There's finally a fresh new article on The Gameroom Blitz.  I hope it was worth the wait!  I just bought a Nintendo DS to go along with the PSP, so I may wind up reviewing that system as well in the future. 

I've only had the system for a day, so I can't say much about it yet.  I've got the Metroid Prime demo and Yoshi's Touch and Go so far... I don't think much of Metroid Prime: Hunters (no big surprise... I didn't like the GameCube game either), but I'm having lots 'o fun with Yoshi's Touch and Go.  I was a little worried that the game would never evolve past the prototype shown at last year's Electronic Entertainment Expo.  Fortunately, Nintendo saw as much promise in the tech demo as I did and transformed it into a full-fledged DS release... and a rather enjoyable one at that.

What else?  Well, I recently found Def Jam Vendetta and the English version of Keio Yuugekitai ("What are two games you never hear in the same sentence, Alex?").  I've played Def Jam before, but never on the GameCube, which is the version I found at a local pawn shop.  It took a while for me to readjust to the gameplay, but after a few rounds of getting my face punched to custard by living and fictional rappers, I finally got the hang of grappling my foes, and was able to win a few battles myself.  You've  got to love the holds and throws in that game... they're just so brutal!

Then there's Keio Yuugekitai.  One of my readers clued me in on a BitTorrent file that was recently made available on a Saturn fan site.  Even though I already have a copy of the game (heck, I even owned the official release way back in the late 1990's!), I decided to give this a shot, just to see what Keio would be like in English.  Some of the game's intensely Japanese personality is lost due to the dopey new voice overs and poorly chosen fonts, but on the other hand, it is nice to be able to read the captions in the omake section and understand the kooky conversations in the full-motion video scenes.  It makes me wish someone would have given Radiant Silvergun an English dub of its own... sure, there are spoilers on GameFAQs, but I'd much rather watch the characters act out the dialogue, rather than putting down the controller to read lines of text.

While registering my copy of Lumines, I found this incredible deal at the Ubi Soft web site:

Good news, folks.  Now that I've been paid for some of my freelance work, I can afford to have the Internet at home... and not just ANY Internet, either!  I'm surfing in style with a cable modem, a huge improvement over the wimpy dial-up my parents have at their house.  After enjoying cable, then DSL at the computer repair store that was my former place of employment, I can tell you that broadband is the only way to fly.

I also took some of the money I'd earned and invested it in a PSP.  Yeah, I went with the forces of evil this time, but in my defense, I did buy three iterations of the Game Boy Advance, and even woefully undersupported accessories like the e-reader.  I felt like indulging myself with a new game system after receiving my paycheck, but I just couldn't bring myself to buy a Nintendo DS.  It goes well beyond the territory of "decadent purchase", landing deep within that barren land known as "wasted money".  It's not that I don't like the touchscreen... heck, I even found the concept intriguing when it was first introduced by the game.com in 1997!  It's just that I don't feel the games are doing enough with it.  Moreover, the system's not well supported, an issue which will only worsen when Nintendo releases the successor to the Game Boy Advance later this year.

I'm not sure I'd categorize the PSP as a smart purchase either, especially when you consider its steep price.  However, I do feel more confident about the investment... it's a powerful, versatile system, and the option to upload files from outside sources leaves the door to homebrew development wide open.  Although my first game for the system, Wipeout Pure, is both extremely impressive and a lot of fun to play, I'm sure I'll enjoy my system a lot more when I'm running NES and Genesis emulators on it.

One thing's for sure... the PSP raises the bar for portable gaming hardware.  It'll be interesting to see if Nintendo will meet Sony's challenge with a similarly powerful handheld.  They probably could, as the Dreamcast hardware was recently shrunken down into a single chip, and the GameCube has only gotten cheaper and cheaper over the past four years.  If they were to incorporate either of these technologies into a portable without the PSP's extraneous features or its internal disc drive, they could probably get it out the door by the end of the year for $150, or possibly even less.  This would definitely give them an edge in the handheld gaming wars.  Ultimately, though, it's up to Nintendo to decide whether they'll take their Game Boy line to the next level, or expect customers to settle for less than the best.

With the licensed game reviews out of the way, I can take the next step in making Awesome NES a reality.  I've started work on a preliminary page design, which combines the reviews with screenshots, box artwork, a rarity index, and general information about each title.

There are a few snags, however.  Since I misplaced my Office 2000 product ID key (I've got the official discs, honest!), I'm forced to slum with OpenOffice for the moment.  As anyone who's spent time making print publications will tell you, using a word processor to create a desktop publishing document is akin to a rabbi bringing a chainsaw to a bris.  It might get the job done, but the process is messy, and above all else, painful.  I've spent as much time swearing at OpenOffice's many frustrating quirks as I did getting anything productive accomplished.

Fortunately, all those hours of struggling were not in vain... in the end, I did manage to create a working layout for the book.  Although it's a bit rough, this early preview should still give you an idea of how Awesome NES will look when it's finished.

>>>CLICK HERE!<<<

Despite all my complaining, I have to admit that OpenOffice's ability to convert documents into the compact and widely used PDF format really does come in handy.  Anyway, here are some notes about the design...

*  The book will be in full color.  This will not only make it more attractive, but more practical as well... the sections of the book will be arranged in a color spectrum, making it easier to search for games by letter.  Tabs on each page will indicate the letter and number of each page, making the book even more convenient to use.

*  Games are rated in two seperate categories.  The "Q-Dex" (not to be confused with cotton swabs or feminine hygeine products) is a bar on the right hand side of the review box, which rates the game's overall quality.  The Rarity value speaks for itself, rating the game's value as a collectable with a number between zero and nine.

*  A circle on the top right hand corner of each review (not shown in the PDF) lets users know from a glance which peripherals they'll need to play the game.  Generally, this circle will contain an NES joypad, but sometimes, a Zapper or the Power Pad will appear inside it instead.

*  Speech bubbles in the center of each page offer Fast Facts, or additional information, about the games reviewed.  Up to two Fast Facts can appear on a single page... on the pages with only one Fast Fact, amusing artwork of the characters in the reviewed games will appear in the leftover space.

If you've got any comments, suggestions, or advice about the current page layout, now's the time to speak up, while it can still be modified.  After all, bitching after the book is published isn't going to do anybody any good!