Category Archives: Games

Feb 18 2009
Games

Total number of DS units: 3, no wait, 4

The Nintendo DSi is something I’m very interested in.  Not only is it another Nintendo Handheld DS, bringing my total to ridiculous, but it brings an app store to the table, something I think that would work very well on the DS.

It does work very well for the PSP, but there needs to be more on offer.

Like the entire catalog of PSP games, for starters.

But back to the DSi.  It’s quite different from the two other iterations of the DS.  It’s thinner, for starters.  There’s also a new OS.  The two screens are larger now by a quarter inch each.  Two VGA cameras, one on the hinge and one on the outer face now adorn the case.  These have been used for a photo manipulations application on the Japanese model, but if they’ll be utilized for games in the future is anyone’s guess.  WiFi capabilities (hello WPA) have been enhanced, or rather brought up to date.  An SD card slot has been added, which is how I’m assuming the app store will work.  I guess Nintendo learned their lesson from the Wii.

Dear Nintendo:  Don’t offer an application store if your device does not have sufficient storage to handle more than 35 apps.   I’m just saying.

Backwards compatibility for GameBoy Advance games, is gone.  So those other two models aren’t quite obsolete just yet.  It’s not that they took it out per se, but they did remove the GBA slot, so it’s more of a physical limitation than the hardware is incapable of it.  I’m not going to miss it.

That’s wha the GBA Micro is for.

The system firmware can finally be upgraded, which can be both a blessing and a curse.  Patching is something I really don’t need in my handheld gaming, but seeing as how the previous DS only supports WEP encryption for WiFi, I’ll take the ability to update firmware over none.

The DSi is scheduled to be stateside on April 5th, in black and blue models, for $170.  I’ll post something once I get my hands on one.

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Feb 12 2009
Games

But I need to know right now!

If you ever really, really need to know when a video game is going to be released.

No, if you really need to know.  Head over to VGReleases.com.  They will know.

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Feb 11 2009
Games

City of Villains

I think one of the best reasons I still play City of Heroes (and Villains) is because of the people.  Which is funny because the reason I’ve left other MMOs is because of the people.  I’ve been playing for nearly five years now and still, I’m surprised and entertained by the humor and creativity displayed by the players of the City of games.

Most of it is due to the setting.

Which is Rhode Island.

Of course, since this is a video game, it happens to be the nexus for all sorts of super powered things happening in the entire world.  As a consequence of that setting, anything goes.  Anything from a knight errant magically transported through time, to a gritty streetwise martial artist that fights crime with his bare hands is fair play in the City of Heroes, and the developers wisely gave you a convenient location for you to put all the juicy details of your heroic or villainous background for other players to read.

Most people (at least in my experience) seem to be older, and it’s many a mission interrupted by a quick chat message, “AFK, putting the kids to bed.” or its like.

Besides, in what other game could I run into “G. Gordon Liddy” and “Neal Patrick Harris?”

Both Villains, of course.

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Feb 06 2009
Games

Science!

Regarding the Cartoon Network’s free to play MMO, Fusionfall:

If it’s as half as cool as its trailer and comic, then it’s well worth the cost of entry.

Which is, of course, free.  A lot of it reminds me of the Power Puff Girls fan comic from Snafu comics.  Mainly the older characters and the darker tone.  Both take their characters a short time period into the future, both have a Japanese influence, and both are fun reads with story lines a little bit older than you think they would be.  I’ve yet to sign up for an account, but I’m thinking about it.

A lot of it reminds me of Phantasy Star Online, a game I played so much that I actually fell asleep while playing it.  I was woken up by one of my teammates, who was telling me they needed me to open a door, and was wondering where I had gone about four rooms ago.  I awoke to find my character running headlong into a corner in an empty room.

This was during its second release, on the original xbox, with voice chat.  I played it through on its initial run on the Dreamcast and then proceeded to play it again on an entirely different console because it was so fun.

So, I’m already sold on the gameplay.

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Feb 01 2009
1 Comment
Games

Roll your own

I have a box of books from my mother here, and it’s mostly filled with Choose Your Own Adventure books.  They’re really interesting, mainly because they’re written in the second person.  That is, they always address, “you.”

Which is of course, similar to how Interactive Fiction has to be written.  They are games, in a way, although in book form.  It’s like a puzzle, but really written so that you’ll be encouraged to try different paths.  Of course, being a paperback book, you inevitably end up on the same path every now and again.

There are the straight up, “Choose Your Own Adventure” but I also had a few of the “Time Machine” books where you went back in time to observe or repair the past.  Of course, if you went back to observe, you always ended up having to repair the past anyway.  Looking at the Wikipedia entry I realize now that those books are old.

I know people younger than those books.

But they’re fun reads, and it’s nice to be able to revisit them, although the plots are simplistic and they’re sparse on details.  A lot of the “choices” wind up on the same two or three paths.  Of course, the same complaints can be made about video games today.  No matter what the medium, the ability to give an interactive participant real choices with real consequences is always going to be limited by the story they are trying to tell.

And ultimately the story is what is going to make me put up with these artificial choices.  As long as the story is compelling, I will overlook being railroaded into one or two paths.

Of course with video games, there’s the added impetus of whether or not the game is fun or not.  Books have the equivalent of whether or not it’s fun to read, but considering these have all been written for around the fifth grade reading level, they’re not so engaging anymore.

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