I am in the theater RIGHT NOW, GUYS.

Sent from my iPhone

____________________________________________________________________________________
Looking for a deal? Find great prices on flights and hotels with Yahoo! FareChase.
http://farechase.yahoo.com/

Labels: Meta, Random

Word.

Sent from my iPhone

____________________________________________________________________________________
Building a website is a piece of cake. Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the tools to get online.
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting

Labels: Meta, Random

Get it? It's like the word "pandemonium" and "Japan" mixed together. ISN'T THAT SO CLEVER?!

One of my favorite video games ever is Guitar Hero (which I've reviewed). I know it's no substitute for a real guitar--all of the songs are pre-recorded. Most of them are cover songs. Some of the singers of the covers are terrible. However, it more than makes up for this in the gameplay, which is completely awesome and addictive.

Anyway, when it comes to a game such as Hiite Utaeru DS Guitar M-06, a quote springs to mind. I don't know what it's from, but this is the Internet, so I'll post it anyway:

THIS IS NO GAME.

That might not even be a quote.

The point I'm trying to make is that Hiite Utaeru DS Guitar M-06, or "M-06" as I've decided to refer to it, is not really that great of a game at all. "Wait a minute," you ask, "isn't this supposed to be a video game review site? What's up with all the guitar stuff and the iPhone pictures?" Let me explain. This guitar thing is awesome, and I really want an iPhone. More on that later.

M-06 is essentially a guitar simulator. It is, more accurately, a guitar chord simulator, that lets you play guitar chords. "That sounds lame," you say. It DOES, but it sounds pretty good. You may not be fooled, sitting there, strumming your DS with your stylus, but it is pretty decent, considering. The sound on the DS is, unfortunately, fuzzier than Fuzzy Wuzzy if he had hair, because Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't very fuzzy, was he? No, he wasn't. But the point I'm trying to make is that, if Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear who also happened to have hair, then he might be as fuzzy as the sound output of the DS.

But I digress.

M-06 is set up thusly: the touch screen displays something that is apparently supposed to represent a single guitar string. It's a big line that runs horizontally through the screen, and it sort of jiggles when you strum. The top screen displays chord names in a square shape. 8 of them indicate 8 directions on the D-Pad. These directions are customizable--so you can set "Up" to be G, "Left" to be E minor, "Down" to be C, and "Right" to be D, and you can play In the Aeroplane Over the Sea while you are actually IN an AIRPLANE over the OCEAN. See what I did there?

Pressing either of the shoulder buttons presents you with an entirely different set of chords, meaning that you can easily access 16 chords at any given time. You must hold down a direction and strum at the same time--sort of like playing a real guitar, or, for the nerdier of us, sort of like playing Guitar Hero. There are no points, and some may even say that there is no point.

There is some semblance of a video game here, though. Preloaded on the cartridge is a selection of--apparently--Japanese songs with Japanese lyrics. You can play along with these songs, and sing the lyrics if you know how to read Japanese. However, there's not really a way to lose this mode, since it doesn't follow a rhythm or a timer of any kind. As long as you eventually play the chords it tells you to, you will pass the level. Your reward is just as exciting as the game--different colors for the string on the touch screen. Great. There's another game, which is more challenging, that tests if you can recognize the sounds of chords without seeing the name. This is actually pretty fun, and is more like some kind of Brain Age test than anything.

The game has some different modes. One mode lets you adjust the sensitivity of three different areas on the string. This is hard (for me) to explain accurately, but I'm going to try anyway, using funny terms. See, when you strum down, it goes BWAAA! and when you strum up it goes bwaaa! So it's quieter, like when you really strum up on a guitar. So when you do this divide-y thingy, it seperates the string into three sections. One of the sections makes it harder for a down-strum to sound like BWAAA, which means you can make it go bwaaa if you really want that sound. This is all complicated, and it's all written in Japanese, so I don't use any of these.

You can change the tuning of the guitar, and you can change which direction you are going to use for up and down strumming. A mode called "LiveMode" moves the menu button off of the touch screen, so that--I guess--while you are plying this DS game in concert, you will not accidentally exit out to the menu. There's an option that apparently sets it to "headphones mode" and I guess makes it louder or something. You can also add reverb, which is pretty fun.

Why would you play this? Well, it's FUN. It's NOVEL, right? Right. Plus, it helps you practice playing songs--if you're into that. You can also try to get the proper cables and record yourself some acoustic music. This is more fun than it should be. Girls also like guys that can play guitar. I can't say if the same is true for guitar video games, but it's something to think about.

This game is being translated and improved, and is coming overseas to this country--the country that I am in, which is the United States, which is the country that I am posting this from. The new name for the game is Jam Sessions, and it's going to come with a built-in recorder and more effects pedals. I know, it sounds great, right?! Right.

If you're interested, wait until Jam Sessions comes out. Unless you happen to be in Japan. Or you have money coming out of your nostrils that you can waste on importing DS titles.

That's disgusting.

Labels: Japandemonium, Nintendo DS, Reviews

Isn't that adorable completely awesome?!

Labels: Meta, Random

1. I'm in Hawaii now, but I WAS in Japan.
2. You can buy a lot of video games there.
3. DS games aren't region locked.
4. I brought a list.
5. Reviews coming soon.

Labels: Meta, Nintendo DS