25 Days Of (Free) Christmas Gaming

Before I totally get off my recent music kick, I wanted to point out an interesting little analysis my friend Jeff did of the top and bottom of the pitchforkmedia.com reviewing pile. It has always bothered me that re-issues get rated so highly--critics luxuriating in the safety of hindsight and received wisdom. I gotta say it: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, not a 10.

Now back to games. Here's some decent Christmas freenis: Nintendo has set up a little advent calendar called Mission in Snowdriftland, featuring the platforming adventures of Chubby Snow. Guide the big-headed snowman through a new level each day, collecting snowflakes and dodging baddies. Who knows what will happen on Christmas day? Maybe you will celebrate the birth of Chubby Snow Jesus by giving or receiving some Nintendo products?

[via joystiq]

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Friday Freenis, Wu Edition

No games this time. I've got music on my mind as of late. Spooky, tense tales of mayhem lie at your fingertips here. The Wu-Tang Clan gives you more than 200 assorted tracks (demos, remixes, etc.) at their official Wu-Tang Corp. website.

Oh, Dirty, how we miss what the fuck your gun do.

[via Salon]

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Meshuggah Will Rock You

Meshuggah is one of my favorite bands currently bringing rock to the masses. Here's the video for their chart-topping hit "New Millennium Cyanide Christ." I've never embedded video from YouTube in my blog before, so I wanted to give it a go. I dedicate this post to my man TZ down in NC.

[Thanks, Marc!]

And since this is YouTube, I give you the real jackassery, as well.

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Twilight Princess Glitch Nearly Leads To Wii Murder!

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the Wii is an amazing game. It is a long game, an adventure that requires 50 hours or more to finish. It is also a game with a glitch that caused me to become stuck almost 40 hours in with no recourse but to restart.

Let me state this plain: I played for almost 40 hours, the game screwed up, and now I have to restart if I want to finish it.

When I first became trapped, I thought I was just stuck, that I needed to solve a puzzle to continue. I resorted to looking online for tips, and that's when I discovered what seems to be becoming a notorious Twilight Princess glitch. Amigos, I will tell you this: DO NOT SAVE IN THE SKY CANNON ROOM! And keep multiple save files.

I was boiling mad for hours when I figured out I had to restart. My Wii is lucky that it is not a heap of broken plastic and electrical components this morning. The honeymoon period is over, Wii.

[UPDATE: 12/12/06 This is for the unlucky gamers who are coming to this post after getting stuck themselves. I just talked to Nintendo about this glitch, and they say there is no trick to get out, and no fix is available. Don't believe tips you might read elsewhere.]

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On The Popularity of The Aspidistra

I tell myself that I blog for myself. I tell my wife that, too, when she complains about too many videogame posts.

But see that counter down there on the right, below the links? Would I really be counting visitors if I was only blogging for myself? No, of course I want as many people as possible to read what I post. Maybe a fuller description of how I blog is that I decide what to write about based on my own interests, but I hope you like some of the same things and otherwise get seduced by my coverage of the things you didn't know you liked, and in the end you love me.

Anyway, this is all a way of saying I’ve been relatively pleased with the traffic over the past couple months. I’m no engadget, but I’m doing a lot better than might be indicated by a recent statement from Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, who suggested that the average blog has only one reader. (That has to be rhetorical, right?)

Alas, as the wife suggests, the videogame posts rarely bring readers. Here are the top five posts that bring people to The Aspidistra, with some examples of real search terms.
1. dog humps cat
2. wii shopping channel
3. skepticism must be a component of the…
4. hobbes vs. rousseau state of nature
5. manpanzee

Honorable mentions: religious idiots, Freud haters, how-to-make: hovercrafts

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A Muscle Myster-Wii

I’m no 90-pound weakling. I’ve never been very muscular, but I go to the gym regularly. I lift the weights. I do my push-ups and pull-ups. Sure, I’m probably tucked closer to the weak side in a normal distribution of adult male arm strength, but I’m in shape.

So why is my right biceps sore? Over the past few days, I’ve been struggling with a small mystery: I’ve noticed that the half of my biceps closer to my elbow is just a bit tender. I’m not doing anything new at the gym. I’ve not lifted anything particularly heavy, or carried anything unwieldy recently. So what’s different?

The answer hit me this morning: It’s the Wii! I feel a bit wussy making this confession, but I believe using the Wii-remote has made my arm sore. And I haven’t even been playing Wii Sports, which encourages spazzed-out flailing, all that much. I’ve mainly been playing Twilight Princess. I’m slightly amazed, but I think making all the little sword swipes, just shaking and stabbing with the Wii-remote as I sit on the couch, has engaged my biceps in a way that my regular life does not.

That controller sure does promote immersion. It has immersed me in un-manliness.

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Friday Freenis: Terraforming Edition

I had to do some digging for this one--wait, that's a pun you'll understand if you play the game. Seriously, though, I played this a couple of weeks ago and had to dig around on the web for a while to find it again.

It's a free flash game called Grow Cube. I would describe it as a cutesy, terraforming puzzle game. I recommend just jumping in and learning how to play by experiment. One thing I love about these little, free puzzle games is how I can go from baffled to understanding by exploring and experimenting.

[via kotaku]

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