61 Frames Per Second : game boy advance

Brainstorm: What Happened to Connectivity?

Bob Mackey — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:00:00 GMT

When Nintendo launched their limited campaign of GameCube/Game Boy Advance connectivity, I was an English-majoring undergrad (AKA "that dude with too much free time") with two friends who were nerdy enough to also have GBAs, link cables, and a high tolerance for gimmicky hardware tricks. Our time was limited to the three main games playable for this sick intercourse between console and portable gaming systems: Pac-Man Vs., Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, and The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures. The first two titles gave us our share of fun, but the last one marks one of the best (though brief) multiplayer experiences I've ever had in my life.

I've never been too excited about online multiplayer, because--for me, anyway--it's always been alienating and lacking that distinct sense of entertaining madness that comes with a group of friends screaming at each other in the same small room. So I was a bit bummed when Nintendo dropped their connectivity plans so soon after starting them; despite requiring a lot of gear to get working, the whole GBA/GameCube pair-up allowed for some amazingly unique multiplayer experiences. And now that the worldwide takeover of both the DS and Wii has made countless homes equipped with enough Nintendo hardware to start their own GameStops, a newer and easier form of connectivity could bring back some of that joy I experienced so briefly five years ago. But why has Nintendo dropped the ball?

I've always wondered why Nintendo limited Wii/DS interaction solely to the downloading of demos when so much more could be done between the two systems. Sure, Miyamoto and company may still wake up screaming with bad memories of last-gen's connectivity going over like a lead balloon, but wireless technology has made things much simpler now. And considering how happy Nintendo is to foist confusing, unintuitive features on its audience (*cough* friend codes), a Wii and a DS making sweet wireless love seems too simple to screw up. Considering the low budget nature of Four Swords Adventures, why not throw up multiplayer episodic content for WiiWare? It'd be an inexpensive undertaking, and the press would go crazy for a "new" Zelda game being released for a Nintendo platform that sees its share of garbage. I could just be crazy, but I always thought system connectivity wasn't explored nearly as much as it should have been.

Any thoughts on this?

Related Links:

Miyamoto Says Something Was "Missing" From Zelda: Twilight Princess. We Know It, Too.
The Legend of Zelda: Manifest Destiny
Pick Up Chicks In the Zelda Mobile

Mother 3's Soundtrack Disassembled

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 04:28:00 GMT

The Game Boy Advance never had much of a problem matching up to the SNES graphically. As for audio, well, that was another matter. GBA remakes of SNES classics like Final Fantasy IV and especially Final Fantasy VI tried really hard to ship the games' epic soundtracks. The end result got an A for Effort, but it was like listening to a favourite singer belt out a classic song with a wad of cotton stuffed in each cheek. Something about the whole affair felt off.

I can recall only two instances where I was genuinely impressed by the soundtrack in a GBA game: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Mother 3. You wouldn't accept a flimsy soundtrack from a Castlevania game (least of all one that has the stones to feature a subtitle with “Aria” in it), but Mother 3's soundtrack is an integral part of the title's gameplay because the player performs “combos” by tapping the attack button in tune to the game's battle themes. These combos make all the difference between an easy battle and a difficult one, not to mention the difference between taking an active part in the fight or sitting on the sidelines, dejected and bored, possibly with rainwater streaming down your face.

Mother 3 has a pretty huge roster of battle themes, but it's no sweat. Once you memorise the rhythm for a song, you have it in a lock for the rest of the game, right? Sixteen-hit combo city!

”WRONG!”

Harmonix employee Dan Bruno recently analysed Mother 3's soundtrack down to the last note—no, really, he has sheet music written out—and lays out the staggering amount of work that went into Mother 3's battle tunes.

Most games would be satisfied to let the player figure out how things work early in the adventure, then drift into a button-clicking hypnosis as the body count mounted. Mother 3 won't allow you the luxury. As battle themes become more familiar, they're liable to skip beats or change their pace, forcing you to pay attention and re-align your strategy accordingly.

The formulation and execution of said strategies is one of the things that makes Mother 3 a unique experience. If an enemy is accompanied by Fate or Accelerondo as battle music, I have the fight in the bag because I have little trouble keeping time to either piece. That's not the case for everyone, though. The pacing of Accelerondo is surely some other player's idea of hell.

I'm not exactly a musical prodigy myself. Bothersome Guys is considered one of the easier pieces to keep up with, but I just can't feel it. Thanks to Bruno, I now know I'm supposed to follow along to the high hat.

Pretty detailed work for such an underpowered sound system.

Related Links:

The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came To America
Mother 3 Makes Me Feel Human Again
OST: Mother

WTFriday: The Great Final Fantasy VI Breast Challenge

Nadia Oxford — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 02:56:00 GMT

I hope that Mackey will find it in his heart to forgive me for borrowing a “WTFriday” from him, but I'm afraid there is no other suitable phylum for that which I have recently...experienced.

I admire people who set goals for themselves and follow through, as long as those goals don't involve killing, maiming, raping, or smashing kneecaps with a roque mallet. But I admit my ol' brain shuffled through a deck of mightily confused emotions when an Internet friend (the best kind of friend) told me about an online artist's recent project.

See, this artist aims to draw every Final Fantasy VI boss character—male, female, neuter, and mechanical—with a plump pair of breasts.

S/he has an admirable head start.

Master Typhon? That's Mistress Typhon, you insolent pup.

Death Gaze? Of course. How else is s/he going to keep that Bahamut magicite shard warm while gliding through frigid, blood-tinted skies?

Phantom Train? Why the fuck not?

The most humiliating aspect of this project lies not with the ambitious artist, but with me. My friend wasn't able to provide a name or web address, so I've been desperately looking for this project's home base. If I'm ever pulled in for a heinous crime, the Mounties are going to find the following Google searches on my computer:

final fantasy vi+breasts

final fantasy vi+tits

final fantasy vi+tits+bosses

final fantasy vi+project tits

Alas, I turned up no name, and I've only made myself look like a deviant in the process. Join me by viewing a couple more completed pieces. And if you're the artist, uh, stop in and take a bow, I guess?

Some Games Nadia Played In 2008 Instead of Working: Mother--Awwww...

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 03:17:00 GMT

Mackey stole my big idea to declare Mother 3 one of my favourite games of the year--if not my very favourite of the year--despite it being a two-year-old Game Boy Advance title. I was going to be a rebel. I was going to spit out of the side of my mouth and tell you I don’t give a rat’s ass about your opinion on my taste in games, see?

Oh well, it’s good to know that I’m not the only one who thinks Mother 3 deserves recognition amongst this year‘s shiny big-budget games. Mackey and I need to stop putting things off, get married and name our twins Lucas and Claus regardless of whether or not they’re male.

All right, time to stop saying stupid things for the sake of being funny. I’m going to be serious and stupid, now. Mother 3 is the kind of game that reinforces my love for the pastime. When I finished it, I said, “God damn I am so glad I experienced that. I’m happy I’m a gamer.”

Mackey and I already have about twenty thousand Mother 3 essays between us that covers everything from the game’s emotion-driven story to the rhythm based battle system that involves you in every fight; no more turbo-mashing the “A” button while simultaneously trying to please your girlfriend with the other hand.

Mild spoilers follow the jump.

Mother 3 might be gaming’s last hurrah for sprite graphics. Mother 3 is certainly an ideal showcase for the ancient art, though it’s kind of sad when you realise how beautiful a game can look when it’s put together pixel by pixel and nobody will ever again attempt to scale such lofty heights (and few games in the history of the hobby even tried).

Mother 3 is the title that made me admire Shigesato Itoi as a story writer. I now know that well thought-out stories can co-exist with gameplay. There’s no excuse for rambling monologues, inescapable cut scenes or clichés. Admittedly, the game had me worried at times. The narrative is less subtle than Earthbound/Mother 2, often resorting to tortoise-paced scrolling text at the end of some chapters to inform the reader “THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED. IT IS BAD.”

Somehow, and I have no idea how the brilliant crazy bastard did it, Itoi tipped the story back into neutrality just in time. Despite the game being deeper and more text-heavy than Earthbound, there’s still so much room to form your own opinions and realisations. For instance, the people of Tazmily village are very innocent and it quickly becomes obvious that the introduction of money and worldly goods by mean old Fassad the Arabian peddler is going to rip the utopia apart. The stage is set: Fassad and the Pork Troopers are the bad guys. The people of Tazmily are the victims, corrupted by the same material goods that have turned our brains into slush, according to our scared elders and smelly hippies lording over communes.

But Itoi didn’t take the easy way out. As the game progresses, it becomes apparent that the story isn’t black and white, despite its potential to be straightforward. Tazmily’s villagers, are innocent, but not necessarily kind. They don’t lament the loss of their simple paradise; they want things to be even bigger and more modern, which is a very human reaction to a “convenient” society. Meanwhile, it’s impossible to not feel some measure of affection for the Pork Troopers, the extended army that forces Tazmily to catch up with the wonders of technology. Despite being faceless, the Troopers’ array of personalities is impressive. Some are faithful to Porky’s mission (Screw Up Everything), but most are just going along with orders, forming friendships with one another and discussing whether or not it’s important to take off their masks before using the washroom. In other words, they act like low-end soldiers who are largely clueless about their role in a vague war, so they simply do as ordered.

Then there’s the small things that make the game unique simply because most game developers are busy making sure they have something that looks beautiful. Perfect hero, perfect teeth, perfect hair. Since Mother 3‘s release, has anyone else attempted a lead character who’s crippled, balding, lives in his father’s basement and isn’t dripping with obvious emotional baggage? There’s one instance in the game where we get a dark glimpse of Duster’s past: a quick clue that his crippled state is somehow the fault of his unpleasant father, Wess. It’s never elaborated upon, nor does the player even get to find out if it’s true or just part of the exaggerated visions that come with mushroom trips (long story). Even so, it’s a more thoughtful scene than the slow character revelations that tend to come packaged with most JRPG heroes and leave nothing to the imagination.

Itoi claims there will likely never be another Mother game. But stranger things have happened in this crazy ol’ industry and I’m confident Itoi will return to risk running his beloved series to ruin like a pack of huskies in an Alaskan race. Just kidding. The man doesn’t seem to rely on games to tell the world what he thinks. Too bad he mostly sticks to Japanese.

Merry Christmas, 61 FPS. May Santa grant you many gifts and not linger to touch himself while you sleep.

Related Links:

The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came To America
Mother 3 Makes Me Feel Human Again
Hey RPG Hero: Go Home and Be a Family Man

Games We Will Never Get to Play: Mega Man Mania AKA Game Boy Anniversary Collection

John Constantine — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Now, technically speaking, it is very possible that we will one day get to play this game, or rather, games. We could go to Ebay and drop the $100+ on all of the original carts and fire ‘em up on whatever hardware we may have available to play original Game Boy games (Super Game Boy, Game Boy Player, Game Boy Advance, hell, why not Gunpei Yokoi’s glorious grey brick from 1989 if we’re feeling especially devoted to an authentic experience.) We could download one of them fancy emulators and five ROMs. We could just go ahead and wait for the inevitable, when the DS Ware store gets a little Capcom love and we all drop fifteen dollars on all five games. But we will never, ever get to pop a Game Boy Advance cart into a machine, hit power, and play the aborted Mega Man Anniversary Collection.

Planned to release shortly after its older console brethren in late 2004, the GBA Anniversary Collection compiled the five Game Boy Rockman World games, known as Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge and Mega Man II through V here in the States. When it comes to old fashioned Mega Man-ning, these games are far from essential. I through IV are amalgamations of NES I through V, with the respective robot master levels being slightly remixed. They did sport a handful of additions, each game starring a brand new boss (Mega Man Killers) that gave up a unique weapon, and all of them culminating in a new Dr. Wily fortress. Like most Game Boy games, the Rockman World adventures were cramped affairs, with too-big sprites and levels that never properly emulated the big, open hallways of console Mega Mans. Anniversary Collection was delayed for eighteen months before getting officially cancelled in January 2006. The real loss here is that more people didn’t get a chance to play Rockman World V, a cart rare when it was first released and that’s fetched a high price on the collector’s market for a long time. The only totally original game of the series, it’s also Mega Man’s most unique outing: instead of fighting eight worker robot “Mans”, you take on nine (nine!) robots based on the planets in our solar system. Mega Man also got a robot kitty and his Mega Buster charge shot was replaced by the Mega Arm.

Hopefully, we’ll get easy access to this lost relic of the Blue Bomber’s history at some point in the future. In the mean time, enjoy this hilariously narrated play through of V.

Related links:

Game Compilations: The Good, the Bad, and the Fugly
What I'm Playing This Weekend: Mega Man Anniversary Collection
Games We Will Never Get to Play: River City Ransom Online
Games We Will Never Get to Play: Kenji Eno’s D2 for M2

Game Compilations: The Good, the Bad, and the Fugly

John Constantine — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Time was, I thought game compilations, museum, and anniversary collections, and anything else you’d want to call them were the cat’s meow. Greatest thing since sliced bread. The *ahem* tits. Then The Mega Man Anniversary Collection for Gamecube came out back in 2004. Fifty simoleons for all eight console Mega Man games plus an opportunity to finally play Mega Man: The Power Battle and Power Fighters? Sounds like a dream come true. Then I found out that instead of the A button making the little blue fella shoot and the B button making him jump, the buttons were reversed for the compilation. There is no way to change this control scheme. It turns playing Mega Man 1 through 6 into a personalized hell, the place where cheat code users go when they die. Compilations are dangerous business because, more often than not, the publisher puts no effort whatsoever into them and people buy them anyway. That’s how you end up with Mega Man’s jumping and shooting getting reversed, how Sega releases not one, but two Sonic the Hedgehog collections with fantastic unlockables that are almost impossible to unlock, and how Namco can release the same damn Galaga/Dig Dug/Pac-man collection nine-hundred times.

Of course, they really can be a treat. Despite all the load times and inaccessible unlockables, the Sonic Mega Collection is still a great way to play Sonic at his best. Occasionally, budget numbers like the Capcom Classics Mini Mix, a no-frills GBA collection with Bionic Commando NES, Strider NES, and Mighty Final Fight, can come along and introduce you to games you’ve never ever heard of. (Seriously, Mighty Final Fight? When did that happen? It’s got mini Haggar!) They are a more palatable alternative to Virtual Console-style downloads too, as far as price is concerned. Sega’s just-announced Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection for PS3 and Xbox 360 comes with forty games, and for thirty bucks you get what Nintendo would charge $120 for on Wii. Plus, they wouldn’t even all fit on the Wii’s memory! But again, the production values are highly questionable. As Jeremy Parish pointed out with the screen Sega released of Shinobi III, the emulation work on this new collection isn’t exactly screaming HD-console-quality visuals. Look at this:

That's a game that Backbone Entertainment has already put on Xbox Live Arcade! It didn't look half that muddy. See?

So, what’s the problem? Why can’t Sega, and every other publisher with a mind to, release well-considered, value-laden collections like the Capcom Classics Collection (which has radical Street Fighter tutorials?)

(Link: Joystiq)

Editor's Note: Pictured at the top is Sega's own Fantasy Zone Complete collection. It is awesome.

Related links:

What I'm Playing This Weekend: Mega Man Anniversary Collection
Sega "Gets" the Wii
Infinite Mega Man 9: Composer Ippo Yamada Talks Living Up to a Serious Musical Pedigree
Where I Draw the Line With Retro
Growl, Snarl, Bark: Screw Attack's Top 10 Genesis Games

The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came to America

Nadia Oxford — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 09:35:00 GMT

None. There is no good reason why Mother 3 never came to America.

Oh, there are a couple of valid reasons why we never officially received Earthbound's follow-up, but they're not necessarily good.

The easiest blame can be laid on finances. We are elbow-deep in the era of the Nintendo DS right now and the heyday of the Game Boy Advance is long over. Nintendo might get away with releasing all three Mother games in a DS collection, but that's obviously not going to happen in a grand hurry.

By now, the universe knows that the original Earthbound bombed on the Super Nintendo. Nintendo did a beautiful, loving job with the packaging and translation, but dropped the marketing ball hard enough to cannonball clear to China. Earthbound was marketed as a cheesy science fiction game brimming with toilet humour, which it wasn't. Alas, a mass-mailing of scratch-and-sniff stickers made to smell like rancid pizza will do a lot to kill an appetite for game.

Besides, after experiencing the majesty of Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger, why would anyone want to fight against giant piles of barf? I sure didn't. Earthbound tanked, Nintendo made up their mind about American tastes and Mother 3 never had a chance at a ticket to America.

Since the release of the translation patch, however, more than one person has claimed that maybe Nintendo's fear of another financial disaster wasn't the only thing keeping Mother 3 from the States. There was suddenly talk about in-game content being inappropriate for American audiences: the dark story, the characters (oh, the characters) and whatnot. God knows Japan has thousands of little quirks that only those born under its flag can truly appreciate, but I don't see how Mother 3 is one of them.

Mother 3 is certainly unorthodox. Much like big brother Earthbound, it adheres to basic JRPG battle rules, but its heart and soul are wholly unique. The game ladels endless charm over the player, but at the same time, the story is unapologetically sad and says a lot about our tendency to listen to shit-disturbers disguised as charmers instead of making our own sane judgements.

American gamers could do with a story as raw as Mother 3's. It's not what we're used to, but that shouldn't matter. Before I inevitably die under a falling safe, I want to see game stories earn recognition as true literature. Unless games like Mother 3 reach a wide audience--games that have stories worth listening to--that's not going to happen.

Mother 3's other damning trait, the townspeople say, is its questionable content. The strongest example cited thus far are the magypsies, an immortal, all-knowing and all-powerful troupe of...er, transvestites who aid Lucas and his friends in saving the world. This makes for interesting times. Lucas, for instance (PSSST, MILD SPOILERS), has his PSI powers awakened through a questionable encounter with a naked magypsy in a hot tub.

Even this particular scene isn't close to explicit. It certainly implies that black-screen hot tub shenanigans went on between Lucas and the magypsy, but only in that coy, joking way that happens all the time in anime, games and manga. When the picture comes into focus again, it becomes obvious Lucas' head was being held underwater to awaken latent powers vital to his survival--also an extremely common occurrence in anime and manga. The entire scene wouldn't be too difficult to censor, though it would be unfortunate.

(End spoilers, babe.)

Now, I'm probably just talking out of my proud, firm buttocks because I'm only about halfway through the game. But so far, I'm comfortable saying that Nintendo never released Mother 3 because they're still throwing a profit sulk. They could take a chance on Mother 3, which could easily get away with a Teen rating, but they're a business and must step carefully. If game companies didn't have to think about profits and made games solely to lighten the hearts of fans, we would have had Mega Man Legends 3 by now.

It's a shame, because the whole world deserves Mother 3.

(And now we have it either way. Heh heh.)

Related Links:

Mother 3 Makes Me Feel Human Again
What I'm Playing This Weekend: Mother 3. Doi.
The Mother 3 Strategy Guide: Fandom Done Right

Question of the Day: Why Can’t I Emulate?

John Constantine — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 22:00:00 GMT

I am a console gamer. It’s not something I’m proud of, not a badge I wear to mark myself or somehow justify the way I view the medium as a whole. It does, however, define what I’m drawn to play, what genres I return to year after year, and just what I’ve had the opportunity to play since I was four years-old. Only playing games on devices that fit in my pocket or plug into a television has, by turns, given me an incredibly imbalanced game-literacy. Deep, respected play experiences bound to personal computers are things I’m familiar with by name only. Space Quest? Fallout? Oh, yeah, sure, I’ve heard of those. Great games, right? Call me a nerd with a seriously warped perspective, but I’m actually embarrassed, that guy sitting in a circle of academics discussing James Joyce and having to admit that the last book I read was Harry Potter. My console crutch hasn’t just kept me away from keyboard-and-mouse-only fare either; there are literal hundreds of classic console games I’ve never played, and will never have the spare cash or access to the actual cartridges or discs, waiting at my fingertips via emulation.

I have never played a Sega Master System game. I want to, and I know I could, but I don’t. I’d love to try out Final Fight 3, but I don’t have fifty bucks to drop on a stray cartridge and, somehow, Google searching a ROM feels wrong. It’s not the piracy issue. The vast majority of silver age games will never, ever be commercially re-released. It’s that I feel like I’m missing out on the actual experience of the game by not engaging the physical artifact it was originally presented as. Crazy, I know. But it’s undeniable that there’s something vital and intangible in an “authentic” experience. Standing in front of Monet’s Vétheuil in the Fog, being able to see the physical cracks in the paint, is fundamentally different than looking at a print. There’s a difference between playing the English edition of Terranigma on my laptop and actually putting the cartridge, with its art flaking from the badly cared for label, into an SNES and holding that controller in my hand. The recent translation of Mother 3 is monumentally exciting but it doesn’t change the fact that I want to play this game on a bonafide Game Boy Advance.

So, tell me, dear reader: am I just completely batshit crazy, an overthinking rube with pretentious ideas about legitimacy? Or is there something to be said for an original experience of a game? Let me know.

Related links:

Question of the Day: How Do You Make a Horror Game Horrifying?
Question of the Day: Has the HD Revolution Happened and Does It Matter For Games?
Screen Test: Fallout 3
Whatcha Playing: Fallout (Metaphorically Speaking)
Mother 3 Makes Me Feel Human Again
THE MOTHER 3 TRANSLATION IS OUT
Earthbound and Back Again

The Mother 3 Translation is Coming (For Real This Time)!

Bob Mackey — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:30:00 GMT

It may be hard to believe; and yes, I know I've posted about it before. But the Mother 3 (AKA the sequel to Earthbound) translation is actually coming out at the end of this week! Could this news possibly be correct? After all the heartbreaking delays by the dedicated Mother 3 Translation Project, how do I know that they're just not yanking my chain, as so many Earthbound-based promises have yanked it before?

Rest assured that the evidence is stacked in our favor. A simple message, posted yesterday on the translation team's blog, says a lot in just a handful of words:

The patch will be out at the end of this week.

I can barely contain myself, and you should honestly feel the same way; if you're an Earthbound fan like me, then you've probably been eternally dicked over. Not only did we have to wait eleven years for a true sequel, we also had to suffer the anguish of knowing a game that we wanted to play existed in a language most of us were too lazy to achieve complete fluency in. Now, thanks to the kind folks in the translation scene--the same subculture that wrangled an officially-translated prototype of the first Mother over a decade ago--our dreams will finally come true. All that's left is to wait just a few more agonizing days. I think we can make it.

Related Links:

The Mother 3 Translation: We're Not Worthy!
Earthbound 2/Mother 3 Fan Translation Nears Completion
Whatcha Listening To: The Earthbound Soundtrack

Games to Play While You Poop

Bob Mackey — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:30:00 GMT

What is it about the bathroom that makes it the perfect place for sitting, reading, thinking and gaming? I've done my share of all these activities while doing...other activities; in fact, the lousy screen of the original Game boy Advance ensured that I spent at least half of my day in the perfect lighting conditions of my parent's bathroom. People didn't see much of me between the years of 2001 to 2003.

Even when backlighting on handhelds became standard, my habits still continued. In fact, bathroom gaming might have saved my life; in 2007 I was stuck in such a boring, depressing temp job that I had no choice but to sit on a toilet and play a shitty cell phone version of Mr. Driller for most of my eight-hour shift. Luckily for me, I was not trained or monitored--and even though I worked in a bank, I feel I am in no way responsible for our current economic meltdown.

These days, my bathroom game of choice is the iPod version of Peggle; it's only five bucks, it doesn't require precise controls, and, most importantly, it's very symbolic of bathroom activities. There's also a huge amount of levels, challenges, and versus modes that have been sustaining me through various bathroom visits for more than six months. Note: no one has ever asked to borrow my iPod. I am not proud of what I am.

So, does anyone else out there want to share their bathroom gaming habits? I can't be the only one who takes advantage of their quiet time on the throne.

Related Links:

Earthbound's Other Secret Evil

Are We Ready for a New DS?

Bob Mackey — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Get ready for trade-in values to drop; a shocking weekend news post from Wired's Game|Life revealed that Nintendo may be in the mood for another renovation to their popular platform. Game|Life head honcho Chris Kohler breaks it down for all of us who are unfortunate enough to lack fluency in Japanese:

Nikkei Net, the online arm of Japan's foremost economic newspaper, reports that the new model will launch this year in Japan and include a camera and music playback. Nikkei's take on the new machine is that Nintendo is moving outside the boundaries of the "game industry" and attempting to create a device that will compete with more general electronics like cell phones.

Nikkei does point out that the camera function of DS could be integrated with gameplay, by allowing games to use the photos taken with the hardware.

There's no doubt that the DS' 2006 remodel was a much-needed change; it made the system smaller, brighter, and look remarkably less like a toy. I'm one of many who handed down their fat DS to a loved one or stranger for the benefit of a much sleeker handheld--and the DS Lite has been so awesome that I feel no resentment for Nintendo. The changes to this supposed new model aren't quite as drastic as what would be in the DS2 (or whatever Nintendo decides to call it), though they're pretty big nonetheless. But will Americans really fall for a third model of the same product?

From my viewpoint, it's pretty likely, and as much as I'd like to chastise Nintendo for not advancing the technology to a completely new handheld system, I don't want the DS to go away. There's no doubt that the DS' longevity is due to its phenomenal sales; the Game Boy Advance was only around (in America) for about 3.5 years before the DS launched, and we're nearly four years into the DS' lifespan at this point--and I don't see an end anytime soon. It is unlikely that with this hardware revision, we may finally see the end of GBA backwards compatibility (as rumors have indicated for a long time); but, as long as the Game Boy Player exists, I can still live in this world--especially if the new DS includes some kind of Mini-Virtual Console.

So, what does everyone else think about this: shameless money-grab, or an interesting redesign? If it's useful and cheap (as the article indicates), I'm leaning towards the latter.

Related Links:

The 61FPS Review: Dragon Quest IV – Chapters of the Chosen
So I hear folks are upset with Nintendo...
WiiWare: Nintendo, Babe, It Just Isn’t Working Out

I Wish I Had Bought Tetrisphere.

Amber Ahlborn — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Tetris, who isn't familiar with Tetris? I owned the original Game Boy once upon a time so naturally I had the game that started the craze. But I have a secret to share. I wasn't really a fan. It was okay, but I seemed utterly immune to its spell. Really, I'm not much of a puzzle game fan. Oh sure, I like puzzles that are worked into other games, like platforming games or adventures and such, but pure puzzle games have never attracted me that much.

But I really do wish I'd bought Tetrisphere.

I rented Tetrisphere numerous times for my N64 but I never bought it. I thought about buying it, but never got around to actually buying it. When enough time passed that the game had become all but impossible to find, I regretted not buying it. While the original Tetris didn't do much for me, and I can say the same of all the puzzlers inspired by Tetris, Tetrisphere was different. It mesmerized me. It even had a really good techo/trance soundtrack. Now, many years later, the game still pops into my mind and I hold out hope that it will hit the Wii's Virtual Console.

I still wonder why I never purchased this game when I'd had the chance.

Related Links:

It's My Tetris Party and I Can Waggle If I Want To

Mega Man 9 Goes Back to Your Roots. Way Back.

Watcha Playing: Cleaning House, Finding Roots

Alternate Soundtrack: Orbital vs. The Notwist

Derrick Sanskrit — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Orbital was one of the seven bit Generations games released in Japan for the Game Boy Advance in 2006. The bit Generations series was intended to demonstrate the artistic side of games by using graphics and sound that were simplified to the state of retro-stylish and controls that were basic yet compelling. Developed by skip ltd, Orbital has often been described as "Katamari Damacy in space" and that is not an entirely bad description. As the smallest object in a solar system, you must collect other small moons, planets, stars and whatnot in order to increase your own mass and gravitational pull until the galaxy's own sun orbits you. The challenge, though, comes from the fact that you do not directly control your movements but rather the charge of your gravitational field, either pulling you towards or away from nearby stars. Brilliant in its simplicity and so thoroughly addictive.

The sparse sound and graphics do a wonderful job of leaving the player feeling weightless, drifting in space with loose control of their actions and no control over their surroundings – an uncomfortable position to be in for sure. It is this very feeling that draws the game's experience so closely to "Shrink," the 1998 album by German songsmiths The Notwist. "Shrink" saw the band wafting gently away from their prior efforts in heavy metal and indie rock towards jazz and electronica, thanks in no small part to new member Martin Gretschmann, an established electronic musician. Martin's gentle clicks and beeps create an uneasy sense of order and well-being while Andi Haberi's percussion tethers the listener to the confused reality. Michael Acher's basslines instill a calm sense of urgency while brother Markus's vocals present a pleasant and melodic dread of the uncertainty of their environment.

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No Alternate Soundtrack: Chibi-Robo
Easy Access (bit Generations Soundvoyager)