I seem to have gone off the console (in my case, the 360) for the portables (DS and PSP). The only game I’m playing on the console is Rock Band, and I’m not sure for how much longer. I’m trying to complete solo drums on hard and I’m held at the “nightmare” level by “Don’t Fear the Reaper” and the damned prog intro to the Boston song. It’s probably something about my brain that makes these two so hard; I had few issues with the other tracks at this difficulty level. But right now the gameplay is what could be described as brutally punishing, so I’m not sure how much longer I’ll hold onto this vain hope of completing the tour.

God of War: Chains of Olympus is mostly what I’m button mashing on the PSP. It’s pretty slick, i.e. well-produced, good difficulty curve, very similar to the PS2 experience of the original game. This isn’t my sort of game, but when something’s well done, I can deal with it. The PSP seems to provide a console experience, except portable, whereas DS games are more typically idiosyncratic thanks to the touchscreen and/or retro thanks to their 2D graphics.

I’m looking forward to Too Human when it comes out in a few weeks, and also to trying some iPhone games whenever I can actually find an iPhone.

The big three’s announcements were a little underwhelming. The least underwhelming was Microsoft’s; besides the stream of sequels that were all the rage for all three, they had a couple worthwhile things to announce – the Netflix deal, the Final Fantasy coup.

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Nintendo’s press conference just went down and the big news is: Wii Music, which is like a non-judgmental version of Rock Band; a new mic-speaker peripheral for the Wii, “WiiSpeak”; Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Wii sometime this year, which will take advantage of said peripheral; a Grand Theft Auto­ game for the DS (GTA: Chinatown Wars); and a new WiiSports game, Wii Sports Resort, featuring fencing and frisbee (and which presumably requires the new Wii Motion Plus add-on for the Wiimote).

Nothing too exciting, but then Nintendo doesn’t need any enormous surprises. The Sony conference is underway now. Oh and also the Bungie stuff will be tomorrow, not yesterday.

Hard and good like Clint Eastwood.

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The world is great, but ends badly.

Sometimes I think developers have a running joke where they can put anything they damn well please into a game as long as it occurs past the 20-hour mark, knowing no reviewer will ever get there. I wonder how many of the 10/10 reviewers of GTA IV ever got to Alderney, for example, and experienced the stale characters and repetitive mission fatigue.

I also wonder what to say about a game that is generally a thrill, with a number of innovative gameplay elements, a refreshingly non-cliched story and setting, and yet with an ending boss battle so frustrating that I’ll never get through it and find out how the story ends. Should I say this is a good game, since you’ll get many hours of enjoyment out of it, or condemn it for wasting your time by hooking you on a story that you’ll never get to finish without at least an hour of mindless repetition?

First, what it does right. As I’ve mentioned before, the setting is the modern day Shibuya district of Tokyo, albeit a strange alternate-reality version in which people who have died must play a brutal game to try and win their lives back. The characters aren’t far out of the JRPG norm, and neither is the dialogue. But the gradual unfolding of revelations about how the game works keep you involved in what is essentially a mystery narrative.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about the game is that not only is the story about games, the gameplay incorporates the central thrusts of the story. Since Shibuya is fashion-obsessed, power-imbued ‘pins’ replace the weapons and abilities you’d normally have in an RPG. These pins have brands, and some brands are trendy in some areas, meaning they have enhanced power, or weakened in others. And if your characters wear a certain brand a lot, they will make it more popular in that area.

The combat itself is so different as to be nearly bat shit insane. You control two characters at once, in real time: one with the touchscreen at the bottom, and the other character on the top screen, controlled by simple sequences of d-pad presses. (You can let the upper character get auto-controlled, or you can just spam the forward button, but it’s eventually in your best interests to frantically glance up top and try to control what’s going on.) It’s crazy, but it speaks to a central theme – the need for protagonist Neku to overcome his isolation and learn to work with others.

What else? You buy food, and feed it to your characters; when they ‘digest’ it, they improve some stat or another (depending on the food, of course). You can adjust the difficulty at almost any time in a couple different ways: one is a slider that lowers your character’s level, but leads to more item drops; The other is a simple toggle between normal, easy and hard. If you fail a fight, you get an option to ‘replay on easy.’ The music and art are excellent samplings of J-pop and anime vs. graffiti, respectively. There’s an excellent minigame that uses your pins in a boardgame context, revealing new powers. And yeah – your pins will level up not only based on combat experience, but also how long you spend away from the game.

Thinking back, though, the problems with the final battle are foreshadowed early in the game. The ‘replay’ and ‘replay on easy’ options after a failed battle are only introduced partway through the game; before this happens, if you die in battle, it’s game over, go reload a save. Unfortunately, you can’t save during battle, nor can you skip over the cut-out ‘dialogue’ segments, and at more than one occasion this meant I had to replay not only the battle but an increasingly tedious dialogue exchange that landed on the wrong side of a save point.

The final battle – and I’ll describe this without story spoilers – warns you ahead of time that you better well save. That’s fine, okay. But then you slog through a few screens of real estate, run up against many a dialogue segment, and fight one or two bosses before you get to the real uber-boss, who is exponentially harder than any other boss you have faced.

Okay, you might think, that’s cause you suck at the game, D. Maybe so. Through most of the game I had my slider set to make me a lower level so I’d get more items – I love me some items! However, I’d frequently get killed during boss fights, and as I’m not playing to impress anyone here, I’d replay on easy. And I never had to retry more than once. It was that easy, on easy.

During this final fight, I did so, and proceeded to retry the battle on easy over and over again for an hour, then again for half an hour the next morning, and again later in the day, until my DS’ battery finally gave out, as did the battery that provides power to my patience. Now, if I wanted to go back and retry it with a more complementary selection of pins, say, I’d have to replay all of the boss fights and unskippable dialogue since the last possible save to do so.

There are (what I might propose as) two cardinal rules of gaming that have been broken here: watch the difficulty curve, and don’t create false difficulty through the withholding of save points.

So, where does that leave us? I’ll leave it up to you. If you can deal with either an awesome, incomplete game or a flawed, complete one, then this game is for you. I’m happy to have entered such a world, but ticked off that it ended so badly.

Dude. If nothing else, listen to the first FOUR SECONDS of the show for a CRAZY HUGE SURPRISE guest! After that, stay for the GTA IV discussion between Mags and D, in which we get the Serbian take on GTA, and discuss the hits and misses of the game and how it compares to previous games in the series and even – gasp – Saints Row. Then we go on to blather on about various other games, including Metal Gear.

Angry Robot Sounds 18

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Like I was saying I was all awesome drum tour on hard until I get to motherfucking “Vasoline”. I see it in the list, I’m like “aw yeah, I love that song, great break,” and then FAIL in the first 8 bars. That break did not like me. It just wouldn’t let me in. I practiced for an entire hour and still no MFing joy.

I hereby vow to not cut my hair until I DOMINATE Vaseline.

In other news, I’ve been toying around with some PSP games, which of course is postponing my completion of a swath of DS games including the excellent The World Ends With You. I’m a few hours into Crisis Core, which is pretty okay, and then I stop by EB Games again and pick up the Armored Core PSP version cause no one wants it and it’s only $15. About a half hour of play reveals it to be a long way from an A-list title and a long way from the mythic Great Mech Game that I know will be made someday but hasn’t been yet. Points off for not calling mechs “wanzers” like Front Mission, but extra points for the crazy deep garage. That’s what these games are all about – you can’t just slap a giant robot in a game and call it a day; if you can’t spend hours swapping out radiators and shoulder guns, might as well walk away with your head hanging low. Unlike Front Mission, the Armored Core series definitely transmits the might and majesty of these giant beasts, and both games give you the gearhead tweaking you crave, but Armored Core yawns when it comes to combat. It’s arena-style head-to-head tournaments and that’s it, no real campaign to speak of. If they could slap a proper story onto one of these games they could have a winner.

Like Sherman through the south I cut a swath through the videogame market, leaving the scorched and chapped husks of partially completed games in my wake. Is this article right? Is my attention span devastated by the internet? Isn’t it enough that I managed to put four whole hours into Crisis Core? Not continuously, though, I suppose…. sigh

So there are three new Sim games coming soon and I want my grubby paws on all of them!

First: Space Station Sim! Ha!

The game is available from Avanquest Software and developed by Vision VideoGames in partnership with not one but two space agencies! NASA and the Japanese Space Administration! Crazy authentic! It’s only for the PC though, which fills me with jealous rage, but at least it exists and I think that’s mega major cool.

You play as a Chief Administrator of NASA and have to build a ship and station based on existing modules and customized for communications, crew areas, life support and everything else it takes to run a real space station. But it gets better than just tweaky the real life techy specs! You have to choose and assign your crew based on personalities and skills!! Totally awesome! I love that stuff! You could theoretically make a really tight and horrible station and then pack it with bitchy mean people and watch it crash to the ground! Or that’s what Toku would do anyway…

Anyway, you then have to regulate the crews interpersonal relationships, experiments and daily routines! You tell them when to eat, sleep, work out, watch tv, read! Awesome!! Totally my perfect game! Since I’m never ever going to get to do anything like this in real life what better game could I ever hope for that a space station sim? I couldn’t hope for one! This is it!

The game is out in June so for all you damned lucky PC owners, play it! Enjoy it! You bastards!

Second: SimCity Creator! Joy!

EA’s new Wii and DS title focuses on the creation of wee cities throughout time and also their destruction by your Wiimote wielding hands of doom!

The Wii version lets you create your city from scratch just like always, but this time they also include thirteen “city styles” to use like European or American. You can add transportation in a bunch of new ways and can make some pretty cool zippy-do-da-day curvy rollercoaster-like systems. There are also thirty “Hero” buildings, some unlockable, which are based on historical, famous fiction icons, and current day feats of architecture. There better be some sort of Batman tower to use…

When it’s all built and perfect you can take helicopter, jet, or old school propeller plane rides over your creation and then…Destroy it! Natural distasters, alien invaders, SUPER ROBOT DESTROYERS! All are ready and waiting for you to unleash against your innocent city! One of the best parts of any sand castle is its eventual destruction so…Have at it!

The DS version is just adorable. You guide your city throughout time! How cute is that! So think Age of Empires meets SimCity and…there you have SimCity Creator for the DS! There are four modes, Challenge (which I won’t play), Free Play (which I will play), Chance Encounter and Gallery (that sounds odd…). I just want to take my wee peeps into the future and have a tiny city in my pocket! If only there was a way to have then worship me as their god…That would be awesome.

Anyway, both SimCity Creators are out this September and I cannot wait!

Disney has launched their new social networking system aptly named DGamer today along with the first compatible title Prince Caspian. Basically, this is a completely safe and secure way for young DS users to interact with one another, share stats, share game bonus items like avatar costumes, do polls, and simply get more from their gaming experience.

I know, I know why does one need more than the game itself? Because that’s just the way entertainment is going. You can’t just have a book, you need a movie based on a book, then a video game based on the movie. You need websites for books and comics, tv and film. Facebook, MySpace pages, all for upcoming movies to entice the youngins. Basically, if it only exists in one form then it really doesn’t exist at all. Do I agree? Not always, but I understand that the current trend is for media to exist in different dimensions.

Moving on, how does it work? Simple, you sign up at DGamer and set up your account. This is for kids so parental supervision is needed in order to sign up. A registration email is sent out and then you log on using WiFi to the DGamer network. You set up your avatar and away you go prancing about looking at leaderboards and stats. I’m just concerned with how I look at the moment…Once you get that sorted you can hop into chat with friends if you have their friend info or into the public chats.

I went in there and talked with a dude for a bit and it was fun for being a total stranger because the chats are loaded with emoticon animations for your character so I was dancing and jumping and cheering to no end. It was fun! But more so if I had someone to talk to that I actually knew. You don’t get full chat opened unless you have an actually friend code, not just someone on your friends list. Much like a Wii friend code you need to really know the person to have full chat unlocked and then you can type anything. The other two levels are restricted for certain language and phrases and there are human monitors as well. The most basic chat level is all predetermined greetings and phrases that you click on to use, plus the emoticons. From the press release:

Kids can either communicate using a predetermined list of words and phrases called “Speed Chat,” through modified free-form typing that blocks inappropriate language or suggestive phrases called “Speed Chat Plus,” or via “Open Chat” which requires an exchange of a True Friend Code outside of the DGamer system. Disney.com employs several safety features to ensure all chat communication is moderated for safety.

Disney is on the ball with this and if I was a parent I would feel pretty okay with my kid using these features. Much more so than the rabid free for all of the Live universe.

Of course, what’s at the heart of DGamer is connecting kids to Disney content in a more direct way and ensuring brand loyalty for years and years to come. I mean I loved Winnie the Pooh because I watched the movie and had a few of the books. Nowadays kids can get the book, the toy, the movie, the show, the website, the game, the bonus unlockables from the game which open up even more of the website, and then give exclusive extra content from the show/movie. It’s a cycle, vicious maybe, but a solid damned fine cycle of concentrated content for Disney fans.

So what do I think of this baby-Live? Well, I really do think it’s a safe and dandy way for kids to experience social networking without involving stupid things like how many friends they have and what their likes are and make it into an online popularity contest that can make some kids feel extremely estranged. You like Caspian? You’re proud you beat the game with 700 flawless battles? Well, you can chat with people who think that’s cool too and even give advice on how you did it. Plus you get a shiny Honour for doing so and have your name on the top of a Leaderboard.

I think that is fantastic for any gamer kid and I’m happy the option now exists for players of Disney games.

Franchise games! Just like like comic to film adaptations the thought of a movie turned into a video game is like nails on a chalkboard for gamers. Currently, there are two major films vying for gamers attention. One is Iron Man, a game that goes directly for hardcore gamers with super suit building action and lots of explosive power. The second, however, is targeted at a younger tween demo in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

Last year The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe brought an enitre new generation to C.S. Lewis’ magical realm of heroic deeds. The film, like the book, was tremendous and a really good time (if you go for that sort of thing). For those who wanted a proper translation of that success to video games, well, they were verily disappointed with a game that was just plain boring. Like worse than the Shrek game. It was super linear, combat was boring, you needed two characters to do anything at one time in weird combos, and you collected completely out of place items for power ups. You don’t need shiny spinning coins in Narina. So when I popped in the DS version of the new Caspian game I was _very_surprised.

First off, I love my DS. It constantly amazes me when the graphics are so not what one would call cutting edge and yet they are exactly what I need even when playing a game set in the epic beauty of Narnia. I just go for SNES looking games, it’s beyond nostalgia, it just feels right. Then all the “gimmicks” of touch, sound, and even your own life’s breath to make a game work. With so much going on with the hardware the options for innovative and exceedingly fun gameplay isn’t that far out of reach. Having a developer who will use the hardware for that purpose is the tricky part, especially for a franchise game. Disney Interactive Studios and Fall Line Studios have done that, pushing their own limits to deliver a truly fun and fresh game for fans of both Narnia and the DS in general.

Alright, enough pontificating, what is the game like? Like fun is what! No, really, I was expecting a paint by numbers follow the story action adventure and what I got was a experience the story, action rpg! Can you say tickled pink?

The story of Caspian is set 1300 years after the end of Wardrobe and Narnia is in disarray. What you need to know: a bad guy is ruling and trying to kill the rightful heir of Narnia – Prince Caspian, who must call on the Pevensie kiddies to once again come to Narnia and save the kingdom! Adventure, set, go!

You start as Caspian in the courtyard of his castle for his first combat lesson. This is my favourite part of the game because I was so surprised by it. When you run into enemies on birdseye view of the screen you are taken to a traditional rpg style screen with enemies on one side and heroes on the other. Your party starts off as one, but quickly grows and you can arrange your party depending on your needs in battle. You have heavy attacks, light attacks, and magic attacks. You select which of your party you wish to use by a tap of the stylus and another tap on an enemy takes you to another combat screen. Each type of attack is essentially a mini game on its own.

Heavy sword attacks have one or more swords creeping away from a target in the middle of the screen. You vigorously rub the swords before they slip off screen so that they stab the target instead. You are always on a timer for these moves so you have to move fast and for a complete attack you need all the swords to hit the target.

Slash sword attacks have one or more lines appear on the screen and you must quickly swipe across the line with the stylus. The time limit always makes me nervous especially when a slight mistake will ruin one of the slashes and the attack will be weaker.

Archery has one or more bows scattered around a target and you must use the stylus to aim and pull the drawstring back and hit the target. This one was the trickiest by far for me and not only did I have trouble with more than two bows within the time limit, my aim was not that good. My answer to that was just to avoid using Susan…

Short swords and daggers use quick, jabbing thrusts. Targets pop up on the screen and you have to jab them with the stylus in the center for your attack. Kinda like the DS Super Mario’s Whack’a’Mole mini game.

Heavy attacks have a club appear which you grab with the stylus and must swipe down with when a target appears below. The faster the swipe the more damage delivered. It’s kinda nifty and reminds me of martial arts style block breaking.

And finally, Magic attacks use a pattern wheel that has certain points light up in sequence. You repeat the sequence with the stylus and the spin the wheel quickly to release the magical attack. The bigger the attack, the harder the sequence. Very cool.

Above the battle screen there are also items for health and attack maneuvers like Aslan’s roar. Enemies can be paralyzed or put to sleep and you can attack them with ease. You can also stop attacks from enemies by tapping them when an orange circle appears under them and you have already selected a character to attack with. You can only select members of your party that are standing up as sometimes they sit down to recover. The fact that you can stop attacks by intercepting them is great and adds a certain bit of strategy I didn’t expect, but greatly enjoyed. Susan’s horn is also on the top screen and you activate that for retreat from battle. You tap it and then quickly blow into the mic to sound the horn. Not great on a subway, but super fun at home.

You can change up the party to have a max of three characters and three helper characters (animals). Different mixes can give you different combos in battle. All characters need to be built up with experience points to enhance their stats. After a certain point you can also use Forge mode to upgrade equipment and characters. You are always picking up Forge items and there are side quests to collect more as well.

Your item bag will always be loaded with stuff and using the items is as easy as dragging and dropping over the character you wish too heal/equip. There are items every where and the best part is they are never out of place. You pick up items from the forest that are natural for that location, like apples, and of course there are chests with more specific items.

Another huge part to the Caspian title is that it is Disney’s first game to launch with the new DGamer network. Now the network doesn’t go live until May 16th but I tried out it a bit as well. I want to go into that in more detail in its own Tested so stay tuned for that in a few days time. The basic idea is DGamer is a secure, safe and fun environment for fans of Disney games to interact, trade items, and show off their stats. It’s like a mini Live for the DS and, I have to say, it’s about time. I didn’t think I would go for it as much as I have, but when I unlocked my first item in Narnia (the Caspian outift) my first instinct was to switch the game to DGamer and change my avatar clothing. Bonus items are so addictive, and I much prefer a stat I can show off in avatar form than points form. More discussion on that soon, suffice to say that I was surprised…for a second time.

I’ve spoken alot about combat here, but it’s my favourite part of the game and just so darned fun. Caspian has totally shocked me in terms of what a handheld franchise game could be, heck, what any console franchise game could be!

One thing that is pretty cool since it is based on a book was the use of text and the DS function of turning the console sideways for the dual screen reading mode. All the story is delivered in this way and when the DS icon appears you hold the DS like a book and the story appears in script along with very well done images that were created specifically for the game by an artist who has worked on Narnia covers before. The art is also based on the movie so all of the characters look exactly as they should. I really did enjoy the book-like aspect to the game. It reminds you of where this story comes from and I think even encourages younger players to actually go and read the story they are playing. A nice touch for sure.

All in all this game is fantastic. Yes, fantastic. Not only because it’s one of the few to break the franchise curse, but because it uses the DS so well. Like I said before, if you like Caspian play this game. And if you just love your DS then play this game too.

One last note, I think that the most important revelation I had from seeing this game early and then playing it all weekend was that I remembered where I started. As a kid I played Hook on the SNES and I just loved it. I wouldn’t play a game like that now. I’m all older and snobby with my games. Then I had the opportunity to take a look at Caspian and I’ve been experiencing sheer, childlike fun ever since. I think it’s important to remember the fun we had when we were kids and indulge the inner wee one every now and then.

What better game to do that than with one involving Narnia?

None that I can think of…

I’ve got GTA IV in my filthy little hands and I know my next gaming month will be spent near-exclusively in off-brand NYC, but I wanted to just squeeze out a drop of appreciation for my recent crush, The World Ends With You on the DS. It’s a Japanese RPG, but it’s so positively bursting with new ideas that it feels like an entirely new genre.

It’s set in the modern day, in a real location; combat is real-time and requires use of BOTH stylus and d-pad to control 2 characters at once; you can toggle difficulty settings at any time; brand awareness has gameplay implications; a major theme of the game is gameplay itself, that and urban isolation. Leveling and unlocking new abilities is largely handled through fashion-conscious ‘pins’.

But the thing that’s really blown my mind: your pins level up while you aren’t playing. This is a game that rewards you for not playing it. Yeah, go ahead and marinate on that shit for a while. (And when you come back, your pins will have leveled up.)

Ninja Gaiden has always been a hallmark in the action game genre. From its arcade days as a Double Dragon-eqse beat-em up to the NES as an action platformer, and now in its modern 3D form, each Ninja reincarnation tries to raise the bar of fast paced, innovative gameplay. But, the problem with pushing the envelope is that you end up with things that work and things that don’t work. Such is the case with Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword on the Nintendo DS.

Released in March of 2008, Gaiden DS was highly anticipated title for two reasons. It was the bridge between the first Xbox incarnation and upcoming sequel. Plus, it made use of two rarely used features of the dual screen. By combining a stylus navigation system (like Zelda: Phantom Hourglass) with a sideways “book” positioning of the DS, Ninja Gaiden looked poised to raise the bar once again.

After your comrade Momiji is kidnapped by the Black Spider Ninja Clan, Ryu Hayabusa embarks on a quest to uncover the secrets of eight dark dragon stones. The game visits many of the locales gamers may remember from the previous Gaiden outing, which further connects this episode to its predecessor. Because of the capabilities of the DS your arsenal for fighting evil comes kinda reduced. Your only main weapon in this game is, obviously, the Dragon Sword. That’s cool, but fans of the series might miss the many favorites like the Vigoorian Flail, which gave variety to the way you dismembered your foes. Projectile weapons are also reduced to just ninja stars and arrows.

The only weapons you have that are expanded upon is your Ninpo Magic. Using the nimpo involves touching the icon next to your health meter and then tracing a Japanese symbol in order to activate the magic. The magic, like Ryu himself, can also be directed by the stylus pen to take out as many enemies as you can or to use as a way to get into new areas. The offensive magic is kind of overkill compared its use in the previous Gaiden. I really only found myself using the health nimpo to survive in sticky situations.

The limitations of the DS are the truly the only thing that gets in the way of making Dragon Sword a cut above great. Firstly, in terms of graphics, fighting in the background of a stage or level is like pulling a stylus pen out of an enemy filled haystack. You can hardly tell what you are doing because you are surrounded by enemies and everything is sooooo small. That leads to my second problem with this game: the stylus. The stylus looks like it should be very easy to control Ryu with, but the stylus is also used to make Ryu jump. Because of this you run into many situations where by trying to jump, Ryu just moves further into the background or vice versa.

My final problem with Dragon Sword is kinda superficial. In the commercials for the game people are seen calmly and pleasantly drawing slashes across their DS almost like it’s a PDA and I envisioned myself sitting on the subway doing pretty much the same thing. Some Bay St. suit would coming up to ask me if that’s some kinda new electronic notebook? I’d pleasently reply “No, its Ninja Gadien” we have a quick chuckle and I go back to being the envy of gamers everywhere. Instead, people gawk in fear as I scribble frantically like some kinda gaming psycho. But it’s Ninja Gadien so I should have expected that. It may not be perfect, but it’s still a hallmark for action on the Nintendo DS.

Sonic State filmed some video of the Korg DS-10 synth being demoed at Musik Messe 2008. This is a little more detailed than the initial video that went around. Looks pretty sweet.

So, since I am a Guitar Hero/Rock Band crazy person I was delighted to see the DS add-on for the franchise. At least I was for the first fifteen minutes.

Thinking about it more I actually think this game will frustrate me, maybe even make me feel silly playing it, which is something so far I’ve avoided. Even when Toku txts me (yeah, we txt at home sometimes…that is silly) and asks me why I’m typing so furiously in my room when in fact I’m just playing with headphones on, I still don’t feel silly.

This thing just looks…awkward. I’ll have to try it out (release date supposedly sometime in the summer) and maybe I’ll be over the moon singing daisies about it. But I have concerns yo. Concerns. Like my hand already gets sore after awhile and now I’m going to have to hold my DS in one hand and I know there’s gonna me serious wrist aching going on.

Also, that is the lamest video game commercial I’ve seen in recent times. Kids don’t jump around to play games, they sit and move as little as possible for as long as possible. Silly rabbit, exertion is for adults.

Child obesity, awesome.

(It’s actually not. It’s gross and terrible and if you have a kid they shouldn’t touch video games until they are fifteen and even then sparingly.)

Holy shit, it’s a DS version of the korg MS-10 synth.

I was going to say “I love DS homebrew,” which I do, but this isn’t even homebrew, it’s Korg-sanctioned. (via)

… is pretty good and gives a sense of what it was like to be there.

Also in the GDC news pile: the sequel to one of the weirder games of last year , the RPG-puzzle game Puzzle Quest, is set in space. How awesome is that?

After not really picking up the DS for a bit for no apparent reason, Days of Ruin sucked me in again – bad. Real bad, man. Like, chronic addiction style. But on the plus side, I now have more of a sense of how it’s different from its predecessor, and I will impart such wisdom to you!

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If you don’t hear from me for a while, it’s because Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, the latest installment of Nintendo’s premier turn-based strategy franchise, was released today for the DS. From my couch stronghold, I will over the next few days save a shattered world from the forces of evil. Presumably.

I’ve played only the first few levels, so what follows are preliminary notes.

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Everyone else is making lists… I just couldn’t help myself.

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Is this the “Golden Age of Gaming”? Discuss. We did, with reference to Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed, Zelda, GTA III, Oblivion and our usual share of griping about games media. Cast: Mags, Nadine, D.

Angry Robot Sounds 7 (17MB mp3, 37mins)

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Wow, get a load of this AV Club review: “blunt, dumb, ridiculous, and almost never funny.” We totally didn’t play the same game. Sure, it could be a whole lot better; its shoddy camera nearly wrecked the thing for me. And I’ll admit that the first few levels are probably the weakest. That Lard Lad level is a little too early in the game, and a little too close to the intersection of hard and tedious. But later levels more than make up for it. The Overlord-style controls for Marge (who uses a megaphone to recruit angry mob members) were a great change-up, and who can argue with the boss fights towards the end: Matt Groening, Shakespeare, and God?

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Oh for a decent giant robot game. Many devs have tried, but none yet have made it to the inner chamber and claimed the mech made of solid gold that surely would reward them. Armored Core, Chromehounds, Mechwarrior… and now Front Mission on the DS.

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Nadine was fired from the show and replaced by the much more Harvest Moon-friendly Mark. Kidding, Nadine will be back next time. In a perfect world, it will be all three of us!

Anyway, Mark and I do go on, about: first person shooters (incl. Halo of course), post-Oblivion RPGs, “you got your narrative chocolate in my nonlinear sandbox experience”, the lack of a good giant robot game, and retired pipefitters playing Wii games. And yes, Mark defends Harvest Moon’s honour.

Angry Robot Sounds 6 (16MB mp3, 49mins)

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Mayhap you’ve already come across this link, as it ain’t new, but the Moon Books Project has a plethora of public domain films and books formatted for use on the popular DS homebrew media app, MoonShell. You’d probably get a better reading experience by picking up the works in cheap paperback format, but to each his own. And there are some film classics in there: Night of the Living Dead, Kurosawa’s Ikiru and Rashomon, M, Welles’ The Stranger, Carnival of Souls, and inadvertent comedy greats Plan 9 from Outer Space, Reefer Madness and Hercules.

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We talk Halo 3, Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass, and how Nadine is racist against anime(?). Plus, games we are looking forward to.

Angry Robot Sounds #5 (16MB mp3, 35mins)

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I love Guitar Hero II, that much is clear, and I’m more than willing to pay an insane amount of money to play Rock Band with my peeps when it comes out. Yesterday, my musical video game horizons were broadened as I welcomed Jam Sessions for the DS into my life.

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Here’s episode? chapter? 2 of our podcast thing, Nadine and D stylee. The central theme is casual vs. hardcore gaming, with stops along the way at the following topics: the DS, the Wii, Viva Pinata, Marathon: Durandal, Halo, Silent Hill, and Guinness. I managed not to edit the hell out of it this time. I only took out a pause and one instance of me saying, “I guess I’ll edit this out.” Thanks, self!

Angry Robot Sounds #2 (16MB mp3, 36mins)

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I’m in the process of trying out a boatload of DS games, so you’ll be hearing a fair bit about that. Or not, I guess. I mean, you could come back in september when there are actually games out for the 360 and whatever other consoles exist.

Puzzle Quest, which I read about a few months ago on Penny Arcade, turns out to be total crack cocaine. There are two weak spots in my brain, one which is succeptible to the character- and skill-building aspects of RPGs, and the other that, once it begins thinking about strategy and/or unsolved problems, is unable to stop. There is another part of my brain that revels in long narrative arcs, although I consider that a strength. So all of them together… How can you not love a game in which you puzzle battle against orcs and trolls?

The puzzles are like bejeweled, and involve different coloured jewels that signify different types of mana, skulls which inflict damage upon your opponent, and coins and little purple things that give you gold and experience, respectively. By collecting mana, you can then cast spells – spells that depend on your character type and level. You can also capture opponents but to do so, you need to play a different sort of puzzle game. And you can then learn spells from your prisoners, but that too requires you complete a different puzzle. Basically all the usual RPG elements are there, but other than moving around the map, speaking to characters, and buying things from the stores, the gameplay has been replaced with puzzles.

I was speaking with someone and realized that my brain was trying to figure out if it could shift their nose up between their eyes to form a three-in-a-row. Yeah, I know that makes me sound like a lunatic. Basically, at this point, if there was a restaurant that required you to solve a puzzle in order to order food, I would be there battle puzzlin’ that shit.

There’s a lot to be said about the casual vs. hardcore opposition and where this game sits in relation to that, but I’ll save it for the podcast, which we’ll be doing this week.

Congrats, D! You’ve finally ventured forth into the pint-sized world of the handheld. But only one game?! What kind of penny ante nonsense is that? Perhaps some long-winded rambling about the best job-based DS games will motivate you to take a library-expanding trip to your local videogame emporium.

For me, the single greatest appeal of videogames is the way they allow you to take on a different persona and live an alternate life. However, judging from the success of the majority of the games out there, it would appear that given the chance, most people would like to either be a heroic sword-wielding elf, a giant leaping robot or a rocket-launcher-toting space marine.

But I guess my tastes run a bit more towards the mundane. For example, whenever D and I talk about the idea of a huge multiplayer Grand Theft Auto universe (a topic that comes up surprisingly often), I always declare that instead of strapping on some gang colours and scrapping it out for a chunk of real estate, I would much prefer to set up and run a pizza parlor where battle-weary thugs could hang out after a particularly heated street fight.

Sadly, I’ve found that – on consoles, at least – there are almost no games out there that allow me to indulge my appetite for pseudo-real life minor league drama. But that was before my four-month old daughter (read: my wife) bought me a DS for Father’s Day. Since then, my copies of Oblivion and Ghost Recon have been left to gather dust, as I’ve journeyed forth into a veritable Monster.com of virtual game careers. Future employers will no doubt be breaking down my door once they check out my new and improved resume…

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I’ve got a DS-related post from Mark in the pipeline, but in the meantime, there are some interesting comments on this post on DS Fanboy about games that use the touchscreen or the microphone in interesting ways. Etrian Odyssey, a game that makes you draw your own map?

I have purchased a Nintendo DS. I’ve been meaning to for a while (there is an eight hour flight in my future), and the drought of new, good games on the 360 – which will last until september – convinced me that now is the time to strike.

I don’t have much else to say, really. I only have one game, Super Mario Bros. I like everything about the system so far: the size, weight, look and feel, the battery life. I’ve ordered a CycloDS Evolution, which enables one to run homebrew code, and to store a mass amount of game ROMs on a memory chip. I’ll write up the experience once it actually occurs, but I’m excited – there are a couple music programs for the DS that I’m looking forward to trying.

The downside, so far, is playing games in bed. I really shouldn’t be allowed to do that.