I'll be very brief about the DSi. I'm not interested a bit about it until there are some games that use the new features of the portable or are online only.
I'm not interested in any of the features (music player, camera, sd card slot) unless there's software that can take advantage of them.
Nikkei is reporting that a new DS, with bigger screen, media playback and a camera will be released in Japan this year. As a technophile, I'm curious about this new gadget but... why announce it now?
The DS is incredibly successful, and even though the sales in Japan are lower than previous year, Nintendo keeps pumping the portable into that market week after week in spite of its huge installed base.
Maybe Nintendo can see that the saturation point is looming and the PSP has seen a surge in sales thanks to games like Monster Hunter. Maybe it is a reaction of the success of Apple's App Store and the iphone.
Even if it comes out to light that all of the above is true, I'm sure that Nintendo will find a way to make it very successful, very cheap to produce and very accessible to the "non-gamers".
update: what if this came out on the same day of Nintendogs 2? Then it would be a whole different story...
When this game was first announced, I was quite skeptical: a Level 5 adventure game, for the Nintendo DS that looks like an European cartoon sounded too amazing and risky at the same time to end up being a good game.
I should have never doubted from Level 5, Layton is an incredible game. It literally grabbed me from the first half hour when the main characters, Layton and his apprentice Luke, head to St. Mystere to find the Golden Apple. Even before getting to the village, the first puzzle gives you a taste of what's ahead. And be prepared, because there are over 100 of them.
Layton and Luke will encounter plenty of mysteries that they must solve by talking to the town's inhabitants, which will only cooperate if you solve riddles and brain teasers. There's a wide variety of puzzles: math, logic, tongue twisters and some of them make no sense.
The animated cutscenes look great, and they are fully voice acted! That's someting that Nintendo owners are not used to! Thought it seems that all the budget went on the cutscenes and the voice actors, because the music gets repetitive quite fast.
If I had to complain about anything, it'd have to be that some of the puzzles follow absolutely no logic and I had to have a look at some FAQs to find the answer. I don't really mind if my mind has been so dumbed down by TV and computer games that I cannot solve a simple math puzzle. But when the answer is something completely random, I feel that the developer is not being fair with the player.
When I started the game I thought: "Wow, this game is like brain training, but fun! Every kid should play this!" but as the game progressed, I started to believe that this game was actually conceived for somebody like me. The puzzles can get really hard and I believe kids won't be able to solve them. Also some of the plots of the story are a bit dark, which are more suitable for more mature audiences.
At the end of the day, if you like adventure games and puzzles, you will love Layton. It is very hard to resist its charm and the as the story unfolds, it is inevitable to start caring about the characters. The ending is great, loved it and left me wanting for more. Thanks God there's a "Professor Layton and Pandora's box" in the pipeline :)
Those who know me have heard that I've declared August the ultimate gaming month. These first 4 days have been awesome:
Soul Calibur IV:I am a big Soul Calibur fan. The Dreamcast disc was so scractched from playing it over and over and over that everytime we played it with my friends, we were begging it would work.
Soul Calibur 2 brought us Link and what I consider the best "adventure" mode in a fighting game: Weapon Master mode. I didn't play this as much as the DC one, I didn't have a place to get together with friends and play. I think it was in this edition where my Cervantes became my favourite character, specially because I was playing mostly 1 player it forced me to learns most of his moves, combos and techniques.
Along came Soul Calibur 3... and I didn't have a PS2 at that time, it never had an Arcade version, many people believed gameplay was unbalanced, those are enough reasons why I never tried this one.
Which brings us to number 4. I know I've only played it for four days, but I really like this game. Graphics are great (boobs engine aside), music is great, gameplay is as good as I remember, custom characters are fun, online is surprisingly good... what more could I ask? I suspect that Namco will find a why to try to screw western players with DLC (e.g. pay to unlock things that are already in the disc). Shouldn't you have learnt the lesson with Katamari and Ridge Racer Namco? If Yoda is on my PS3 game and I just need to download the "key" to unlock it, many people will be pissed.
PixelJunk Eden: I will set things straight from the beggining: this is a game about collecting pollen. No, there are no bees involved, but there are seeds, gardens and a "a tiny, silk-spinning ‘grimp'". I think that if I had to classify this game I'd put it under "platformer". There's lots of jumping, grabbing from plants and sprouts, enemies to destroy and secret paths to discover. But what sets this game aside are the graphics and the music: subtle, always evolving techno music combines with brush painted like plants that grow and change as you collect more polen. Did I say I love this game? On top of everything, it supports trophies! Check this video out to get a better idea of what I'm talking about
Space invaders extreme: I'd love to talk about this game, but I bought it and guess what: oh surprise, my PSP has no batteries. So stay tuned for comments on that game.
The fact that E3 was an epic failure filled with disappointment is not news to anybody. One thing the failed expo left me was an itch to go back to Haedo-3, my Animal Crossing DS town.
I have this love-hate relationship with the game. I quite enjoyed my brief visits to my town, but I must confess all I did was sell fruit. I realized... most of this is about selling fruit, waiting for the fruit to regenerate, plant more trees and sell more fruit.
I remember I was super obsessed with the game with it came out, but I can't be bothered to keep selling fruit to pay Tom Nook's loan. I have real debts in real life that I have to pay!
Another indication of how sick this game is, was when I tried to explain the game mechanics to a co-worker and ended up comparing it to WoW (aka grinding to get new abilities = selling stuff to buy more stuff).
So the million dollar question: Am I excited about AC Wii? Even though I know I will end up hating it too... I can't wait to move into a new house, buy turnips, collect bugs and sell cherries.
Technically, I don't own a Microsoft console, so the closest is my macbook pro that lets me play a couple of ports of games for Windows.
After the announcement of Diablo III I decided to give diablo II a try, only to remember why I abandoned gaming on computers. After the latest OS X update, certain hardware configurations don't work with the latest diablo II patch. ARGH!
All the hope was then moved to Sim City 4... another mistake. This was a rushed port, never optimized for Mac OSX full of slowdowns.
Then Civilization 4 saved the day. It works perfectly, it is super addictive and has satisfied my needs for an awesome strategy game.
If I had to make a couple of predictions about MS this is what i'd say:
PLACE YOUR BETS! Thanks to Peorth for her l33t photoshop skillz
15 hours after the first boot, and I'm still enjoying Metal Gear Solid 4. I'm also happy because I think I've passed the low point of the game (Act 3, the chasing the spy part), and I'm back enjoying the game.
I won't talk about the detail, because saying anything very specific could ruin everything. The million dollar question is how much MGS knowledge is required to really enjoy it. If you have never played MGS, and have no rush to get into it, play them all. You will find Guns of the Patriots much more rewarding if you do so. But on top of the insanely complicated story there's a super solid game with a presentation and production values that any other game, or for what it matters any other form of enterntainment, should envy.
On the breaks from MGS, I've been playing the masochist Wii Fit. Masochist because it calls you overweight every sigle time you play an some of the exercises are pretty hard, but I cannot stop smilng while playing most of the mini-games. So far, I technically lost weight, but I doubt it has anything to do with Wii Fit, probably more to do with the actual exercise I do at the gym.
Finally, I had some time to try Mario Kart Wii, and I must say, it is not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I've been playing with the nunchuk + wii mote and it works pretty well. I've finished all the 50cc cups and unlocked a couple of characters and rides. The Mario Kart channel is a cool idea, but as usual with Nintendo and online, it is somewhat limited compared to what you can do over PSN or XBL. I think it was a good idea to remove the complications of Double Dash, but I'm not sure if adding bikes and some of the aerial tricks you can do to boost are the direction the series should follow.
In spite of what some of you might think, considering some of my previous posts about tvnz, I was not meaning any harm when I found this. I was watching something on tv on Sunday night, when one of those tvnz 6 ads showed up. I was wondering about tvnz 7 so I opened goolgle and searched for: "tvnz7". First results was from Rapid TV news, but the second one caught my geek eye: "Index of /tvnz_images/tvnz7".
I had a quick browse and all the folders under that folder were open and unprotected. What was worse, potentially "sensible" information about their systems was also exposed.
I've emailed TVNZ letting them know of this security risk. I'll keep you posted :)
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