December 4, 2006
December 2, 2006
August 30, 2005
If news stories about Korean guys dying after playing computer games are to be taken as the norm, one could assume that Koreans play a lot of video games. While the first part is not the norm (very few guys die due to excessive play), Koreans do enjoy playing a lot of online games. So it should come as no surprise that game companies include things in their games that will appeal to Korean players.
I currently play World of Warcraft, mainly because my brother and sister also play. Anyhow we recently started a guild and as a guild we were able to design a tabbard. While looking through different designs, I came across this one…
Proof Koreans are important clients in the world of online games.
For those of you not in the know, that demonic face is a 도깨비 (tokaebi) which is a Korean goblin of sorts. “But Wyatt that could be any old goblin!” I’m afraid not, the face they selected is one of the most famous depictions of 도깨비 in existance. See, it’s even on Naver!
August 27, 2005
Back when I was in America, my brother got me into the game World of Warcraft. So during the course of my stay I picked up a copy of the game and registered to play.
I returned to Korea a week later, and installed the game on my home computer. The game installed, and works, though due to the fact that my computer is almost 2 years old now, tends to run a little on the slow side.
“No problem,” I think to myself, “when I play at low traffic times the lag isn’t that bad, and if I want to play at high traffic times, I can just head to the local PC 방.”
I’ve seen countless ads for the game on the sides of buses, so I know they had the game here, and if a game exists here they have it at the PC 방. So I headed over to my local PC 방 to test it out today. And to my delight I learned that it doesn’t work.
Since I have an American account, the computer at the PC 방 wouldn’t recognize it. As apparently accounts in America and accounts in Korea are stored in different data bases that have no way of interacting with each other. None of the pasty faced chain smoking PC 방 overseers could get it to work either. So for the time being it looks like I have to deal with lag. That’s what I get for being a geek.
March 18, 2005
I’m not going to lie to you…like most boys my age I was a video game junkie through the 1980s and early 1990s. During this time, I play a lot of games, but hands down my favorite games were the RPGs for Nintendo (Dragon Warrior and the original Final Fantasy). One of the reasons I liked these games was the fact that you could name the characters. Where in Super Mario Bros. you were Mario, and in Zelda you were Link, in the games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior, you could give the characters any persona you wanted. The first time I played these games the characters were named after my friends and I (or the Ninja Turtles), but later on (middle school) the names become insane; either lewd or totally bizarre.
Middle school humor at its finest.
And for this reason my favorite part of teaching is when I get to give English names to new students. The only thing is, none of this kids want really awesome names. They all want to be “Tony” or “Andy” or “Dkembi.” None want truly innovative names like the ones depicted bellow, and this makes me sad.
Why can’t my students pick names like this? A pox upon “John!”
January 21, 2002
Konichi-wa! Wyatt here, checking in once again with my report from the home front. Anyway my winter holiday is coming to a close and I therefore feel as if I should post some sort of an editorial about something. First off in something that has nothing to do with anything, today I visited my friend. She is from Japan and today she showed me how to build sushi. That is a good skill to posses, however mine kept falling apart, since they were not well constructed. Anyway where was I…ah yes! This Friday was a night of quotes to end all quotes. For those of you that missed it here is a brief recap….
First off we were drinking at Pete’s home. We drank some Sam Adams Winter Lager which for some unknown reason messed us up badly (including shane). To sober up we walked to 76 Diner, ah the realm of the gods! Anyway at this diner numberous lines were uttered. First off in the booth next to us some man was argueing with some womens. The man uttered the line to one of the “It’s a long walk back to Troy!” Basically Pete and Cory were both destroyed.
Next we got our check. Cory brought up the money and paid and Pete was to recieve a couple dollars change and announced, “Where are my dollars?” Cory handed him one dollar to which pete responded, “I didn’t say dollar. I said dollars with a z.” The men in the both next to us shot us a look and we knew it was time to go.
As we returned to pete’s domain we walked past a real crappy bar, anyway some girl that baby sat me when i was like 10 was coming out of the bar so I shout “YO KAREN!” and she jumps and says “Who is that?” I respond “Wyatt.” (ah the joy of being the only Wyatt in upstate new york), she responds “OH MY GOD I CANT SEE A KID I USE TO BABY SIT AT THESE BARS….” we walked away discussing how in the morning she would probably be looking in the mirror comptemplating her life.
Well now that that is out of the way let’s do an old school style editorial. You know where I pick some random topic and rant about it for several paragraphs. Tonight’s topic is going to be “Why the original Nintendo was the best system ever.”
Basically if you are between the ages of 16 and 28 you have played the original Nintendo. Unlike today where you have your Gameboxes, and X-Cubes, and Playstations (1 & 2), back when Nintendo hit the scene it was the only game in town (Sega Master System does not count). There fore probably my number one reason for why Nintendo was so great would be since there was only Nintendo there was none of this BS like “I really like but I own an X-Box and therefore would have to buy a Gamecube to play it.” With Nintendo if you went to your buddy’s house and played some sort of game, chances are if you bugged your mother enough you could have it at your home too.
The second reason NES was grand would be the shear number of games for it. This too stems from the lack of competition. But it was great for the kids. Jimmy loves sports games, his brother likes side scroller games. Whelp both would be happy with a NES.
Reason number three as to why it’s the best ever…the numbers of accessories that came with it. First off in the old school you had the best idea (worst actual unit), R.O.B. aka Robotic Opperating Buddy. Basically this little plastic robot was suppose to play NES with you by some sort of spinning of gyroscopes. I knew a kid who owned this and I never saw it come close to working. However robots rule so I gotta give Nintendo points for trying. The NES zapper. Hands down the coolest video game controler firearm (and probably the only one more than 3 people owned). It came in two colors. First the standard NES grey and then an absurd hunter orange color (I had that one). Anyway NES actually made games you needed the gun for so it was pretty chill when you got it. The Power Pad. Basically lets get this kids moving again. The power pad was a pad on the floor that you would run on in order to make a man run in a game. Super Team games was ultimate. Later on all sorts of bizarre accessories appeared such as the Power Glove and U-Force, two control type deals that controlled nothing.
Ah but the true reason as to why the NES was the best ever…the games! Here in no particular order are my top ten games:
1. Dragon Warrior Series - First RPG I played was Dragon Warrior. These games were great nothing like beating on slimes with a club so you can buy a sword.
2. Final Fantasy - The original. Not 7 or 9 or 23 or whatever they are up to now. This game was a game that I woke up early on Saturday to play. I recall getting up at like 6:20 one Saturday and going into the living room to play this game
3. Super Mario Bros. - First game I had. It got much play. This game is basically the video game. I bet your parents even know of Mario Bros.
4. Mike Tyson’s Punch Out - After he did rape, he was dropped from the game and replaced with some white guy. MT’s PO is way better than this other version.
5. The Legend of Zelda - Man this game is still fun to play. Such randomness in it. A candle that creates flames the size of trees, weird piles of shit that eat shields, and Dodongo hates smoke.
6. River City Ransom - I didn’t get this game until I was in high school and they didn’t make NES games anymore. Anyhow my friend and I basically play this game one day for the entire day and beat the game. It was awesome.
7. Mega Man Series - Woodman, Cutman, Gutman, Native Americanman…great enemies from a seemingly endless NES series. I know I had Mega Man 6. (I guess these games are still being made today for other systems. What enemies they got now? College Studentman, Markerman, Re-writable CDman?)
8. Gyromite - If you ever played this game you obviously crushed the old man “accidently.”
9. Metroid - This game was epic except for the fact that it asked for really long ass passwords in order to continue.
10. Castlevania Series - These games were crazy fun. I know no one who has beaten the first Castlevania, however Castlevania 2 everyone and their cousin has beaten. I’m not sure about three. Anyway in Castlevania 2 some man utters the line, “After Castlevania I warned you never to return.”
An honorable mention goes to Bad Dudes for yelling “AHM BATD!” when you clear a level.
Anyhow that does it for me, but I’ll be back at you again baby so hold on cuz its all about releasing some pressure and gettin’ that glove…we outta here baby!
December 19, 2000
Hurrah! School is finnished for semester. I think I repaired my comp so Everquest should work, unfortunately EQ is down so I can’t check. Therefore: small update to alert you about…I removed all the midi files and references to said midi files, because they were not working well. That about does it for now.
