From the Diary of Jim Squires: The Betrayal, The Apology, The Redemption

Written by Jim Squires

Wednesday, 25 June 2008 05:46

Over the years I've come to learn that I'm a lot of things to a lot of people. Father, husband, victim, defendant, cellmate, etc. Yes sir, Jim Squires is a regular Renaissance Man. Now I can add hypocrite to that list.

A few weeks ago I got up on my soapbox and told you why I wouldn't be buying Metal Gear Solid 4. I was being the pretentious dick who wanted to abandon the possibility of a great game experience just so that I could focus on smaller and independent titles. What I neglected to factor in at that time was that A) I'm a weak, weak man, and B) I can both have my cake and eat it too. You see, there's no reason why I can't balance my time between AAA titles like MGS4 and off-the-radar games.

A few different factors lead to my decision to pick up Metal Gear a scant three days after writing my last post, all of which can be heard in BitCast #47. Why I picked it up isn't really all that relevant. What's relevant is that I caved to peer pressure (thank god -- the game is fucking fantastic) and in turn lied to you all. Whoopsie! So officially my apologies go out to all.

In an effort to cleanse my soul I decided to make a relatively exciting purchase in the world of smaller games. Hopefully it'll help offset my karmic emissions. So what is this mystery purchase I speak of? A DS homebrew card.

There's a thriving community of homebrew developers out there creating amazing original content for the Nintendo DS, but unless you have a programmable card you just can't get on the boat. After reading the excellent DS Fanboy cart comparison, I decided to go with the M3 Real. It's essentially the R4, and it ships with a rumble pak for the same price.

Every now and then the card seems to freeze up, but it's really not too often. I've had the card for a week, been using it about 4 hours a day, and have had games freeze on me twice. All in all a worthwhile purchase. I'd love to tell you where i got it from, but they're shipping was for shit so they're not getting a free plug.

Thus far I've grown an addiction to Still Alive DS, been moderately frustrated by the Amplitude clone AmplituDS, and have been trying to find an easy way to convert video to DPG for use on the DS. Anybody out there have any recommendations on what I should be checking out?

Comments (7) Add Comment

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written by Mookie, June 25, 2008

Hell yeah! Glad you caved. It is indeed a great game.

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written by Brisk317, June 25, 2008

Jim, I don't think anyone has to defend themselves for why or why not they're playing a game...but on the other note I admire you for calling yourself out, not a lot of people would do that.

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written by Dan Zuccarelli, June 25, 2008

Tis a good point Brisk, especially cause there's nothing wrong with changing your mind down the line about something. It's a very recent train of thought (about 4 years ago) that the so-called "flip-flop" is so devastatingly horrible.

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written by Kevin Alexander, June 25, 2008

Dan, why do you love Nintendo?

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written by Katana, June 25, 2008

Yet another thing that can be blamed on the f**king presidential campaigns.

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written by Dr. Cossack, June 26, 2008

Screw DPG movies, that format is a total pain to handle. Go with DSVideo instead: http://dsvideo.recoil.org/ . Files can be converted to the DSV format easily, and the included player rocks. I've been using it to watch a few anime shows during my daily commute.

I've been having a lot of fun since I got my R4 several months ago. DSOrganize works relatively well as an electronic agenda, and the included web browser is nice for quick Wikipedia checks.

A fun time killer is PuzzleManiak ( http://www.puzzlemaniak.com/blog/ - look for the DS version). It holds 27 different puzzles if I'm not mistaken, and at least a few of them are worth it.

Finally, if you like drawing even just a little bit, try out Colors! at http://www.collectingsmiles.com/colors/ . It's a simple drawing program, great for quick sketches or even watercolored pictures.