So, New Leaf won't be out until June 9th

- and June 14th for Europe and Australia. I really can't wait for this game to come out. Word from Japan seems like this is the first game in the series to take big steps forward rather than the incremental upgrades Wild World and City Folk offered- or at least I hope so. Wild World was excusable at the time because it was still a new experience for a lot of people and it was the first time the series was portable. Popular opinion (including my own) was that City Folk was pretty lazy and uninspired. At the very least, New Leaf seems to at least understand that the status quo isn't going to do it anymore.

When it comes to the actual release date, though, what happened? This is a little bit of a complaint, but I'm also just curious. Japan got this game on November 8th of 2012 and we didn't even know when this game was coming until 3 months later. It doesn't actually come out until over half a year later. I guess it's expected with Nintendo now with their generous use of the "launch window", but this really stretching "Early 2013" quite a bit.

I've seen 2 popular theories, but I'm not entirely convinced of either of them

1) Animal Crossing is a low priority outside of Japan. I don't see how that can be true. Animal Crossing isn't going to move copies like Mario or Zelda and it won't do as well here as it did in Japan, but it's not like those games completely bomb over here. Wild World did pretty well (from what I remember, I can't find numbers) and City Folk did around 500k copies even though it wasn't very good. Even if AC is low priority, then what's getting the attention? The 3DS isn't the desert wasteland it used to be, but other than Fire Emblem recently and Luigi's Mansion in March, I'm not really aware of any games coming out. And Fire Emblem is super niche in the US and LM's localization can't be very complicated.

2) Translating Animal Crossing is Very Hard

I don't doubt that it is, but I don't think that explains the 7 month gap. I remember reading a really interesting interview with Nate Bihldorff years and years ago about how translating the first Animal Crossing was really difficult. However, historically this gap doesn't make much sense. Wild World came out in the US only one month after Japan. City Folk came out in the US three days before Japan, which is kinda weird, but whatever. Also, there's no voice acting in AC.

Well, whatever. I'll be there Day 1, even if they delay until 2014. I'm just kinda bummed out, I really want to play that game. :( Thanks for reading my rant. I'm going to look into the new Harvest Moon game and see if that can fill the void in my heart.


A Story about the Red/Blue Rival Nobody Knew...

Saw this on a friend's Facebook page... 
In the original Pokémon Red/Blue, when you encounter your rival in Lavender Town he asks whether or not you know what it's like to have one of your Pokémon die. At this point in the game, he no longer has his Raticate that he used in previous battles.Your rival battle before this took place aboard the S.S. Anne. Your rival's Raticate sustained serious injuries from the battle...but, because crowding and confusion on the luxury liner, he was unable to make it to a Pokémon Center in time and the Raticate passed away. The real reason your rival is in Lavender Town to begin with is to lay his deceased friend to rest.Despite all of this, your rival never outwardly tells you that you're responsible for the death of his Pokémon. He hides his grief and instead channels that energy into the motivation he needed to continue his quest to become Indigo League Champion. The death of his Raticate effectively destroys your rival's impish, childhood innocence. Although he tells himself that he doesn't hold you responsible, he subconsciously holds a great deal of resentment towards you which further fuels his ambitions.Tearfully swearing upon his Raticate's grave to not fail in what he set out to do, he trains hard in hopes of becoming better than you...defeating you...and to eventually make it to the Pokémon League. Mere moments after he became Indigo League champion, he was you. Although he fulfilled his promise to his fallen Pokémon, it was only for a painfully brief instant.In the end, your rival is scolded by his grandfather while you receive the professor's praise. During the course of the game, you steal your rival's innocence, crush his dreams, and ultimately snatch away the love of his own grandfather. Oh, and by the way, your rival doesn't have any parents. He's an orphan.    


Should I Upgrade to the Slim?

Alright, so I'm still using a 20GB Xbox 360 (maybe a year and a half old, Microsoft gave me a new one after mine redringed). I have one messed up wired controller (RT only somewhat fully reacts while pressed, sucks for racing and FPS) and two wireless controllers that are both kinda messed up. The black wireless is essentially fine, but the RB is consistenly getting worse and worse and I imagine it will stop working at the some point. The white wireless has fully functional buttons, but it only turns on 1-in-5 times So a fresh controller and a bigger hard drive are both a big plus for me and then all the other cosmetic stuff are cool too. 
Here's what I think we're looking at for the GameStop trade in:
Xbox 360 with wired- 100 
Two wireless controllers- 50 
One wireless adapter- 40 
20 GB HDD- 30 
Headset- ??? 
Mario Party DS, NHL 08, NHL 09, Yu-Gi-Oh! 2008, Guitar Hero II with controller- ??? 
So in total I have $220+ whatever the headset and 5 games with the guitar are worth. So that's basically $60-80 for a fresh controller and a 230 GB upgrade, which I both desperately need. My only worry is that they'll test the white controller and it won't turn on, but given my experience with GameStop (which was maybe 3-5 years ago), they couldn't give a shit about the quality of the stuff you're giving them. 


Worst Amounts of Game Progress Lost due to the Power Going Out?

So in Beautiful Katamari there is a 40 achievement for playing the game for 50 hours of playtime and an 80 point achievement for 100 hours. Let's just be straight: there is no way in hell anybody would ever actually reach 20 hours (let alone 50 or 100) in that game naturally. 
Yeah, so I've just been leaving my 360 on all day and while I sleep and stuff. I already got the 50 point achievement and saved after I got it. Then, if I did the math right in my head, I was at somewhere like 99 hours and 45 minutes-ish, but then the power in my entire neighborhood just goes out for no reason. So I lost all of that...greeeeat. 
There's been some other instances where that happened to me. Like there was that extremely hard mini-game level in the first Super Mario Galaxy where you have to hurl bombs at the trash and right when I got the Star the power went out. 


My Bet Idea for Brad

I already sent this to the bombcast e-mail address, but I thought I would just put this up here to see what my fellow Giant Bomb community members thought of it. In case you didn't listen to the bombcast this week, the crew was discussing that Brad was the only one not involved in a bet and that he should get in on the action.
This bet is between Brad and whoever loses the Jeff/Dave bet. Many people feel that 1 shot of gin is not going to be enough to get a satisfactory response out of the loser. This bet will ensure that we will get a good response somehow. Here it is:
Brad vs Jeff/Dave
Jeff/Dave wins if they throw up after having 1 shot of gin.
Brad wins if he does not.
The loser has to drink 4 shots of gin or until they get sick. That's an additional 4 shots if it's Jeff or Dave.
What do you guys think? I'm no alcohol expert, but I'm pretty sure 4 shots of gin is pretty steep.


Ryan Davis Opened Up My Eyes Last Night

Last night on the live feed, I posed the question "Will I ever be loved?". To my surprise, Ryan Davis himself immediately said "no". Lets just say in the past year my luck with the ladies hasn't been too good because I moved to a new town (that's my excuse anyway). I always thought it might happen one day, but I guess not.

I would just like to thank Ryan for this. At first I was upset, but then I realized he was doing it for my own good. Now I'm prepared to tackle life head on. When that girl asks me if I want to go back to her place, I'll be damn sure to make sure I still have my wallet. Thank you sir!

Here is proof of this accord (8:10):