[GameRatty] tag: nintendogs

Club Nintendo - Touch Generations album - track listing

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 05:32:36 +0000

01. Title (Wii Play)
02. Fishing (Wii Play)
03. Title (Wii Sports)
04. Tennis Result (Wii Sports)
05. Mii Plaza (Mii Channel)
06. Main Theme (Wii Shopping Channel)
07. Title (Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes a Day!)
08. Title (Yawaraka Atama Juku)
09. Welcome to “Bistro Pierre” (Cooking Guide: Can’t Decide What to Eat?)
10. Peter Piper Syndrome (Eigo ga Nigate na Otona no DS Training: Eigo Zuke)
11. The Scent of Color… ~Bimoji Training Title~ (DS Bimoji Training)
12. Nintendogs Theme (nintendogs)
13. Walking the Dog (nintendogs)
14. Plaza (Wii Fit)
15. Hoop Dance (Wii Fit)
16. Step Dance (Wii Fit)
17. Staff Roll (Wii Fit)
18. Title (Wii de Yawaraka Atama Juku)
19. Kitchen Bossa (Kenkou Ouen Recipe 1000: DS Kondate Zenshuu)
20. Submission Plaza (Mii Contest Channel)
21. Title (Animal Crossing: Wild World)
22. K.K. Bossa (Animal Crossing Series)
23. Pigeon’s Nest (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)
24. Nintendogs Theme - Live ver. (nintendogs)
25. Title - Live ver. (Wii Sports)

Link

What I Hate About Nintendo

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:34:19 +0000

Too kid friendly. First off, you can take the Resident Evil and Manhunt franchises and shove them up your ass. Their problems are a completely different can of worms.

There are a handful of good M rated games on Nintendo systems, emphasis necessary, but that doesn't mean they appeal to mature audiences. Look at their best selling and top rated games. They're mostly first party, rated E, sequels, and some are better on other consoles. I've owned most Nintendo consoles with the exception of the SNES, DS, Virtual Boy(shudders), and GB Advance.

The only one I feel guilty about is the SNES. Then I remember when Mortal Kombat hit consoles, Nintendo barred them from having blood or even a blood code. I'm surprised they didn't require Kano to thrust flowers in everybody's chest instead of tear their hearts out, wait he just punched them in the chest. Rare tried to abolish this kid friendly persona with Conker's Bad Fur Day and Perfect Dark but Nintendo sold them to Microsoft, presumably out of spite.

Too casual. One of their bestsellers is the dog simulator Nintendogs. It's almost like having a real puppy but you can kill it with moral ambiguity and it doesn't require real food or you to get off your fat ass to exercise it. Nintendo isn't a stranger to requiring its gamers to exercise. It's not a bad thing getting brittle, fat, and lazy gamers like myself out of our recliners.

What is bad is the utter lack of immersion these games offer. Look at Wii Boxing, it's fun, takes some energy, but loses me when I remember I don't have fists floating a foot away from my body like Rayman. Their best games might be fun but take no real skill to play and win... I'm pointing at you Mario Kart with the fucking blue shell and lightening pieces of shit....

Guest Column: Is Casual Killing the Core? PAX panel

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 03:15:21 +0000

Infendo was lucky enough this morning to hear from a reader who attended PAX last weekend, and his on-the-scene reporting is pretty timely, given the gaming landscape today.

“El Hajjish” attended the “Is Casual Gaming Killing Core Gaming?” panel, which featured Start Trek actor and uber geek Wil Wheaton, no less. If anyone can guess how the panel progressed before you read this column, congrats, you’ve probably been reading Infendo for a while now. For the rest of you, take a read. It’s a good way to start your morning.

I was lucky enough to attend PAX this year and I couldn’t resist attending panel discussion called “Is Casual Killing Core Gaming?” that I think sheds a some light about the fears that some core gamers have. I have a quick summary and some thoughts on the content that relates to this casual/core thing.

Sorry if this reads a bit like a rant, but the session got me all riled up and I needed to write my thoughts down even now, a few days later.

First of all, Wil Wheaton was a panelist! There was also representatives from Microsoft, Co-optimus, and others. …but Wil Wheaton!

The panel discussion was broken up into four questions, which I honestly felt missed the point. Here they are:

Should achievements be a trophy or a participation ribbon?
Should controls be simpler?
Do high end 3-D graphics still matter?
Should the focus of multiplayer be cooperative or competitive?

I feel that these questions do not get to the heart of the issue, and I would have gone with different questions. The answer to all four of these questions is “it depends on the game.” …and that was pretty much what the panelists said.

However, I do think that these questions illustrate that those core gamers who hate casual fear that their hardcore games will get watered down so that companies can appeal to the growing casual market. The sense I got is that they feel that for every casual game sold, that sends a market signal that companies should make more casual games and fewer core games. One audience member talked about something being nerfed in Splinter Cell Online - I had no idea what he was talking about, but he saw this as a sign of the game being ruined to appeal to a more casual audience. A panelist responded by suggesting that perhaps core gamers should be prepared to pay more for the very “hardcore” titles, as games that aren’t accessible to a larger audience will have to make more profit per sale if it can’t sell in high volumes, especially with rising development costs. This gets into the questions I thought should have framed the panel discussion:

What is a casual game?

First of all, many hardcore gamers can’t define what it is that they are so upset about. If the definition of a casual game is a moving target, how can you worry that it is going to ruin your hobby? Also, many people seem to confuse a “casual” game with a “bad” game.

Are core games at risk?

There seems to be a misconception that casual and core games can’t co-exist, and that every dollar spent on a casual game is a dollar taken away from a core game. Casual gaming, however, is about market expansion. I don’t believe that many people buying Nintendogs or Imagine: Babyz are giving up Grand Theft Auto to do so. These are new gamers who are bringing more money to game developers. On top of this, there seem to be loads of core games coming out for all systems and the PC. One trip upstairs to the PAX exhibition hall would reveal that there are loads of core games on the way.

If core games are “sick” are casual games a symptom or a cause?

This is perhaps the most important question for people to ask. If core gaming is getting less hardcore, is casual gaming responsible, or is casual gaming a response to that decline? There are loads of stories about rising development costs, the difficulties of selling games to an aging gamer population who now have mortgages and families and other challenges that traditional big budget core games face. Big budget games are riskier and can sink a company if they fail, and many companies are going with low-risk projects that bring in profits to buffer against the risk of a big budget title.

Does a casual gaming future mean a greater variety of games or just simpler games all around?

This is what I think the four questions that were asked at the panel discussion were trying to get at. There was not that much discussion about the impact of a glut of casual games but moreso on the fear of watering down cherished franchises to appeal to that broader audience. From what I’ve seen, it seems that we can expect that there will be more variety of games. I saw so many core titles at PAX, I honestly don’t see any watering down of core titles on the horizon. Improvements for accessibility, sure, but I don’t think Gears of War is going to have go casual any time soon.

A number of questions were fielded by audience members and the Wii was discussed. One panelist made it very clear that he felt that the Wii was ruining core gaming by diverting resources from games he likes to “a bunch of games using that waggle wand to flail around like a monkey”. Ouch.

Generally, I felt that it was a very interesting discussion, but it didn’t really address the topic properly. I had hoped to ask my questions at the end, but alas, I ran out of time. Maybe next year.

Best line from a panelist: “These angry core gamers are on the forums ranting about the casuals, but the casual gamers - they’re just playing some games and having fun.”

Here’s were I would continue to to rant about gamer elitism and territorialism, but I’ve gone on long enough.

– El Hajjish

Blake’s Thoughts: Casual didn’t kill core gaming, your mom did. In other words, casual isn’t killing anything, it’s just that insecure insiders and long-time gamers who want to exclude the “new” are a dying breed and they know it. So they hold panels and forum discussions like this to cope.

The Daily Hotness: There are sharks in Castle Crashers! (08/21/08)

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:17:00 +0000

[ Not streaming? Upgrade your Flash version. Videos auto-playing? Fix it.] Watch more videos

I'm still mad that Castle Crashers is coming out the day I leave for PAX. At least I have these video walkthroughs by Nick to hold me over.

Jonathan Blow guest starred on Podtoid, Brad 2 tries to make a Braid cookie, Dyson checks out Fracture, Tiger Woods is Jesus, and plenty more happened on Thursday.

Thursday Regulars:
Podtoid 66: Braidtoid
RetroforceGO! records episode 57 tonight: The Atari 2600
PlayStation Store Update: Questing for booty, Kratos, and Star Wars

Originals:
The Great Retro Olympics!: Fencing
Failed Braid cookie

Previews:
Exclusive: The 18 minutes right after the first 15 minutes of Castle Crashers
First Jimpressions: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
You are a human drum machine: Rock Band 2's Drum Trainer details in words, video
Hands-on with Fracture multiplayer

News:
Hollenshead thinks piracy is hardware industry's 'dirty little secret'
Rock it out with your Miis in Guitar Hero: World Tour
Zombie slayers + Bikinis = pathetic excuse for a box art post
Dreamfall engine comes to the Wii
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed demo hits Xbox Live
Casually Hardcore: Extending the olive branch to "casual gamers"
Rush's Moving Pictures album coming to Rock Band next week as DLC [Update]
Seal away your great games forever
Lionhead will patch Fable Pub Games
Guitar Hero World Tour's new peripheral is...
GameStop sees record sales, thanks to titles like GTA IV, MGS4
Alone in the Dark for 360 getting a patch: You are all excited
Game Design Challenge: Game Hero results are interesting
360 price drop spotted in RadioShack circular, will retail for $399
Japan will get The Last Guy next week for about $20
Load the Fap Cannon: Cammy coming to Street Fighter IV (fans simply coming)
An easy guide for easy stuff: Wii for Dummies
Peter Moore: Better ways to fight piracy than lawsuits
Sony confirms UK prices for new PS3 and PSP 3000

Galleries:
Killzone 2 screens: We have them
Resistance 2 renders: Trains, planes and slavering aliens
Tiny prince is tiny: New Prince of Persia: The Fallen King (DS) screens
Star Ocean: First Departure for PSP coming to Europe
Wait, what?: Ubisoft's Wii game Monkey Madness is Nintendogs ... with monkeys
Eledees DS screens and artwork: The sinister little freaks are back
PopStar Guitar for the Wii manages to look worse than Rock Revolution
Ride to Hell with these screenshots: There is riding, and maybe some Hell
Iron Chef: Supreme Cuisine to feature Batali, Morimoto [update]
Darksiders: Wrath of War screens are full of wrath. Also, war
Confirmed: Weird golden dragonfly sidekick thing in latest Spyro game
Saihai no Yukue character artworks

Trailers & Videos:
Save the girl, save the world in LittleBigPlanet trailer
When I was your age: Bionic Commando Rearmed vs. Bionic Commando
Prince of Persia footage, now 46% longer and with 100% less German narration!
Tales of Hearts gets two versions: CGI and anime
This five-minute-long Mercenaries 2 co-op walkthrough delivers
CONFIRMED: Tiger Woods = Jesus, EA advertisers = geniuses
Jet pack shenanigans prevail in these Dark Void videos
Blizzard releases a sexy Wrath of the Lich King cinematic
Spider-Man is the only one who understands what's happening in this WoS trailer

Offbeat:
Guitar Hero: On Tour controller hack is full-sized
Disgaea 3: 113,471,998,929 HP of damage, cheerleaders and more

The Daily Hotness: There are sharks in Castle Crashers! (08/21/08)

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:17:00 +0000

[ Not streaming? Upgrade your Flash version. Videos auto-playing? Fix it.] Watch more videos

I'm still mad that Castle Crashers is coming out the day I leave for PAX. At least I have these video walkthroughs by Nick to hold me over.

Jonathan Blow guest starred on Podtoid, Brad 2 tries to make a Braid cookie, Dyson checks out Fracture, Tiger Woods is Jesus, and plenty more happened on Thursday.

Thursday Regulars:
Podtoid 66: Braidtoid
RetroforceGO! records episode 57 tonight: The Atari 2600
PlayStation Store Update: Questing for booty, Kratos, and Star Wars

Originals:
The Great Retro Olympics!: Fencing
Failed Braid cookie

Offbeat:
Guitar Hero: On Tour controller hack is full-sized
Disgaea 3: 113,471,998,929 HP of damage, cheerleaders and more

Nintendo Tested, Celebrity Approved: DS Endorsements

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:19:34 +0000

Nintendo is going all-out with their celebrity endorsements with the DS. Male and female personalities are promoting the platform, and showing games that hit it big with the expanded audience. Nintendogs, Brain Age, and even New Super Mario Bros. are the focus of the celebrity spinning. Do you think commercials like these work? They may not strike a chord with us, but it sure is moving the casual and expanded audience.

Article here

Games and Education

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 13:48:48 +0000

This past week was actually pretty big when it comes to games and education. It seems like a lot of people were discussing their viewpoints on the subject. For instance, one person was showing us that children may learn better from games that are more game-like, instead of focussed on the task of education. Nintendogs was being used as an example of a title that children were using to practice their math skills, and the results were promising. There’s still so much for us to learn about games and education, and it’s extremely important that we don’t shy away from the subject.

Article here

EIF: Guitar Hero, Nintendogs Better Educational Tools Than 'Serious Games'

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:00:12 +0000

[Another write-up from Scotland via Mathew Kumar and Leigh Alexander, and this one was described as genuinely inspirational from our on the spot reporter - yes, folks, 'regular' games can make an educational difference.]

Instead of making serious games for education, why not embrace traditional gaming to enhance kids' lives?

Much is made of the potential for games to enhance education for today's kids living in a so-called "digital world," but traditional approaches seek to make gaming conform to education. At the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, two innovative teachers suggested that teachers ought to embrace -- and employ -- all the ways in which kids are already playing.

Dr. Graham Brown-Martin is the founder of the Handheld Learning UK organization for research and education, and at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, he was joined by Learning and Teaching Scotland's Derek Robertson to present a new way to look at games and education that embraces the way kids already play, as an alternative to traditional "edugaming" approaches.

Most students in primary school, Brown-Martin says, own phones, and at least one console, including portables.

The "Digital Divide"

"The PC industry is bending over backwards to be seen as inclusive, but yet mobile and entertainment devices are outselling PCs and laptops by three to one," says Brown-Martin.

"They are more inclusive than any other, and as a result there are powerful devices in the hands of many learners. Good teachers can use off the shelf software as ‘powerful contextual hubs for learning’ in and out of the school."

The education industry, Brown-Martin asserts, expects that "technology happens after you're born." In other words, he says, students live in a tech and media-rich environment -- but find there is a "digital divide" between their experience of learning inside versus outside of school.

"As a consequence, many kids are bored of school," he says -- but adds that this is not about "serious games."

"I have great respect for that industry," says Brown-Martin, "but I think they're still looking for the door marked entry. Serious games are seriously boring.”

Not Learning Games

He explains that bringing off-the-shelf games into the classroom is like bringing a skateboard into a school – it’s not just a toy, you can use it to teach physics, explain the mechanics, and take them apart for rebuilding.

"We're not talking about serious games -- we're talking about game-based learning."

He cites obvious examples like Brain Training, as well as less-obvious ones like Nintendogs, Guitar Hero and Endless Ocean that "offer big improvements in learning without needing to be didactic or boring."

Fellow educator Derek Robertson also agrees. "The domain of the school is presented to kids, but we have to pay more attention to children’s own domains -- in this case merging the games domain and school domain," Robertson says.

Kids pleasantly surprised by the discovery of Guitar Hero, he says, are open to the excitement of writing about and learning more on the musical experience. The impact is particularly significant on at-risk youth, he says, who challenge educators in conventional channels.

"This is to have an understanding that children don't come to school from a vacuum -- they come from homes, a society, a culture, and we have to take this on board," he says. "Children come to school from a world where everything involves technology. Schools dismiss this, and will become irrelevant if they don't pay attention.”

The Nintendogs Budget

As a result, Learning and Teaching Scotland have created The Consolarium, a Scottish center for games and learning. Robertson brings educational managers from regional councils and encourages them to try hands-on with current games to think about how they can be used for learning.

"They come in with their power suits on and go, ‘what is this pish?’ -- and walk out raving," says the ebullient Robertson.

And it’s not all anecdotal – Learning and Teaching Scotland is measuring the impact of these games on learning. After measuring the impact of Brain Training on children’s arithmetic across a 10-week study - 20-25 minutes in the morning with one brain age check per week compared with a class not using Nintendo, the pre versus post scores "rocketed up" from 20 percent scores to over 65 percent in tests.

Kids also worked on their math skills by using their budgets in Nintendogs to calculate how much they'd need to get the pet accessories they wanted, and honed writing skills as they blogged about their experiences raising the virtual dogs.

The message to educators is to embrace, not dismiss off-the-shelf games, says Robertson. "Be wary of the development of 'worthy' education games," he warns. "Kids can spot the phony."

Gamasutra - EIF: Guitar Hero, Nintendogs Better Educational Tools Than 'Serious Games'

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:45:53 +0000

Instead of making serious games for education, why not embrace traditional gaming to enhance kids' lives?

Much is made of the potential for games to enhance education for today's kids living in a so-called "digital world," but traditional approaches seek to make gaming conform to education. At the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, two innovative teachers suggested that teachers ought to embrace -- and employ -- all the ways in which kids are already playing.

Dr. Graham Brown-Martin is the founder of the Handheld Learning UK organization for research and education, and at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, he was joined by Learning and Teaching Scotland's Derek Robertson to present a new way to look at games and education that embraces the way kids already play, as an alternative to traditional "edugaming" approaches.

Most students in primary school, Brown-Martin says, own phones, and at least one console, including portables.

Nintendogs helping kids with math

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:57:29 +0000

We all know that students have used Brain Training to increase their test scores and classroom attentiveness, but did you know that some are using Nintendogs? Some students were using Nintendogs to help educate them in mathematics. This is where the shopping element of the dog sim comes into play. If you don’t have enough money, you can’t buy your dog what it needs. If you don’t keep a budget and know basic math skills, you aren’t going to be able to purchase the necessities.

Dr. Graham Brown-Martin and Learning and Teaching Scotland’s Derek Robertson are trying to get people to realize that you don’t need to make ’serious educational games’ for children to learn. More traditional style games with educational elements may actually help children learn better. It’s a unique approach to the idea, and one that developers should have a much easier time grasping.

Article here