VenusGaming

When I caught the headline on Kotaku , I had a “wait, wut?” moment, but there it was: Wal-Mart is testing a video game trade-in kiosk.

According to Kotaku, there are machines being tested in the northeastern United States, noteably New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. After scanning in a game box and getting a quote, you can turn in the game and get money onto a credit card (no cash, and currently, no Wal-Mart credit - not that you’d really want that, unless you’re selling games for much needed groceries.) This is only a one-way street, too: you can’t buy used games at the kiosk.

Which begs the question: where do the used games go? I’m guessing, since the kiosks are hosted by e-Play, that they go to the company’s other kiosks to rent or sell out to other gamers who use the kiosks. But not at Wal-Mart. Crafty move by e-Play, if you ask me - and by Wal-Mart, who would rather convince people to go buy new games in Electronics than lose business.

If you want to trade games for cash, and don’t want to get yanked by GameStop, and you’re out of local game stores, screw the kiosk companies. Try SwitchGames, or better yet, FlakWolf, and trade your games for free, without the middleman. I mean, look at SwitchGames’ mission statement:

• Empower The Gamer
  SwitchGames is putting the power of trading back into the hands of the game community. As gamers, you will always decide what fair value for your game is.
• Respect The Gamer
  SwitchGames will only offer products and services that are of value to the game community. Furthermore, we will never require our community to pay us to participate in trading.
• Protect The Gamer
  The SwitchGames Marketplace is a peer to peer marketplace, where members never trade anything with SwitchGames directly, but with each other. We are dedicated to actively monitoring the site and working with our community to provide tools and services to help reduce fraud, and ensure safe trading.

Don’t keep feeding companies that don’t deserve your cash in the first place, and don’t pay you back fairly. Promote the free gamer-to-gamer business!

When I discovered Levers by vectorpark.com, I wasn’t even sure it was a game. I thought it was an interactive mobile builder. And while building a mobile is the premise of Levers, there is a puzzle to solve, that will require a knowledge of basic physics, energy, and weight balance to succeed.

Levers is easy on the eyes, with bright, simple vector graphics done in a playful, child-like style. There is no soundtrack to the game, although the sound effects that are present, such as the splashing of water, are playful and unobtrusive.

To master Levers, you’ll need a bit of understanding of mobiles. Mobiles are sculptures that rely on movement to provide their artistic effect, with  equilibrium being the key factor to keep all ends of the mobile balanced. Although they’re most common in nurseries for the average person, don’t expect to hang the mobile of Levers in a nursery: I’m sure the squid or the (eventually) headless snowman might traumatize a tyke.

The object of Levers is simple: for each stage, balance all objects on the mobile for ten seconds straight without any item touching the water below.  As the stages progress, you’ll get more hangers to attach items too, and more objects to hang. But be aware: this isn’t just a balancing of scales. Many of the objects are interactive or change over time, and require some readjustment along the way.

There’s no theme to the items on the mobile of Levers, and you can view this as either whimsical or cluttering. Once you beat the last stage, though, that’s game over: no more levels or objects await you. With reduced replayability - there may be more than one solution, but how likely is it for you to find others, or care? - it’s unlikely this game will keep you busy for more than 10 or 15 minutes. Levers is the kind of game you’d recommend to someone who really enjoys physics, mobiles, or puzzles - but nothing worth linking to all your friends.

Play Levers at vectorpark.com.

Critics of Wii Sports claim that playing “sports” as a video game -even on an interactive system such as the Wii - doesn’t compare to the real thing. And you know, they’re right - it doesn’t. But it’s a game, and it’s still fun. And when it comes to bowling on Wii Sports, well, there’s a lot of good reasons it does beat the real thing. Here’s my top ten:

1. Everyone follows bowling etiquette. The people in the lanes next to you will never, never bowl at the same time you do. They’ll never sneak up right beside you while you’re walking forward to bowl.
2. The people bowling next to you are nice. They don’t laugh at you or insult you behind your back. In fact, if they could talk, they’d be as pleasant as those nice folks in Pleasantville.
3. No drunken carousing - except your own.
4. You don’t need bowling shoes. Heck, you don’t even to stand up if you don’t want.
5. Your fingers don’t get stuck inside the bowling ball, getting nails broken or knuckles scraped.
6. You don’t have to wait for your ball to come back.
7. You don’t ever have to reset pins or call an attendant.
8. The lanes are always perfect, even if your bowling isn’t.
9. The food’s better, and bowling with a drink or nachoes in one hand is perfectly OK.
10. Bowling alone doesn’t make you look like a total dweeb in front of dozens of people.

As you can guess, I went bowling tonight and had some of these issues. After coming home in a murderous rage, I remembered how peaceful Wii bowling is. Ahh, Nintendo, how you soothe the angry beast.

I am normally very  calm, even when I am pissed. So the statement below is a rarity from me, but I’ll say it anyway. 

Fuck you, Blizzard. 

The above picture is of the achievement “The School of Hard Knocks.” One of the Children’s Week achievements, it is required for the Children’s Week title and, more importantly, for What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been - that rewards the violet proto-drake. And I, along with many other people, have just abandoned their shot at the Violet Proto Drake because of this single achievement.

Yes, it’s that much bullshit.

See, here’s the thing: each of those achievements are individual based. If that’s not clear for you, let me explain: in Alterac Valley, you must be the one to cap the tower flag on the assault. Not on defense, and your buddy getting it a second before you doesn’t count.

You know what that means?

40 people trying to get credit for one of 4 towers. Not just 40 people, 40 people, most of whom don’t care about the BG, aren’t PvP geared, aren’t PvP minded, and just want their !%)&#! achievement, screw the rest of the people.

That means in every Alterac Valley, there are about 72 losers, and 8 “winners.” More winners, if by chance a tower gets defended and can be reassaulted.

And that’s AV. The worst of it, admittedly, but the fucking worst.  Now, some battle groups are going to have it better than others. But the fact of the matter still remains, you’ve got to be damned lucky to get this achievement done. No amount of PvP skill or player skill is going to net you this achievement. 

Oh, and by the way, Ghostcrawler said the achievement isn’t going to change. I guess that’s one way to force the year long drake achievement to be ultra exclusive. Brava, Blizz. Brava.