Nintendo Magazines

For quite a few years I used to buy a magazine called Nintendo Official Magazine. I enjoyed reading the reviews and looking at the pictures, as well as stacking up quite a collection of issues - I even got an email printed once. The magazine was a funny read, and the writers personalised much of the content, which I enjoyed. All of this was during the days of the GameCube, when Nintendo weren't enjoying as much popularity as they are currently. Then just over a year ago the writers suddenly announced that they were being replaced. A new-look magazine appeared on the shelves called Official Nintendo Magazine and sported a much glossier feel, as well as appealing to a wider audience, not just hardcore Nintendo fans. With the success of the DS and the upcoming Wii I believe someone working for Nintendo will have made the decision to bring the magazine more in line with Nintendo's new found public identity. I bought the new magazine and thought how much of an improvement the change had made.

But recently I stopped buying ONM. Although the magazine was in many ways better, the humour wasn't as funny, and by widening the reader base, a lot of the feel of reading a Nintendo magazine was lost. I found reading it a chore, and wouldn't really enjoy it - I was buying the issues mainly just to add to my collection. But I believe the main reason I stopped is because I can get all the news that was in the magazine from the internet as soon as a story breaks, and for free, instead of £3.99. Unless magazines start to offer something radically different, I believe we'll probably see a fall in their popularity due to the internet.

The English website for the highly anticipated Super Smash Bros. Brawl has recently evolved into a blog-style format. It looks like there'll be regular updates from those involved in making the game, which should be really interesting. Just reading the posts so far has really upped my anticipation levels for the game, even though I don't own a Wii yet. Super Smash Bros. Melee for the GameCube was something I played incessantly, and it'd be mind-blowing if Brawl could improve upon Melee, but possible. One of the posts refers to all the composers who'll be contributing to the game. Being a fan of video game music, it's great to see so many composers who've written music for some of my favourite games all coming together. Apart from the amazing gameplay, I think that's why Super Smash Bros. is so great - it's just a giant mix of Nintendo, so many Nintendo series all rolled into one game.

Spheres of Chaos played a show last night at The Boardwalk in Sheffield - it was good fun. We played a nice set and received some positive comments.

Essays

I've just finished off writing an essay for my East Asian Cinema module at university. Everyone dreads essays, but once you start they can be semi-enjoyable, especially if they're on a subject of interest. I've only written two so far this year, which is probably enough, as they can be pretty time-consuming. I didn't get a great mark for the first one I wrote, even though I thought it was good. We'll see what happens with this one. This time, like last, I quite easily filled up the 2000 word limit, which is a good sign, but I didn't manage to go really in-depth with everything, which is probably where you get the marks.

I've found you don't really get too much help on essays. I guess by the time you get to university you're expected to know how to write an essay. I know the basics, but I know I'm no expert. And I often feel limited by the plagiarism rules and referencing system. There are only so many ways you can re-word other people's ideas before they don't mean the same thing, and sometimes I find myself missing out on good points because of the limitations of referencing.

I do like the fact that you have to think quite hard to write essays, so your brain's getting some good exercise, which doesn't happen very often (although at my stage of education, from what I can gather, essays are best when they mainly use other people's ideas, rather than your own). And much like writing a blog, it's an opportunity to improve your method of expression.

Hopefully I'll get a decent mark for this one.

Ill

I'm ill, and it feels like the first time in ages. I can't really remember being ill since starting university in September. Nothing too bad, only a cold, but it still takes the fun outta things.

I had the day off for May Day yesterday. It was good to do nothing, although because I don't do nothing very often these days I find it hard to come up with stuff to do. I ended up watching Dennis on TV - what a great film! I remember seeing it quite a few times as a kid and I still enjoyed it yesterday. I gather that it's called Dennis the Menace in the US, but obviously we have our own Dennis the Menace - they both started as cartoon strips actually, strange how that happened. I guess if you want your cartoon character to be a menace you don't have many other choices for a name.

In fact it feels good to just watch TV. I don't watch much TV at all any more, but it is a viable source of entertainment.

Websites

I recently started writing for a gaming blog called 8bit Hero!. Kerri, the guy who runs the site, contacted me through the Gamewave Podcast, and I'm going to try and write something every so often, probably based around video game music.

Another website/netlabel that I'm involved with is Mega Twerp, which has just undergone an update and re-design after a few months' downtime. My band, Spheres of Chaos, have made a release through Mega Twerp and I highly recommend checking out some of the other artists on there too. It's all really good video game influenced music, but there's a massive range of styles on there, which is great - an alternative to the more strict sounds of 8bitpeoples and Betamod (actually, Betamod and Mega Twerp are both maintained by Tony Gallo/Player Two). I look forward to hearing even more awesome music from MT in the future.