::A Geek in Korea::

What if Worms, Soldat, and Kirby had some sort of weird threesome? The result would be Teewars. The cutest little buggers with guns ever.

What is it?
This is a mutliplayer, 2D, stylized deathmatch game with five weapons. Characters look like they would fit in any Kirby game, except for the guns they carry around to blast each other. The levels are bright and cheerful, with an anthropomorphic sun grinning in the background as you rain death on your opponents below.

The tools of death:
Hand to Hand:
The Ninja rope deals no damage, but lets you swing around the level. It also works great with the Hammer. The Hammer (default, no ammo), is for the up close and personal kill.
The Sword is for a slashing swipe of death. Lethal. This is the most powerful weapon, but spawns infrequently and has a timer to limit you from slashing everyone for the rest of the round. For 25 seconds you are a complete bad ass.

The Guns:
Pistol (default) is when you want to shoot it out John Woo style.
Shotgun, for that bird shot spray of death for those people that tend to hop around on the Ninja rope.
And of course, Rockets. No deathmatch game would be complete without them. These are more like grenades, but the explode on contact. They have an arch that lets you shoot when you don’t have a direct line of sight on your opponents.

Pick up health, as well as armor in the level to keep dealing out death for longer. In addition to the ninja rope, characters also have a double jump to help them navigate the levels.

How do I play it?
It’s available for free on Windows, Linux, and Mac version too, for Intel AND PPC computers
There are multiplayer servers. Just connect and start blasting away.

Modes?
Death match, Team deathmatch, Capture the Flag…all the normal game variations are available. The most common server set up seems to be Death match to 20 rounds.

I’ve been playing this game for the past few weeks. It’s a great find for anyone looking for a less tactical shooter than Soldat with a similar style.

(not my flickr)

Korean road trip! Some friends of my wife had a son that was going to Australia to study. Someone decided to make this an excuse for a road trip to a Sokri mountain two hours away from Daejeon by car. Little did we know there was a giant Buddhist complex to visit called Beopchu temple.

We went to a traditional Korean restaurant and ate a huge meal. I met the group my wife’s been hanging out with on the weekends, and their teacher. He’s a really nice man who speaks English fluently. Not only that, but some of my friends also came along. We had a nice walk to the temple chatting.

The most astounding thing at the temple was the giant 33 meter tall gold plated Buddha. The original statue had it’s construction stopped when the Japanese invaded Korea. They later completed a second version in concrete, then spent 4,500 man hours improving the statue complex. Then they sprayed 80 kg of gold in a 3 micron thin layer over the entire statue. There was a museum in it’s base, and an even shiner Buddha below hidden from the weather. Unfortunately, that statue hadn’t been dedicated yet, so it was partially covered.

The temples and buildings reminded me of Bulguksa. Beopchusa is closer, but I don’t know if you can reach it easily without a car. I’m scouting out new places to take my friends when they come to Korea. I might want to switch up the tour, since my parents were really tired from running around all of Korea. If we could go to a few places that are closer that would keep down the travel time while still giving them the flavor of Korea.

After the trip, we all went to Bennigan’s. We had a giant order, and even got desert. Cursing our swollen stomachs, I invited everyone back to our apartment. I hadn’t expected everyone to take me up on the offer! I needed to do something for the entertainment. I fired up Wii Sports, and got someone to make a character. Two minutes later, we were playing Tennis and everyone was having a blast trying to burn off the calories we had put on during dinner.

We played Wii Sports for 90 minutes! People that had never played a video game in their life got to try, and they were hooked. The older teacher said that he really liked bowling, as it was very true to life. He’d be able to play it at home on his own. Three of the couples present said that they’d buy the console simply because they watched us play and had that much fun with it.

My wife and I suggested holding off to a Korean launch so they could find it cheaper. People were asking where we got it online, and even the markup we mentioned wasn’t dampening their enthusiasm. I hope no one goes buying a Japanese version by mistake, because that doesn’t come with Wii Sports. The “everyone’s welcome” intuitive approach to gaming really works.

I need to buy some Nintendo stock. I’m their best salesman in the city.

Once again, I spend a Saturday totally geeked out on the couch. Ever since I beat Paper Mario on the Virtual Console, I had been itching to download a few new classic console games to play. The unfortunate thing was the Wii Shop absolutely refused to cooperate. From Christmas to New Years, whenever I would try to connect to the Wii store, it gave me an error stating their servers are too busy, try again later. I would try again every few days, and get shut out over and over. I think Nintendo underestimated the demand on their services just a bit.

Today, I decided I’d give it another go. I connected to the Internet with no problems, but the Nintendo store refused to connect. Knowing it was on their end, not mine, I just reset the software and tried for a solid fifteen minutes or so to connect. I had no luck, so I went off to walk the dog and do some dishes. I tried again a little later, and still had no luck connecting.

Damn you Nintendo. You have my Wii Points, LET ME SPEND THEM!

Totally convinced I’d never get in today, I tried one last time. I tried connecting to the store, walked away to use the bathroom, and heard the Wii Shop music start up. Success. A watched store never connects apparently. Worried I wouldn’t get another chance to connect for a long time if this problem persists, I decided to go on a binge and snap up a few games to last me a while (Read: Until Brawl.). I’ve still got points to spend if something good comes out later, but now I have a few more games to keep me busy.

Current Wii Virtual Console Games:
Super Mario Brothers 3: (Level 4 kicks my ass)
Gunstar Heroes: (Every level kicks my ass)
Paper Mario: (I beat this. Actually, I kicked it’s ass. Huzzah!)

My new games today:
Kirby’s Adventure: (I’ve beaten this before on the old school Gameboy, and I’ll beat it again. It’s held up so well for a late generation NES game.)
Starfox 64: (”How do I barrel roll? Oh, now I’ve got to save Slippy, wait, what does this button do? Who’s shooting me? Argh, I died!” Holy crap this game is COMPLICATED!)
Super Metroid: (This is a classic. I’ve played the sequels, beaten some of the GBA games, but needed to play the game people were always talking about in middle school.)

Not to be satisfied spending my time trying to download old games, I also watched the documentary “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters” This is one of the funniest documentaries I’ve ever seen. It reminds me a LOT of Trekkies but is better due to the subject matter. The King of Kong is a journey into the world of competitive classic arcade gaming. People involved in this documentary treats it as the most serious thing ever accomplished by mankind. I laugh at how ridiculous the entire premise of the documentary is, but it’s a good movie.

A challenger to the Donkey Kong high score fights his way to the top to challenge this megalomaniac who was holding onto his last record of past glory. Both of the figures in the movie are sad in their own ways. One guy is holding onto the glory of his youth as he watches his records fall before him. He clearly questions his worth and will do ANYTHING to hold onto the record. Even cheating it that’s what it would take. The other is a man that’s been dealt such a long string of bad luck in his life that his high score in Donkey Kong is the only thing pushing him forward in life. He’s just a guy that wanted to get into a record book to prove that even though he didn’t have a job at the time, he could still accomplish something worthy of worldwide attention. Even as you see the game taking a toll on his life and family, you can’t help but root for him.

As the documentary plays out, you see the depths of social awkwardness and idol worship that play out in this scene. People really take something like a score in Donkey Kong seriously. I never really got into that side of gaming. I’m a gamer, and I can recognize when I’m really “into” a game. However, I’ve never, ever, approached the single minded focus and obsession these people have for their game. They play this game for HOURS to beat scores when a single mistake means defeat. I would never want to make such a sacrifice of my time, and ultimately, I don’t care that much about a score, even if it is for a record book. I’m not, and never hope to be, a competitive gamer. If it’s not fun, I’m not going to play.

Today was the first day back to class for the new year, and it’s also the start of our winter intensive classes. This means I get up extra early and teach, get some new classes, and have a completely different schedule for a month. Then in February, we mix it all up again, and then in March, we settle on the students and classes we’ll teach for the next six months or so.

I had done my morning classes. They were a mixed lot of new students, returning students, students I used to teach, and students I haven’t seen in a year. They went well enough, despite the first day problems of never having enough books, students wanting to switch classes, and an uncooperative copy machine. They got done quickly, and I had a good time seeing some old faces again.

I had been busy fighting for a new book series for one of my classes that I’ve taught for a long time now. I know the level of these kids, and the book these students were assigned wouldn’t be suitable for them. The teacher that taught it last time said it would be too hard for students two years older than the students it was assigned. I needed to come up with a replacement, so I wasted a lot of my lunch break making sure my students weren’t being forced to have a good book. I found a nearly perfect replacement, but some of my directors demands, “MORE SPEAKING, MORE WRITING, MORE EVERYTHING!” makes if tough. Anyway, the students said the book was acceptable for now after the class had finished.

Fresh off that victory, I hadn’t had time to prepare my last class well enough. My coworkers couldn’t finish one of their workbooks during the normal session, so I’m giving the students a chance to catch up and finish a book I never taught before. Before the class started, some of the students came into the office to show me their new Nintendo DS games. One of the students had a new Korean version of Metroid Prime Hunters. I told them I had the game already. They wanted to see my new game, Worms Open Warfare 2. The students said it was like “Fortress”, which is cute but insulting. Fortress lacks the depth of weapons, strategy, and skill of Worms to a very large degree. Not realizing they were in my next class, I taught them about the DS’s “Download Demo” function.

On certain games, you can send a game demo that sits on the recipients DS in ram memory. If they don’t turn their DS off, and don’t run out of power, they can keep playing the game. I wanted to show them how to play the game, unaware they would be the very same students that I would be trying to teach the very next hour. Two of the students had their systems with them, and a third had a DS but had broken it’s hinge by dropping it and left it at home. The students were so excited they could play a game the didn’t own, and would keep opening and closing the lids of their DS to see if the game was still there. Every time they’d open the system with the sound on, it was shout a wormy “Hello!”

This got rather annoying about five minutes into class. One student killed his battery half way through class and had to turn it off. The other student still had the demo on his system when he walked out the door of the school. I taught him the controls, and advised him STRONGLY about NOT picking up the Korean language version of the FIRST game in the series. I made it clear that ONLY Worms Open Warfare 2 was worth buying, and that the other Worms game was terrible. He told me I had to bring another game with a different demo the next time they have class. I’m not sure how many of my games have a “take home demo” feature. The best one I know about is probably Worms for sure. It might be limited to a few weapons, but a game of Worms rarely plays out the same way even with a limited set of weapons. Brain Age might have a demo feature too?

The other DS games I have require the sender to act as the host for a mutliplayer game. I’m not going to be doing that between any classes for sure!

Tags: DS, Games, Demo, Download, mistake, class, teaching, students

I heard about Traineo through a website that tried a “Wii Sports” diet. Traineo is a personal trainer “manager” sort of website where you can track your exercise and workouts, chart weight gain or weight loss, and potentially track calories. I decided to try out Traineo for a bit to keep track of my exercise routine.

First, I had to develop an exercise routine. Traineo had a drop down menu for “Wii”, as well as for “walking”. Since this is 90% of the exercise I get these days before work, this would work out well enough. I started out today stretching to get the cobwebs out, then played an hour of Wii Sports semi-intensely.

After that, I put on Yoshi’s coat and tried to go for a jog with my dog. My dog decided all he was up for today was a slow walk. It was a bit cold, with light snow so I wanted to keep moving to stay warm. He was not cooperating. We headed to a walking bridge and went up the stairs, down a ramp, ran around to the stairs, and went back up for a few laps. Yoshi was so confused. Every time we’d go around for another lap he’d look up as if to say, “What the hell man? We’ve already done this.”

I came back, estimated my times and intensity, and then put the information into Traineo. Unfortunately, while it can estimate what my calorie burn might be, I don’t know if my diet is excessive or not. I can’t track calories because Korean food has poor labeling (Admittedly, it is getting better). I’ll keep eating what I normally do, and hope an increase in activity is enough to knock off a few kilograms.

After all that exercise, I connected my Wii to the Internet and did some Youtube’ing on the television. After messing with the Zoom, it’s the same as watching any compressed video you might watch online. I’d watch something for ten minutes, then have to get out the Wiimote to bump over to the next file of a multi-part show. Instant gratification while you sit on the couch and take it easy.

Tags: wii, Nintendo, Traineo, youtube, wifi

While I was waiting for a student to arrive to class, I pulled out my Nintendo DS. For whatever reason, the student I was waiting for was late, but his sister and mother were waiting around. While I was playing Mario Kart DS the girl came over and said, “Oh, a Nintendo!”

I knew who the girl was, so I asked her if she wanted to play. She gave me a look like, “Are you crazy?” I shrugged it off, and showed her how to control the game. Luckily there are only three buttons or so you really need to use to play. I started her off on the 50cc courses that anyone with a pulse could beat. She chose Princess Peach, a pink car, and started racing. Two minutes into the game, she was squealing in delight about how much fun she was having. By the end of the first race she told me she wanted to get one for Christmas. By the end of her second race she was begging her mother for a Nintendo DS. Loudly.

I apologized to her mother, “Look what I did. I’m so sorry. I hope you aren’t going to be annoyed by that.”

The mother just laughed.

Her son arrived and I left his sister to play the game while I taught. The girl probably needed more time for the “hard sell” to convince her mother anyway. I don’t know if she was successful. Half way through class she came in and dropped it off with me. She didn’t know how to turn it off. I’m not sure if she’ll have her own Nintendo DS by the time I see her again. I really need to work on commission.

Tags: DS, hard sell, I need a commission.

I had played Battle for Wesnoth way back when I first installed Linux. It was a passable game, with a lot of interesting ideas. The combat elements seemed simplistic in the first campaign I played. I thought there might be more to it, but the fantasy setting kind of got on my nerves. Truth be told, I find Elves BORING. Anything that has the same rehashed fantasy elements is going to have to work extra hard to keep my attention. At the time, I had also gotten heavily into portable gaming again. Having to sit around to play a single player strategy game wasn’t something I was into at that time. I’ve decided to give it another shot though.

Being a Linux user that likes the occasional online game to play is tough. There are plenty of times where I would like to play a game with some people, but the process of getting it running in Linux, or at all, is too much to be bothered. This is why I own a Wii, as well as a DS. Console gaming is much easier, but occasionally I like to try things not available for those systems. I was delighted when I ran into a few people mentioning they wanted to play Battle for Wesnoth online.  A few people that had never played the game before mentioned that they’d be willing to give it a shot online with people they knew. If I was going to start playing the game online, there would be no better time than when everyone else sucked as badly as I did, and I could get some pointers from people other than “U suck! Lern to PLAY Newb!”

While the campaigns are a way to build on the depth of the game and explain how to play, the online mode is throwing everything at you at once. Instead of some lame Elves, there are other factions with a total of over 200 units. There are tons of different play styles and strategies to use. There are different modes to try out, maps, features, etc. It turns out the game’s online features were much more robust than I expected. It’s also overwhelming, because there are so many things to consider while playing.

I had my first online game today. It went well enough. We started a two on two team game. The map was too big, and some of the people didn’t know when their turn had started. However, there were as many people watching the game as playing, and everyone was having a good time. People on Macs, Windows, and Linux machines all playing a free game together. Awesome.

One of the best features of the online game is being able to rename units and add labels to items in the game world. Fighting over a church for resources might be dull, but rename the church “THUNDERDOME” and it suddenly becomes epic. An observer would “adopt” a unit, and would it would be renamed. Everyone was rooting for their particular units to kill the other team. There were a lot of in jokes and funny things that people added to the map that made it a lot more fun.

I’ll give it a try in the future if I can find more time to play the game and learn more of the basics. I’ve gone farther through the Elf campaign just to try to learn more of the game mechanics. Once the game “clicks” for me and I know what to do in a given situation, it will be a lot more fun. Right now I’m often at a loss as to what move is my best option.

Tags: turnbased strategy, wesnoth, online, battle, PA, epic, linux

Last Friday, I issued the Mario Kart DS challenge to my students. The boy that was playing at 50cc just last week not only brought his Nintendo DS for the challenge, but had it charging in the classroom when I arrived. He wasn’t about to let a dead battery ruin the possibility of a show down with his teacher. To allay an worries, I did teach an entire lesson, and waited for our break time before firing up the DS for a spirited round of Mario Kart.

We played local wireless. No one else in the class had a system, so we were alone on the courses as we raced. One student said he’d be pestering his mother to get an Nintendo DS now that he saw he could link up with friends. I need to start getting a commission for all these sales. As the crowd gathered around the two gamers, we got down to business. Since I’ve had the game for a while, I had more characters unlocked. He still doesn’t have two characters in the game, and was completely shocked when he saw I could choose multiple carts and different characters than him.

He had choice of venue as well as speed. He picked 50cc, his current difficulty. It is so slow I can do some horrible snaking all course. While I was playing, we’d go back and forth. He picked some of the tracks I disliked most, but wasn’t extremely good at them to take advantage. I didn’t handicap myself with items or karts, but I did let them catch up once secretly so that I didn’t beat them too badly. The students would switch out after every race and try to beat me. I went 6 -1 (THEY GOT LUCKY!)

While one student was playing, the others would watch my “advanced” techniques. They didn’t know about shooting items like a turtle shell backwards, or how to keep a long power drift going. They also had no idea there were secrets on some of the courses that cut down times significantly. I shared my secrets so that they’d have more of chance at beating me, as well as improving their times to beat some of the higher difficulties.

They had improved considerably in a single week. I have the feeling they’ve been practicing. The challenge still stands for next week. I also told them there is store where they can get games used. They were really interested when I told them they could get games cheaply. It should prove interesting if they get more good games to play. I’m up for it.

Tags: ds, nintendo, class, challenge

This is the greatest Geography Quiz game EVER.

Now that my cousins are done with their intensive final examinations, both of them came over to play some Nintendo Wii. Their mother came over too. Since the last time I had the boy over to play a few games, he has declared that all he wants for Christmas AND his Birthday is a Wii. His mom, my wife’s Aunt, came over to check out what her son had been ranting and raving about for the past two weeks. She wanted to see if he would have fun with his older sister before she’d agree to purchase one too.

I’ve been telling them that the Korean launch is a few months away, and the last thing they should do is import a Japanese Wii just to play for a few months. I’ve got an American Wii, as I’m willing to pay some cash to get American games I can read and play. If he got a Japanese Wii, they’d be stuck with Wii Sports and not much else. As long as he is willing to come over and play on the weekends, he’s welcome to up until the Korean launch. I got him into the Nintendo DS, and now I’ve got him hooked on the Wii. I really want to make sure he doesn’t jump in too soon and regret it.

The cousins came over for some Wii Sports. The boy wanted to play some Boxing because he had lots of stress. I retain my boxing championship convincingly, but he was able to beat his older sister, his first victory. She liked Tennis more, and they played fairly well as a team too. Except when they were smacking each other with the remotes by mistake. I lost the Baseball games I played, and only barely squeaked by in Bowling. Clearly, our living room is too small for the chaos that is Wii Sports.

I think there is a strong possibility that he’s going to end up with a Korean launch Nintendo Wii. My wife seems to be looking forward to Wii Fit more that I realized. She mentioned it as a future accessory that will enhance the console and help with raising their physical fitness. We also told them about the Virtual Console, and the other perks of the system. Right now it’s prohibitively expensive to track it down since it is import only. Once it hits Korea and catches fire in popularity I think I’ll see one at their house. If Korean Wii Launch hits around Lunar New Year next year (which would be the sweetest time ever), every child in Korea is going to want one with their Lunar New Year money. If they bring over their remotes, I’ll be able to play some Smash Brothers Brawl with more players. Awesome.

Tags: wiisports, wii fitness, cousins, family, selling, console, korea, launch