Game Informer’s latest edition had an interesting article discussing quality and quantity in games. This has become an interesting topic for me, as I have always had a tight budget for gaming. Looking at the coming months, you really begin to analyze what games you want fresh off the shelf and which you will wait for your next trade-in trip. Should total gameplay hours be a consideration?

Gameplay hours are very general, particularly for non-RPG games, not unlike “Fun.” Everybody enjoys different things, just like everybody has different gamer skills. Fifteen hours for one person could be thirty to another strictly because they haven’t developed the skills most longtime gamers have. Some developers are guilty of adding pointless sidequests in the sole interest of adding “length” to a game. Did you find all the Poe’s Souls in Twilight Princess? I did, and got a freaking Rupee; it wasn’t worth the time invested. Xbox 360 Achievements can be abused in this way as well. What about games with varied difficulties? I can tell you Call of Duty 2 took a while on Veteran, but I could beat it in a day on Easy.

So how do you gauge something this random? The answer is you don’t. Plenty of games have rich, rewarding gameplay but aren’t very long. Some of my favorite games only have eight levels. Developers shouldn’t worry about hitting that “40 Hours of Gameplay” mark touted so loudly, as the run the significant risk of being unnecessarily long. Prey falls victim to pointless levels that felt purposefully stretched out. The entire third act of Quake4 could have been cut in half. All this holds these good games back from being Great games.

You might have heard there are some upcoming Xbox 360 price drops. Microsoft has also decided to drop the price of the HD-DVD player from $199 to $179 and throw in 5 FREE HD movies (Approx $125 value.) Why are they doing this? Because I bought one just 2 weeks ago! The only movie it came with was about a big, CGI APE; it’s very frustrating! Had I bought the player from amazon.com I could have taken advantage of the 30 day price drop guarantee, but no such luck. If anyone knows of a similar policy at Best Buy let me know!

Though the price drop is depressing for those of us in my position, it is also encouraging. Dropping the price of the HD player could help HD win the BluRay VS. HD war and Microsoft has announced plans to expand their Xbox live HD content. Read the official news release here.

There is a rumored Xbox 360 price drop in the air as well. Though Microsoft has not “officially” confirmed a price drop, there are advertisements floating around that suggest a $349 price tag for the Premium system. Once again this occurs a month on the heels of my Xbox 360 purchase! The only good part is this will give me more people to play with. Maybe I should go buy some barrels of oil and a couple new cars so you all can enjoy a price drop on those items as well…

I hate SPAM. I am sure everyone does. I have a special hatred for SPAM because I am the senior administrator of a large network (about 1000 users). Almost each one of them have a mailbox. When you have a place to stuff email, you have a place to stuff SPAM. When users get SPAM, they complain to me.

I tried a bunch of anti SPAM packages for Exchange, but nothing seemed to work. I tried commercial products, freeware products, and open source products. They either were too hard to configure, involved too much administrator overhead, or just did not catch SPAM like they should. Then I tried a product that has kept us 95% SPAM free for the past 10 months… (click below for the rest of the story)

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This is from the post on Digg.com

Do you hear that? That’s the sound of millions of people with good taste in TV cheering the return of Futurama! Fans of the series will be glad to know that the show will return on November 27th as a full-length movie being released on DVD. The initial release will be followed by 3 more DVD movies!

After all 4 DVD movies have been released, they’ll be chopped up into 16 episodes which will air on Comedy Central along with NEW episodes created for Comedy Central.

Welcome back Futurama, welcome back!

The guys here at Chatsquatch.net cannot wait to see the return of this awesome show!

-Jason

Welcome to the first Fansquatch Friday. What is Fansquatch Friday? It is a chance to make you famous… our famousish. Here is how it works:

1. We ask for something. Pictures, audio, video, old socks, whatever…
2. You submit something along the lines of what we requested.
3. We spend countless hours choosing the best of what we received.
4. The next Friday, we will have a section that is dedicated to user submitted content!

Sounds easy enough, right? Then let’s get started!

This week we are asking you to submit your gaming setup

Just take a few snapshots of you gaming room, entertainment center, consoles, PC, you playing Nintendo on your bean-bag chair, whatever. We want to see what your man cave / relaxation station / fortress of solitude looks like.

Send your pictures to: chatsquatch@gmail.com

Subject line: Fansquatch Friday - Gaming Setup

Format: JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, or just about any picture format. No high-res pictures, please. You can zip the pictures as long as you do not password protect the zip archive.

Attachment limit: 15MB (this is partially due to the Google Mail limitations)

Deadline for entries: Wednesday, August 1st, 2007

See results posted on Chatsquatch.net: Friday, August 3rd, 2007

This was all inspired by a story I saw on Digg. Check out Best Game Setup Ever [PIC]. Here are some pictures from the article:

I recently stumbled accross pad2pad.com, a site that will build custom circuit boards for you. You design your board using a free software package downloadable from their site. The package even includes and order form so you can order your board right away.

I really wish I had found these guys about two months ago; I had to spend $200 on a new controller unit for my oven, and this site would have saved me about $100!

Happy System Administrator Appreciation Day! If you are a System Administrator (like myself), my hats off to you! If you know of a System Administrator, tell him / her / them how great they are.

System Administrators spend day in and day out making sure you have those digital needs and luxuries. Yet most sys admins spend about 355 days of the year without as much as a simple thanks. They surround themselves with hardware and rarely see other life forms. This keeps them out of the public eye which is good and bad. It’s good because most sys admins I know really don’t care to be around people. It is bad because if you are out of sight, you are usually out of mind. This means that they are not appreciated as much as they deserve.

Check out this site for more information about System Administrator Appreciation Day. Then leave a comment thanking your favorite System Administrator(s). I’ll start it out.

I would like to thank Ben for all the hard work he puts into his job. He does a great job to make sure that everything runs smooth.

I would also like to thank Dan because for the dedication he puts into his work. Great attention to detail!

Being a fellow Sys Admin, I know the sacrifices that need to be made to make life more comfortable for the users. Giving up time from your family and personal life for a long night of server work isn’t always easy. However, I am very thankful to have you on my side. You guys rock and I raise my glass to you. Cheers!

-Jason

I guess it’s that time again: Time for Google to update the PageRank. All I hear on other blogs or forums is preparing for the update. Links to PageRank prediction engines, tips on increasing your PR, etc. etc…

Some people complain that people are skipping out on writing decent posts just to build links to increase their PR. It’s true, I would like to see the PR on Chatsquatch move up (actually I think we are still in the Google SandBox). However, I am not going to sacrifice quality posts just to build some links. This is going to be an addition to our top-notch articles and posts!

Dean over at DeanHunt.com has a great post about people being obsessed with the Google PageRank. You can read it here. I invite you to check it out and then join in on the list below.

Copy this list to your site and I will add your link to the list as soon as I see it appear on the incoming links. If you are not added, just leave a comment and I will make sure you get on the list.

Thank you and keep the quality posts coming! Good luck on your PageRank, too!

Quick Steps to Join In

Step 1: Highlight the links below, right click, then click “View selection source”
Step 2: Paste the “Say No To Pagerank” list below into your blog or site
Step 3: Email Dean at: contact@deanhunt.com
Step 4: Get a mention and link here and every other site that plays the game
Step 5: Update your list daily to reflect the new websites and blogs that join in

Say No To Pagerank List

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WHILST EVERYONE ELSE IS TALKING ABOUT PAGERANK, WE CAN GET BUSY IMPROVING OURS

A very difficult list to make, but that doesn’t stop the folks at Screw Attack from trying.

There are some fantastic entries on this list, but I’ll give it a shot of my own:

10. Mario Brothers: Mario’s first forray into plumbing came with unclogging the crabs and turtles from your pipes, all the while collecting coins and punching POW blocks. While this classic game may not be the most remembered Mario game, it certainly holds a special place in my heart.
9. Paper Mario 64: While Super Mario RPG was an excellent game, I must say it’s crowning achievement was making way for Paper Mario. Colorful and clever, Paper Mario is an excellent addition to your Mario collection.
8. Super Smash Brothers Melee: One of the best games to play on the Gamecube, having Nintendo’s adorable line-up pulverize each other was never more fun. Hopefully, Brawl will take us to the next step.
7. Dr. Mario: The only game I felt that was a true competitor to Tetris, Dr. Mario was fan-fricking-tastic. Though I don’t recommend swallowing bottles full of multicolored pills when you are sick, I do recommend you get this game.
6. Mario Kart DS: The strongest entry (yet!) into the Mario Kart franchise, being able to play anyone, anywhere is a rare but beautiful find when it comes to Nintendo games.
5. Super Mario Brothers: The first entry into the “Super” franchise, this is the one that catapulted Nintendo and Mario into stardom. While I remember many hours being pumped into this cartridge, I never realized it could be beaten so fast.
4. Super Mario 64: Mario’s first jump into 3-D made such a huge splash, that it has essentially taken over the console franchise. While I enjoy these games immensely, I actually enjoy the side-scrolling action more, which brings me to my next entry…
3. New Super Mario Brothers: This would be the greatest Mario game if not for the fact that the game is quite short. I can only hope we see more. Much more.
2. Super Mario World: One of the best reasons to own a Super Nintendo, Super Mario World is famously huge, action packed, and has Yoshi to boot.
1. Super Mario Brothers 3: Honestly, Super Mario World and Super Mario Brothers 3 are interchangably the greatest Mario games. Super Mario Brothers 3 gets the extra bump for including the two player Mario Brothers game as multiplayer feature.

While my list may not surprise anyone, I would like to what YOUR favorite Mario game is. In other words, just how wrong am I?

I rented Big Brain Academy Wii Degree for the Wii this weekend. Luckily the movie rental store has a policy that if you are not 100% satisfied with your rental, you have 24 hours to get a replacement. I was back within a few hours.

This was very disappointing because Big Brain for the DS was brilliant. I started thinking why the version for the DS was better and I came up with this list:

• The shaky Wii-Mote is no replacement for a spot-on stylus.
• Big Brain for the DS was a new idea for the gaming world. My “wow factor” was already blown on the DS, so the Wii had to be AWESOME to impress me.
• The DS version of the game was $20.00 when it hit shelves… they want $50.00 for that POS Wii version.
• Was not challenging enough. Even the added difficulty levels seemed easy. Wait… maybe they were easy because all the brain power I gained from playing the DS version… probabbly knot.
• I am sure I could come up with more reasons, but my brain hurts.

There were some aspects of the game that I enjoyed. I am glad to see that there were new puzzles and not just re-hash from the DS version. I also enjoyed multiplayer mode, but it did bring back too many memories of blackboard arithmetic races *shudder*.

BTW, I rented Mario Party 8 for the Wii when I returned Big Brain Academy. I thought it was OK, but the kids LOVED it!

-Jason