02.13.07
Now, Paranoia Radio!
Have a listen to this commentary piece that I heard on Morning Edition yesterday on the way in to work. I like NPR in general, but to be honest, this one is basically just fishing for some fire. The gist is that a mother is concerned that her kids’ burgeoning addiction to Wii Sports is crippling their sense of self-worth, by convincing them (insidiously!) that playing tennis is just as easy as flailing literally aimlessly. “Kids will never learn what a real level playing field is,” she says.
Sure they will, as soon as they wind up out of high school. In the meantime, it’s your job, lady, to tell them that what they’re doing isn’t necessarily real, and leave the rest of us who can tell fantasy from reality alone. Because if you complain that Wii Sports isn’t real enough, then all video games are going to get more realistic, including the gory horror games and shooters that, in about two years, you’ll be complaining about. Heck, as soon as Manhunt 2 hits the Wii, you’re probably going to buy that thinking “It’s on the Wii, so it must be OK for my kids”.
I thought that NPR catered to the ‘intelligent’ crowd. Maybe they are, and I’m supposed to be as amused by this as I am.
Incidentally, Kid Icarus and Kirby’s Adventure dropped on the VC yesterday. I myself was kind of hoping for a later-gen title or two this week but these are good picks. Ice Climbers rounds out the set, which I don’t see many people buying… Hrm. Kirby, Ice Climbers, and Kid Icarus. Mayhap some news on Super Smash Bros. Brawl is on its way this week? We shall see, won’t we?
Also, though it’s of practically no use to anyone but me, I’ve started tinkering with Greasemonkey a little bit, crafting some custom scripts for those times when I’d really like to mess with how someone else wrote their site. So far… one (plus two admin-related ones that are for my use). But more, eventually.
Ismail Saeed said,
02.13.07 at 10:43 am
I’m not sure I’m up to listening to the piece.
However, don’t worry, it’s one person with one opinion. They’re just worried about their own kids and speaking out loud about it. Most parents extend their thoughts about their kids further than that anyway.
Kid Icarus dropped on the VC? Woop!
Ah, and the title is Ice Climber, unless they retconned it by listing it as “Climbers.”
Hey, how much space does the Wii have on its save memory? Just seeing how much “going to town” on NES games on my nephew’s Wii would be too much.
John said,
02.13.07 at 11:54 am
My best guess is that the Wii’s internal memory is 256 MB, divided into just over 2000 “blocks” (given that my 128 MB SD card has about 950 blocks free). I’ve yet to buy a VC game that’s larger than 40 blocks or so, but that’s not saying much– I’ve not purchased any N64 games. Remarkably, SNES SimCity is 33 blocks while NES Kirby is 27. Either one’s compressed or they’re both pretty similar in size… which would follow, as Kirby was one of the larger NES games near the end of the machine’s lifespan.
Ismail Saeed said,
02.13.07 at 12:15 pm
Kirby’s Adventure is “large”? I finished it in one sitting on emulation when I just went to inspect what the ROM was years ago. It was really fun, I will say, and it’s not the only game I played in my youth which would’ve been a one-sitting game now, but yeah, it doesn’t strike me as particularly large. How large is the filesize of the ROM itself? (Wii VC size can’t be equal comparison due to added encryption)
No, the truth is, although Super NES games tended to larger sizes, they didn’t necessarily have to be all that large to do a lot. At least, speaking in terms of size considerations today. There are NES games and SNES games that were at most 256-512k apart in size.
I did find it funny how long it took to download Super Mario Brothers. 40 k + encryption + attached functionality (instructions I guess?) took a while… :P
Hmm. Kid Icarus. You know, the truth is I have the cartridge and didn’t get around to playing much “yet” (I did intend to play through eventually) so I’m not sure money spent on this would be that wise, but damn… it’s KID ICARUS!