Playing on the Go

You know all of these “late to the party” movie sequels we’re getting lately that are coming around ten years later? You know, like Live Free or Die Hard this weekend and then Indiana Jones 4 in around a year? Video games can do just that too. Contra 4 for the DS will be hitting the system sometime later this year. This news had made the rounds last week, but I remained somewhat skeptical due to the fact that the development of the game had been practically outsourced, but recent developments have me hopeful.

1up / EGM recently got thier grimy little hands on a preview build of the game, and they seem to be mighty impressed. A promising comment from one of the producers is that New Super Mario Bros. was a huge inspiration for them when it was time to take the old school formula to the new school system. Basically, it’s still the old game as we all know and love it with some modern enhancements that keep it from feeling dated. There’s much more detail in a wonderful in-depth article available by hitting the link above. It seems that the designers and producers are taking the development very seriously, in hopes that gamers will be equally serious when it hits later this year.

contra, nintendods

Ever since I’ve taken the reigns of this blog, one of my goals has been to make it a fun place accessible to everyone. Of course, one of the best ways to do just that nowadays is through podcasting. I think it would be an excellent way of getting more in depth on the news that you read here, as well as a great way of getting more information out there in a fun and entertaining way.

But one thing that I do not want to do is produce a podcast that would, if you excuse the pun, fall on deaf ears. So my question for you is simply this. Would you listen to such a show? It would tentatively run once a week, probably releasing on Mondays. If there is enough interest, I’ll be tickled pink to do it. If not, maybe it will just be an experiment once or twice.

If you would be interested, leave me some feedback in the comments section. Either a yea or nay would be greatly appreciated.

podcasting

No roman numerals, no sequel nonsense, no offshoot title, no nothing. Just Final Fantasy. The first one. The one that hit twenty years ago. Yeah, both we and the franchise together are getting old. If you’ve got a PSP and a bit of the nostalgia fever, you might want to look into picking this one up.

Be warned though, it isn’t as much of a revolutionary remake as the DS do-over of FFIII. It’s still pretty much the same top down graphical presentation, still the same story, the same charecters and all of that. The sprites and backgrounds used are certainly updated from the old school NES graphics, but that’s pretty much it. But it’s a title that’s pretty much some fan service, likely to hold the FF freaks out until the ‘08 release of the first PS3 FF game.

PSP fanboy has a great review, along with some showy screenshots that you can see here. And yeah, you gained one more wrinkle and/or grey hair within the time that you just read all this.

finalfantasy, psp

I’d be amiss this week if I weren’t making some mention of the incredible hype machine that is the Apple iPhone. Rumored for years, expected for months, and now forming lines lasting days, the iPhone finally hits Apple retailers this Friday at 6:00 sharp. Which, as pointed out by John Dvorak in the last episode of the This Week In Tech podcast, is ingenious. It’s guaranteed to hit the 6:00 evening news and gives Apple the weekend to fix any bugs with forced firmware upgrades before the eventual bad news hits the stock market this coming Monday morning. They think of everything.

This thing will be monumental in one way or another, either as a huge revolutionary piece of tech, or as an incredible flop. There’s not likely to be much of a middle ground. The lines that you will see in those news reports this weekend will surely remind you of the lines from last November when the Wii and the PS3 were the media darlings. It’s also featuring a lot of tech that is already in the guts of the DS and PSP. While each of those devices have a sprinkling of communication and usability features, this sucker is the full deal.

But the bottom line for gamers when it comes to the iPhone, in the opinion of this blogger, is this… Wait. The thing has been rushed to the market for a lot of business reasons. It isn’t ready for prime time yet. You are likely going to hear of a lot of bugs and problems this weekend. It’s going to look great, and it’s doing a lot of things that your PSP or DS can’t. It even plays some games that have already been native to the iPod. The thing is marketed as a phone, but it’s really a handheld computer. And one that doesn’t run hardly as fast as the commercials would have you believe. And if you are a techie old enough to remember, you’ll remember how that whole Apple Newton thing worked out.

Yes, it looks sexy. And all the chic tech boys will have one in the next week or so. But your time and money will be better spent waiting on the cheaper, better working, and inevitable iPhone Nano.

iphone, apple, psp, nintendods

Well, this one certainly came out of left field. This morning, Nintendo has announced a new “indie” development platform for the Wii entitled “WiiWare”. The implied connections to Wario Ware are there, though probably not intentional. The best explanation of the idea comes below, straight from the mouth of said horse.

“Independent developers armed with small budgets and big ideas will be able to get their original games into the marketplace to see if we can find the next smash hit,” says Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime. “WiiWare brings new levels of creativity and value to the ever-growing population of Wii owners.”

Sounds cool enough. This sort of small time development platform has been expected for some time now, as many flash developers have already figured out how to do some pretty cool stuff via the internet channel. But why stop there? With connectivity capabilities to the DS, this platform could extend there as well via WiFi downloads. DS homebrew has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few years, leaving endless possibilities should a more official outlet for basement developers open up via WiiWare.

Nintendo isn’t stupid. But they are slow. They’ll more than likely eventually warm up to this scenario, although it will more than likely be in a highly restrained developmental environment. Since the first WiiWare offerings on the native system will begin to be offered in early 2008, anything downloadable to the DS will surely come later on that year.

nintendowii, wiiware, nintendods

The flow of news will start to become slim as we get closer and closer to E3. A lot of the big names are holding out until the Expo, which is now just a few weeks away. We’ll save speculation until another day as we get even closer.

For right now, I’ve got two videos that may grab your interest. The first is probably the best video I’ve yet seen when it comes to demonstrating some of the nitty gritty mechanics of Phantom Hourglass.

As you can see, this clip is from gamevideos.com, which may run a little slower than what you are used to from YouTube. But you’ll quickly find the video worth it as it gives what I think is the best idea yet of the mechanics. A lot of pundits have said that this game is sort of a melting pot of Link to the Past and Wind Waker. But after taking a look through that clip, it honestly reminds me more of the mostly overlooked Minish Cap on GBA from just a few years back. Which was outsourced to Capcom instead of seeing development in house at Nintendo, but still was a kickass game that threw the franshise for a loop in a totally good way.

The second video I thought might tickle your fancy is a follow up from yesterday’s post. This is the advertisement to be run on UK screens in the not too distant future, featuring Nicole Kidman trying to best the Good Doctor on her DS.

Allright. That’s not hardly as Earth shattering or revealing as the Zelda clip, but I thought you’d still get a good jolly out of it. Was I the only one expecting her to slam the DS on the floor and start shouting?

“SCISSORS, DAMNIT! SCISSORS!!”

phantomhourglass, E3, brainage2

In what can only be defined as quite possibly the oddest news release from Nintendo, like ever, Nicole Kidman has been announced as the pitch woman for Brain Age 2. I wonder how much they had to schill out to have her represent the company. She’s only been pegged down as the spokeswoman for Europe so far, but with her Anti-Paris/Lindsay type of true glam, it’d be shocking for Nintendo to not cash in on her celebrity here in the States as well.

This sort of thing isn’t totally new. Nintendo has been pimping local celebs in Korea and Japan to sell units and games for around a year now. They’ve yet to do the same thing with a Western name before this, and to my knowledge never have, so it will be interesting to see how this goes down. The Touch Generation line is supposed to appeal to non-gamers, and the former Mrs. Cruise is about as big as a non-gamer as they come.

What are some other odd choices you can think of? Samuel L. Jackson is a good pitchman for anything, but he’s already let it slip he’s a gamer. How about a retired wife lackey like Bill Clinton? That’d be pimp.

nicolekidman, brainage, touchgeneration, nintendods

Before we proceed to the good news, let’s get the expected bad news out of the way first. Probably surprising few, the week has gone by without IGN living up to Matt’s promise, echoed below.

“We’re going to lay down some ownage next week or soon afterward by showing you guys that it is a real game.“

Cutting him a little slack, he does use the disqualifier “or soon afterward”. Which buys a little time, I suppose. But still, the one liner that set the innerweb ablaze this time last week failed to live up to the hype. Which personally furthers my suspicions that the game indeed will not happen and if we ever see anything at all related to the project it will only show itself in the form of preconceptual artwork or wireframes at best. I’ll be happy to be proven wrong however.

Now, let’s shake that out of our hair and try our best to forget about it and move on and get to the amazingly good news concerning this blue rodent like thing..

..no he hasn’t been announced as playable in Smash Bros Brawl, but he has been announced as the star of his own RPG on the DS. And as you likely have heard by now, it’s developed by BioWare. They aren’t Troy McClure, but you may remember them from such games as Neverwinter Nights or the Knights of the Old Republic series. And you’ll probably recall that they are pretty darn good at what they do.

While this news has made the rounds the past day or so already, let me offer you some fresh perspective. This announcement and the details surrounding it are eerily similar to a game that has now become a modern classic, Super Mario RPG for the SNES. Let’s review. It involves a third party developer making an RPG out of a first party mascot. It puts said mascot into RPG form for arguably the first time. And most importantly, that third party developer is darn good. Those old enough to remember will recall that Mario RPG was just freaking revolutionary for the time. Should this project end up in the way that it is beginning, we are certainly in for a treat.

But anyways. As you may expect, check back with us for updates on both the Halo DS situation as well as Sonic RPG DS. Or whatever it is to be called.

halo, sonic, bioware, mariorpg, nintendods

If current talk is to be believed, the PSP “refresh” previously hinted at by Sony officials could simply come by way of a firware upgrade. Which could be seen as bad news to those hoping for a PSP 2.0 / Lite, or good news to those who wouldn’t care to spend more money. Were I a rampant PSP fanboy, I’d go with the latter. But your mileage may vary.

So it goes like this. Previously, all PSP games only used the hardware at a lower level than possible. Specifically they’ve been restricted to roughly 80% of the power of the console at 266 MHz. Should the current talks prove true, Firmware 3.50 would allow to system to run at Ludicrous Speed at 333 MHz. So what does this mean? Presumably, smoother frame rates and higher polygon counts. But probably more in the hands of developers that haven’t totally given up on the system yet. But of course, that higher usage rate would drain the battery. Something a firmware upgrade can’t really help. Hopefully, Sony will release an upgraded battery should this all go down.

Of course, this is all still rumor at this point. We’ll know by the next firmware release if it’s at all true, of course.

psp, psp2, firmware, redesign, spaceballs

With all of the new announcements and speculation concerning the show, the demise of E3 may have been greatly … wait. No. Nevermind. It’s still a much more secluded affair. But that doesn’t mean that will not be some interesting news to be had. Thanks to IGN, here’s some games added by some developers that we can expect to get news of from the show floor. Some are interesting, some are kiddie crap. I’ll leave it up to you to make that distinction.

EA Sports
Need for Speed ProStreet (DS, PC, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, X360)
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 (DS, PC, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, X360)

Gamecock
Dementium: The Ward (DS)
Insecticide (DS, PC)
Mushroom Men (DS, Wii)

Majesco Entertainment
Fish Tycoon (DS)
Holly Hobbie & Friends (DS)
Nancy Drew and the Deadly Secret of Olde World Park (DS)
Operation: Vietnam (DS)
Turn it Around (DS)
The Wild West (DS)

Also of note, DS Fanboy is currently speculating that there might possibly be an appearance of a redesigned DS Lite. Which they unofficially dub the “DS Liter”. Personally, I find it to be vauge hit and miss speculation only. But with Nintendo, you can never really know. Considering Apple continues to release a new iPod every year with Apple fanboys eager to snatch them all up, it wouldn’t be shocking at all to see Nintendo continuing to follow the Steve Jobs way of business.

e3, mini3, psp, nintendods

Thanks to some of the higher ups at 451 Press, each site on this network now has the ability to cram in a custom header into the default Word Press template that each 451 blog shares. Hopefully, this will help you to seprately identify each of our sister sites. Because frankly, they all pretty much look the same without a good banner.

I’m no slouch with Photoshop myself, but don’t really have the necessary time to devote to do the banner justice. So with that in mind, I’m opening the floor for any submissions any of you may have for it. There are a few requirements, however. It must be in either .jpg or .gif format, must be under 50k and have a pixel count under 728 x 90. And of course, in theory it should be related to handheld gaming. But I’ll be happy to take any other creative banners as well on an individual basis. If your banner is selected, I’ll give you props by whatever screen name you choose along with a link to your site if you wish. Also, just because I will be selecting one to begin with doesn’t mean that I won’t use others in the future. Any banners used in the future will also get said props as well.

Once you’ve got your banner ready to go, email it to me at danielhorton[at]gmail[dot]com with the subject header of “Playing on the Go Banner Contest”. (Of course, replace the [at] with a “.” and the [at] with an “@”. That’s just to protect me from spam.) The tentative deadline is two weeks from today on July 3rd. If there’s a slow flow of submissions, I’ll extend it by one week. But hopefully that won’t happen. I’m looking at you in the back.

IGN had a nifty little feature a week or so ago detailing the life so far of the DS Phat / Lite and where Nintendo can take the system from here. They also ask the pivotal question of what is to come after the DS. Specifically, theorizing on what Nintendo may have in store for the DS 2. Or whatever it will eventually be called. While one of the editors claim that the system has “peaked”, I’d have to disagree. While the mantra was long “…and Pokemon hasn’t even been released yet” prior to the launch of Diamond and Pearl, there are still some blockbuster games on the horizon for the system. Namely, Phantom Hourglass. From the looks of it, the new Zelda will be the pinnacle of the DS library. But after that in November, yeah. The good ship DS will have peaked. We’ll still get good games, mind you. But that means it will be high time to look forward to what Nintendo has in store in regards to the handheld line in the future.

First of all, Nintendo would be crazy to not keep the same philosophy as the DS. The quirky and casual games rampant on the system has brought in tons of new players, which have become arguably the target audience of the platform. That in mind, it will have to remain at least a dual screen system with at least one screen remaining touch sensitive. And speaking of touch sensitivity, I assume that most of you have seen at least one of the half dozen iPhone commercials in the past few weeks. Wouldn’t that sort of usability be great in the next DS? Specifically, the ability to use multiple pressure points and the option to use the tip of your finger. Still though, let’s keep the stylus around for pinpoint control when needed.

When it comes to internal features, I think the success of WiFi Connection warrants some extra usability in that regard. A built in Opera browser akin to that available on the Wii would be great. And if we must keep the friend codes, why not just use one friend code per DS, where one code would apply to all games associated with that console? Or does that make too much sense? Some G3 cell phone capability would be nice too. It doesn’t have to be anything too fancy. Perhaps a one megapixel camera, RSS readers, stuff like that. But of course you have to balance features with price point. So while some of these sorts of things would be great, it may drive the price up to a point that would make it less of an impulse buy for Granny to buy it for Jimmy for a birthday present.

But that’s just my wish list. There’s more than likely some cool possible features that I haven’t dreamed of. If you have any ideas, drop them off in the comments.

nintendods, nintendo, zelda, phantomhourglass

I had previously refused to report on this one because it seems like a fanboy wet dream simply kept alive by a single morsel of tiny truth, but the rumor has reared its head again this weekend. That rumormongering is thanks in large part to Matt Casamassina of IGN Wii, who long ago posted the above image along with theclaim that he had played a beta version of Microsoft’s Halo built specifically for the DS.

That was within the first week of January, which consequently left Wii60 fanboys in a collective panic for the rest of the month. The talk seemed to die down until the recent IGN Wii podcast, in which Casamassina brought the topic from the dead. Within it, he stated the following.

“It’s a real game… we’re going to lay down some ownage next week or soon afterward by showing you guys that it is a real game.“

A lot of sites are reporting that IGN will debut the game this week, under the assumption that it has been in development all this time and that it still in fact is a real game. But of course, the possibility is still there that the game was simply a prototype at one point that made the rounds within some of the closer circles of journalists who are on the speed dial of Nintendo and Microsoft whenver they need some quick and free PR. As such, I won’t immediately report the game as real. It just as well could be, but it only exists right now in the form of some big talk from Matt of IGN. Although he usually delivers on his promises, I think the “ownage” that he is talking about is going to be less than what the fanboys are expecting. I want to see this game happen as much as anyone else, trust me. But in a lot of ways, it just does not make sense.

Playing on the Go will stick with this for the week and keep a check on IGN to see what they have to show. If they have yet to deliver by the end of the week, expect this topic to be revisited on Friday’s edition.

halo, nintendods, microsoft, nintendo, ign

Not long after I was complaining about a similar problem within Mario Kart DS, Nintendo seems to be laying down the smackdown on cheaters within Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. While I’m not familiar with the game myself, it shocks me on no level whatsoever that some players are using tools such as Action Replay to enhance and unrealistically level up their Pokemon. Which of course, in turn turns the playing field completely upside down when it comes to the online arena. So with the fact in mind that Pokemon is just “OMG teh huge!!11″, Nintendo is laying down the ban hammer on offenders.

This is a good first step for Nintendo to take, but it’s only that. A first step. The same problem that persists in all WiFi capable games, in which players simply cut off their DS system before losing a match, is one that should also be closely looked at. Players who obsess over their win loss records just hit the friendly power switch on the side of their Lite whenever they are presented with an unwinnable situation. It happens in Mario Kart, it happens in Star Fox. Hell, it probably even happens in Tetris.

But aside from that point, this is an excellent move by Nintendo.

pokemon, nintendo, nintendods

If Joystiq is to be believed, and from time to time they find themselves in that position, a new Monkey Island game from Lucas Arts just may be in the pipeline for us by the end of 2008. Those of you old enough to remember will certainly recall just how kickass these games were and how sorely they’re missed. For you younger guys who may have heard of the series, but have never played it, you could be in for something totally different, yet still a treat.

In past years, “point and click” adventures had more or less died out. Macromedia Flash technology on the web helped to kill it as the genre moved from a dedicated PC genre into a innerweb time killer. Thankfully though, thanks to some of the quirkier games on the DS such as Phoenix Wright and Hotel Dusk, it seems as if the point and click frenzy is beginning anew. While Monkey Island games have traditionally graced PC consoles, Lucas Arts would be just plain stupid at this point to not release a new installment in the series for the DS. There’s a huge audience for these quirky games, which has already been educated into the style of play by similar games which have already laid the groundwork.

The DS was practically custom built for this game. Make it happen, Georgie Boy.

nintendods, monkeyisland, lucasarts