Should I send a "thank you" card to the server?
This came with some flowers that were sent to me by the company I work for. I appreciate the gesture (Lord knows my apartment could use the greenery) but would it have been that hard to put just ONE person’s name on the card??
11:00 AM
Well, its finally here, and I’ve got mine. I picked up my Aqua Blue Nintendo 3DS this morning from Gamestop and then drove on over to Toys R Us to buy Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition and Ridge Racer 3D. I was able to knock $50 off the price of the system by trading in my DS Lite at Gamestop, and Toys R Us was running a “buy one get one 50% off” deal so I picked up Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition and Ridge Racer 3D. Thus, the blow to my wallet was softened a bit. I also stopped at Best Buy to check out memory card prices, and they had units available as of 1030 AM, so perhaps we won’t see any of the shortages that plagued the Wii…yet.
Its a box!
The first thing I noticed about the Nintendo 3DS was that the box seemed to have a little bit of weight to it. I was a little worried; one of the big things that I appreciated about the DS Lite and DSi were their extreme portability. When you are done, you fold it up, stick it in your pocket and be on your merry way. I hoped the 3DS wouldn’t be pulling off my shorts as it cruised along in my pocket.
Upon opening the box, I soon realized why it was so heavy. For some time now, Nintendo has included English, Spanish, and French instructions in their games. This probably saves them on manufacturing costs, because they can sell the same box in the USA, Mexico or Canada. That’s great for them, but it means that their games arrive with manuals that are three times as thick. The trend has continued with the 3DS, there are three copies of a “StreetPass Mii Plaza” pamphlet, three copies of the “Quick Start Guide” and to top it off, a ‘Operations Manual” that’s 328-pages thick. I guess the Big N won’t be getting any awards from Greenpeace anytime soon. Not that they have before or anything. The box also contained a registration card, a Nintendo Power subscription offer and a pack of “AR Cards.”
That's a LOT of paper!
Now it was time for the good stuff. Inside the box was the 3DS itself, an AC charger, and a charge cradle. The system has a glossy finish, similar to the DS Lite, but with a more metallic look to it. All of the exterior casing has the aqua blue color. Upon opening it up, I saw the bottom section was also aqua blue, but the top screen had a black background. To the left of the touchscreen on the bottom were the Circle Pad and a standard cross-pad, and to the right were the standard A-B-X-Y buttons and a power button.
I found the charge cradle curious at first, because it had a plug for the AC charger, but there was nothing to plug into the 3DS or any connectors that I could discern, just a switch that would be depressed when the system was placed onto it. I pressed the switch and nearby two connectors peeked out. I looked at the back of the 3DS and saw two contact points next to the charger connection where the connectors would meet. Clever. I noticed that the 3DS charger looked very similar to my DSi charger and it turns out that they are exactly the same. Same color, model number, voltages and everything.
The Hardware
The 3DS is about the same size as a DSi, is just a bit thicker, and feels just a tad lighter, too:
I AM YOUR FATHER!
Having heard about he 3DS’ less than stellar battery life, I figured I’d let it soak up a full charge before getting my 3D game on. I left the 3DS on its charger before leaving to attend to some geeky business.
3:30PM
Upon returning from the geek gathering, I was pleased to find the 3DS’ charge light was off, it was time to fire it up and play some games set up my wireless connection. As much as I wanted to get my 3D racing and fighing on, I figured I’d go through the motions and set it up to connect to my wireless router. The first thing I noticed upon turning on the 3DS was that it took a few seconds to start up. I don’t know if this was a one-time thing or not but it took long enough to be noticeably different from the nearly ‘instant-on’ behavior I was accustomed to on the DSi. UPDATE: It takes a few seconds every time.
I then went through the setup, it was fairly straightforward though I found it interesting that I had to select a ‘region’ (in this case, Texas) in addition to the country. Another addition was a little helper character that appeared in the bottom center of the screen, consisting of two rectangles stacked atop each other, with the one of top being bigger and having a smiley face on it. Tapping the character made some help text appear on the screen which seemed like a nice touch. Nintendo seems be focusing more on the online aspect this time around, hopefully it proves to be less of a pain in the neck than the Wii’s online.
I spent a bit of time fiddling around with the 3DS’ built in apps, which include Nintendo 3DS Camera, Nintendo 3DS Sound, Mii Maker, Mii Plaza, AR Games, and Face Raiders. I’ll have more on the system as a whole in a few days, but so far its looking pretty cool!
Following a successful launch in its native Japan, the Nintendo 3DS will drop into American gamers’ hands this weekend. I think it will be as equally successful on this side of the Pacific for the reasons below. I don’t claim to be an analyst, own a crystal ball or have my future self sending me cryptic hints, this is just one player’s opinion. Admittedly, I have a vested interest in the success of the 3DS, as I will be getting one myself this weekend, so take that for what its worth.
Its not just about the 3D: The Nintendo DS is seven years old, and in terms of its polygon pushing abilities, it was almost dated from day one. It certainly lacked the graphical oomph of the Playstation Portable and succeeded partially due to the unique games that its touchscreen made possible. While the third dimension is the hook to get people to buy the 3DS, the biggest improvement will be found in the system’s improved graphical punch.
The 3D Is Nice, though: Nintendo got everyone’s attention at last year’s E3 with just two words: “No glasses.” While the Big N is routinely panned for being behind the curve in the graphical arms race, the cutting edge display of the 3DS does work as advertised. While its launch line up does appear to be lacking, the 3DS’ “killer app” is the 3D itself. At SXSW a few weeks ago, I was not surprised to see fellow attendees being very impressed with the unit’s capabilities at the Capcom booth.
3D is the “Big Thing” right now- Like it or not, 3D is currently very popular, partially thanks to the wave of 3D movies in theaters. While folks are willing to shell out a few bucks more to see a movie in 3D, they are less willing to shell out big cash for a 3D TV set and glasses. While the 3DS’ price point does seem high, it is in the right neighborhood for a new hardware platform and I’d wager that gamers will be willing to pay for the privilege of playing games in 3D.
Enough about 3D, How About Games Players Want: One reason we don’t see many shooters, racing games or 3rd-person action games on the Nintendo DS is that the system just doesn’t have the horsepower to handle them very well. The 3DS, on the other hand, is powerful enough for action games such as Super Street Fighter, Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell to be produced for it. Whether hardcore gamers are willing to give Nintendo yet another chance remains to be seen, but at least this time around, a Nintendo system has the ability to play core games, unlike its underpowered predecessor.
Its Not Just About Games, though: In addition to games, Nintendo has announced that Netflix Instant Watch will be available on the system as well as a ‘short form video service’ that will allow the viewing of 3-D movie trailers and other content. In addition, an eShop should be coming this summer for classic game purchases and exclusive 3DS games. The 3DS will also (finally) feature MP3 support in its Sound application. While none of the above is reason alone to buy a 3DS, they are nice little extras to have and enable users to get more use out of their system.
So, there you have it. I am sure there are just as many reasons for the 3DS to fail, but I think Nintendo will be able to pull off a successful launch. Following that, we should see some big games drop for the system by the end of the year to maintain interest and reel new players in. I should be posting a review of the system and/or whatever game(s) I decide to buy here sometime next week, so stay tuned, and thanks for reading!
Agree? Disagree? E-mail Eduardo “randomizer9” Soliz at edsoliz@gmail.com
The author received no compensation for this post.
So after the smoke cleared, I got my DSL turned on and AT&T got another customer…well for now, anyway. It only took a trip to AT&T’s website, 2 customer service reps, one angry tweet, 3 techs, two social media team people, three executive escalation people, about a dozen voice mails, about twice that many phone calls, and seven days.
For my trouble, I’m getting my first month of service free, which I think is fair enough. I’m just happy that the switch got flipped, and hopefully things will be hunky dory from here on out. I also learned a few things:
So I now have sweet, sweet, internet and life is good.
Evening of Monday March 8, 2011.
I left a message with the Executive service person in the morning letting her know that I’d had enough and was going to cancel my order. We still had plenty of folks out sick, so work soon began in earnest. Oddly enough, I got a call from a AT&T tech during my morning break. After asking me if I had my own modem plugged into the phone jack (being repeatedly asked that question was another annoyance) he was going to get everything set up outside. I reluctantly agreed. After all, I had nothing to lose, and I wasn’t exactly clamoring to deal with Time Warner Cable.
I had to make a trip to the bank during lunch, but before I took off, I left another message with the Executive gal letting her know that I was going to give it one last shot before packing it in. The morning had been busy and I was feeling a little frazzled, so I drove the few miles to the bank with the windows open and the radio on. Arriving at the bank, I discovered that Executive gal had called while I was on the road. I didn’t feel like leaving another message so I left the phone in the car while I went to take care of my business and have some lunch. Of course, during that time, she had called again.
We played phone tag for the remainder of the afternoon. I don’t know if it was the long day I was having or the constant stream of apologies that got thrown my way, but I did not want to talk with her. I had planned on leaving early to see if my connection was working, I had just enough time to get home, check the modem and leave a final message with Executive gal. That plan got shot to heck as I ended up getting stuck on two consecutive long calls with two irritating customers. It was past my usual time to go home and I was pretty beat. The trip home was longer than usual, thanks to an accident that had occurred less than a block away from my apartment which totally hosed things up.
Being stuck in traffic is one thing, but being stuck in traffic just a few blocks away from home is maddening.
I was all but ready to collapse into bed for a quick nap. Before doing so, I half-heartedly checked the modem again. This time, I was greeted with four solid green lights and a fifth one that was blinking green. They finally freaking did it.
HALLELUJAH!
I hastily plugged in my laptop, opened up Firefox and saw an AT&T error page. Aww.
The error page provided me with a number to call. I hesitated for a pretty good while before picking up my cell phone, steeling myself for another craptacular experience like the one I’d had just a week earlier. The prize was finally within reach, I hoped that I didn’t get the same idiots that I had spoken with the week prior. I didn’t. Instead, I got a gentleman from India, who called himself “Ed.” Go figure that one out.
As an aside, I’ve always wondered: do those folks pick names out of a hat before signing in to their phones? I just picture a bunch of people in India sitting at their desks practicing their new names before work begins. “Ed” got lucky, I remember speaking with a less-than-convincing “Gladys” some time ago.
Moving on, I let “other Ed” walk me through the process, and except for one hiccup that was my fault he got me on the tubes and I was now a happy geek:
Not bad at all!
I plan on calling Executive Girl in the morning to let her know that everything got done and that I would be hanging around with AT&T for awhile. For all the aggrivation, I will be getting a free month out of the deal and look forward to being “always on” again. I’ll probably do one last wrap-up post after this, but for now I will bask in the glow of the sweet sweet internets. Thanks for pulling it off in the end, AT&T!!
Yup, it's still red.
Evening of Sunday, March 7, 2011
…and all the King’s men couldn’t get one effing DSL line installed! Thanks for nothing, AT&T!
Afternoon of Friday, March 4, 2011
The last thing on my mind today was AT&T. The “other important call” I had scheduled to take during lunch was a phone interview. My current job is a temporary one; so technically, I could get the old heave-ho at any time. I’d been burned in the past by being overly optimistic, so I decided to be overly pessimistic and assume that each day at work might be the one where I turn in my badge.
The day started out well enough: I got up, got ready for work, checked out the nice new H-E-B near my apartment, and stopped for a bite of breakfast and a blog update before the workday started. I was feeling pretty good: this was going to be the first payday I’d had in awhile, and I was looking forward to seeing that direct deposit drop into my virtual wallet.
I logged onto my work computer and decided to take a quick peek at my bank balance before getting started. I was disappointed to see it was about the same as it had been a few days before. That meant I was going to have to wait for the check to arrive in the mail. I shrugged it off, but at the same time I hoped that it wouldn’t take too long.
As I started work, I noticed the guy next to me was sounding pretty rough. I could hear him constantly coughing, and he soon went home sick. I also noticed that we were quite busy and sure enough, I soon learned that there had been a few people that had called in sick. This did not bode well for my lunchtime plans. Sure enough, about twenty-five minutes before lunchtime, I got a call from some idiot who kept me on the phone for an hour. My heart sank as I felt the cell phone on my hip ring once, and then twice. Needless to say, I was in a bit of a mood when I finally left for lunch.
I ordered and then sat down to check my voicemails and return calls. Sure enough, the interviewer had called at 12 on the dot. I left a message on her voicemail then listened to the AT&T gal’s message. She wanted to try to reschedule a time for a tech to come out. I was confused and asked her why the tech had to be there. As it turns out, because my phone line was currently unused they could not automatically assume that it worked. The last time I had ordered DSL, I actually had a landline so they knew that it worked to a certain degree.
oh.
It would have been nice if someone had TOLD me this sometime over the past three days: the tech didn’t write it on the note on the door, the idiot CSR didn’t say it even though I kept bringing up the self-install thing, the 2 social media reps were as useless as a knife in a soup-eating contest and the first executive whatchamacallit only served to bounce me to the second executive whatchamacallit.
I had to go to Mount Doom and back and talk to all those people just to find out something that should have been posted on the order webpage or put in some phone guy’s script or computer screen. That is just plain nuts.
The Executive phone person asked when she could schedule someone to come out. I told her about the whole ‘can’t miss work’ thing and she told me that their installers don’t work on weekends. Glorious. She said she was going to try to get someone out on Saturday. Feeling cooperative, I told her that I would call the apartment to see if they could let their tech in while I was out of work. She asked me to leave a message when I got a decision. The apartment people said yes, but I was really unsure about doing that so I left a message with her saying that I needed a weekend appointment.
I went back to work after that. Things were still busy, and with about an hour and a half to go in the day I took a break to check my voicemail. I got two messages, the first was from the Executive girl asking me to call a “DSL Specialist” to verify the appointment and answer some questions he would have for me. The second message was from that guy. He had already attempted to call me but I had been too busy at work to pick up. I called the guy’s number and got a message saying he had already left for the day a half-hour ago. Seriously??
I left a message anyway and also left a message with Executive girl letting her know I had just missed the boat because DSL guy had decided to pack it in early for the weekend. Yeah, that’s the kind of day I was having.
Game Over. Bueno, bye. Sayonara. Thanks for playing.
I had all I could stand and I could stand no more. I figured the next time I got called back I would be telling Executive girl I give up. Un-frakking believable. Executive girl called back and she was very apologetic, even more so than before. That’s saying something, because every time I spoke with her she started by apologizing for the delay and their lousy phone system. It says something about the phone company when they have to apologize for their own phone system.
After kissing my feet for way longer than necessary, she told me to call DSL guy back. She assured me that yes, this time he would be answering. I called him, and to my surprise, he answered, asked me if I had a modem plugged into the phone (I did) and told me a guy would be coming on Saturday morning to get everything fixed up. Yeah-yeah, sure-sure.
Well, here we go again!
Evening of Thursday, March 3, 2011
I think I’m over being “mad as hell” with AT&T. Instead, I’ve decided to ride the crazy train and see where it takes me. Besides, I’m no worse off now I was before. Should all else fail, I can always go to the competition. On a certain level, it’s even fun watching AT&T stumble around like a drunken brontosaurus.
At this point, I’m supposed to be waiting for Telephone Superman to get in touch with me so that he can get my apartment hooked up to the tubes. Realistically, though, I think what’s going to happen is that he’s going to ask me a few questions and then either schedule someone to go out to my place (which brings us back to square one) or apologize profusely and THEN schedule someone to go out to my place. Either way, I’m boned.
I have an hourly job right now. I don’t have any vacation days at that job right now, so taking days off means not getting paid for that day. I literally cannot afford to take time off during the week, and on Saturdays, I am busy attending or helping out with various nerd gatherings and events, and on Sundays I have band practice. My busy schedule is why I wanted to do the self-install. Besides, the installer has no reason to enter my apartment unless things are really borked up.
Now if the tech came by, flipped the switch, saw that something was borked up and had to do something inside, somebody should have TOLD me that by now: the installer could have written something on the note he left, the nimrod CSR I spoke to should have seen it on his screen, and I’ll even go as far as to say that the guys responding on Twitter should have seen that SOMETHING was screwy after seeing me unleash some “nerd rage” on the tubes. That’s water under the bridge, though. I figured I’d give them a few days to call and once my patience runs out, I’ll just nuke it all and give Time Warner a ring. Luckily (or unluckily, perhaps) I am a very patient person.
Now if Phone Dude didn’t flip the switch at all because I wasn’t at home, he screwed up.
At about 930 in the morning yesterday, I got a phone call. It was a person from AT&T’s Executive Service something-or-other. She apologized for the inconvenience and told me that someone would be calling me back to get things taken care of…within 48 hours. Grr.
Luckily it didn’t take that long, I got a call in the afternoon (that I missed) from another person somewhere within AT&T’s secret underground lair. It was another gal who should be THE person to get things squared away, but I couldn’t just call her, I had to leave a message and once I did so she would call me back within a hour. Yeah, that’s convenient! The problem here is that my job is answering a tech support line: if my cell rings while I’m helping a customer I can’t pick up. I left a message at five hoping that she would ring me before a customer did.
“Eduardo’s Dumb Luck” kicked in, so of course, my cell rang when I was on the line with a customer. Luckily, the customer was on hold, so I quickly answered. The Executive Customer person asked me if I had some time to discuss the problem (gee, its a shame it isn’t written down somewhere, like say, a blog!) which I obviously didn’t, so I asked her to call me back during my lunch break today.
Of course it wasn’t until after I ended the call that I realized I was expecting another important call at that same time.
Crap.
Morning of Wednesday, March 2, 2011
I was genuinely optimistic when I got ATTNickT’s tweet. I thought that having a “man on the inside” would speed things along and I would be happily surfing the ‘Net in a few days. I sent my information to AT&T’s Customer Care Social Media team in the morning before work and waited to see what would happen. At about 2PM I got this:
Okay, so it's 2 days...wait, "business hours?" Wut?
“Power of social media” my butt.
If you are wondering why I am complaining about “2 days” I invite you to notice the two words after the number 48: “Business hours.” In nearly all the professional positions I’ve had, a “business day” is the eight to ten hours during the weekdays when people are working.
So, if a “business day” is 8 hours, it might be six days before I hear from somebody who might be able to fix my problem. Heck, let’s be really generous and assume a “business day” is 12 hours: that knocks two days off the wait down to only four days. Hold on, though! The weekend is coming, so let’s add two days to both those guesstimates.
So I had to wait six hours to be told I’m going to have to wait 6-10 days MORE? Those hold times spent listening to elevator music suddenly don’t seem so bad. Admittedly, I could be completely wrong and “48 business hours” is really two days, which does makes a weird kind of sense: AT&T is a phone company, so they’ve got to be watching their various grids 24/7. I asked for clarification on what “business hours” are, but I have an feeling that I’m not going to like the answer.
I never thought I'd have to ask this
All I have learned from my experience thus far is that AT&T’s Customer Care Social Media department is only good for ‘transferring’ me to someone else who might be able to help me out. I could have more quickly done that over the phone even with the simpleton I spoke with yesterday.
Maybe I’m just too patient, but I’m going to maintain my optimism, stick with it and see what happens. I’m getting REALLY close to pulling the plug and calling Time Warner Cable, though.
The original Tron was a seminal part of growing up nerdy for me. I actually saw it in the the theater back in the day and loved the (to me, anyway) oh-so-cool visuals, music and jargon, and I still enjoy it today on DVD. Sure, its a little less impressive now that I actually know about computers and electronics (you could imagine my disappointment upon finding out what a Logic Probe actually does) but it’ll always have a special place in this nerd’s heart nonetheless. Minor spoilers ahead, though nothing too major.
Tron Legacy picks up a few years after the events of the first movie. Kevin Flynn is enjoying his “happy ever after” running Encom and spending time with his son, Sam. Kevin suddenly falls off the map and we catch up to Sam years later being a typical rebel wihout a cause, albeit one that is a 1337 hacker, rides motorcycles like a madman, and apparently does BASE jumping.
Sam gets a sign that leads him back to the “Flynn’s” arcade of the first movie where he finds his father’s secret lab and gets zapped into the Electronic World (now called The Grid) just like dear old dad.
I was disappointed with the look of The Grid, the exteriors looked like the real world with a neon coat of paint, and the Recognizers were a let down. I mean, sure, they were more ‘realistic’ but come on, did they really need to have jets? We’re inside a computer, people!
Unlike the original, Legacy dives right into the action. Sam has barely had enough time to get comfy in his new neon duds when he is tossed into a disc duel and a lightcycle battle. The vehicles (Recognizers nonwithstanding, yeah I know, I’ll let it go now) look more “Tron-like” than anything else and the action sequences are easily the highlight of the movie.
Sam soon escapes and finds Kevin with the aid of smexy program Quorra and they all race to escape The Grid and stop a nefarious plot from unfolding before the door to our world shuts again.
I thought Tron Legacy was a fun ride, the action sequences were exciting and visually breathtaking. There were plenty of clever in-jokes for geeks and for fans of the first movie. Some of the dialogue appeared to have been lifted word-for-word from the original, and the technical stuff made a bit more sense this time around. For example, in an early scene, a programmer stops a hack with the Unix kill command.
While there are some philosophical statements sprinkled throughout about free software and the pursuit of perfection, they play second fiddle to the action. I was a little disappointed in the climax which felt a bit ‘deus ex machina’ to me, but to be fair, so was the climax of the original.
I enjoyed Tron Legacy; much like the original, it isn’t going to win any awards for its story, but the acting is good and the visuals and music are great. I think other fans of the original will like it, but it’ll be a toss-up for newbies.
4 out of 5 Identity Discs.
END OF LINE.
Eduardo Soliz 