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• Children are the Future (Of Cheap Gaming Junk)

  I often preach “The more things change, the more they stay the same” because it makes me a little less frightened of the direction the world is going in. I still have my curmudgeonly moments, though. Today, while partaking in public transportation, the bus hit a bump and my face was subsequently introduced to a schoolgirl's backpack. The sack had the usual teenage ideals scrawled on its felt (because five minutes with a two dollar Sharpie can change the world): “Tears,” “Peace,” “Emo,” “Love.” There was also video game paraphernalia dangling off the various zippers and clasps: jangly keychains featuring the more plastic members of Square-Enix's character roster, including Sora and Yuna. And I thought, “Oh God, why.” Then I thought, “But who am I to judge? I've been there.” Read More... Posted Mar 06 2009, 11:14 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: bowser, final fantasy x, kingdom hearts, nadia oxford, merchandise, illusion of gaia, toys

• The Problem With Video Game Apparel

  Even though video games invade nearly every part of my life, they're rarely found wrapped around my body. Okay, there was this brief three-year period in my life--roughly around the time I worked at GameStop--where I wore nothing but promotional t-shirts and blue jeans, but at some point I realized that oversized Eternal Darkness gear wasn't exactly winning over the ladies. So I promptly gave away all of my video-game wear and vowed to never return until someone, somewhere could make nerdy clothes that weren't entirely so... nerdy. Read More... Posted Jan 27 2009, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: earthbound, bob mackey, merchandise, fangamer, fashion

• The Mother 3 Strategy Guide: Fandom Done Right

  Since I've had the chance to play it all weekend, I can say that I've been completely impressed by the Mother 3 translation project--so much so that the kind people at 61FPS are probably going to have to send people to my house to get me to stop blogging about it (this also happened with Mega Man 9). But until hired goons show up at my door, I'd like to write about the upcoming Mother 3 strategy guide, which shows just as much devotion, hard work, and obsessiveness (the good kind) as the translation itself. In keeping with the theme of the amazing (though mostly unecessary) strategy guide originally bundled with the American release of Earthbound, the fine people at Starmen.net and Fangamer have been working on a Mother 3 strategy guide in a pseudo-travelogue format--though this is no paltry .txt file uploaded hastily to GameFAQs.  We're looking at a full-color, roughly 200 page tome of Mother 3 goodness, fully illustrated (and clay-modeled) by devoted fans, that won't ship until early next year. And if you've got a small amount of disposable income like me, you can head on over to Fangamer's Mother 3 handbook page and give up a mere twenty dollars to make yourself happier in the future.  As a bonus, you'll also get a Franklin Badge keychain that probably won't ward off lightning.  I wouldn't try it, anyway. Read More... Posted Oct 20 2008, 11:00 AM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: earthbound, mother 3, translation, bob mackey, merchandise, strategy guides, fangamer

• Greed Looks Good on Samus

  Yeah, uh, so I write fanfics. Shut up. The reason I'm revealing this and plunging my approval rating into the negatives (rather, further into the negatives) is because last week I made fun of the Valiant Nintendo Comics of olde...but I shouldn't. At least not all the time. It's really not easy to create a story where there is none. Not to say that every creative endeavour should automatically get an A for Effort. The Worlds of Power books based on games like Mega Man 2 could have been a lot less stupid. On the other hand, when your cover art is defaulted to a game's box art (in other words, a flamer in blue spandex), I guess you may as well pound a few and see what you can come up with. Valiant's Nintendo comics had moments that made my eyes ache, but at the same time it did a couple of things really well. For instance, Samus. Samus has always been a girl of few words, except in Metroid Fusion when she caught a case of the chatties and wouldn't shut up about her ship, her mechanical love interest and her pet dog, Sparky. She's mostly been silent since, with Nintendo/Retro Studios preferring to leak bits of her past through subtle, adorable means. But at the beginning of time, Valiant had their own take on the female bounty hunter: brash, violent, cocky and greedy. And it was pretty cool. Read More... Posted Oct 06 2008, 06:50 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: metroid, retro, comics, nadia oxford, merchandise, bounty hunting, samus, captain n

• Questionable Nintendo Products: Mario's Cradle-Robbing Picnic Plates

  Growing up, I did my fair share of whining for whatever toy showed up on television. Needless to say, '80s commercials were all about Nintendo and ill-begotten offshoots of Nintendo's games and characters. I imagine we Canadians are going to have to "share" our fresh water with the US as the world becomes a more desperate place, but the US has already shared their commercials with us, so I guess it's only fair. Though regulations on dirty American television have since become more strict in Canadaland, when I was growing up the lax rules meant we got a lot of ads for products that never made their way up here. So my mom had the perfect excuse for not buying me every little thing: "This is an American station. That toy is only in America." Do you think she was just trying to shut me up? One thing I do know for sure is that the Nintendo Cereal System never made its way up here, at least not in generous amounts. No snot-flavoured bits of Mario and Link at my breakfast table, alas, but I was still tormented by knowledge of the cereal's existence. What I didn't know until yesterday is that there was a sequel to the Nintendo Cereal System, based on Super Mario Bros 2 and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. The blog post, "Errant Nintendo Licensing," actually made me aware of a few batshit Nintendo products that I've never laid eyes on. Read More... Posted Sep 09 2008, 06:27 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with no comments Filed under: super mario bros 2, zelda ii the adventure of link, nadia oxford, super mario, nintendo products, frightening, mario plates, nintendo cereal system, merchandise