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You hear an incredible array of thoughts regarding caffeine content when you work at or frequent Starbucks for any considerable length of time: "Oh, the Frappuccino is made with double strength coffee so, y'know, it's strong and stuff" to "Espresso is concentrated coffee - one shot's worth, like, fifteen cups of coffee!" to "The darker a coffee is roasted, the less caffeine it contains because, well, the caffeine is evaporated out of the bean". A little research yields some concrete numbers. Let's take a glance, won't we?

Consider a 16 fluid ounce beverage - a Grande. First, a quick bit of nitpickery: it's not pronounced "GRAWN-day". That would be Spanish. This is Italian. It's sort of a splitting hair kind of thing, but the actual pronounciation would be something closer to "GRAWN-deh".

I did mention that it was a real splitting-hair kind of thing, didn't I...?

So, we'll be using the Grande / 16 fl oz size for our numbers. The first comparison is Espresso to regular Brewed Coffee:

1 shot of Espresso is 1 fluid ounce. 1 fluid ounce of Espresso yields approximately 75 milligrams of Caffeine. A 16 ounce cup of Brewed Coffee yields approximately 330 milligrams of caffeine. 330 mg divided over 16 fl oz reveals a ratio of roughly 21 mg caffeine for every 1 fl oz of brewed coffee. A shot of espresso is, then, between three and a half to four times stronger than an ounce of coffee.

A brief digression: a popular myth about coffee is that the darker roasted coffees contain less caffeine than their comparatively lighter roasted counterparts; the idea being that as you roast coffee beans longer, you not only drive moisture out of the beans but caffeine as well. While this may be true on a microscopic level, it's not significant enough to create a noticeable difference. The caffeine content in Arabica bean coffee is near consistent across the board - ordering the "Bold" pick doesn't yield more or less caffeine than choosing Pike Place Roast or Blonde Roast and vice versa.

We arrive at concrete numbers. For the following, as mentioned, we're comparing 16 fl oz size and if espresso is involved, the number of shots are noted:

Brewed Coffee: 330 mg
Caffe Latte: 150 mg (2 shots espresso (75 mg) * 2)
Caffe Americano: 225 mg (3 shots espresso (75 gm) * 3)
Iced Brewed Coffee: 165 mg
Coffee Frappuccino: 95 mg

Broken down by fluid ounce, we arrive at the following ratios:

Brewed Coffee: ~21 mg / fl oz
Caffe Latte: ~75 mg * quantity of shots of espresso in recipe (1 shot for Tall, 2 for Grande / Venti, 3 for Iced Venti)
Americano: ~75 mg * quantity of shots of espresso in recipe (2 for Tall, 3 for Grande, 4 for Venti / Iced Venti)
Iced Brewed Coffee: ~21 mg / fl oz (165 over 8 instead of 16 as the beverage consists of half double strength coffee (in this case, 8 fl oz) to half ice (approximately 8 fl oz)
Coffee Frappuccino: ~12 mg / fl oz (95 over 8 instead of 16; the beverage is 8 fl oz Frappuccino mix to roughly 8 fl oz ice)

You would need four shots of espresso to approximate the caffeine content of a 16 fluid ounce cup of Brewed Coffee. So, in terms of Caffeine content ("Strength") and in summation:

Grande Brewed Coffee > Grande Caffe Americano
Grande Caffe Americano > Iced Grande Brewed Coffee
Iced Grande Brewed Coffee > Grande Caffe Latte
Grande Caffe Latte > Grande Coffee Frappuccino Blended Coffee

Class dismissed. Or something.

With her head on his chest, his twin heartbeat was an organic conga drum, beating out a bossa nova with every breath. Her own breathing had grown heavy, listening to him say the things she had hoped he might someday say. She breathed a sigh of contentment.

For a moment, save for their breathing, there was perfect silence between them.

The Doctor gently pulled away from her, lifted her chin with his fingers to look into her eyes.

"Y'know, not that I'm not enjoying being your personal pillow, but the question still stands."

She smiled. "Why you?"

He smiled back. "Why me."

Rose gave him a coy grin, "Why not?"

"So, you're saying I'm the universe's consolation prize?"

This drew a short laugh from her.

"Well, see, right there - because you make me laugh."

"So I'm your personal court jester," he grinned.

"Oi - I let you ramble on, now it's my turn."

He stood, with one of his "Aren't-I-clever?" grins and gave her a hand gesture, as to indicate "The floor is yours, Rose Tyler."

"Where to begin..." Rose thought. She took a deep breath and began.

"So, we met that night, back in the basement of Henrik's and you took me by the hand and said 'Run...!' And I did. And, just like you said when you first changed into, well, you, we never stopped running."

The Doctor slowly nodded, remembering their past trials and tribulations, all that they had seen, experienced, been through together.

"I was with Mickey then and, don't get me wrong, we had plenty of good times together, but... Mickey, well..."

Rose paused, endeavoring to speak favorably of a beloved friend who simply had the misfortune of not being the one.

The Doctor, his hands in his coat pockets, watched Rose struggling to find the right words, the right sentiment, not wanting to needlessly bash another man just because he wasn't her man. It was a quality of Rose that he cherished highly - she cared. All too often in his travels, he had overheard jilted lovers disparage their former significant others with the justification that "They were never good to begin with". Small wonder that, in his ninth form, he had christened them 'stupid apes' with their all or nothing conclusions and utter inability to really think about the world around them.

The soft sound of Rose's voice snapped him out of his reflections.

"...I loved Mickey. Still do. Always will... But Mickey... When he and I were.... he and I... We, well..."

The Doctor knew what she was hinting at: "Let's just say, he wasn't the one...?"

Rose nodded.

"A'right... but why me? I mean, other than the car - chicks dig the car, right?"

This drew a laugh. "Nine centuries of gallivanting through space and time and the last of the Time Lords is reduced to quoting Batman movies?"

He smiled. "Touché, Rose Tyler."

"Well, fair play to you, I do happen to dig 'the car'. But there's more to it than that."

He focused intently on her, curious to hear what she would say, how she would say it.

"You showed me a world I couldn't possibly begin to imagine. Got us in all sorts of jams. Put me in numerous end of the world situations..."

He reached out, took her hand in his, gave it a gentle squeeze.

"...And then you changed... and when you first changed into you... I mean.... I wasn't sure how much you had changed... If you would still care about me.... And, straightaway, you showed me that while your outside was different, you were still you. And you..."

Her heart was racing, he sensed.

"...What I mean is... I mean, you're an alien - no two ways about it... And yet you're probably the most human person I've ever known... You're endlessly compassionate, warm, considerate... But you're not to be crossed - I mean, your aim with a satsuma is testament to that."

He thought back to the Sycorax invasion briefly and of Jackie's odd friend. He also began to ponder the wild unpredictability of the regeneration process. "Isn't it funny," he mused, "how, sometimes I wind up more in touch with my Gallifreyan roots and the world sees me as eccentric, odd or strange and other times, I wind up more in touch with humanity." At this last thought, he briefly recalled his fifth and eighth forms - in those two particular incarnations, he had often been told by his then-companions how sweet, caring and compassionate he was, how human he seemed.

She pulled in close to him, snapping his attention back to her immediately.

"You have all of time and space at beck and call... and all you want is to share it with me... All I am is Rose Marion Tyler, the former shop assistant from Henrik's .... And..."

She was choking up, trying to say the words she felt in her heart.

"...And that's all I want you to be: Rose Marion Tyler," he softly finished for her.

They stood against the TARDIS, the stars shining brighter than ever. She rested her head on his shoulder.

"Doctor...?"

"Yes...?"

She sniffled. "Happy Valentine's Day. I love you."

Wiping tears from his own eyes, he replied.

"I love you, Rose. Happy Valentine's Day."

Under the glow of the moon and stars, they kissed.

He stood, leaning against the box of blue wood, staring out at the endless starry expanse above him. For all of his nine previous lifetimes, he could not recall the last time he had been able to stop running and take in the world around him, to appreciate the intrinsic incandescence of the star-lit midnight sky. "And who could blame me?" he thought to himself. Between the Daleks, Cybermen, Sycorax, Slitheen and every other alien specie that came knocking, his plate had been plenty full and what precious time he had was almost entirely devoted to either running for his current life or figuring out how to best contravene the current threat. Moments like this truly were few and far between.

"What're you doing?"

He turned and his gaze fell upon Rose Tyler, her form silhouetted by the glow of the TARDIS console.

"Ah, you know... Just taking it all in," he replied, gesturing to the sky.

She smiled gently, then walked over to him, resting her head on his shoulder.

He turned his head to look down at her. She was resplendent, her body silvered by the starlight. Their eyes met and she smiled again.

"Doctor...?"

"Yes...?"

"You've traveled all throughout time and space... met all sorts of species... gone on all kinds of adventures.... wore several different faces...."

"Ten, to be precise," he thought to himself. Then he realized she had stopped talking. He studied her face for a moment.

"...Why, of all the people, places, species in the world, why you?" he ventured.

She blushed and nodded.

The Doctor found himself momentarily speechless - he knew full-well what he wanted to say but found himself entirely unsure of how best to say it.

"D'you recall - and I know you do - when we first met?" he began.

She nodded. "My last shift at Henrik's, thanks to you."

He smiled. "Well, yes, our little skirmish with the The Nestene Consciousness and the Autons. But, more importantly, do you remember who I was when you met me?"

She looked up into his big brown eyes. "With your leather jacket, short hair and Northern accent?"

He stared a moment more at the heavens, then looked down at her.

"I was the sole survivor of the Time War... Well... Until we discovered that one Dalek and... And then the Dalek Emperor, which you.... Y'know what, I'm getting off track here..."

She loved to see him flustered.

"Anyway... I was still fresh from the Time War. Oh, sure, I traveled here and there to try and clear my mind but..." He sighed, then turned to face her. "Rose, I was a dead man. I was alive, but with little to live for. I hadn't even seen my new face until the day after I met you and, blimey, those ears and that hair? I s'pose I should be standing here, asking you 'Why me?'."

She chuckled at this.

He motioned towards the TARDIS. "She's always been, always will be my first love, having taken me all over the universe, throughout all of space and time... But the one place she can't bring me back from is from the brink.... from perdition itself. I can't begin to tell you what it was like facing the Skaro Degradations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child or any of the other threats I stared down during those final days of the Time War, or how it felt to have to decide that the Time Lords - my own people - needed to die so that the rest of the Universe might live..."

The silence grew thick... He continued.

"...But at least in those, oh, let's say, 'difficult' times, I knew what was on the line. And after I made my choice, sentencing my own people to their death for threatening to unravel existance itself, a new kind of hell arrived... I realized I began going through the motions. My heart.... hearts weren't in it, the way it... they... My soul wasn't into it, the way it had been for my previous eight regenerations. D'you recall how I referred to humans back then?"

She gave him a wry grin. "I believe you called us 'stupid apes'."

He looked down, smiling. "Tha's right... With that daft Northern accent and those gigantic ears... No really, Rose, why me?"

"Oi, no changing the subject - we're on you, right now. Why me?" she laughed.

"A'right, fine... Anyways... What I'm trying to say - and failing miserably by my own impossible standards - is this: you relit the fire in my soul, Rose. You made me take a second look at the new world around me, at the new me, and made me want to become a better man. In my final moments as the ninth me, when the regeneration cycle took over, all I could think of was 'Whatever I'm about to become, let it be something worthy of Rose Tyler.'"

"You did not!"

He stared intently into her eyes. "Someday, I'm going to have to tell you about my fifth regeneration and how I very nearly choked out my then-companion in the first moments of my sixth form. And don't get me started on the beyond aberrant sense of fashion that followed."

Rose couldn't imagine The Doctor strangling a companion, but all the same was grateful that his tenth form had a peaceful demeanor to it.

"Rose, I was an empty shell when you met me. An empty shell, waiting, yearning to be filled with.... ah, no, wait, that's a 'That's what she said' just waiting to happen.... I bounced back 'n forth, one moment seemingly bright and happy, the next dark 'n dour. And then I met you... and the dark 'n dour seemed to just slowly melt away, right up to that last moment when I said you were fantastic. And finally, for the first time since before the Time War, so was I."

She smiled, feeling the warmth flowing out of him. It was almost impossible to fully believe, that the man before her, who had seen such incredible sights, who had had such spectacular adventures, wanted nothing more than to be the best man he could, all for her.

He looked over at her, saw the solitary tear brightly-lit by the light of the moon, registered the uncontrollable smile of perfect happiness on her face and pulled her into his arms.

"...Was it something I said?"

She watched him at the TARDIS control panel - his gaunt frame hunched over that incredible incandescent array of switches, levers, buttons and dials. He seemed lost in thought ("Again", she thought to herself), possibly pondering which of the controls to operate next or perhaps some inane rambling awaited her if she dared to ask what was on his mi-

"The Ninja Turtles are posers by comparison."

Rose blinked, dumbstruck by this proclamation. "I'm sorry...?"

The Doctor looked up from his rapt contemplation and made eye contact with her. "You heard me, Rose Tyler - the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are shallow posers compared to the Pre-Teen Dirty-Gene Kung-Fu Kangaroos."

She scanned his face, looking for any trace of irony or humor. There were none.

"Pre-Teen.... Kangaroos....?"

The Doctor strode over, "Pre-Teen Dirty-Gene Kung-Fu Kangaroos, Rose. And don't give me any of that, 'Oh, but Doctor, the TMNT came first and the PTDGKFK were just created as a parody'."

Try as she might, Rose could not begin to address these wild accusations. Every now and again, he'd get fixated on some point of human pop culture and become obsessively passionate about it. She still hadn't entirely recovered from when he discovered and memorized Ke$ha's 'Tik Tok' - for nearly a month, wherever they went, he would sing it, loudly to whomever was within earshot. As they had yet to travel to a time and / or place where loudly regurgitating Ke$ha songs was a crime against humanity, Rose found herself to be his perpetually captive audience, waggling his finger back and forth like a clock pendulum every time he arrived at the chorus. As of recent, she noted, he had been listening to Katy Perry and this was slightly more tolerable, even though he seemed to take just a little too much pleasure in singing about being a firework or what he might or might not do every Friday night.

"I WON'T STAND FOR YOUR CLAIMS THAT THE COLOSSAL NUCLEAR BAMBINO SAMURAI SNAILS WERE THE SUPERIOR ANTHROPOMORPHIC ANIMAL FIGHTING TEAM, ROSE!"

Rose didn't dare scream back but she knew, full-well, how to diffuse this incredibly awkward situation. She just really didn't want to do it. She closed her eyes, took a full breath, then opened her eyes and stared the Doctor straight in the eye.

"WAKE UP IN THE MORNIN' FEELIN' LIKE P. DIDDY!", she sang out.

The Doctor stopped in his tracks, as if someone had slapped him right across the face. He gulped, then took a breath. He pulled out the brainy specs from his coat pocket and slipped them on and slowly began to sing:

"Grab my glasses, I'm out the door, I'm gonna HIT THIS CITY!" came the gleeful response.

Within seconds, the passionate anger over humanoid crime-fighting animals had mutated into a singing and dancing whirling dervish who, to all outward appearances, had canned heat in his heels tonight.

"BEFORE I LEAVE, BRUSH MY TEEF WITH A BOTTLE OF JACK, 'CAUSE WHEN I LEAVE FOR THE NIGHT I AIN'T COMIN' BACK!"

She breathed a sigh of relief - this would probably continue for the next month. Then again, the whole thing was her fault to begin with - she had shown him the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a way of getting him away from Ke$ha and she had suffered through endless discussions about their eye masks, nearly constant requests for pizza, and extremely frequent trips to Feudal Japan. She couldn't count how many times he claimed they were going to stop The Daleks or the Cybermen, only to open the TARDIS doors and nearly get hit by throwing stars, or sliced in twain by katana blades . She even witnessed him twirling nunchuks while the TARDIS careened through the time vortex. And how many times had he asked her, "Rose, which one am I? Which Turtle do you think I am?", all the while giving her those big puppy-dog eyes. He really was a little boy at heart sometimes. But now he was getting into the spin-offs and parodies that arose in the wake of the TMNT ("Probably including," Rose thought to herself, "the Pre-Teen Dirty-Gene Kung-Fu Kangaroos and Colossal Nuclear Bambino Samurai Snails") and becoming equally passionate, if not moreso, about them.

Suddenly, the TARDIS violently rocked, sending Rose and the still singing / dancing Doctor crashing into the wall. The Doctor, knocked out of his song, ran to the control panel.

"Doctor, what happened?? Where are we?"

His eyes scanned the monitors and his face went from deep concern to unabashed joy.

"What?! Doctor, where are we??"

With as big a smile as she had ever seen on his face, he turned the monitor to face her. She looked and an incredible sense of dread filled her from head to toe. The question was inevitable. She could only pray that he came to his senses and didn't ask if they could-

"Rose - brace yourself - we've materialized at Chuck E Cheese. Can we go??"

[CLOSE UP ON DOCTOR'S WIDE-EYED JUBILANT FACE, CUT TO DOCTOR WHO TITLES / THEME SONG]

So, for the uninitiated, the Mega Man titles are predicated upon the classic Rock-Paper-Scissors mentality - that is, that one Robot Master's weapon is the weakness of another Robot Master, so forth, so on. Depending on the game in question, there's generally eight robot masters and usually one "loop" - that is, one specific order to tackle the robot masters and you can break into said "loop" at any point, acquiring weapons and defeating robot masters with the correct weapon. But variety is the spice of life - if you always play Mega Man 4 the same way, taking on, say, Toad Man, then Bright Man, then Pharaoh Man, Ring Man, Dust Man, Skull Man, Dive Man and Drill Man, well, the game gets old.

For absolute newbies, there's nothing wrong with that order. For those of us who have been around the Mega block more than once, you begin craving *variation*. That said, let's talk strategy, just for a sec. Behold my proposed order:

Pharaoh Man
Ring Man
Dust Man
Skull Man
*Toad Man
Dive Man
*Drill Man
Bright Man

Now, the question is "Why?"

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( Click here if you really want to find out whyCollapse )

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*That* is why I love Mega Man games. The thought that doesn't necessarily have to but *can* go into every playthrough. That, and they're just a lot of fun to play. Anyways...

IGN.com: "Did Nintendo launch the 3DS too early?"

Reggie Fils-Aime: "What I would say is that… we didn't launch it too early, but we did allow too much of a gap from the launch to the time when some of these key products or features were available. We needed to narrow that gap."

Let me see if I can break that down...

You're saying that you released it on time, on schedule but you took too long in making key products or features available. Want to know another way of saying that?

If you had released it just a little while later, those products and features would have been available in a timely fashion. Want to know yet another way of saying that?

You released the 3DS early. Thanks Reggie. You are a delight.

So, yesterday I went on a far longer than anticipated rant which boiled down to "I bought a PSP instead of a 3DS." And, having re-read it a few times now, I feel like I unintentionally obfuscated a few things.

I don't hate the 3DS or Nintendo. The Big N has been generally very good to me which, considering I'm just a source of income to them and not a person, I don't know if that's saying anything at all. In essence, I've been able to derive a great deal of enjoyment from all of their systems up until now. And, as regards the 3DS, well, I don't even own the thing. But my meltdown was more about Nintendo's *management* of the 3DS and, to all outward appearances, how the 3DS seems to have been released with a sense of entitlement, that it deserves to be successful when, in reality, there's been little down to engender that.

If anyone should know about being the scrappy underdog, trying to get back on top in a plot ripped straight out of 'Rocky III', it's Nintendo. When Sony came along in the mid '90s and usurped the throne that Nintendo had been comfortably sitting in for nearly a decade, it was hard to believe that they'd ever get back on top. The Playstation One (PSOne or PSX) had spoken to the kids who grew up with Nintendo but were looking for something more than fireball-chucking plumbers or elven lads in green miniskirts questing after golden triangles. They offered us Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, and a whole new way of looking at Final Fantasy games. While there's an argument to be had about whether full motion video cut-scenes mitigated our interaction with games (e.g. watching Frog, in sprite form, slice a mountain open versus watching it as a beautifully animated cut scene from Toriyama's Bird Studio), the point remains that Playstation made video games cool all over again. Games were no longer just for the nerds - everyone could look cool playing a Playstation.

And when PS2 came along, they did it all over again with bigger games, longer cut-scenes and even a built-in DVD player. And what did Nintendo respond with?

You can't entirely fault them for sticking with the cartridge format one generation too many. In the age of immediate gratification, load time is the devil. And after the success of Donkey Kong Country, a cartridge game which showed the world precisely what you could do with just 16 bits and not a CD-ROM add-on or a 32-bit enhancer, why shouldn't they keep the cartridges and see how much blood from a stone they could squeeze.

The N64 certainly offered up some quality titles. Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Star Fox 64, Mario Kart 64, Super Smash Bros. - yes, admittedly all first-party titles - but also Star Wars Rogue Squadron, Star Wars Episode I Racer, Goldeneye 007, Resident Evil 2 (Originally a PSOne title but hey, that's two discs of content crammed into one cartridge), WCW / nWo Revenge, WWF Wrestlemania 2000, Mortal Kombat 4 (Arguably an arcade perfect port) - all excellent titles from third-party developers.

So when it came time for the Gamecube, Nintendo's first disc-based console, you'd think they'd borrow a page or two from Sony in an effort to reclaim the throne. Maybe release the system with one or two Triple A quality games and bury the competition.

Nah - we got Luigi's Mansion.

Alright, we also got the phenomenal Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader but still - this is a business where you strive to be on top and the best first-party title you can launch the system with is Luigi with a backpack vacuum? And doesn't this scenario sound familiar?

It should - it's what they just did with the release of the 3DS.

I don't know what the prevailing logic was when the Cube was released. Nintendo wasn't poised to assume that the Cube would set the gaming world on fire - they had to go up against the PS2 and the XBox. With the 3DS, its easy to assume that they thought their portable pedigree which, even up to now with the PSP, was largely unchallenged; that they felt that the words "Portable Gaming" were synonymous with "Nintendo". Nevermind how smartphones have been changing the game - Nintendo honestly believes that $250 (roughly the cost of a smartphone) and $40 are reasonable prices.

They'd seem reasonable to me if Nintendo had released, on day one, a game that showed me why those prices were reasonable.

When you invest a significant amount of money into something, you want to see where every penny went. I wrote yesterday about purchasing a PSP 3000 and I can easily see where all $130 of my money went - it's a great system with great functionality and an incredible library of ready to download games. If there's one or two games that aren't available from the Playstation Store, it's not a huge deal to scoop up the UMDs - they go for beyond reasonable rates on Amazon.com. Anywhere from $3.99 to maybe $29.99 for a newly released title. That's reasonable and the games are console quality - I'm literally playing Playstation One titles on a portable system. A great deal of the games are PS2 quality. As I said yesterday, that's incredible.

Over on the 3DS, though, the only game I'm really seeing an incredible amount of quality on would be Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition - in terms of appearance and sound, it mimics the console version very well. Ocarina looks great but then it's a 12 going on 13 year old game (released in America in November 1998). I would *hope* that a current gen console could handle a graphically enhanced port of a 12 going on 13 year old game with grace.

Again - if I'm Nintendo and I'm trying to make you forget that the PSP even exists, I'm gonna go for the killing stroke. I'm gonna release my new console with a title so good that you remember why Nintendo is synonymous with video games. I'm gonna consider taking certain cues from the competition - Sony went UMD-less with their PSPGo, I'm gonna do the same thing but maybe bigger. They give you 16 GB flash memory, maybe I give you 32 GB. They give you PSOne titles and PSP games, I'll give you 3DS, DS, GBA, GBC, GB, Game Gear, Atari Lynx, Super NES, Sega Genesis, N64, NES, Master System.... They let you link your PSP to your PS3, I'll let you link your 3DS to the Nintendo Wii and, hey, whatever Virtual Console titles you've got on Wii, I'll offer to put them on your 3DS. So forth, so on.

Having said all that, what did they *actually* do?

Released a console, assuming people would buy it on brand-name recognition, without any really must-have titles, with an online service not fully set up, and then made a half-assed customer loyalty deal where, if you log into eShop prior to the price cut, you're eligible for 20 free games, 10 of which are only available via this limited time offer. If you don't presently own a 3DS and the idea of getting those 10 limited time offer games appeals to you, you'll have to put down $250 for a 3DS - once the price cut takes effect, the deal is gone.

Nintendo, this isn't how you do business. This is how you extort. You are extorting.

It would be different if you hadn't made that snide remark of "We have no plans to release Game Boy Advance titles outside of this offer." Or did you say, "We have no plans to release *these* Game Boy Advance titles outside of this offer"? It doesn't matter, really - either you really *are* going to release GBA titles and you just don't have a press release written yet or you're honestly saying you have no interest in making more money by offering those GBA titles on eShop for some arbitrary reason and I have no patience for either course of action.

I guess that's it for now. More redundancy later.

My memory isn't always as sharp as I'd like it to be, hard as I try to keep it that way, but I'm almost certain that I've been a Nintendo gamer since at least 1988. By my math (which isn't always to be entirely trusted), that means I've been kickin' it with the Big N for about 23 years.

Twenty Three Years. I can't fully fathom that concept. I remember when I was in sixth grade, thinking to myself, "I'm six years away from 12th grade; it's gonna take forever to get there." Now, I'm ten years out of high school with a soon to be five year old son. Where does the flippin' time go?

Anyways... 23 years of an red overalled Italian plumber from Brooklyn (for some reason) locked in a perpetual quest to save royalty from a megalomaniacal turtle-dragon hybrid. 23 years of a Legolas-y flavored lad dressed in a green skirt, armed with a sword 'n shield, traversing the land because a shiny triangle-shaped MacGuffin demands he do so. 23 years of playing with power. 23 years that have yielded an 8-bit NES, a 16-bit SNES, a 64-bit Nintendo64, two Nintendo Gamecubes and a Nintendo Wii; on the portable side, a Game Boy Color, two Game Boy Advances, an original Nintendo DS and two Nintendo DS Lites. And then, two days ago, I purchased a Playstation Portable 3000.

Oh, you read right. I finally broke the stranglehold that Nintendo had and went for the competitor. Wha happa?

Well, truth be told, I've passively contemplated the PSP for awhile now. It's always been the sleeker, more stylish, more functional portable system. That's not to say that the DS hasn't served me faithfully - it has, and continues to do so - but the PSP has always been the more advanced system with games that veer closer to console games in terms of overall quality than most of the DS's library. But why purchase one now?

The first reason is a little light in substance but the PSP has games that I want to play that, simply, aren't available on a Nintendo console. The first two of such games are Mega Man Powered Up and Mega Man X Maverick Hunter - both, admittedly, remakes of classic titles. For the record, I once owned the original Mega Man for the classic NES (until I stupidly traded it in for an SNES game some time in the mid 1990s) and I repurchased it for the Wii Virtual Console. I still own Mega Man X for the SNES and I repurchased it for the Virtual Console as well. But, damn it all, the remakes look like a lot of fun. They (Capcom) went and added original content and modes of play, did interesting things with the graphics and music and they're portable, to boot. Why *shouldn't* I want either game?

Consider the Virtual Console angle - the PSP allows you to purchase PSP and classic PS One games over the 'net that you can download to a memory stick and play on the go. I can purchase and download Final Fantasy VII, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Parappa the Rapper, UmJammer Lammy, Xenogears.... the list goes on. While it is true that the PSP originally used Universal Media Discs (UMD) and while, yes, a handful of their PSP UMD library hasn't yet materialised on the Playstation Store, the truth remains that a great deal of them *are* available and the ones that aren't can be purchased very inexpensively from Amazon.com. This is incredible.

While I may not use it for these purposes explicitly, the PSP also allows me to upload MP3s and pictures as well. I can download comics and TV shows and carry them on the go as well. The DSi and 3DS is certainly getting to this point but... well...

I did entitle this post "A critique of Nintendo" for a reason.

See, being an avid NIntendophile for so long, I've seen, first-hand, the things they do. I've staunchly defended a lot of their stupidity under the banner of "Hey, at least they're being creative." Things I've defended under this label include:

-The Game Boy camera (later came into its own as part of the DSi and 3DS)
-The Virtual Boy (later came into its own as the 3DS)
-The Transfer Pak for the N64 (saw new life as the GBA to Gamecube connector cord and the wireless download feature on the Wii)
-The eReader (was put to great use for Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 and Animal Crossing for the Gamecube)
-The N64 trident controller (I still can't play Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask or Super Mario 64 without wishing I was doing so with said controller)
-The N64 being a cartridge system (Consider the N64 version of Resident Evil 2 - proof that you can do incredible things with a comparatively modest amount of space. This was the logic upon which Donkey Kong Country was born.)

But then there's this 3DS.... thing.

I'm not attacking the console - it's a solid idea, the whole glasses-free 3D. And having tried one first hand at Best Buy and Toys R Us, I can vouch for the "neat" factor. It's the Magic Eye-ification of video games. And hey, portable Virtual Console - games from the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, NES and Sega Game Gear consoles with possibly other consoles due to represent (i.e. the Atari Lynx). But a few things are bothering me here.

Perhaps firstly was how NIntendo launched the system. They sorta pulled a Sony on us - much like how Kaz Hirai was insisting that the consumers were ready to put down "Five hundred and ninety-nine US dollars" because the PS3 represented "real change", Nintendo wanted us to pay $249.99. If that price sounds familiar, it's because that was how much the Nintendo Wii went for when it was released back in 2006. And hey, it's not that the price is entirely insane - the 3DS is a more technologically advanced DS Lite, and that tech needs to paid for some how. But, if you're going to ask your faithful consumers to plunk down two-fitty on new tech, you'd better have- anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

You'd better have some awesome games ready at launch.

I mean it - I don't care how faithful the crowd was during your last console. To borrow someone else's words, just because you're *currently* doing the Scrooge McDuckstroke through your money-filled moneybins of money doesn't mean the wave of momentum can't crash on the shores of consumer infidelity.

They release this admittedly cool-in-conceptual-theory system but with what? Where's the games that I just gotta have? The closest I've seen so far are Super Street Fighter IV and the recently released remake of Ocarina of Time. Nothing against either of these games but are either of them worth putting down $250 for the console?

And now this borderline insulting "offer" to entice" folks: if you purchase / have purchased a 3DS and connect / have connected to the Nintendo eShop before August 11 2011 (when the 3DS price drops to $170), you earn the distinction of being a 3DS Ambassador and are eligible for 20 free games (10 are classic NES titles, the other 10 being Game Boy Advance titles). The $250 asking price aside, this is an incredible offer: the Game Boy Advance was a whirlpool jacuzzi of spectacular and having classic NES titles is theoretically icing on the cake.

So then, why u mad, bro? In no particular order?

Nintendo was on top of the world and this should have been a coup de grace to the PSP and the upcoming Vita. Instead they bounced the ball into their testicles and now they're trying to do a funny dance, as if to say, "Totally meant to do that." but they're charging new onlookers in the crowd $250 for the privilege of dance-watching. I mean, if I were running the show, I would have released the 3DS with the Virtual Console service up and running with at least twenty and at most fifty titles ready for download. Or perhaps, five titles available the first week of sales. Two weeks later, five more. Two weeks later, et cetera, so on. Start strong somewhere -I can overlook the lack of a strong 3DS title if you can offer me value somewhere, *anywhere* else.

The 10 NES / 10 GBA offer seems great but then you read the fine print, so to speak: they haven't released a full list of *which* 10 for either system. They've announced some of the titles, sure. But that's not really a solid enticement. That would be like holding a sugar coated syringe of amoebic dysentery and when a curious potential customer comes up, you say, "Well, I do have *something* and it's definitely *sweet* and don'tcha wanna know how sweet it is?" And, sure, maybe they haven't decided which games they're going to release but that only serves to further my argument - you're trying to make me a compelling offer but you're not sure how compelling you want it to be? You can't work the details out prior to announcing the offer in the first place? How competent a company are you, anyways? Don't answer that last question - I think I've worked out the answer for myself.

Not only that - the whole "Not telling you which 20" thing - but they've also announced "Well, we have no plans to release the 10 Game Boy Advance titles in the future. So, put down $250 now and scoop up a 3DS with 20 free games (available sometime in the future, not on August 11th or anything reasonable like that) or you can pay $170 and, despite giving us your money, you still can't have those games. Like, ever, We're not releasing them for sale over the eShop so you'd better keep your GBA library and your DS Lite 'cause we're not rereleasing them to you unless you make an initial investment of $250 in our ostensibly already faltering handheld.

Are you *kidding* me?

The classic NES titles is intriguing - mostly because I thought the 3DS Virtual Console was going to be only handheld titles, like Game Gear, Game Boy, etc. - but again, I call flag on the play. When Sony's PS Store allows me to purchase a game and send it to either a PS3 *OR* a PSP, I can't help but say why can't Nintendo do the same? Why not allow me to link my MyNintendo account to the hardware ID of my Nintendo Wii and the hardware ID of a theoretical 3DS? Just one of each, of course, but why not let me send titles from the Wii to the 3DS? Why not check my MyNintendo account to see what I've already purchased for the Wii Virtual Console and, if a particular game is available for the 3DS VC, allow me to download it for free on the 3DS? Or, again, allow me to link a single 3DS to my Nintendo Wii and allow me wirelessly send games from one to the other. As long as the hardware IDs match up, this would allow me to take games on the go but not allow me to share 'em with other folks.

I just... What *IS* this I don't *EVEN*...

[May 14, 2011, 10:59]
Haven't played much this past week and a half - been busy. Played a little more this morning - did the Train mission. Earned an 'S' Rank, but had to restore from Save point several times to accomplish it.

Current assessment of MMZero? Still mostly digging it. I mean, to me, the appeal of the original Mega Man X (the standard to which I'm holding this, the original Mega Man Zero) is that it offered huge open-area worlds for the player / X to explore. It wasn't just scroll to the right until you have to go up or down, then scroll to the left / right until you have to go up or down, repeat until you reach the boss gate. There were, for lack of better words, nooks and crannies waiting to be explored, potentially containing Heart Tanks, Sub Tanks or Dr. Light Capsule upgrades. Like Metroid before it, you sometimes needed one upgrade to find the others. But unlike Metroid, Mega Man X didn't penalize you for taking your time - it rewarded you. With MMZ, you still can explore 'til your heart's content but, well... As soon as the mission begins, you're being graded on how quickly you complete it, how many enemies you take out, how much damage you take, whether or not you're using any Cyber Elves (MMZ's equivalent of Heart Tanks, Sub Tanks, Upgrades) and, yeah. That's what earns you the 'S' or the 'A' or whatever rank you get. After the mission is completed and the game gives you your rank, you're free to go back to the area you just completed and explore at your leisure.

As already mentioned below, I generally chafe at the idea of being evaluated, graded in games. I play games to get *away* from evaluation and the general exception to the rule is I don't mind as much so long as there's a reward for my efforts. Consider the original Viewtiful Joe - if you're able to complete every segment of the game with a Rainbow V rating (V for Viewtiful, of course), the game rewards you with an unlimited VFX meter. This means you can start a new game and use your Viewtiful super powers all you want without fear of powering down from Viewtiful Joe to Joe (or whomever you're playing as, e.g. Sylvia, Alastor, Captain Blue). That's a hell of a challenge but VJ sets you up for success - they ease you into the gameplay and, provided you fall in love with the game, you only become better with time. It's a very do-able challenge and, hey - if you're able to do it with Joe, you can try it as Sylvia or Alastor or Captain Blue. They all have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Sorry - getting carried away here.

In MMZ, the game penalizes you for using continues. Let's say you start a mission and an enemy knocks you into a bottomless pit. You die. You have three lives but the game doesn't simply start you at the nearest save point - the words "GAME OVER" appear and you're asked if you'd like to continue. If you say yes, you're started at a save point in the mission but your overall rank is already knocked down a level, regardless of how well you do. If you're aiming for A or S rank, you have to choose to not continue but, instead, restore from an earlier save point and start the mission all over again. So far, here in the beginning of the game, that's not a terrible thing but I imagine the missions get a little longer as the game progresses on. Anyways.

It's a challenge. I get it. An adjustable one, too - nobody is saying you *can't* use the cyber elves and make your experience a far more palatable one. Just that the game's baseline challenge can be very trying. On the flipside, Capcom's very good at challenges that are A) difficult but B) do-able.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't know what I'm trying to say. I like the game but it's definitely *not* Mega Man X but it's definitely *similar* while not being the *same*. Oh, and the backstory?

Beyond ridiculous.

I ordered the Mega Man Zero art book ('Megaman Zero Official Complete Works' by the fine folks at UDON) and, just like their Official Complete Works books for Megaman and Megaman X, this one is filled with awesome art and fascinating information from the people behind the games. Let me tell you something. Spoilers, or something:

The folks behind MMZ are *insane*. I love it. More later.

---

[May 04, 2011, 12:02]
So, having barely played any of the 'Mega Man Zero' titles, I found myself with an incredible urge to pick up 'Mega Man Zero Collection' for the DS and see what the fuss was all about. Granted, I own 'MMZ3' for the GBA, but I didn't really find myself falling head over heels with what little of it I played. With the purchase of MMZC, I figured the best thing I could do was play the original and see if, perhaps, the first game could work its magic on me and, depending on said magic-working, see about continuing the series proper.

So far, the magic is kinda working. Kinda.

I'm only 20 minutes in - two missions down (the prologue / Golem battle and the Trash / Disposal mission) and, I have to say, once his skills are maxed out, Zero is total frickin' rock star from Mars. There's just something joy-inducing about becoming a crimson samurai of green swordy death. But, here's the thing of it - I maxed out his Z-Saber and Buster skills just by noodling around in the prologue / underground lab area. I didn't set out purposefully to do it - I just wanted to go somewhere, between missions, where I could mess around and get a feel for the controls and whatnot. After realising that my skills were getting leveled up just by, y'know, shooting and slicing stuff, I kept at it to see how far I could go before boredom set in.

Twenty minutes or so in, I have all of the Z-Saber and Z-Buster skills. I can jump in the air and become a spinny / slice-y death machine. I can charge my otherwise worthless Z-Buster to become a fairly decent long-range weapon. And while I still ain't diggin ' the whole YOU'RE BEING GRADED ON YOUR PERFORMANCE nonsense, the game proper is fun. Here's hoping that continues. Maybe more on this later...

I'm not gonna sit here and waste your time by feigning surprise and making naive statements such as "Woahgeez, Nintendo is only giving you SMAS which they could've done on Virtual Console, Ha-derpa derp!" or "THE BOOKLET - IT'S NOT THOROUGH ENOUGH". Screw that. I'll offer up what *I* would've done, if money were no issue and I was given total control of the project.

Giving me Super Mario All-Stars is fine - they're essentially remastered versions of established classics. I would've went a few steps further, though. Behold my dream list:

-Super Mario Bros. (NES)
-Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES)
-Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels (a.k.a. Japan's SMB2) (NES)
-Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
-Super Mario World (SNES)
-Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (SNES)
-Super Mario Land (GB)
-Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (GB)
-Super Mario 64 (N64)

Now, I'll openly acknowledge the redundancy in having, both, 8- and 16-bit versions of four of the games listed. My logic is this- the 8-bit versions were the games I initially fell in love with, but the 16-bit versions are akin to love letters to those games. The rough edges are smoothed out, the glitches fixed, the backgrounds more vibrant, the music more fleshed out, etc. but, damnit, that's not how I was introduced to Mario. I see little harm in offering up the four NES versions alongside their Super Mario All-Stars counterparts, in spite of their ready availability on Virtual Console.

This brings us to Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island. I feel the original SMW should have been included on general principle - I mean, Nintendo released a *second* version of All-Stars that included SMW (creatively titled "Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World"); why not give us that version? If anything, it's more complete.

It's difficult to make a completely compelling case for Yoshi's Island - this is Mario's 25th anniversary and, while the game was originally titled Super Mario World 2 and while an infant Mario is perpetually perched atop Yoshi's back, you're still playing as Yoshi. That said, it's still one of the finest platforming games ever produced and if we're gonna truly celebrate Mario's storied history, let's do it up.

The Game Boy titles.... I'm torn on this. I've played the original Super Mario Land. It's not a particularly long adventure and it's really strange (Space ships? Ninjas? Pyramids? Easter Island Moai statues??) but, again, it's the 25th anniversary. SML 2: Six Golden Coins, on the other hand, is essentially a shrunk-down Super Mario World and I am *all* for that. If ever a game deserved a new lease on life, it would be SML2.

I'm sure an argument could be made for including Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 but if we're truly being honest, that game really should have been titled "Wario Land". There's little to nothing Super Mario Land about it. That's not a complaint - it's an awesome game! - but it truly has little to nothing to do with Mario. At least Yoshi's Island featured Mario in an upfront role.

Super Mario 64 is just awesome and really showed the gaming world how a 2D platforming game could make the leap to the Z-Axis with aplomb. I would have been thrilled with the N64 original or, if Nintendo wanted to really impress me, they could have made a new N64 ROM out of the DS remake (Super Mario 64 DS) and given me that. Either way, a good time to be had by all.

Other possible inclusions? Maybe... I dunno. I considered Dr. Mario but for this, the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros., the focus really should be on Mario's platforming history. I wouldn't be against taking a page from Nintendo's "Mario Mania" book / strategy guide and including a list of every game Mario has ever appeared in, complete with pics or movies.

As for the soundtrack CD, well... It's a welcome inclusion, to be sure, but not necessarily one that will see alot of use. I'll more than likely copy it to my Macbook and play it from there. *shrug*

/endthoughts/