The Pop Culture of Gus Lequerica

Hello to my few readers,

So December came, and practically another year passed by, it wasn’t a bad a year… well in terms of entertainment it wasn’t a bad a year, the strike ended and several of our favorite shows returned and other rest in peace in the graveyard of TvLand, for me it marks the first year I live away from home in my new home, a year that I have grew, a year filled with experiences, and a year that I don’t regret.

We can say that 2008, has been marked with several changes probably the most significant one is that the first African American was elected president of the United States, Marvel revitalized his franchise and D.C. sucks big time when they decided to killed Bruce Wayne the only good thing left in the franchise, as I say Batman is not Batman behind Bruce Wayne, but well I don’t care I don’t read D.C. main titles (as my friend Salima says Vertigo Rules D.C. drools) as well many other things, one thing that I am excited about is the new arc in Marvel Infernus, but you probably had read it by now the small recap in Wikipedia, yes I am going to buy it but not all the only that seems to be promising are the X-Men related titles…

I guess is late and I am going to bed, see ya later everyone.

So lately there is a new, or not so new trend among gamers, and that is downloading games directly to their consoles, it can be on almost any home console these days, in my case I will talk about the Nintendo Wii and is download system, the Wii Shop Channel.

The Wii Shop Channel, is an exclusive internet channel for the Wii, that offers content made by Nintendo as well old games, games that you can find as roms over the net, but my question is, due these games that cost US$10.00 each or more are worth of getting them?, my answer is a yes and a no, an odd answer.

Why yes?, why download content from the Wii Channel?, because if you are fan of Nintendo you will find cool things, as Nintendo 64 games (that runs way better in the Wii instead of a computer), and Mega Man 9 ,but at the same time  my answer is no, as Nintendo is offering high prices for NES games as well other console games that you can find perfectly trough the internet. So at the end if you want to download anything from the Wii Shop Channel my final answer is no, there are a few things worth it.

I downloaded recently Mega Man 9 and Ocarina of Time, I spent US$20.00 for both games, since each game cost US$10 on the channel, and US$10 are the equivalent of 1.000 points, you can do the maths. I do not regret of downloading both games, as the reason is both games are cool, but the Wii Shop Channel needs to grow more, as there is not many products still to offer, sure it will be cool to see more games of Nintendo 64, and to download games that weren’t available in America ten years ago, but I know Nintendo will improve their channel, and it will be fantastic.

In today’s electronic market we see a highly competition with the different manufacturers and we wonder what is the best video system that can fit to our needs, we try to follow the advice from our friends or relatives to buy something but sometimes at the end we feel more confused of what to buy. With this series of articles about the consoles I will try to help you choosing the best console for you.

This first review is about the Nintendo Wii, one of the most controversial and appraised consoles due the originality that is given to the game play because of the innovation in the controls, that brings to the player a new horizon to play because it makes the player to exercise in a low cardio exercises since the games demand to the player to move beyond the couch, so basically with the Wii you make work out while playing the games, plus the compact size of the console is really handy at the moment of traveling because it fits really easy on almost any backpack; but is the gaming system with less games in the market although it offer a nice variety of games with good story line but not real advance on graphics such as the PS3.

The Pro’s of the Wii are that offers a new way of play since it gives more interaction to the player with the game, the games are less expensive than other home consoles, most of the games have really good writing and storyline, the game play of most of the games is really good and don’t give problem when sending the command from the control or interacting with the scenarios, also the Wii is the cheapest of all three consoles in the market, so it can be afforded more easy than a PlayStation 3 or an X-Box.

The Cons of the console are that graphically is less superior than the PS3 or X-Box, there a fewer games than the other consoles and one of the biggest innovations is also one of the biggest flaws, the remote controller, sometimes it can fail due the sensor bar won’t read the movement of a player if he or she is in a far side away, so with that flaw a group of players who are playing a fight game, some of them will have some disadvantage against others because the control won’t react very well at the moment of playing.

If you decide to start playing and want a video game console that isn’t expensive, easy and interesting to play, you can buy the Wii for US$250.00 and extra controls for US$49.00 and I can guarantee you will have many hours of fun.

Sometime ago I heard something interesting that you had the opportunity to transform your Nintendo DS into a small Multimedia Center similar as the PSP but with less capacity, at first I thought “that is so amazing” I researched a little and I found one little invention made by Datel, called Games n’ Music. I did my research based on the homepage of the aforementioned product and it really convinced me, also I expanded my research on other webpage’s to see what people spoke about this interesting innovations; during the weeks before I made the purchase I read good reviews on a few pages around the internet but not really a bad review, so at the end I did a little investigation on the local electronic stores and I found one in my local Wal-Mart, I felt happy when I found it, but later I grew up bored because of it’s difficult to configure it.

 Now I said my story I can start saying the pros and cons about Games N’ Music, first I am going to say the Pros of this home brew device, you can see movies, hear music, see photos, play roms and access to the internet, but all of this comes with many downloads that you need to make from the official web page and other fan made web pages to access the full potential of this flash card, with some effort you can setup the Games N’ Music Card but there aren’t really too many tutorials that explain step by step the setup of this device; and now we are going to speak about the cons of this device, the first is that many of the roms are distorted and the layers don’t fit well on the Nintendo DS screen, so far the only emulator that I could use it without any problems was the N.E.S. one that worked really good with the Nintendo DS engine, the second flaw that I detected it is that Games N’ Music is not compatible with Nintendo DS roms, so you are right by now, you can’t play NDS games with this device; I don’t know why the manufacturers didn’t produce this wonderful device with that future, that would been great because it could make a good competition to the PSP.

So if you are looking for a device to play the Nintendo DS roms I don’t recommend this one by the previously gave explanation, also I want to add that if you are planning to buy this device probably it will cost you around USD$15.00 to USD$40.00 depending on the website or electronic store you buy it, also don’t make too much expectations with the capacity of the Games N’ Music because it only supports up to two gigas and not all the flash cards can be read with this device; in conclusion I say it’s better to buy the R4 and spend a little more money with a device that will fulfill your expectations.