Atarinvader

Nintendo are seeing what the current problems are with this generation, which would be function outwaying price and the rather clumbsy and unrefined systems of control, and attempting to tackle these isssues. Whether they are able to do this or, more importantly, get people to desire the product is a different question. Howerver, it's nice to see the company take this spin and direction on these things. Playing the 360 I was very underwhelmed. Equivalent of any mid-range PC out there graphically but with the added bonus of controllers that have thrown ergonomics out of the window. Of course, it will be interesting to see if a 'Killer App' can see a post-christmas frenzy (I though Halo 3 was slated for launch?). Don't get yourself lost in marketing gumph. Will we see larger game worlds and smarter characters? Well, the power is, theoretically, there to provide this, yes. But, this means that developers will have to create more content to produce these world, larger teams will have to work on 'smarter' AI, which will drive up production cost and lower production values. Moreover, it's a question that is enevitable: Will this generation see the end of the indie dev team? I would really like Sony, Microsoft and Ninty to open up their engines, chain tools and middleware from first party prouction and licencse it out to facilitate the smaller production teams.

I played Kameo and Call of Duty on the machine and have to say that I wasn't very impressed with the graphics capability nor the controllers. There were some nice specular and bump mapping effects on the Kameo demo, but nothing more than a current mid-level graphics card could handle, which was a real disapointment. Moreover the controller never felt like it fitted in to my hand confortablely, with me having to grip my fingers hard around it to get any control from it, but that may have had something to do with how they were attached to the POD.

I do think that Ninty needs to start developing some new original IPs, it's making their games look bland, good games or not. At the moment I can only really think of Zelda, Starfox and Mario (including Donkey Kong). Pokemon is dead now really, with Nintendogs taking their place to some extent. Look at how many original games and characters Sega created during the DC days. For a company so ready to cite lack of inovation in the industry they don't half push Mario hard.

Here's a review I wrote for the Uni paper on it: Burnout: Revenge Multi (PS2 version reviewed) My vision is hazy. My breath is chilli sauce, salad – no onions - and Stella. A car explodes in front of my face, forcing me to send a precision engineered hunk of plastic molding to the floor in rage. Standing up, I hunch over and leer angrily at the blue LED blinding my eyes, prodding near it with a clumsy finger. This is the world of of post-Pub gaming. A world where Burnout is king. Burnout 3 was a marvelous toy; Criterion took the corpse of the arcade racing genre and humped it back to life, adding more vigor and shine to its reanimated frame then it had ever seen. Yet, with all the innovation already in the series is there anything that can be stapled on top of this, the fourth game, that will keep the offering fresh without confusing and hiding the gameplay? The most tangible change in Revenge is the new rules for crashing; unlike previously you can now takedown standard traffic, sending the wreckage flying towards rivals or other traffic for more elaborate crashes. Unfortunately, however, knowing what you can take and what will take you is often difficult to fathom, leaving you wrapped around the side of a bus watching your mates cruise past, chuckling away. Returning for this iteration is the standard bevy of multiplayer options, which is where the heart of the game lies. The game does suffer in split-screen on a portable, but some modes offer a controller swap system. Little is new on this front, but was never broken. Graphically the game hasn't received any polish either, but as is is still pushing the limits of what this generation can handle, with blurring, reflections and particle effects challenging most mid-range PCs. With the previous game, Takedown, on offer for less than fifteen notes in most stores there's very little more bang for your bucks in Revenge. The game is great, but the spondoolies are only worth forking out for fans of the series or those feeling spendy. Unfortunately the premise is starting to feel worn and dragged out, stopping this game from being truly awesome. 7

Activision are more a publisher than a developer nowadays, in fact do they even have an in house team anymore?

Oh, also weren't there some LAN games? Quake III Arena springs to mind, and maybe Prop Arena. I'm sure some of the tunnling software, such as Warp Pipe supports the DC. I could be wrong. Turns out, then, that there are heaps of uses for it...

Yeah, using a boot disc you can FTP code straight in to memory AFAIR, which is a lot more efficent than using the coders cable. Also, as people say, it has use for PSO, surfing and some DC Linux distros use it.

I tried so hard to like Nomad Soul, and put in loads of hours, but I never really 'got it'. It seemed very poorly executed and, as much as I love Bowie, I recieved zero enjoyment for the whole experience. Can someone fill me in on what actually made the game so great in so many eyes?

Man, we totally needed another 'List of Ill-Informed Reasons Why Console X Failed At Retail' thread. Very funny picture, somebody has uber photshop skillz!!!!11

omg wtf Counter Strike Source pwnz111!!!!! Seriously, I would recomend CS Source. Darwina looks cool too. I've also heard good things about Guild Wars; a poor man's WoW.

I've bought pirate GBA games on eBay before, and it's generally easy to spot in the auction; cheap BINs, shipping English language from Asia, sold as new but without manual are all dead give aways. I find the things curious, especially as some ship with plastic cart case, like orginal GB games did. Don't worry about playing it in your GBA, it isn't going to 'hurt it'.

I'm playing the orginal PC version at the moment and I have to say that it's hard. Yet, it's very enjoyable.

Your disc. I'd suggest screeaming at the sun and cursing god.

This only relates to the RF band, and wouldn't be relevant for a video signal.

I've watched the video on Gamespot now, and I have to admit that the controller does look great for a lot of things, but I think ultimately it's going to scare away a lot of people (and will still be crap for fighters, as was the N64 and Cube pads). This isn't going to pinch many Sony or Microsoft sales, I'm affraid. Never has the marketing been so important, not only will you have to show people how to use the pad, but as what it can be used for. This perhaps the biggest news in gaming for nearly ten years or so.

I have the feeling that this won't make it to the release. What any way you look at it, this is going to be a nightmare for so many major game genres. I wouldn't want to play an FPS on it (unless the main controller was tilt senesitive), and that B button doesn't look analouge, which makes playing driving games a bit crappy. Fighters wouldn't benefit from the button or D-pad layout, either. How long after released will some third part company make a adaptor that'll let you plug in Cube pads to that... thing?

They either get returned or left in the store, it depends on the vendor. If you ask at the shop they'll probably tell you that you can have it when they want shot of it (if Nokia doesn't want it back, or one of the staff have already claimed it). I know that I passed up a Dreamcast one for lack of space when I worked for EB in the UK.

I've not played this yet, but would like to know if it is as close to riding a motorbike as Samba de Amigo is to partying at a Monkey Mardi Gras?

I've got loads of Java and Symbian (Nokia Series 60) games that came on a Hax0r DVD I bought from eBay (I was just after the emus for my N-Gage). So if there's anything you want - over half appear to be Tetris clones - then PM me and I'll see if I've got it.

My Raedon 9700 Pro doesn't seem to be running the Doom 3 demo too great. There are loads of artifacts, which appears to be a known problem with this card on the game (apparently to do with OpenGL using too much core). I've heard that the game has been ported(!?) to Linux and was hoping for a non-techy reply from someone on how to obtain it and what the best distro would be to use with it. It's been a while since I last messed with the Penguin and I really don't have the patience to investigate it all again just to play Doom 3 with a better frame rate (and without the snow), which is all I want. Any advice - or CDs in the mail - greatly appreciated

Turns out it was sent to 'press only'. Which makes it very rare (I should imagine there are Promo Not For Resell versions out there that were sent to the less important press). No wonder the game recieved so much critical acclaim.

I just stumbled across this picture whilst surfing for Ico wallpapers. It comes from digipak.com, which seems to be a company making boxes for SE DVDs and games. I was never aware of this edition, I have the SE 'art card' version, but this is also marked as PAL. Was it ever comercialy available?

Well, I get free WAP minutes, and it ain't like I'm ever going to actually access WAP sites. So far get all the settings correct has been a pain in the ass! I'll try installing the new Arena software from the N-Gage site.

Just happened on a dongle for cheap today and have been playing with the Bluetooth functions. It's all great except the god-damn-awful 'PC Suite', which I've now uninstalled. Although it was handy to import all the files from my Palm, but alas there doesn't seem to be anyway of sync between the three devices (Palm, PC and N-Gage). Looks like I'm in need of a second Mac. I'm having trouble conecting to Arena though, even though I've gotten all the setting, so I don't really know what to do about that. I'll have to get back in contact with my phone company.