ULTIMATE FRISBEE VIDEO GAME...

IS A HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT.

Today I was out at the mall shopping for DS games and Nagano Snatch playing cards when I happened across something incredible in the KB Toys Bargain Bin. That's right it's Original Frisbee Disc Sports: Ultimate and Golf. I was ecstatic. Me and so many of my kind have been waiting for ages for an Ultimate Frisbee video game, and for my newly-purchased DS, what luck!

It was all downhill from the title. I couldn't agree more with Gamezone.com's review of the product when they say, "Fans of Ultimate and Disc Golf should get a few minutes of enjoyment from this DS collection." I was so determined to like this game despite how shitty I knew it would be. I mean, I knew from the box the graphics were mediocre, and it was in a KB toys bargain bin, but I was determined to put all that aside because it was an Ultimate Frisbee game. A first. A trendsetter. Unfortunately, that just isn't enough. The game creates the illusion of fun until you know how to play, and then it's over. The game is 4v4, the only option is a single game against the same AI computer every time, no difficulty settings, no different teams, nothing. But wait, you can pick your 4-man team from an exhausting list of OVER 5 PLAYERS. That meaning 6 players, and they don't have names, but they do have races, which makes the skill distribution hilarious. The asian is a handler, the black guy is really fast, the white guy is balanced, the Indian guy plays good defense... Making fun of the game developer's racial stereotyping is probably the most fun you'll have with this game. BUT WAIT! You can play against a friend! But it's necessary that they buy this heinous cartridge too, so I'd recommend cutting your losses.

The gameplay is shitty. It attempts to combine the buttons and the stylus in a way that makes gameplay awkward rather than innovative. The top screen shows the heavily pixelated players running around while the touch screen is a bird's eye view of players running around. You need to use the arrows and buttons to run around and throw, but the stylus at the same time to run plays. There are three plays each for offense and defense, but on offense you can also have a player cut by clicking him on the touch-screen and tapping where you want him to go. Cool right? Hell no. As soon as you throw it, you take control of the cutter, and have to have him continue the cut manually if you correctly remember how far and which direction the throw is going. The touch screen shows you the final destination of the throw, but doesn't show you how fast it is going or how close it is. This has you looking sort of frantically between the two screens and makes it needlessly difficult to complete a pass. That being said, if you are lucky enough to reach the brightly colored destination marker, you only have to stand there and you will catch it. Sorry Defense. Speaking of Defense, it's stupid. You can only play defense by moving into the path of the disc and catching it, no layouts, no skying, no hand blocks or any kind of knocking it away from the person that you're guarding. All of this makes man defense basically useless. So the best idea is just to play zone and try to get lucky. Any turnover you achieve feels like luck rather than skill, so any success in this game is hollow. It's just not fun.

Now there's the golf aspect too, which I can tell is more faithful than Ultimate, but I'm really not one for golfing video games. I know it's frisbee golf, and it's sort of cool that you can kind of curve around stuff. But other than that it's just a basic golf game, there are no different kind of throws, and instead of different clubs you have different discs. There's slightly more depth to golf with 18 holes and a practice mode, but that's not why I bought the game, and from what I can tell, any golf game would be better.

So here's the thing. Despite just laying down a huge whomping on this game, I can guarantee you that I'm still going to play it a bunch more times, just hoping it will get better. I know it won't, but I really like Ultimate and this is all I have right now. So, if you really love Ultimate and want to play this game knowing full well it sucks, you can buy it here. And for only $8. It's definitely not worth more.

Back to America: A Crazy Ride Home

Alright. First. Some business concerning previous posts. It has been brought to my attention by one andrewh that the download link I provided for the Magic the Gathering Computer Game was not free, and since no one likes things that aren't free, I invite you to try this link instead. I haven't used it myself, but don't blame me for any spyware or viruses. Freedom has a price.

Also, I discovered that the kanji game I have is not 250 Mannin no Kanken but rather Minna no DS seminar. It's pretty hard to understand and there really is no easy setting, so I'd recommend this game only for advanced students. I'm currently looking into getting some simpler games. Also, I found a good website for buying these games in America. Yeah.

Oh. So. On my flight home. I first flew from Central Japan Airport in Nagoya to San Francisco. There were these two babies on my flight who decided the time had finally come to see who could cry loudest, longest, and with most evident distress. I enjoyed the competitive spirit, but not the 90 minutes of sleep. There were also so many movies I wanted to see. I ended up watching The Darjeeling Limited, and Once. The Darjeeling Limited was funny and had a lot of great shots, but for some reason the sound came through so quietly even on full volume that I ended up missing some key lines of dialogue that explained the thrust of the movie. I still recommend even though there were gaps in the plot I couldn't hear.

Once, well, I really liked Once a lot. I've never really liked musicals, but I really like music, so I feel that there is a quality of overacting and insincerity in most musicals that are completely absent in this one. It's just people singing a bunch of good songs all the time. Man, I really dig Irish music, and there's this one scene when they're recording an album when they're singing and playing a song, and then they just start yelling in harmony and it's just so loud and so perfect. I cried a little during this movie. It is good.

Anyways, so I got to San Francisco and after picking up some See's candies for my Dad, I got on my flight to Chicago. I was planning on sleeping the whole flight, but fate had something else in mind. Have you ever seen that episode of House where he's on the airplane? It was like that, well, almost. There was a guy sitting three rows in front of me who was apparently having some sort of heart trouble. Luckily for him, the people sitting next to, behind, and across from him were all doctors. So these doctors would take a medical history and try to figure out what was wrong with him and the flight attendants were rushing back and forth bringing first aid kids and blankets and other passengers were standing up trying to see what was going on. Then they set up an IV and brought out the defibrillator, which they thankfully never had to use. It was all really intense and interesting, so there was no way I was gonna sleep. We called in to Air Traffic control and we got to enter immediately, and when we got there paramedics came on and took the lucky guy away in a stretcher. The diagnosis was some kind of arrhythmia (sp?). I wonder what would've happened if there weren't all those doctors right there.

Anyways, when it was all done, two of the doctors, who happened to be married to each other, commended there two small children on being quiet and letting Mommy and Daddy help someone. Then the first thing the little boy says is, "I hated that." Kids.

So that's why I got 90 minutes of sleep in the past 24 hours. I guess I'm gonna go to bed.