Awesome is, I think, the right word for this piece of tech.  It’s a fully adjustable rotatable remote-controllable mobile on-wheels webcam!  It can be told to roam your house, take snaps, email them do you, then go recharge itself.  Enter Rovio!

Of course being WiFi enabled you can log-on and control it from that interwebs thing the kids tell me so much about.  There are obvious security benefits and many don’t-try-this-at-home snooping on your fellow house occupants features to be enjoyed.  Personally I think I could have hours of fun watching / chasing a pet cat / dog / rat of unusual size with it.

There are some DS games out there that are obviously made for a very young age group; the ‘Imagine’ series comes instantly to mind. From a marketing point of view, they’re safe games aimed at parents to buy for their impressionable ickle ones. These are the types of games that the more ‘mature’ players wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot cattle prod due to their simplicity (and in some cases, the downright scary 3D babies).
However, there are some that’ll fool ya, some games you’d instantly ignore that aren’t actually that bad. Upon passing a particularly girly looking game, I suddenly recognised a certain art style and brand name and got curious…

After a bit of a demo play, I ended up buying ‘Kira Kira Pop Princess’ despite its rather off-putting title. The original Japanese title of ‘Pinky Street: Kira Kira Music Hour’ sounds so much better, and if they had kept it as such, it would have at least made my purchase of the game a tad less embarrassing. Various character and location names have also been changed, but that’s standard I guess.

Kira Kira (roughly translated as ‘sparkling’) features characters based on the popular ‘Pinky Street’ plastic figures designed by BabySue and manufactured by the Japanese company Vance Project. Yeah, I had bought a couple based on ‘Haruhi Suzumiya’ and ‘Street Fighter II’ during an anime convention. Their distinguishing feature is the interchangeable parts that can easily be switched between figures according to taste. In the DS game, players can do the same and completely customise their character with a huge range of heads, hairstyles, clothing, and accessories, all of which can be unlocked throughout the game by winning dance competitions across the city.

It’s a fun rhythm action game that actually has a fair amount of hidden depth. Dressing in clothes that are popular in a particular district is just as important as your timing with the stylus on the touch screen and can also affect what rewards you gain from a win or a loss. There are also hidden dance moves you can pull off in most songs to gain that extra edge towards a higher score (and better prizes).

Two of our female friends also have the game and they keep kicking my ass on the multiplayer mode (although after comparing stats after each competition I’m not that far behind). The nice touch is that even if you lose, you will still gain in-game currency for the shops, tokens for the capsule machines, and other items. Hitting near-to-perfect scores and impressing your audience can sometimes unlock some of the most sought-after items in the game.
On the less competitive side, you can also trade photos you took of your character, profile/stats sheets, and whatever items you’ve collected so far.

So anyway, since this game seems to be going for less than a tenner in some places, I really think it’s worth a bash. Rather surprising how addictive the game is for some people (and those with OCD tendencies to ‘collect everything’). The tunes are very catchy too.

Pinky Street: Kira Kira Music Night – the Japanese sequel, has been out for a while and has supposedly been released in Europe under the title ‘Pop Town’, just no one can find it and online shops are currently clueless.
You play the rival character with a whole new set of music and clothing, plus a daft spin on the plot and dialogue from the previous game. There were limited edition versions of both games in Japan packaged with Pinky:St figures…
Why do I have this sudden urge to go to jlist and ebay? *searches* What the?! Is that a Pinky in a chibi version of a Tiger I tank? Brilliant! XD

Here, have some hyperlinks;

*Vance Project – Manufacturer of Pinky:St (Japanese)
*BabySue – Designer of Pinky:St (Japanese)
*Pinky-Street.com – English Pinky Street reference and fan site

So here I was, minding my own business, when thought I’d have a poke around with a Twitter search or two. First off I figured I’d search for Chrome so see if anything interesting had been spotted about Google’s shiny browser. Turns out very shiny things had happened, very shiny indeed.

Namely the feature I’ve been waiting for… bookmark synchronisation! Great days I eagerly downloaded the dev version (up to version 4 already, crickey) and with great gusto I hammered in my login details and waited with baited (is that even the right spelling in this context? meh) breath for my Google Bookmarks to stream down.

And I waited.

And waited.

Waited some more…

Nothing. Oh. Suppose it must just sync between chrome and other instances of chrome. That’s still cool but was a bit of an anticlimax. But wait… the story doesn’t end here!

Enter @chronarion! The fellow seemed to be interested in tails of bookmark fail, being involved in Chrome development an’ all. His words of wisdom told me that sadly Chrome does not sync with Google Bookmarks (which kinda makes sense – Google Bookmarks sucks.. sorry Google, it’s true). Oh woe was me, for how will I now access my bookmarks when not on one my own machines?! FEAR NOT, said @chronarion (disclaimer: not actually a quote), FOR SALVATION… is at hand. Turns out your Chrome bookmarks are also synced up rather nicely to Google Docs for web-based access where-ever you are.

Well pleased. So export my Google Bookmarks I did, import them to Chrome I continues, and gasped I concluded as I watched with glee at my Google Docs as it filled up with my bookmarks.

The only real down-side I’ve found so far is that you cannot edit your bookmarks within Google Docs but given the highly beta nature of the Chrome dev branch I really don’t feel like complaining about it.

On a side point Chrome (well, Chromium to be accurate) for Mac is feeling more and more stable – I’m now using it side by side with Firefox as my two main browsers. Bookmark sync isn’t enabled in the Mac version at the moment but expect it’ll appear soon.

Keep up the good work Google ^_^

Note: to enable bookmark sync under Windows make sure you’re on at least version 4 of Chrome (FileHippo are always up to date) then follow the easy instructions here. Enjoy!

Some, spurious discriminatory, people have pinned gamers as the lazy types – the sit on their arse and work their thumbs into mince on control pads (yes yes or keyboards or flailing hysterically with motion controllers). The Metro in the UK for one has highlighted this claim just this week. FOR SHAME.

I digress.

So, being a lazy bunch, the stroll to the shop to pick up the latest greatest game or that re-mastered gem or that retro classic you’re sure you saw in the pre-owned bin just the other day, is some much needed exercise. To your stout belly I cry FEAR NOT! For this, my friends, is the age of….

DOWNLOADBLE CONTENT

I’ll wait a moment while and shock and awe pass. Done? No? Well wait a little longer if you like – this is text, it’s not like I actually have to wait for you.

Anywho. In this glorious age the Wii, PS3, Xbox360 and DSi alike (and, of course, soon PSP Go) have all embraced your ability to eagerly stab payment card details into their integrated online stores and spend spend spend! This has lead to some simply awesome developments in games. No longer does a marketing and distribution team the size of, well, a very large marketing and distribution team seem to be required to punch out a hit. Look at World of Goo, that’s brilliant and pretty much done by something like 3 people. THREE! Impressive times. Of course this has also lead to some fun smaller games that simply don’t warrant the expense of disc-based release, like the Art Style games on Wii / DSi, Braid and Geometry Wars on Xbox360 and such like, and some great gaming ideas that have seeped out simply because there’s very little financial risk in online distribution.

Great! So a herd of inexpensive, innovative, games appear. So the popularity grows even faster than the download catalogue. But my concern grows.

The Boss Men have been watching this new distribution model with envious eyes and they have seen the light. With a distinct “Oh, cool” I updated my Xbox360 last night to find I could now purchase online, and download directly to my shiny 120GB hard drive, full Xbox360 games like Mass Effect and Burnout Paradise. Great idea – the belly flab will be pleased. They’re not the only ones at it!

OnLive – a service that turns a PC into a gaming rig, control pad and all with the buttons labled L, I, V and E… stoopid, that doesn’t require download, just streams the game you want to play to you. Great days for instant-fix and shiny new content yeeeees… but there’s a catch to ALL of this.

A very big one.

Picture this… the industry continues down this path (despite Miymato San’s penny saying download content isn’t the be all and end all) there’s a very worrying precedent along the lines the music industry is heading. Increase in popularity of download purchases means decline of physical media. Shops close / stop selling games on disc. Where do you buy your games from now? Direct from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo (and Steam etc but for the sake of argument and good ranting let’s put PC download content aside for this one). What happens when they no longer fancy selling a particular title, or there’s a petty legal dispute? Your chance to own it has gone. Want to borrow a game from a friend to see if it’s a worthy purchase? Think again. What if your console bricks? It’s pretty much up to the discretion of the console manufacturers to return your games on a new console or not.

For me the most worrying thing is the bargains will go – The price will forever be controlled by one body, the gaming company. The pre-owned will go (possibly a good thing for the industry, but then surely trading in games then buying other games with that trade in helps in some way with the bonus of allowing those less financially fortunate to not be left in the cold?), that moment of “YES! I’ve been looking for this game for YEARS!” will never again happen.

Granted that’s a worse case scenario but I worry about these things (in the same way that I often worry ‘what if wasting little bits of tin-foil will one day lead to us have just not enough metal left to build that star cruiser to take humanity to another world’). I don’t really think things will come to that but it’s a concerning drift. While hard drives are relatively limited and games weigh in at a few gigabytes the physical media will still kick around but I’d be sad to see it’s death. Physical media seems more time-proof (well, until the plastic of the DVD degrades, heh), like it’ll last and still be there in 30 years for me to dust off and enjoy all over again.

Yes, I’m a nostalgic fool. Now leave me to my dreams of my Sega Master System and running lap after lap on Hang On ^_^

I’ve spent many a weekend afternoon in the woods, authentic replica firearm in hand, shooting at people whilst running and walking to make myself a more challenging target. Whilst I’ve never had an opportunity to replicate this scenario with a real gun, something tells me it’s unlikely that as soon as I want to pull the trigger, I will find myself paralysed from the hips down, only able to move by pivoting about my waist, only able to unfreeze my legs by returning my weapon back to my side.

Which makes it all the more confusing that Chris Redfield, trained soldier with biceps larger than the average tank, and Sheva Alomar, who has been fighting with guerilla groups since she was eight, both seem to suffer from the same disease that makes it impossible to move from the spot when aiming a weapon. Whilst this ‘feature’ has been present and correct since Resident Evil first began on PlayStation back in 1996 before the third person shooter really took off, once upon a time it was forgiveable, before other games came and threw some innovation and modernisation at the genre. Now it’s completely inexcuseable.

Resident Evil 4 was hailed by many as a revolution in the series, a true return to form, fixing the archaic control scheme. Those ‘many’ are a tad stupid, evidently oblivious to the fact that the control scheme hadn’t changed at all. Shifting the camera to the shoulder didn’t alter the fact that it still took an hour to turn 45 degrees and that fact that you had to stand still to be able to aim or fire your gun. All it did was turn it from an old-and-dated survival horror game into an old-and-dated third-person action shooter game.

Fortunately, of the two main problems with RE4, one of them is fixed (for the most part) in RE5. Whilst when in aim mode it still takes an eternity to move the laser sight from one side of the screen to the other, in normal gameplay it is now possible to control the camera with the right analogue stick, and since the ancient up = forwards mechanic remains, it is now much quicker to steer your character whilst walking or running. Walking is of course controlled by using the left stick, but to run, in traditional RE fashion, you must hold down a button whilst moving the stick. Capcom has clearly failed to notice that the last 5 main RE games and countless spinoffs have all been developed exclusively on consoles with analogue controls. In a day of third-person action games like Gears of War, GTA IV and Uncharted sitting on the shelves with such perfected cover systems and combat mechanics, using “it’s a survival horror” no longer works as an excuse for RE refusing to get over its stubbornness and take influence from these great examples of the genre, because it isn’t.

Back in the day Resident Evil, despite the incredible campness, was a survival horror game. Fixed angles prevented you from seeing around the corners, subtle noises like creaking floorboards or very faint groanings providing the only clues to the horrors that may or may not lie behind each door. Obscure puzzles prevented progress until you’d managed to come to the same illogical conclusion as the developers. With RE4, Capcom ditched any semblance of subtlety, opting for hordes of angry drugged up psychopaths at every turn instead of trundling zombies, but there were still a few obscure puzzles. In RE5 I recall one puzzle of note, and one that took all of 30 seconds to suss. Apart from an abomination of a control scheme, Resident Evil has strayed about as far from its roots as is possible.

But it’s not all bad. Once you’ve learned to contain your frustration at the horrors of the controls, you can divert your attention to what’s on the screen in front of you. And what’s on the screen in front of you is nothing short of jaw dropping. RE5 is a graphical tour-de-force like few others. The human character models in particular are astounding (even if Chris’s steroid-pumped body manages to defy all known laws of physics), with gorgeous backdrops, lots of on-screen action and huge explosions never creating a noticeable dip in the rock-solid framerate. The in-engine cut-scenes are big action-packed affairs, excellently choreographed and a sight to behold.

The sound doesn’t quite reach the same heights. The soundtrack isn’t particularly intrusive or bad, but it’s completely forgettable. The voice-acting is mixed at best, laughably awful at worst, sticking with the classic RE camp for the most part. Notorious series villain Albert Wesker is the worst offender, with some truly cringeworthy performances throughout. Sheva, despite being voiced by a Jamaican-American and supposedly being an African character has a strangely strong British accent.

The story is as you would expect. a chemical virus, evil pharmaceutical corporations and everyone’s favourite Neo-wannabe Wesker make up the bad guys, as huge numbers of Africans become infected, which makes them to lose the ability to speak in words and causes giant octopi to grow out of their faces, and go on a murderous rampage. And you have to stop them. And that’s pretty much it. There are a few of the old cast making brief appearances, and a host of dull and irrelevant new faces. You will get through the game not feeling an ounce of emotion for any of the characters, and will most likely have forgotten the story in its entirety by the time the credits finish.

When played in single-player, RE5 has you taking control of Chris (for the first playthrough at least), with Sheva being controlled by the AI. On the easiest difficulty setting, you may as well not be there. Sheva seems able to take off an enemy’s head with a single shot in half a second from three miles away with a standard pistol. Bump up the difficulty, and Sheva finds herself unable to hit the Titanic from six inches away. It’s all very inconsistent. She also can’t manage her own inventory, meaning whenever she’s used up all her ammo (usually within a minute of you handing her a dozen magazines), you have to stand next to her and start managing her items, giving her what she needs to be able to function. Just to rub this in, for the first time in RE you now can’t pause whilst managing the inventory, meaning you have to hold her hand and manage her equipment for her whilst countless infected come charging at you. This is eased somewhat on subsequent playthroughs, as completing the game means you can unlock infinite ammo for fully upgraded weapons, so you don’t have to watch her stock levels.

It’s worth making sure you’re the sole possessor of health items. Give Sheva a fully recovering first-aid spray, and she’ll use it on you as soon as your health goes down to 99%, wasting an entire can for nothing, just before you enter a boss battle. Her AI is replicated faithfully in the enemies. Because the inability to run and shoot would make the game physically impossible if the game’s enemies behaved in any way naturally, Capcom have counterbalanced this by making the Majini charge towards you, then stop dead about 6 feet away from you for a few seconds, giving you ample time to line up that headshot. It’s ridiculous and looks terrible, but as long as the control system remains so bad it’s hard to think of any other way of making the game playable.

And yet despite almost an entire review of bitching, there’s a saving grace for RE5. This is the first time the series has introduced co-op play, with player one taking charge of Chris and player two taking control of Sheva either via split-screen or online. This is perhaps the worst designed co-op in the history of anything ever. The screen isn’t split in two, as one might expect. The game gives each player a 16:9 window at the top and bottom of the screen, with big black bars down the side, meaning each player gets around 30% of the screen, with 40% of potential space completely wasted, making it needlessly small and hard to see. And this doesn’t even happen until you get into the game, which takes forever. In any normal game you would start a co-op mode, or the second player would press start on the level select screen. Not here. Player one must choose a game mode, choose the level, choose ready on the inventory screen, wait a while for the level to load, then once it’s loaded wait another ten seconds until the game has autosaved. Then, and only then, can player two press start, and the game dumps you both back to the inventory screen, and you have to load the whole thing up again. It’s beyond ludicrous.

But all this said, once you eventually get into a playable game of co-op, it’s strangely compelling. With hundreds of enemies bearing down on you, planning strategies, working together and outsmarting the opposition can be immensely satisfying. Once it gets going and you get in the groove, most of the fundamental game breaking issues are forgotten, and the game goes from being a frustrating, headbangingly bad experience to a still frustrating but stupidly fun one. The level end stats screen that displays each of your accuracy ratings and kill counts adds a nice bit of competition to go with the co-operation. It’s hard to identify exactly what it is that turns what is clearly such a bad game in pretty much every way in which a game is measured into such a joyful shooter. It doesn’t come under the Freakout/Big Rigs/Spirit Of Speed heading of being so utterly awful that it’s hilariously brilliant, and yet there’s no denying the happy times that lie within its multiplayer campaign. Without Sheva redefining the word ‘retard’ and not having to hold her hand throughout, a lot of the needless pressure is relieved and more time can be spent focusing on blowing things up. Having a competent sidekick who can actually cover whilst you reload is a useful thing to have.

Resident Evil 5 simultaneously manages to be among the best few games and worst few games I’ve played this year. There is almost nothing good to say about it, and yet when all is said and done it’s some of the most fun gaming I’ve ever done. It’s most definitely a game worth owning, but only if you have another friend with a copy. If you’re planning to play through the game by yourself, I’d advise picking up a length of strong rope to go with it. It’s not often I give a game two scores, but it would be unrepresentative and unfair to give Resident Evil 5 a single score. Even in the terrible single-player mode, it’s a better game than RE4, but its refusal to move with the times makes it better than not a great deal else, but when it wants to be, it’s a whole lot more fun that just about anything else out there.

Single player: 4 /  Co-op: 9

Announced at Nintendo’s press conference at Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009 and still in development with a possible release during the winter of 2009: New Super Mario Bros Wii!

Sweet, classic, side-scrolling platform awesomeness on the Nintendo Wii. It’s kinda like a sequel to the DS game New Super Mario Bros and will feature 4-player co-op. That’s right, for the first time in a Mario Bros series game, there’s simultaneous multiplayer capability of up to four players. The only solid proof that I’ve wanted a game like this for years now, is date-stamped the 26th March 2009 on the Automatic Freestyle forum. Can I believe that Nintendo heard my cry and finally made it? 

 

It’ll play very much like the DS game in classic style, with the Wii Remote held horizontally. Some movements such as jumping and attacks are performed with the buttons, whereas others like spinning in midair and picking up other players are performed by shaking the Wii Remote.

According to the E3 2009 demo, players can play as four characters from the Mario series: Mario (player one), Luigi (player two), and two Toad characters: one blue (player three) and one yellow (player four). We’re hoping there will be other playable characters like Princess Peach and some of the villains. 

Players will also be able to ride on different coloured Yoshis, who display characteristics similar to the Yoshis found in Super Mario World and Yoshi’s Island. He probably won’t ever be a playable stand-alone character due to this though.

Some new items seem to have been added, there’s a Penguin Suit which allows players to freeze enemies (and use them as platforms), plus a Propeller Suit which allows players to fly. I miss the Tanooki and Hammer Suits. They should bring back the Frog Suit too for the funnies.

There’s a decent amount of fair play here. If a player dies, they appear in a bubble a few moments later and can resume play if one of the other players hits it. Items from item blocks come in multiple quantities so that each player has a chance of powering up too.

You could be greedy and try and deny your friends such goodies though (or leave them floating in that bubble for a while). There are obviously a lot of competitive elements, such as trying to get the most points or coins. Rankings for each player are given at the end of each level, including stats such as enemies defeated, coins collected, and total points. Race to that end of level flag!

 

The major villains of this game will be the Koopalings (who originally appeared as Bowser’s children in Mario Bros 3 and Mario World). I massively approve of this because they were a right bunch of characters and easily beat that Bowser Jr brat that seemed to replace the seven of them.

I’m so getting this game O_O

The only major drawback I’m seeing to this game is the lack of any online multiplayer play. The game maybe a tad too easy as well, unless the amount of enemies is increased to handle up to four players thrashing through the Mushroom Kingdom or something.

While we’re on the topic of world-saving plumbers; Super Mario Galaxy 2 is also in development for the Wii. It will have new features, including new items and power-ups and the ability to ride Yoshi (who will also have some new moves and skills).

Air Traffic Control chaos and madness for 59p – good times! Continue Reading

You know, that thing that’s not Windows or Mac. Continue Reading

While wandering the streets the other day, something caught my eye, Continue Reading

Friday saw the DSi make a break for the UK shops, good times!  So what did  Twitter think? Continue Reading

A wonderful thing has happened to the Wii lately. Continue Reading

Between 4th – 18th April participating Game stores across the country will have events where you will be able to acquire Shaymin. Continue Reading

HMV are offering the DSi for half-price (£74.99) when you use your DS Lite as a deposit. Continue Reading

All hail! The long desired solution to the limited nature of the Wii’s internal 512MB storage is with us! But then you all know by now, of course, that the latest Wii system update now allows for Wii Ware / Virtual Console games to be downloaded directly to and loaded from SD cards. I also need not repeat to you that the Wii now also supports SDHC cards which means up to 32GB of storage compared to the 2GB limit of standard SD.

Right.. that aside.. how well does this actually work? Llylat Wars was already on my SD card so load away I did! Well… attempted to at least but alas not enough space on the internal memory to load it. So the game / channel is loaded from the SD to the internal memory for running. Clunky yes but still beats a proprietary Wii USB hard drive cost-wise. So now I’m loading all my downloaded content to the SD Card.

This may take a few moments… bear with me… Continue Reading