Stray Thoughts

I got back from my trip to Portland a few days ago, but my mind's still kind of scrambled from the plane ride, so I'll just spurt out a few random thoughts I had over the past week...

• They really need to make bullet points easier to type out, you know that? Every time I either have to look it up on Wikipedia or use some lame asterisk. I think there's an ASCII code for them but NOT a dedicated key, which is rather frustrating. Anyway...

Let us make a journey to the cave of,
uh, motion sickness.
(image from Flickr)

• While we were getting our bags checked in Phoenix, the Southwest kiosk made a confirmation noise that I swore I'd heard before. After some research, I'm pretty sure they nicked a sound effect from the arcade oldie Bubble Bobble. It's not even the first time I've heard video game sounds in decidedly non-gaming situations. I've heard the Sonic ring pick up noise at a handful of gas station cash registers back in 2011. It's a pleasant sound, sure, but the classic "cha-ching!" seems like a better fit for a transaction.

• Perhaps it's a little late to ask for this now that the Wii U's headed toward retirement with the 3DS hot on its heels, but if Nintendo was going to make game systems with legacy hardware, why didn't they make the most of it? The Wii U just got downloadable Wii games this spring, and I think the only DS game you can download for the 3DS is Four Sword Adventures, which Nintendo gave away a year ago. (Yeah yeah, there's DSiWare too, but bleech.) It's been established that the Wii U can run GameCube games, yet you can't buy any directly from Nintendo. You can't buy standard DS games for the 3DS either, but you can get them for the Wii U, because... uh... to be honest, I can't figure out a reason myself. Congratulations Nintendo, you just broke my brain!

You'd be cranky too if your game was
constantly interrupted by button prompts.
(image from Video Game Wallpapers)

• I don't think I like God of War very much. I bought the HD remakes of Ghost of Sparta and Chains of Olympus for the Playstation 3, and the games are entirely too hung up on quick time events for their own good. Drain a boss's energy, and you have to precisely enter a series of random buttons to finish him off... or he gets some of his health back, forcing you to start from square one. Need to break down a door with a battering ram? Get ready to hammer that O button into powder! Even sex is tied to a quick time event, just in case you thought you'd find some fun there.

• Kingdom Hearts is slowly winning me over. It's gotta be one of the dopiest crossovers ever, but there's fun to be had if you can keep yourself from asking why you're looking for Snow White's seven dwarves or fighting alongside Mickey Mouse. Birth by Sleep in particular looks amazing on the PSP, and offers plenty of customization for your character along with weapons based on various Disney properties. Fortunately, many aren't represented in the game, so you'll never be forced to wield a Snow Dogs keyblade.

• I've been fighting with my LG Tribute for hours, trying to download apps to the SD card instead of the phone's minuscule internal storage. Look people, it ain't 2008 anymore. Four gigs doesn't get you very far, especially when half of that is gobbled up by the operating system by default. Yet I haven't found a way to download software directly to a card, because I guess that would be too convenient. Rooting didn't work and storage switching apps didn't work, so all I can do is download the Android development kit on my computer and tinker with that. And after that? I dunno, I probably WILL need a new phone after that. And a dustpan and broom.