The Gadgets Page

There were many hot and summery days in Billings, Montana that Stacey and I played Monopoly. We played to the bitter end and the two of us learned how to master the game. The two of us played the “Money in the Pot” version of the game and Free Parking meant a huge paycheck if we were lucky enough to land on it.

For the last few years, I have become disgusted with the Monopoly over-saturation. At first, I enjoyed the different versions of Monopoly that had been licensed. I was excited about the Salt Lake City version of the game until I realized that it was just a huge advertisement for local businesses instead of an homage to my hometown. My breaking point was when I saw the SpongeBob Squarepants version of the game.

Going in a completely DIFFERENT direction, however, is Mega-Monopoly.

Phil E. Orbanes, the creator of Mega-Monopoly, describes what he did to enhance the game:

• Winning Moves Games – About Monopoly®:The Mega Edition by Phil E. Orbanes

He talked about adding boards together, but he wanted something better:

Making the game play richer proved easy — a bigger board with 12 more spaces, including 8 new properties (one added to each existing group). Skyscrapers — to add a third level of buildings, plus Depots to improve the Railroads. $1000 bills–to help pay for the new properties and buildings. So far so good. But how to make the game play faster, to everyone’s satisfaction?

The Speed Die isn’t a new feature. It was a primary addition to the Monopoly: Speed Die Edition:

The Speed Die includes three normal sides, featuring 1, 2, or 3 pips. Rolling one of these merely enhances your regular move. But two of its other sides feature an image of Mr. Monopoly. Roll one and you not only make a normal move, you get a bonus move to the next unowned property, which you may buy. However, after no properties remain in the bank, Mr. Monopoly requires you to move ahead to the next rent owed. Ouch!

While using the Speed Die, you can earn Bus Tickets:

If you roll the Bus (on the final side of the die), you earn a Bus Ticket. You can use this on a future turn in lieu of rolling the three dice. Do so, you move ahead to any space on the same side of the game board. You can horde Bus Tickets if you like, but there is a risk, because a few of them have the message “All Tickets Expire Except This One.” This means all tickets owned by players are surrendered to the bank. And once a Bus Ticket is in the bank, it is out of play (there are 16 in all).

With the addition of these features that speed up the game, you should be able to finish a round of Monopoly in 60 to 80 minutes.

Hasbro has been tweaking Monopoly for years, trying to make another hit. Many of these tweaks, like the Monopoly: Speed Die Edition, are no longer available, so if Mega-Monopoly sounds interesting to you, you should buy it now before Hasbro pulls the plug.

• Monopoly: The Mega Edition at Amazon.com

Via: CraziestGadgets.com » Mega Monopoly with Skyscrapers

When you go into an Internet Cafe in the new Grand Theft Auto IV game, you can find an advertisement for a company called iFruit.

Special kudos to dunutmaz for uploading these to Flickr:

Here is the iPhone parody:

Via: Flickr Find: Grand Theft Auto hides Apple and iPhone parody – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

In 2006, Disney released a video game for their movie Cars. I wrote it off as another stupid movie-based video game. There have been so many movie-based video games that have disappointed me: every Harry Potter game, all the Lord of the Rings games, even the Constantine video game. In fact, I have NEVER enjoyed a video game based on a movie, so it was filed away as worthless in my mind.

This morning while surfing YouTube, this video showed up:

Just like me filming while I play Animal Crossing, someone had filmed the cut scene from Cars. Not just one person, but there are lots of people uploading their performance on this particular sequence. Here’s one that shows their race:

Here’s a video of someone driving a race backwards!

REFanshadow said:

This is a video where I show my driving skills in reverse xD use Wingo that responds very well when it comes to be in reverse.

If you love a video game enough to film yourself playing it, then it just might be a game worth looking at. I’ve ordered the Nintendo Wii version at Amazon.com and I’ll tell you if it’s worth playing or not as soon as we take it for a test drive.

I remember playing Drum Mania in the Luxor arcade many years before Guitar Hero ever stepped on the stage. Konami STARTED the music game revolution and Guitar Hero made it popular. Konami is back with its own band game called Rock Revolution.

• Konami staging Rock Revolution this fall – Xbox 360 News at GameSpot

Now, nearly 10 years after the first Guitar Freaks game hit the market, Konami is getting back into the instrument-game act. Two years after it trademarked “Guitar Revolution,” the publisher of Karaoke Revolution and Dance Dance Revolution will release Rock Revolution on DS, Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.

Rock Band was easily my favorite party game of the year, but the thought of Konami entering the ring makes me ecstatic. Instead of classic rock and obscure heavy metal, I’m sure Konami will focus on more pop songs. Things my mom would like to sing along with. It will be more accessible to ALL my friends and family instead of just my rocker friends.

We tried to get my mom to play along on Rock Band and Guitar Hero. I have to say that there is nothing more satisfying than see your mom play guitar to “Shout at the Devil,” but she was only humoring us and didn’t really enjoy the game. If they had allowed her to play an imaginary guitar to the tune of a ABBA song, instead, she probably would have loved the game.

Considering how mainstream Konami’s Karaoke Revolution has been, I’m VERY excited about the news of Rock Revolution.

Of course, all of this is on the heels of the news that Guitar Hero is releasing a new version of their game called Guitar Hero 4, which includes drums and a microphone as well. Given the choice, I think I’ll stick with Rock Band or try out the new Rock Revolution. Guitar Hero 3 was THAT big of a disappointment.

THIS is why I LOVE Nicole Lee.

MarioKart for the Wii by Nicole Lee from Flickr

A blurry picture of Mario Kart for the Wii tells me what I should have already known. Mario Kart was released THREE days ago. How I missed the news, I don’t know, but I’m heading to the video store right now to go pick it up.

Here’s a video to whet your appetite:

This video shows some of the video games from 1972 to 2007.

Which games did you play? Which were your favorite? I LOVE that they included Adventure on the list. It was my favorite game on the Atari and I can still navigate those mazes, even the blind ones, by touch only.

I am surprised that they didn’t include some of the handheld games that were popular in the early years like this football game from Mattel. I played this thing so much that the letters and arrows wore off. I remember handing it to my friend to play and she had never played it before and couldn’t figure it out because all the arrows were gone. This guy and Merlin were my video games that I could take with me. I loved them and to this day I don’t know why the industry doesn’t take them as seriously as the original games from Atari and Intellivision.

Via:

• kev/null – History of Video Games 1972-2007

• Handheld Museum – Mattel Football I

Once again, a group of concerned citizens are trying to save us from the evils of video games. This time, they are attacking Bully: Scholarship Edition.

• globeandmail.com: Teachers demand ban on bullying video game

The biggest problem I have with this game is that it’s not realistic enough. Surviving the school years is a difficult task, yet this group thinks that telling the truth about our school years isn’t appropriate.

Bully: Scholarship Edition features a shaven-headed teenager who adjusts to life at a new boarding school by harassing others, which the organizations say glorifies bullying. The abuse includes dunking pupils’ heads in toilets, photographing them naked and physically assaulting them. Teachers are also targeted.

“We’re asking retailers to be responsible,” Emily Noble, president of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, said yesterday. “Yes, they can sell it and make a buck out of this, but is this the kind of marketing that they want to be [doing], selling games that glorify violence?”

Mike and I were looking at this game at the game store the other day. I flipped through the guidebook showing me how to master the art of chemistry in order to create stink bombs and itching powder.

“I wish they made a girl version of this,” I said, “Then I would finally learn how to deal with girl bullies.”

Mike replied without missing a beat, “Too violent.”

And he was right. Games like this help us deal with bullies. They don’t teach us how to be bullies just like learning the exact buttons to push doesn’t teach us how to make itching powder. Just for once I would like a group of concerned citizens to actually PLAY the game before they protest it.

Check out this cool Nintendo DS Bento box from Alafista.

It always surprises me when strange food mixes with electronics. Who loves their Nintendo DS so much that they want to eat it in effigy?

Via: Craftzine.com blog: Nintendo DS Bento

We love the video game, Rock Band, but as with any new hardware, being an early adopter has its ups and downs. In particular, the first guitars that shipped with Rock Band had a common issue where the strum button would stop working correctly:

• Kotaku: Rock Band Guitar Controllers Failing

Although this problem has been known since November 2007, our Rock Band game purchased in January quickly developed the problem: you could strum up, but not down. Since I only strum downward, this put a serious crimp in my already amateurish playing.

Fortunately, Electronic Arts has a convenient warranty page that promised to quickly set me up with a new guitar:

• Rock Band Warranty page

The warranty process took five minutes and a credit card number, which theoretically won’t be charged if you return the defective guitar. Unfortunately, I started this process on January 20th, and I’m still not happy with the result:

• I was immediately sent a UPS tracking number, but they never dropped off the guitar for shipping.
• A month later, they charged my card $125 because I never returned the old guitar. (I couldn’t, since they were supposed to send me the new one first.)
• After dealing with form-letter responses from their online support people for a month, I finally called EA. They were very helpful, apologized, and started the whole process over. This time the guitar was actually shipped, and I received it a few days later.

So now we have a new working guitar (finally!) but EA still owes us a $125 credit. I’ll have to spend some more time on the phone straightening this out.

Got a Rock Band guitar with a strum problem? Here’s my advice:

• Try to return it to the store where you purchased it. EA discourages this, but a good retailer should exchange it.
• Call EA on the phone rather than using their online service. They’re more likely to get it right. The number is 1 (650) 628-1001.
• You may want to consider fixing it yourself—this will probably void your warranty, and it seems like a waste of time to fix something that EA should replace, but I’m wishing I’d done it myself at this point.
• If you use EA’s warranty service, keep a close eye on your credit card.

I love Rock Band—it’s probably my favorite video game of all time—but when I pay $160 for a video game, I expect better customer service. Here’s hoping EA gets their act together in time for me to buy the sequel.

Here’s a video of us and our friends enjoying Rock Band together (with borrowed guitars):

I’ve been playing Animal Crossing for a year and a half and for the first time ever, I was able to shoot down the UFO. It has flown across my town probably a total of ten times in the last eighteen months, and last week was the first time I was able to shoot it down.

After I shot it down, it crash landed in my town and I was able to talk to Gulliver. He didn’t realize it was ME that shot him down, but he asked me to help him fix his craft so he could leave again. It was the least I could do.

You can see my encounter here:

It’s amazing that I can play a game almost EVERY day for a year and a half and it might still have something new to show me. Kudos to Nintendo and the creators of Animal Crossing. Once again, you have given me a pleasant surprise on what I thought was an ordinary day.

These videos from MammaMia19 show a little more of an encounter with Gulliver:

I have no idea how MammaMia19 knew to film on the exact day when Gulliver flew over their town.

“So I was just recording myself playing and Gulliver’s UFO flew by the top screen. Figured i would show you guys. I shoot this guy down left and right. No UFO’s get away with flying by MY village!!”

This video shows what it looks like to shoot down the UFO:

To read my other reviews of Animal Crossing, see here:

• Gadgets Page » Nintendo DS: Animal Crossing

• Gadgets Page » Nintendo DS: Animal Crossing Update

• Gadgets Page » Animal Crossing: How To Complete Your Catalog