Wi-Philes

Space Invaders is the hardest god damn thing created by man. In honor of Space Invaders Extreme being released in Japan this week, a game which you will all undoubtedly be purchasing from your favorite import store (that would be Play-Asia), I've decided to blog about how much I hate this stupid, stupid game.

I frequently return to the 1978 on one of many Taito collections I have laying around the house, because I hate my life. Words cannot properly describe how much anguish this game causes me with each and every iteration. From the original, to the slightly maladjusted sequel, to the cartoony remake (Space Invaders '95) to the 25th Anniversary editions, every single time I play Space Invaders I want to die. I mostly play the original on Space Invaders DX, because you can replace the blocky octopus aliens with cutesy baddies from Taito's vast portfolio of cutesy arcade games, which is like baking a cake for Satan.

This game is so hard because there is no particularly outstanding strategy to win, all you have to do is not suck for as long as possible. I challenge you to not suck at this game. My high score in the original (the original original, not the DX version), is somewhere in the 4050 range. That's level four with 3 lives (including zero). Every time I play the game my score gets worse and worse. It is the type of game that punishes you for trying to get better at it.

It is so god damn difficult I'm not even kidding. Anyone who plays it for more than a casual few minutes knows what I mean. I am so angry, I don't even know what to type.

The road to hell is paved with Space Invaders. If my hatred for this game were gasoline, I'd have enough to propel the Earth into the Sun. The government uses this game to control us. Tomohiro Nishikado's mind is equivalent to a thousand years of insufferable pain. Hitler loved Space Invaders.

I hope it dies in a thousand fires. I hope this game catches AIDs. I hope it's discovered that Space Invaders causes instant blindness so Taito will stop making them. I hope whoever even so much as thinks about the title has a heart attack and dies, because I don't want this shit to exist anymore. Fuck this game.

I'm an expert eavesdropper.

Among the many things I consider myself good at, most of them relating to introspection and/or self-deprecation, I believe I am a forerunner in the art of listening to other people's conversations. When you spend as much time on trains and boats as I do, you tend to learn a thing or two about people you'll never give the time of day, let alone talk to. I have conversational preferences, now; that is, there are some types of social exchanges I actually enjoy tuning into. For example, I love listening to people yell at customer service reps over cell phones. There's something about a rough mustached man hurling obscenities into his palm because the shower curtains some Arkansas-based bathroom company sent him were the wrong color. Conversely, I absolutely hate overconfident awkward dudes with every fiber of my being, particularly ones that try to hit on cute, quiet, unsuspecting girls on the ferry. I hate them because they seem to find the one cute girl on the ferry that sits across from me, without fail, each and every time. I have to force my way through whatever book I'm reading while this dude talks about how he and his friend Jim once wrestled on the Brooklyn Bridge and the cops jailed both of them for three days.

However, I actively absorb these exchanges like a sponge, and as a result I am dirty and covered in bread crumbs and odd black streaks. I use these streaks for when I am forced into conversations with complete strangers, if only not to make the air of any situation less awkward (like standing next to a guy in the urinal, even though he is the only one in the bathroom and there are plenty of other available, less-occupied urinals).

I also use this knowledge to feel out how to not pick up chicks! I can say from experience that learning how to not frighten the opposite sex is only slightly useful when looking to hit on them with any success. That is to say, I have never randomly approached a woman and walked away with her number, or a wink, or a "good-bye", or even a smile and nod. But I've never gotten a scowl, and I guess that's saying something!

Take, for instance, my latest encounter with a savvy female New Yorker-type. I spotted a quaint-looking young girl on the train the other day. She had thick, librarian, black-rimmed glasses, long blonde hair tied back in a pony-tail, and business-suit attire, although she was clearly just a student considering her rather bulgy school bag. This look is considered largely to be unapproachable or undesirable no matter how attractive the girl may be, because many men are afraid that they might end up with a woman who is smarter than they are. I am not threatened by this, but this is mostly because I am so stupid I have no choice. In fact, I'd go so far as to say this business-type demeanor is nothing short of breathtaking.

The girl, who we will call "train girl", was seated and looking down at her hand. Upon further investigation, she appeared to be looking at some pages filled with words, or something. I slowly walked towards her, as the train was moving at such high speeds that inertia was pushing me backwards and towards the rear exit of the car. When I finally made my way to the far-end of the car, I stood over her, giving the best ape-man impression I could, and tapped my finger down on what she was reading while making short, incomprehensible grunts.

"Hey there," I said with a smile, "I see you're reading the Conker's Bad Fur Day instruction booklet. For the Nintendo 64."
"Huh?" She replied, confusedely. Flipping over her instruction manual, I noticed that it wasn't an instruction manual at all, but some larger strategy guide of some sort entitled "The Perks of Being a Wallflower."
"I've never heard of that game. What system is it for?" I stared deep into her brown eyes.
"It's not a game. It's a novel." She pointed to the cover again. "Stephen Chbosky wrote it."
I gave her the most passionate blank stare I could.
"He's an author. He writes books. This is a book."
"Oh!" I replied with a surprised oh-ness about me. "A book, like that Halo book about that game, uh. I didn't realize there were more. Mind if I sit?"
"Yeah. Yeah I do mind, actually. When have you ever seen anyone reading instruction manuals for leisure, on the train?"

I thought hard and long about that one, actually, I thought about it for approximately twelve or thirteen minutes before realizing that I didn't even read instruction manuals to begin with, and that my assumption was in fact ridiculous. Finally, I shifted my attention back to her, and asked, "Have you ever played Conker's Bad Fur Day? It's actually kind of significant."

"What? No. How is it significant? Significant to whom?" [I've never heard anyone say "whom" in real life besides my English teacher from junior year of high school, and she was a fox, so].
"It's important because it raises a very legitimate question: in what situations can cursing be used tactfully in modern literature?"

She raised her right eyebrow and took my bait, "I... I guess cursing can be tactful when used somewhat tastefully, like when to show extreme forms of emotion, or perhaps in comedy."
But the thing is, I thought, cursing can never be tasteful, and therefore it can never be funny, and that's why Conker's Bad Fur Day is a bad game.

I began to formulate my thoughts for replying with my whole "cursing can never be tasteful" routine when I instead replied with: "Fuck your ugly mom at NASA headquarters! And tell this shitty kid to stop touching his dick." I pointed quickly to the infant kid next to her, who was sleeping on his mother's lap, his mother being a 250-some-odd pound Hispanic woman.

Anyway, long story short, I didn't get her number, and I learned a few new words in Spanish. So if there's one thing to be learned from eavesdropping, it's that there's no right or wrong way to gather information, but there are clearly-defined lines when dispersing. And with that, dear reader, I employ you all to listen in on other people's conversations. You never know when they might not come in handy.

I grew up surrounding myself with all different magazines, including a number of gaming ones. Back in the early 90's, GamePro wasn't only respectable but their writers had character and wit that is, unfortunately, lost in their recent issues (and by "recent", I mean the last seven years of issues). So once I discovered the internet my subscriptions began to dwindle and I started strictly looking on the web for the entertainment void in me that could no longer be filled with petty print magazines. At least as far as gaming magazines go, because most other magazines I read back then are still great now. So for the past few years of my electronerd existence, I've taken well to the realm of professional and amateur online journalism. I've been doing the latter for nearly four years now so I've got a special place in my heart for the kids that do it just because. I do it just because I've got nothing else to do, and I figured if I'm doomed to waste my life and die lonely then I might as well write about things that I see. Take, for example, right now. Right now I'm writing about writing. Someone tell me when I've broken the fourth wall in journalism because I feel like I'm getting closer and closer every day.

I particularly keep tabs on Nintendo fansites, because I used to help run the one that you're reading right now, so I like to think I have some kind of special degree in Nintendo Fansite Aesthetic. I will admit right now that I think the only Nintendo fansite that is respectable and entertaining to read is N-Sider, and it has been that way for years. Oh, and N-Philes is O.K. too. N-Sider used to be pretty big on its Heart Containers column written by Brandon Daiker. In Heart Containers, Brandon would take user-submitted mail and come up with an answer that, more often than not (at least in the later editions), was a witty riff on the subject, complete with internet jokes, and some poorly photoshopped images to accompany each answer. It was actually really funny, and it's a shame Brandon doesn't update it anymore. But my point here is that Heart Containers wasn't just a joke column, but major illustrative commentary on what Nintendo fansites should have been. It was tongue-in-cheek and it'd never last on anything except for a lower-key site like N-Sider, but if, say, PlanetGamecube, one of the top-visited Nintendo fansites on the internet, had staff members throughout its history that were even a fraction as clever as Brandon then there would have been greater risks taken during PGC's major stages of development, and the current articles published on the site would probably be a lot more fun to read, rather than the mostly matter-of-fact drivel that gets slapped on its front page every day.

I say these things strictly as a spectator, because the irony here is that PGC is at the top of the Nintendo fansite food chain because of how hard their previous directors worked, and that is admirable in an entrepreneurial sense. Because we all know Nintendo fansites are big business. And I do check PGC (now named Nintendo World Report, which is not to be confused with the Nintendo World Store located in midtown Manhattan) (...) every day just so I can have a bit more ammo. This is as opposed to any site in the Advanced Media Network, which I completely refuse to read because their amateur staff writers really, really want to be professionals, and it shows, because most of the stuff that is published on their front page is completely devoid of any character. That and their layouts are eye raping. Oh, and I can never remember the URLs to their sites so I wind up having to Google them every time I want to have my eyes sodomized. Sodomy. Raping. Fellatio. This is why video games aren't considered an art form, guys. Sorry.

So, because I have a degree in being a snooty Nintendo fansite reader, I have a bit of a prize for all those who read my N-Sight today. I've made a little list of video game reviews that are doing it right. You see, after reading every review published on every website ever, you really start to appreciate the ones that go above and beyond the normal boundaries of accepted "video games journalism" and actually strive to make the reader not only feel entertained, but feel for the writer himself. This list is by no means exhaustive as it only contains reviews that I can think of off the top of my head, but there are a few good ones in here. So please continue on to read my first N-Sight in way too long, entitled...



X-Entertainment
Jaws: The Nintendo Game!
by Matt (2004)

I'll start this off with one of my favorite reviews ever, and certainly the definitive review of Jaws for the NES, by Matt, owner of X-Entertainment.com. This review is so good that if I had a counter that kept track of how many times I've read it, I would have surely broken it by now. There are so many good jokes about the NES design status quo and they're all spot on, from bad copy-editing to disproportionate sprites to uneven difficulty levels.

"The trick is, you've gotta stab Jaws right in his white belly. He'll flop to and fro, all over the sea, but only when he's just in front of your strobey thing will you be able to deliver the death blow. Jaws, not really disproving any arguments about sharks being idiots, will just keep hopping up and down trying to give you a clear shot, for however long it takes. Nail the bitch in the right spot, and you're in for a bleeding treat."

It's great the whole way through, and the best part is there's an .mp3 at the end of the essay of the entire review read back through a text-to-speech thing.

PlanetGameCube
Pokemon Dash
by Chris Bethea (2005)

Christ Bethea wasn't a PGC contributor for too long (which totally justifies me slamming them back there) and I'll admit now that I don't quite remember why I laughed at this when it was first published (even more justification), but I did. I think it was interesting to see a review published on PlanetPressRelease that had the tagline "The should have called it 'Pokémon Crap'. Because it's crap." NWR take note: that is exactly the kind of abstract that I like to see.

Anyway there are some decent jokes in this article, specifically towards the beginning, but he did generally do a good job of getting across his contempt for the title and you kind of feel bad for him because of it, as the reader. It's one of those deals where he makes it look so bad that you kind of want to play the game just to see his points for yourself, but you know you'll end up thinking like him anyway. That's reverse persuasion, or something.

InsertCredit
Sonic Battle
by Tim Rogers (2004)

I consider this to be the only good review of Sonic Battle ever written. Tim Rogers is no stranger to the style he wrote this in, a style dubbed "new games journalism", which is all about being pretentious and not too much about video games. Actually, he might have invented that term. He might have invented God for all I know. Anyway his review actually starts a third of the way down the page but the setup is fun to read. He called Sonic Battle a "video game based on a video game" because of the story that seems almost too un-Sonic-y, which is true because I distinctly remember tasting my lunch after getting 15 minutes into the game. It makes Sonic Rush's story look as fun as Kill Bill's and that game involves a god damn cat on fire that comes from another dimension.

Consolevania
Modern Man
by some dude at Consolevania (2007)

This is a video and it might not be a review but it's pretty great. It's for an old surreal Japanese arcade game called Trio the Punch. Please don't open it if someone is in the same room as you.

N-Philes
Dogz
by Jordan Mammo (2007)

Yes, this was just published on N-Philes a few days ago, but I think it deserves special mention. I used to have a mental list of Nintendo fansite writers that I liked. I would religiously read every article written by them as they were published. But now that list is down to one person, and that happens to be Jordan. This is a review of Ubisoft's pet sim game Dogz and it's so funny I actually laughed harder the second time I read it.

"If that's not bad enough, the town's canine obsession will surely turn some heads. Half the channels on the television feature dogs. You've got posters of puppies in your room. The people you meet either have puppies and love them or are jealous because they want a puppy sooo badly."

This is one of the funniest things written for N-Philes and definitely one of my favorite reviews published on any fansite. He doesn't outright say that the game sucks even though he railed it in the overall score, but instead talks about the experience the game tries to create and how bizarre it can be. That's perfect. That's what new games journalism should be, really.

ScrewAttack
The Nerd's Christmas Fun Part 1
by James Rolfe (2006)

James Rolfe's internet streaming video character may run its joke well dry sometimes but he definitely nailed it in his rant on Bible Adventures for the NES. The Angry Video Game Nerd's riffs in this video go beyond his usual "puke in its own ass" lines and jokes about animals humping his ear and actually shows some cleverness that was unexpected, even for me, and I love this character. Watching him go on about how Noah can lift a horse over his head and still run at full speed kind of makes you wish one of your friends were that funny so you and him could just hang around and play bad NES games all day. His timing is great and his lines aren't obnoxious and force as they sometimes are. So if you've had a bad impression of this guy, at least check this video out, because it has some great moments.

So that's all I've got for now and seeing as how it's nearing two A.M. I guess I should probably get some sleep. Maybe I'll post more later, maybe I won't, but I'll end with this note:

I've been doing this for years and I probably know more than you about amateur online journalism. If you're going to write reviews that's great, but at least read some other ones that aren't published on IGN or GameSpot, at least every once in a while. Being substandard is what's keeping us sharp.

First of all, before I start my post today, I'd like you all to turn your attention towards my portal site, in case you want even more NightsB than I provide you with on the front page. Of course, I've been busy lately with my personal life. I do, however, have a few new(ish) articles that might be interesting to some of you. Some of the site's recent entries are coming from me, which would be surprisingly if the content output hadn't been so slow lately. But then, who is to blame? College is a burden and there's nothing all too interesting on the Nintendo forefront until the 19th, when the Wii hits American shores. And that's exciting, I guess, although I won't be one of the lucky ones with a Wii on launch, because I'm trying to be a bit more responsible with the way I toss my cash money around. That is to say, I can't afford it yet - or at least not with any games.



My text file for the amount of games that I've bought this year is shaping up, as I recently hit 60. That doesn't top last year's 100+ games opus, but it's still pretty decent. My two most recent obsessions are Phantasy Star Universe for the PC and Contact for the DS.



This game is fucking brilliant. It's one of my favorite handheld games released in a while. I believe I earlier described it as one of the biggest advancements in the JRPG genre ever. It's fun, it's clever, it's got a nice storyline with nice characters and most importantly, it's got fantastic systems that go beyond leveling up your character and finding the best weapons. Now, instead of watching your character's level increase by one while all of your skills go up, you have to increase your skills individually - but not just by fighting. My speed skill increases by walking. Wisdom increases by reading. Cooking increases by... cooking. You gain better resistance to being sliced when enemy slice at you, and you get better resistance against being rushed when enemies melee you. Finally, a leveling up system that makes sense.

I know it's not 2007 yet, so I can't exactly go over my little N-Sights awards like I did last year, but just as a preview, I'd like to name Contact the loneliest game of 2006. Terry, the game's main character, is kind of tragic. He's randomly chosen to save the world against his will, yet he obliges without question. I think Terry just had nothing better to do. The NPCs in the game are so impersonal, and the game seems to either be desolate or filled with things that want to kill you. I mean, snakes and beetles attack you. A bit later on in the game, you fight cell phones and refridgerators. I've always said: if a developer wants to design a game where you truly are against the odds, just have them fight inanimate objects that come to life. That way you're not only fighting forest animals, soldiers, and monsters, but you're also fighting television sets and vacuum cleaners. Amazing.

As great as Contact is, I had to shelf it for now until I've gotten my fill out of my latest obsession...




My most anticipated game of the year had hijacked my life. This game... words...



... cannot properly convey...



... oh, fuck it.

I hate video games.



What happened on Mario's 20th? What new game did we get out of that? We got a Mario Party, didn't we?

Next week is Sega Genesis Collection on the PS2/PSP, which features the original versions of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the week after that is Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis for your micro, and the week after that is Sonic the Hedgehog for the red ring of death and the grill. Exciting time for Sonic fans.



Believe it or not, SONICTEAM isn't all about Sonic. Guess what other franchise is 15 this year...




It's got old Puyo rulesets and characters! It's got WFC! It's fully endorsed by me! How could you go wrong? Go go go! Import it! Give me your friends codes :)



Did you guys miss SONICTEAM's Atama Scan? It seems to be a "stress test" game with cutesy graphics and nice music. Check out the Tomoko Sasaki theme on the game's main page. I'm tempted to import it one day just to see if I could make my way through the Japanese, but I doubt I'd be able to navigate it. Apparently the game is about tapping numbers in their proper order as they scatter about the screen, but there also seems to be a language portion that features romanji.

I wonder if it sold well.

I also wonder when we're going to see Feel the Magic stuff pop up in SONICTEAM's newer games. I'm still holding out on some stuff in Phantasy Star Universe, since Burning Rangers room decorations have been spotted.

SUDA 51 is cooler than Yuji Naka.

There was a post on our forums either yesterday or the day before, I'm not sure, that had a conversation between some random E3 attendee and Yuji Naka himself where Naka reveals that he is developing a new NiGHTS, accidentally. The post is sloppy, copied from NeoGAF, and highly unbelievable. Why is it so unbelievable? Because Yuji Naka would never reveal to some random peon that NiGHTS is being developed. Yuji Naka would have never responded to the guy who asked him in the first place. Yuji Naka would have never even given him the time of day. That is because - and I can be quoted on this until the end of time - that SUDA 51, the designer of the absolutely brilliant killer7, is way cooler than Yuji Naka.

Yesterday, on the last day of the conference, I was playing Phantasy Star Universe when who should step besides me but Yuji Naka himself. Those of you who read my blog have probably gathered by now that SEGA as a company contains some of my video game heroes, Yuji Naka being one of them, and up to that point I was kind of bummed that I hadn't met any of them at all during the entire conference. But, there he was. Standing right next to me, watching me play Sonic Team's latest Phantasy Star. I stopped playing, looked at him, smiled, extended my hand, and said "Mr. Naka, I'm such a huge fan of the Sonic Team and your work". He looked down at my hand for a second, and eventually smiled and shook it. And directly after, without even saying a word, he turned around and walked away from me. I know for a fact he is fluent in English. I stood in front of the monitor as some unholy beast beat my main character down. The controller was in my left hand, extended as close to the floor as it could be. The crowd walked away from the kiosks. The lights dimmed and a faint spotlight was all that was left illuminating my face, which had a look somewhere between expressionless and absolute confusion. The man who helped design the game that would become my bible of interactive entertainment cold ignored me. And as I walked back to the Kentia Hall to meet up with Daisy I played back the exact movements of every muscle in his face after the shake, which I will now refer to as The Shake, and pictured it all disappearing in a moment as if I didn't matter, and video games didn't matter, and nothing even mattered at all. And then, when I met up with Daisy, I finally admitted to the one thing that I have been in denial with for so long, as I was reserving judgment until I was able to experience an encounter with the man himself.

"Add another big video game dude whose hand I shook today to the pile."
"Oh? Who did you meet?"
"Yuji Naka."
"You did?!"
"Yes. And he is a jerk."

So, Mr. Naka, if you're reading this, I hope you realize that I am no less of a fan of Sonic Team or anything that you have ever done due to this experience, and I hope your new development studio is successful and received in the highest regard. But the next time someone tells you they are a huge fan of you and everything you do and have ever done, please, at the very least, say "thank you".

And Mr. Suda, if you're reading this, thank you for being so friendly and cool with us.

Shortly before this encounter with Mr. Naka I was back in the Kentia Hall with Curtis. We had an appointment at the café towards the southernmost point of the hall. The appointment was with Mr. Goichi Suda and Mr. Nobuhiko Nakamura. They are the president/director and product manager of grasshopper manufacture, respectively, who are the development team behind critically-acclaimed games like killer7, michigan, and more recently Contact, which is being published by Atlus in the states for the DS in a few short months. We walked to Tradewinds, saw a sea of people seated with no spare seats, while looking feverishly for the two. And then we turned around and there they were, standing behind us, and looking around for two random fansite dudes who were going to ask them a few questions about the Wii and... stuff. We introduced ourself and looked for a table. We couldn't find one. Mr. Suda and Mr. Nakamura led the way outside of the noisy hall underneath the staircase leading up to the path to the South Hall. While looking for a chair for Mr. Suda to sit on, I told them that we were both such huge fans of killer7 and their faces lit up. They thanked us so much, and they were so nice to us, that we took off running in the interview. I was floored. Curtis and I both were, I think. I was really excited not only just to meet him, but because he was talking to both of us about all kinds of cool things. I'm very happy with how the interview turned out since it really was my first interview with a big developer. I haven't started transcribing the audio recorded and organizing it into a full-fledged interview, but when I'm cleared to post it I definitely will and you'll be able to read all about it.

Also, during the interview Mr. Nakamura gave me this amazing portfolio of grasshopper manufacturer's games and it has the most beautiful artwork I've seen the entire convention. I think Curtis saw how excited I was and let me keep it. It's so killer.

So, thanks to both Mr. Suda and Mr. Nakamura for talking to us. If I go back next year I would love to do it again.

A lot of big names were wandering the floor yesterday, I think. Actually, Scot Ritchey from NoA got us into the Wii booth and let us cut some lines. I got to try the shooting demo and Super Mario Galaxy, finally. Apparently we even got two N-Sider in front of the Zelda lines as well. Scot told us Mr. Sakurai was wandering the floor and no one recognized who he was, so he was just walking around freely through the Wii booth. I knew what he looked like, because I'm cool like that, and Daisy knew who he was because she had a conversation with his after Nintendo's Smash Bros. Brawl conference. I never got close enough to shake his hand, though.

I find it kind of strange that no one was recognizing who he was. Strange and kind of sad, for gamers. I bet barely any of them even noticed Koji Kondo conducting the Wii Orchestra game in the middle of the path to the Wii booth, either.

But, I, NightsB, am also going to be a mondo hugigantic celebrity in a few short... hours? Maybe? In the Wii booth I got to try Spike's Necro Nesia, a very unpolished and robotic game about a horrible bug infestation, or something, when who should appear right behind me but Carl and Silver from GCCafe. They were filming some footage in the Wii booth and got me playing Necro Nesia as I commented on... how bad it was, generally. I don't know if they're putting it straight on the site or on their new E3 2006 DVD or if they're scrapping it altogether, as I haven't checked their site all week, but look out for that! Actually, if anyone from GCC is reading this right now, why don't you just drop me an e-mail to let me know if you're doing anything with that footage at all, maybe you can sell another DVD. My address is on my staff profile.

This year was probably one of the most successful E3s I've ever seen for N-Philes, and I'm very glad I had a chance to ignore my real-life responsibilities for a week. I'm sitting in LAX right now as I type this, without internet access, while waiting for my flight to take off. I had an awesome week, I've met some awesome people, and I hope I get a chance to meet everyone again before I get too old for these ridiculous shenanigans.

Luckily, I don't think I'll ever be to old. At least not for a long, long time. Like, not at least until I'm 21, or something!

Now, if you'll just get your gloves on, because I'm about to drop some names and I'll need your help picking them up. Some of them are a bit greasy. SS4GoVinny, thanks for letting me stay in your room on Monday night. Sorry I couldn't come back for a bit after that. Cowface, thanks for driving us around on Monday morning and not kicking me in the balls right off the bat. MegaByte, thanks for pointing me towards the Sonic stuff. Chupperson, sorry I ruined your conference video! David Dayton, thanks for the stickers (all 30 or so of them!). Rimmer, nice handshake, wink wink. Fox, thanks for getting me in big with Nintendo Norway! All (most) of the journalists and exhibitors I got to talk to were very cool to me and N-Philes. Michael Quiroz and Vinny Goodwin, thanks for the cool N-Philes info and tips, I'll try to remember to bug you for those zip files. Thanks to all of the people that I've talked to from the Nintendo fansite community - I guess we aren't such huge jerks "irl" after all! Thanks to Raika and fudge - you two actually came up in quite a few of our conversations! And especially, thanks to Curtis, Jordan, Xavius, Nik, Rogue, danytoca, mohd, Max Bunge, John O., GreenNight and the media team, Daisy, and Arker. I'm so sorry we couldn't make it last night, I wanted to thank you in person again, but Rogue wasn't looking too hot. You guys are so rad. I had an awesome time.

So, E3 2007. Do it.