In this episode Shannon hacks the Wii and shares her favorite homebrew with us. Matt connects 3CX to the PSTN and Darren sets up a network monkey client in Linux.
Yay! Another game review! So I’ve been playing a really cute game called Pokemon Ranger on DS. For all of you that are going lol n00b, I pwn you on UT… well, I play fps too, but at the moment, my computer doesn’t have a video card inside it. So I’m going down the line of hundreds of DS games I have and playin them all.
Pokemon Ranger DS is about your quest to become a great pokemon ranger. You travel from village to village and are given missions from the senior rangers to help citizens and get to a higher level. These bad guys called the Go-Rock Squad end up stealing special equipment from the good guy pokemon rangers team, and they use this to capture pokemon for their evil deeds.
The world you play PR in is pretty small. You get to choose between a male or female character and name them as you want. My characters name was Snubs (go figure). Capturing pokemon is fun. Now, you don’t throw them in a Pokeball and battle other characters. You capture wild pokemon, they follow you around as you travel, then you use them once and they are freed. Of course, you can capture them again if you want. You can talk to all the characters in the game, and their conversations give me the idea this game is made for children and teens.
Leveling up is probably the main reason I’m still playing this. I was able to get through the game in about 3-4 days, and every time I leveled up, I wanted to get to the next level. 
 You also can get up to a Rank 10 in the game as a pokemone ranger.
My least favorite part about the game is the cut scenes. The chat bubbles are slow (even on the fastest speed), and if something is happening that requires a part of the plot, you dont have the choice to skip. This is annoying if you fail a mission and have to restart. You have to sit through all the information again…
I’d give this game a 7 / 10. All around a fun, cute game. It’s easy to pass the time with Pokemon Ranger DS, and it’s a bit different from other pokemon games. I wish I could skip cut scenes and I wish the game was longer. 
Mario Kart Wii
It’s a really fun game. I definetly spent a good afternoon playing Mario Kart Wii with DK while he was visiting. It’s the perfect game to just play circuit after circuit with a friend and pass the controller back and forth. I think the races are a little easy. We were able to unlock all the circuits in no time, getting first place in all but… I think 3 races. Of course, the feeling of acheivement was great! Everytime we unlocked a new car/character/racetrack, I got so excited!! I wanted to keep playing all night!
Mario Kart Wii comes with a new nifty little wheel that you can set your Wiimote in, to ‘drive’ during the game. We found the wheel to be incredibly stupid, and I tried various ways of playing. Because the game is on Wii, you have the choice of playing with the wheel, wiimote, classic controller, etc. I chose the classic controller and found it to be the easiest by far. It’s just like playing the old school games from the old consoles.
The graphics are well done. The edges around some characters and tracks are rough, but the coloring and scenery of racetracks from old games is pure awesomeness. Nintendo kept some of the older racetracks!! There are also quite a few new racetracks too, and I have to say, I love the new Rainbow Road. It’s so colorful and pretty and ghey! lol
The music kicks ass. Whenever you change menues, the music follows you. It doesnt change songs, but changes the mood of the same track by just a bit. It’s really cool! Hey! Listen!
The only issue I had with gameplay was that anytime you get hit by something, it seems like things pile up on you. For example, if I got hit with a red shell, as soon as I get hit, I also get hit with a blue shell, a squid, a green shell, and I get run over by Bowser. It happened to computer characters as well. I’d hit them, and they’d get hit a few more times by other people. It’s annoying!
All in all, great video game. It’s perfect for families, parties, etc. There isn’t any violence at all. It’s so fun!! Even Molly Wood likes it. 
I thought I’d write a little opionated review of this new game, since I recently played it a few weekends ago.
Smash Brothers Brawl had a huge cult following and almost all my friends were excited about the new game for Nintendo Wii. Darren reserved his copy and we waited in line while playing Tetris DS (and I pwned him, btw) while chilling inside the mall. I’ve never been a big Smash Brothers gamer, but I’ve played my fair share of each of the games.
The first thing I noticed was the graphics. The graphics kick ass, and I love the special effects whenever you use your final attack during a battle. The characters are beautiful, and the cut scenes are made so well. Nintendo is really starting to show off what the Wii can do as far as graphics go with this game, as well as with Mario Galaxy.
When you first play the game, I suggest playing with various controllers to figure out which one you would want to use. I personally like the Wiimote + nunchuck, but Darren used the Classic controller. It really just depends on your style.
There’s SO MUCH to do in this game. When you play Brawl (playing against up to 4 people without an internet connection), you can unlock new characters and basically try out each of the available characters and maps to find your favorite. I did not play any of the other battle modes, but I did take some time to check out the trophies, stickers, and maps you can make. I really have no clue why there are stickers and trophies in this game other than to raise your e-peen, but they are interesting to look at non-the-less. There are a few minigames which are fun, but didn’t peek my interest that much. My favorite thing to do, other than playing Brawl tourneys, was creating my own maps. Really cool! There’s lots of different ways you can create a map, and you can even choose your favorite music.
Apparently you can play this game online with other people, but since my Wii isn’t hooked up, I wasn’t able to do this. O wells
All in all, it’s a great game and I suggest it to anyone who likes old school style battle zone type games.
Dear DS,
What would I do without you? You give me company while between classes. You are my companion late at night when I’m bored. I can play as much as I want without you getting tired… Man, what a nice battery life you have. Now that you have a lovely Mod chip that can fit 20 games at once, I feel free as a bird, able to play to my hearts consent. And best of all, you’re pink. Yes, pink. Let me just say, I love you <3
-Snubs
I love my pink DS. It’s a nice lil toy  Specially since Darren got me that mod chip. I beat Cooking Mama last night. Not hard. I think that game was made for 2 year olds. This new game I started to play- Dragon Quest Heroes- is really strange. I play a character that is a blob. It’s very weird!
I bought my graduation announcements yesterday. This is it, I’m really graduating in 2 months. It finally occured to me that it’s really going to happen!
