think. I think that it is VERY possible that Animal Crossing: City Folk was instead freezing because of my Wii overheating rather than any disc problems. Let me explain how I hit that conclusion.

The moment it hit me that it might be a Wii issue was when I tried to play Zack and Wiki (great game, btw) right after Animal Crossing freezing. Three times in a row it refused to even start! And that game wasn't scratched in the least! What the heck?!

Anyway, this brought me to the realization that my Wii was probably overheating and causing a sort of chain reaction with Animal Crossing than the disc being broken. This correlated nicely with the fact that my Wii is transported weekly and doesn't start failing to play Animal Crossing until about Wednesday. Thus, the Wii has the time to heat up from WiiConnect24! Bam! There was my problem. So it all comes down to the Wii having an issue. This was pretty much confirmed when I tried Animal Crossing again after unplugging and cooling the Wii to have it work just fine.

The question then becomes whether that's better or not. On one hand I won't need to buy another copy of Animal Crossing, while on the other hand Nintendo's feature continues to mess stuff up. Sigh. Whatever, I guess. At least the situation seems to be cleared up. At least, for now.

Note to self: DON'T LEAVE DISCS IN CONSOLE

Ever since the video game era changed from cartridges to discs (ie when I got my Gamecube) I've always been careful to remove the discs from the console after I was done. This has become a bit of a pet peeve of mine, mostly because I hate having to remove the disc previously used before playing a game. Beyond my laziness/easily annoyed-ness, though, usually leaving discs in a console didn't cause any problems.

Or so I thought.

Okay, so yeah, it usually doesn't to my knowledge. But the occasional error of leaving a disc in has caused an extremely annoying, stressful, and annoying situation that I've been dealing with for a while now: a certain game of mine freezing. Repeatedly. For no discernible in-game reason. Specifically, it's a game I've recently gotten rather into (ie kind of obsessed with), Animal Crossing: City Folk.

Now, City Folk isn't very much of an evolution in the Animal Crossing series. Heck, it's a complete shame that Nintendo didn't do more to evolve the series! It really is! Buuuut... I'm a sucker for Animal Crossing so of course I bought it. And it has been great. Even with the lack of evolution it's still easily the best Animal Crossing title! But this isn't a review. This is a cautionary tale of caution about lazily leaving your discs in. Which, as I've said, usually shouldn't cause any issues.

BUT

It has to me. And it will to you if you're not careful. My Animal Crossing: City Folk disc got scratched up, and there is no doubt in my mind about how: I accidentally left the disc in while transporting my Wii. Think about that and you'll no doubt see the issue: disc is in, Wii bounces around, disc bounces around inside Wii, disc hits things and gets scratched. The moral? Don't leave your disc in while moving a console! Heck, don't leave 'em in at all in case the console gets bumped or something! Why am I writing about this? Because Animal Crossing has been absolutely infuriating about it! It's one thing to freeze, but another thing entirely to work perfectly for several days after having been "fixed" (in this case, resurfaced) only to freeze again. It is so. Unbelievably. Frustrating.

...I just want my game back, that's all... *sniff*

I WOKE UP EARLY TO SEE NINTENDO AT E3...

...IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT.

Okay, so they only actually announced three games I'm super excited for, but the last was just about the epicest thing ever. Yes, epicest. I'll discuss my opinions about the three...

First up is New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Well, it was a sweet thing to kick off the conference with, that's for sure. It's basically a 2D sidescroller for the Wii that looks a lot like its DS predecessor but adds the awesomeness of 4-player co-op/versus in the vein of Zelda's Four Swords games. It also showed a new item, the Propeller Suit which lets you fly up by shaking the Wiimote. It just screams potential if you ask me, and it will be GREAT if they add a bunch of characters (the trailer showed Mario, Luigi, and two colors of Toad), a bunch of returning items as well as some new ones (I want to see some suits from Super Mario Bros. 3), and make it differentiate itself from the DS's version.

Next is something of a surprise: another Mario title for Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 2. Hax, right? This one will likely be an awesome game just like Super Mario Galaxy 1, but I'm afraid it will feel too much like a rehash. But it has Yoshi! YOSHI FOR THE WIIIIN!

And finally, the HUGE surprise of epic proportions... Metroid: Other M. A new Metroid for the Wii that screams epic. It looks like it will be an early title in the timeline, as Adam from Metroid Fusion shows up in an alive form. It is also going to be a more "mature" approach to the series, and as long as it doesn't just randomly throw curse words and blood in there I'm totally game. Oh, and it looks like it transitions between third person sidescrolling, third person free-roam, and first person free-roam. EPIC.

No Zelda, though. But that's okay. I just really wanted to see Pikmin 3... Metroid makes up for it, though.

OMGGGGGGGG It's GSDS!

Finally.

Well, it certainly took them long enough, but Pokemon Gold's and Silver's imminent remakes have finally been officially confirmed! They are called Pokemon HeartGold and Pokemon SoulSilver. Not bad, but I personally think they should have flipped them for GoldHeart and SilverSoul or kept the DawnGold and DuskSilver ideas, but whatever. I can't complain! At all! I'm psyched!

Well they just got announced in Japan, though, so we won't see them translated for a while. Since they're supposed to come out in Japan this fall, I'd wager that they show up in the U.S. 3rd or 4th quarter 2010. Just a guess.

I think the big question on everyone's minds is what they'll add to the remakes. I mean, FireRed and LeafGreen, while still definitely remakes, added the Sevii Islands to the mix (along with all the newer gameplay mechanics, of course) and even officially introduced Deoxys! Maybe Hg and Ss (as I will refer to them now in the same style as "Fr and Lg") will add some new Pokemon Formes? Maybe to correspond with the Arceus movie? Maybe. I'll go ahead and list some more stuff I'd like to see:

-Leaf added into the official plot - In the original G and S (and C), the protagonist (Red) and rival (Blue) from the original Red and Blue show up as a final battle in Mt. Silver and a replacement Gym Leader, respectively. Now that Fr and Lg have introduced a new female protagonist (or "Leaf"), I hope to see Hg and Ss put her somewhere in the story as well. In other news, we'll have Blue's name reconfirmed, so I can't wait (there's been controversey since he was called Green in Japan based off of Pokemon Green and since LeafGreen was called the same thing in all the world...)

-Maybe another region? - Now, G/S/C already have you traveling to Kanto after you beat the Elite Four the first time, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see some bonus area added to their DS counterparts, much like with Fr and Lg. Maybe it could be one of the more recent regions re-added? Maybe Hoenn? Eh, probably not, but it's possible...

-Better Underground - Sinnoh introduced the Underground, so why not optimize it to the extreme? It could be Wi-Fi compatible, even! That'd be great.

...Wow, I expected that to end up longer. Oooooh well. I just want to hear them remix the Champion theme to epic DS proportions... I love that theme...

Failtastic Localization FTL

You know Stafy? The little starfish who was Japan-only? Well, if you don't know, he had a series of platforming games (five, I believe) and was quite the popular little bugger. He appeared in cameos in a Wario Land game, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Super Princess Peach (as a special enemy that was super-rare, no less), and most recently as an Assist Trophy in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Well, I've never played any of his games before, but for a while now I've been really wanting him to show as playable in the Smash Bros. series to up his chances of being brought out of Japan. Well, he has been brought out of Japan, and now I'm going tor ant about it. Why? Because of weird localization changes that FAIL.

Okay, so the series was recently confirmed to be coming to America. YAY! Right? Well, yeah. Buuuut... they really screwed up on the pointless re-translations. The title changed from The Legend of Stafy to The Legendary Starfy... not bad at all until you realize that they changed his name. Which wouldn't even be that terrible, but his name had already been officially translated as "Stafy"! And they change it! But that wasn't terrible either, certainly nothing to rant online about. Then I got my Nintendo Power...

Okay, so Stafy (or Starfy, as I guess it is now) has a sister. Who basically looks just like him except pink and with a bow. Her name was Stapy, which I can only assume wan't pronounced like "staple." But yeah, that was official too (she had a trophy in Brawl). But with Stafy being changed to Starfy, we'd probably end up with Stapy being changed to Starpy, too, right? Nothign too bad, right? WRONG. Instead, they changge it further. Her name is now Starly. Ess-tee-ae-arr-ell-why. And "Why?" indeed. They fail so bad at localization that now Starfy's sister is a freaking POKEMON. STUPID. STUPIDSTUPIDSTUPID.

...okay, optimism... at least its not 4Kids... then it'd probably be called "Starfy the Starfish and HAPPY FRIENDS" or something. I hate 4Kids... and I can safely add whoever the heck decided to rename Stafy's sister to the list or people who PHAIL at localization.

On the plus side, I CAN'T WAIT for Punch-Out!! Wii and Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth. Though Why it's not Miles Edgeworth: Ace Attorney Investigations is beyond me. But that's certainly not a big issue or anything, and the former does sound a little better. Eh, they should've just called it Miles Edgewroth: Perfect Prosecutor and been done with it.

Jameson's Five Rules of Sonic Musical Quality

DISCLAIMER: These rules are not meant to be literally factual and are merely my opinions stated in a factual manner to perhaps be moderately amusing. Thank you.

I have noticed that one of the things that Sonic games usually to pretty well with is their music quality. And thus, I have put up a list of things to test a song or Sonic game soundtrack with to see if it sucks or not. If you happen to find any exceptions to this list, please inform me and I will add it to the list or shoot it down. One last thing: the list goes in order of priority, so if your song is already awesome by rule #1, it can't be shot down by rule #3. Get it? I'll put examples at the end.

RULE #1: If a song is by Bentley Jones then it is automatically awesome.

RULE #2: If a song is by Crush 40 then it is automatically awesome.

RULE #3: If a song is a love/romantic/*ahem* "special friend" song, then it automatically sucks. The exceptions to this rule are the love songs in a few games that are more peppy and happy than really "romantic", such as the ones in Sonic R and "Follow Me" from Sonic Heroes.

RULE #4: Any Sonic game developed by Sega or Sonic Team will have at least a decent soundtrack. No guarantees for other companies.

RULE #5: It is difficult, but possible, to make an already good Sonic song worse in a remix. While I can't think of any instances of a remix being worse, I will leave this one open juuuuuust in case.

And there you have it! Okay, now examples:
"Dreams of an Absolution" (SONIC the Hedgehog (2006)) could fall under Rule #3, but is saved by Rule #1 and thus is awesome.
"Dear My Friend" (Sonic Unleashed) fails and sucks due to Rule #3.
The soundtrack for Sonic Chronicles has no guarantee for quality due to Rule #4. Sure enough, it had probably the worst soundtrack of any Sonic game ever.

Thinking Outside the Box of Failure

Y'know, I can come to terms with my weaknesses. And one such weakness is my general inability to think outside the box. It tends to hang me up in certain video game puzzles, I'll tell you. XD

A great example is in The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the Nintendo DS. Well, in PH there's a part where you need to get a stamp from a map on the wall onto the map you have to mark the next place to go. Well, when you examine the map on the wall, you get your map on the DS' bottom screen and the wall's map on the top, upside down. Perhaps the solution seems obvious to you, but I spent ages tapping and sliding on the touch screen, trying to get something to happen. I actually got the solution accidentally... my DS' battery was getting low and I, since I was in the car at the time and had no interest in saving and having to start over the dungeon, closed my DS to save power. When I opened, wow, what do you know, that was the puzzle. I had to close my DS to line up the screens and transfer the stamp... wow.

I guess that's excusable. Buuut you know there's a problem when you can't figure out in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption that you need to actually examine and press a button instead of scanning it as is a Metroid Prime staple... jeez. I guess I had the excuse that it was a demo in a public place. I guess.

At least I can hope that I'm learning from the Ace Attorney series, what with having to think outside the boxes on plenty of cases. At least I can hope.