Lawyering Skills

Today I received my offer from Parr Waddoups Brown Gee & Loveless. To celebrate on this blog I am highlighting the one game series that actually helps me train to become a better lawyer: the Ace Attorney series from Capcom.
The Ace Attorney Series is a great addition to the Nintendo DS library. In each of the games you play as a defense attorney through a number of different cases. The game play proceeds in a point-and-click style. In each case you interview potential witnesses, find clues, and conduct your case in court. The major event of each case is the trial. You question witnesses and try and trip them up during their testimony. When they say something that is contradicted by the evidence before the court you yell "Objection!" into the DS microphone and the trial stops while you bring the contradiction to the court's attention.

In each case you are pitted against an overzelous prosecutor; they are willing to go to any length to obtain a conviction. The games also do not follow any standardized rules of procedure. The sense of justice and fairness is also warped; however, the games are still well written and entertaining.




I recently bought the third and final game in the Phoenix Wright series. However, Capcom has recently branched out the series with an all new attorney: Apollo Justice. With this new series I should be able to continue to live out my courtroom dreams for the next year before I start working at Parr Waddoups.

License Plate Vexation…

So I am a gamer and one that frequents the IGN forums quite often. As a Nintendo loyalist I usually end up in the Wii and DS Lobby, but on occasion I will check out what is happening with the other consoles. I have often said that I enjoy reading about video games more than I like playing them and so I tend to check out blogs as well. Go Nintendo is the most popular one I visit regularly and over the years of reading post after post I have come to understand the meaning of NMH, MOH, COD, LOZ, etc. Most people would understand they are simply abbreviations for larger names, which is true, but my mind now understands any abbreviation regardless of intent being associated with some game.



I live in the state of Utah and it is standard to have 3 numbers followed by 3 letters. As I travel the roads in and around town I constantly am peeking at the license plates of those driving in front of my view. More often than not, I will seek out a meaning for the last three letters hoping to find a game title hidden within. It may be my obsession with forum reading or simply the fact that I have a personal custom licence plate, but the vexation is a common everyday routine…

Rush 2

The one racing game that I enjoyed the most on the N64 was Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA.



It was a solid racing game that threw physics out the window. This resulted in some incredible air off jumps and very deadly crashes.



The racing was intense and split screen multiplayer worked very well. To unlock extra cars and tracks you had to collect keys and soda cans that were placed throughout the race tracks. Often requiring a long jump to reach them. Weird, but very fun at the same time.

Making the Old School New

One of the most unique things that have happened during the current generation of consoles and handhelds for Nintendo is the resurgence of old school games. One of the earliest examples of this was the New Super Mario Bros. for the DS. I love how the first level starts out very similar to the original Super Mario Bros. and then you get a huge mushroom and it is nothing like the original. This trend only continued with the virtual console on the Wii. It gives you the opportunity to relive the classic games from seven different systems. This allows players to fall in fall in love again with games from their childhood or experience games that they missed out on the first time around. The DS has also seen a number of remakes: Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy IV, and the recently announced Chrono Trigger highlight this trend. Finally, WiiWare will likely be host to a number of original versions of classic games. Mega Man 9 has already been announced for WiiWare and follows in the footsteps of the classic Mega Man games. WiiWare has also been used to rerelease Toki Tori, a GameBoy Color game.

These games reinforce Nintendo's philosophy that gameplay is more important than graphics. Hopefully these games will just be the beginning of more classic game designs being brought to old and new gamers alike.

Pokemon DS

I recently was able to talk Tammie into getting me a second DS. Nintendo just released a special edition Pokemon DS. The DS looks awesome and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get this DS. I am especially excited to be able to play games with Tammie now. Maybe I can use this to get her more into gaming.

Edit: Tammie called me out so I need to come clean. It was Tammie that bought this DS for me. I came home from the store, barely resisting the urge to buy it myself. She then went to the store later and came back with this. I was working on the computer and Tammie had Carter bring me the awesome shirt that went with it. I did the dishes and gave her a back rub that night to try and make up for her awesomeness.